Chapter 19
"Stay, stay overnight? Master Destiny, my house is so shabby and small, it's really..."
An Rou was in a difficult situation.
"Don't worry, I won't treat you unfairly," Qin Wudi said, looking around at everyone. "There are 12 of us brothers, and each of us will pay 100 gold for accommodation. Is that enough?"
It’s not enough, just to fill the gaps between teeth, how can it be enough?
An Rou hesitated and refused to agree, and finally the deal was made with 200 gold per person, plus a dinner.
The dining table was too small, so the players sat on the floor in the thatched house and chatted without restraint, adhering to the setting that the NPC could not hear sensitive words.
An Rou returned to the stove and saw Wang Da and Wang Er sticking their heads out and licking their tongues. She held down the two ghosts' heads and stuffed them back behind the stove.
"Behave yourself, there will be enough for you to eat soon!" She lowered her voice.
While cooking, I listened to the voices coming from inside. The general idea was that there was a high-level quest tomorrow night just outside the city, very close to here, so I had to prepare early to prevent other players from hearing the news and rushing over to grab the meat.
No one mentioned the specific mission, but An Rou caught a word: T21.
No matter how you listen to it, it sounds like a train.
An Rou suddenly remembered that these past few days on the farm, she'd been hearing train whistles coming from outside the wall at night. It was strange; she'd only heard it in old movies before. After all, with the technological advancements of the real world, trains had long since evolved into hovercrafts.
There is no such thing as honking the horn.
But whether it is T21 or the advanced mission, it has nothing to do with her at the moment.
An Rou walked into the thatched house carrying a plate of stir-fried vegetables, placed the vegetables on the table, and helplessly pinched her shabby cheongsam with both hands: "There's not much left at home..."
Liu Qingsong raised his eyelids and said, "12 people, only two dishes? How the hell are we supposed to eat this? You can't even afford it, yet you're charging us so much money?"
After receiving a look from Qin Wudi, he fell silent.
Qin Wudi said, "It's okay, there's enough to eat. Please bring a few more empty bowls."
An Rou took out a few empty bowls, feeling a little curious.
One braised eggplant and one stir-fried vegetable dish, one chopstick per person is not enough, how can it be enough?
Qin Wudi didn't shy away from her, and placed the empty bowls in a row on the table. One player then added some eggplant and greens to each of the empty bowls, just enough to cover the bottom.
Qin Wudi took out a handful of gold coins and put them in the first bowl.
An Rou couldn't help but wonder - eating money?
As soon as the thought came to his mind, a light screen popped up in front of Qin Wudi. He quickly clicked it, and the vegetables in the bowl suddenly "expanded" and almost overflowed from the edge of the bowl.
An Rou was shocked. Are player skills so magical?
She couldn't control her surprised expression for a moment. When Liu Qingsong saw it, he sneered and looked disdainful.
In the eyes of NPCs, the Chosen Ones are often no different from gods - unfortunately, there are no gods in the Soul Society background story.
Qin Wudi followed the same method, and after a while, the six bowls on the table were filled with green vegetables and eggplants. The oily color looked exactly the same as when An Rou was just out of the pot.
An Rou finally saw it clearly. As he placed the gold coins into the bowl, a number of options popped up on the screen. However, the movement was too fast for her to clearly see the content of the options.
Walking back to the stove, she stared at the remaining vegetable leaf in the pot, took out a gold coin, and gently placed it on top.
——Nothing happened.
He pulled out another one…still no movement.
That's right, she is not a player, she doesn't have a game panel, and naturally she doesn't have a light screen.
An Rou felt deeply discriminated against.
At this time, someone in the room started shouting.
"How can we eat without even a piece of meat?" It was Liu Qingsong again.
"Brother Qin, we play games to make money, but there's no need to spoil our taste buds, right? I was just walking around outside and saw a shed next to the house, and it was full of ducklings!"
Someone snorted and laughed: "Even if you spend all your money on a duck, you can't make it grow up."
"You know shit!" Liu Qingsong said, "There's a famous dish back home called braised duck. It's made with freshly-shelled ducklings. We fry them in hot oil first, then add scallions, ginger, and cooking wine and braise them. The meat is tender and the bones are crispy. It's so delicious!"
"I'll make it for you guys to try."
He said this and was about to walk out.
An Rou's eyelids twitched, and she hurried into the room. Before she could say anything, another young player quickly left the table and stopped Liu Qingsong.
He used the ID [Paopao] and said to Liu Qingsong with a smile, "Brother Liu, this isn't a good idea. Those are ducklings raised by NPCs. They make a living from them..."
"Mmmm, I paid so much for her food and lodging, so what if I eat a few of her ducks? Get out of the way!"
Paopao looked behind him for help.
However, no one among those standing or sitting spoke up for him this time. It wasn't that everyone wanted to eat the meat, but the taste of the two dishes before them was simply too hard to swallow.
Qin Wudi noticed An Rou coming in behind him and turned around and said, "We'll pay you double the money you paid for the duck."
"100 gold each." An Rou blurted out.
Everyone at the table was stunned, and then laughed.
This NPC looks timid and cowardly, but he is actually extremely greedy.
Liu Qingsong chuckled, pushed Paopao aside, and in a blink of an eye, he grabbed a duckling from the duck shed. The duckling, only two days old, was covered in yellow fur and chirped loudly in his hand.
"100, right? I want one."
200 gold coins were scattered at An Rou's feet.
"The extra 100 is just for your oil, salt, sauce and vinegar."
An Rou hesitated for two seconds and hurriedly picked up the gold coin. If she didn't pick up the good money in front of her, it would easily expose her flaws.
She was very quick and when she reached the stove, Liu Qingsong hadn't even bothered to light the fire. An Rou dodged behind the stove and glared at Wang Da and Wang Er fiercely.
Suppress the two ghost brothers who are ready to make a move.
Liu Qingsong just thought she was helping him light the fire and sneered, "You're quite tactful."
He was too lazy to clean the pot, so he scooped two spoonfuls of water into it, waited for the water to boil, and threw the duckling directly into the pot.
The duckling let out the last cry of its life.
Liu Qingsong used a spatula to press the duckling under the boiling water, then picked it up. Not afraid of the heat, he deftly plucked the feathers, opened its belly, and cut it in half from head to butt.
Less than ten minutes later, An Rou, who was huddled behind the stove, smelled the aroma of grease. She stood up and saw Liu Qingsong slowly throwing gold coins into the stove.
One became two, two became four... After a while, the big iron pot was filled with identical braised ducklings, their stomachs ripped open, their necks crooked, their small mouths and thin eyelids half closed.
An Rou is not a saint, nor is she a vegetarian, but for some reason, she found this scene unexpectedly shocking.
NPCs disappear immediately after death, but chickens, ducks and livestock do not, which is very realistic.
"Why, you want to eat it?" Liu Qingsong picked up half a duckling with his fingers wearing string gloves and threw it to An Rou, "Here's a reward for you."
An Rou didn't take it, but dodged it sideways. The duckling left a greasy scratch on the wall.
Liu Qingsong sighed, "10 gold coins each, what a waste."
His gloves seemed to be able to insulate heat. Seeing that there was no container big enough, he just took the iron pot and walked away.
The night was a little chilly, and the embers of the stove emitted heat.
An Rou curled up on a small stool behind the stove, listening to the shouting coming from the thatched house.
A pot of braised duck dispelled other people's rejection of Liu Qingsong.
A bunch of bandits.
Wang Da tried to get out over An Rou for the umpteenth time, but An Rou grabbed his ankle.
After staring at each other, they retreated into the corner angrily for the umpteenth time under the pressure of the sudden wealth.
Finally, An Rou caught Liu Qingsong's voice from the noisy movement: "I drank too much, I'm going out to pee."
An Rou waited for a moment, but he didn't come out, so she assumed he had left through the main gate. She took Wang Da and Wang Er with her, quietly bypassing the thatched house and duck shed, and arrived outside the main gate.
The ducklings in the duck shed were unaware of what had happened to their companions and kept chirping.
Liu Qingsong didn't walk too far. He stopped at An Rou's newly built straw hut, whistled, and released water on the pillars of the hut.
As luck would have it, that was exactly the burial site that An Rou had planned.
Wang Da took a detour in the dark and ran past the straw hut. The sound of weeds being trampled could be heard. Liu Qingsong stopped running and looked over alertly: "Who?!"
The dark figure in front paused, then approached step by step.
Wang Da is a ghoul that parasitizes on the player. His combat power is more than double that of the original coal shop clerk - because he can use the player's skills.
Of course, it is not a complicated operation like "binding weapons" or "consuming energy to activate skills", but a natural instinct.
Wang raised his hand and a short copper stick appeared out of thin air.
Liu Qingsong didn't even bother to pull up his pants as he quickly drew his weapon to meet the enemy. He hadn't seen Wang Da's face clearly, nor had he identified the ghoul, but when he encountered another player in a place like this, he subconsciously assumed they were up to no good.
Wang Da's pace became faster and faster.
The long sword in Liu Qingsong's hand has already lit up with the light of skill.
A hand suddenly came out from behind him and covered his mouth. At the same time, An Rou's Seven Souls Sword stabbed into the side of his neck.
He couldn't even utter a cry of pain as his health points plummeted.
Behind An Rou, Wang Er couldn't wait to reach out and touch Liu Qingsong's bloody neck, but she pushed him away.
“You can’t eat this.”
"Hungry, we are very hungry!"
Wang Da also rushed over, his hand holding the short stick trembling, and he had the urge to smash An Rou to death.
However, a huge figure quietly appeared behind them, and the trembling eyes of the rich man swept over, making them silent.
The opportunity to eat was fleeting, and Liu Qingsong's health dropped to the bottom. He entered a state of temporary death and his soul was temporarily extracted.
There is nothing to eat even if you want to.
The two ghouls' eyes trembled rapidly, revealing their unwillingness.
An Rou looked at them, her eyes sweeping back and forth between the two half-human, half-ghost faces, and finally chose Wang Da.
"You can cooperate with me. You have some brains. I'll reward you."
An Rou kicked Liu Qingsong's body and said, "He will be resurrected soon. Wang Da, as soon as he is alive, you will parasitize him. Remember, it is just parasitism, you cannot eat his soul, not even a single bite."
"If you want to eat your fill tonight, just listen to me. I need you to be undercover."
During the days since entering the game, An Rou has roughly figured out the parasitic logic of ghouls by combining the experiences of the coal shop clerk, Bao Fu, and Wang Da and Wang Er.
A freakishly mutated ghoul like Baofu cannot transfer its host. As long as it survives, it will remain a mutated monster.
For example, the coal shop clerk, despite his human form, had a terrified expression that mirrored that of the wealthy man—he must be a pure living dead, his soul completely devoured by the parasitic ghouls. Hence his increasingly stiff expression and joints.
As for Wang Da and Wang Er, before they became ghouls, half of their souls were eaten by Bao Fu, and the remaining souls became new ghouls - this is the logic of ghoul differentiation.
They weren't completely undead; in short, their movements were unimpeded, and their expressions were only half-terrified. As long as their faces weren't visible, it was difficult to tell their identities at first glance.
However, if you want to be undercover, it is impossible not to show your face.
So An Rou boldly hypothesized that a ghoul could parasitize a living person without devouring their soul, without changing their appearance or expression. With a little bit of ingenuity, they could create a perfect disguise.
Liu Qingsong on the ground suddenly let out a violent gasp.
After dying for no apparent reason, he couldn't hold back and used the resurrection card.
An Rou stepped on his eyes and looked at Wang Da: "Why don't you do it?"
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