Chapter 169 Sudden Wealth (Bonus Chapter) The Landlord's Heartwarming Chicken Soup...
Zhou Fangdong frowned as he looked at the ingredients in the kitchen, feeling somewhat at a loss.
The guesthouse owner has a work schedule, and it's time to prepare meals for the guests.
Now he's a guesthouse owner, and as an NPC, he has to strictly follow the owner's schedule in order to avoid attracting the attention of the main god.
There were four players staying there. One of them just ran away. Although he hasn't escaped his erosion range yet, he won't be back for a while, so there's no need to prepare food for him.
I also need to cook for three people... Ugh, so troublesome.
It wasn't that there was a problem with the ingredients; the guesthouse kitchen didn't have any human legs, spider legs, cockroach legs, or anything like that. All the vegetables and fruits were natural and fresh... The problem was that he couldn't cook.
Forget it, I'll just throw something together. I'll chop up some vegetables and fruits, pick a few sauces, mix them together, and call it a regional exotic salad.
"Tongzi, can you translate what's written on these two bottles?"
On the left is fish sauce, an essential condiment for locals making Tom Yum soup and cold dishes. On the right is fermented fish sauce, a key seasoning for green papaya salad.
"Looks like I have a knack for cooking. The two I randomly picked are condiments for cold dishes and salads."
Zhou Fangdong took a bowl, poured both sauces into it, and then picked up the vegetables and fruits next to him and started chopping them on the cutting board.
As he was chopping, he suddenly said with great emotion, "Tongzi, I suddenly remembered something. I think I played a game called Overcooked with a friend before."
The system also flattered him, saying:
[Was it around that time that the host discovered their talent for cooking?]
"No, not really. The game was quite fun. I was in charge of chopping vegetables, but after playing that game, I had no friends."
While Zhou Fangdong was chopping vegetables in the kitchen, the remaining three guests in the guesthouse gathered in the front hall.
The oldest-looking player looked around and frowned: "Where's that young man? Did he go out?"
Another burly player replied, "It should be. My room is the outermost one. I just heard him leave, and it seems like he drove off in that tricycle."
"That's it, there's no saving him." The only female player shrugged. "That kid's dead."
The muscular player asked, "What do you mean? What did you figure out?"
The female player walked leisurely to the low table and sat down. "Please sit down. Let me introduce myself. You can call me Xiaohui... We're from the same instance, right?"
The robust player also walked to the low table, tried to shrink his body, but still couldn't sit on the small stool. He had no choice but to push the stool away and sit cross-legged on the ground.
"You can just call me Dazhuang. I feel like our dungeon prompts should be the same. This dungeon doesn't seem to be a competitive dungeon."
The older player nodded and sat down opposite the female player. "That's right. This dungeon mainly depends on your own choices, and the path to survival is already clearly indicated. My surname is Zheng, so you can call me Old Zheng... Dungeon description, four words?"
Xiao Hui added, "It has two words that overlap with the name of the instance."
Da Zhuang cut to the chase: "The dungeon description is 'Firm Faith'."
Old Zheng sighed, "It seems that players really don't distinguish between factions. What a pity for that young man."
Dazhuang was still a little confused. "After I heard him leave, I originally wanted to go out and investigate with that young man. But when I opened the door, I found that the guesthouse owner at the counter was gone, and a strange young man had taken his place. So I didn't dare to make any rash moves and went back to my room."
“No, we can’t go out, and we can’t go to X to investigate,” Xiao Hui said. “The way out has been clearly indicated.”
"I wasn't sure at first just from the system's hints about the instance, but after seeing the writing on the wooden planks in the corridor and the fact that there were no written records or clues in the room, I was certain."
Xiao Hui said with a solemn expression, "Before entering the Main God Space, I was a folklore enthusiast. The text in this instance is very similar to the script of a country I used to study."
“The intricate characters written on the wooden boards in the corridor mean something like ‘Do not disobey the gods,’” she said, taking out a red cloth bag given to her by the guesthouse owner. “After accepting this amulet, we can’t do anything else.”
“Accepting the amulet is equivalent to accepting the protection of the Buddha. As long as we hold firm to our faith, this guesthouse will be our safe haven.”
"But the dungeon also has many strange elements designed to guide us, making us think about whether the amulet's Buddha image is good or bad. Coupled with players' habitual thinking, they will subconsciously think that there are traps in the dungeon description, so they will look for more clues to verify their thoughts."
"However, asking the surrounding villagers about the origin of the ghost Buddha, and choosing to accept its protection, is an act of questioning its existence—a wavering of faith is disloyalty to God and rebellion against God."
"Therefore, the god who protects you will become a demon."
"Given the habits of the main god, I suspect that the process of this god turning into a demon will be very slow. Perhaps the player will encounter many dangers during the investigation, but will be saved by the guardian god who has not completely turned into a demon. Afterwards, the player will have a wrong idea that the dungeon description is correct, and that as long as they have firm faith, they can still be protected even if the guardian god is very strange... If they think like this, then it's all over."
"There is indeed a trap in the dungeon description - if the player's guardian deity turns into a ghost and the player still holds firm to their faith, then death is the only thing that awaits us."
Dazhuang was stunned, and muttered, "So, in this S-rank instance, all we have to do is stay in the inn and do nothing?"
Xiao Hui nodded, "That's right, as long as we don't do anything, it's fine."
That's completely counterintuitive. A normal player, upon realizing something is wrong, would immediately search the surrounding area for clues and look for a way to survive.
However, in this instance, investigating clues will only ruin your only way to survive.
Dazhuang suddenly slammed his hand on the table. "Wait, how can you be so sure..."
Xiao Hui interrupted coldly, "I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet. I'm eighty percent certain that my guess is correct."
Just then, Lao Zheng added, "Actually, the God's ban is also a hint—prohibiting the use of skills and supernatural items means that you don't need these things to survive in this instance."
"This dungeon design is aimed at veteran players like us who have experienced many dungeons and think things through," Xiao Hui said slowly. "New players who don't know anything are actually more likely to survive."
Xiao Hui looked at Da Zhuang and said in a deep voice, "Da Zhuang, do you dare to take a gamble with us? Break common sense, break the established perceptions of veteran players, and just stay here with us without doing anything, without investigating anything."
Dazhuang fell into deep thought, and just as he was about to say something, a cheerful voice suddenly rang out from the doorway: "The chicken soup is here!"
The three players turned their heads at the same time and looked towards the door.
A pale-skinned young man walked towards them with a cheerful gait, carrying a pot of steaming chicken soup in one hand and a bowl of salad in the other.
Just now, Zhou Fangdong discovered the joy of cooking. He fully utilized his culinary talent, and while mixing a salad, he also stewed a chicken.
—He cooks so fast and well!
The three players watched as the strange young man placed chicken soup and salad on the low table in front of them, and then watched as he conjured three sets of bowls and chopsticks out of thin air and placed them in front of them, and they all fell silent.
This dish...
How did this guy manage to make both his salads and chicken soup a strange dark brown color?
Even the three experienced A-level players hesitated to pick up their chopsticks for a moment.
Da Zhuang asked in a low voice, "Xiao Hui, are you sure we won't encounter any danger as long as we stay in this guesthouse, right?"
Looking at the dishes, Xiaohui hesitated for the first time regarding her own deduction. "Well, theoretically, that's how it is..."
Dazhuang asked again, uncertainly, "The food at the guesthouse should be safe, right?"
Xiao Hui forced a smile and said, "That's right, it's definitely safe. These dishes just look a bit strange, like the bizarre appearance of that ghost Buddha amulet—they're all traps to shake our will. Don't be fooled by their strange appearance; they're definitely safe..." As she spoke, she scooped a large spoonful of chicken soup into her bowl, then took a sip with a death-defying air, "Delicious..."
The moment her tongue fully touched the chicken soup, she was speechless.
Xiao Hui cried.
The soup was hot, the chicken was lukewarm, but her heart was ice-cold.
My nasal cavity and mouth were filled with an indescribable, mixed taste. The soup had a strange herbal and bloody smell. The chicken was completely undercooked, probably just scalded, and couldn't be chewed at all. This soup couldn't be called chicken soup at all; it was just bathwater for chicken to take a medicinal bath.
Xiao Hui, with the strong willpower of an A-level player, forced herself to swallow the toxic chicken soup in her mouth.
Then she sat blankly at the table, her eyes vacant and her expression vacant.
A moment of silence fell over the dining table.
Under the watchful gaze of that strange young man, Old Zheng picked up his chopsticks and, with trembling hands, picked up a piece of mango from the salad where the ingredients were barely discernible.
When Old Zheng put the seemingly ordinary piece of dark-sauced mango into his mouth, he cried.
Good heavens, what is this smell?!
The first thing that explodes on your taste buds is the stench of rotten fish and shrimp that has been fermenting in a water tank for ten years.
And then it's salty, way too salty.
How much dressing did this guy put in his salad?!
Moreover, the flavor of this sauce is so complex, it's sour, sweet, salty, pungent, and a little spicy...
Old Zheng couldn't take it anymore. Under Xiao Hui's gaze as she looked at the Warriors, he scooped up a bowl of chicken soup and gulped it down.
After finishing the chicken soup, Old Zheng's Adam's apple stopped bobbing. His eyes were vacant, and he placed the empty bowl on the table without expression before slumping heavily onto it.
Double critical hit.
The first player to fall in the dungeon has appeared—
Old Zheng, he can't rise again.
"Old Zheng!!" Da Zhuang hugged Old Zheng, his voice shrill.
The other two players ate it, so he definitely has to eat it too.
Have the ghosts in this instance gone to such extremes to torment and weaken their will?
Da Zhuang, with a death-defying spirit, imitated Lao Zheng by picking up a piece of salad with his chopsticks and putting it in his mouth. Immediately afterward, his expression froze, and he also gulped down a bowl of chicken soup before lying down next to Lao Zheng.
Dazhuang also collapsed.
Seeing Dazhuang's actions, Xiaohui hesitated to speak.
Actually, it doesn't seem necessary to eat so much... To be precise, she felt that Dazhuang didn't need to eat at all.
In this instance, eating or not eating does not affect survival. Although the young man cooking looks strange, he shouldn't have the right to harm the players in the inn as long as they don't break any taboos.
Seeing that two players had collapsed after only a few bites, Zhou Fangdong sighed softly. It seemed that the ingredients and seasonings in this world were not quite to the players' liking.
Even the best cook can't salvage a problem with ingredients.
As Zhou Fangdong stroked his chin, pondering how to adjust the ingredient ratios to improve the taste of the meal, he suddenly noticed something amiss.
—The player who was wandering around outside has encountered danger.
It was only then that Zhou Fangdong, who had become addicted to cooking, realized that he had come to invade the main god's instance, not to be a chef in the instance.
The two players who were lying on the table also noticed something was wrong. They sat up in shock and pulled out two red cloth bags in unison.
All three players placed the Ghost Buddha amulets they obtained on the table.
They noticed that beneath the eyes of all the white Buddha statues, streaks of black blood were slowly seeping out... as if they were crying.
"Oh no!!" Xiao Hui suddenly stood up. "This instance has factions! We players are all in the same faction! All players share the same fate—the player who went out to investigate violated a taboo, and we're implicated too!"
"Damn it!" Da Zhuang slammed his fist on the table. "With these rules, the God of God never intended for us to leave alive!"
Zhou Fangdong glanced at the players.
...The dungeon has only just started, and they've already found a way to survive so quickly. These players are really good.
Noticing Zhou Fangdong's gaze, all the players fell silent at the same time.
...I forgot there was a plague god standing next to me.
Now that the guesthouse's security measures have failed, these young people should be able to attack them at will.
All three players simultaneously went on alert.
Zhou Fangdong ignored the three men's wariness, sensed the location of the player wandering outside, and teleported there directly.
The three players were still somewhat bewildered as the young man suddenly disappeared.
However, they had no time to think about it. After Zhou Fangdong disappeared, the three Buddha statues on the table suddenly moved, and then the three of them felt dizzy and were transported to another place.
*
Xiao Yi arrived in a strange jungle.
His original intention was to get away from the villagers who were like a clone army, but he didn't expect that while driving, he would accidentally drive off the dirt road and run over a 'stone'.
As the vehicle jolted, he found himself transported to this strange place.
The tricycle had vanished, leaving him alone. The air was thick with the smell of decaying plants, mingled with a faint scent of incense. He was surrounded by towering tropical trees that blocked out the sky, and beneath his feet was a somewhat dilapidated stone path that stretched deep into the dense forest.
Xiao Yi stood frozen in place, not daring to move an inch.
Along both sides of the road, there are statues of gods and Buddhas in various shapes and sizes. These sculptures all have strange smiles and are looking at him with a half-smile.
They stand or lie down, half-hidden in the bushes, or sit upright on simple stone platforms.
Some statues are so tall that people have to look up at them, casting shadows that, like the giant tropical trees lining the road, completely envelop people; others are small and exquisite, hidden under tree roots or in the crevices of rocks, peering at unfamiliar visitors from the shadows.
Xiao Yi knew he was finished.
He had inexplicably triggered a taboo, invoking the killing conditions of the dungeon's monsters. Having lost his supernatural items and skills, he was powerless to resist.
Just as the surroundings grew increasingly cold and damp, Xiao Yi suddenly felt something in his pocket become unusually hot.
When he took it out, he saw that it was a talisman given to him by the guesthouse owner.
Xiao Yi pulled back the red cloth and found that black spots had appeared on the white Buddha statue inside, and two lines of black water were flowing out from under it.
After the Buddha statue appeared, the statues that had been watching Xiao Yi suddenly turned around, and the cold and damp feeling around them disappeared.
Seeing this, Xiao Yi was stunned for a moment, and involuntarily tightened his grip on the amulet in his hand.
Doesn't the dungeon description mention any traps? As long as one has unwavering faith and believes in this Voodoo doll, will one be safe?
Just as he was thinking this, he suddenly noticed three figures appearing out of thin air around him—the three players who had stayed at the guesthouse.
When the three realized where they were, their faces turned even paler.
...In this instance, not only will players share the consequences of violating taboos, but will they also be executed along with the ghosts who are about to be executed?
Completely oblivious to the situation, Xiao Yi realized something was wrong when he saw this.
However, at that moment, they suddenly discovered that they were moving.
No, it's not them moving; it's the stone path they're stepping on that's moving forward.
The four of them were as if they were stepping on the back of a giant python, being carried deeper into the dense forest.
Even larger statues of gods and Buddhas began to appear. These colossal statues, as large as mountains, had distorted postures and venomous expressions. Their empty eye sockets, devoid of pupils, stared at the intruders, their gazes heavy and tangible.
All four players felt their knees were a little weak.
They knelt down without realizing it, and then something even stranger happened.
—All the statues of gods and Buddhas have turned into the same face, the face of that strange young man.
Before the four could figure out what was happening, a huge curtain suddenly descended from the sky, as if announcing the end of a play.
The four puppets on the stage were wrapped in a curtain and put into a small bag the size of a palm.
[Congratulations, host, you have successfully corrupted the main god instance and obtained 9 idols capable of housing nightmare clones.]
[Congratulations, host, for receiving the gratitude of a certain world's consciousness and obtaining a fragment of the origin of an outer world.]
[Capture and transform the dissipated supernatural power of the main god dungeon to obtain 100,000 Ghost Coins]
Zhou Fangdong carefully put away the cloth bags containing the players, and paused for a moment when he saw these pop-up notifications.
Good heavens, 100,000 Ghost Coins for one instance? Is the main god that rich? There's a real difference between a heartless capitalist who exploits countless players and an evil god whose resources are constantly being plundered by his followers.
Zhou Fangdong didn't look at it closely, sighed for a moment, and then closed all the pop-ups.
After the copy erosion ended, the space collapsed rather quickly—similar to the situation when dealing with the pollution of the underworld, where the void rift passage collapsed.
I can't stay in this world any longer.
However, unlike when dealing with the pollution in the underworld, he can directly use the [Return] skill to teleport to the apartment in the Corruption God instance.
After Zhou Fangdong returned to his apartment, the system's voice suddenly sounded:
[Host, may I give this fragment of the outer world's origin to the system? Once the system obtains this item, it can accelerate the repair of the host's body.]
"Okay, take it. I'm in a hurry to erode the next main god dungeon." After saying that, he teleported to the seventh floor again, picked up a kerosene lamp, and began to look for the next dungeon.
There's still time before dawn, so we should be able to do another dungeon run.
I never imagined that the God Dungeon in the Void Rift would be so profitable. I should have done the Void Rift sooner.
Thinking about his skyrocketing Ghost Coin balance, Zhou Fangdong's headache and leg pain disappeared, and all that remained in his mind was the idea of fleecing the main god.
—If the main god has the guts, he should completely separate from their world. Otherwise, he can keep eroding the main god's copy through the collapsed area.
No wonder the main god likes to steal energy from various worlds; this feeling of making huge profits without any cost is really great.
After a busy night, Zhou Fangdong cleared three main god instances.
Unfortunately, only the first dungeon yielded a significant profit; the remaining two dungeons earned 30,000 and 20,000 ghost coins respectively.
Judging from the price difference, the first instance should be a very high-level instance.
Earning 150,000 in one night is not bad.
Besides the ghost coins, Zhou Fangdong also rescued 23 other players. After the cloth bag was used to screen them, only 15 are still alive.
The remaining players should all be good or normal players; those with excessively high evil values who survived by stepping on others' lives have been eliminated.
Even so, they can't all be left in the apartment.
Although they are all players of the infinite flow game, these people are different from Xiao Xiaoyu and Xiong Lei.
This place is Xiao Xiaoyu's world; her parents are here too, and Xiao Xiaoyu has a deep connection to this world. Xiong Lei, on the other hand, is a naive and chubby boy who can be easily scared and given treats, making him very obedient—players like him are rare.
The players Zhou Fangdong pulled out of the instance tonight were all seasoned veterans, deep thinkers, possessing various supernatural abilities, and without any family or friendship ties in this world.
It would be bad if these endless stream players formed small groups after settling into the apartment and ganged up to bully the tenants who moved in first.
He had gathered all the tenants in the apartment bit by bit; they were mostly weak, pixelated little people with little ability to protect themselves. He couldn't let these players who had suddenly appeared bully them.
Zhou Fangdong plans to train these players first before putting them into use.
The Bureau of Supervision has always been short-staffed, and these players are all experts in handling paranormal events. Zhou Fangdong decided to send them to the Bureau of Supervision to cultivate the players' basic social common sense.
Once these players have completed their training, if they are still unwilling to work for the Supervision Bureau, they will be sent to work at the Ghost School and Liwan Hospital.
If any player is particularly lazy and doesn't want to do anything, they can stay in the apartment. Xiao Xiaoyu would be bored staying at the courier station all the time, so one or two players can stay and take turns with her.
However, those infinite flow players all possess various skills, and if a troublemaker tries to escape, the monitoring bureau might not be able to keep an eye on them...
He just happened to have earned so many ghost coins tonight, so he could upgrade the Bureau of Supervision building, maxing out all the security features and doing some minor renovations.
Just as Zhou Fangdong was getting ready to start the renovation project, a system pop-up appeared:
[Dynamic Event: Night Attack by a Hundred Demons (Countdown: 2 days)]
Well, it's a new day, a new beginning. It's time to add some different colors to the monotonous and plain building of the Inspection Bureau.
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