Chapter Seven
The day Zhou Qiao arrived at Happy happened to coincide with Excellent Era's fans' welcome party for Xiao Shiqin. She took a red-eye flight, landing in the early morning. She took a taxi from the airport, and the journey was smooth, but she got stuck in traffic just before reaching her destination. Zhou Qiao dragged her suitcase and got out of the car early, where she saw what could be described as a huge fan group.
"You're here so early, that's impressive." Zhou Qiao stopped in her tracks.
"Great my foot! That idiot!" A disheveled middle-aged man sitting in a chair muttered as he chimed in.
Ye Xiu saw the even more vibrant green head that was standing at the door looking out, a color even brighter than when they last met. He was speechless for a moment, then called to Zhou Qiao, "Xiaoxiao, you've come at the right time. Let's go upstairs and fight the BOSS."
"?" Zhou Qiao, who was still holding the box in her hand.
Chen Guo glared fiercely at Ye Xiu, then reached out to help Zhou Qiao pull her suitcase: "Xiao Xiao, ignore him, you come with me to the team's accommodation first."
The unkempt middle-aged man, Wei Chen, sized Zhou Qiao up and down, his expression exaggeratedly as if he had seen a ghost: "Hey Lao Ye? This is Xiao Xiao? How come she doesn't look like the photos I found? You weren't fooled, were you!"
As he spoke, Wei Chen held out his hand to Zhou Qiao: "Let me see your ID card."
"Go away!" Chen Guo slapped Wei Chen's hand. "Can't you all be a little more serious? Xiaoxiao just got off the plane!"
Zhou Qiao pushed up his glasses: "Actually, it's fine. It's the same whether the things are left at night. Did they say the upstairs was converted into a training room?"
Zhou Qiao glanced at the group messages occasionally and saw that Chen Guo had mentioned this matter.
A group of people went up to the second floor, and Zhou Qiao picked an empty computer to sit down and tried out the keyboard and mouse.
Ye Xiu noticed Zhou Qiao adjusting the keyboard: "Are you used to it?"
“It works.” Zhou Qiao didn’t seem to care much and swiped her card to log in.
After joining the Righteous Slash Guild, Nightless Marquis finally escaped his pitiful situation of wearing only blue gear. After hooking up with a rich player, he quickly switched to orange-tier equipment, and even upgraded his weapon to a level 70 orange-tier gunslinger weapon.
Zhou Qiao glanced at the character's attributes and asked Ye Xiu, "Who assigned these attribute points to me?"
"Besides Little Leaf, who else is there? What happened?" Ye Xiu stood behind Zhou Qiao, and when he saw the almost distorted four dimensions of Nightless Marquis, he twitched his lips. "Another one with stacked intelligence?"
"They even increased the speed, what's going on?" Wei Chen also came over to watch the excitement.
"Hmm, I quite like it." As a former rebellious assassin, Zhou Qiao is also rebellious when playing the sharpshooter. Even her appearance is a Western cowboy style with a red ponytail instead of the trench coat and top hat of Full Glory.
Waiting for wild bosses to respawn was too boring, so Zhou Qiao added other Happy players as friends and went to the arena to smurf. Elite players in the God's Realm are indeed much more skilled than players in the regular servers, especially after Zhou Qiao's win rate increased; the opponents he was matched with could now last him two or three minutes.
After waiting for half a minute, a new opponent entered the room; it was a Berserker.
It was still the simplest arena setup. Mad Sword initiated with a charging attack followed by a Mountain-Shattering Strike. Nightless Marquis immediately retreated to create distance, narrowly escaping the blade. Unexpectedly, Mad Sword canceled the Mountain-Shattering Strike mid-attack, following up with a Cross Slash, striking Nightless Marquis and knocking her back. Nightless Marquis turned her gun, using the knockback to create distance between herself and Mad Sword, while simultaneously aiming her other pistol at Mad Sword, firing a bullet.
Ignoring the steadily decreasing health bar, Mad Sword chased after them again.
The arena was only so big, and Nightless Marquis couldn't widen the gap between himself and the Mad Swordsman. Zhou Qiao simply gave up on kiting and started typing away on the keyboard.
When the Berserker's Reverse Slash hit Nightless Lord, Nightless Lord countered with a Knee Strike. The Knee Strike's hitbox was similar to the Reverse Slash, but Nightless Lord's super armor negated the Reverse Slash's launch effect. Nightless Lord immediately followed up with a Spinning Kick. The Berserker, still stunned, couldn't dodge the kick and was hit by Nightless Lord's slide tackle and stomp attack combo. Nightless Lord landed on the Berserker's chest, and Rapid Fire was activated almost simultaneously. As bullets rained down, the Berserker's health plummeted like an avalanche, then abruptly stopped at the dangerous 50% health threshold.
After the skill ended, Nightless Marquis once again flew backward with his spear. The Berserker jumped up and followed up with Mountain Crash Strike. The blade grazed Nightless Marquis again. At the same time, the Berserker activated Berserk. This time, the range of Mountain Crash Strike was larger than before. The shockwave hit Nightless Marquis, who was slammed to the ground. The Berserker immediately followed up with a reverse slash, continuing the floating effect.
As the Nightless Marquis attempted to fall from the sky, Zhou Qiao suddenly realized that the Berserker had disappeared from her field of vision.
—Shadow Step!
Realizing this, Nightless Marquis immediately rushed to the side upon landing, but the Berserker's Raging Blood Waves drew an angle and struck her.
After the Nightless Lord was launched into the air, the Berserker canceled his berserk state and switched to the Berserker Awakening Skill, Bloodlust, which turned against him, causing his health to drop by 50%.
With such multiple status buffs, when the damage from Raging Blood Tide exploded on Nightless Marquis, her health plummeted, instantly turning her to red.
The blood mist dissipated, and the Barrett sniper rifle was already aimed at Berserker, delivering a headshot. With his defense significantly reduced, this shot took away approximately 40% of Berserker's health, leaving him in critical condition.
Sleep in another summer: Occupation?
Marquis of Nevernight: You too?
Sleep another summer: Once upon a time.
With dual control, the Nightless Marquis set up his Barrett sniper rifle again and ended the match with a single shot before the Berserker's heavy sword could reach her. The word "Glory" appeared on the screen, and Zhou Qiao left the arena and messaged Lord Grim in private.
Marquis of Nevernight: Are you there?
Since he hadn't yet fought any wild bosses, Ye Xiu was quite bored. He had just witnessed Zhou Qiao's rapid-fire typing.
Jun Moxiao: Say.
Unnight Marquis: Besides Sun Zheping, are there any other powerful Berserker players who aren't playing anymore?
Jun Moxiao: ...Sun Xiang?
Marquis of Nevernight: ...
Marquis of Nevernight: Okay, then I've met Sun Zheping.
Jun Moxiao: Very good.
Jun Moxiao: Let's see if we can recruit him into our team.
Marquis of Nevernight: ? What?
Jun Moxiao: Hehe, Zhang Jiale declined my invitation.
Jun Moxiao: I'll teach him what regret is.
Marquis of Nevernight: Are you some kind of domineering CEO who's gone down in the cold of winter?
Marquis of Nevernight: Oh, no, you are indeed from a wealthy family.
Ye Xiu started to get itchy. To avoid doing something that might anger the landlady, like running over and giving that green-headed guy a flick on the forehead, he stood up and went outside for a smoke.
Zhou Qiao added "Sleep Again in Summer" as a friend, only to find that the other party had closed the friend request.
Zhou Qiao: "...Tsk."
The fact that Honor's one-way friends cannot have private chats is very annoying.
At noon, Chen Guo ordered takeout, which was quite lavish. Wei Chen started complaining again about how the boss was being biased, but when he saw that Chen Guo was about to roll up her sleeves and start yelling, he quietly shut up.
In the afternoon, Zhou Qiao originally planned to continue waiting, but she had gotten up too early in the morning and started to feel sleepy, so Chen Guo took her to the villa in Shanglin Garden.
Chen Guo pushed open the door to the innermost room on the third floor: "Xiaoxiao, what do you think?"
"It's fine." Zhou Qiao put the box down.
Zhou Qiao fell asleep immediately and woke up just after dinner time. She took a shower, hung her clothes up to dry, and then went to the internet cafe.
A slightly reserved young man stood at the internet cafe counter. When he saw Zhou Qiao, his eyes lit up at first, then changed to a complex expression—three parts shock, three parts confusion, and four parts nervousness—that Zhou Qiao had obviously put together at random. When he opened his mouth to call her, he couldn't hide his stutter: "Xiao... Sister Xiaoxiao..."
Because he was unsure, his voice was very soft.
"Yifan?" So far, only he had called her "Sister Xiaoxiao," and Zhou Qiao's tone was much more certain than his. She walked up to Qiao Yifan, raised her hand, and when she found he didn't react, gestured for him to lower his head. "What? Does Tiny Herb not have this rule anymore?"
Qiao Yifan bent his knees and squatted down, looking at Zhou Qiao with an even more confused expression.
Zhou Qiao: ...My feelings are even more complicated now.
She roughly ruffled Qiao Yifan's hair, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "Your juniors are supposed to be bullied by their seniors, huh? What, didn't Wang Jiexi do that to you?"
"!!!"
“Although he really didn’t do such a thing.” Zhou Qiao patted his head again, then stopped, satisfied.
For a long time, he was the youngest and shortest player in the league. Zhou Qiao was always the one being attacked. This was his first time experiencing what it felt like to attack someone, and it was alright.
Of course, she wouldn't say that she felt more comfortable being masturbated.
When Chen Guo came downstairs, she saw two former Tiny Herb assassins standing side by side at the front desk. She asked in confusion, "Xiao Xiao, why didn't you go upstairs directly?"
"Emmmmmm," how could he possibly admit that he was bullying his juniors?
Qiao Yifan didn't say anything, or rather, his attention was completely drawn to the people behind Chen Guo.
"Senior Xiao Shiqin! Senior Sun Xiang!" He exclaimed without controlling his voice, so surprised, "Hello..."
He had realized that he was speaking too loudly.
The three members of Excellent Era were instantly overwhelmed by the people in the internet cafe.
After a while, a person was awkwardly squeezed out, his sunglasses hanging precariously on his face. Zhou Qiao recognized him and whispered to Qiao Yifan, "This is Tao Xuan, the boss of Jia Shi."
"Huh? You know Xiaoxiao?"
"We met once," Zhou Qiao said casually.
Tao Xuan walked over and asked Qiao Yifan about his identity. Out of respect for the club owner, Qiao Yifan honestly told him. Tao Xuan was on high alert as soon as he heard the name Tiny Herb. Without saying anything, he went to the other side to call security. It took a lot of effort to pull Xiao Shiqin and Sun Xiang out of the crowd and control the situation. Tao Xuan glared at Qiao Yifan fiercely again before leaving.
Qiao Yifan stammered, "I...I didn't mean to..."
Zhou Qiao reassured him, "It's okay, he's always been an unreasonable idiot, Yifan, just ignore him."
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