Chapter 14 Chapter 14 Today's V
“She’s not a player.”
When Fatty and Uncle Li heard the official on the other side of the video say this, they subconsciously refuted it.
"impossible!"
"How could he not be a player!"
If their mentor Luo Qing was not a player, then why did he give them props, reveal the questions in advance, and give them a "B" rating for extras?
You know, this rating is the evaluation of players who have passed the copy!
As far as Fatty and Uncle Li knew, the two of them should have obtained the highest level of this copy.
The fat man stated his point of view with reason and evidence. He firmly believed that Luo Qing was a player who managed to replace an NPC. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why their mentor was so special compared to other NPCs and treated the two of them so gently.
Zheng Hao calmly listened to the story of Fatty and Uncle Li, from how the two of them were a little slow in finding a dance studio in the dungeon at the beginning, and were left behind in the end, and were picked by Luo Qing, to the perfunctory talent show afterwards, going out to observe life, and then to being an extra in the crew.
"Have you two noticed that the opinions you've expressed are entirely based on your assumptions that the other person is a player?"
"At this stage, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the mentor Luo Qing you mentioned is actually a player."
"Simply put, if the other person is a player and needs your help, they can simply add you as a friend through the forum. There's no need to resort to the circuitous process of giving out business cards."
A man wearing plain glasses now appeared in the video with the fat man Mr. Li and asked questions to the two of them.
"That's very simple." said the fat man.
"She's disguising herself as an NPC, perhaps using some props or something, fearing she'll be exposed under dungeon observation."
"You think Luo Qing isn't a player, isn't that because there's no information about her in the database? But the strange dungeon has been around for five years. Initially, the official response wasn't so swift. Isn't it normal that some players aren't recorded?"
"I saw on the forums that some players who took others' lives as scapegoats in dungeons are nowhere to be found. It's as if these people don't exist in real life."
The fat man spoke with firm conviction.
"The fatty is right, and what makes you conclude that this address is weird? Even if it is in a dungeon, how can it not be a stronghold or a base built by a capable player?" Uncle Li also spoke at this moment.
"That's right." The fat man agreed.
The man with plain glasses was about to speak when the short-haired Captain Zheng interrupted him.
She looked at the two of them through the camera with a calm expression, keenly grasping the key points and speaking with a bit of sharpness: "Uncle Li, Comrade Xu."
"I have a question. What makes you two think that capable players can establish a base in a dungeon?"
"Is there any reason or basis for this?"
"I need to reiterate to both of you that we have only temporarily determined that Ms. Luo Qing is not a player. We still need more information to investigate her true identity."
"Could you two tell us a little more about your experience in this dungeon?"
Her tone was as steady as ever, but even through the screen, the fat man felt a sense of oppression.
The fat man and Uncle Li looked at each other silently in the video.
The two had originally planned to contact the authorities regarding their special discovery in the dungeon, but they didn't expect that before they took the initiative to find them, the authorities arrived first, and they came for mentor Luo Qing who had helped them.
Regarding Luo Qing's identity, the official seemed to have a different judgment from theirs.
"I request that we have a private video call with Captain Zheng," said Uncle Li.
"No, I hope to contact you in person. I can cooperate and go to Beijing." The fat man spoke at this moment.
"Then I can do it too." said Uncle Li.
This time their copy was finished, and they had a ten-day cool-down period. They headed to the capital as quickly as possible and arrived in the early morning.
At 2:08 in the morning, Fatty Xu and Uncle Li arrived at the Beijing International Airport one after another. They were escorted separately to the Special Affairs Bureau headquarters.
At exactly three o'clock in the morning, just a few hours after leaving the copy, Uncle Li and Fatty met again.
They sat in a special communication room and told the officials the secrets of the second day of the copy.
"While Instructor Luo Qing was driving us away from Liangxin for training, we were sitting in the car and were able to see the outside world through the windows," the fat man said.
"It's similar to the street scenes in reality. There are several copies with names like Tuming Travel Agency, Snowy Avenue, and Sasa Supermarket." said Grandpa Li.
"The cafe we went to was called the Corner Cafe. I'm not sure if it's a duplicate."
"On both the way there and back, these buildings, streets, and roads were real to us, with pedestrians, cars, and horns..."
While the two were supplementing each other's stories, Zheng Hao did not interrupt them.
After they finished speaking, Zheng Hao seemed to be thinking: "So, what do you two think?"
"I think the weird copy might be a special and complete world, but the copies we usually enter are cut into pieces." said the fat man.
"It's like another place that is similar to our society and also has people living in it. Those NPCs are like people like us." Grandpa Li said slowly.
Zheng Hao nodded. "Even after following Luo Qing and seeing a different dungeon world, do you still think she's a player?"
The fat man and Uncle Li were silent.
Captain Zheng, who was sitting opposite, hit the nail on the head.
"Maybe they have obtained the NPC's authority and disguised themselves as NPCs," said Mr. Li.
"Even if players disguise themselves as NPCs, can we still give you a dungeon rating?" Zheng Hao's words were as sharp as a knife.
The two continued to remain silent. It wasn't that they didn't have doubts, they just didn't want to think about it too much.
Or in other words, control yourself and don't think too much about it.
If Instructor Luo Qing wasn't a player, then what was she? Was she a spook? Or a high-level NPC? Why was she helping them clear the dungeon? The questions only grew, and there was no way to explain them.
The simplest answer is to guess that Luo Qing is a player.
"Captain Zheng, I have a question. You said that Ping'anli and Ping'an Home are both in strange copies. How did you know that?" The fat man's eyes sparkled.
"Have your people ever been to Ping An Real Estate?"
Zheng Hao shook his head regretfully: "We haven't been to Ping An Real Estate."
"There were other players who entered a dungeon with the mentor Luo Qing you mentioned, and she was also mistaken for a dungeon player by other players."
"According to informed players, under Luo Qing's guidance, the dungeon had a 100% survival rate. However, one of the surviving players clashed with Luo Qing within the dungeon and was supposed to leave. According to our subsequent investigation, this player did not return."
The players who knew about the situation were Nie Ke and Ren Shumei. According to their description, the Special Affairs Bureau tried to contact Liang Ping, a player in the same dungeon, but there was no news from this player. After some twists and turns, they found a player who had Liang Ping as a friend on the [Rugui] forum and confirmed that the other party's ID was completely blacklisted, that is, he was dead.
After several hours of communicating with the fat man Uncle Li about every detail of the copy, and getting a few "Ping An Real Estate" business cards from them, the two were sent to the player's apartment to rest.
For the Special Affairs Bureau, the research and discussion about the strange copy and Luo Qing's identity in the eyes of the players has just begun.
"The strange domain is a whole, and the strange copies are interconnected. Does this inference count as confirmation?"
The man wearing plain glasses pushed up his glasses and spoke in a relaxed tone.
"At present, these are just the arguments of two players, and more evidence is needed. I am more concerned about Luo Qing. Fortunately, this time, we finally know what the two characters in her name are." Zheng Hao said.
The view that the strange copy is a connected world as a whole has long been inferred. Whether it is the staff of the Special Affairs Bureau or the players on the forum, as long as people observe carefully, they will find that all the current copy background settings are often closely related to reality and are purely modern backgrounds.
Different from the infinite flow of time and space in literary and artistic works, it can be Cthulhu, the end of the world, Resident Evil, or the complexity and diversity of modern and ancient times.
The strange dungeons Blue Star experienced all had quasi-modern settings. These dungeons contained companies, factories, villages, schools, supermarkets, banks... Therefore, some people had long speculated that these strange dungeons were actually another, strange, quasi-modern world.
The copies are cut or separated by space to prevent players from spying on the strange domain.
So when the fat man and Uncle Li told her what they saw, Zheng Hao was not too surprised. What she cared about more was Luo Qing's identity.
Obviously, it was under her leadership that Fatty and Uncle Li, as outsiders to the copy, were able to leave Liangxin Training and see different scenes in the car, instead of the darkness and fog that regular players could only see.
It's like the players in the weird copy only have the lowest level, consumable player identity, and everything they see is within the limit. Suddenly, a person with a special identity comes, and under her leadership, the players finally unlock the restrictions and can see the world through the eyes of a high-level authority.
Such uniqueness has never been possessed by players.
Luo Qing was obviously not an ordinary NPC. In the conference room, people were arguing about his identity.
Players often have two ways of judging creatures other than players in dungeons: NPCs or weird.
Copies that are more weird and more dangerous tend to have higher ratings. The [404 Convenience Store] that Nie Ke experienced is currently rated B for this reason, and the risk factor is high.
As for the [Liang Xin Performing Arts Training] that Fatty and his friends experienced, according to the survival rate of all players and the overall danger, this copy was only of difficulty C to D, and the group only faced one weirdness.
The ratings of different dungeons are not static. Some even change from one issue to another and are completely floating. This is because even if the name of the strange dungeon is the same and the process is similar, each time it is opened and players are invited, there will be different dungeon changes, and the difficulty and danger will fluctuate. Therefore, even if players on the forum post a guide to passing the level, it is only a reference for other players and there is no completely "correct answer".
The content of the weird copy is always changing, being modified, and replaced, and the NPCs are also wandering around. The place where the last player who passed the level obtained a life-saving item may become a trap the next time.
This is also the reason why, in the past five years of the Ghost Domain Invasion, official agencies have been more assisting players rather than helping them complete the game as a whole.
And now, Luo Qing, a character who appears in two different copies in a row, has an unknown identity. She may be a player, an NPC, or even a weird one.
But, she is special.
She helped the dungeon player clear the level and then handed over her business card.
This business card is like an invitation. There may be a deep trap behind it, but as an official, someone must go and explore it in person.
"My copy cooldown period ends tomorrow. Please give me a business card."
"What if this is the key to enter the dungeon?"
In the conference room, a young girl with bangs volunteered.
...
In an apartment somewhere, Mu Xia's twin ponytails swayed slightly as she refreshed the interface of the [Rugui] forum again and again.
"Why hasn't anyone posted anything?" she murmured.
In this ten-person copy, seven people survived, which is definitely worth writing about on the forum.
Mu Xia was a little dissatisfied that his player only got a C rating for completing the game, but there was nothing he could do.
Because of her special abilities, Mu Xia sets higher standards for herself.
Her eyes can distinguish between NPCs, monsters, and players, but there is an indistinguishable "person" in this copy.
Ever since Mu Xia entered the strange copy, the "Eye of Insight" that has never made a mistake has encountered creatures that it cannot distinguish.
Is it a human? A player? A spooky creature? An NPC?
Mu Xia felt a little irritated when she thought of Fatty and the others' mentor. With her "Eye of Insight," she couldn't say she was invincible in dungeons, but she always managed to avoid danger, gain benefits, and earn high evaluations.
But this time it's different.
If she hadn't secretly followed Fatty Xu and Uncle Li and sneaked into the lending room to find clues, she would have ended up like those dead players!
On the afternoon of the first day of the copy, after Fatty and his mentor took the two away, Mu Xia and the long-haired man met in the reading room on the fifth floor.
After a brief exchange, the two reached a temporary agreement and searched for clues in the reading room together.
Apparently, they weren't the only smart ones. Not long after, three more players came over.
The five people confronted each other and formed a makeshift clue-finding team in the reading room, almost turning the reading room upside down.
They did find clues, messages left by Jia Jia in books.
Some of the notes were crumpled into a ball with obvious wrinkles, while the writing on some of the notes was so strong that it could be seen through the back of the paper.
They pieced together the experience of a girl named Liao Jia through the contents of the notes: she was bullied, harassed, insulted, and betrayed by her "good friends."
After the five players in the reading room shared the clues tacitly, the found paper balls and notes belonged to each of them.
This copy requires "actor evaluation and graduation". No one knows whether the training completion is full or differential, and other players may be competitors.
Nothing happened that night, but this clue obviously played a role in the group performance on the second day. As players who knew the plot, among the eight people, five of them were the first to choose characters with less "sin".
Among the three players who died, Curly, the newcomer, and another quiet female player were directly assigned roles by the instructor because she spoke late. They played the roles of parents who forced Jia Jia to make money, and the boys who insulted and violated her in the training class.
The remaining five players played the roles of others who believed in rumors, made jokes and were indifferent.
That night, those three players were the first to die, and the other players survived by responding accordingly.
Mu Xia didn't feel any guilt about this.
This isn't a cooperative dungeon, so players aren't obligated to share clues with each other, right?
If players don’t go out to look for clues themselves, they can’t expect the clues to come to them!
As for the official advocacy of mutual assistance among players, huh? In this confrontation book, it’s a blessing from heaven for anyone to survive.
Mu Xia continued to search for a while, but still did not find any posts from players in the same dungeon. She gritted her teeth and continued to search for relevant content about [Liangxin Training] in the forum.
But no matter how she searched, there was no post about this copy in the forum.
"Did we encounter a new copy?"
Mu Xia frowned. No players had shared anything on the forum. Could this dungeon really be a new one? Wouldn't that mean it would be even harder to find information about the NPCs?
The female mentor whose origins her "eye of insight" could not see at all was like a thorn in her heart.
Because she represents uncertainty! Mu Xia didn't know this was a special creature newly created in the strange dungeon. If she encountered this unrecognizable creature in other dungeons in the future, it would be a huge problem for her!
...
In a safe home, Luo Qing knew nothing about what was happening in the outside world.
After a short three-day part-time job, she looked at the change on her mobile phone with great satisfaction.
I made six thousand in three days and was so happy. Although I took the students to a cafe the next day, I spent less than two hundred in total.
Working part-time is easier than waiting for clients to come to you at home, and you can earn more!
At this moment, she found her suitcase after a long time and let her lover pack her things.
After a short rest, his lover Yan Fufeng had to rush to his next business trip. Fortunately, the location of this business trip was not far away, it was in Yinhuai Village in the Daqing Mountains outside the city.
Coincidentally, the couple knew each other very well in Yinhuai Village. When they were tour guides, Yinhuai Village had just been developed and other tour guides were reluctant to go there because they thought the rebate was too little and there were few customers. However, the couple had traveled this route many times.
"If I count, we haven't been to Yinhuai Village for two or three years." Luo Qing picked at his fingers.
"It's been three years." Yan Fufeng said.
"I heard that Yinhuai Village has developed a special tourism industry in the past two years, which is much better than when we first went there, where there were only farmhouses."
This place is just outside the city, only about an hour's drive away. It has beautiful scenery and the locals are very friendly. I heard that many companies choose this place for team building. I think after two or three years of development, it should be getting better and better.
As soon as his lover said they wanted to go to Yinhuai Village, Luo Qing immediately found the Tuming Travel Agency, with which he had previously worked, on his phone.
There will be a small tour group of outsiders heading to Yinhuai Village tomorrow, but there is no tour guide to pick them up yet!
Isn't this like a pillow for you when you're sleepy? Luo Qing was overjoyed. He asked about the commission for this trip and accepted the order immediately.
The tourists in the group were all from other places, which perfectly met Luo Qing's need to promote his rental house!
the next day.
Luo Qing arrived at the central square early, as Tuming Travel Agency usually departs from here.
My lover has to set off with his colleagues from the company, and no one knows who will arrive first.
Speaking of going to the village for an audit, wouldn't we have to go to the pig farm to check the pigs again? Shaking his head, Luo Qing dispelled this thought and looked at the license plate information sent by Sister Dan from the travel agency on his phone, and found today's minibus.
When Luo Qing got into the car with her suitcase, she was surprised to see the driver playing with his cell phone.
"Brother Qi, you are the driver of this team!"
The man in the polo shirt laughed heartily. "I found out last night that you took on a group at the last minute and switched shifts with another driver. Otherwise, you would have been resting at home tonight."
Brother Qi’s full name is Qi Shujun. He is a veteran driver of a travel agency who is responsible for running local tours. He has a cheerful and generous personality. When he was a tour guide in the past, Luo Qing and his wife got along best with him.
But after I graduated and started working, and then I fell ill, we gradually contacted each other less and less.
"Oh, I'm so proud of myself. You didn't tell me last night." Luo Qing sighed.
"This is a surprise for you." Brother Qi smiled.
While the two were talking, people gathered outside the minibus.
Liu Yanran looked at herself standing on the platform during this copy, and saw a minibus with "Tuming Travel Agency" printed on it. Her heart sank. She had a large backpack on her, and other people had bags and boxes in their hands.
This time she actually entered the subordinate copy of Tuming Travel Agency. She stroked the Ping An Real Estate business card in her pocket.
I originally thought that with this business card, I might be able to enter the relevant copy.
Liu Yanran sighed inwardly, wondering if the other comrades who were given business cards could try their luck.
She smoothed her bangs and looked at the other players around her. There were currently six people gathered on this platform.
Liu Yanran was about to observe when the door of the minibus in front of her suddenly opened.
"Oh, all the passengers going to Yinhuai Village today are here." Luo Qing stood on the steps of the car and looked out.
She touched the microphone that she hadn't worn for a long time and took a folder from Brother Qi.
"Passengers, please get on board first."
"We'll do the roll call later."
Although he hasn't been a tour guide for a long time, Luo Qing has not forgotten the process of this trip.
"Passengers with suitcases, please give them to me or put them in the last row."
Following Luo Qing's command, seven players got on the bus one after another.
This is a minibus with 13 seats. Together with the driver and the tour guide Luo Qing, there is enough space left for luggage.
After calling out the names of all the passengers according to the passenger list and confirming that all were present, Luo Qing nodded and Brother Qi started the car.
"Hello, everyone. Welcome to Tuming Travel Agency's Yinhuai Village special line." Luo Qing smiled and recited the opening words familiarly.
"I'm your tour guide for this three-day, two-night trip to Yinhuai Village. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Luo Qing."
Liu Yanran, who was sitting in the front row, narrowed her eyes. What did the tour guide say?
Her name is Luo Qing? !
Is that Luo Qing from Ping An Real Estate? She really bumped into me!
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