Jian Hou raised an eyebrow. "What... is she talking about?"
Cao Youfeng shrugged. "I don’t know, but it proves that she still retains some level of human consciousness. Her attacks may seem chaotic and random, but they actually have a target."
"A target?" Jian Hou asked.
"Yes! Before you two showed up, when she was dealing with the rest of us, she kept chasing after me," Cao Youfeng explained. "But once you and Jiang Yan entered her attack range, her target clearly shifted to Jiang Yan and not you."
Jiang Yan frowned slightly.
"Huh? What’s the connection between you two?" Jian Hou asked curiously.
Everyone’s gaze fell simultaneously on Jiang Yan and Cao Youfeng.
"Black hair... high schoolers?" Tao Shi suggested.
"Jiang Yan’s. Age 25. Divorced." Jian Hou patted Tao Shi’s shoulder.
Jiang Yan: "..."
【Tsk tsk! Jiang Yan’s face is just too tender, isn’t it!】
【Jiang Yan… such a majestic face!】
【Looking at it this way, Jiang Yan really isn’t as refined as Cao Da, so why is he inexplicably attractive?】
【Because Cao Da’s strength is already enough to attract people. Why do some people always like to focus on the appearance of players and NPCs in dungeons?】
【Humans, when placed in life-threatening environments, often trigger reproductive instincts to preserve their genes.】
【…】
Tao Shi very casually reached out and rubbed the soft, slightly curly brown hair of the teacher beside him, explaining, “We’re talking about appearances! What Geng Hui attacked might be..”
“A pretty black-haired high school boy,” Jiang Yan interrupted.
Tao Shi paused briefly, but the rest of the veteran players’ gazes had already fallen on the three new players.
Jiang Yan looked at the braided-hair player, his icy blue eyes like two glass beads, and said, “You’re classmates with Geng Hui, so you’re also classmates with him.”
【Him】
Other than Cang Rou and Ding Wanyu, who were not able to enter 【Jiekhe’s Town】, the rest of the players already knew that this 【him】 referred to the boy who appeared in the buzzcut’s elimination memory reel. The one who was buried alive.
When Jiang Yan spoke to him, the braided-hair player’s eyes instantly went blank, staring at Jiang Yan without blinking. However, after hearing Jiang Yan’s words, his face suddenly changed, his gaze dodged, and he said, “I’m not familiar with them.”
“Oh,” Jiang Yan said.
He didn’t continue asking, his raven-black lashes trembling slightly. His gaze fell on the 【Divinity System】 panel, where the black-haired boy with injuries on his face was smiling at him.
“Bzz bzz bzz—”
Outside the massive couch, Geng Hui’s sound of spraying mucus grew closer. She seemed to have already sniffed out the players’ scent in the air.
“The priority is to deal with her first,” Jiang Yan looked at Tao Shi and Cao Youfeng, and said, “Don’t you… have a solution?”
Tao Shi, Cao Youfeng, and Yu Jia three players plus three real NPCs, Lu Sha, Cang Rou, and Ding Wanyu. How could they fail to deal with a mutated player whose level wasn’t even that high?
"Although saying this might make us seem hypocritical..." Tao Shi explained with a smile, "When facing players like this, who retain human consciousness and don’t actively attack us, we won’t choose to eliminate them. After all, that would be akin to deliberate murder."
Hearing this, Lu Sha, immersed in his persona, let out a mocking laugh, clearly ridiculing Tao Shi’s words.
Jiang Yan tilted his head slightly, pretending not to understand. As the young prince of the Elven race, he wasn’t supposed to know what [players] referred to.
"Boom!"
With a deafening crash, a massive porcelain pillar rolled to the back of the sofa, toppling the tea table beside it.
"Zzzzzzt—"
Geng Hui drew closer.
Cao Youfeng glanced at Jian Hou and said, "Teacher Jian, it's your turn."
Jian Hou: "Huh?"
Tao Shi handed the [Star Time] back to Jian Hou and said, "Saved this especially for you. It wasn’t easy to get this new tool—time to give it a try!"
[Damn! No wonder it took so long for an A-level NPC to be beaten by that [Medical Bandage] in one go. So it was all to let Jian Hou grind for experience?]
[Jealous! I'm jealous!]
"Is his luck really always this good?" 663 asked. "He enters the game, and he has you, a childhood friend who's a walking bug, and his own student is a big shot. Tsk tsk! I’m so envious."
"If his luck was really that good, he wouldn’t have met me," Jiang Yan said.
"Don't say that! He didn’t enter the game just because of you," 663 comforted. "Besides, you’re really good to him..."
"No way! Let’s go out."
Tao Shi patted Jiang Yan on the shoulder, and Jiang Yan snapped back to reality. The players and real NPCs walked out from behind the red velvet sofa, coming to the center of the chaotic banquet hall, next to Geng Hui, who had turned into a "worm."
Jiang Yan crouched down to look at her.
Geng Hui’s two flesh-colored, soft tube-like tentacles above her head were stiff, with blue veins clearly bulging on them. Her round, glossy eyes were filled with red blood veins, resembling cracks in porcelain, and she seemed like she wanted to attack Jiang Yan and Cao Youfeng directly.
She desperately twisted her body, and her throat made a "spitting" sound.
Behind Jiang Yan, his wings fluttered slightly, and a black tentacle stretched out from beneath his coat. The tentacle unfurled its petal-like mouthparts and lunged straight for Geng Hui’s eyeball!
“Ah...”
Jiang Yan was quick to grab it and stopped the "bloody incident" from happening.
Geng Hui swiftly retracted her tentacles, but her body struggled even more fiercely.
Seeing this, the black tentacle began to tighten in Jiang Yan’s hand.
Devour.
This worm, which had tried to harm Jiang Yan, needed to be immediately consumed!
The tentacle twisted its body in anger.
“She wanted to hurt me,” Jiang Yan said, looking at the tentacle wrapped around his wrist, soothing it. “She just lost her sanity.”
The crowd gathered around Geng Hui, and upon seeing this, Yu Jia let out a light laugh and said, “What exactly is this thing?”
Jiang Yan blinked innocently and gave an answer fitting his current persona:
“A god from hell.”
Yu Jia laughed.
A god from hell.
Indeed! This thing definitely looked like something from hell, and the main system had logically set it up in this instance of the game.
However... its appearance here completely broke the game’s setting!!
After finishing his cigarette, Yu Jia blew on his silver hair in front of his face.
The higher-ups had told him to find out exactly what Jiang Yan’s black tentacle was.
However... so far, the task progress was still 0, and even Cao Youfeng’s [Data Concealment Card] couldn’t fully detect what this thing was.
Although, at the moment, the task to “kill Jiang Yan” also had a task progress of 0.
He turned to look at Lu Sha, who was staring at Jiang Yan with bloodshot eyes.
Hopefully, both of them can complete the task.
At this point, Jian Hou had already recalled the item, and Geng Hui was tightly bound by Cao Youfeng’s [Medical Bandage].
“It’s over! It seems like the mutation can’t be reversed.” Looking at Geng Hui, who had transformed into a monster, Cao Youfeng said helplessly.
He had thought that Geng Hui might still retain a trace of human consciousness. If her body underwent mutation, perhaps the [Medical Bandage] could help, but the reality proved that the bandage had no effect on her.
“Ah... With her transformed like this, there’s no way to continue the game, right?” Tao Shi observed the person in front of them, also looking troubled.
Jiang Yan coldly observed everything before him. In his soul vision, he could see the golden thread connected to Geng Hui. At the end of that thread, the golden soul mark was struggling in pain, desperately tearing at itself.
“Is it painful?” Tao Shi looked at the eye on the tentacle of Geng Hui’s body, his eyes full of pity. “Perhaps the end is the best choice.”
The crowd remained silent.
Ding!
[Item: Divine Staff]
Tao Shi stood in front of Geng Hui, raising the golden divine staff. He looked like a priest of a god full of sorrow, comforting the unconscious Geng Hui.
“Don’t be afraid. It won’t hurt.
"Sigh... It can’t be helped.”
[Tao Da is really kind!]
[The big shots of the Dawn Guild are truly among the few people with conscience in this game!]
At this moment, Jiang Yan noticed that the golden spider thread connecting Tao Shi was shaking even more violently than Geng Hui’s. On the other end of the thread, Tao Shi’s soul....
Jiang Yan froze.
He looked up in disbelief at the conflicted and sorrowful expression on Tao Shi’s face.
This kid... is he excited??