Chapter 198 - 197: Crow

Chapter 198: Chapter 197: Crow

The buildings on the pedestrian street were all built in a uniform, antique style. Rain fell from the upturned eaves like strings of pearls.

Feng Ling watched the rain while she waited for Li Qing to contact the Maze Administrator.

After a moment, she saw a dark shadow flit through the rainy night.

Then, a crow flew over, flapping its wings, and landed steadily on the hanging sign in front of a shop, shaking the rain from its feathers.

’No way...’

Feng Ling stared at the jet-black crow, thinking, ’This can’t be the Administrator, can it?’

"He’s the Maze Administrator here." Li Qing let out a sigh of relief. He’d finally managed to make contact.

Feng Ling asked in confusion, "...In this situation, how am I supposed to communicate with it?"

Li Qing said, "The Administrator can’t speak in his animal form, but we administrators have our own dedicated communication channel internally. You can think of it as a local area network. Whatever you want to ask, I can relay the answers for him. The main reason for this meeting is to build mutual trust and establish a partnership."

"Fine..." Feng Ling frowned. "Then ask it where the Alien Species hunting it are. I’ll go kill them first."

Li Qing looked at the crow on the sign and said, "As Administrators, we really shouldn’t interfere with the game, but this is a special situation. If you want to log off and go home normally, you have to take action. The hidden Boss is an unexpected product outside of the system’s calculations. This might be our only chance."

The crow stood on the sign, lifted a wing, and twisted its neck to preen its feathers with its beak.

To be honest, no matter how Feng Ling looked at it, she felt the crow before her was completely ordinary. Or maybe its acting was just too good—it was acting just like a real crow.

Just then, Li Qing turned to her and said, "He says he just checked your Card information and you do have the ability to deal with those players, so he agrees to cooperate. But the Alien Species hunting him didn’t show up today. It’s probably because of the wanted notice—Guangshan City is under a city-wide lockdown today. We’ll need to find another opportunity."

Feng Ling’s brow furrowed, her expression turning grim.

Huangfu Miaomiao asked Li Qing, "Why isn’t there an exclamation mark over this Administrator’s head? I can’t trigger a Maze quest."

Li Qing sighed. "We don’t give out riddles. Maze quests can only be triggered at a specific location. Some Mazes even have time-based requirements to open. Just finding the Administrator isn’t enough."

Feng Ling’s expression darkened further.

Li Qing quickly added, "But we can analyze the players’ movements to deduce the location of the Maze entrance. The players must have found this place using a riddle. If we just ask the Administrator for the recent locations where the players appeared, we should be able to narrow down the area."

The crow on the sign suddenly cawed, then flapped its wings and flew off, all the way to the roof of the building across the street.

It made one quick loop before flying back to the sign, where it again shook the water from its body and preened its feathers.

"He said the first time he met the players was on the roof of that building. That’s very likely the Maze entrance," Li Qing said. "He was about to help the players accept the Maze quest when one of them suddenly attacked him. His wing was injured and he fell off the building. He only managed to escape by taking the opportunity to dive into a drainpipe on the side of the road. After that, the players started searching for him around here every day."

After speaking, Li Qing fell silent for a moment. Then, as if he’d just received new information, he continued translating:

"One of the players holds a Gu Insect Master Card. They’re controlling nearby animals by feeding them gu insects. The Gu Insect Master used snakes and rats to search the drains and various pipes, and they almost found him. He’s had a very hard time hiding every day. If we hadn’t come, he doesn’t know how much longer he could have lasted..." ℯ

Feng Ling frowned and asked, "This is a city, not the wilderness. Where would the Alien Species get snakes?"

"The people of Guangshan like to eat snakes. A lot of restaurants here raise them." Li Qing pointed at the sign. "Look, there happens to be one right here: She’s Snake Restaurant."

Feng Ling: "..."

The sign wasn’t lit. She’d been taking shelter from the rain here for so long, but she hadn’t noticed the words on it.

"Alright," Feng Ling let out a breath. "We know one Alien Species has a Gu Insect Master Card. What about the other two? What Cards do they have?"

Li Qing replied on the Crow Administrator’s behalf, "Checking information requires being up close. He’s been hiding far away every time, so he doesn’t know. But because the snakes and rats got very close to him, he knows they have a Gu Insect Master."

Feng Ling asked helplessly, "So what’s its plan now? If we don’t know where the Alien Species are, our only option is to lie in wait here on the pedestrian street. Where is the Administrator planning to hide next? If there’s nowhere suitable, it can stay in our van for now."

Li Qing communicated with the crow for a long time.

Feng Ling suppressed her temper and waited quietly.

After a while, Li Qing said, "The people of Guangshan might eat anything, but they don’t eat crows. He’s currently living on the balcony of an old man who raises birds, pretending to be a myna. He’s safe for now, but the old man keeps trying to teach him to talk, which is giving him a headache. Corvids do have the ability to mimic human speech, but he’s not a real crow, and he’s not a real human either... He hopes we can clear the Maze as soon as possible so he can go home, stop living in constant fear, and stop having to pretend to be some other creature."

’What is all this nonsense?’ Feng Ling thought.

"That’s enough for tonight. Tell the Administrator to hide himself well and wait for our update tomorrow." Feng Ling finished speaking with a frown, adjusted her raincoat, and pulled Ye Zheng out from under the eaves.

The disappointment on Feng Ling’s face was plain to see.

She felt that at a time like this, finding Han Xu might be more useful than finding the Administrator. At least the surveillance cameras in the city district must have caught something.

Seeing Feng Ling leave, Huangfu Miaomiao hurried to follow, not forgetting to turn back and mock Li Qing, "We braved this heavy rain and came all this way, and your Administrator only gives us this tiny little clue. Tsk! You have no sincerity about cooperating at all!"

The crow: "CAW!—"

Li Qing watched the backs of Feng Ling and Huangfu Miaomiao, then turned to the crow and instructed, "The city is under lockdown today, so the players were too preoccupied to come looking for you. You have to stay well hidden for the next few days. Wait for my signal before you come out, understand?"

The crow nodded.

Li Qing said comfortingly, "We’ll all get to go home."

With that, he put on his raincoat’s hood and strode into the curtain of rain.

...

Feng Ling was gone for quite some time. When she returned, Cao Hongyi and Xu Yiming both asked with concern if she had found the Maze.

Feng Ling took off her wet, cumbersome raincoat and said flatly, "It’s more trouble than I expected, but it’s not a huge problem. We’ve confirmed that the Alien Species will appear on this pedestrian street. They’re temporarily in hiding because of the lockdown. Now all we have to do is find the Alien Species, and by following them, we’ll find the Maze entrance."

Cao Hongyi immediately said, "Then we’ll start keeping watch here right now!"

Xu Yiming nodded as well. "Right! We can take turns. There’s no way we won’t catch the Alien Species if we keep watch!"

"No need. You two drove all day, you must be tired. Go find a hotel and get some sleep," Feng Ling said after a moment’s thought. "Tomorrow... hmm, I have another way."