Chapter 199 - 198: Fishing

Chapter 199: Chapter 198: Fishing

Early the next morning, Feng Ling was woken by a clamor.

Someone was cursing outside, accompanied by the sound of something hard striking the truck.

She stretched, got out of the truck, and saw a short, scrawny middle-aged woman whacking the truck’s bumper with a broom, making loud BANGING sounds.

The moment the middle-aged woman saw Feng Ling, she stomped furiously to the back of the truck and roared, "So there was someone in here! Have you no decency? Look at how you’re parked! You’re blocking my shop! How am I supposed to do business?! Move this truck right now! Move it, move it!"

Feng Ling gave a lazy yawn, glanced down at the time, and saw it was 6:05 AM.

She had only arrived in Guangshan City in the middle of the night. It had taken Cao Hongyi and Xu Yiming some time to find a hotel and check in. By the time she finally got to sleep, it was probably already three in the morning. They were definitely still asleep.

’Waking them up now just to move the truck,’ Feng Ling thought, ’now *that* would be truly indecent.’

Feng Ling said, "Just let me park here a little longer. I’ll be gone by nine at the latest."

"No way!" The middle-aged woman scowled, waving her broom toward the shop behind her. "This is a breakfast shop! I make all my money in these first few hours of the morning! If I wait until nine, what am I supposed to do, eat dirt? Even the God of Wealth wouldn’t be able to find my front door with your truck blocking the way! How can you young people be so inconsiderate!"

Feng Ling pulled out her phone. "I’ll transfer you ten thousand. Will you let me park here a little longer?"

The middle-aged woman froze, her eyes filled with suspicion as she looked Feng Ling up and down.

A moment later, she turned and hurried back into her shop, then came out with a QR code and held it in front of Feng Ling. "Scan it."

Feng Ling scanned it.

As she was entering the amount, she paused to think. "How about this," she said, "I’ll transfer you fifteen thousand if you let me use your restroom, too."

The woman sized Feng Ling up again, muttering, "Tsk... If you’re really transferring fifteen thousand, you can have the whole shop for all I care."

Feng Ling chuckled. "That won’t be necessary. But I will need twenty orders of rice noodle rolls."

DING—

The fifteen thousand had arrived.

The woman’s expression softened instantly. She clasped her hands together and bowed toward the sky, murmuring that the God of Wealth had arrived, before hurrying back into the shop to make the rice noodle rolls.

Feng Ling used the shop’s restroom to freshen up, then returned to the truck for another half-hour nap. She dawdled until a little after seven before starting on her breakfast.

Huangfu Miaomiao joined her for the rice noodle rolls. "How are we going to find the players today?" she asked Feng Ling.

"Easy~" Feng Ling glanced up at her. "You’ll find them."

Huangfu Miaomiao was taken aback. "Me?... How am I supposed to do that?"

Feng Ling instructed her, "Go to the player forums and make a post. Say you’ve found the Maze Administrator in Guangshan City and are willing to trade the information. How many points do coordinates for a Maze Administrator usually go for?"

"Uh, I think... they should sell for at least 800 points, right?" Huangfu Miaomiao answered, sounding unsure.

She’d never done something like this before and didn’t know the going rate.

"Then list it for 1000, slightly negotiable~" Feng Ling said.

Huangfu Miaomiao said hesitantly, "But even if players contact me, it won’t necessarily be the three we’re looking for. Hmm... no, wait..."

She thought it over again. "For ordinary players, knowing the Maze Administrator’s location is useless. What they desperately need is the riddle, because only by solving the riddle can they find the Maze entrance. But players from the Star Association are different. They just want to kill the Administrator; they don’t care about entering the Maze. So, any player who contacts me will, nine times out of ten, be a member of the Star Association! Wow, Feng Ling, you’re a genius!"

Feng Ling looked down at her rice noodle rolls, suppressing a laugh.

’She hadn’t actually thought it through that much. She just figured she’d lure one out and kill them. No loss either way.’

Huangfu Miaomiao put down her chopsticks, opened her virtual screen, and carefully typed up a trade post.

After she posted it, she began to worry again. "Feng Ling, what if no one takes the bait?"

"Then we do nothing," Feng Ling said around a mouthful of food. "If we can lure out an Alien Species, we kill it. If we can’t, we check the security footage. If the footage gives us no clues, we lie in wait. If lying in wait yields nothing, we go find the Administrator. Then we test every single location the Alien Species has visited. We’ll try from dawn till dusk. Eventually, we’ll find the spot that triggers the Maze mission."

Her main goal here was to find the Divine Statue; killing Alien Species was just a side quest.

Huangfu Miaomiao dared to ask, "But what if we try and still can’t find it?"

Feng Ling’s chopsticks froze mid-air.

Huangfu Miaomiao’s heart skipped a beat. She instantly regretted her big mouth.

Fortunately, Feng Ling didn’t seem angry. She simply set down her chopsticks, pulled a napkin from the dispenser, and wiped her mouth.

"If we can’t ever find it, we’ll have to take Ye Zheng to that Maze up north, the one near Daling Forest, find the Divine Statue, and lower his Pollution Value," Feng Ling said calmly. "The worst-case scenario is that we spend a huge amount of time and still fail to achieve our goal. If that happens, we’ll just have to accept it."

Feng Ling added, "In truth, there’s no such thing as ’what should I do?’ All the options are always right in front of you. The only difference is whether you accept them or not, whether you give up or not."

Huangfu Miaomiao listened in silence, wondering if Feng Ling was trying to tell her something.

Suddenly, a new message notification popped up on the virtual screen.

Startled, Huangfu Miaomiao quickly tapped it open and saw a private message from an unknown player:

[For real?]

Huangfu Miaomiao immediately told Feng Ling.

"Ignore useless messages like that," Feng Ling replied without looking up.

A moment later, messages from two more players came in.

Huangfu Miaomiao relayed every word to Feng Ling.

Feng Ling thought for a moment. "The first one who’s haggling, tell them to make their own offer. The one after that who’s asking for your location, just tell them, ’Serious inquiries only.’"

Huangfu Miaomiao was busy replying. "...Got another response. They said the Star Association has a standard buyout price for a Maze Administrator’s coordinates—600 points. They also said I’m messing up the market."

"Then play dumb, apologize, and ask them for the Star Association’s contact info," Feng Ling replied.

"One player is asking what the Administrator looks like."

"Tell them the Administrator is black. Don’t give any other details."

"Ah, a player just added me as a friend! They want to trade in person!"

"Tell them the city is under lockdown, so you don’t dare go out during the day. Meet at 9 PM in front of this breakfast shop."

"...He agreed!"

Huangfu Miaomiao stared at the new message on her virtual screen, her palms sweating with nervousness.

She had a deep-seated fear of trading in person.

Once, when she was still a novice player, she had naively posted on the forums looking to team up. She ended up getting betrayed by her teammates and lost an arm in the process.

Players weren’t like normal people.

Players were always fighting and killing each other, locked in a life-or-death struggle for scarce resources. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

This was what made the Star Association so special. They seemed to possess a unique faith that allowed them to band together in solidarity, just like humans.

"I..." Huangfu Miaomiao swallowed nervously, looking helplessly at Feng Ling. "When I meet the player... what am I supposed to say?"