Chapter 167
Chapter 167
Cheng Miao had just taken a sip of water. It immediately went down the wrong pipe, and she coughed until the world spun.
Qiudong jumped beside her and patted her with his paw. After two strikes, he realized he was too weak and swept the others with a glare. Why weren’t they helping?
Lin Zhu and Qi Jiajia curled their lips. With the pressure around him so low, who would dare approach?
Half amused and half exasperated, Qin Musong used a practiced touch to help Cheng Miao catch her breath.
Once Cheng Miao recovered, Qiudong lay across her lap, afraid she might have another extreme reaction.
“To be precise, they aren’t the same kind of players as you.” Qiudong tucked his paws beneath his chest. “They’re cleared players.”
Cheng Miao froze. After Qiudong’s first statement, she had considered many possibilities.
Were they natives? NPCs? Patches the Game sent into each instance to check for bugs?
She had never imagined that these people were cleared players.
“Then why are they still here?” Too many questions crowded Cheng Miao’s head and made her dizzy, so she chose the most important one.
“You’ll understand once you reach the Club tier. There are many choices after clearing the Game. Returning to reality isn’t the only one.”
Qiudong looked at the others. Qin Musong accepted the news calmly. Lin Zhu looked as though he had swallowed an egg. Qi Jiajia… showed no reaction.
Given Qiudong’s former temperament, he would never have cared whether these people could accept the truth.
But now, because Cheng Miao cared about them, he had to consider them too.
“Qin Musong told you before that many players choose to stay at a Hotel or Grand Hotel and clear instances for work once a month in exchange for permanent residence.”
“Many people do that. There are also plenty who clear the Game and still don’t want to return to real life.”
“What choices are there?” Lin Zhu leaned forward and moved closer.
Qiudong’s ears twitched. “I can’t tell you yet.”
Disappointed, Lin Zhu leaned back. After a moment of thought, he asked, “Then why do they still enter instances?”
Qiudong lowered his blue eyes and considered the question before answering slowly. “You can think of it this way: the choice they made costs more than returning to reality would.”
The other three understood at once.
Got it. If they wanted to remain in a place with such a wonderful environment and low prices, they had to work inside instances.
Even after they cleared the Game, it would not let them eat and live for free without working.
“Wait. How many times have we run into Gu Jian now? He enters more than one instance a month, doesn’t he?” Cheng Miao counted on her fingers. They had just met him in the apartment instance, then encountered him again in the last one.
Qiudong wriggled his furry rear and sprawled out. “Him? He’s a special case. He enjoys clearing instances. As far as I know, he barely rests at his Grand Hotel. He sleeps for a day or two at most, then rushes straight into another instance.”
The corner of Cheng Miao’s mouth twitched. She could easily understand why Gu Jian had not returned to real life. Reality could never be as thrilling or entertaining as the instances.
Cheng Miao glanced at Qiudong, who was giving in fully to his feline instincts, belly-up as he played with the hair hanging over her chest. She asked cautiously, “Then what are you?”
Qiudong’s paws paused in her hair. He knew the time was not right. Cheng Miao still could not decide whether he was a cat or a human. Adding a player identity would only confuse her further.
“I’ll tell you later.” Qiudong gave her a vague, evasive answer.
Cheng Miao wilted and fell backward into the soft sofa, trying to sort out her tangled thoughts.
Qin Musong coughed lightly. “Then did all the people who returned to reality go mad…?”
Qiudong glanced at him. He thought highly of Qin Musong’s abilities, so he sat upright. “I don’t know the conditions for returning to reality, but there are definitely people who didn’t go mad.”
In short, he could not offer them any clues on that front.
Qin Musong nodded and stopped asking questions. Lin Zhu fidgeted for a while before turning to Qi Jiajia. “Jiajia, don’t you have anything you want to ask?”
Qi Jiajia was happily drinking her hot chocolate. When she looked up, a ring of chocolate still clung to her upper lip, making her look far more childish than usual.
But her words were as blunt as ever. “What is there to ask? What does any of that have to do with me?”
Lin Zhu thought about it and realized that Qi Jiajia truly did not care about any of this, so he fell silent as well.
Cheng Miao felt as though Survival Inn were shrouded in mist. Now that she had reached the Grand Hotel level, that mist had turned into a veil she could almost touch.
What Qiudong had told them had undoubtedly lifted one corner of that veil and revealed more of Survival Inn’s secrets.
Even from this mere tip of the iceberg, it was clear that Survival Inn’s purpose was not simply to drag people in for inexplicable games. It had an immense, complete system supporting the world inside the Game.
Cheng Miao sat up straight. Thinking back to Qiudong’s earlier answer, she approached the subject indirectly. “Do the Cockroach Brothers, Brother Parrot, Huayu, and the others have the same identity as you?”
Qiudong thought back for a moment. “Some do. Some don’t.”
What was that supposed to mean?
Seeing that Qiudong had no intention of explaining further, Cheng Miao gave up and asked no more questions.
That night, after Cheng Miao climbed into bed, the steady rhythm of Qiudong’s breathing rose and fell against the hollow of her neck.
His fur tickled a little. She smoothed it down while her mind continued turning over everything she had learned that day.
As both expected and reasonable, one of the brothers, Qin Wen and Qin Wu, had been lost. She hoped the other one would not give up. The day would come when they were reunited.
The same went for them. They could not give up.
The next day, all four of them dressed properly and chattered in the living room about what gift they should bring on their visit.
In the end, they settled on a bottle of fine red wine. The reason was simple: none of them had ever made such an upscale social call, so they had no idea what would make the most impressive gift.
They could only choose whatever seemed most appropriate.
Lian Ge and Baili Qianqiu lived at Centaur Resort. They were currently the only two players there, so they effectively had the entire place to themselves.
When Cheng Miao and the others teleported to the resort, Baili Qianqiu was already waiting at the teleportation point. Jiang Chen stood beside him in a perfectly fitted gray suit.
When they arrived, Baili Qianqiu accepted the wine from Qin Musong with a faint curve of his lips. His gaze traveled over the bottle through his glasses. “Domaine Leroy. An excellent wine.”
The string of pure, fluent French sent a pleasant thrill through Cheng Miao. Then all of them blushed.
They had all grown up in ordinary families and knew nothing about such expensive wines.
They had spent ages wavering in front of the shelf until Qi Jiajia pointed at this bottle, so they bought it.
Jiang Chen saw Cheng Miao’s embarrassment and smiled. He lowered his voice to explain, “This is a Musigny Grand Cru. Domaine Leroy produces wines that can rival Romanée-Conti.”
The other three stared blankly. “…”
Jiang Chen chuckled under his breath. He was about to say more when Qiudong, perched on Cheng Miao’s shoulder, woke up at some point.
He gave Jiang Chen a cool glance. “If you want to learn about it, I can teach you when we go back.”
Jiang Chen rubbed his nose and laughed beneath Qiudong’s stare.
Cheng Miao stepped forward, stopping at a comfortable distance from Baili Qianqiu. “Where is Lian Ge? Is she in her room?”
Baili Qianqiu’s handsome brows drew together slightly as he gave a helpless smile. “She’s sulking.”