Chapter 209
Chapter 209
On his way back, Qiudong encountered Fang Jing waiting by the path. Who knew how long she’d been there?
Seeing how striking he looked even carrying two fish, Fang Jing’s eyes gleamed. She took two smiling steps toward him and spoke in a cloying voice. “Brother Qiu.”
Qiudong kept his eyes straight ahead, as though she didn’t exist. Without so much as a twitch of his brows, he brushed past her.
“Brother Qiu! Wait.” Fang Jing bit her lower lip, swallowed her embarrassment, and blocked his path again.
At last, Qiudong looked at her. The instant their eyes met, cold sweat broke out along Fang Jing’s back.
His gaze treated her as though she were already dead. The viciousness of a blade drawn from its sheath rushed straight at her.
Only now did she realize that this man seemed different from someone like Zhu Cong. He might actually attack her.
“I…” All the words she’d prepared lodged in her throat. She even had the illusion that she couldn’t breathe.
Just as her face flushed red and she almost thought she would suffocate, Qiudong calmly looked away, toward somewhere behind her. “You should really be grateful someone is willing to cover for you.”
He raised a brow at Zhu Cong, who stood silently a short distance away, then followed the path back.
Hah… hah…
As soon as Qiudong left, the invisible pressure vanished.
Fang Jing braced her hands on her knees and gulped air, great drops of sweat running down her.
Seeing her disheveled state, Zhu Cong didn’t approach. He watched her silently for a long while, then turned back toward the courtyard.
Dinner was good. Cheng Miao didn’t like fish because picking out the bones was a hassle.
But Qiudong showed the benefit of having spent so long as a cat. He removed bones quickly and precisely, so Cheng Miao ate several pieces of white fish.
After a full day in the instance, they had a rough grasp of its background, but no clear idea of its specific taboos or rules.
When it was time for bed, Cheng Miao still felt worried.
“Whatever’s coming will come.” With that one sentence, Qin Musong dispelled her plan to get up and keep watch. She drifted off drowsily beside Qiudong.
The first thing Cheng Miao did on waking the next morning was check whether any players had been killed or injured.
All twenty were still there, unharmed.
Now even Zhu Cong frowned.
It wasn’t that instances with low death rates didn’t exist. But there were visibly more than five formidable players in this one. Zhu Cong didn’t believe an instance like this would be easy.
There was a difference, though.
“What’s this? Do you have one?” Fang Jing’s shrill voice came from inside the room.
Ma Yang rolled her eyes, then saw Fang Jing run out in a panic, holding up her hand. “Do you all have one?”
Cheng Miao looked closely. Fang Jing held a bracelet woven from grass, very similar to the ornaments on the statue in the shrine.
Worn on Fang Jing now, it looked pretty, but still had something eerie about it.
Cheng Miao checked herself and Qi Jiajia. They had nothing on them.
To be absolutely sure, she went back into the room and asked Qin Musong and Lin Zhu to check themselves thoroughly. She also searched the beds and backpacks from top to bottom.
In the end, those who had acquired grass-woven ornaments were Fang Jing, Zhu Cong, Song Guoqiang, Zhao Jiangong, Zu Gehan, Qin Musong, Lin Zhu, Tan Wu, Chang Qing, and Freckles.
Cheng Miao’s hackles rose at once. She didn’t know what these woven-grass objects meant, but suddenly half the group was involved. Both Lin Zhu and Qin Musong had received them.
Cheng Miao repeatedly reminded herself to breathe deeply and stay calm. The more serious the situation, the less she could afford to lose her head.
Qin Musong was mentally resilient, while Lin Zhu had tremendous faith in his teammates, so neither of them panicked much.
Freckles still retained a little rationality. She knew Yang Ke hadn’t received a woven-grass ornament, so whatever happened, she still had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving.
As for Zu Gehan…
He didn’t seem troubled at all. He held his own woven-grass bracelet up to the sunlight and examined it closely.
In the end, he apparently decided it looked rather nice and put it back on.
Cheng Miao asked Lin Zhu and Qin Musong for their bracelets and inspected them. They were made from ordinary grass with a scattering of small yellow and white flowers, all things you could find anywhere along the roadside.
Things were relatively calm on Cheng Miao’s side, but some of the others couldn’t keep their composure.
Tan Wu and Chang Qing had both received something, as had Song Guoqiang, Zhao Jiangong, Zhu Cong, and Fang Jing.
If Tan Ge’s deeply furrowed brows and Chang Qing’s panic were still within normal bounds, Fang Jing was nowhere close to rational.
When she took the woven-grass hair ornament out of her hair, she let out a piercing scream. She threw it onto the ground and recoiled as though it carried the plague.
Zhu Cong had received one too, but he had no time to inspect it. He was busy soothing Fang Jing, who was on the verge of falling apart.
Fang Jing had gone through quite a few instances, but rarely encountered real danger.
For one thing, most players only had a fifty-fifty chance of encountering a supernatural instance. With enough items, staying alive at the start wasn’t a problem.
Once the rules emerged later on, avoiding trouble was easy too.
And in an instance based on violence, Zhu Cong had the ability to guarantee her safety completely.
But now she had inexplicably received an ominous mark, and not everyone had one. That left her rattled.
After her initial outburst of screaming, she recovered a little reason.
Zhu Cong had received one too. That meant she wasn’t alone. He would certainly find a way to save her.
When faced with danger, Fang Jing was never sparing with her words.
“Brother Zhu, what am I going to do?” This was the first time Cheng Miao had heard Fang Jing speak softly and gently since entering the instance.
There was no denying that Fang Jing could inspire sympathy when she looked helpless. Zhu Cong’s previously calm gaze faltered for a moment at the sight of her glistening eyes.
It was as though he were looking through the person in front of him at another pair of eyes.
Coming back to himself, Zhu Cong drew a Buddhist amulet necklace out from his chest. With a little force, he pulled it off.
Seeing that he meant to give it to Fang Jing, Ma Yang objected.
“Brother Zhu, that thing keeps you alive. You can’t give it away.”
Unlike the indignant Ma Yang, Kong Fan knew how to reason with their older teammate.
“Brother, you received one of these things too. If something happens to you, never mind her, none of us will get away. So the priority is keeping you alive. As long as you live, she’ll be all right.”
Kong Fan had a point. Zhu Cong began to hesitate.
As Fang Jing looked at the necklace so close to her, which she’d been about to receive, a savage glint flashed through her previously aggrieved gaze.
The next instant, she seemed to think of something. Her eyes shifted, and a smile touched her lips. “Brother Zhu, they’re right. Put the necklace away. I believe I’ll be fine.”