Chapter 92

Chapter 92

Aside from the cafeteria’s standard meal of one dish and one soup, Tong Qian and Bai Jiang had eaten nothing decent. To save enough room fee for a glimpse of a Hotel-level room, they had survived on instant noodles for days.

The moment Cheng Miao suggested hot pot, their eyes shone with hunger.

Cheng Miao loved spicy food. Going several days without hot pot was enough to make her crave it desperately.

Since entering the Survival Inn, she had been too busy walking the line between life and death to notice. Now that she had reached a comfortable Hotel with money in her pocket, hot pot immediately became her first priority.

Cheng Miao wanted to invite Qiudong. After all, he was no ordinary cat.

Whether because of something Qiudong had done or their instinctive fear of Front Desk attendants, Tong Qian and Bai Jiang grew nervous when Cheng Miao approached the counter.

Qi Jiajia ignored their unease, while Qin Musong was not skilled at comforting people. Only Lin Zhu chatted casually with the couple, distracting them enough to relax.

Lin Zhu had once disliked dealing with others. Partly, his excellent grades had made him proud.

He had also possessed few friends and instinctively assumed most people would dislike him, gradually turning him into the quiet, withdrawn type.

After arriving here, he discovered his advantages meant far less than he had imagined, cutting his arrogance in half. Fortunately, he then met Cheng Miao and avoided falling into complete self-doubt.

Instead, he developed a gentle, approachable manner. At first glance, Lin Zhu was unquestionably the easiest member of their team to approach.

“Qiudong, we’re going for hot pot. Want to come?” Cheng Miao saw his furry ear tips twitch and knew he was still awake before asking.

Qiudong lazily raised his eyelids, ready to refuse impatiently. Then something occurred to him. He stood, stretched, and leaped onto Cheng Miao’s shoulder in two steps.

Cheng Miao was not particularly thin. Her figure was well proportioned, firm where it should be and elegantly slender everywhere else.

Just as she worried her shoulder might be uncomfortable, the lordly black cat lifted his tail and sat down.

Cheng Miao cautiously took two steps. When the cat remained as steady as a mountain, she rejoined the group.

Tong Qian had only just relaxed under Lin Zhu’s friendly influence. Seeing a Front Desk attendant perched on Cheng Miao’s shoulder nearly stopped her breathing.

Qi Jiajia remembered that Tong Qian had once saved her. Frowning, she tugged the woman’s hand. “Come on. I’m starving.”

Tong Qian was flattered. Forgetting Cheng Miao and the black cat, she pulled Bai Jiang along behind Qi Jiajia.

The moment they left the Hotel, pedestrians glanced at Cheng Miao, then immediately returned to their own affairs.

Any player who reached a Hotel was no newcomer. They knew better than to interfere in matters that did not concern them.

Besides, the higher the Inn level, the more unusual players appeared. Who knew whether the cat was someone’s Item?

Free from troublesome stares, the group chose not to take a taxi and strolled toward the hot pot restaurant.

It was the first time Cheng Miao’s group had visited a Hotel-level Inn, and the small city fascinated them.

Was it an ordinary city? In many ways, yes.

Stores and supermarkets stood everywhere, along with snack stalls, bubble tea shops, and taxis.

Yet in other ways, it was anything but ordinary.

An ordinary city did not have talking horses asking whether you needed a carriage. Nor would a cosmetics saleswoman, flawless as a mannequin, change her skin to a dark yellow-brown at the press of a button so customers could judge the products.
Cheng Miao and Lin Zhu marveled at the fantastical world the entire way. Qi Jiajia pretended not to care, but still spent a long time looking around.

“How do you tell which ones are players and which are NPCs?” Cheng Miao tilted her head toward the most experienced member of the group, Qin Musong.

He scratched his head in embarrassment. “I’m not sure either. I used to focus entirely on clearing instances and rushed too hard to advance. I never came out to explore.”

Cheng Miao nodded and glanced from the corner of her eye at the unruffled Qiudong. Assuming he would not want to answer, she tactfully kept quiet.

Unexpectedly, Qiudong shifted and lay across her shoulder, wrapping his tail like a scarf around the pale skin of her neck.

Unable to contain her delight, Cheng Miao grabbed a handful of tail fur. The tail whipped away, only to curl around her again a moment later.

“We can tell. You players can’t, unless you use an Item, but there’s little point.” Qiudong did not object to Cheng Miao taking advantage of his tail. He felt annoyed, though the tail itself swayed happily.

“Does it matter who is an NPC and who is a player? Outside an instance, neither side can hurt the other. Everyone is the same. Why distinguish between them?”

His questions silenced everyone who had wondered the same thing. Players had been forced to struggle through lethal games after entering the Survival Inn, so they naturally resented NPCs and the Inn itself. Even without conflicting interests outside instances, they remained wary.

“Have you never considered that if you hadn’t entered the Survival Inn, you might not have continued living in your original world?”

After saying that, Qiudong closed his deep blue eyes and gave them no chance to question him.

Cheng Miao walked quietly. She had considered it before. Following the usual infinite-flow formula, they had either suffered terminal illnesses or encountered fatal accidents.

In other words, the Survival Inn granted them a second life. It was simply more humane than most infinite-flow worlds and provided capable players with a more comfortable environment.

Their earlier visit to the bubble tea shop had shown Cheng Miao that everything except the room fee was inexpensive.

As long as someone could afford lodging, other living expenses were easy to manage.

Of course, that did not apply to Tong Qian and Bai Jiang, who had saved only enough for one night so they could see the new level.

After a walk of more than ten minutes, the six arrived at Authentic Old-Style Hot Pot. The restaurant lived up to its name. Before they entered, the rich aroma of chili peppers and red oil had Cheng Miao nearly drooling.

There was another reason it felt authentic: the two greeters outside were pandas.

Not people in panda costumes. Actual giant pandas.

Cheng Miao stared. She had never expected to see such precious wild animals here and leaned slightly closer.

One panda had been bowing to welcome them. Sensing her approach, it raised its enormous furry head and regarded Cheng Miao with endearingly guileless eyes.

Cheng Miao screamed internally at the cuteness and was about to pet its head when the cat tail around her neck casually slapped her cheek.

It did not hurt. It was soft and smelled like a cat.

Cheng Miao did not understand why Qiudong had hit her, but she was still delighted by the cat-tail slap and had yet to recover.

Then the panda leaned closer, opened its mouth, and spoke.

“Well, I’ll be! Isn’t that Miss Cheng?”