Chapter 47
Chapter 47
“Which tavern did you visit? I’ll write it down so I don’t accidentally go somewhere a diamond fiend has been.”
Xiao Huai’s heartbeat quickened. He had spent the entire journey following the white sedan and had paid little attention to the surrounding buildings.
Diamond Town was only so large and could not have many taverns. If he invented one at random, the lie could easily unravel.
His lips parted as he searched through the hazy images in his memory. Just as he was about to speak, Lu Yuanshi supplied a name first.
“Rainbow Tavern.”
Xiao Huai looked at him tensely. How could he simply blurt out a name?
The man had slept through the entire ride. If anything, he was even less reliable than Xiao Huai.
The guard looked briefly startled, then forced himself to act calm. “Rainbow Tavern? Ah. So it was Rainbow Tavern.”
“Yes,” Lu Yuanshi replied evenly.
“All right… I never go there anyway, but thanks for telling me. Oh, and don’t forget these: your visitor badges.”
After another brief exchange of pleasantries, the two men entered the Diamond Factory.
The guard watched their figures recede as he slowly returned to his booth with the wine in hand, muttering all the way.
“Rainbow Tavern. Never would’ve guessed those two had that kind of relationship. Tsk, tsk. Young people certainly know how to have fun these days.”
Meanwhile, Xiao Huai had no idea the middle-aged guard had firmly classified him as part of the rainbow crowd.
He was utterly unaware of the implication.
“Good memory.” As they walked, Xiao Huai nudged Lu Yuanshi’s arm with his elbow.
“And you’re a good actor,” Lu Yuanshi replied softly.
His voice resembled clouds at the edge of the sky, gentle yet carrying an intangible sense of distance.
Xiao Huai shrugged. He could indeed lie as naturally as breathing, without so much as a blush or a stutter.
That was why he sometimes wondered if he had once been a little con artist.
Ever since entering this instance, Xiao Huai had paid no attention to his channel on the Gods’ Livestream.
He had long held the number-one position in Newcomer Zone, District 1.
The god who had sent him that bottle of red wine flooded the stream with comments, proclaiming that the wine had been a personal gift.
Then Xiao Huai handed it to someone else the very next second. The god was heartbroken.
Yet the more unattainable Xiao Huai seemed, the more obsessed the god became, seized by the urge to send him ten more cases.
The other gods urged restraint: That wine was expensive!
There was something else unusual about the Gods’ Livestream. The viewers could not make out Lu Yuanshi’s face, and even his voice came through blurred.
At first, they had assumed it was a system error. But they were there to watch Xiao Huai, so they paid little attention to the bug.
At the gods’ feast, Loki toyed with a butterfly knife while watching the projection before him.
The man in the image was extraordinarily handsome, his bloodred eyes as exquisite as the finest red wine, irresistibly drawing Loki’s gaze.
Grinning, Loki took a bottle of champagne from a server. Once the alcohol hit his stomach, he burst into wild laughter.
“Hee-hee-hee! How fascinating. You really did enter *Diamond Magnate*. You really joined this game. Will you make it out alive? Hee-hee.”
His laughter was utterly deranged. The gods around him were long accustomed to it. They continued chatting among themselves and dining with several players who had received invitations.
At that moment, a member of the JOKER organization entered the banquet hall. Wearing a clown mask, he approached Loki and knelt on one knee.
“My lord, did you summon me?”
Loki glanced at him, still grinning, bloodlust gleaming in his eyes. “I did. I haven’t received your tribute yet.”
The man carefully drew a small black box from his clothes. “My deepest apologies. Players have become increasingly vigilant lately. These were all the hearts we managed to collect.”
Loki opened the box. Its interior contained a space far larger than its outer dimensions, where hundreds of hearts continued to beat.
The man was so nervous he did not dare move, terrified that Loki might become angry.
To his surprise, Loki merely patted him lightly on the head. “Well done.”
The man froze. The God of Mischief’s moods had always been impossible to predict. Loki must have been in an unusually good mood, and the man had been fortunate enough to benefit from it.
Loki waved one hand. Every heart inside the black box vanished. Then he casually tossed the empty box back to the man.
His gaze returned to Xiao Huai’s image in the projection. His grin stretched almost to his ears, and the true face of a clown flickered across his features from time to time.
“Hee-hee. So beautiful. I wonder how beautiful his heart will be. Once you’re trapped inside the instance, I’ll have plenty of time to play with you… Hmm, what should I make you into? A diamond doll? No, that’s too dull. A puppet? Hee-hee, no. That’s boring too…” Loki muttered to himself.
Then the watch on his wrist began beeping. His brow furrowed. “Oh dear. I’m going to be late.”
Loki glanced at the JOKER member. “Keep working hard. Your organization will be well rewarded.”
He strode away, laughing loudly.
Loki was due to play an NPC in a tenth-floor instance. By the time he returned, he would probably be able to visit Diamond Town and find Xiao Huai.
* * *
As Xiao Huai walked, he suddenly sneezed. Was it because of the cold?
He paid it no attention. With a visitor badge, he could move through the Diamond Factory much more boldly.
The factory was enormous. Finding clues inside would not be easy.
Ordinarily, splitting up would have made the search simpler.
But because a lone diamond fiend’s scent was stronger than the combined scent of two, Xiao Huai decided not to separate from Lu Yuanshi for now.
As a diamond factory, the facility naturally produced diamonds for sale. Large-scale diamond production, however, was far from commonplace.
A diamond was merely a natural mineral with no inherent value. Publicity and marketing had elevated a worthless stone into the aristocrat of minerals.
The factory also operated under a strict organizational hierarchy, with separate departments, workshops, and schedules.
But so what? A factory had only one general manager.
Xiao Huai smiled faintly and strode openly into the facility.
Several employees passed him and Lu Yuanshi. After seeing their visitor badges, they paid the pair little attention. Xiao Huai, however, called out to them.
“Wait.”
There was nothing furtive about his manner, despite having infiltrated the factory. He stopped one employee with seasoned authority, as if he had come home.
He even carried himself like an executive conducting an inspection.
The employee he stopped had a few freckles and Asian features. Bluish-black circles ringed his eyes, and his back was badly hunched. He looked as if he had worked overtime for two weeks straight and might collapse dead at any moment.
“Um… Can I help you?” the employee asked, his voice scarcely louder than a mosquito’s buzz.