Chapter 73

Chapter 73

He looked at the little boy. “Doctor Shen, if you hadn’t seen Xiangfeng and thought of the sounds those children made earlier, you might not have realized it was me in disguise at all.”

Shen Zhiwang clenched his fists and pulled Zhu Xiangfeng behind him. “So what?”

“That makes all the difference.” Ning Shuo stood up and patted down the hem of his clothes. “I didn’t make a move because I only had one cake. If I picked the wrong child, that would be a problem. Now that I’m sure which one is Xiangfeng, who cares about you?”

Shen Zhiwang considered himself fairly capable in a fight.

Though that little bit of skill was nothing in front of the former number-one Swordsman.

After knocking Shen Zhiwang unconscious, Ning Shuo even put on a show of settling him into a chair and covering him with a thin blanket. “Uncle Doctor fell asleep, so don’t wake him up, okay?”

Looking at Ning Shuo’s face and white coat, the children nodded. Ning Shuo took the “little boy” by the hand and removed the Disguise from her face, revealing Zhu Xiangfeng’s somewhat pale features.

He brought Zhu Xiangfeng into Shen Zhiwang’s break room. “Xiangfeng, want some cake?”

When she saw the strawberry cake he took out, Zhu Xiangfeng’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, big brother. This is Xiangfeng’s favorite cake.”

Separated by just one door, one person ate cake in quiet peace, while the other watched over a group of children.

The door was left slightly ajar. Ning Wang kept an eye on the children outside for Ning Shuo, making sure they did not run around.

He looked at the silent Luo Li beside him. “Now, do you still think it’s a coincidence?”

Lolita’s face was expressionless. “I guess… I’m kind of ridiculous.”

She had followed Rao Lin all for the sake of bringing Zhu Xiangfeng back to life.

Yet she had not even recognized Zhu Xiangfeng when the girl was right in front of her, and had even thought it might just be a case of sharing the same name.

That afternoon, when Ning Shuo left and she took away the strawberry cake, she had sincerely hoped that this Zhu Xiangfeng was not Xiangfeng.

If she was not Xiangfeng, then maybe she would not like strawberry cake.

That way, Luo Li, who had no idea what this Zhu Xiangfeng liked to eat, could comfort herself and think of some other way to stop the other side.

But the System just had to play such a huge joke on her, laying the name “Zhu Xiangfeng” bare right in front of her. And still, Luo Li had not managed to step out of the circle trapping her.

It was even impossible to tell whether the System had done it intentionally or not when, from the very beginning, it had placed Luo Li in the Destructive Angels faction.

A bleak, bitter smile appeared on Lolita’s pale face. “It’s disgusting.”

Utterly disgusting.

Ning Wang said leisurely, “Judging by the state you’re in, you can’t keep doing this mission anymore, can you?”

Luo Li’s gaze remained fixed on that door. “If I still could, then I’d be pretty disgusting myself.”

“Hey, don’t say that.” Ning Wang patted her on the head. “We didn’t stop my brother because we needed to confirm Zhu Xiangfeng’s true identity. Now that we’ve confirmed it, what we need to do next is much simpler and clearer.”

“Do you remember that there was one very strange point in this Script, something all the NPCs seemed to take for granted?”

Luo Li looked at him. “Xiangfeng’s guardian?”

“Correct. No prize.”

Luo Li: “…”

Ning Wang said, “Zhu Xiangfeng is eight years old now, but she doesn’t have a guardian. At the same time, she isn’t from an orphanage either. That situation is already strange for an eight-year-old child, but what’s even stranger is…”

The voices inside and outside the door overlapped. Inside, Ning Shuo gently asked Zhu Xiangfeng, “Xiangfeng doesn’t seem to feel unfamiliar with us approaching her. Why is that?”

Zhu Xiangfeng sounded as if it were only natural. “Haven’t you always been the one taking care of me as I grew up?”

Ning Shuo had asked about “us,” but Zhu Xiangfeng’s answer was “you.”

Ning Shuo raised an eyebrow and continued coaxing her patiently. “Then does Xiangfeng like us?”

Zhu Xiangfeng thought for a moment, then nodded and shook her head. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.”

“When do you like us?”
“When Xiangfeng wants something and you promise it to me.”

“Then when do you not like me?”

Xiangfeng hesitated. She lifted her eyes to glance at him, then quickly lowered them again. “Um… when you clearly promised me, but then go back on it.”

Outside the door, Luo Li listened to the voices inside. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and only after a long while did she say, “Xiangfeng once said her family was very happy. Whatever she wanted, as long as her mom and dad agreed to it, they would make it happen for her.”

Ning Wang looked thoughtful. “So this Script is presenting the exact opposite.”

Or rather, it was more like a split.

The Guardian Angels and the Destructive Angels represented the two states of the “you” Zhu Xiangfeng spoke of.

The Destructive Angels’ extremely high degree of freedom also symbolized Zhu Xiangfeng disliking “you.”

Ning Wang said, “The Murderer in this Script can’t possibly be the Destructive Angels.”

Luo Li shook her head. “It has to be an NPC. We just don’t know their name yet.”

Ning Wang put on a troubled expression. “If we still can’t find the Notary Office and the Murderer by tomorrow morning, we’ll be trapped in this Script too.”

The moment he finished speaking, Ning Shuo opened the room door with Zhu Xiangfeng in his arms. “I know the Murderer’s name.”

…

The guardian field in Zhu Xiangfeng’s file hadn’t been blank. Rather, after the Players logged into the Script, their tasks had replaced the guardian, which was why the guardian information had been invisible all this time.

In truth, the guardian had always been there.

Zhu Xiangfeng said, “My mom’s name is Huang Yanmei. Everyone says she picks through trash.”

Ning Wang said, “In that case, the deserted garbage dump facing Luo Li’s ward window…”

Ning Shuo said, “She’s often there.”

According to the other NPCs, Luo Li was Zhu Xiangfeng’s good friend.

When Zhu Xiangfeng came to play with Luo Li, perhaps someone had been watching from afar on the other side of the window.

Ning Wang took over the work from his unwell older brother and carried Zhu Xiangfeng toward Qin Genan’s ward. “Then when I was hanging there…?”

Ning Shuo followed behind him at an unhurried pace. “You couldn’t tell if someone was staring at you?”

Ning Wang gave an awkward laugh. “Then my luck was pretty good. I just happened to run into a time when she wasn’t there.”

He asked Ning Shuo, “What about the Notary Office?”

“There’s even less hurry about that. Once the plan is fully underway, the Notary Office won’t be able to avoid showing itself even if it wants to.”

“Besides, we’ve searched every place we could over the past two days. There’s only one place left.”

The garbage dump.

Ning Wang fell silent for a moment. “If the Notary Office really is there, she’s got guts, staying in the same place as the Notary Office.”

“As long as no Player goes to make an Accusation against her, she could stand inside the Notary Office chatting with the Clown and nothing would happen.”

They went to each Player’s ward and explained the plan. In the end, the eight-person group set off in grand procession toward the garbage dump.

Shen Zhiwang rubbed his still-sore neck. “If I’d known we’d end up in the same faction in less than ten minutes, who would’ve forced themselves to fight you?”

“I’ll give it a rub. We’ve got a long night ahead.”

Ning Shuo had just been about to reach out when someone intercepted his wrist. Ning Wang had Ning Shuo hold Zhu Xiangfeng’s hand, then reached out to massage Shen Zhiwang himself. “Where does it hurt? Here?”

“Hiss… wait, wait, wait, with that grip strength of yours, it’ll hurt even more later!”

Luo Li’s heart, which she hadn’t been used to in the first place, seemed to feel even more uncomfortable in this Script because of her connection with Zhu Xiangfeng. So for this part of the journey, Yu Qian carried her on his back.

Zhuang Yao walked beside Qin Genan. “Men in love are so childish.”

Qin Genan shook her head in disagreement. “If I were in love, I definitely wouldn’t be like him, telling everyone he meets all about his relationship with Ning Shuo. Not manly at all.”

“Keep your voice down. If I say they’re dating, he’ll get all worked up and insist they’re not,” Zhuang Yao said, pointing at Ning Shuo’s smiling face. “And they call that not dating? What a joke.”