Chapter 240
Chapter 240
“Little Red Riding Hood, you dropped this.”
Yang Zhen stared blankly at the object in her hands, then looked up at the person who had given it to her.
It was a middle-aged woman. She smiled at Yang Zhen, offered no further explanation, and walked away after handing over the item.
What was going on?
Yang Zhen lowered her gaze to the basket.
She knew Little Red Riding Hood was a character from a fairy tale. Embarrassingly, though, while she had heard of the story, she did not know its actual plot.
Not everyone knew it. There was nothing strange about her ignorance, was there?
She had grown up an orphan, too busy surviving to care about anything else. Once she began earning money, she had devoted herself to learning useful things.
Fairy tales?
No, no. She had neither the money for storybooks nor the energy to read them.
And so–
A serious problem emerged.
What exactly happened in Little Red Riding Hood?
Yang Zhen rummaged through the basket.
It contained a cake and a bottle of wine.
What was this? Was she supposed to eat them?
Yang Zhen looked thoroughly lost.
At the same time, Qin Nan and Jian Fan approached.
“Cake and wine?” Qin Nan glanced into the basket. “Next you should go find Grandmother. But we can’t leave the ball, so where are you supposed to find her?”
He turned toward Jian Fan, expecting an answer.
“Don’t ask meaningless questions,” Jian Fan replied coldly.
Where would she find Grandmother?
Inside the ball, obviously.
As for how, that depended on what happened next. Besides, finding Grandmother might not even be the requirement. Jian Fan looked at Yang Zhen. “Did you receive a quest?”
Yang Zhen looked up blankly. “What quest?”
“Then it hasn’t triggered yet,” Qin Nan said.
Yang Zhen caught the important word and immediately asked, “I have a quest? Each of us will trigger a plot quest tied to our role?”
Qin Nan nodded. He waited for her to ask how they knew. Yang Zhen did speak, but her question was–
“What’s Little Red Riding Hood about?” she asked with complete seriousness.
Qin Nan: “???”
Jian Fan: “???”
“You don’t know?” Qin Nan asked in shock.
Yang Zhen curled her lip. “Is that strange? Who says everyone has to know these fairy tales? Why should my ignorance be strange? Do you know the inner workings of the assassin community?”
“Those aren’t the same thing,” Qin Nan said speechlessly.
But Yang Zhen’s ignorance of Little Red Riding Hood made Qin Nan suddenly turn toward Jian Fan.
“I had a childhood,” Jian Fan replied coldly.
His personality did keep him from engaging much with popular entertainment such as games, movies, or television. That did not mean his childhood had been entirely different from everyone else’s.
He might have been more intelligent than most children, but fundamentally, he had still been a child.
“Since you both know it, why don’t you explain?” Yang Zhen interrupted.
Qin Nan turned back. “It’s a very simple story. Little Red Riding Hood–that’s you–takes this basket to visit her grandmother. She encounters the Big Bad Wolf, gets deceived, gets eaten, and is finally rescued by a hunter.”
A string of question marks appeared in Yang Zhen’s mind.
“She gets eaten, and then… rescued? She’s still alive?” Yang Zhen demanded in shock.
Qin Nan nodded. “The hunter cuts open the Big Bad Wolf’s belly and rescues Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother.”
Yang Zhen: “???”
“So wolves in fairy tales swallow people whole? Aren’t they afraid of choking to death?” Yang Zhen asked.
Qin Nan paused, then had only one thing to say to her. “That’s an excellent question. Why don’t you ask the author?”
Yang Zhen: “…”
“I may not have read these fairy tales, but I’m not stupid. The author’s been dead for how many years? Who am I supposed to ask?” Yang Zhen rolled her eyes at him.
Qin Nan did not answer. Instead, he looked at Jian Fan. “See?”
Jian Fan gave him a look that said he could draw his own conclusion.
“What secret signals are you two exchanging?” Yang Zhen asked. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “This basket is for visiting Grandmother? What do I do now? Find her?”
She swept her gaze across the crowd. “Which one is Grandmother?”
Qin Nan shrugged.
He truly could not answer that.
“Did you receive quests?” Yang Zhen asked again.
Qin Nan nodded. “Yes. They’re tied to our own plots. We still need to observe the situation before deciding the details.” Looking around, he asked, “Are you alone?”
Yang Zhen raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t splitting up faster for finding clues?”
What could Qin Nan say? He did not care either way.
“Then keep searching,” he said, then greeted Jian Fan. “Shall we continue?”
Jian Fan gave a quiet sound of agreement.
The two soon left. Yang Zhen watched them but did not hurry after them. Once they disappeared, she returned to the NPC conversations and continued gathering information.
This time, she added a new subject to her inquiries.
She began searching for the grandmother she was supposed to visit.
Qin Nan and Jian Fan resumed their search for Mu Xin.
Whether the ballroom was simply too large or the five of them were extraordinarily unlucky, both groups were searching for each other yet still failed to meet.
While they sought their teammates, the others were also actively gathering clues.
Of them all, Fang Kang probably had it hardest.
Life was difficult for Fang Kang.
He hopped laboriously through the crowd. The slightest lapse in attention could bring an enormous foot crashing down from above, so he had to keep hopping and dodge the NPCs’ shoes.
He hopped and hopped.
After what felt like ages, he seemed to have gone nowhere at all.
He had learned nothing and barely grasped the situation, yet he was already exhausted.
He was simply too tired to keep hopping.
He did not want to hop anymore.
Fang Kang jumped onto someone’s shoe, flopped onto his back with his belly facing upward and all four limbs spread, and stared lifelessly at the ceiling.
Oh, the ceiling was so high. He could jump for a lifetime and never reach it.
Oh, heavens. Why was this person walking so unevenly? He was about to be thrown off.
…
Countless thoughts entirely unrelated to the mission drifted through Fang Kang’s mind.
He was truly–exhausted.
If given a choice, he wished he could have become a larger animal, perhaps a lion or tiger. Failing that, a pair of wings like that little girl had would do.
Fang Kang sighed like a frog.