Chapter 15: Forum Frenzy

Outside Jiangnan City, the group had spent a moonless and heart-pounding night. Naturally, the game forums were buzzing with related posts the next day.

[Location: Imperial Palace. I got a lucky break! The chief eunuch most favored by Your Majesty took me as his adopted son. Sure, he has over a hundred adopted sons, but he said my aptitude is extraordinary and perfect for martial arts training. Maybe he’ll pass on a kung fu technique to me? Heat: 1000]

[On the borderlands, the cattle and sheep wander empty promises. Last night, I heard a love story from centuries ago from an NPC’s lips. I cried like a two-hundred-pound child. Heat: 2000]

[Intel Drop: Coroner! After chef and hunter, a brand-new life profession in Jianghu! Heat: 3000]

[Rational Discussion: Is Jiangnan City truly a hidden dragon’s lair? Where does the power ceiling lie? A mere night watchman at the Mortuary, Zhan Jueming, turns out to be a second-rate rivers-and-lakes expert from the past. Heat: 4000]

[Main Quest Hits Hard: Mortuary Nightmare! After sneaking into the Mortuary at night and examining the corpses by day, we uncovered a shocking truth. Then we crossed paths with Demonic Cult experts. It really makes you sigh, “Even at midnight, this jianghu never sleeps!” Heat: 70,000]

As a game reviewer, Five-Colored Mottled Black was notorious on the forums for being hopelessly addicted to the game and neglecting everything else.

His daily serial posts had become a favorite snack for many netizens to pair with their meals, and today was no exception.

[Last night, we infiltrated the Mortuary and meticulously examined the bodies of those dozen or so escort guards from the merchant caravan. Their deaths were utterly gruesome! I’m not a coroner player, but I could still sense the unavenged grievance on their faces, their eyes wide in death. As a great hero, how could I stand idly by? I swore in my heart to get to the bottom of this sunken ship incident!]

[We carefully collected the autopsy report when a eerie sound echoed, as if from the endless abyss, chilling to the bone. I was the first to notice something was wrong! Me, with my keen senses and sharp insight!]

[The other players panicked into chaos. I bellowed, “A true gentleman speaks not of monsters or spirits—this is a wuxia game, not a horror one!” I steadied everyone’s nerves, and I was quite pleased with myself.]

[Unfortunately… a spiritual leader must bear more burdens. I was grabbed by the throat by that Demonic Cult member and turned into a liability, held hostage to threaten my teammates. The Demonic Sect scum used me to pressure them. My teammates were reluctant to abandon me. I smiled and told them I was willing to sacrifice myself.]

[I feared no death. Even shrouded in its shadow, I could laugh and sing wildly. The Demonic Sect member was awestruck by my bravery and unyielding spirit.]

[From his trembling, icy fingers, I sensed deep dread. He must have thought to himself, “This kid has extraordinary resolve. He’ll be a major threat someday—can’t let him live!” And with that, he swiftly ended me.]

[That’s me: the man who became a Demonic Sect hostage and struck fear into their hearts.]

Who would have thought that one night could be so full of twists and perils? Forum users hailed it as thrilling, then started clamoring for the developers to release more closed beta slots.

[Ding! This post has been reported and banned by hundreds of users for excessive embellishment and deviation from the facts.]

Five-Colored Mottled Black huffed. [The ones reporting me are just jealous because I got a special title.] Being precisely targeted as a hostage out of hundreds of players was embarrassing, sure. But after earning that special title? Not embarrassing at all.

Once Five-Colored Mottled Black logged back in, he immediately equipped the title and flaunted it everywhere, pulling aggro left and right.

[Group up to hunt! 1/10,000. Life-Death Sect NPC Yin Wuxu drops the special title “Palm Quality.” He’s probably still alive—everyone, go farm him for the title!]

[If he’s really dead, we need to see the body! We don’t know if posing with the corpse gets the title, but we have to try!]

[Urgent! Coordinates 711,1046. I’m lost in the Jiangnan City suburbs—who can come pick me up? QAQ]

The 007 System, idly browsing the forums, read through these posts and came to a profound realization: Players would always be players when it came to bravery.

…

[Ding! Quests “Investigate Sunken Ship” and “River Hidden Truth” completed.]

[Ding! Quest “Find the Traitor” triggered!]

[Quest Description: After infiltrating the Mortuary and examining the corpses, Ruan Xuezong discovered something suspicious about the cause of death for everyone on the sunken ship. Who drugged their food and water while they were unconscious, leading to their drowning? Did the missing cargo sink to the river bottom, or was it diverted elsewhere? Young heroes, continue the investigation!]

[Quest Participants: Unlimited]

After the quest updated, the players glanced at their panels and sprang into action, trailing behind Ruan Xuezong once more.

Ruan Xuezong said, “The matter isn’t over yet. The dock shop owner mentioned that before departure, one of the escorts bought rations and fresh water from him—specifically requesting portions for sixteen people.”

“But yesterday, we only counted fifteen coffins!” At this point, the players had a sudden realization. The shop owner meant that sixteen people boarded the ship, but only fifteen drowned without a sound. That proved the traitor had boarded as well—and then returned as if nothing had happened.

Ruan Xuezong was pleased with their quick wits. “Exactly. And to successfully drug the food and water without raising suspicion, this traitor must be very familiar with the caravan and escorts. So we should focus on the Escort Agency and the Merchant Guild. Both keep detailed flower registers recording every member’s duty logs. The key to the clues lies in those registers.”

The players got it immediately. They split into two teams: one heading to the Escort Agency, led by Linghu Xiao; the other to the Merchant Guild, led by Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny.

Linghu Xiao had no trouble obtaining the flower register at the Escort Agency, but the escorts’ travel records all seemed suspicious.

The Heart Washing Escort Agency’s reputation had declined lately, but it was still a camel that outdid most horses. With twenty escorts in total, seven or eight were well-trained veterans.

This was such a valuable shipment; top experts should have been assigned. Yet right before departure, all those experts suddenly took leave, leaving the agency short-staffed and forced to send inexperienced young escorts instead.

Linghu Xiao sensed something off. “One taking leave is fine, but all of them? There must be something fishy! Did they fake their leaves and sneak onto the ship instead?”

That was entirely possible!

The players went to visit these “on-leave” experts in person. One NPC explained, “From Jiangnan to the Capital City, even rushing by land and water, escorting this shipment round trip would take at least two months. My wife is about to give birth, and the midwife says her symptoms are severe. She can’t be left alone—how could I set off with peace of mind?”

As he spoke, a pale-faced woman emerged from the house, looking frail from postpartum recovery, cradling a silk-wrapped infant. The NPC escort panicked and rushed over. “Darling, why did you come out? The wind is strong outside—go back in!”

“I thought I heard you talking about me, so I got curious and came to see.” The woman smiled warmly. Their eyes met, sparkling with an indescribable affection.

After this exchange laced with public displays of affection, the players could only take their leave.

The next NPC’s family had its own troubles: his younger brother had gotten into a brawl and was locked in the Jiangnan City Dungeon for reflection. In the bitter second month of the year, the dungeon conditions were harsh. To bail him out from the guards, the whole family was scrambling for connections, leaving the escort with no mind for the job.

The players sneaked into the Jiangnan City Dungeon and peered through the bars. Sure enough, a defiant young man was imprisoned there.

The youth shouted from his cell, “My brother’s a top-grade escort from the Heart Washing Escort Agency—you can’t afford to offend him! Let me out! I hit the guy, but he started it!”

The jailers ignored him completely.

After confirming the situation was legit, the players slipped out of the dungeon stealthily.

The one after that had broken his leg and couldn’t possibly escort.

Mentioning it, the NPC sighed bitterly. “I was just walking down the street when a carriage barreled into me out of nowhere. A hundred days to recover from muscle and bone injuries—stuck in this wheelchair for that long, how could I escort?”

No faking that. The players saw his legs wrapped in bandages stained white with seepage and knew the accident must have been harrowing!

Sighing from his wheelchair, the NPC lamented, “Alas, if only I could get the divine physician Shen Qionghua, famed for ‘hanging the pot to heal the world and miraculous hands that restore spring,’ to prescribe me something. I’d be back on my feet in no time.”

That familiar sigh made the players exchange glances. Sure enough, amid the errands, they picked up a new quest: [Get a fracture remedy from Divine Physician Shen].

The day passed in a blur of legwork and leveling.

Later, the players gathered to sum up. “Aside from the one whose wife was pregnant, every other escort had some ‘coincidental’ issue—like someone deliberately kept them from taking this job.” They jotted down their analysis. “Definitely the traitor’s doing!”

Meanwhile, Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny’s team had a harder time getting the flower register. As soon as she asked Manager Cao to let them review the Merchant Guild’s register for clues…

Manager Cao replied, “Young hero, wasn’t the sunken ship just an accident? The register won’t help.”

“It wasn’t an accident. We suspect a traitor.” Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny argued confidently. At her words, Manager Cao’s face stiffened slightly. He mumbled, “If it was an accident? That’s terrifying. We should leave it to the authorities…”

“The authorities are too slow. We hundreds of people can handle it faster.” More importantly, the quest called on them, the young heroes, to investigate themselves—not hand it off!

Her second request for the register was rejected again. Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny widened her eyes in confusion.

Manager Cao declared righteously, “You don’t understand, young hero! The Merchant Guild’s flower register is vital. It tracks personnel movements and records purchases and sales of rare goods—prices and such are highly sensitive. Business is a battlefield since ancient times. If other Jiangnan bosses got hold of those numbers, they’d use them to attack us. We can’t lend it out lightly.”

His reasons sounded perfectly valid. With no choice—the Heart Washing Merchant Guild was “one of their own”—and the NPCs refusing, they couldn’t just rob them. The team returned to Ruan Xuezong empty-handed.

“Empty-handed?” Ruan Xuezong smiled. “Manager Cao refusing to lend you the register already says plenty.”

To show how much he valued these players, he held discussions with the managers in the main hall, and not a single player was absent. The two earliest manor “veterans,” Linghu Xiao and Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny, stood imposingly to his left and right like trusted retainers. These managers, seasoned foxes who had handled guild affairs for years, knew exactly what that meant.

If even Sichuan Pepper Little Bunny couldn’t borrow it, how suspicious was that? In their panic, the traitor had already shown his hand.

“We think so too! Manager Cao’s definitely guilty!” The players rubbed their fists eagerly. “Let’s just grab it!”

Brute force for the win!

“Not yet—too late for that.” Ruan Xuezong shook his head. His calm, measured tone was like that of a skilled shepherd reeling in eager young beasts from breaking through the fence.

“You already startled him this morning. By afternoon, he could tidy everything up, making the register look flawless.”

“Whoa?”

Ruan Xuezong continued, “In this sunken ship case, Manager Cao has no martial arts and could only drug the food. How did the ship sink? He must have powerful backing. You lot keep pressing him to borrow the register, while others tail him for a few days—watch who he meets, what he says.”

In just a few words, he not only sent them running errands but also offloaded the grunt work of all-day surveillance.

The players nodded enthusiastically and swiftly formed shifts—two hours each, rotating seamlessly. Their beaming faces showed they didn’t mind the hardship; they were enjoying it.

Ruan Xuezong overheard their chatter.

“This quest chains so perfectly—it’s clearly a major storyline. Everyone, work together! We’re the pioneering team!”

“If your group advances the plot, report it! No hogging all the rewards!”

“Guaranteed! Guaranteed!”

Ruan Xuezong: “…”

Another moonless, windy night descended on the silent streets of Jiangnan City. Only the listless clanging of the night watchman’s gong echoed in the distance.

Manager Cao poked his head out from his residence. He glanced around cautiously, saw no one, shut the door, and hurried off.

These past days had weighed heavily on him, his mind preoccupied, so he paid no heed to his surroundings.

Otherwise, if he’d just looked up, he would have spotted a pack of green-eyed, wolfish players perched on his roof.

Their eager expressions were downright chilling, as if Manager Cao weren’t a middle-aged man in his forties, but some irresistibly tempting peerless beauty.