“They, they left. I, waaah, I never want brothers or sisters again.”
Su Ximu did not immediately comfort her. He reached out to pat the little girl who was crying her heart out and quietly listened to her sob.
The Silver Little Hamster, which had originally been dozing on the floor, was woken by the crying. A flash of confusion passed through its black bean-like eyes before it scrambled up with all four paws and climbed into Dudu’s pocket along her pants leg.
“I hate Dad… I hate Mom…”
“I don’t like Qianqian and Xiao Ming either!”
Dudu cried with her head thrown back, her mouth wide open as tears streamed from the corners of her eyes into her hair.
At that moment, Su Ximu took out a tissue to wipe the little girl’s tears and finally spoke. “But Dudu still let them go home in the end.”
Dudu, still sniffling, rummaged around in her pocket and pulled out something fluffy to wipe her face with.
The fluffy thing remained very calm. Even though its fur was soaked, it did not move at all.
This made Su Ximu mistake it for just a small furball for a moment, rather than a little hamster with its face turned inward.
“They didn’t want to stay here with me. I don’t care about them.”
The little girl emphasized once more that she did not want companionship that was forced.
But now that she thought about it, she felt a little regretful.
She should not have returned Xiao Mu Brother’s gift to them.
They were all leaving anyway—what use was Xiao Mu Brother’s gift to them!
Dai Qian’s exit from the dungeon was rather embarrassing.
It was as if she had tumbled into a drum washing machine and rolled right out of it.
If her colleagues who had been waiting there had not caught her midway, Dai Qian probably would have rolled all the way to the corner of the wall before crashing headfirst into it.
But no matter what, she had made it out of the dungeon.
Not in the conventional way of clearing it.
Instead, the dungeon horror had gone easy on her.
Dungeon horror.
Going easy.
These were two words that were almost impossible to associate with each other.
After exiting the dungeon, Dai Qian rested briefly and happened to catch a rational reporting meeting at the Weird Tales Confidentiality Bureau.
Zhao Yanhan sat at one end of the conference table as usual, with Lin Lan, who was also attending the meeting, beside him.
Several leaders and deputy leaders of the action group, as well as key members who were available, had all come to listen in.
This was also a channel for them to learn more deeply about the weird world.
Naturally, Dai Qian, who had just come out of the dungeon, was the first to report.
Wu Ming was a registered player with the Confidentiality Bureau but not a member, so he was not there at the time.
Dai Qian briefly reported everything she had experienced in the dungeon.
Finally, when everyone in the conference room heard how she had exited the dungeon, they all looked surprised.
If not for Bureau Chief Lin and the others’ 【Weird 101】 instance holding things down beforehand, everyone present probably would have suspected that Dai Qian had damaged her brain upon exiting the dungeon.
Fortunately, after the previous 【Weird 101】 instance, everyone’s tolerance had improved quite a bit.
Compared to letting 101 players go, having two more did not seem all that surprising now.
But what was worth noting was that the dungeon horror which had let Dai Qian and Wu Ming go seemed to have a good relationship with the horror codenamed 【Star Sequence】, according to Dai Qian.
Could it be…
That the saying “birds of a feather flock together” applied not only to the human world but also to the weird world?
Dai Qian had spent quite a long time in the dungeon this time and had missed the previous 【Weird 101】 incident.
This time, after reporting such a major situation, the reactions from her colleagues were not as strong as she had expected, which left her puzzled.
Thus, after she finished her report and sat down to whisper with the colleague beside her, she ended up being the shocked one instead.
That teenager named Su Ximu actually had such deep ties with their Confidentiality Bureau? The Bureau had even given him a special codename.
Dai Qian slapped her thigh in regret, hating herself for being so stingy with her merit points before entering the dungeon and not buying any in-dungeon communication props before heading in.
Otherwise, knowing the outside situation, she could at least have tried chatting with that teenager. She had even called him “Xiao Mu Brother” several times, after all.
With that thought, Dai Qian remembered something else and quickly took out the item she had brought back from the dungeon.
“What’s this?” someone in the conference room asked.
Dai Qian shook her head. “I don’t know.”
It did not seem like a weird prop. If it were a prop, she would have received at least some information about it by now.
“I’m not too sure. This is a gift from 【Star Sequence】. From what he said at the time, this light orb might be able to protect something? 【Star Sequence】 seemed to know about the Du Family situation. He originally gave this to Dudu, probably intending for us to use it for self-defense.”
Dai Qian quickly adapted and started using the codename like everyone else.
In an instant, everyone’s gazes gathered on the small glass bottle on the desk.
Inside the bottle, a small light orb like a firefly floated there, flickering on and off, giving off an inexplicable sense of tranquility.
Soon after, someone from the research group arrived. With Dai Qian accompanying them, they temporarily took the glass bottle to the research lab.
Next up was the report from another action group member who had also exited a dungeon that day.
Better off than Dai Qian, this one had at least exchanged for a relatively cheap prop from the Bureau before entering.
It was a camera that could take photos in the weird world and bring them back to the real world.
It looked somewhat like a phone.
It only had three chances to take photos in total.
The first was a relatively normal photo of the dungeon environment. From the blurriness, it was clear this had been snapped in a hurry.
The latter two were somewhat special.
Xu Yanyan from Group B held up the photos as she reported. “Everyone knows about the Su Corporation Building sub-dungeon 【Earth-Wood Nightmare】. The content mainly revolves around the Su Consortium’s Construction Department. But unlike the general process recorded by the Bureau previously, this time in the dungeon, not only did I have to work with high efficiency, but I also joined all the other weirds from the Construction Department in launching and participating in a small-scale war between weirds.”
“Using the excuse of photographing ‘captives’ as cover, in the second and third photos, I captured the specific appearances of the 【Earth-Wood Nightmare】 dungeon horror and the 【Information Department Daily Routine】 dungeon horror, respectively.”
Skipping over the pile of Mountain Crows in the truck bed, Sales 01 and Information 01 did indeed appear in the photos.
The photos circulated among the attendees one by one. When they reached Rao Fei, his expression was similar to everyone else’s while looking at the first two.
Until the third.
His left hand, resting on the armrest, suddenly clenched into a fist. His eyes stared unblinkingly at the side profile of the bound Mountain Crow on the top of the truck bed in the third photo.
“It’s him!” Rao Fei shot to his feet and squeezed the words through gritted teeth. From his tone, it seemed he wished he could jump into the photo right then and bite off a chunk of the other’s flesh.
Xu Yanyan, seeing the recently promoted Deputy Team Leader Rao’s reaction, immediately asked, “Who?”
Rao Fei flipped the photo around toward Xu Yanyan. “A weird full of lies.”
“Mountain Crow 02?” Xu Yanyan blurted out subconsciously.
She had gained quite a bit from this dungeon. On the way back, she had overheard ‘colleague’ Mountain Crow 15 sharing plenty of Mountain Crow family gossip.
Such as the owner of Mountain Crow 02 and his past, and so on.
Of course, there was also Mountain Crow 15’s firm verdict on Mountain Crow 02’s personality: a guy who spawned endless deception and greed from his cowardice.
The weirds in the Construction Department were mostly straightforward types who did not think much of such fellows.
Xu Yanyan had casually joined in the spitting at the time.
Now, seeing Deputy Team Leader Rao’s reaction, it seemed he had an old grudge with this Mountain Crow 02?
“Did he die?” Rao Fei asked, then added, “This Mountain Crow 02.”
Xu Yanyan recalled for a moment and shook her head regretfully. “Nope. I heard he had some kind of prop called a Substitute Puppet. The body in the photo soon turned into a Xiao Muen doll.”
Xu Yanyan had only joined the Confidentiality Bureau in the last two years, so she did not know the reason for Rao Fei’s reaction.
But some of the Bureau’s veterans present exchanged subtle glances and had their own guesses.
A weird characterized by lies.
Among the people in the Bureau over the years who had been deceived by weirds into getting trapped in dungeons—and who also had a good relationship with Rao Fei—who else could it be?
Su Yue, of course.
Just as they spoke, before Rao Fei could press further, a sharp, piercing alarm blared through the entire conference room and the whole Confidentiality Bureau.
Zhao Yanhan, who had been seated at the head, immediately stood up. He personally escorted Lin Lan quickly to the safe room before heading straight out of the Confidentiality Bureau building to the courtyard.
By the time he arrived, the action group members from the conference room were all ready. Rao Fei honked the horn of the large truck he was driving.
Zhao Yanhan leaped onto the truck and opened the door to the passenger seat.
“Monitoring Group, report the situation.” As soon as he sat down, Zhao Yanhan picked up the walkie-talkie and spoke into it.
About ten seconds later, a voice came through the walkie-talkie again.
“Coordinates entered into navigation. Please proceed at full speed.”
“Road clearance provided by the front department.”
“According to monitoring, that location experienced a violent energy fluctuation five minutes ago. The fluctuation is roughly similar to the previous player absorption waves captured by the Monitoring Group, but the intensity is on a completely different level.”
“From our preliminary analysis…” The Monitoring Group leader, whose voice usually lacked emotional fluctuation, paused unusually for two seconds before continuing. “Preliminary analysis suggests that the Central Bureau’s worst-case scenario may have arrived.”
“A weird dungeon is merging with the real world.”
“Location: Hua’an Street, Hi Bar Game Hall.”
