Chapter 71
Once Tang Mo entered the instance and knew he and Fu Wenduo would have to face 21 players, he started to think about whether he could cooperate with other players or not. It was impossible to hide their identities for a false cooperation. There were large letters above Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo’s head, making it difficult to ignore them.
Any player who saw the letters above their heads would know that they were Mr. A and Mr. B. Their identities couldn’t be hidden.
Originally, Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo agreed to take care of the players in batches in seven days. Just like when they caught Wang Yinggui and Old Niao, locking them into cages was tantamount to reducing combat effectiveness and the number of opponents. After seven days, they might face fewer than 10 enemies. Then they would use the characteristic of the earthworm to drill a hole and dig a road to the circus.
But the black tower hit them with a surprise.
After sending Lin Yi back, Tang Mo returned to the store. When he brought Lin Yi back, he knocked her out and prevented her from seeing their current base. But before sending Lin Yi away, Fu Wenduo said, “Change locations.”
“Okay.”
Tang Mo nodded and left the tailor’s store with Fu Wenduo.
They changed locations just in case Lin Yi guessed the position of the store. Sure enough, five players rushed into the store three hours later. Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo watched from a stone wall in the distance as the five people walked into the store. They came out after a long time, holding an empty sack in their hands.
A low male voice was heard, “Sure enough.”
Tang Mo nodded. “The female player seems to have an investigative ability. She is sensitive to the surrounding environment and really could guess the location. The original reason why I could catch her was because her ability isn’t offensive. It is likely that she was sent to track the other times.” Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo left once they saw Lin Yi’s group of five leave the store.
Fu Wenduo said, “It seems that they will cooperate. There was no arrangement for people to hide and the five of them directly entered. This was to negotiate, not to ambush.”
Tang Mo agreed. “After seeing the three players’ miserable death, they should understand that the ones in this game to kill them are more likely to be the stowaways than Mr. A and Mr. B.” Tang Mo continued, “It is a pity. I hadn’t expected the four stowaways to be so strong that I almost couldn’t escape death at their hands.”
The two people took a lap around the capital and appeared on the other end of the city. It was a long-neglected dilapidated house that looked like it was in the slums. Every room was shabby and there was a big hole in the roof. The sunlight leaked through the whole onto the ground, illuminating a large cage in the middle of the room.
A black cage covered the cage, hiding the big earthworm inside. The sound of banging against the cave and cries never ended. Tang Mo didn’t have to open the black cloth to know that this earthworm was stupidly crashing against the cage again and that it would be crying fake tears.
He ignored it. Once he entered this broken house, Tang Mo finally relaxed.
“Today was a smooth ride. There were no serious injuries and the earthworm wasn’t stolen by them.” The previous exchange of information with Fu Wenduo was too hasty. Both of them couldn’t speak clear details. Tang Mo carefully asked, “What are the abilities of the players you met?”
Fu Wenduo explained first. “They are a five people squad. Apart from the female player you followed, there are four male players. The leader is a man wearing glasses. He should be the captain that the woman spoke about. His ability is related to the playing cards. However, I didn’t see their role as the time we fought against each other was too short. They had four people and I was alone. It would be very difficult to overcome them. Both sides have a 50% chance of winning and dragging it out too long wasn’t good for me. In the end, we only fought for four minutes before I escaped, while they saved the two players.”
Tang Mo had long known that Wang Yinggui and Old Niao was rescued. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have deliberately said that he and Fu Wenduo ate two players a few days ago. It was in order to make up for the difference in numbers and hide the fact that they were players as well.
Fu Wenduo continued, “Of those four men, putting aside the one in glasses, there is one with an ability related to shoot four rockets at a time. Each one is extremely fast, close to the speed of a bullet, and has high lethality. There is also a person with a medical ability.”
Tang Mo’s eyes brightened. “A medical ability?”
Tang Mo currently had over 10 abilities, none of which were related to healing. He only had the earthworm’s tear prop to heal any wounds. If he was seriously injured and dying, he would be in a crisis if the tear ran out of uses.
However, Fu Wenduo’s next words quickly broke Tang Mo’s hope. “It is a very strange medical ability. The player himself is very powerful and fast, but he didn’t use the ability. I looked back while I was running away and saw him putting his hands on the two players were had captured. The two players soon fell asleep, their expressions serene and their breathing calmed down.” Fu Wenduo added, “As you know, the two players didn’t have good spirits due to being kicked around by that monster.”
Tang Mo knew but he was more concerned about something else. “Were their wound healed? The two players weren’t badly hurt but they had many bruises.”
Fu Wenduo replied, “No.”
Tang Mo licked his lips.
The small wounds on the body weren’t healed. Then this player’s medical ability was likely to be related to mental treatment. This wasn’t an ability that Tang Mo wanted.
Once clarifying the abilities of the five player squad, Tang Mo started to explain what he encountered with the four stowaways. He described the bald man who could turn into a brown bear, the beautiful youth who controlled insects and the middle-aged man who threw countless knives. Finally, he paused and calmly looked at Fu Wenduo. “Fu Wenduo, I met an acquaintance.”
He said Fu Wenduo instead of Tang Ji.
Tang Mo was very serious this time. Inside the helmet, Fu Wenduo’s eyes narrowed as he realized that Tang Mo’s next words were very important.
Tang Mo spoke in a calm tone. “You also know them. In Pinocchio’s Honest Card game, there was a female player on your team. After we decided to cooperate, she represented the knight card and I represented the queen card. I eliminated her and pushed her into the tower attack game. She is now in the stowaways group.”
The image of a short-haired woman immediately emerged in Fu Wenduo’s mind. He had a good memory. Before the earth went online, he could remember the appearance of all the drug dealers on the border and even their family members. He quickly remembered the woman and asked, “Are you sure it is her?”
Tang Mo said, “Checkmate. Her ability is to control the trajectory of bullets.” Tang Mo pulled out the big match and revealed the silver bullet that was embedded in the match head.
Fu Wenduo looked at the bullet and said, “She is a stowaway.” This was a sentence filled with certainty. “In Pinocchio’s game, Pinocchio said there were two stowaways. It should be me and her.”
The two people didn’t dwell further on this. Fu Wenduo directly asked, “Did she recognize you?”
Tang Mo hesitated. “I was wearing a mask and she showed up late. She didn’t seem to be there when I started the battle with her three teammates and I ran away as soon as she got there. I just don’t know when she came and if she saw my small parasol or not. I gave the parasol to another person but she arrived soon afterwards. Maybe she saw it or maybe she didn’t see it.”
Fu Wenduo thought about the worst-case scenario. “If she saw it, she would’ve guessed that you are a player. They have logic so they will also guess that I am a player.” This was the worst-case scenario. Fu Wenduo looked at the unhappy Tang Mo.
Being recognized by players wasn’t part of their plan. Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo intended to not reveal their player status from beginning to end. But who would’ve thought that there would be an old acquaintance in the 23 people instance?
Tang Mo’s plan was likely to be completely disturbed because of this woman, making him unhappy. Tang Mo’s brow was wrinkled under the mask and his eyes were annoyed (he was regretting that he didn’t think about everything). It was a very unhappy atmosphere.
Fu Wenduo had seldom seen this type of Tang Mo and looked with interest. “Do you want to wear my mask?”
Tang Mo was surprised. “Wear your mask?”
Fu Wenduo thought for a moment. In the first store we changed in, there were two masks. One was this one and the other was a big small. Your head isn’t big and you should be able to wear it. However, there are some patterns on it that indicates it is for a woman.”
Tang Mo, “…”
He really felt regret that he didn’t act like Fu Wenduo and cover his whole face. But once he thought about it, he didn’t want to be a strange armoured person.
Tang Mo completely couldn’t understand Fu Wenduo’s aesthetics and he didn’t want to understand it. After all, when Lin Yi was here, the look in her eyes told Tang Mo that his sense of aesthetics wasn’t flawed and it was Fu Wenduo’s problem (In fact, Lin Yi saw Tang Mo as having a snake essence disease).
Things have come to this and ridiculing Fu Wenduo calmed Tang Mo down. “It is no use even if the four stowaways know that we are players. The four of them are strong. I can fight against one but it will be difficult to win against two. If there are three people, I can only find the opportunity to act. If there are four of them, I can only quickly run away. In the surprise attack before, they were arrogant. Even if I am Mr. B, they didn’t put me in their eyes and didn’t exert their full strength. Obviously, they have killed a similar game BOSS before. However, they won’t be so careless next time.”
Fu Wenduo asked, “Who is the strongest?”
Tang Mo didn’t hesitate. “The bald man who can become a brown bear. His physical strength is higher than yours.”
Fu Wenduo stated, “The brown bear is one of the most powerful animals on land.”
There was no skill more powerful than absolute strength. If his physical strength wasn’t high enough, Tang Mo could hit the bald man with a punch and he wouldn’t react. For example, Tang Mo hit the bald man’s neck with the big match yet he actually didn’t die. But one punch from the bald man would cause a hole in the body.
Tang Mo thought for a while before his lips slowly curved. “If they guess my identity, they won’t necessarily tell other players about it. This is very important information. The stowaway have already killed six people, they won’t easily tell important information to others. They are more likely to relax their vigilance because I am a player.”
Like the glasses man said, how could a player be so strong? They had only cleared the black tower’s second floor. Mr. B being a player was much better than Mr. B being a black tower monster. At least he wouldn’t have the strength of Grandmother Wolf or Santa Claus.
Fu Wenduo looked at Tang Mo’s calm smile and said, “Even if they feel that the situation is serious, it will be hard for them to find someone to cooperate with. Among the 21 players, the four stowaways and the five people squad are the strongest. If the four stowaways didn’t mind cooperating with the five people squad, it is quite possible for them to steal the monster from our hands.”
“They can’t cooperate.” Tang Mo was certain.
Fu Wenduo laughed. “They won’t be able to cooperate after you hung the three bodies on the wall.”
Tang Mo corrected him. “Tang Ji, you were the one who hung them up. I just watched from the side.”
The two people looked at each other. Tang Mo couldn’t see Fu Wenduo through the helmet but he couldn’t help laughing.
Yes. Tang Mo had found three bodies in the beginning. Unlike other players, Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo were obviously at a disadvantage in the game and didn’t waste a minute. As soon as the black tower spoke about the Detectives’ Contempt, Tnag Mo and Fu Wenduo searched day and night for traces of players in the underground city.
They didn’t find any players but they found the corpses of three players.
The three players had fallen in a dark alley, blood splashing the walls. The whole alley was full of blood, making it look like the scene of a massacre. In fact, the three players died very badly. They were alive when their bellies were cut open. Then their internal organs seemed to be bitten by insects as food.
They must’ve been killed by players. If the underground people had killed them, their bodies wouldn’t have been left behind and they would’ve been eaten by the underground people.
After finding the three bodies, Tang Mo had an idea. He took the three bodies with Fu Wenduo and hung them on the busiest stone street in the Underground Kingdom. Then they waited to see if they could find any players.
Sure enough, they found the five people squad.
“Only a smart team would think about going down every stone road to find my trail. Such a team is worthy of cooperating with. They will be smart and cautious after finding the three bodies and won’t be able to work with the stowaways.” IF the five players hadn’t seen the three bodies, Tang Mo believed they would hear about it and know that the three players had been killed by stowaways. Tang Mo said, “They won’t be able to cooperate with other teams. Now as long as the two most powerful teams don’t cooperate, we have a 60% chance of winning.”
Fu Wenduo replied, “70%.”
Tang Mo looked at him strangely.
The strange knight leaned against the wall, his head slightly bowed down. It was unknown if he was looking at Tang Mo or the ground. “The two…” He thought for a moment before continuing, “The two very naive players were rescued by them.”
Wang Yinggui and Old Niao were rescued by the five member team,
Tang Mo was stunned before smiling. “Yes, it is 70%.”
Time passed and the Underground Kingdom was quiet. The Strange Circus’ Surprise Night was approaching and more and more underground people came from different places towards the capital. Powerful monsters also came by boat from the Monster World.
On the day of the surprise night, a tattered wooden boat came from the monster world. The boat docked and a lady wearing a hat and pink dress descended from the boat. She opened her pink lace umbrella and raise it slightly, revealing green eyes and the pointed mouth of Grandmother Wolf.
Grandmother Wolf licked her mouth and smiled before leaving the dock.
The monsters who dared enter the Underground Kingdom so casually were all powerful. Grandmother Wolf walked down the road and the ordinary underground people didn’t dare approach her. She passed by a shoe shop where the Iron Shoemaker was working hard to repair shoes. He poured black shoe polish on a stinky shoe and smashed the shoe with his nail, not giving her a single glance. She passed by a candy house. This candy house was made of sweet lollipops. Countless lollipops formed the words ‘Merry Christmas’ on the door.
At noon, 15 green lights suddenly appeared in the middle of the sun.
Grandmother Wolf continued to walk forward. When the 15 green lights shot towards three different corners of the capital, Grandmother Wolf paused. However, she ignored it and quickly moved forward with her small parasol.
The author has something to say:
Old Fu: Isn’t my aesthetic wonderful? [Asking while wearing a helmet]
Tang Tang: If you don’t believe me, ask the viewers. The helmet you are wearing doesn’t come from the same set of armour! Just ask the wonderful readers!