Chapter 199 Canglin Tournament (14)

After talking for a while, Feng Bujue took the key for the room, then the NPC’s left.

[Name: Key]

[Type: Plot Related]

[Quality: Ordinary]

[Function: The holder and his team will get the ownership of room Day-C of the Cangling Hotel.]

[Is it possible to bring out the scenario: Yes]

[Note: Even if you don’t have the key with you, you’ll still be able to enter and exit the room if someone in your team has it.]

“Oh, this looks like it could turn into a jigsaw card at the end of the scenario.” Feng Bujue looked at the description and said, “Rain, you can take this, you are the strongest, so it’ll be harder for you to die”.

“Also, your bag’s unused storage is bigger than mine”. Ji Bu interrupted ” I have the highest level here and I’m a professional! How can you say I’m weaker than her?”

Feng Bujue directly changed the topic and said, “Talking about being a ‘Professional’… I have a plan and I need your help.”

“Huh? What plan?” Ji Bu asked.

“Remember that beautiful girl who commented on my Kungfu in the lobby?”

“I remember, Meng Jiu mentioning her… Her family name is… Murong?” Ji Bu answered.

“I was listening to the NPCs’ around me, and I could tell by their words that this miss Murong should be the character who knows everything which means she has lots of information”.

“You want me to find and ask her for information?” Ji Bu asked.

“Good, you are a professional after all” Feng Bujue replied, “Use your professional skills to build up a relationship with her; You could say that it’s your first time in Jianghu and you don’t know some things, then you could just ask her a few questions.”

“When I said I was a ‘professional’, what I meant was being a professional player. not being a professional gigolo!” Ji Bu shouted.

“Calm down, I’m not asking you to sell your body. You’d just have to communicate with her” Feng Bujue ignoring Ji Bu’s words, directly said ”

Player Interaction Rule D states the players and humanoid-type NPC’s available interaction: [Regardless of the user’s gender if they’ve been judged by the system to have committed an act of sexual harassment, going against the laws listed in articles’ B and C. The player would then be limited by the system. The intentions of the player would be discounted and involved parties will be forced to disconnect, and the user’s citizen ID will be blacklisted, permanently being highly monitored.]”

“I also looked up the details up for interactions between players, human NPC’s, and monsters, and found that the restrictions were even stricter than that of between players. Though players can be intimate to a certain degree with the NPC’s voluntarily, there is absolutely no sexual interaction allowed. NPC’s will never do anything to you. However, it is possible for NPC’s to have a favorable impression towards the players.”

“Meaning, you can strike up a conversation with an NPC without it being taken as sexual harassment”.

“Pal! She’s a beauty! Not an ugly man! Don’t say it as if I’ll make a profit! It would definitely be a loss if nothing happened!” Ji Bu continued, “You… you can even recite the rules verbatim… you even explained how relationships and interactions here work… What is your state of mind even!?”

“Oh… It’s because I was hugged by a female NPC in one of the scenarios, it was purely a platonic hug of course” [1]

“Which made me think… ‘What were the boundaries?’ So, I took the time to read a part of the game’s instructions”.

“Captain, what about us girls seduce the male NPC’s, won’t that be much easier?” Dispirited said jokingly.

“Girl, you gotta respect yourself!!!” Little Tan turned his head, his eyes twinkling.

“How are you even going to seduce him? The system will stop you directly. Even if you wanted to show some legs or something… You can’t change your appearance in the scenario at all”.

“Well… that’s…” Dispirited nodded and glanced at Wang Tanzhi with playful eyes. It’s not that he doesn’t know the answer to the question, he just wanted to see someone’s reaction.

“Well, Jin Fugui, what do you say? Will you go?” Feng Bujue asked.

“I warn you, calling me a gigolo is not ok, and… “Ji Bu stared at Feng Bujue

Feng Bujue interrupted him “Well, gigolo… Don’t you think that if I weren’t “married”, with my three-inch tongue and ability to fabricate tall tales, I’d fail? Unfortunately for us, I am. I will certainly attract Miss Murong’s disgust if I try to strike up a conversation with her. You can’t let Little Tan go, right? It would be nice if that boy didn’t give information about us away “.

“It’s just talking with her, why can’t us girls go?” Like Rain asked.

“Ha!” Feng Bujue burst into laughter and said, “Good idea, I’ve always wanted to know what appropriate opening lines for two women would be when they’ve never seen each other, one of which even having a motive, approaching the other”.

Like Rain stare silently at Feng Bujue for a long time, “Well… We’ll let the professionals handle it then”.

“Okay, Stop double-teaming. I’ll do it” Ji Bu replied weakly, “But I’ll say it right now, if that NPC ignores me, then it’s out of my hand”.

“How ~ can ~ brother gigolo be inferior?” Feng Bujue using a long tone saying, “a handsome, white man like yourself… In the ancient times, even if the female youth would be older, she’d still be hot, and even if she didn’t know you, seeing as you look relatively weak and don’t have a strange behavior, the most she’ll do is say that you have nothing in common, don’t degrade yourself in front of her”.

Feng Bujue paused for a second, then continued “When… Miss Murong thinks there’s nothing wrong with talking to you, you’ll be able to handle it” He stood up and said, “if my judgment is correct then this NPC should at least know the settings of this martial arts world. Her common sense is valuable information for us. So, I’d like this type of information. Things that are well-known that we don’t, you can try to ask her”.

“I know, I’ll just play by ear.” Ji Bu replied, “At this moment, Miss Murong should still be in the lobby. You just made such a big fuss. If I, a person from Breaking Sword Tea Shack, walk down the stairs and greet her in full view, it would be difficult to explain”.

“That’s what I was planning from the beginning,” Feng Bujue said, and giving the key to Like Rain. She quietly took it and placed it inside her bag.

“Alright, moving on” Feng Bujue said, “Those ‘Flower Shadow Six Swordsmen’… Want me, a ‘Congenital Pure Yang Inner Force’ user to help… ”

Dispirited continued “Although we were able to stall, I’m sure you’ll be exposed for lying once Lin Chang teaches you Kungfu and Su Shang needs your help…”

“Solving this problem is far more important than gathering intelligence. If things go awry, we’re going to be placed in a difficult situation” he added, “At that time, even if those swordsmen don’t become antagonistic, they will have no reason to continue protecting us, much less give us benefits”.

“That’s right… this is a tricky situation” Feng Bujue answered, “At this stage, I’ve come up with two ideas”

“Kill Su Shang?” Like Rain immediately speaking Feng Bujue’s thoughts.

“Yes! It’d better if she were dead. We’d have to do it carefully and not leave any trace so that no one would be sure if she was dead or alive. By doing this, at least until the duel, no one would question anything”.

“You are too cruel…” Ji Bu looked at him with a rather surprised expression. “When I saw you killing zombies, I already thought you were kind of like a murderer… Now, just because you want to keep a secret, you’d directly kill her, not even considering whether she was a good or bad person”.

“Have you ever thought whether Goomba’s [2] were good or bad when you’re playing Mario before you stomped on them?” Asked Feng Bujue.

Ji Bu paused for a few seconds, then frowned. “Those aren’t the same thing, right?”

“Hmmm… ” Feng Bujue showed an uncomfortable face and turned his head.

“Exchanging ideas.” Like Rain commented briefly.

“Faking failure.” Dispirited said.

“I’m also against casual killing, not even mentioning the fact that she’s likely to be a BOSS level… Even if we were able to kill her, there is no guarantee that she won’t be able to find out during the fight or when the body is disposed of” Wang Tanzhi also put forward a meaningful opinion unexpectedly.

“Don’t worry about that. If I decide to kill her, I’ll do what I can. After killing her, I’d just cut her up into pieces and store it in my bag” Feng Bujue answered.

“It’s even been planned to this extent… ” Ji Bu had cold sweats now, wondering how much of a freak Feng Bujue was.

“But… You do have a point there. You just made me remember something” Fen Bujue said.

“I read a post on BBS saying that the actions of a player in the script could affect future growth. For example, in the script, if players behaved according to a certain moral principle and try to be good people, then the plot will generally have a better ending. But, people who have been doing evil and cruel things in the scenario may encounter a worse plot. Not only that, the post mentioned that random skills, items, etc. acquired are based on the players’ actions”.

“Haha… ‘The Ghost Shadow of the Demon Bat’…” The first reaction of Little Tan was to speak the name of the skill that Feng Bujue brought him before out loud.

“’The Unpredictable Fanatic’… ” Dispirited said.

Feng Bujue continued, “If this setting really exists, then it can explain quite a few circumstances that I’ve encounter when I was playing in single-scene scenarios…”

“Is that a kind of hidden property?” Rain asked.

“Perhaps… Presumably, by the end of the game, the players who are deemed lawful good and the players who are chaotic evil [3], will be very different. Other than skills, equipment, and titles… The game experience they’ll play would be different.” Feng Bujue said ruminatively: “If it’s like that… Then we’d better not kill innocent people and try to stand on the side of justice, doing chivalrous things as far as the mainline quest allows. So we won’t be treated as villains by the system, as I am.”

“What’s your second option?” Asked Ji Bu.

“Don’t kill, just hurt.” Feng Bujue replied, “if Su Shang just suffers a certain degree of injury, making her temporarily weak. She won’t be able to practice her martial arts, and our matter would be delayed” He looked at his teammates, “Our time is limited and we can’t just stay here for four days, so if we put it off until the evening after tomorrow, our chance will be gone forever.

“That’s right.” Dispirited said, “But… We need a good plan on how we can hurt her”.

“First of all, we can’t hurt her openly. We can only do it in secret.” Feng Bujue explained, “Second, we can’t make the other suspect that we did it.” He folded his hands on his chest and shook his head. “If Dispirited shot her with a gun, it would have been easy, but then the other side might become suspicious of us. Because we’re the only ones who can carry out a sneak attack in an explicable way.

“Even if we used the method that Wulin People use and be secretive about it, the suspicion would still fall on us” Little Tan said: “We just accepted this matter today then Su Shang being secretly injured suddenly… To tell you the truth, even if someone else had attacked her in the middle of the night, we’d still be blamed”.

“I’ve come up with a way to do it so that they won’t become suspicious” Feng Bujue said, “The most ideal way… A mass poisoning”.

“Your mind…” Ji Bu was almost speechless, Feng Bujue’s thinking jumped way too fast, always reaching a very unreasonable conclusion.

“The reason is simple. We’d have to do it to everyone at the same time, so that we can conceal the fact that our real target is Su Shang”.

“Ha… Ha… We’d better not kill any innocent people. We’ll stand on the side of justice and do chivalrous things…” Little Tan closed his eyes, repeating Feng Bujue’s words just moments before.

“In order to achieve a realistic effect, we’ll also have to be poisoned so we’d have an alibi” Feng Bujue continued.

“You’re crazy… “Ji Bu said.

“Indeed? To ensure that a lie is not uncovered, one must make up bigger lie. We’ve already fallen into such a situation… You must understand that our security, our freedom, is all based on lies. If one thing goes wrong, our chain of lies falls apart”

“If we want to get a foothold in this town, or to survive. We must do everything we can, to continue pretending. Every minute, every second, steps must be taken to maintain the mysterious and powerful image of our shack. The script would have been harder to play if the crowd outside had known what we truly were. The only way I could think of us surviving from this town in that situation is, if we were to hide in the mountains.

“That’s right.” Like Rain agreed,

“In terms of combat capability, as long as three NPC’s with the same strength as that woman appeared, we’d have to use our guns, or we’d be quickly destroyed” She looked at Feng Bujue, “In this point, if Feng Bujue’s lie were to be uncovered, we’d be ‘a villain in the eyes of the people. So… It’s possible that almost everyone will fight us.”

“Anyway,” Feng Bujue said, “If we were to have a good fight, we’d be dead by the time they figured out our styles and know the basics of our guns.”

“Bearing with it or becoming public enemy number one… ” Wang Tanzhi sighed.

“It’s just like World War II, when a Jew strays into a Nazi party, the only way to survive is to make the people around him believe a German too.” Feng Bujue shrugged.

“Let’s talk about poisoning then… “Ji Bu said.

“If it succeeds, our goal would be achieved without us taking heat. Even if the six swordsmen were to doubt about us, they wouldn’t be very sure” Feng Bujue said.

“Well…” Little Tan said,” Poisoning… Anyone can use this method. If there’s only a few people affected, then the person who’d be blamed would be someone who had a conflict of interest or a grudge with the poisoned people. But if it seemed that no one was being target, then it would be harder to pin down the culprit. If we were seen as not committing the crime, even getting poisoned, then…”

“Okay, three questions. ” Dispirited interrupted, ” First, where will we find a type of poison that won’t poison people to death but still have enough for poisoning dozens? Second, how can all the people in the hotel be poisoned simultaneously? Third, how can we successfully execute one and two while ensuring that we won’t be discovered, leaving behind no trace?”

“Good question.” Feng Bujue tilted his head and spread his hands

“No Idea”.

“Yet, you still said it so vigorously?”

“That’s why I said, it was the ideal way, not the best way. As to how we’re going to achieve it… We still have one day to plot.”

[1]That’s the scenario in Hirata’s World. In the end, Feng Bujue hugged a girl as Hirata.

[2]Goomba appears in all the Mario games as Mario’s opponent. The players could kill them by jumping on them.

[3]Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil are character alignments from Dungeon and Dragons.