Chapter 87
Shen Yuan’s reaction left Xiao Tangqiu’s heart somewhat empty. Fortunately, Tang Mianmian’s att.i.tude towards him was quite normal, otherwise, he would have to wonder what wrong he had done.
“Wuwuwu! Where have you been in these three months?” Tang Mianmian hugged him and cried, “Since you aren’t dead, why didn’t you come back earlier?”
Xiao Tangqiu gave a wry smile, “This matter… it’s a long story. It’s hard to explain.”
At this moment, Fei You’s voice rang from behind them, “So you know each other?”
Tang Mianmian’s mood recovered quickly, he laughed and threw an arm over Xiao Tangqiu’s shoulder to introduce him, “He is my best friend, Xiao Tangqiu! He is also a stream host!”
Fei You suddenly realized, “It turns out that he is the friend you mentioned before… But didn’t you say that he has disappeared? So he’s back now?”
Xiao Tangqiu smiled and was about to respond, but Duan Hongzhen suddenly appeared. He crossed his arms and snorted, “Hey, don’t just stand around chatting and forget about proper business.”
Tang Mianmian immediately straightened up, “Understood! Let’s find clues!”
Duan Hongzhen glanced at Xiao Tangqiu and said casually, “I didn’t expect you to be able to come back… I really didn’t expect it.”
As soon as Xiao Tangqiu saw Duan Hongzhen, he subconsciously looked for Shen Yuan in his peripherals. But he didn’t see Shen Yuan, Duan Hongzhen seemed to have come alone. He was a little disappointed, but he squeezed out a smile, “Yeah, I also didn’t expect… I could come back alive.”
“No matter what, thank you for saving the boss,” Duan Hongzhen reached out and patted Xiao Tangqiu on the shoulder, “I know you don’t want to hear this from me and just want to hear from the boss himself… but the boss hasn’t been doing well recently.”
Xiao Tangqiu never expected that the first person to come to him, besides Tang Mianmian, was Duan Hongzhen. It was a little unexpected, but it also seemed within reason.
“Not doing well? What do you mean?” Xiao Tangqiu frowned slightly, “He was injured so badly? He’s still not recovered?”
“Injury is one thing,” Duan Hongzhen raised an eyebrow, “but there is something else…”
Xiao Tangqiu was about to continue asking, but Duan Hongzhen was stopped by Xue Junli’s call in the distance.
Duan Hongzhen sighed, “Making me open locks again! What do they take me for? A locksmith?”
Although his mouth complained, Duan Hongzhen immediately turned around and left. Just as he was about to leave the deck, he looked back at Xiao Tangqiu and waved his hand in the air, “Anyway, I’m thanking you for the boss.”
After speaking, he walked away without looking back.
Xiao Tangqiu had a hunch about something, but before he could think more on it, he was distracted by something else, “By the way, what is your mission this time? Let’s go over and take a look!”
Tang Mianmian nodded, “Let’s go over, too, and talk as we walk.”
Fei You and Zhang Zuo glanced at each other, “Then we’ll go and see too!”
Leaving behind the couple of newbies who stayed in the captain’s room to continue to look for clues, Xiao Tangqiu’s group of four people headed in Duan Hongzhen’s direction. Along the way, Tang Mianmian gave Xiao Tangqiu a brief introduction to their mission.
This was an S-level mission, the content of the mission was to find the “lost treasure.”
This task sounded vague and confusing. Lost treasure? Who lost it? What kind of treasure was it?
They appeared directly on this small wrecked ship from the get go. The style of this ship was very similar to pirate ships of the Age of Exploration, invoking their imagination. Was the so-called lost treasure pirate’s treasure?
When Xiao Tangqiu heard this, he intuitively felt something was wrong, “Pirate’s treasure? Is it just a few boxes of gold and silver jewelry? How can it be so simple?” This was an S-level mission. How could it possibly be just finding a few boxes of gold and silver jewelry hidden by the pirates? What about the S-level difficulty? Moreover, this ship was not big and could be thoroughly searched in a short amount of time. If the so-called treasure was on this ship, they could find it easily.
Tang Mianmian nodded, “I also don’t think it’s that simple. But since we’re here, of course we have to search the ship first to find some useful clues, like maps.”
“And then there will just happen to be clues about a lost treasure on the map, so we’ll follow the map to find it?” Xiao Tangqiu raised an eyebrow, “How can it be so simple? If S-level missions are so simple, we can all be Shen Yuan.”
Tang Mianmian chuckled, “You don’t have to make S-level instances so mythical. We have been to a lot of S-level instances recently. Aren’t I still alive?”
Xiao Tangqiu was taken aback, “You have been to many S-level instances recently?”
Tang Mianmian nodded very naturally, and then couldn’t help complaining, “Since you disappeared, Shen Yuan has been going crazy entering instances day and night. One foot would have just left the previous instance and the next foot immediately entered the next instance. We didn’t have any buffering time at all. Our day and night output was crazy during this period. If it weren’t for the occasional rests in the instances, I would have keeled over.”
Xiao Tangqiu was dazed for a while, then he asked, “…You have been going into instances nonstop this period of time?”
“Yeah! The Great G.o.d is simply not human! He thinks we were all Superman!” Tang Mianmian complained, but then sighed, “But, while he treats us as Superman, he doesn’t treat himself as human at all. Although we continuously enter instances, we could occasionally take a break in them. Great G.o.d doesn’t give himself time to rest and breathe at all. I bet he hasn’t closed his eyes for almost a month…”
He murmured, “Even someone made of metal wouldn’t be able to stand it! I don’t know how he can!”
Xiao Tangqiu fell into silence for a long time. After a while, he asked Tang Mianmian softly, “Why didn’t you stop him? What about Xue Junli? What about Yu Fuling? Didn’t they stop him?”
Tang Mianmian smiled helplessly, “Who can stop him? I can’t fight him, and he doesn’t listen to what I say. Do you think Xue Junli hasn’t tried to persuade him? Every day, I listen to them try to persuade the Great G.o.d, my ears have grown callouses. But the Great G.o.d is stubborn and persistent, no methods work.”
Xiao Tangqiu fell silent again. If Shen Yuan was unwilling to take a break, no one could force him to rest unless they knock him out. But who could knock Shen Yuan out in the City of the Abyss?
Tang Mianmian brought them back on topic again, “In short, although this is an S-rank instance, you don’t have to worry too much. The Great G.o.d is here!”
Xiao Tangqiu gave a wry smile. They came to the bottom of the deck just in time to see Duan Hongzhen opening the door of one of the cabins.
Duan Hongzhen straightened up and sneered, “Don’t always use me as a locksmith.”
Xue Junli nodded, “I know.”
He pushed the door to directly go in, dust billowing out into their faces. This cabin had obviously been sealed without sunlight and gathered dust for a long time. A rotten and unpleasant smell spread out from it.
Xue Junli frowned, but still pinched his nose and walked in.
The two ladies wore unspeakably hard to describe expressions. Only Shen Yuan remained unchanged. He looked inside the room coldly and did not seem to notice Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian who followed.
Xiao Tangqiu glanced at Shen Yuan from a distance. He wanted to approach Shen Yuan for a word, but he didn’t know what to say.
The Shen Yuan right now should have recovered his memory. Who knows if he still remembered what happened during the period he was amnesiac. If he still remembered, maybe he would be angry…
He felt a little lost. Compared with the Shen Yuan that stuck to him every day during his amnesia, this Shen Yuan was obviously much more normal. He should breathe a sigh of relief that Shen Yuan was back to normal, but for some reason, there’s an inexplicable melancholy in his heart.
This room seemed to be the place where the sailors slept. The small cabin was filled with many cot placements and divided into upper, middle and lower bunks. A big net made of thick hemp rope was around each cot, probably to prevent the sailors from falling off due to the swaying of the ship when sleeping at night.
While Xiao Tangqiu was still looking at the cots, Xue Junli had already discovered something. He found a big wooden chest in a corner and immediately turned to ask Duan Hongzhen to unlock it.
Duan Hongzhen crossed his arms and looked upset, “Didn’t I just say don’t always use me as a locksmith!”
Xue Junli nodded, “I know… come on, unlock it.”
Duan Hongzhen rolled his eyes and reluctantly walked over to open the lock.
The moment the big wooden chest was opened, a strong smell of decay immediately filled the room. Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian were able to stay calm, but Fei You and Zhang Zuo immediately changed their expressions and quickly took a few large steps back, covering their mouths.
A half-rotten corpse was in the chest. The corpse itself was very tall and fairly large. He should’ve been a stocky man with a thick and round waist in life. He was stuffed into this box for some reason and his limbs were twisted and folded together, occupying every inch of s.p.a.ce in the chest.
He was a middle-aged man with distorted and terrifying features. His eyes bulged out, his seven orifices all bled, and his face was blue. His death was very miserable.
Xiao Tangqiu calmly judged, “Maybe he suffocated to death after being stuffed inside the chest.”
Fei You hid far away, pale and covering his mouth, “How can you be so calm!”
Tang Mianmian glanced at him sympathetically, “Get used to it.”
Duan Hongzhen was even calmer. He flipped through the body of the middle-aged man with a knife and found a key from his jacket pocket, “Where does the key go?”
Yu Fuling said lightly, “There are still the wine cellar and kitchen left.”
Duan Hongzhen ridiculed, “Looking at his fat and st.u.r.dy body, he might be a cook.”
Xiao Tangqiu suddenly found something. He hesitated, then turned to ask Duan Hongzhen, “Can I borrow your knife?”
Duan Hongzhen glanced at Xiao Tangqiu, then tossed the knife to him.
Xiao Tangqiu took the knife and pried open the middle-aged man’s mouth.
“Hey!”
Duan Hongzhen’s lips twitched. Not only did these people use his knife as a lockpick, but now they also use it to dissect?!
In the next moment, a shiny golden thing fell out of the middle-aged man’s mouth.
It was a gold coin.
Xiao Tangqiu pried the middle-aged man’s mouth as wide as it could go and saw that the corpse’s mouth was filled with gold coins and even the throat had strange bulges. It was easy to imagine that maybe the middle-aged man’s corpse was full of gold coins!