What to do?Gu Fei was unable to answer this question, so he mercilessly kicked that ball into Glue"s court. This naturally meant that they should make a statement, and if what they expressed was something he found to be agreeable, Gu Fei would consider letting them go.
But everyone already more or less knew why Gu Fei was constantly on their case all this time This was the legendary "lending a hand upon seeing injustice along the road", except that he was exceptionally lucky; The man was still helping out despite doing it for so long and lending a hand every time he met Southern Lone Blade"s team, this consequently pushed that lot past the point of tolerance. By Gu Fei"s words, the plans of Southern Lone Blade and his men could only see constant disruption from Gu Fei unless they washed their hands off this type of business entirely.
"If that"s the case, there"s nothing for us to talk about." Glue was helpless. They were really hoping to reach a concord with Gu Fei, but his demand was simply too much, since he wanted them to give up their career altogether.
"You guys are really dedicated," Gu Fei remarked. He had already expected these men not to give up so easily; it was just a game, after all. Were this in real life, I would"ve maimed them for making such a choice! Gu Fei heartlessly thought to himself when this lot decided not to give up.
With negotiations failing before it began, Gu Fei was not in the least bit of a hurry. He regarded the three men with interest, wondering just what the three men were planning to do. Flame Singed Clothes, Verdant Timber, and Glue huddled together and began whispering with one another. Throwing a hateful glare at Gu Fei, they promptly spat, "Since we can"t afford to offend you, we"ll just avoid you."
With that, the three men did not even get up and just cleanly exited the game.
"He he…" Gu Fei chuckled as he chose to log out as well.
----------------------------
Half an hour later, three white lights glowed within the Archer Range as the three players logged back into the game. The first thing they all did was to take in their surroundings, making sure that Gu Fei was nowhere to be found.
"Thousand Miles Drunk logged off the moment you guys went offline." Southern Lone Blade sent this message to Glue.
Glue exhaled a heavy sigh before smiling at the two other men. "He"s gone."
Flame Singed Clothes was immediately at ease as well, casually cursing, "That b*st*rd."
"Silver Moon"s still online." Glue checked his friends" list and reported. "Let"s continue!"
Flame Singed Clothes pulled out his deck of cards. Gu Fei had previously burned four of their cards, so he was now checking which they were. Flame Singed Clothes counted the cards in his mind even as he wondered aloud, "Speaking of which, Silver Moon and Thousand Miles Drunk have quite the sordid past, yeah? Actually, if we just tell him that we are planning to ambush Silver Moon, he just might not create trouble for us."
Flame Singed Clothes did not hear either of his comrades answer him when he was done speaking, so he lifted his head to look, only to find the two maintaining a look of catatonia as they stared right behind him.
"You guys… no way… is he…" Flame Singed Clothes slowly turned around and saw Gu Fei"s beaming face, which filled him with hate at once, no more than half a meter away from them.
"You"re missing the 4, 8, 9, and Q." Gu Fei informed him.
"F*ck! Why are you back?!" Flame Singed Clothes moaned.
"I went offline to grab some supper and take a shower before logging back on. Who would"ve thought that you guys would coincidentally be back as well?" Gu Fei asked.
The three felt the true depths of despair right now.
"So, you guys are thinking of ambus.h.i.+ng Silver Moon?" Flame Singed Clothes had no idea that Gu Fei had logged back on moments ago and that the latter had heard everything when the former wondered aloud.
"See; that"s where I"m a little confused. Although I agree that Silver Moon deserves death, isn"t he your employer for acquiring the Utopian Magic Staff?" Gu Fei asked.
The three were in tears. Why were they going around to attack Silver Moon? Plainly put, was it not because Gu Fei kept giving them trouble to the point that they had no other way to vent all their acc.u.mulated resentments? However, now that Gu Fei himself was asking them this question, just how were they supposed to answer that? Tell him that he had bullied them so much they decided to use Silver Moon as a punching bag? They obviously could not admit to anything like that right to his face. It was just like Flame Singed Clothes being scared of Gu Fei yet still putting up the farce that he was unafraid of the man when in front of Gu Fei.
Gu Fei gazed at the three in hopes of them providing him with an answer, yet the three remained adamantly mum, unwilling to tell him anything even if they were beaten to death.
"Broken Water Arrow and the others should still be with Silver Moon; doesn"t that mean that you will have to pit yourselves up against them if you wanna take care of Silver Moon? Didn"t they help you guys a few days back? How in the world did your relations.h.i.+p devolved into such a mess?" Gu Fei was a little confused at this point. He had seen with his two eyes how Broken Water Arrow had suddenly shown up and provided coverfire for Southern Lone Blade just when he was moments away from slaying Southern Lone Blade. Gu Fei thought that Silver Moon, Broken Water Arrow, and Southern Lone Blade were all acting together, yet now it seemed that that was not the case. Messy. It was just too messy.
"He"s gonna be with Silver Moon? Didn"t he say—" Flame Singed Clothes began to speak when he abruptly shut himself up.
"Didn"t he say what?" Gu Fei asked.
No one bothered to answer him. Glue hurriedly contacted the other team and filled them in about their plan to ambush Silver Moon hitting an unexpected snag. From the start, Glue"s plan was proposed on the grounds that they would meet Silver Moon to tell him that they were giving up on the a.s.signment; they expected him to turn up all by himself as his deal with them was a complete secret. However, it was only upon seeing Southern Lone Blade"s persistence that everyone could not bear to go through with it, which resulted in them changing their approach to that of an ambush by waiting for Silver Moon to serve himself up. This of course ended up mixing the two plans, and by how things stood, there was no guarantee that Silver Moon would be alone when he went to log off. If he was accompanied by the other three, there was no way that their three-man group would be capable of pulling off this ambush at all.
"In other words, we can only find out where Silver Moon logs off and ambush him when he next gets online," Glue said.
"That seems to be our only option," one of the other party"s members, Paddy Scent Pastures, answered.
"So, leaving just one of us in each sp.a.w.n point will do," Glue said.
"Yes, get Verdant Timber to guard there; you and Flame Singed Clothes should head back to grind!"
"We can"t leave…" Glue was exasperated.
"Why?"
"Thousand Miles Drunk"s here!"
"Didn"t he log off?"
"He got back online, too."
"F*ck me. Just how based is that man?!" Paddy Scent Pastures commiserated with Glue and the others.
"Just what is going on with you guys?" Gu Fei asked.
The three men continued ignoring him. Gu Fei was looking a little lost now, and the three men enjoyed seeing him like this.
"Not gonna tell me, huh?" Gu Fei confirmed once more.
The three men beamed pleasantly at him, not opening their mouths at all.
"All right. No matter how you put it, taking care of Silver Moon is a very meaningful matter, so I"m not gonna bother you guys," Gu Fei said as he turned to leave the safe zone. The three men were all astonished, chasing right after the man up to the entrance but not daring to take even half a step out the door. They watched Gu Fei wave his hand at them and disappear down the street.
"Just what sort of medicine is in that man"s gourd?" The three men exchanged glances, relaying what had just happened to the others; each of them was equally nonplussed.
"Just what sort of medicine are in their gourds?" Gu Fei was also confused. He simply could not fathom just what sort of relations.h.i.+p Fleeting Smile, Silver Moon, and Southern Lone Blade"s gang shared.
"Where are you?" Gu Fei suddenly sent a message to Fleeting Smile while he pondered on all this.
Ye Xiaowu was reeling. He could just not get used to Gu Fei"s straightforward personality. Does he not realize that we are now enemies? Can"t he stop speaking so casually with me in his messages?
Nonetheless, as an enemy, he could not totally ignore Gu Fei"s message, either.
No one wished to deal with Gu Fei, which only made him feel as if the whole lot of them were all very lacking.
"Hero, why are you still online?" It was considered as a normal practice for Gu Fei to go offline first, but it was practically unheard of for him to exceed his gaming time by half an hour. His old acquaintances in Young Master"s Elite could not suppress their wonder and curiosity. Meanwhile, it was the information maniac Brother a.s.sist who rushed to pester him about the matter.
"Holidays," Gu Fei concisely replied.
"Oh!" Everyone understood.
"So, what are you gonna do now?" Everyone was curious about what would happen now that this person had so much time on him. If he were to level grind night after night, the Five Unyielding Experts might very well see another change. Currently, the positions of the Five Unyielding Experts were all very well-entrenched ever since the moniker was introduced to the game; any change would occur only after someone lost their level, there had never been a situation where a player managed to surge past the five players as a result of surpa.s.sing them via the experience points earned.
In the end, Gu Fei"s answer gave the five others a bout of dissatisfaction and made them swear in their hearts. Possessing a level of skill that made people envious, along with his indomitable equipment, why could he not spend his time doing something more productive? What was the point of endlessly pestering and tangling himself with that bunch of scoundrels? These experts of course shared the mentality that Southern Lone Blade understood from elite gamers: Lending a hand once or twice along the way was fine, but none of them ever found value in putting so much emphasis to it daily like what Gu Fei"s doing. Everybody was here to play the game,not Southern Lone Blade.
What everyone was unsure of, however, was whether Gu Fei was actually here to play the game or to play with people. Having been playing Parallel World for so long, just how many in-game quests had he completed? Could he even list all the skills the different job cla.s.ses had in their a.r.s.enal? Did he even understand how the damage against defense conversion calculation works? Was he even aware just how much we disdained him?
These gaming experts discussed this fervently over the channel, not even bothered that Gu Fei could read what they were typing.
"Ahem!" Gu Fei coughed, proving that he was still present.
"Hero, Southern Lone Blade"s men are about to fall apart by all your meddling, so what do you really want to achieve?" Brother a.s.sist and the others began questioning Gu Fei"s endgame.
"Would anyone care if people reported them?" Gu Fei was also hoping for there to be a proper channel that could resolve this as he had no wish to waste his days entangling with those people. About half of that seven-man team was at level 40; they acted all fierce in front of Gu Fei but was always so weak when he duked it out with them. It was not even fun PK-ing them, and Gu Fei was purely picking up the tab for his own morality"s sake.
"Who f*ck*ng cares?" Brother a.s.sist was p.i.s.sed when this was mentioned. "Game employees themselves got into the game, yet I"ve not gotten even one response after raising the matter to the relevant channels!"
"Are you referring to Fleeting Smile?" Gu Fei asked.
"Of course!"
"That guy said he wants to deal with me, yet he hasn"t done anything even now. He"s not even replying to me when I message him." Gu Fei was critical of the man.
The five were speechless. Just how based was this man?!
"He"s really incorrigible!" Brother a.s.sist sighed to the four men with him. Because they were in a foreign land, and adding that fact that they were in frequent bouts with Ye Xiaowu"s people, the other five members of Young Master"s Elite had actually been grinding their levels together recently; all that discussion could have actually been done by them in person, but evidently, they wanted Gu Fei to see their discussion by their use of the mercenary channel. They truly could not stand Gu Fei"s avantgarde and non-contemporary manner of gaming.
"Given his expertise and all his equipment, it"ll be fine even if he"s below a few levels from the average gamer," Young Master Han commented.
"Then, what"s the point of us saying so much for?" Brother a.s.sist was confused.
"Are you dumb?! How much more efficient will our grind become if we have him tag along with us? I mean look at that idiot; f*ck! he"s lost again!" Young Master Han pointed to Royal G.o.d Call; the boy was getting a little far from their group as he chased after a monster, and his inability to tell even the cardinal directions only caused him to run off even further away.
Brother a.s.sist wiped off his sweat. It felt as if all Young Master Han wanted was to get Gu Fei over here to be their menial laborer. Sure enough, he must never think that Young Master Han could be pure and kind-hearted with his thinking. Still, if we really do have Gu Fei here to help… Brother a.s.sist was a little excited himself thinking about it, momentarily feeling that just Sword Demon, Royal G.o.d Call, and War Without Wounds were not enough. There was really no point in upsetting themselves comparing with one another like this.
Gu Fei did not really depart from the Archer Range after leaving out the front door. He still wanted to stay around, but he felt that it was a little foolish camping out there so openly in front of Glue and the others; secretly staking out the place would then give him a clearer view of the situation. After leaving the log-off point, Gu Fei hailed a player who had picked up the cooking profession on the nearest street where players were hawking goods and bought some snacks; he then ran to buy some liquor to drink at a tavern. Walking around the Archer Range thereafter, he chose a good spot and began eating and drinking restfully while he continued reading where he had left off in his book. All along, he was keeping an alert eye for any particular movement at the log-off point. Gu Fei made sure to treat himself well.
Nothing happened at about 2 AM, but he did receive a message from the person he least expected.
"Sir, you"re still online!"
Gu Fei had a fright. Quickly checking the sender"s name, he found out that it was actually one of his students. These kids that were looking forward to the winter holidays would naturally be more unrestrained than him. Gu Fei pulled out his friends list and glanced at the subcategory where he had placed all his students in. Twenty out of the possible 24 names were lit up.
Gu Fei wiped a handful of sweat, but before he could reply, he received another message. "Sir, remove your friends list"s restriction."
Gu Fei replied with an "okay" and instantly received six system prompts. Six players added him as a friend, and they each reported their names after.
As a P.E. teacher, he could not recognize every student of his, so he could barely match their names to their faces. Adding these six players to his students subcategory, he casually looked at their information and saw that some of them had not even reached level 10. They must be thinking of using the winter holidays to delve deep into the game.
Before the winter holidays would obviously be exams, so these students had not gotten online for quite some time to prepare for it. After putting the game aside for such a long time, they were all very enthusiastic at the moment. With all 20 over players each privately messaging him individually, Gu Fei was nearly on the brink of mental collapse.
"Sir, where are you? It"s been so long since we"ve seen you!"
"Sir, we just joined the game; come and teach us!"
"Sir, I heard you"re a super expert; come and demonstrate what you can do!"
"Sir, I saw your Moonlit Nightfalls on the forums; it"s so powerful!"
"Sir..."
"Sir…"
"Sir, I heard you"re now in Bais.h.i.+ City. We"re about to head over!" That was the final message that Gu Fei read and saw that it came from Ah Fa, that little sh*t who had sold him out.
"How d"you guys know about that?" There was no way that he could reply to each message sent his way, so Gu Fei could only choose to reply to a select few.
"On the forums, of course! Sir, you have such a piece of great equipment; why did you sell it off?" Ah Fa pried.The original line is part of a song in 1999 for a film adaptation of the cla.s.sic, Water Margin. This line here shows the ideals behind the common characteristic the characters share of taking action when an injustice is afoot on their journey.
For anyone interested, you can hear it here: turn of phrase about a crippled immortal known by the name of Li Tieguai (sometimes Tieguai Li), who owned a gourd containing medicine that could cure anything in the mortal realm: making the mute speak, prolonging one"s life, rejuvenating the old and infirm, etc.
This question was born when an antique collector saw this line of query in an old painting: "If the medicine is as miraculous as the rumors say, why is he still about as a lame person."
This phrase seeks to imply that the lame man might not actually have a miraculous medicine on him at all but something or someone purposely trying to be mysterious, instead, and thus is a question that wonders what was really hiding behind a given facade/illusion.