Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 20 – The search for Xiao Bao

“Why would they send poisoned tofu to the washerwoman?” Aotian said. “Do they not want Widow Yang’s son to get better? Could Widow Yang’s son be the Xuan Sword’s wielder that we’re looking for?”

“The washerwoman put away such a delicious-smelling chicken to eat with her son, even though she’s starving. I’m so touched,” Qingyue said.

“When she looked at the tofu, her eyes seemed a bit like the way the people I had beguiled looked at me, mrow,” said Black Cat.

“Didn’t Dugu Zhuo trick the veiled team into going to the yamen?” Ye Zhou said. “Who came here to deliver tofu?”

Each member of the party looked at Dugu Zhuo, awaiting his analysis.

“When will Xiao Bao be back?” Dugu Zhuo asked the washerwoman.

After carefully placing the roast chicken onto the still-warm stove to maintain its heat, the washerwoman answered, “Widow Yang usually grinds beans in the morning. Since he’s brought the tofu back, he must’ve already returned. Xiao Bao is a good child and never goes running about, so he must be picking wild vegetables now. We won’t need wild vegetables today, so can you young heroes bring him back to eat the chicken? I don’t want such good food to go cold.”

“Find Xiao Bao” was now added to the group’s task list.

Accepting the task, the party left the house, and Aotian opened up a map. “This is considerate. They’ve pointed out the place where Xiao Bao usually picks vegetables, so we won’t have to ask NPCs all the way.”

They were about to go to that location, but Dugu Zhuo, as the leader, headed in a completely different direction.

“Where are you going?” Aotian asked.

“Widow Yang’s home,” Dugu Zhuo answered.

“Huh?” Aotian said. “But the map we were given shows the vegetable picking location.”

All of a sudden, Ye Zhou understood Dugu Zhuo’s intention. He explained for him, “The washerwoman thinks Xiao Bao is picking vegetables because she assumed Xiao Bao brought back that plate of tofu. But what if it wasn’t delivered by Xiao Bao? Weren’t we guessing earlier that the veiled team had brought it over?”

“Makes sense,” Qingyue said. “Maybe while Xiao Bao was working for Widow Yang, he witnessed someone poison the tofu to be given to the washerwoman, and now he’s in danger!”

“It’s probably not that serious,” Ye Zhou said. “But there’s a chance there’s actually danger. In any case, Xiao Bao is in a more perilous situation at Widow Yang’s place, so let’s check there first.”

After finishing their discussion, the group picked up their speed and rushed all the way to Widow Yang’s tofu stand.

It was now 11, close to noon, so Widow Yang had already closed her stand and gone home. The five split up to find NPCs, asking anyone they met where Widow Yang lived.

Widow Yang was quite famous in town and many people knew where her home was. However, Aotian, Ye Zhou, and Black Cat returned with no luck, while only Qingyue and Dugu Zhuo had gotten answers.

Qingyue had asked a female NPC, who gave her directions immediately.

The NPC Dugu Zhuo ran into had said, “Young hero, seeing your righteous air, I know you must not be the type of person to harass a widow. You must have business, so I’ll tell you where to go.”

“What’s going on here?” Aotian asked. “Me and Qingyue asked the same NPC, but she didn’t tell me, only Qingyue.”

“Must be your gender and Righteousness Points,” Ye Zhou said. “The NPC I just asked said to me, ‘Widow Yang is not that sort of person, so don’t be foolish.’ I guess if a male player asked where her home was, the NPCs would assume they’re planning something improper. Only a female player or someone with high righteousness would get an answer.”

“Makes sense,” Aotian said. “It looks like Righteousness and Sin Points will be important in this game.”

Widow Yang’s home was near the tofu stand, so they arrived after a short walk. It was an ordinary residence, with a large gate and a high wall surrounding it. The courtyard was large with three buildings inside. There was a main and side wing, as well as a large tofu workshop to the west.

Aotian was about to hop right over the wall, but Dugu Zhuo held him back.

“Let Black Cat go first,” Dugu Zhuo said. “Yao specialize in stealth. Neither NPC nor player will be able to see him.”

There were stray cats wandering all over Zhulong Town, so no one would be able to tell which was a real cat, which was a player, and which was an NPC yao.

“Do you see what I’m good for now?” Black Cat gave his paw a lick and leapt nimbly up, reaching the roof of the house in just a few bounds.

His movements were quick and soundless. If this were night, he would truly be an assassin in the dark.

Pattering over the roof tiles with not a whisper of sound, he first took a look around the main house, and found a young boy lying unconscious on a bed in the central bedroom. A cloth was placed over his forehead, and his face was flushed, like he was sick.

Black Cat sent a message to the rest of the group, describing the situation as he saw it.

“That must be Widow Yang’s son,” Dugu Zhuo said. “Check the other rooms.”

Black Cat went to the tofu workshop and only found a donkey munching on hay, no people.

Finally, he came to the side wing. He carefully lifted a roof tile with one paw, making only a slight noise, but a rough voice yelled, “Who’s there?”

“Meow,” Black Cat said in an unconcerned tone.

A large man wearing a conical hat ran out of the east wing, and upon seeing there was a cat on the roof, scrutinized it for a while, seemingly trying to distinguish whether it was an actual cat or a yao player.

Black Cat licked a paw, seeming perfectly like a cat in his actions and mannerisms.

“Is… that a real cat?” the player said doubtfully.

Seeing his suspicions slowly fade, Black Cat strutted openly away along the wall to where the rest of his party hid, each step elegant and graceful.

The player in the hat let go of his concerns and returned inside the house.

Seeing him go, Black Cat sent his party a message in a rush. “Fuck! The entire team of five is inside that room! There’s an unconscious little boy on the floor, and Widow Yang is holding a knife and crying.”

“When we were helping the washerwoman with her clothes, they must’ve already realized that the task to go to the yamen was fake and gotten the real task,” Ye Zhou said. “It looks like we’ll have to fight.”

This game was truly intriguing. The opponent they had to combat in the main questline wasn’t an NPC, but other players.

“Hold on,” Aotian said. “This means that there could be two endings to this questline, and two plotlines for this video game. This is a VR game, not an RPG. Each character, each frame, and each special effect costs money. Do you know how expensive having two different plotlines would be?”

Qingyue clapped Aotian’s shoulder. “This is how the game is, though. Let’s complete the mission first.”

“How many spirit stones do you all have?” Dugu Zhuo asked.

Everyone counted up their total and came up with 136 low-grade spirit stones.

“The Misdirection Array can be created with 99 of them,” Dugu Zhuo said. “Black Cat, you lay out the array.”

Because of Dugu Zhuo’s generosity in giving the Misdirection Array to his party members for free, they all knew how to use it and could move freely within it.

Obeying his order, Black Cat took 99 spirit stones and returned to the courtyard.

He didn’t create the array like Dugu Zhuo, first laying all the materials in place and then using spiritual energy to activate it.

Since he had the jade slip gifted by Dugu Zhuo, which recorded all the details of the array, he only needed to provide 99 spirit stones and press the ‘confirm’ button, and by paying 50% of his health and 80% of his spiritual energy, the array would be formed.

Right now, Jet Black was the only player who had experienced the Misdirection Array, and the sensation of constantly running in circles in that bamboo forest was hauntingly familiar to him. It was like there was something wrong with his brain, and no matter which direction he went, he ended up back in the same place.

If even using bamboo stalks to form the array led to such an effect, he couldn’t guess what an array created with low-grade spirit stones would be like.

“During the day, your fighting ability is low, so you’re in charge of the array,” Dugu Zhuo said. “The array will consume spirit stones, so you need to constantly monitor its condition and supplement it with spirit stones. Everyone else, follow me.”

As the Misdirection Array activated, the courtyard was enveloped by thick fog. The party could see normally within it, but people who were unfamiliar with the Misdirection Array would run into a lot of illusions.

Black Cat took a few red pills to replenish his health and blue pills to replenish spiritual energy, then lay across the roof to watch the battle.

Dugu Zhuo and Ye Zhou had leapt forward, side by side. Ye Zhou stood in midair and swung his sword down, cleaving apart the house in one stroke.

Everyone: “…”

Wasn’t Ye Zhou’s sword too good? If he put it on the market, it seemed like it would be worth quite a lot.

Even if the in-game currency exchange wasn’t open yet, a sword like this could still be sold privately, just at a greater risk.

Judging by the elite equipment that had been leaked by players up to this point, Ye Zhou’s sword must be the strongest weapon currently in the game.

Inside the house, Widow Yang held a knife, shaking her head as she sobbed. “No, I can’t do it. I just wanted to save my son, I didn’t want to harm any other children!”

“We’ve been trying to convince her for so long,” said the veiled party’s Ghost One impatiently. “Maybe we should just help her do it.”

“The task was to entice Widow Yang to do it, not do it ourselves,” said the jiangshi. “Plus, this game doesn’t allow players to do this sort of thing. It’s too violent, it won’t pass the filters.”

“It would be great if we had a yao,” Demon One said. “With the yao Beguile ability, we could make Widow Yang act.”

“That reminds me!” said Demon Two. “We can just go out and find a yao player. The willow tree yao at the village gates seems strong. Maybe we can borrow a branch.”

As they discussed casually amongst each other, the whole house suddenly cracked open, and they found themselves engulfed by fog.

“Who did that?” Ghost Two hollered.

Even though Ye Zhou and his party had launched a surprise attack, the veiled team reacted quickly. Demon Two immediately took out an item and threw it into the air, causing a vast black cloth to blanket the entire courtyard, blocking out the sun.

The battlefield instantly fell into darkness. Both ghosts had vanished, lurking within the fog to attack opportunistically.

Qingyue, Aotian, and Ye Zhou faced the two demons and the jiangshi head-on. With their knowledge of the Misdirection Array, they hid after making each attack, their maneuvering flawless, while the veiled team turned in circles in the courtyard and nearly attacked their own allies.

Unfortunately, with the cloth blocking out the sun, the human players’ combat power was decreased while their opponents’ defenses had increased significantly. Each strike took away very little health.

The battle was on!