Chapter 40 - The Vanguard

“Cousin, what are you doing, we’re relatives, although I admire you a lot, I won’t cooperate if you treat me like this!”

“Shut up!” Xu Huo checked her shoulders, no numbers.

Making her face him, he used Little Knife to cut the palm of his hand, squeezing out a string of fresh blood in front of her.

Yu Qingqing watched him in shock, “Cousin, we haven’t seen each other for a few days, and now you suddenly have a hobby of self-harm…”

Xu Huo breathed a sigh of relief, good.

“You know I can eat people, aren’t you afraid?”

Yu Qingqing said carelessly, “I believe you won’t hurt me and besides, there are so many people outside, you wouldn’t specifically target a relative, right?

As long as I’m fine, it doesn’t matter to me whether others live or die.”

Xu Huo felt a headache coming on.

Yu Qingqing was his stepmother’s niece; by name, they were cousins, but in reality, they had no blood relation.

He had a distant relationship with his stepmother and rarely saw her relatives, but Yu Qingqing was an exception.

She started sticking to him since high school, and later when he moved to Ting City, this girl dropped out of college halfway to become an actress and couldn’t be chased away no matter what.

“You’re not allowed to say that kind of thing again,” he warned, “unless you want to go see a psychologist again.”

Yu Qingqing stuck out her tongue and then complained, “What’s wrong with people being selfish by nature?

I don’t understand what my parents were thinking, forcing me to see a doctor.

I haven’t committed a crime.”

“It’ll be too late once you commit a crime,” Xu Huo said, “Watch fewer dark movies and TV shows.

If you dare to do something wrong, I’ll personally take you to the police station.”

Yu Qingqing shrank her neck, “I don’t want to talk to you anymore, I’m going to sleep!”

With that, she hurriedly ducked into the washroom.

Xu Huo sat down at the computer and logged into a forum named “Pioneer Player” using the URL and code provided by Nie Xuan.

The forum already had many popular science posts about Evolvers and players.

The content mentioned was almost the same as what he knew, but the dangers of discontinuing the use of Evolution Potion had not been publicly disclosed by the authorities, which Nie Xuan obviously knew about.

Xu Huo understood the officials’ purpose for this; they were likely worried that Evolution Potion would become another resource players desperately fought over like tickets.

However, if players knew that after missing a Copy for three months they would be sent to a random instance, probably not many of them would think about getting the potion first.

Being transported to a station without a ticket still offered a chance to fight back, but if one doesn’t get a ticket when the Copy ends, the likelihood of being stranded increases significantly, and whether one could encounter other players and secure tickets later would become uncertain.

The starting time for a game like Dimensional Rift can’t be measured by current standards.

Claiming to travel between three- and five-dimensional spaces, there might be other times and realities.

The Beheading Demon Copy is an example: it’s currently a closed instance, but it wasn’t always, which leads to two possibilities.

One is that the space where the Copy is situated is actually within the real world.

If the Copy wasn’t closed, then not only players but also non-players could enter, suggesting that Copy locations might appear in any country, any city of this world, and not just players but also non-players could become victims.

The second possibility is that the Copy location has its unique, separate game space, meaning that the stations connect different internal areas of the game.

If these internal areas can also be open, then “non-players” would take on the meaning of “non-Copy players,” indicating that the game’s internal world is open and that players should be able to travel by train to any Copy city.

Regardless of which case, a player stranded in a Copy city would find it very difficult to successfully find other players.

Xu Huo had a premonition that closed instances like Hot Spring Mountain Villa wouldn’t be numerous.

If you miss just one Copy, the game would notify you to prepare for a random instance after three months, starting with a Rank-B Copy, a surefire death sentence.

This news, he wasn’t sure if the officials knew about it or not, because he wasn’t clear about when exactly Evolvers had appeared in the world he was now living in.

But it was only a matter of time before they found out.

Xu Huo didn’t dwell on it; instead, he flipped through the official player rankings.

The highest-ranked player listed was nicknamed “Golden Crow,” an official personnel.

He had safely led eight players out of the game, earning a Rank-B Evaluation.

The officials also announced his rewards, which included comprehensive benefits for his family and an item.

Most of the players ranked below him were at E-ordinary and D-good levels, with a few at C-excellent.

This was quite good considering they were all still confused as newcomers to the game, and they had also earned a collective title — Pioneer Players.

Daring to lead, willing to be the vanguard.

The comment section under this post was boiling with excitement.

Many players were emotionally unstable after joining the game, worrying both about losing their lives and neglecting their families.

But once enlisted by the officials, as long as they performed well, the country would provide resources and money, and even if they died, their families would receive a significant compensation, freeing them from all worries!

It was evident that many players were tempted; the post was very hot, pushing down all other posts offering to trade tickets or buy items and potions at high prices.

Among them, there were also some who wanted to sell tickets and items, but it was apparent to anyone with eyes that those were just baiting traps.

“Cousin, what are you looking at?” Yu Qingqing, with steam still rising from her, walked up behind him.

Xu Huo closed the page and glanced at her bare legs, “You should know by now that you’re no different from a piece of pork in my eyes.”

Wearing an oversized T-shirt she had found in his bag, Yu Qingqing pouted, “All my clothes are dirty; how can I wear them?”

“Right, why do you have a blade in your pocket?” she held a silver fragment, no bigger than half of a fingernail, “I almost cut my hand on it earlier.

You didn’t really go kill someone, did you?”

That was a fragment chipped off the Beheading Demon’s Axe; although the game had taken the axe, the fragment didn’t disappear.

Xu Huo reached out to take it, then reopened the ticket booking interface, “Get the assistant to bring you some clothes; don’t rummage through my stuff.

I’ve booked your ticket; head back early.”

“Breaking the contract won’t be that easy; I might even have to battle it out with the company in court,” Yu Qingqing attempted to argue.

“There’ll be no court battle; you don’t even need to sign anything.

I’ll handle it.

You go home and study, and don’t run around causing trouble,” Xu Huo replied coldly.

“Xu Huo!

You’re being unreasonable!” Yu Qingqing angrily glared, “Even my parents haven’t said anything!”

“Tomorrow, make your own way back, or go back in a wheelchair; choose one,” Xu Huo stood up and looked at her emotionlessly.

Yu Qingqing’s angry and pitiful expression was instantly withdrawn, and her eyes coldly stared at him for a few seconds before she hopped onto the bed and yanked the quilt over herself, muttering resentfully, “I curse you to be without a girlfriend for two years!”

Xu Huo turned off the light and lay down on the sofa.

Early the next morning, the assistant brought clean clothes.

While packing up Yu Qingqing’s dirty clothes, she cut her finger on a razor blade that shook out of them.

“I’ll do it,” Xu Huo told her to take care of the wound, then removed and threw away the three blades sewn into the collar and hem of the skirt and discarded them in the trash.

Once he’d taken Yu Qingqing to the airport and seen her board the plane, he returned to Ting City and went to the entertainment company she had contracted with.