Facing the strange gazes, the group finally reached the well. Before they could state their purpose, the Goat-Headed Man turned around first. “Those who wish to purchase cultural and creative products, please follow me.”
The Goat-Headed Man walked quickly, but just looking at its back gave the illusion that it was so steady it was as if it had never moved.
They walked without stopping all the way out of the pavilion, and near the main gate, the Goat-Headed Man finally stopped. Not far away, the goat carriage they had ridden in was tied under an ancient tree. Three racks, each covered with red cloth, had been set up on the carriage at some point. The wind blew, but the red cloths didn’t move an inch.
After purchasing the cultural product from the Risheng Pavilion, one-third of the main quest would be completed. For a moment, everyone was both excited and nervous.
The Goat-Headed Man single-handedly uncovered the red cloth on the frontmost rack, and a faint smell of old, rotten wood wafted out. Like a street vendor with a cart, the rack was hung with all sorts of trinkets. Cartoon luggage tags, keychains, museum souvenir books, refrigerator magnets… there were at least thirty or forty types of items alone. Beside it, there was also a small freezer containing popsicles and ice cream.
“These are the cultural and creative products of the Risheng Pavilion. Please feel free to choose.” The Goat-Headed Man lowered its voice, its rectangular pupils seeming to capture the reflections of all the players. It gave a smile. “There’s always one that’s right for you.”
Zhou Qi’an frowned. So this was the trap. The quest required them to experience or collect a popular cultural product. Popular was the key; there must be unpopular ones among them.
“There are purchasing rules!” The college student walked around to the other side, where a small wooden board was hanging:
[Shopping Notice]
- Purchase limit. Each tourist has only three purchase qualifications in total, and can only buy one cultural product each time.
- No returns or exchanges.
- Limited quantities of the same product, first come, first served. If an item is sold out, it will be restocked within three days.
Now, everyone’s expression turned grim. They needed to collect cultural products from three galleries, but they only had three purchase opportunities in total. This meant that even one wrong choice would lead to direct failure of the main quest.
Zhou Qi’an suddenly asked, “Do we have to buy it now?”
When the smile appeared on the goat’s face, it was unspeakably creepy. “The purchase qualification can be retained until sunset tonight.”
“Let’s go back.” Without another word, Zhou Qi’an started walking back towards the museum. No one wasted any more words with the Goat-Headed Man. They were all prepared to return to the museum to find clues related to the popular cultural products.
Most of the players in the courtyard were looking up. With a subtle difference from before, they were not paying attention to the returning Zhou Qi’an and his group, but were concentrating on observing the weather, as if they were waiting for something.
Shen Zhiyi looked up. “It’s going to rain.” He vaguely sensed that an invisible rule was closing in. Water droplets condensed from the mist began to splash onto a few individual players before the rain itself.
Drip.
His forehead suddenly turned cold. Zhou Qi’an, who had just reached the eaves, reached up to touch it and was stunned. “It’s not blood.”
Liquid dripping from a high place was usually blood. He had even taken a couple of extra looks to confirm that it was just an ordinary water droplet.
“This area’s terrain is yin-heavy and gathers negative energy. The mist contains bad luck. Getting hit by such a water droplet will bring you very bad luck.” Nearby, Shen Zhiyi dissipated the few water droplets floating around the young man and spoke.
“?” Zhou Qi’an’s mouth twitched.
Shen Zhiyi walked a little further away, slowing the rate at which the yin energy in the densest part of the mist condensed into water droplets. The gloom in his eyes was even more frightening than the sky. Qi’an was clearly being targeted. The problem was why the game would allow such targeted design. Continuously adding to his misfortune meant that the system had calculated that the subject had too great an advantage in the instance and needed to be balanced. In the Whalers’ Association’s home turf, why would Qi’an be the one with the advantage?
“He always has a backup plan.”
Just like the holy artifact and the Nightmare’s Heart back then. This time, bringing Ying Yu and the others into the instance should be one of his preparations. Where was the other one? He squinted in Zhou Qi’an’s direction, a rare look of confusion in his eyes.
“What ace have you got up your sleeve?”
The air was too humid, and small water droplets fell from time to-and-fro, making it impossible to guard against. There was nothing to use for shelter from the wind and rain. A round fan appeared in his hand. Zhou Qi’an held the forgery from the Risheng Pavilion over his head. When the light and soft surface of the fan touched the fine water droplets, its color distorted a little.
Zhou Qi’an half-lifted his eyelids. Under his long eyelashes, his pupils, darker than usual, were fixed on the surface of the fake fan in his hand, his thoughts unknown.
Rumble!
A terrifying clap of thunder sounded from behind the dark clouds. Suddenly, a torrential downpour raged, interrupting Zhou Qi’an’s thoughts.
After hitting the eaves, the rainwater became exceptionally obedient, all of it systematically converging into the large well in the courtyard. The well seemed as if it could never be filled.
Zhou Qi’an subconsciously stared at the water’s surface. He had specifically observed it when he arrived in the morning and found no drainage system. This well, which couldn’t be filled and didn’t drain, was stranger than any of the exhibits in the museum.
[Four waters return to the hall, water gathers at the heavenly heart, joy descends from the heavens.]
The familiar mechanical notification sound returned, but it was even colder than before. Zhou Qi’an listened carefully. Even without He Li’s explanation, he had drawn many buildings and had some knowledge of this kind of feng shui. In feng shui, water gathering at the heavenly heart meant that good luck and wealth would descend. Zhou Qi’an quickly made a deduction. Whenever a player obtained the qualification to purchase a cultural product, this situation would occur.
“No wonder these people were all watching the weather when we came out.”
The system notification continued:
“Please note, [Limited Copper Coin *1] has appeared in the well. Picking it up will grant one opportunity to communicate with a resident of the Silent Town.”
“[Limited Copper Coin] is non-tradable.”
“[Limited Copper Coin] winner’s identity will not be announced.”
Almost at the instant the notification ended, countless figures began to madly plunge into the bottomless well. Some even jumped from the second floor of other buildings, causing exaggerated ripples on the water’s surface.
Within a few seconds, before the splashes had even disappeared, a conspicuous bloody color had already appeared in the waves. The slaughter had already begun underwater.
The rain poured down, turning the blood floating on the surface into a subtle light red. The slaughter at the bottom of the well was unimaginably fierce, and the water’s surface constantly alternated between deep red and a lighter color.
Zhou Qi’an stared at the water’s surface. Some water droplets were still suspended in mid-air, not falling immediately, continuously gathering around him.
This should be what Shen Zhiyi said, the thing that increased bad luck.
Earlier, while waiting in the pavilion, he had casually asked the college student and tested his boss, confirming that although the owner of the courtyard where they were staying was strange, he didn’t go around hacking people with a knife in the middle of the night. Not to mention, he himself had run into the night watchman as soon as he stepped out last night.
All his thoughts came together in an instant, and Zhou Qi’an suddenly understood something.
The Whalers’ Association was weakening him. They seemed to be well aware of his weakness of having bad luck and were constantly using misfortune to weaken his advantages. The game also allowed this design. If he let this continue, he would surely lose.
Without other NPCs, the only way to find out which cultural product was considered popular was to communicate with the residents of the Silent Town. He had to get that copper coin.
The rain continued to fall without any sign of stopping. More and more hesitant players made up their minds and chose to enter the well. Zhou Qi’an looked around. His boss, Ying Yu, and the others were gone; they must have already entered the water. Just as he was looking for Shen Zhiyi, in the next second, his vision was suddenly deprived, and the sky above his head turned pitch black. A downpour had plunged the world into a brief moment of complete darkness.
Taking a deep breath, Zhou Qi’an wasted no more time. With a splash, he also jumped into the well.
The well water was icy cold. Soaking in it felt like being in an ice cellar.
The moment he went down, the whirlpools and currents were extremely turbulent, and his body couldn’t resist this external force, being randomly washed into a certain area.
The bottom of the well was more like another world. In a blurry darkness, visibility was low.
Everything was just a vague outline. The depth and breadth were comparable to a small lake.
In this semi-dim environment, Zhou Qi’an’s lips were tightly pursed, giving him the illusion that a terrifying monster could emerge from the shadows at any moment.
Seeing something below, he dived further down. After descending another two meters, a chill instantly climbed up his spine underwater. Not far from him, countless corpses were sunk at the bottom of the water.
All these corpses were standing on their tiptoes in the water, looking up in his direction. As the corpses had undergone saponification in the water, their tiptoes got higher and higher with the movement of the water. Again and again, their hanging arms began to reach up towards the living person above. The longest arm was almost about to touch him.
“!!!”
Zhou Qi’an frantically swam in another direction. Even the calmest person wouldn’t have a good expression after suddenly seeing a pile of highly saponified corpses that could reanimate at any moment.
The Whalers’ Association that designed this instance didn’t need evolution; they had already transcended humanity.
“It’s impossible to blindly search the entire well for a single copper coin.”
As Zhou Qi’an was escaping the living corpse area and pondering where the copper coin might be, a notification sound suddenly rang in his ear:
“Hint, [Limited Copper Coin] is currently in the southeast area.”
After the system notification disappeared, a map appeared on his mission panel. There was a light spot on the map, and not only that, but there was also a coordinate exclusive to him. It wasn’t difficult to find it using the map and coordinates.
“A miracle.”
Zhou Qi’an was surprised that he wasn’t too far from the light spot. Wasn’t his luck supposed to be bad? It seemed okay for now.
He accelerated towards the light spot. As he passed a certain area, Zhou Qi’an keenly sensed that there was something beside him. He could feel an incredibly strong fishy smell approaching him without even needing to breathe.
Zhou Qi’an’s pupils shrank, and he immediately dodged to the side. It was only a matter of seconds. In the spot where he had just been, a school of swimming koi instantly appeared. They were yellow and red, half the height of a person. When they opened their mouths, they revealed dense rows of teeth, and the scales on their bodies were more like tumors, trembling in the water.
His expression was a bit subtle. Were these toothed fish a specialty of the instance? Why did he run into them everywhere he went?
Compared to the fish, what really gave Zhou Qi’an a jolt was something else.
“It’s over.”
What he feared most had come. His originally smooth hair suddenly began to grow vigorously in the water, the ends emitting a soft glow, and his skin also began to transition to another kind of cold, translucent white.
Whenever he encountered various underwater creatures, Zhou Qi’an would easily ‘transform’ uncontrollably. The transformation could grant immunity to the attacks of underwater creatures, but in the current situation of a hundred-person battle, it was simply a death sentence.
The originally dark lake bottom suddenly had a touch of light. Its brightness was comparable to the [Limited Copper Coin] on the map, or even more obvious. All the players’ gazes turned in surprise towards one spot.
…As the center of the light source, Zhou Qi’an closed his eyes, not wanting to see himself shining.
Just like the previous times, whenever he transformed, his skin would have a faint fluorescence.
Whether it was in the Good Night Villa or the last time in the lake at the Cyclamen Inn, this was a good thing, successfully helping him to see some underwater anomalies.
Now… it was a complete death sentence.
“How am I supposed to play like this?”
With this kind of lighting effect, how was he supposed to play!
With a full-body special effect, let alone finding the copper coin, he was now like a luminous pearl. Just swimming around, he could easily be stabbed by other competitors. This time, he was really going to be ‘beautifully killed’.
…Actually, there were others who were even more speechless than him.
In a nearby area, as a school of fish swam by, two players swimming side by side were taking the opportunity for one to sneak attack the other. This was a god-given opportunity! Who knew that a beam of light would suddenly scatter over, stopping right on his ferocious expression as he raised his knife.
“!!”
Damn it, the knife-wielding player’s face changed drastically. Which bastard turned on the lights in the water?
Further away, a player who was carefully hiding from his enemies, moving cautiously along a rock crevice, was also startled by the light. He turned his head and saw the lonely Zhou Qi’an at the bottom of the well.
At first glance, a god of beauty had descended. Second glance, holy crap, what an idiot!!
Over a hundred people were fighting for a single copper coin. Everyone wished they could use invisibility items, so why was there someone shining brightly? And this menace was still swimming forward, like a searchlight. The faces of those he illuminated were not very good.
A ruthless glint had already flashed in some players’ eyes, wanting to get rid of him. But those who dared to enter the water were some of the smarter players. After a second thought, would a normal person do this underwater?
“Could it be a trick?”
The same thought occurred to many people at the same time. Perhaps the luminous body was a decoy, intentionally trying to lure people over, while hiding other destructive killing moves. Adhering to the principle of not looking for trouble, and being unsure, the few people nearby eventually chose to swim faster and shake him off.
A minute later, they were left far behind by Zhou Qi’an.
“…” What an absurd speed.
A light source suddenly appeared in the water, and Zhou Qi’an’s teammates also saw it. The hound and Yuan were swimming one after another, and Ying Yu was also nearby. Among the first wave of people who entered the water, some players had thrown out items that confused the senses, creating an artificial maze. Yuan and Ying Yu happened to run into it.
At this moment, seeing that soft light source, Yuan’s first reaction was that Zhou Qi’an was intentionally attracting the attention of other players, putting himself in danger to create an opportunity for them. He was still like this, always willing to burn himself to illuminate others.
Yuan became even more determined to fight for the copper coin. Even Ying Yu was inclined to believe this possibility. No one would have thought that someone would have evolved an underwater special effect so early on.
