Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng weren’t in a rush to track down Lin Yandong. Since neither planned on starting another serial instance in the short term, the matter could be set aside for now.
Currently, news of Jin Cheng’s return to East Cross Street hadn’t spread yet, keeping things relatively peaceful. Before long, Wen Xiaoming—having received a heads-up from the Ruby Tavern—arrived in Zone F bearing “warmth,” a massive backpack slung over his shoulders.
The two sides met at the Ruby Tavern.
“Boss, you came back at the perfect time. Any later, and I would’ve been dragged into an instance by Lily,” Wen Xiaoming said. He was still sporting a bucket hat, flip-flops, faded pink hair, and earrings. Between his outfit and the gigantic backpack, he looked like a trendy street peddler ready to pack up his stall and head to Paris Fashion Week tomorrow.
“How is Lilith?” Jin Cheng asked.
“She’s doing great, just doing face masks at home every day. Oh right, Boss, she told me to bring you a few—some whitening, some moisturizing. Which do you want? I also brought clothes, all the latest arrivals.”
Tang Cuo had previously wondered whether the third person constantly brought up in their conversations was named Lily or Lilith. Hearing Wen Xiaoming’s chatter, he decided the name wasn’t important anymore.
He glanced at Jin Cheng. Is your squad from the beauty and cosmetics section?
Jin Cheng raised an eyebrow. “Don’t give me that look. When you finally meet her, do you think you’ll escape the fate of wearing a face mask? Actually, looking at your hair, you could use a perm. A foil perm would suit you nicely—it’d strip away that overly righteous look on your face.”
Wen Xiaoming nodded. “I think that could work.”
Tang Cuo: “…” I think it cannot.
Tang Cuo didn’t like fussing with his hair. As long as it was cut clean and short, he was fine; styling was too much of a hassle. He also had absolutely zero desire to discuss beauty and makeup with Jin Cheng and Wen Xiaoming right now. That was far beyond his scope of knowledge.
Fortunately, Jin Cheng let him off the hook, turning back to Wen Xiaoming to ask about recent developments in Zone A.
Wen Xiaoming gave a highly detailed rundown, though it was mostly minor news. Overall, things were peaceful. Finally, he suddenly remembered something. “Oh, right! When I went to the Game Hall yesterday, I heard folks from Zone B saying that the European Emperor seems to be making a move into Zone A.”
The exact words of that gossiping bystander from Zone B had been: “The European Emperor truly lives up to his title. The big shots in Zone A are either sitting in jail or being punished back to Zone F, leaving only the folks like Lin Yandong who rarely cause trouble. Zone A is in total harmony right now! Heading there now is smooth sailing for him. By the time Jin Cheng, that blacklist maniac, gets back, he’ll have already established a firm foothold. Simply amazing!”
Why the “European Emperor” Yu Yiyi was on Mr. Crow’s blacklist had always been an unsolved mystery in Yong Ye City. With his heaven-defying luck, he clearly should have been the Crow’s chosen son.
Wen Xiaoming spoke his mind: “I kind of want to be friends with him.”
Jin Cheng raised an eyebrow. “He was wandering outside East Cross Street the other day hoping to kill me, and you want to be friends with him?”
“Well, didn’t he leave in the end without doing anything? I think there’s still a chance for us to be friends. Don’t you agree, Boss? Our group’s overall karma is way too poor; we desperately need to neutralize it.”
“What did you say is poor?”
Wen Xiaoming immediately clamped his mouth shut and shook his head obediently.
He just couldn’t control his mouth. He blurted out whatever he thought, but it was the undeniable truth. Their group only had a few members. The Boss sitting at number one on the blacklist was bad enough, but their guaranteed new member, Tang Cuo, was also sprinting down the blacklist path of no return. Add Lilith—that dark demoness—into the mix, and as a lowly logistics staffer, he truly couldn’t carry this team.
After meeting Tang Cuo a while back, Wen Xiaoming had even whimsically tried to invent a Good Luck Simulator—something like a luck buff you could wear on your head. Unsurprisingly, it was a complete failure.
But he believed he would succeed one day. This was the unshakable confidence of an equipment master.
Before parting ways, Jin Cheng instructed, “Find an opportunity to meet Lin Yandong. Tell him I have business with him. We’ll discuss the specifics when we meet in person.”
Wen Xiaoming nodded in agreement and headed back.
Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng carried the massive backpack back to East Cross Street. They didn’t deliberately keep a low profile, walking openly and casually. Consequently, it wasn’t long before everyone knew the two of them were back.
After dropping off their haul, the duo headed to the department store, as Jin Cheng needed to fulfill his promise: buying Tang Cuo a hairdryer.
Yong Ye City’s department store was a magical place. Not only could you buy standard daily necessities, fresh meat, and produce, but you could also stumble upon all sorts of bizarre services.
For instance, face-sculpting. By spending varying amounts of points, a technician could give you on-the-spot plastic surgery. Although allocating points to Charm could technically rejuvenate a person, it couldn’t instantly turn an ugly duckling into a stunning beauty. Yong Ye City’s face-sculpting service, however, could.
Tang Cuo looked somewhat curiously at the slogan on the billboard: Yong Ye City Micro-Surgery, Your Best Choice.
Then he checked the prices. Double eyelids cost 12 points; a nose job was 18 points. The most expensive procedure was the baldness cure, “Save the Hairline,” which demanded a whopping 38 points.
What a total scam.
Aside from that, there was a Dream Weaver machine that looked like a giant egg.
Tang Cuo had seen similar setups in malls before—VR experience pods where customers strapped on a headset and sat back. But what this Dream Weaver projected clearly wasn’t standard VR imagery, and it boasted the longest line by far.
“What are they watching?” Tang Cuo asked.
“They’re dreaming.” Jin Cheng crossed his arms and leaned against a pillar, his gaze deepening. “This machine weaves a beautiful dream where you’re still alive in the real world. Inside the dream, you can fulfill your unfulfilled wishes and reach the absolute pinnacle of your life.”
Tang Cuo understood.
The Dream Weaver was a safe harbor for escaping reality, drawing in one person after another. The more they immersed themselves in the illusion, the harder it became to face reality, pulling them deeper into a vicious cycle of addiction.
A single dream session cost 10 points. By the time a player slowly fed all their points into the machine, they wouldn’t be far from a complete breakdown.
Yet the queue remained packed, winding all the way around the corner.
Suddenly, Tang Cuo spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Raising an eyebrow slightly, he shot Jin Cheng a look. Jin Cheng followed his gaze and spotted Number 1 from Showdown at Devil City standing right in the middle of the line.
Number 1 had been forced into that instance after triggering a mandatory mission. He spent the whole time trying to get others to save him, ultimately giving up on himself during the second stage. Out of pure, dumb luck, the third stage looped back to the second stage’s arena, allowing him to piggyback his way out.
Seeing Number 1 in the Dream Weaver line didn’t surprise Jin Cheng in the slightest.
It had been over ten days since Showdown at Devil City. Given his habit of escaping reality, Number 1 would likely trigger another mandatory mission system penalty in another ten days or so.
Whether he’d survive the next one was highly doubtful.
“Let’s go.” Jin Cheng had saved Number 1 once, but since the man clearly had zero desire to save himself, Jin Cheng lacked the saintly patience to keep bailing him out. He and Tang Cuo continued their leisurely stroll upstairs, soon arriving on the second floor.
The two stopped at the intersection and glanced down the aisles. One turned right, the other turned left. Both had very clear, entirely different objectives.
“Where are you going?” Jin Cheng turned around, exasperated.
“To buy chocolate,” Tang Cuo replied.
“Can’t you buy the hairdryer with me first, and then go buy your stuff?”
“Oh.”
Tang Cuo turned on his heel and walked back to Jin Cheng’s side, keeping both hands shoved in his trench coat pockets. He looked aloof, effortlessly cool, and entirely unbothered. Wandering through a supermarket was actually quite foreign to him. He had enlisted at eighteen, and after his discharge, he had favored online shopping. If he needed something immediately, he just went to the convenience store downstairs. He rarely stepped foot in massive supermarkets.
Thinking about it carefully, every time he went grocery shopping with someone else, that “someone else” was always Jin Cheng.
Jin Cheng didn’t know this, though he knew a bit about Tang Cuo’s past. Spotting an empty shopping cart ahead, he grabbed it and shoved it right in front of Tang Cuo. “Push this for me.”
Tang Cuo tilted his head slightly. “?”
Jin Cheng casually swiped a few coasters off a shelf and dropped them into the cart. Then came a glass jar, a cleaning brush, and a pile of cute animal-shaped hooks.
Tang Cuo silently pushed the cart behind him, glancing left and right. After looking around for a long time, he still didn’t see anything he wanted to buy. He had absolutely no idea where Jin Cheng’s ravenous shopping desire came from, but he refrained from commenting until—
Jin Cheng bought a health pot.
“I don’t want this thing,” Tang Cuo said decisively.
“Who said it was for you? It’s mine.” Jin Cheng leaned on the other end of the cart, watching him with amusement, before abruptly changing his tune. “I’m buying it so I can cook for you.”
“I refuse.”
“Rejection invalid.”
Jin Cheng: a health-preservation guru who never actually practiced healthy habits himself but insisted on forcing them onto others.
The two deadlocked right there in the appliance section. Jin Cheng insisted on buying it, and Tang Cuo stubbornly refused to accept it. Two tall, strikingly handsome men stood frozen in a stubborn standoff, drawing frequent sideways glances from everyone passing by.
Ultimately, this bloodless war ended with Tang Cuo’s compromise—because whoever paid the bill held the power.
Jin Cheng found Tang Cuo’s expression in that moment incredibly amusing. He looked exactly like a fierce little tiger that had given up resisting, putting on a world-weary face and pretending to be a docile housecat.
But if you actually reached out to pet him, he’d probably swipe you with a claw.
Super fierce.
The more Jin Cheng thought about it, the more the corners of his mouth curved up involuntarily. Tang Cuo shot him a side-eye, entirely convinced this guy was weird and definitely harboring some inappropriate thoughts again.
He simply pushed the cart and walked ahead.
Jin Cheng followed leisurely behind, watching Tang Cuo’s back. Slowly but surely, that subtle, warm feeling in his chest began to expand.
An hour later, the two returned fully loaded with two massive shopping bags.
Tang Cuo had successfully acquired a large stash of chocolate beans, slightly diluting the depression brought on by the health pot. On the way back, they stopped for hot and sour noodles. The spicy, tangy flavor stimulated the appetite and instantly lifted their mood.
Back at the apartment, Tang Cuo had just stepped through the door when the entrance bell suddenly chimed.
“Ding!”
“You have a package, please collect it!”
Hearing this, Tang Cuo immediately remembered the outrageously scammy delivery fee from last time. He really didn’t want to get extorted again. But this time, Jin Cheng heard it too and looked genuinely curious. “Who’s sending you something?”
Tang Cuo remained expressionless. “It’s probably an enemy sending me razor blades.”
Jin Cheng just smiled.
That trick might fool others, but it won’t fool me.
