Cen Yao pulled back her thoughts and said solemnly to the heavyweights in front of her:
“In short, I won't be joining any guild for the time being.”
“And please, don't waste your time on me.”
“Thank you all once again for thinking so highly of me.”
After speaking, she waved to everyone.
“If there's nothing else.”
“I'll be taking my leave first.”
“Bye-bye.”
The moment the words left her mouth, Cen Yao waved her wand.
The space rippled with a familiar distortion once more.
Luan was the first to react.
“Wait—”
But it was already too late.
Cen Yao grabbed Zhu Lingxi and pushed Pei Tinglan's wheelchair. Their figures suddenly faded amidst the warping of space.
In the next second, they vanished completely from the spot.
The plaza fell dead silent for a full three seconds.
Shadowweaver was the first to burst into laughter.
“She runs fast.”
Luan sheathed her short daggers. There was no anger on her face; instead, she showed a trace of intrigue.
“Interesting.”
Eclipse gently spun his copper coin.
“She claims she can foresee the future. Do you guys believe her?”
Ash remained silent for a moment.
“Partially.”
Guanwei lowered her head and flipped open her ledger.
Behind the word “precognition” she had just written down, she added a question mark.
“Whether it's true or false, she is far more cautious than we anticipated.”
Judge finally spoke.
His voice was deep, carrying an unquestionable calmness.
“Don't push her too hard for now.”
“She has only recently entered the game, so being cautious is normal.”
Shadowweaver clicked her tongue.
“Judge, you people from the Hanging Mirror Directorate are always so troublesome.”
“If you like someone, just snatch them. Why have so many reservations?”
Judge looked at her.
“Which is why no rookie has ever willingly approached your Eclipse Corridor to this day.”
Shadowweaver: “...”
Eclipse couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Luan stared in the direction where Cen Yao had disappeared, the fire in her eyes slowly dimming.
“The Permanent Team Card... She probably wants to build a team of her own.”
Ash said, “She has already made her choice.”
Luan raised an eyebrow.
“Pei Tinglan and Zhu Lingxi? A lone wolf and a successor... That combination is certainly interesting.”
Guanwei closed her ledger.
“Cen Yao is no ordinary rookie.”
“She lacks neither ability nor judgment.”
“Trying to recruit her recklessly now will only make her more resistant.”
“But she will eventually enter another dungeon.”
Judge looked up, his gaze sweeping across the still-unsettled crowd in the distance.
“Keep an eye on her movements, but don't contact her recklessly. Ensure that no one else makes a move on her first.”
On the other side.
In a secluded alleyway of the game space, the ripples of spatial distortion slowly faded.
The moment Cen Yao found her footing, she immediately looked back.
Beyond the mouth of the alley, the bright lights cast from the distant plaza were still visible, with faint murmurs of voices drifting over.
The people from those large guilds hadn't caught up for now, but no one could say for sure whether they would find this place.
Zhu Lingxi also stared in that direction for a moment, asking softly, “Miss Cen, will they come back?”
“Definitely.”
Cen Yao sighed.
“But at least not right now.”
She paused, feeling rather fortunate. “Good thing I ran fast.”
Leaning back in his wheelchair, Pei Tinglan looked up at her words.
“You certainly have self-awareness.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“I wasn't complimenting you.”
“As long as I took it as one, it counts.”
Pei Tinglan: “...”
Zhu Lingxi couldn't help but curve her eyes in a smile.
However, Cen Yao soon found herself in a dilemma.
This was her first time entering the player space, and since she had been cornered at the exit by that crowd earlier, she hadn't even had the chance to see what the place actually looked like.
The buildings outside the alley rose and fell in uneven heights.
Some resembled commercial streets in the real world, brightly lit with all kinds of items displayed in shop windows.
Others, however, were built in extremely bizarre fashions—hovering signs, intersecting corridors suspended in mid-air, pitch-black shop entrances that looked like dungeon portals, and players clad in cloaks and masks hurrying back and forth on the streets.
Everyone seemed incredibly busy.
And everyone carried a sense of guardedness that they hadn't fully let down after surviving a dungeon.
Cen Yao found it all very novel.
“Tour Guide Pei.”
Pei Tinglan's brow twitched.
“What is it now?”
“Where are we going now?”
Cen Yao looked at him, her tone perfectly natural. “Neither Lingxi nor I are familiar with the player space. Why don't you lead us to a place where we can rest, and where we won't easily run into those guilds?”
Zhu Lingxi nodded immediately.
“I don't know the way either.”
Pei Tinglan looked at Cen Yao, then at Zhu Lingxi.
One was in the player space for the first time.
The other had been here for so long yet could still manage to get lost.
He fell silent for a moment, finally resigning himself to his fate as he raised a finger to point in a direction.
“Turn left ahead, go through the trading street, and there's a dessert shop. The owner is a veteran player who doesn't like to pry. It's out of the way, so usually not many people go there.”
Cen Yao's eyes lit up.
“A dessert shop?”
Pei Tinglan asked coldly, “You don't want to go?”
“I do.”
Cen Yao immediately moved behind his wheelchair.
“Let's go, Tour Guide Pei.”
Pei Tinglan gripped the armrests of his wheelchair and turned his head to look at her.
“I can move on my own.”
“You lead the way, and I'll push you. No matter who gets tired, we can't let our grand Tour Guide Pei get tired.”
“Who taught you this nonsense?”
“I figured it out myself.”
Pei Tinglan originally wanted her to let go.
But Zhu Lingxi had already stepped to the other side, quietly watching him, clearly waiting for him to lead the way as well.
In the end, he only said coldly, “Keep close.”
The three of them walked through the alley and headed toward the trading street.
Along the way, Cen Yao saw many bizarre shops.
There were weapon shops specializing in dungeon items, with blood-stained daggers, music boxes tangled in hair, and writhing black vines displayed in glass cabinets.
There were information shops with wooden signs at the entrance that read, “Only truth spoken, price negotiable.”
There was also a hall dedicated to reserving training grounds, where most people entering and leaving looked exhausted, carrying the lingering scent of blood that hadn't yet dissipated.
The more Cen Yao looked, the more she felt that this place didn't resemble a resting area for players.
Instead, it felt like a city of survival floating within the Horror Game.
Zhu Lingxi was also observing very seriously.
She walked slowly, occasionally stopping to look at the paper talismans, incense burners, or warding items hanging outside the shops.
“The incense ash here is wrong,” she suddenly whispered.
Cen Yao followed her gaze.
It was a supernatural item shop. A black incense burner sat at the entrance, with three half-burned sticks of incense inside.
The ash hung extremely long but never fell.
“How is it wrong?”
Zhu Lingxi said seriously, “The ash is too straight. For normal incense, the falling ash takes a natural shape. For it to not fall like this, it suggests there's something suppressed inside that refuses to leave.”
Hearing this, Cen Yao felt a slight chill down her spine.
Pei Tinglan didn't even look back.
“That shop specializes in supernatural dungeon items. There is a low-grade wraith kept in the incense burner to attract customers.”
Cen Yao: “...”
Zhu Lingxi: “...”
Cen Yao silently quickened her pace.
“In that case, let's not look.”
Pei Tinglan said flatly, “Scared now?”
“I'm not scared.”
“I just don't want to waste my money.”
Pei Tinglan snorted.
Before long, the three of them stopped at a relatively quiet street corner.
The dessert shop's sign was very inconspicuous.
A small wooden sign was surrounded by a string of warm yellow lightbulbs, with only four words written on it: “Frosting Cottage.”
The shop front wasn't large. The exterior walls were painted light green, and several pots of blooming white flowers sat by the window.
Unlike the bizarre and eerie shops outside, this place looked like an extremely ordinary dessert shop from the real world.
It was almost so ordinary that it felt out of place.
The moment Cen Yao stepped inside, she smelled the rich aroma of cream and freshly baked bread.
Her nerves, which had been tense for so long, inexplicably relaxed a little.
There were only two or three tables of customers in the shop.
A man wearing a hood sat in the corner, eating cake with his head lowered.
The seats by the window were empty, with sunlight casting down from the virtual sky, pooling warmly on the table.
Pei Tinglan motioned for them to sit there.
Cen Yao pushed him to the table, while Zhu Lingxi sat opposite her.
Soon, a staff member handed over a menu.
Rate on N.U.
