The Style Is About to Take a Turn for the Worse

In the far suburbs of Qingshui County, a few players wandered around for a while before stopping at a grove of trees at the foot of a small hill.

"This is it." Liao Yunhuai lightly kicked the tree trunk twice, then winked at his friends. Yun Yao looked at the desolate, uninhabited wilderness and frowned.

"Are you sure? There are monsters in this godforsaken place?"

"Of course, they've all appeared in the previous locations, haven't they? Don't you trust my intelligence capabilities? The monsters in this game are coded; as long as you follow the logic of where bandits and outlaws are stationed, you can't go wrong."

"Alright." Yun Yao thought about the previous waves of monsters and nodded. She took the guzheng off her back, stood in a crane stance, and placed the guzheng on her lap. Although it still felt a bit heavy, she could at least bear it.

Actually, she originally wanted to use Thirteen-string Guzheng (a small guzheng, popular in the Tang Dynasty and later spread to the Eastern Kingdom; it was relatively small in size), but she was beaten up by the NPC master as soon as she said it, and in the end she carried out an ordinary one instead.

The thought slowly flashed through her mind, but as a musician, Yun Yao still had professional ethics. As her fingertips plucked the strings, her distracting thoughts began to fade away...

"Buzzing~~"

"Buzzing~~"

"Clang clang clang clang clang~~"

The seemingly slow but actually fast zither music echoed through the forest, and with the help of not-so-profound Internal Force, it traveled farther and farther.

As the music spread, the players concealed themselves and waited quietly. One minute, two minutes passed, and finally, a small figure flashed across the scene. Soon after, a group of Japanese Pirates, drawn by the music, arrived.

As a group of humanoid monsters charged toward her with unpleasant smiles and various incoherent roars, Yun Yao remained unmoved, continuing to pluck the strings of her zither, as if she hadn't noticed the group of "humanoid" monsters on the mountain at all.

The zither music was gentle, without any sounds of battle or violence; it even sounded somewhat weak. As a result, when the Japanese Pirates, who had initially maintained some semblance of order, charged down the mountain, it turned into an animalistic race, as if whoever charged in the front would be entitled to enjoy the beautiful girls first.

However, just as the group of Japanese Pirates approached within ten meters of Yun Yao, the players suddenly jumped out from the treetops and unleashed a barrage of attacks on the short-statured Japanese Pirates.

Although their weapons were just ordinary store-bought items and their kung fu was rudimentary, their opponents were not Japanese Pirates, but rather a ragtag army that used the name of Japanese Pirates to burn, kill, and plunder everywhere. When the two sides clashed, the players actually managed to fight back and forth using the basic skills they had learned in the martial arts school.

Watching her teammates kill enemies ahead, Yun Yao indifferently acted as a monster-luring machine, her melodious zither music echoing far and wide, trying to attract the attention of monsters further away.

"Stop! Sister Yao, stop luring us! We're almost out of energy!"

"Who are you calling Sister Yao? If you can't speak properly, shut your mouth!" Yun Yao glared at the player, flicked her finger, and the music instantly changed, spreading a chilling aura. All living things present, whether players, monsters, or flies and rodents, felt a coldness spreading through them. It wasn't the kind of cold that was icy, but rather like being suddenly thrown from a warm environment into an icy wasteland. The strong contrast made people unconsciously stiffen, their hands and feet turn cold, and even their Internal Force circulation seemed to be about to freeze.

"Sister Yun! Miss Yun! Please stop! Stop playing! That's an area-of-effect attack! When the hell will this game turn off friendly fire?!"

The players complained, but their hands never stopped moving. They had already cooperated to kill several waves of monsters. They were already familiar with the debuff effects of Yun Yao's "Frostfall" song. In addition, they didn't have any fancy moves to begin with, so applying the debuff together was actually an advantage.

Within ten minutes, the small group of Japanese Pirates had all fallen to the ground. The players looted the area and managed to collect some items, including white and green crops.

These patrolmen who came down the mountain to check the situation were just regular soldiers. If they went up the mountain to loot, they might get more good stuff. But with the current level of players, ambushing and sneaking around is fine, but if they were to launch an attack, they would die as many as they went.

They called for people to drag the cart out of the woods, and together they threw the body onto it. The quest system in this lousy game is so realistic it's disgusting. If you want to take on a bandit-suppression mission from the government office, you have to deliver the body to the county office to get the reward. Of course, if it's a notorious bandit with a bounty on his head, you can just behead him and take him there.

"Yao... cough, Sister Yun, shall we continue farming?" After counting the Lower Corpse, Five Kills turned to look at Yun Yao. Yun Yao looked up at the sky and said helplessly:

"No, my Apprenticeship Mission is too troublesome. I have to go back and practice every day, otherwise I'll lose favorability and get beaten up. If I could beat him, I'd want him to give me tons of gold coins!"

"Don't try to act innocent after getting a good deal. That's Hidden NPC; so many people want to become his apprentice, but he won't accept them! How about I send you some money offline, and you introduce me to him? I'm not good at the guzheng or anything, but I can play the guitar..."

"Climb!"

"~~" Feng Xue hummed a little tune, and with a gentle stroke of her fingers, she wiped away all the splinters on the wood. After rubbing it back and forth a few times, the surface of the wood became as smooth as a mirror, as if it had been waxed.

Although Feng Xue didn't particularly like martial arts like the One Yang Finger Skill, it was excellent for carpentry when combined with Xuan Jun's [Masterful Creation] power.

Just as he was thinking that his dutiful apprentice, who was always trying to steal his gold coins, would be back soon, he saw a girl carrying a "Coffin board" walking gracefully towards him from not far away.

But before Feng Xue could even begin her usual prying tactics, her cheap apprentice stared wide-eyed at the thing in his hand with disbelief, saying:

"How could you make such a thing?"

"Ah, you mean this!" Feng Xue picked up the guitar that wasn't yet strung, a smile playing on her lips.

"An interesting guy told me about it. He said it's a pipa from a Western country, and you can play it while walking. It sounded like it wouldn't be too difficult to make, so I tried making one. It looks pretty good. I'll try adding a few strings. If it works well, maybe I can use it as a melee weapon."

"It's definitely Five Kills!" Yun Yao thought through gritted teeth, while Feng Xue secretly chuckled, looking like "the player told me so." While meticulously repairing the wooden guitar in her hand, she also pretended to take out a piece of white paper with guitar design drawings and glanced at it a few times.

Seeing this, Yun Yao became somewhat anxious, but she couldn't persuade her cheap craftsman to give up his idea of making guitars. Just as she was feeling resentful, she heard Feng Xue suddenly say:

"Stop standing there! Get back to today's training. You've been practicing for so long and you still can't control it precisely? Honestly, you can't even freeze yourself while playing the piano. Don't go out there saying you're my student, it's embarrassing!"