"An injection should do it." The painted woman suddenly suggested. "Give her a shot, and she'll tell us everything."
Bubble Bean gave a cold laugh and brushed aside the long-haired Player's hand. "Why are you pretending to be the good guy? So your companions' lives aren't worth a penny to you? It's just an injection, not like we're going to kill her! If you're worried about saving face, I can do it!"
Their companion had died after being caught up in a political struggle, and they still didn't know how much trouble this would bring the Wan family. They felt sympathy for the old woman, of course, but their companion's life came first. The long-haired Player stopped hesitating. Once they boarded a passing express train, he took out a Syringe.
"No need." The old woman spoke despondently. "I'll tell you."
The train car was isolated by an item's effect. Xu Huo and the others gathered around the old woman and listened as she explained how the whole thing had started.
It had begun half a month ago. One night, her grandson, who worked out of town, suddenly rushed home. Cat Fruit Town had no nightlife, so no one saw him return. He stayed only a few minutes, handing her a cat-whisker fruit and telling her to make sure it reached the bookstore owner. If she couldn't find him, she was to give it to the manager of another restaurant instead.
The cat-whisker fruit itself wasn't important. What mattered was the symbol carved into its pit. The old woman had studied such things and had roughly identified it as an ancient, obscure script. But with reference materials missing, she didn't dare search for information openly. So she scrambled the order and made many identical cat-whisker fruits, then used a machine to