The other person wasn't a Player. They probably just thought Big Mao was cute and wanted to buy him. Once they reached their destination, they abandoned him.
That's right, they just left him behind, saying he wasn't smart enough and was uncomfortable to hold.
Since they'd already disembarked, Big Mao promptly returned to the painted woman's side.
The two spent two days exploring the Sub-district where the ship had docked. When they started getting bored, they decided to rob Players, sell the stolen items for money, and then catch another ship.
But ships that crossed Wormholes and Sub-districts weren't easy to find. And even if they did find one, having money didn't necessarily mean they could board. As luck would have it, though, the Sub-district they were in was a sub-district under a powerful district, and there were fixed trade routes between places like that. With a little pull, they could still get on board.
After they'd had their fill of those Sub-districts, they finally remembered Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu, far away from home, and decided they should return to check on them.
They were also quite lucky: while out asking around about Return Tickets, they happened to stumble across a manhunt.
Their plan was simple: buy a Return Ticket to District 014, hand it to any Player, then threaten them into taking the two of them along.
That's right, their plan was just that crude and simple. They weren't even worried that someone might try to rob them.
The person being hunted was a ticket scalper who claimed to have a Return Ticket to District 014. In the game, some people made a fortune by targeting newly merged Sub-districts. The tickets might not even be real, but plenty of people claimed to have them.
Clearly, this man didn't