Chu Qingjiu had never expected the antidote to the Mind-Losing Gu to be a Miao woman. Did that mean this mission required the players to do something decidedly adult with the Miao women before they could leave?
No wonder there were no female players in this instance. So the mission really was that shameless?
Chu Qingjiu frowned. None of the instances under his control had such absurd missions, so he had naturally assumed that all instances should be normal.
But he soon realized something was wrong.
What an instance needed was the players' fear. Doing something unspeakable with the Miao women would not generate any fear at all.
Besides, everything in this instance had been far too easy so far. The so-called antidote was probably something terrifying on the Miao women's bodies, something that would strike fear into the players.
Bang, bang-
A Xue pounded on the door outside. She probably understood why Chu Qingjiu had suddenly shut it, so she changed her story in hopes of getting inside again.
"Brother Chu, I was only joking just now. I've already brought the antidote. Open the door."
"..."
Chu Qingjiu now felt that A Xue outside the door was no different from the big bad wolf in a fairy tale. After locking the door, he ignored her.
A Xue knocked for a while, then realized that Chu Qingjiu really had no intention of opening the door for her. She had no choice but to give up on getting inside and awkwardly lowered her hand.
"Brother Chu, if you don't get the antidote before tonight, the gu will start eating away at your heart. Don't say I didn't warn you."
With that, A Xue left.
She walked away with an air of arrogance. No one could endure that kind of pain. Chu Qingjiu would surely come to her of his own accord and beg her for the antidote.
At that thought, her red lips curved into a faint smile, and her mood grew even brighter.
Chu Qingjiu knew that some gu poisons could only be cured through intimacy with the person who had planted them.
The Lovesickness Gu, for example. The person planting it would first swallow the mother gu, then find a way to get the offspring gu into the other person's body. The offspring could enter through swallowing, contact, breathing, and all sorts of other means that were nearly impossible to guard against.
Anyone carrying the offspring gu had to be intimate with the mother gu's carrier on the full moon of the fifteenth night of every month. Otherwise, the restless offspring inside them would torment them until they wished they were dead.
Such coercive methods were certainly dishonorable, but they guaranteed that the other person would stay by their side, never able to escape.
Chu Qingjiu felt that this was actually no different from his Puppet. He could also force Qi Wu to remain by his side. All he had to do was drip a drop of blood onto the wooden puppet's chest.
But he also felt that affection could not be forced. If he truly forced Qi Wu to become a Puppet, it might only backfire.
He gazed thoughtfully at the little wooden puppet he had tossed onto the bed.
Qi Wu carefully climbed out through the window and stepped onto the gray-tiled roof, doing his utmost to slow his steps and keep his movements silent.
The soft moonlight made his face look even more handsome. His tall, straight figure stood alone on the rooftop in the wash of moonlight.
With a longsword strapped to his back, he could have looked the part of a spirited swordsman roaming the martial world.
"I really do miss my sword a little," Qi Wu murmured.
Because this was a low-star instance, he could not bring his sword in. Otherwise, he would have loved to slice up all these Miao women like watermelons.
Though using a sword meant to injure an instance's final boss on these Miao women would have been something of an overkill.
He flipped down into another courtyard, grateful that the houses here were built right next to one another. As long as he was not afraid of making a racket, he could even run parkour across the rooftops.
"Brother?"
Qi Wu had slipped out of his room in the middle of the night to meet Chu Qingjiu in secret. The Miao women watched them too closely during the day, forcing them to stay with their respective women.
Now that he finally had a chance to breathe at night, what was wrong with spending some intimate time with his dear brother?
Unfortunately, Chu Qingjiu was not in his room.
Qi Wu searched Chu Qingjiu's room but found no sign of him. It seemed Chu Qingjiu had had the same idea and taken this opportunity to sneak out.
"Did he go looking for me? But I didn't run into him on the way here."
Qi Wu was utterly puzzled. Surely Chu Qingjiu had not left for some reason other than finding him?
He sat down on Chu Qingjiu's bed and let his head droop listlessly.
Actually, that was entirely possible. Chu Qingjiu did not seem like someone whose mind was consumed by romance. While Qi Wu had spent this stretch of free time thinking about Chu Qingjiu, Chu Qingjiu had spent it thinking about how to leave the instance sooner.
Damn that work-obsessed brain of his.
He turned to look out the window.
Outside, everything was pitch-black. The wind stirred the plants all around, filling the air with constant rustling. Something utterly terrifying seemed to lurk in the darkness.
If only Chu Qingjiu cared about me a little more. If only he liked me a little more.
Qi Wu gave a self-mocking smile and left Chu Qingjiu's room.
The night deepened. Clear moonlight pierced the clouds unobstructed and fell upon a stilt house perched on a cliff.
A pair of slender, delicate feet swung gently beside the railing, glowing a luminous white in the moonlight.
Above them, the woman's slim, graceful figure was wrapped in dark Miao clothing that accentuated her curves. Higher still, strands of white hair fluttered freely in the night breeze.
Unlike her pale neck, the skin on her face was as rough as a withered tree, covered in wrinkles that made her look eighty or ninety years old.
Her eyes were scarlet, yet strikingly vivid.
She lifted her head, the bright full moon reflected in her scarlet eyes, which looked as soft as if they had been steeped in water.
As time passed, the scarlet in her eyes seemed to fade little by little. Her aged face also grew smooth-or rather, she was gradually becoming younger.
As midnight approached, she raised her head once more to gaze at the bright full moon, revealing a face of breathtaking beauty. No one could possibly have imagined that she was the white-haired old woman from moments before.
Only then did she gently lift the corners of her lips in a soft, faint smile.
Slash-
Without warning, a sharp dagger slit her throat.
Her eyes widened, profound bewilderment filling her ink-black pupils. Her strength failed her, and she fell from the stilt house into the abyss.
"Wrong..."
That was all she managed to say at the end.
Li Yunlong and the biker both breathed a sigh of relief. When they had crept up to this stilt house, they had seen the white-haired old woman sitting on the railing with her back to them.
Fortunately, they had been cautious enough to slit the white-haired old woman's throat without making a sound.
The biker glanced down. Beneath the stilt house lay an unfathomably deep chasm, into which the white-haired old woman had just fallen.
Relieved, he asked Li Yunlong, "We should be safe now, right?"
Li Yunlong nodded. "We should be. But why haven't we received a mission completion notification yet?"
As they puzzled over this, neither noticed that danger had already crept up on them.
Behind them stood an ugly-faced ghost with coarse yellow hair. Black mist coiled around its body, and they could just make out dead venomous insects and gu creatures crawling out of its flesh.
It was a ghost born from the accumulated resentment of venomous insects and gu creatures-the Scorpion Ghost.
Before you continue