Zuo Cheng'an walked up to the dejected Wang Guangfei and got straight to the point. "Could you let me take a look at the item you got from Black Sheep?"
Although Wang Guangfei was on the verge of breaking down, he still hadn't given up hope of clearing the instance and kept reviewing the places Black Sheep might have gone in his mind.
At that, he grew extremely wary. "I don't know anything about an item."
"All right, looks like I wasn't specific enough." Zuo Cheng'an smiled. "Could you let me take a look at the bell you got from Black Sheep? In exchange, I can tell you where the Twenty-First Sheep is hiding."
"What!?" Wang Guangfei sprang up from the ground. "How did you know I got a bell!? Wait, what did you say!? The Twenty-First Sheep? Where is it!?"
But Zuo Cheng'an nastily shot back, "I don't know anything about a sheep."
He was giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Wang Guangfei: "..."
If only he'd known, he wouldn't have said that.
Wang Guangfei felt rather embarrassed, but his hands kept moving.
"Here you go." He took the bell item out of his backpack.
The instant Zuo Cheng'an touched the bell, he heard the game's notification in his mind.
[Ding! Key quest item discovered!] [Sheepdog's Bell (white)] [Category: Item] [Effect: A soundless accessory that can make Sheepdog look cuter.] [Restriction: Wearing it to sleep will make you dream of little sheep.] [Description: One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four... ZZZZ...]
In short, the bell was just an ordinary dog bell.
Without the instance's special quest, it was a useless piece of junk that couldn't even be sold.
But with the special quest, the conditions for triggering it could be used alongside this item to glean information.
After examining the item, Zuo Cheng'an could already connect most of the clues, and he didn't waste any time.
He told Wang Guangfei about the wool rug inside the Red House.
Wang Guangfei didn't doubt him and immediately went to the Red House's window, pressing up against it to peer inside.
Sure enough, he saw a sheepskin spread out on the floor.
When he returned to the sheep pen to thank Zuo Cheng'an, he discovered that Zuo Cheng'an had already left.
While Wang Guangfei was crawling down the chimney, Zuo Cheng'an had already sneaked over to the tomato warehouse with the bell.
It was strange enough that such a large farm grew nothing but tomatoes.
Well, the panda meme faces growing on the tomatoes were even stranger.
Because of the characteristics of the Wailing Tomatoes variety, combined with the picker's rough handling,
the warehouse had long since been engulfed in waves of babies' cries.
Youyou already had a bad temper, and spending so long in such a noisy environment only made her more irritable.
She slammed things around whenever she handled them, as if she wanted to vent all her anger on them.
Even a sheep passing by could get a vicious tongue-lashing from Youyou.
Black Sheep: ...
"What do you want, you beast? Hurry up and get lost! Is this somewhere you should be?"
Youyou tried to drag Black Sheep away by force, but even after grabbing its horns and tugging for ages, Black Sheep hadn't moved so much as a hoof.
Instead, Black Sheep gave its head a gentle shake, and Youyou was flung two or three meters away.
Girls started out with less strength to begin with, and she didn't have the courage to enter the newer instances.
As a result, Youyou hadn't earned many free attribute points, and she had put most of them into speed.
After finally getting one attribute high enough to meet the requirements for entering the Ladder Tower, she had charged in without a second thought.
Now look where that had gotten her-even a sheep in a Ladder Tower instance was stronger than she was.
Youyou couldn't do anything about Black Sheep. If she hadn't fallen out with her boyfriend, she could have gone to Wang Guangfei for help.
As long as she asked, Wang Guangfei would drop whatever he was doing and come to her.
But she'd just fallen out with Wang Guangfei and was still angry. Making the first move to reconcile would be too humiliating.
So she simply picked some tomatoes from the three baskets the crazed cattle had trampled and tossed them onto the ground in front of Black Sheep.
"Eat up. Isn't this what you beasts eat?"
If those three baskets of tomatoes hadn't been trampled, she would only have needed to pick one more basket to finish her task. Now she had to pick another four baskets of tomatoes to fill the warehouse.
After venting her anger, Youyou had no time to keep complaining. She could only compose herself and prepare to go pick some more.
If she moved quickly, she could get back just as the instance ended.
But the moment she stepped out through the warehouse doors, Black Sheep darted inside.
Youyou's expression changed drastically. "No! You beast, you're not allowed in there!! Get out right now!"
The tomatoes in the warehouse weren't simply piled in layers. They were all packed into bamboo baskets and then stacked on shelves.
Otherwise, the tomatoes on top would crush the ones underneath.
Filling the warehouse really just meant filling all the empty bamboo baskets on its shelves.
Black Sheep darted back and forth between the warehouse shelves, with Youyou chasing behind.
But in a cramped space, an animal's four-wheel drive seemed to have the advantage.
With a few nimble dodges, it escaped into the depths of the warehouse.
Youyou had already filled the shelves deep inside the warehouse that morning.
Before being sucked into the game, Youyou had been doted on by her whole family at home and cared for by her teachers and classmates at school because of her congenital heart condition.
Never mind making her do heavy or tiring work-they hadn't even dared let her get angry.
Who could have imagined that once she entered the game, although she no longer risked dying from her condition, she would have to do heavy labor she had never even touched before?
She really hadn't chosen a good enough boyfriend. If she could find a man from a major guild to be her boyfriend,
with their protection, she could coast through level-one instances without lifting a finger!
It wouldn't be like now, when she had to think for herself and do the work herself. It was exhausting.
There was no light source in the warehouse, and everything was pitch-black.
Thanks to its own "skin," Black Sheep had long since hidden in some unknown corner. After bumping into the shelves a few times, Youyou finally learned her lesson and had to slow down, inching through the darkness.
But once she slowed down, she smelled rot in the air.
At first, she thought something had simply gone moldy. After all, this warehouse was extremely run-down.
Mold covered many places. A bit of a rotten stench was perfectly normal.
But she soon realized that this rotten smell was extremely similar to the smell of the tomatoes trampled by the crazed herd outside.
No, they were the same smell. It was simply stronger inside the warehouse because there was no ventilation.
A bad feeling rose in Youyou's heart. Trembling, she reached out and pulled out the bamboo basket closest to her.
She reached into it in the dark.
Instead of fresh tomatoes with firm, smooth skins, her hand met rotten juices.
Severely rotted and subjected to outside force, the decayed tomatoes' skins split open with ease.
A smell like leftovers that had sat out for a week in the hottest days of summer assaulted her nose.
Bleurgh-!!! Youyou vomited on the spot.
Before you continue