Since they had failed to defeat the final boss, the White Tower automatically ruled that they had failed to clear the instance.
The four people who had been pushed off the rooftop were still dazed when the game environment faded away.
"You..." Cheng Jie's head was spinning. "Why did you push us off?"
Zheng Xun stood beside them as if nothing had happened, tapping away at the screen projected by his wristband. He was already prepared to enter the instance again.
"If we beat the final boss, the White Tower would rule that we'd cleared the instance. The entrance would close permanently, and none of us would be able to get back in."
Zheng Xun fought bosses fiercely, but he didn't get carried away. He remembered what their original objective was.
"And take this."
He picked up a caramel-colored cloth bag from beside his feet and tossed it next to Cheng Jie.
"What's this?"
"The quest reward, a bag of gold coins."
Failing an instance also earned gold coins, which could be exchanged for items, weapons, and the like on the marketplace.
It was Li Shuang's first time in an instance, and she had followed the others in running away before she could experience anything.
She asked cautiously, "Then... what do we do next?"
"Go back in," Zheng Xun said without the slightest hesitation, "until we roll the 3S side quest."
He bent down, retied his shoelaces, and straightened up again.
They were now in the White Tower's first-floor lobby. Beside Zheng Xun was a blue button that players could press to enter the instance.
Zheng Xun had already placed his hand on it. He looked at the others.
"I'll solo it this time and see if I can trigger the side quest."
"How can you solo it?" Cheng Jie said.
"Let him go." This time, Xiao Jun didn't object. Rather, after gaining a concrete understanding of Zheng Xun's strength, he had gradually come to trust him.
He looked as though he knew what he was doing, and he genuinely felt that the other four were getting in his way.
Stopped by the vice guild leader, Cheng Jie didn't understand, but he kept quiet.
The other two team members naturally had no objections.
"Then I'm off."
Zheng Xun pressed the button to enter the instance.
Last time, he had only taken the inflatable hammer out of cloud storage. This time, he summoned Little Red Riding Hood.
The little girl with braided hair wore a blank expression and blinked her stiff eyelids.
: Holy crap, Sister Hong!
: Is Sister Hong going to carry this run?
: Obviously.
: I heard players have to train their dependents for a while and build up coordination before they can use them. Can Zheng Xun really use a high-risk dependent so casually?
: That's God Zheng we're talking about. Just watch.
Little Red Riding Hood lived up to her name. She was unbelievably popular.
The number of viewers in the livestream shot up instantly.
Compared with those household-name aces, Zheng Xun, this rising star, had attracted more attention over the past week.
He came from a trash district, became a god in his first battle, fought three bosses at once, and was the master of a high-risk dependent.
All those factors combined to make the attention on Zheng Xun explode. He didn't care, but everyone was watching his every move.
For this Songbird debut, many players from major guilds were watching the livestream, even ACEs.
After finishing his morning training, Huo Ziyan of the Azure Mist Guild didn't go to breakfast with the other players. Instead, he took advantage of this rare break to curl up in an empty break room, open the District 068 livestream, and watch the Locust Sound instance.
Zheng Xun had already appeared outside the gates of Huaiyin No. 4 Middle School, holding Little Red Riding Hood obediently by the hand. If the surroundings hadn't been so eerie, the scene would have looked just like an older brother taking his little sister to school.
Huo Ziyan wore Bluetooth earbuds and pressed the volume-up button on his wristband, turning up the sound.
Zheng Xun's voice came through clearly.
"Sister Hong, let's make a deal. The first boss is mine, and the second boss is yours."
"I don't know."
"Whether you know or not, you have to know. You'll know soon enough."
The long-winded tongue twister made Little Red Riding Hood blink her big eyes innocently.
"Don't open your eyes so wide, or your eyeballs might fall out again. Don't you know whether you're dead or not?"
Zheng Xun's quip was merciless, and the chat was full of laughter.
Zheng Xun was not only entertaining to watch in a fight, but he also knew how to put on a show, making for an excellent livestream.
Some players were capable but very serious. Others were good at joking around but looked rather disheveled when they fought.
Zheng Xun had both qualities, which was also why streams featuring him were popular.
Huo Ziyan chuckled along.
"Little Huo? What are you watching that's making you so happy?"
Two teammates in Azure Mist uniforms squeezed into the break room one after the other, and Huo Ziyan abruptly grew uncomfortable.
"N-nothing."
He instinctively tried to put his wristband away, but one of his teammates held him back.
"What are you hiding? Let us see too. Oh, isn't that the trash district's war god?"
In just a few days, Zheng Xun's name had spread through all the major guilds. Attitudes within the guilds varied. Some thought he was a flash in the pan and paid him no attention, while others carefully studied the only instance he had run to assess his abilities.
The Azure Mist Guild belonged to the former group. Its upper management paid no attention to Zheng Xun and wouldn't allow its players to pay too much attention to a player who acted so unpredictably and didn't cooperate with others.
Players with a style like Zheng Xun's had appeared before, but not only did they disrupt the guilds' plans, they also often met miserable ends.
So Huo Ziyan could only study him in secret.
One of the two teammates forcibly grabbed Huo Ziyan by the forearm, preventing him from pulling his hand back.
On the screen, Zheng Xun and Little Red Riding Hood had already started talking to Old Li, the security guard.
"What's so interesting? Players like him don't live long," one of them sneered.
"Yeah," the other chimed in, "but this guy's a bit like Little Huo. His first battle was spectacular too, but after a major guild bought him... tsk, tsk."
The explosive news of Azure Mist throwing out a bronze contract for a complete rookie who had only entered one instance seemed like it had happened just yesterday. Later, after the rookie joined Azure Mist, he vanished like a drop of water in the sea, and nothing more was heard of him. Whether because he wasn't capable enough or for some other reason, his performance on the team was mediocre. He gradually slipped from the first team to the second, and now he was a nameless member of the third team.
That rookie was Huo Ziyan.
Huo Ziyan understood what his teammates were implying, but he didn't argue. He simply remained expressionless, looking somewhat numb.
The other two teammates lost interest as well. After clicking their tongues a few times and exchanging a few casual remarks, they left.
Once they were far away, Huo Ziyan put his earbuds back in.
Others said they were the same kind of person, but he knew Zheng Xun was different from him.
From his fighting ability to his mental resolve, Zheng Xun was truly strong.
All he needed was time to prove it.
At that moment, Zheng Xun was talking to Old Li. He had seen Old Li's face so many times that he was almost sick of it.
Old Li spoke to him.
"Little Zheng, y-you know-"
"I know."
"Our, our middle school isn't, isn't-"
"Peaceful."
"Y-you, you-"
To speed up his conversation with the NPC, Zheng Xun could be said to have tried everything.
As Old Li stammered beside him, Zheng Xun suddenly fell silent and sized him up.
"L-little Zheng, wh-what's wrong?"
Something occurred to Old Li, and he sprang to his feet.
"Is, is there a g-ghost-"
"Old Li, have a seat." Zheng Xun politely asked him to sit down.
The moment Old Li's backside touched the edge of the chair, Zheng Xun said-
"Tell me, if I knocked you out right here, would that mean we could skip all this useless dialogue?"