You can only answer "Of course"
Bubu liked Qingming best, and now, hearing Yin Lingzi mock him, snapped back furiously, "You're the lunatic, you ant! No, you're just a stinking bug!"
"Beaten back into a hatchling and still so full of yourself. You should know I could crush you with one finger now, little runt."
Had it been in its true violet lightning dragon form, Yin Lingzi would not have provoked it, but things were different now. It was a little dragon with a defect.
Bubu was furious, its dragon horns faintly reddening.
"There are laws in the tower! If you dare attack, the administrator lady won't let you get away with it!"
Laws?
Something stirred in Xin Jiu's mind. So there were actually rules restricting the high-level NPCs in the tower.
No wonder Qingming had asked her to come retrieve his fan.
Yin Lingzi scoffed, neither confirming nor denying it.
He turned his gaze back to Xin Jiu, his eyes regarding her like an insignificant little insect. "Why should I listen to someone from your lowly, greedy race and return the fan to that stinking fox?"
Xin Jiu tightened her grip on her bayonet. "Then we'll just have to fight."
As though he had heard something amusing, Yin Lingzi settled into an even lazier pose and watched Xin Jiu with interest.
"A lowly human deserves to have me fight her?"
"Why are you dragging your feet over a fight?"
Xin Jiu raised her bayonet and was about to charge when Yin Lingzi smiled. "How about this? Answer three questions first. As long as you answer them all, I'll accept your challenge. What do you say?"
Xin Jiu stopped short, instinctively sensing something wrong.
Who played a question-and-answer game before a fight?
"No."
Yin Lingzi's smile faded, his pale green eyes narrowing dangerously. "You refuse me?"
[Yin Lingzi's rage: 10%]
Huh?
He wasn't angry when I said we should fight, but refusing to play his question-and-answer game made him angry?
Could I use this chance to provoke him?
Xin Jiu's eyes shifted. "It'd be boring if you were the only one asking questions."
Yin Lingzi raised an eyebrow, looking intrigued.
"What do you suggest, then?"
"Everyone plays 'Of course' these days."
Seeing that Yin Lingzi did not understand, she explained, "Two people take turns asking questions, and the other person can only answer 'Of course.' Whoever can't answer loses."
Yin Lingzi smiled. "Interesting. I agree."
The more readily he agreed, the more wary Xin Jiu became.
Yin Lingzi did not seem to care how they played, only about the three questions. Could answering the questions itself be the key?
What Xin Jiu did not know was that Yin Lingzi could bring down punishment simply by finishing asking three questions. The punishment could be severe or mild, depending entirely on luck.
Yin Lingzi asked first. "Did you learn I was here from the little dragon?"
An utterly ordinary question.
"Of course."
Yin Lingzi nodded. Now it was Xin Jiu's turn.
She thought for a moment, then asked, "Back then, did you hide like a coward on the ancient battlefield because you were scared?"
As one of the ancient demon gods, Yin Lingzi could foresee the future. Everyone said that in that battle, he had foreseen the future and deserted out of fear.
Xin Jiu had chosen this question deliberately.
Because if it was true, it had to be a stain on Yin Lingzi's life. A demon god deserting was deeply humiliating.
Sure enough, Yin Lingzi grew angry.
[Yin Lingzi's rage: 30%]
His pale green eyes instantly contracted, and his lazy air vanished completely. Xin Jiu clearly saw the ginkgo leaves behind him begin to tremble.
After a long while, Yin Lingzi forced the words through his teeth.
"...Of course."
Bubu began laughing at him loudly. "You really were a deserter! And you call yourself an ancient demon god! Hahahahaha..."
It would definitely tell Brother Qingming when it got the chance. No, it would tell everyone who knew Yin Lingzi!
Forcing down his anger, Yin Lingzi asked Xin Jiu his second question, looking somewhat anxious.
"Did you really come here just to get the fan?"
She had said she was here for the fan when they first met, yet he was asking again. This made Xin Jiu even more certain that Yin Lingzi's objective was the three questions themselves.
But why?
She could not think of a reason yet.
I'll answer the question first.
If all else fails, I still have the skill Qingming gave me and the bubble cage.
"Of course."
Yin Lingzi nodded. "Your turn."
Looking at Yin Lingzi's incomparably handsome face, Xin Jiu slowly asked, "Your true form is actually super ugly, right?"
Since he loved beauty, she could only try hitting him where it hurt.
Yin Lingzi: "..."
Bubu laughed even harder.
[?????]
[Seriously, Jiujiu, why do you keep hitting him where it hurts!]
[Yin Lingzi: This player has absolutely no sense of boundaries.]
Yin Lingzi's face instantly darkened. Because his true form was a firefly, he had been rather ugly after taking human form and had been mocked by other races for a long time. Later, he had paid an enormous price to learn how to change his appearance at will.
That was why he hated others mentioning his true form most of all, and could not bear to hear the word "ugly."
But the rules of the game stood, so he could only grit his teeth and say, "...Of course."
[Yin Lingzi's rage: 65%]
Xin Jiu was a little disappointed. She had thought this question would bring his rage to at least eighty percent.
"The third question. Do you..."
"Let me ask first," Xin Jiu interrupted him.
Yin Lingzi froze, not understanding what the weak human before him was up to.
He pondered for a moment.
All that matters is that she answers three questions.
Who goes first won't affect anything.
"Fine."
The livestream viewers were all holding their breath, wondering what Xin Jiu's final question would be.
Xin Jiu thought for a while, then asked:
"If your true form is a firefly, does your butt glow?"
The livestream fell utterly silent, then messages began flooding the screen.
[Holy crap, I really didn't expect that question!]
[If I were Yin Lingzi, I'd have passed out from anger already.]
[A firefly's butt does glow.]
[Yin Lingzi's rage: 90%]
Xin Jiu sighed inwardly. He could still endure it even when she was trampling all over his dignity. Yin Lingzi should not have been a firefly. He should have been a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.
Yin Lingzi had had enough of Xin Jiu and only wanted to end this farce quickly so the punishment could descend. He forced out a reply through his teeth. "...Of course."
Xin Jiu shrugged. "All right, your turn."
"Do you think you can leave here alive after coming in?"
Yin Lingzi curled his lips and quietly awaited Xin Jiu's answer.
Unexpectedly, Xin Jiu did not choose to answer him. Instead, under Yin Lingzi's expectant gaze, she slowly raised her right hand, made a fist, extended her pinky, then pointed it downward.
To Xin Jiu, sticking her pinky up at someone meant they were trash.
Pointing her pinky downward meant they were the trashiest of trash.
Yin Lingzi did not understand the gesture, but he could tell from her expression that it was an insult.
Bubu loudly answered for Xin Jiu. "If we couldn't, we wouldn't have come here, you stinking bug!"
Yin Lingzi's face instantly turned livid.
"You're courting death!"
[Yin Lingzi's rage: 92%]
He still hasn't been completely enraged?
Yin Lingzi sat upright, his black robes and silver hair moving without wind. Then he raised his head and waved, and a red-eyed spider as large as an African elephant appeared.
"Go, rip out her tongue!"
The red-eyed spider's mouthparts opened and closed, making a teeth-grating hissing sound, before it lunged at Xin Jiu.
As Xin Jiu dodged, she shouted, "Spiders eat fireflies! You should be its subordinate! You've got the natural order completely backward!" She shouted this purely to add fuel to the fire.
[Yin Lingzi's rage: 93%]
Bubu kept flapping its wings to draw the red-eyed spider's attention.
Xin Jiu used the same method against the spider that she had used to attack the saber-toothed tiger last time. As the spider charged right up to her-
A sliding tackle!