"If you are really are not-"
"Captain," Ren Dao suddenly called.
The large man looked towards Ren Dao with glaring eyes. "What?"
"I am sure the dear lady will introduce herself," Ren Dao said. He gave the woman in the white mask a reassuring smile. "Please forgive the captain. He is concerned. What is your name? Which guild do you belong to? WE only want to know this because we want to know which Guild is in this part of the forest. It would make things easier for us to decide on our next course of action."
Cheng Xiu wanted to scoff again but barely refrained herself. While Ren Dao's words would have worked a little if she did not know the man and that burly man had not opened his mouth, now they had already burned the friendly bridges between them. The only reason that she had not actually attacked them until now was that the players were at a higher level and she was just a novice in comparison.
"I don't have a guild," she said to them.
The players gasped, and there was an excited murmur among them.
Cheng Xiu raised an eyebrow. What were they thinking? Why did they seem to be so excited about something like this?
"Then…those companions of yours are also not part of a guild?" Ren Dao asked in excitement.
Cheng Xiu shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't asked them."
Ren Dao nodded. "Does that mean that you haven't known each other for a long time?"
Cheng Xiu's eyes glinted. Ren Dao was good at gaining information from so little that she said? She was actually impressed a bit. But that little emotion was buried in the months of underhanded insults that she had suffered in his and his family's hand.
"Yes," cheng Xiu said. She did not see any actual harm in giving the man this kind of information.
"I would like to introduce my guild to you then," Ren Dao began. "We are called-"
"I want to know the information on my friends," Cheng Xiu said in a cold voice. "If you know where they are then say it and I will compensate you to the best of my ability, otherwise leave."
Ren Dao could not help but think that there was something about the way that the woman talked to him that was familiar. Her speech pattern was very familiar to him. It was similar to the Low-End accent that Cheng Xiu had and her voice sounded almost exactly like Cheng Xiu when she said certain words.
He looked at the girl before him seriously, wondering if it really was Cheng Xiu before him.
She was wearing a white martial robe that had leaf patterns along the edges and the hems had red and gold embroidery. Just her costume alone must have cost a lot of money. Then there was her sword. If it was not the SelaXiu sword, then it was still the same kind. And that also required a lot of money.
And most importantly, the entire equipment on the girl not just cost a lot of money, it also required her to have a strong cultivation base.
And that was the biggest giveaway that she is not Cheng Xiu.
No matter how great Cheng Xiu was in real life, in the game she was nothing more than a Qiless. A poor Qiless at that. And there was also the fact that the only way for anyone to learn the Qi flow was to understand it a bit.
Since Cheng Xiu was a Qiless it would mean that she was a weak novice in this world.
This woman was still a big fish though. And she was not affiliated with any other guilds.
"Dear player," Ren Dao said, "if you could just listen to "
The woman in the white mask turned and jumped away from them.
"Did she just leave?" someone asked from behind Ren Dao in surprise. "Is she not even going to hear the vice-captain's offer?"
"Her friend was taken away by an NPC," another said. "She is worried about him."
The first man scoffed. "His face was buried in the woman's breasts. I would like to know which part of the man was in trouble."
The second man laughed. "Maybe the two are dating and she thinks that he is suffering at the hands of the NPC instead."
The first man laughed. "That is just sad. Then again that woman deserved it for dismissing the captain and the vice-captain like they were common dogs. I know-"
The man had his head chopped off, and his body pixelated away.
The surrounding filled with silence.
"Get that girl's information," Ren Dao said in a blank voice, resheathing his sword.
The men surrounding the captain and Ren Dao nodded and disappeared in a flash.
"We approached her in the wrong way," the captain said in a dull voice after he was sure that the minions were gone.
Ren Dao nodded.
"We assumed that she would beg for us to give her information on her friend's whereabouts for anything."
Ren Dao nodded again. "And that was where we failed to understand. That girl was not someone who would allow herself to fall for simple threats like that."
"Let us go see if we can corner her too," the captain said immediately.
Ren Dao frowned. "Why?"
"So that we can coerce her into accepting our guild."
Ren Dao shook his head. "There is no way that we will be able to keep her after though."
The captain laughed. "Little Dao! After she joins the guild, she has to wait for a week before she can leave. By that time she would see the benefits of joining our guild, just like all the other bitches."
Ren Dao felt a headache come on. "All the other women of the gold came on their own. And there is also the fact that she is wearing really expensive equipment already. There is no way that she is going to be coerced in that route. And she doesn't seem that worried about fighting the NPCs. This means that unlike the woman in our guild, she does not need to be carried."
The captain snorted. "Any of the two men with her could have provided her with that equipment. And fighting NPCs? She is just being foolish and stubborn. You are thinking too much, Ren Dao. You have been watching too many female-centric movies."
Ren Dao rolled his eyes. He was sure the captain was thinking too little. But he was sure that the captain would not care about his opinion on this matter. The captain already had a preconceived notion about women and it would hardly change.
"Let us search for her too," Ren Dao said instead. "No matter how powerful she is, she shouldn't have gotten far."
The captain nodded.
The two men disappeared.
A golden snake slithered away from the site too, unknown to the others.