Chapter 37 - Mastermo Was Lying

No player mentioned it any further, they would rather want to focus on the natural view that was in front of them—the moon glowing brightly in the empty sky and the forest looking as beautiful as ever, there was even a glistening waterway somewhere down there that could be seen from this high up. 

Although they acted as the view interested them more—the thing that actually caught most of their attention was fresh gossip; what was going on between these two players? They were all players and were people who were very much involved in the news that floated around the gaming world, so it was no secret that they had caught a whiff of the dating rumor that floated around these two—at first, they could still rule it out as the wishful thinking of the fans that shipped them together—wasn't that also the case for BBtrash and Hulk0_0, however, now that they were witnessed to such a scene that played out in front of them, it seemed that the rumors certainly had a solid ground behind them supporting the ship from not sinking. It was either that or the players were acting like this to satisfy the hungry appetite of the fans. 

Whatever the reason was—it was irrelevant. What really mattered was that they were the lucky people who directly witnessed this—a tale worth gossiping about. 

"A-Are you okay?" Zhihao stuttered out in a worried tone, fearing that he might have been too harsh while pushing the man away.

"..." Li Ling paused as he stood up and dusted his clothes, "I'm okay! Never been better!"

It was awkward, so awkward that Zhihao wanted the earth to swallow him up.. The ground suddenly shook... On second thoughts, maybe having the earth swallow you up was not the best idea he had come up with. 

There was an awkward silence where everybody was glancing at everything but each other and Zhou XinYi was the one who broke this layer of awkwardness, "Let's go hunt the treasure beasts."

Zhihao nodded enthusiastically, thinking in his mind as he did; 'this man was so sensible. May God bless him! Such a savior!

"Let's go!"

Li Ling also woke up from his train of thoughts that had started going haywire. He reminded himself; it was nothing, just an inevitable moment—a really short, inevitable moment that he was unsatisfied with. He wanted to slap his mouth, why did he have to say anything? If he didn't speak up first, it could've lasted longer! Zhihao wouldn't have jumped away! Damn, it was too short!

"W-Where are we going?" Kaoru asked as he stumbled after Zhihao who started heading in some unfixed direction. 

"We are heading down." Zhihao absentmindedly answered.

"But..." It seemed that Kaoru had something to say but he dare not say it out loud.

"But what?" Zhou XinYi asked as he noticed the man having a constipated face.

"Didn't Mastermo say that the treasure beasts were gathering somewhere and we can catch them all in one go? What about that?"

Zhihao stooped in his tracks and looked back at the innocent man, "Did you really believe me?"

"..."

Kaoru blinked, "W-Were you lying?"

"I was bullshitting." Zhihao confirmed as he closed his eyes and shook his head at the stupidity of the fellow, "How am I supposed to know that?"

"But.. But..." Kaoru could not believe it. He had trusted this top player blindly, followed him around as if he were a god and his words were the law. For the most part of it, wasn't the man always right with his guesses? This was an infamous fact about this man and was the reason why he was called 'Lucky Mo'.

"But what?" Zhihao questioned, feeling amused that he was considered to be such a trustable character.

"Didn't you say that you would take responsibility?"

Li Ling suddenly choked on air as he heard the vague accusation, looking at Zhihao with an unreadable expression.

"What do you mean? Say it clearly, don't make people misunderstand!" Zhihao coughed.

"You said that if your guess was wrong, you'd take responsibility for our loss! We could've caught the beasts when we had the time." Kaoru answered with a frustrated expression as if his wife had lied to him about being home alone. 

"Now now, when did I say that? I said that if you do not catch the beasts by the end of it, I'll be held responsible but as you can see, the game is not over and hence I'm not held responsible yet. Don't go around twisting the meaning behind my words." Zhihao explained himself and Kaoru felt as if he was wronged—never expecting this man to do something so... Shameless! 

Li Ling also looked at Zhihao in both shock and amusement, not knowing that the man was capable of playing with his words like that. However, unlike Kaoru, who suddenly felt wronged and distressed, Li Ling only felt one feeling—it was the feeling when you'd see a person solving a Rubik's cube in under a few minutes and going 'Woah! You're smart! So amazing!'

Zhihao turned around and kept walking as if trying to hide the slightly embarrassed flush that had overtaken his cheeks. In reality, he had only said so because he thought that it might be a possibility and also because he didn't want the others to be the firsts to catch the beasts. This was a multi-team game and T.I.A.D. was already crazy; who was to say that if one of the teams caught their beasts first, the rest would not fail the level and be thrown out empty-handed? That was also a possibility!

Hence, it was only natural for him to make up lies or at least half-baked lies as at that time he really did think that the beasts were heading somewhere in particular and he had somewhat guessed it to be related to the final cave and the breaking of the barrier—in fact, he still believed that they were all gathered up together somewhere, but it was not reasonable to make rash decisions and tell the other players about this. What if he was wrong and he really did let the treasure beasts run away? He would never be able to rise from that humiliation... This was good—the people would laugh at this and move on; nobody would lose face. 

Somehow unintentionally, Kaoru had managed to lighten up the atmosphere and divert attention from the awkward situation they had just witnessed. 

Aunt Su, who was walking at the back of the group got pulled aside by the sleeve, by her teammate named Andy.

"What is wrong with you?" She asked, stunned at the sudden action. 

"Say, isn't Mastermo your nephew?" Andy questioned, with a voice trying to sound as low as possible, so that only the two of them could hear, "Do you know what's going on between those two? I can't say anything but my senses are tingling... There is definitely something between them."

Aunt Su looked at Andy with a rather foul expression. 'Are you freaking kidding me?' written all over her face.

"I don't know. I don't care." She answered vaguely averting the question.

"No fair." Andy huffed like a little girl having her favorite candy not be bought for her since it was too overpriced, "I have another question."

"If it's about Zhihao, I don't know and I don't care." Aunt Su answered, trying her best to show how uninterested she was in her nephew's topic. This could also be misunderstood as the aunt looking after her nephew's privacy—making sure that certain things were not leaked, but it was actually just as she said; she was not trying to protect anybody's privacy, she was just not interested—it was as simple as that. 

Kaoru didn't care about Aunt Su's disinterest and ignored her statement, asking the question, regardless of what the woman had to say, "Why are you his aunt?"

"..." Aunt Su looked at the man with an odd expression, not having understood what the question was trying to say, "Because he is my nephew...?"

"No. No." Kaoru shook his head as he continued to correct the misunderstood question, "What I mean is how is it that you are his aunt at such a young age? I don't think the age gap between the two of you is that big."

"The age gap is not too small either." Aunt Su answered, "But I get why you'd want to ask me that. Actually, I'm his father's cousin, but since childhood, I have been really close to my big brother. Everybody used to mistake us as real siblings, but even if we were born to the same mother or the same grandmother, I don't think it makes much of a difference. I'm still his aunt nonetheless."

"Oooooh..." Kaoru couldn't help but say as he finally understood one of the greatest mysteries he had wanted to solve since he found out about the relation between the two. 

"Why are you suddenly interested in such gossip?" Aunt Su lightly scolded him, clearly displaying her unwillingness in taking part in such type of gossips. She turned around, walking ahead as she left the man behind. 

As the team walked down the mountain, they had wished to find something interesting, maybe more beasts to kill or maybe clues or if they were really lucky, they'd want to find a treasure beast that walked up to them and gave itself up for slaughter; sadly, there were no suicidal treasure beasts in this region and hence, they met nothing. They were walking in an unknown path, covered with trees from all sides with no beasts in sight. 

At first, Zhihao guessed it to be the case because of the barrier being lifted; maybe the beasts ever finally free and decided to flee the land, however, the possibility of that happening was near to zero as the beasts were connected to this region regardless of the barrier so they should have decided to keep inhabiting this place. So why had they not come across any beasts? This answer could only be answered by two people, one was the Gamemaster and the other was the System, since it was impossible to even dream about the Gamemaster coming up to them to say anything, the latter was their only option left out in order to dig out information. 

Zhihao, "System, where are the beasts?"

[Answering player's question: Sorry, we cannot answer that question ):]

Zhihao wanted to curse at the system, why was it always like this? Giving them the answer when they least expected it to and not giving the answer when they needed it the most.

Li Ling seemed to have seen through Zhihao's distress as he chuckled, for some reason—finding it cute. Actually, it didn't matter what the man had done, in Li Ling's eyes, it was all cute; the utmost limit of how cute the word cute can get.

Li Ling, "System, when will the crying eagle eggs be hatched?"

[Answering player's question: The crying eagle eggs would be hatched in the next three weeks.]

Zhou XinYi looked at Li Ling with profound meaning; still not finding himself able to get used to the man or feel anything good towards him; he was still suspicious of the man. He didn't have a proof for this feeling of suspicion—he might be just blaming an innocent blindly but he could feel it. It was his gut feeling that could not be changed no matter what the man did, he would still find his every action questionable. To put it plainly; Zhou XinYi was not a fan of Li Ling and this... He made sure to openly express this feeling. 

"Why did you ask that?" Zhou XinYi asked, squinting his eyes. 

Li Ling ignored the man and asked his next question, "System, where is the crying eagle right now?"

[Answering player's question: The crying eagle is currently attending the beast conference.]

Wang GuiYing muttered out in confusion, "What is the beast conference?"

Zhihao's eyes suddenly shined with excitement as he heard the introduction of a new clue for them.