CH 21.2

The system hurriedly dropped these words and disappeared like a gust of wind.

Xia Chi’s eyes had turned dark red and his teeth protruded uncontrollably, staring at the bite mark on Bai Lixin’s neck.

Xia Chi quickly realized his state, and he hurriedly withdrew his gaze. He leaned against the wall in a wretched state, his stomach twitching now and then.

He was already hungry after half a day without eating, let alone two days and two nights.

Xia Chi was almost fainting from hunger.

Seeing this, Bai Lixin didn’t say anything more, but left with the words, “Wait for me here.”

Ten minutes later, Bai Lixin came back with a live, large white goose in his hand.

He handed the goose to Xia Chi and said, “Here, you must be fine with drinking animal blood, right?”

How could Xia Chi be a picky eater?! It wasn’t as if he hadn’t searched the castle for small animals in the past two days, but he hadn’t even seen a mosquito.

He took a bite immediately, and the bright red blood flowed into his mouth, relieving the hunger he had felt for days.

Not far away, the white bat crawled out of Bai Lixin’s collar, looking even more drowsy. Its eyes glowed with greed as it stared at the wound behind Bai Lixin’s collar.

Knowing that Dijia was starving, Bai Lixin cut the tip of his finger and a crystal clear bead of blood immediately rolled onto the skin.

Bai Lixin brought his finger to the bat, “Do you want to drink?”

The meal was delivered to his door, and Dijia was no longer polite. He hugged Bai Lixin’s finger and took a few sips.

Dijia knew the taste of the blood’s essence, so how could he be satisfied with taking a shallow taste?

The tiny body quickly stretched out, instantly transforming into a tall, handsome blond man.

The blond man’s fingertips gently lifted the collar around Bai Lixin’s neck, moving gently as if he were peeling off his lover’s clothes.

With his teeth brushing against the neck, Dijia asked politely before dining, “May I?”

A tingling sensation traveled from the neck, through the limbs and straight to the brain.

Bai Lixin was a little hot, “Don’t do what you did last night, drink a little less.”

Teeth slid down the neck and came to Bai Lixin’s collarbone, and a suppressed husky voice whispered, “Okay.”

At that moment, the sharp teeth sank through the skin, and the intensity of the impact made Bai Lixin shudder, his back physically arching.

Dijia easily took Bai Lixin in his arms from behind and feasted on him.

He wrapped one arm around Bai Lixin’s upper abdomen and interlocked Bai Lixin’s fingers with the other. Bai Lixin was under Dijia’s control, and he could only reach back into Dijia’s soft blonde hair with his free hand.

The creamy white jade fingers seemed to be dotted with a layer of stars under the sunlight-dotted blonde hair.

Xia Chi was dumbfounded.

He cupped the goose in his hand and suddenly felt it wasn’t fragrant.

Please, please kill me for you two to cheer up!

You call this eating? Then shat do you call a fucking display of affection?

No, that’s not the point.

Xia Chi shook his head heavily. The white bat was the True Ancestor?!

After a few minutes, Dijia reluctantly let go of Bai Lixin.

He gave Bai Lixin another antidote to the venom before standing aside, satisfaction and laziness written all over the ends of his elegant eyes.

He initially thought that he craved Bai Lixin’s blood because he had never tasted it before, but after drinking it once, not only did it not satisfy him, but he missed the taste even more.

He missed the taste of blood, but he also missed the taste of other things.

If it weren’t for the fact that there was an obstructive Blood here, he would have pinned Bai Lixin against the wall and savored every nook and cranny of his mouth.

He didn’t lose control as he had last night, only taking a few sips and then tasting shallowly.

He had deliberately chosen the location of the collarbone because the blood vessels there were smaller. It looked like a long suck, but only a tiny bit of blood had been lost.

Xia Chi also finished the goose blood that tasted waxy, his long lost strength quickly recovering and a hint of blood coming to his previously pale skin.

Dijia and Xia Chi were too obvious a target. They were worried about being spotted, so the trio deliberately picked empty alleyways and walked along them for a while.

What did the system mean when it said they needed to get back before the end of the node? And what node is it referring to?

They had arrived here through the darkness beneath Mr. Mo’s old castle. The system said this was the past, whose past it had long been self-evident.

This past might be Mr. Mo’s, so he might even get a clue to his origin name.

In this day and age, humans seem to loathe the Bloods, and the two races are at loggerheads.

The sea of people was vast, and if he wanted to find Mr. Mo, he had to find his castle first.

Bai Lixin was thinking as he walked when his attention was suddenly drawn by a cautious cry.

Xia Chi subconsciously huddled himself behind Bai Lixin, cowering and poking his head through the gap in Bai Lixin’s neck and looking at the person coming warily.

The person shouting at them was a man who looked to be in his forties and was dressed like the people here, but he had an oriental face.

The man waved at them, “Player?”

Bai Lixin and Xia Chi’s expressions suddenly froze.

The man looked to his right and left and saw that no one was around before he continued, “I’m a player too. Come here quickly, the whole city is after you now.”

Bai Lixin and Xia Chi looked at each other, and Bai Lixin opened his mouth and said, “The King of Heaven and Earth tiger.”

Dijia: “….”

The man froze for two seconds and laughed, “The pagoda subdues the river demon!”

Bai Lixin asked again, “How many floors are there in the student dormitory?”

The man: “999 floors.”

Xia Chi interjected, “What’s your evaluation of this copy?”

The man didn’t even think about it, “Trash.”

Xia Chi looked at Bai Lixin and nodded with certainty, “Well, it’s a fellow player.”

Bai Lixin: “……”

When the trio approached, they froze after seeing their clear faces before muttering, “Is the attractive index of the new class of players already out of this world?”

Xia Chi tugged on the man’s sleeve and the man came back to his senses, “Oh, you guys come with me!”

The three followed the man through the streets and alleys, and soon came to a secluded house.

On opening the house, the man spoke, “Come on in, there are plenty of players inside.”

The three of them entered the room, and Xia Chi visibly froze for a moment.

There were more than twenty people sitting in the room, all with complex expressions on their faces. There was anticipation, calmness, and others with indifference written on their faces.

Their ages also varied. Some looked to be in their sixties, others were still in their twenties, but they tended to be older in general. The majority looked over forty, and only three or five were younger.

The man who brought them in was the first to speak, “Let me introduce myself. A dozen of us are from the first batch of players. My name is Song Lei.”

Bai Lixin scanned the crowd and found a few people inside who looked familiar.

It was Squad 5 who had gone underground to explore at the time. The six people who were thought to be dead at the beginning were all here now, only that they looked to have grown a few years older.

Only one day had passed outside, but it seemed that several years had already passed here.

Song Lei continued to say, “To cut a long story short, let me briefly explain the situation.”

“That forbidden area is connected to the inner world. The system should have told you this. This inner world is, to put it bluntly, actually Mr. Mo’s past. To leave the inner world and return to the surface world, you have to find the teleportation point when the key node is reached.”

“We were the first ones to come in, and we didn’t find the pattern at the time, so we missed it. The world here is going all the way back, and we had to live here after missing it. The time here started moving fast and we started getting older, but the good thing is that it’s safe here, there’s no danger, and we all got through it uneventfully.”

“Just when we thought we were going to die of old age here, we found out that time had reset.”

Song Lei paused for two seconds, his eyes looking at the small group of six that had come before him.

“It all went back to the day we first arrived. We didn’t know what was going on until my companions saw them on the road in their modern attire. As we did with you, we immediately brought them here and explained the situation.”

“Having already had the experience once, we expected to succeed the second time, I guess. But unfortunately, we still failed.”

“You are the third group to come in.”

One of the players spotted Xia Chi, and he looked at the red-eyed Xia Chi and Dijia up and down in surprise. Because the aura on Dijia was so strong, he quickly looked away after a second and turned his head to the weaker Xia Chi and asked, “Huh, how did you become a blood? Are you really a player?”

Being stared at by two dozen pairs of eyes, Xia Chi was afraid of being sent away as a Blood, so he hurriedly explained, “I drew a card before I entered the game that would turn me into a Blood.”

The crowd turned to Dijia who was not speaking, “Him too?”

Xia Chi paused for a couple of seconds, “Yes.”

Bai Lixin gave him a look.

Xia Chi: “….”

Why are you looking at me? Do I dare to say “no”?

Song Lei, “Good stuff.”

Xia Chi: “……”

To be honest, it wasn’t very good.

Bai Lixin brought the conversation back on track, “You’ve been reincarnated twice; has anything major happened yet?”

Appreciation flashed in Song Lei’s eyes, “You’re quick to react.”

“That’s right, something big has happened. A few days ago, the daughter of the richest man in town suddenly disappeared. The richest man issued a bounty, saying that Mr. Mo, a Blood, had taken his beautiful daughter captive. Whoever can get his daughter back will be heavily rewarded.”

“Besides,” Song Lei hesitated for two seconds, “He also said he would marry his daughter to the man who recovered her.”

Bai Lixin, “And then what?”

Song Lei walked over to the table and poured a cup of hot tea for each of the three, gesturing for them to sit down and talk slowly.

The players huddled over to make room.

After Bai Lixin and Xia Chi sat down, Dijia walked over to Bai Lixin’s side. He did not sit down; his body was straight, and he stood beside Bai Lixin in a guardian’s posture.

Because the cold aura emanating from his body was too heavy, several players around him tacitly moved their positions, so Bai Lixin and Xia Chi had a wide berth around them.

Song Lei made a joke, “This little brother is quite cool.”

Xia Chi didn’t dare say a word more, obediently sitting like an elementary school student.

That is the True Ancestor! The one Mr. Mo was afraid of!

Watch what you say.

“Later,” Song Lei didn’t care and sat down at the table, “A lot of brave men came up under the temptation of heavy gold, not to mention that you would get the number one beauty in the city as a thank you gift. Many people went to save her, and we mixed in with them.”

“Mr. Mo’s castle is at the top of the mountain behind the two mountains. As the task of the surface world was to find the cause of Lady Rose’s death, we assumed that this daughter would be Lady Rose.”

“At the time, we made the foolish mistake of thinking the node was the night Lady Rose was killed. So we dawdled and followed, but before we reached the castle, we heard news of the death of the richest man’s daughter.”

“And then the situation came to what you see now. We missed the node and had to grow old again. It was also then that we realized the node should be the night the richest man’s daughter died.”

Song Lei finished in one breath. His mouth was dry, so he poured himself a cup of tea and smothered it in one gulp.

The young man sitting at the coffee table continued, “Now it is our turn.”

He paused briefly and turned his words around, “Is Wen Ziqing still in the group?”

Xia Chi was outside of the players and did not know about Wen Ziqing at all, so he looked at Bai Lixin as well.

But Bai Lixin knew, “Yes.”

The youth punched the wall heavily, making a dull thud, “That cunt!”

Xia Chi was very curious, “What’s wrong, who is Wen Ziqing?”

The youth, “How long have you been out there?”

Xia Chi, “Two days and two nights.”

Several people from Squad 5 paled, and the youth sneered, “Although you guys have only been outside for two days and two nights, we’ve been here for five whole years.”

“Even though so much time has passed, what happened that night is still vivid in my mind.”

“Wen Ziqing pretended to be a good guy that night, saying he had seen the live stream and that he had experience. We believed him and spontaneously formed a team.”

The youth gritted his teeth in anger, “When we were about to leave, Wen Ziqing called me aside and told me that there was a clue to finding the killer inside the forbidden zone. And that there was no danger inside, just a little darkness.”

“He advised that we split up with our group, with one team going underground and the other going to a slightly more dangerous place. That we shall get more performance points for finding key clues that way.”

“Wen Ziqing and I knew each other in the trial game, only that he upgraded so fast that he’s already stormed up to the 52nd floor with just a dozen copies, while I’m still lingering on the 20th or so floor.” The youth’s tone grew a little chagrined, “Because I knew him before, I took his words at face value and charged into the underground with a small group, and came here.”

He rubbed his hair in annoyance, regret written all over his face, “He had seen the whole broadcast and knew that entering the restricted area was death. He did it on purpose; he was cutting back on numbers from the start. That forbidden zone was so dark that I was getting the creeps just standing outside. There’s no way I would have gone in if I hadn’t trusted him.”

Xia Chi and Bai Lixin looked at each other, neither of them saying anything.

So this was the reason why Wen Ziqing was able to escalate so quickly?

By cutting down the opponents as much as possible, there was less competition at the end and the points were distributed among the remaining few players.

Several of the youth’s teammates also had mixed feelings about the captain’s decision at that time. Some had complaints in their eyes, while others were mostly distressed.

“To cut to the chase,” the youth took a deep breath, “Our turn was next.”

“Knowing that the node could be the death of the richest man’s daughter, we didn’t delay this time and immediately rushed to the old castle.”

“But there were many difficulties outside the castle. Mr. Mo’s men surrounded us from the outside, and we simply could not get in. One of our brothers even died in the process.”

“This time, we failed again.”

“The richest man’s daughter still died, and we had to wait. Five years later, you came.”

“This is the third chance, and it must not fail. Since we came here through the bottom of that staircase, we must go back and emerge from the bottom of the staircase as well! As long as we can get in before the richest man’s daughter dies, we can return to the surface world.”

Bai Lixin looked at the pale faces of the players and asked, “How do you plan to get in?”

Song Lei sighed, “If we could be a few decades younger, we would still be able to blend in with the food and get into the castle, but we are all old now, and the Bloods in the castle are very picky eaters. They can’t even look at those of our age.”

Just as Song Lei sighed, an old voice suddenly spoke.

“I’m not going to participate in this operation.”

The crowd followed the voice and saw a man in his fifties speaking slowly, “I’m already old. I don’t want to go back to that thrill game life. I think this place is quite good. It’s peaceful and serene, suitable for retirement.”

Song Lei sat up from the table, “You are crazy. You can rejuvenate by returning to the game hall. Don’t forget that your roots are not here, but in the real world!”

“So what?!” The man was angry too, “By going out of here, we’re just leaving the inner world and returning to the surface world. Have you forgotten how it was before we got into this place? We were used like toys by Mr. Mo and those Bloods. Coming here was like an escape from that!”

“So what if we return to the surface world?! We still can’t escape from Mr. Mo! And what will happen to us after we leave here when our copy of the game has already closed? Will we be beheaded where we stand because we didn’t complete the mission?”

“I’ll live a few more years here. I might not live a single day if I go back to the game world!”

“At the very least, this place will allow me to die of old age in good health. That’s all that matters.”

The room was silent when the man finished.

A minute later, people spoke up, one by one.

“I’m not going either.”

“And me.”

“I give up too.”