CH 22

Although Battlefront Valley was a canyon, the cliffs on both sides were not steep, ones that players wouldn’t die from if they jumped at full HP. 

Currently, there were four players standing behind a boulder on one side of the cliff. They would move their camera to peek down from time to time. All of them have common in-game names and weren’t part of any guild. They looked as if they were enjoying the bustling scene, and if one was to enter their YY room and listen to their conversation, they would find that these players were anything but ordinary.

“I’m actually witnessing Tempest being camped in this lifetime. My trip was not in vain,” Inked Sun chuckled, as his in-game character was jumping back and forward behind the large stone. “Woah! He bit the dust again, such a stubborn fool. Just stay on the ground!”

It was just past seven at night, before Sunken Moon’s usual stream schedule, so he came along and asked, “Have you found out who those players are?”

Eastern Blizzard replied, “They’re all throwaway accounts. I have spotted no familiar names for the time being.” 

Within their two short sentences, another round of death happened below.

Since players could use horns when their characters were knocked unconscious, the horn chat was filled with cursing from the members of White Koi.

“Children, don’t you know it’s useless to cuss in-game,” Inked Sun sighed. “This big brother can’t bear watching their suffering. If it was me, my attackers would be long dead.”

Eastern Blizzard inquired curiously, “Inked God can beat all of them?”

That’s impossible? I know he is one of the five gods, but it’s his two fists against the world!

Sunken Moon snickered. “He wouldn’t do it himself.”

“Fighting is too troublesome and tiring. Best if I do it while lying down,” Inked Sun gave the exact answer Sunken Moon expected, but with more explanation. “I’m the victim! I’ll play the victim card with the horn. Once I explain the situation, I’ll let everyone know that whoever’s willing to help save my puny life, will get my and the Moon God’s ultra-valuable limited edition signature from my precious collection. Then a wave of fans would come to my rescue!”

Eastern Blizzard: “…” 

You deserve your reputation as the most shameless five gods.

Pure White Sun was listening to their conversations, keeping his calm as he was used to these strange sights. Seeing that things were not over below, he used the party chat to question when they would act.

Eastern Blizzard mumbled, “I don’t know. Tempest God said he would inform me.”

Inked Sun made a surprised noise and chirped, “Looks like they stopped reviving on the spot.” 

The other three checked the scene below and found that the members of White Koi were indeed lying still. The shouting from the horn also ceased.

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“I never shared it because I was afraid that no one would believe me,” Bashful Rain choked with sobs. “Faithfully Devoted is from the Black Lion guild. We ran dungeons in the past. He…he used to pursue me. And earlier today, he suddenly messaged me out of the blue, telling me not to log on. Of course, I didn’t listen to him, but he insisted. It was not until later that he showed me the chat history.”

She sniffled. “I asked him about the so-called plan, but he told me he was only the middle-man and didn’t know what his leader planned to do. He only advised me to be careful if I was to log on to the game tonight.”

Someone pointed out, “The message said eight o’clock.” 

“They might have gone ahead of schedule,” Fruity sighed. “Since Little Rain brought this up today, then there’s no need for me to keep secret what I know.”

The crowd chorused, “There’s more?”

“Yes, Little Rain already told us about this. We didn’t believe it at first, but with the other party being so insistent, we decided to look into this deeper.” Fruity insinuated. “Because sister-in-law and Moon God were in contact several times, we thought there may be some news on the forum, so we searched around and found a post. I’ll post the forum link in the chat.”

The crowd immediately clicked on the link and saw the forum post with a video clip of Moon God against their guild leader and his wife. 

If they recalled correctly, it was the day when their sister-in-law appeared. He said he was a newbie, yet he contradicted himself in the video. There was no doubt that he was a veteran player with decent skill.

F0x followed closely after, “The other party even thought that we wouldn’t believe him, so he provided us with more proof. See the screenshot I sent? It was from a few days ago, when sister-in-law used the horn to tell us about fans causing him trouble. Well Faithfully Devoted told us it was sister-in-law who actually killed several of them. We were all fooled by him.”

The crowd took another look to see a string of ‘player slain’ system messages.

The system messages were back to back, which showed that the players killed by sister-in-law happened at the same time. He was indeed not an average newbie player. 

“Then later…” Fruity hesitated for a few seconds, but it appeared she was filled with a new determination. “Then later, we started retracing our steps to the beginning and remembered it was Attired Guqin who first dropped the bomb on us. So we asked him if he really didn’t know this, er…Sorry leader, we asked him if he knew if you and sister-in-law were a fake couple.”

This was practically an earth-shattering question.

Before anyone could interrupt her, Pear Blossom Rain stepped forward, “I’ll be sharing my screenshot as well.”

Everyone clicked on the image to enlarge it. It was the chat history between her and Attired Guqin. 

She cropped a portion of the screenshot, starting with ‘malicious intention’ and ending it with ‘Let’s keep it a secret’. In one glance, the ‘agreement’ in the content was really a confirmed truth.

Yue Ran quietly turned his attention to his cousin again. The blank expression remained on his face.

Qin Xiujie reckoned the probability of Pear Blossom Rain being in on this. But he wanted to believe in her. His belief in her was a gamble. In the end, he lost everything.

He could understand her desire to get rid of love rivals, and he never asked for a partner who must be good and honest. He didn’t mind if her scheme and execution were out of his sight, therefore essentially out of his mind. 

Understanding was one thing, but to witness it done to his family. That was crossing the line.

He clicked on Pear Blossom Rain’s name in the guild member window and typed out a series of words.

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Have you ever considered that the person Jiang Xiao found to play pretend with was someone he knew? His younger cousin, for example.]

Pear Blossom Rain’s expression changed slightly as she typed a firm reply. 

[(Private) Pear Blossom Rain: That’s impossible.]

This they considered, but from their initial interaction, the guild leader shouldn’t be familiar with Vault of Heavens Essence.

To contradict twice on what each had said on day one, there was no preexisting connection between them at all. 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: I was just teasing you.] 

She breathed out a sigh of relief, and as she wanted to explain herself for sharing their chat history, the other party already sent a new message.

[(Private) Attired Guqin: He’s my younger cousin.]

She was completely baffled, yet he didn’t give her time to collect her thoughts.

[(Private) Attired Guqin: I really like you, which you already know. That’s why Fruity and the others wanted you to be the one to fish for information.] 

[(Private) Attired Guqin: My cousin hasn’t played this game for several years. When he started playing on the new server, he happened to buy Jiang Xiao’s matching account. Jiang Xiao pretended to be a couple with my cousin to create an opportunity for me to court you.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: Today, when the player from your group was sent to set my cousin up, Jiang Xiao knew from the start. He was the one that instructed my cousin to play along.]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: I’m only confessing to you to this degree in exchange for clearing up this dispute, and the blame your group splashed on Traceless Water, who would no doubt retaliate against our guild once he learned of this. So let me ask you: how do you guys plan to fix this?]

This string of information smacked her into a daze. She snapped out of it a few seconds later, as she typed out the daunting question with her trembling fingers. 

[(Private) Pear Blossom Rain: You mean your cousin is not one of Traceless Water’s men?]

[(Private) Attired Guqin: No, I doubt he knows who Traceless Water is.]

She stared at that one simple sentence. Her mind was completely blank.

During their time chatting, the other guild members bombarded the guild leader with questions.  

Jiang Xiao finally spoke. He admitted that he and Vault of Heavens Essence were not together, but did not add other specific reasons.

Filled with confidence, Fruity showed a triumphant smile.

This truth was too big to cover. With the addition to their current situation, Vault of Heavens Essence would certainly be gone before the next morning light. She promptly provided an opportunity for her leader to extricate himself from this awkward position. “No matter what agreement you two have, you wouldn’t have known he’s a Black Lion spy. We had no idea either, with how good his acting was. We can’t blame you for this.”

It was Bashful Rain’s turn to choke with emotion. “Leader, that’s right. We all know how nice you are to us.” 

The rest of the guild members joined in, in quick succession and began to raise difficult questions toward Vault of Heavens Essence. But Jiang Xiao barged in on their interrogation. “Seeing how much you four like to share screenshots, I’ll add one as well. Have a look.”

The crowd clicked on the image to see the chat history between their guild leader and the fraud sister-in-law.

The image was crystal clear. Vault of Heavens Essence said that someone was pestering him, and how he thought there was a mole in the guild. The guild leader told him to corroborate. As a result, it turned into what Fruity used to accuse him.

This was a big turn of the tide! 

But the guild members had a moment of doubt because, in Fruity’s group of three omegas and one beta, they usually get along with all the guildmates. They wouldn’t be easily convinced that Fruity and others did this intentionally. “Would it be possible that this was the Black Lion Guild’s doing? They set sister-in-law up and deliberately leaked these screenshots. Their goal was to cause internal conflict.”

Blank smacked his leg. “It suddenly dawned on me, those guilds wanted to poach our leader. Maybe it was one of their doing!”

Fruity was surprised. “Poach our leader?”

Blank hooted, “That’s right! You see our achievements in the new instance dungeons? They know it was all because of our leader’s command. They all want to poach him as their guild officer.” 

Fruity thought of that group of strange fans and shivered violently.

Their plan really depended on the relationship between Vault of Heavens Essence and Traceless Water. She was sure that Vault of Heavens Essence was indefensible and the reason she proceeded with the plan.

But if Vault of Heavens Essence was actually not acquainted with Traceless Water?

If…if the group of fans were really Traceless Water’s members, then they had a good reason to block Phoenix Rune’s party! 

The thought of that possibility drenched her back in cold sweat.