Chapter 37: Fairy-Tale Kingdom (4)
Su Qiong had never even seen the beggar’s nightingale, so how could he possibly have killed it?
The little beggar was clearly trying to scam them.
ERROR turned around and briefly exchanged a glance with Su Qiong. They instantly reached the same conclusion.
The beggar appeared frail and shameless, but she was very likely an instance NPC.
The moment they reached that understanding, a system notification sounded in their minds.
[System: Player ERROR and NPC Su Qiong have triggered the side quest [Kill the Nightingale].]
[Quest Description: A nightingale lives within the city. Day and night, it sings sorrowful dirges without rest, shrouding the city’s people in gloom and despair. Players must locate and kill the nightingale to save the fairy-tale city.]
[Quest Difficulty: B. High risk. May result in player death.]
“Kill the nightingale…” ERROR repeated the quest title under his breath and lowered his gaze slightly toward the beggar’s head.
She was only Level 20.
It appeared she was not the instance boss.
“The instance boss is the nightingale, and now we need to find it,” Su Qiong said. “But the fairy-tale city is so large, and we have only one day. Where should we look?”
ERROR considered it for several seconds before bending down slightly and giving the beggar a captivating, beguiling smile.
“Little brother, are you the nightingale’s owner?”
“Yes! You killed my nightingale, and I won’t let you get away with it!” The beggar planted both hands on her hips and shouted, “And I’m not a little brother!”
“You’re a girl.” Su Qiong examined her carefully.
Although her face was dirty, her features were soft. She had the makings of a beautiful young girl.
Unfortunately, her beggar outfit reduced her beauty by ninety-eight percent.
This proved just how important clothing was to an NPC!
Su Qiong remembered his empty wardrobe, then thought of the princess’s elaborate clothes and quietly clenched his fists.
He had to clear this instance and obtain something from the Circle Lord!
It was rare for ERROR to see such an ambitious expression on Su Qiong’s face, so he teased, “What’s wrong? You reacted strongly the moment you heard she was a girl.”
Could Su Qiong be a perfectly straight marshmallow?
ERROR suddenly felt that the situation was unfavorable.
“Huh?” Su Qiong gave him two confused glances.
What was he even talking about?
Realizing that things were not as he had imagined, ERROR smoothly changed the subject and questioned the beggar about the nightingale.
The beggar girl finally understood that the two of them were not the culprits who had killed it. Her attitude became friendlier, and she told them the full story of herself and the bird.
The nightingale was a bird the beggar girl had found.
It had been the coldest part of winter. The nightingale lay weakly outside the bridge hollow where she lived, covered in a layer of white snow. Its nictitating membranes were tightly closed, and only the faint rise and fall of its chest proved that it was still alive.
The beggar girl hurriedly picked it up and held it against her body, using her warmth to heat it.
Only then did she discover that it had been injured. Someone had struck its leg and neck with a slingshot, and blood had matted its feathers together.
At this rate, the nightingale would die!
The beggar girl was terrified.
She knew that a hospital stood in the city center. It could cure both people and small animals, and its medicine was said to work miracles.
However, treatment required an enormous fee. Only wealthy people who lived near the fairy-tale castle were qualified to enter the hospital.
The beggar could not bear to watch the nightingale die, so she gathered the savings she had earned from collecting scraps and carried it through the wind and snow toward the city center.
She had no shoes, and the snow froze her feet red.
Even so, she kept the nightingale tightly protected inside her clothes, afraid it would bleed too much and freeze to death in the bitter wind.
Fortunately, the bird survived the cold, and the beggar successfully reached the hospital.
However, before she could enter, brightly dressed nurses drove her several meters away.
“Impoverished beggars aren’t allowed inside our hospital!”
“You’re filthy and disgusting. You’ll contaminate our clean floors.”
“You want treatment? Try being born into a better family in your next life.”
They humiliated the beggar with their words, but she cared only about saving the nightingale and pleaded humbly, “I won’t go inside. Please, could you treat the nightingale?”
“A poor person’s poor pet. Hah.” A nurse picked up a wooden stick and struck the beggar hard. “Get lost! Blocking the entrance interferes with our business!”
The beggar had walked such a long distance while cold and hungry. How could she endure such vicious blows?
After only two strikes, the little girl collapsed in pain and curled into a ball.
“Pah!” The arrogant nurse spat on her. “Trying to scam us, are you? That won’t work here. If you’re going to die, don’t do it at our hospital entrance.”
The girl was already in too much pain to speak.
Only two streams of tears slid down her face and fell onto the nightingale’s feathers.
After absorbing the beggar’s tears, the nightingale miraculously regained its vitality, as though experiencing a final burst of life. It flapped its wings and flew into the air.
It landed on the nurse’s head and dug its claws tightly into her hair.
The nurse panicked and hurriedly tried to drive it away.
Unfortunately for her, the nightingale’s movements were exceptionally slippery. The nurse scratched and struck at it, only to leave herself bruised and bleeding, panting from exhaustion.
Once the nurse no longer had the strength to resist, the nightingale landed on her head again, opened its beak, and released a beautiful yet sorrowful song.
Everyone who heard it was enveloped by overwhelming grief and lost all motivation.
Gradually, the entire city became gray and listless, without a single laugh to be heard.
After listening to the beggar’s story, Su Qiong became confused.
If everything she said was true, then the nightingale had done nothing wrong by singing its mournful song.
Why did they have to kill it?
“What happened to the nightingale afterward?” ERROR asked.
“It recovered miraculously without receiving treatment. After that, it stayed beside me and sang to me day and night.” The beggar paused, then murmured sadly, “A few days ago, it suddenly died. I woke up and greeted it like usual, only to find its body cold. I wanted to bury it somewhere flowers were blooming. But after I dug the grave, its corpse mysteriously disappeared.”
Hearing this, Su Qiong became even more puzzled.
If the nightingale was already dead, why did they still have to kill it?
“Are you certain it was truly dead?”
“Of course I am!” Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, the beggar became angry. “It was my only companion. No one wanted it to live more than I did. I tried everything, but it stayed cold and wouldn’t respond to me at all.”
Tears gathered in her eyes.
“It had still been singing energetically the day before.”
“Could someone have murdered it?” Su Qiong attempted to analyze the situation. “Otherwise, why would it suddenly die when it had seemed perfectly healthy?”
“Sudden death is common among birds,” ERROR explained. “Most birds are social animals. Some migrate with their flocks as the climate changes. Migration requires flying for long periods and consumes enormous stamina. Sick, elderly, or injured birds may be abandoned by the flock. It’s part of natural selection.”
“So even when birds are injured or sick, they try to hide it and pretend to be healthy?” Su Qiong asked.
“Yes. Birds aren’t the only ones. Many animals instinctively endure and conceal weakness.” ERROR rarely looked troubled. “Unfortunately, the nightingale’s body disappeared, so we can’t determine its true cause of death.”
The beggar girl’s expression became fierce.
“Someone must have hated my nightingale, killed it, and stolen its body. I’ll find that bastard!”
ERROR glanced at Su Qiong before smiling at the girl again. “How about we help you search?”
“You?” The beggar looked at them suspiciously. “Are you bad people?”
“I’m not a bad person,” Su Qiong defended himself softly.
“All right. For your sake, I’m willing to believe you,” the beggar said.
ERROR: “?”
He had gone to so much effort talking to her, so why had she agreed “for Su Qiong’s sake”?
The beggar girl led the two adults to the bridge hollow where she lived. Pointing toward a field of winter jasmine, she said, “I planned to bury the nightingale there.”
Then she took another two steps and pointed toward the bare ground at the entrance of the bridge hollow.
“The nightingale was lying here.”
“Could it have fallen somewhere nearby?” Su Qiong walked around the empty patch twice, then used his wand to dig through the surface soil.
His wand was a bug-level weapon granted to a Circle Lord by the system.
Never in its wildest dreams had it imagined being used this way.
Su Qiong grunted and dug for quite a while.
He did not find the nightingale’s corpse, but he did receive the system’s “praise.”
[System: Congratulations. You have received the title “Expert Soil Loosener.”]
“…I don’t need it.” Su Qiong rejected the system’s sarcasm and stood up, dusting off his hands. “It really isn’t here. Where could the nightingale be hidden?”
ERROR had known from the beginning that they would not find the corpse near the bridge.
Otherwise, how could [Kill the Nightingale] be a B-rank quest?
He had not explained because Su Qiong seemed to be enjoying the digging, so he let him play.
“Little girl,” ERROR asked the beggar again, “who do you think is most likely to have stolen your nightingale?”
The beggar thought seriously for a long time before reaching a conclusion.
“That nurse! The nightingale tore out her hair and made her bald, so she hates it.”
“Uh…”
As a programmer, ERROR could understand the nurse’s fury.
Having one’s hair ripped out truly counted as a blood feud.
“Can we find her now?”
“Yes. She still works at the hospital in the city center. I’ll take you there.”
Sure enough, traveling from the remote bridge hollow to the bustling city center took another five minutes.
Su Qiong had reason to suspect that in the world of IF, traveling from the solar system to the edge of the universe would also require only five minutes.
Forget surpassing the speed of sound—even light speed was the system’s little brother.
The city center was shrouded in oppressive gloom, but its prosperity had not been affected at all.
Vendors lined both sides of the roads, while carriages, horses, and pedestrians flowed continuously past.
Unlike an ordinary city center, where people talked and laughed, this one featured people talking and crying. Everyone wore an expression of utter misery.
It was Su Qiong’s first time visiting the center of a human city.
He was immediately drawn to the various toys and snacks, his eyes becoming firmly stuck on the candied hawthorn skewers.
Fortunately, he still remembered his mission. He would not behave like a three-year-old and noisily demand one.
ERROR, however, fell behind for half a minute.
When he returned, he held a skewer of large, perfectly round candied hawthorns.
Su Qiong’s eyes became completely fixed on it!
“That’s called tanghulu, right? Is it good?” His eyes sparkled with longing.
“It’s mediocre. The hawthorn is too sour and the sugar coating is too sweet,” ERROR said disdainfully.
“Huh? It doesn’t taste good?” Su Qiong looked deeply disappointed.
It looked so tempting.
“No, it isn’t good.” As ERROR spoke, he stuffed the tanghulu into Su Qiong’s hands. “Help me finish it.”
“Hey!” Su Qiong protested.
Giving him something just because it tasted bad was too much!
No wonder their intimacy was only two percent. With ERROR’s destined-to-die-alone behavior, even two percent was too generous.
Su Qiong silently complained but, unwilling to waste food, reluctantly took a bite.
—He lied to the marshmallow!
It was clearly delicious!
Su Qiong happily finished the tanghulu and licked away the last few crumbs of sugar before they finally arrived outside the hospital.
Unexpectedly, they encountered two companions at the entrance.
Moi and Qiyi stood hand in hand, heads tilted upward as they closely observed something.
Su Qiong approached them. “Moi, Qiyi, why are you here?”
“We have a quest.” Moi opened her bracelet and showed Su Qiong the details.
After reading the twins’ quest, Su Qiong felt the deep malice of fate.
[Quest Description: Within this city lives a nightingale that sings nothing but dirges. Follow the clues to locate it and discover a way to stop its sorrowful song.]
[Quest Difficulty: E. Peaceful.]
The quests were clearly similar, yet their difficulty and complexity were as different as heaven and earth.
Was this the difference between the blessed and the cursed?
“The nightingale is inside this hospital. I heard it singing just now,” Moi told him. “Its song contains magic and makes people feel grief and despair. Fortunately, Qiyi didn’t go inside. Otherwise, I would definitely have become trapped in my sadness and been unable to escape.”
“I see.” Su Qiong volunteered, “I’ll go inside and look for it.”
“It’s dangerous. What if you hear the song and become depressed?”
“It’s fine.” Su Qiong displayed a mysterious confidence and told them to wait outside while he entered the hospital with the beggar girl.
The beggar was the nightingale’s owner and should have been immune to its song.
Only after entering did Su Qiong discover that the situation was more complicated than he had imagined.
The nurse whose hair had been ripped out by the nightingale had cried herself unconscious on the floor and was convulsing continuously.
Meanwhile, the other patients and nurses surrounded her, producing the nightingale’s voice as though they were crying blood.
“Where’s the nightingale?” Su Qiong searched around but saw no bird.
He turned toward the beggar, intending to ask whether she had noticed anything new.
Instead, he saw her clutching her head tightly, looking extremely distressed.
Clearly, even the nightingale’s owner was affected.
Su Qiong made an immediate decision. Before the girl was too deeply influenced, he picked her up and ran outside.
“Su Qiong, how did it go?” Qiyi immediately asked.
Su Qiong shook his head. “I couldn’t find it. Everyone singing inside was human. There wasn’t a bird.”
He put the beggar down and told the twins, “Please look after her. I’m going back inside.”
“Will you… be all right?” Moi had heard only two lines of the song and had nearly been driven insane by grief and suffocation.
Yet Su Qiong looked perfectly normal, without the slightest sign of being controlled.
“I’ll be fine.” Su Qiong said solemnly, “No one can control my brain or heart, because I don’t have either.”
Su Qiong possessed clear self-awareness.
His current body had been exchanged using the experience points of ERROR and the other players. It was difficult to say whether it truly belonged to him, but it certainly was not original equipment.
Even Su Qiong could not say whether he counted as human.
He could not even control himself, much less be controlled by someone else.
Su Qiong entered the hospital again.
The mournful singing continued.
This time, not only were the listeners suffering—the singers themselves also wore agonized expressions, their minds under severe torment.
If it did not stop soon, they would all collapse.
Su Qiong performed a simple analysis.
ERROR’s quest and the quest accepted by Moi and Qiyi were both related to the nightingale.
The strange phenomenon affecting the city was also connected to it.
Therefore, the key to completing the quest had to be finding that nightingale.
Su Qiong walked directly through the crowd on the verge of collapse and searched the entire hospital as quickly as possible.
This hospital differed from the beginner zone’s hospital instance. It more closely resembled a real human hospital, with every department and facility fully equipped.
There were even separate men’s and women’s restrooms in the corner!
After entering the game, players essentially obtained digital lives. Although the system provided food, clothing, housing, and transportation, aging, illness, death, and bodily metabolism had almost stopped.
Players no longer needed to use the bathroom.
Over time, they had even reached a consensus: if a bathroom appeared inside the game, it definitely concealed a clue or quest.
Yet the restroom in the fairy-tale hospital was a perfectly ordinary restroom.
Su Qiong walked around it twice but triggered no new prompt and found no clue concerning the nightingale.
The only strange detail was that the final stall in the men’s restroom was locked from the inside.
Su Qiong pulled on it twice without success. Taking advantage of his light body, he floated upward to inspect the interior.
“Ahhh!” The person inside screamed after a face suddenly floated into view above the stall.
Only after recognizing Su Qiong did the scream become slightly quieter.
Su Qiong finally recognized the terrified player whose face had lost all color.
Lu Shufan.
The scream he had released was no less impressive than a soprano’s.
“Little Pastry, it’s you! You scared me to death.” Lu Shufan patted his chest, opened the stall door, and removed a pair of earplugs.
No wonder he had not heard Su Qiong checking the stall earlier.
His ears had been blocked.
“Why are you hiding here?” Su Qiong asked.
“It’s a long story.” Lu Shufan hiccupped in lingering fear. “I’ll make it brief.”
That morning, after leaving the inn, they had discovered that the fairy-tale city was astonishingly large and decided to split up.
Lu Shufan loved joining crowds and was skilled at extracting information, so he voluntarily chose to investigate the bustling city center.
He questioned the people nearby and learned that a nightingale was singing dirges, using its voice to shroud the entire city in sorrow.
The moment Lu Shufan obtained the information and turned around, he saw a nightingale flying past his face.
“You saw the nightingale?!” Su Qiong asked excitedly.
“Yes. Its condition was strange. Its wings were stiff, and its eyes were closed.” Lu Shufan spoke with certainty. “I chased it into this hospital. Then it disappeared, and those people began singing that strange song. I judged it to be a mental attack, so I hid in this remote restroom and blocked my ears with toilet paper.”
“Little Pastry, thank goodness you came to save me!” Lu Shufan hugged him excitedly. “The Fairy-Tale Kingdom doesn’t use team mode, so I couldn’t send a team message asking for help. I had no idea what to do.”
Although he had added the others as friends, IF stipulated that before a quest was completed, players could not reveal instance information to other players within the same instance through their bracelets.
“I couldn’t find the nightingale anywhere in the hospital. It’s dangerous here, so let’s leave first.”
“How do we get out?” Lu Shufan asked miserably. “The song penetrates everything. Even if I block my ears, I’ll still be affected when I leave.”
“I have an idea,” Su Qiong said.
As he explained it, Lu Shufan’s expression gradually collapsed.
“Can we use a different method?” Lu Shufan attempted to negotiate.
Su Qiong said nothing and silently prepared to close the stall door again.
“Fine, fine! I’ll cooperate!” With no other choice, Lu Shufan gritted his teeth, drew a cross over his chest, and muttered “Amitabha Buddha.”
Su Qiong had long wanted to tell him: behaving like that, wasn’t he afraid the gods of both East and West would collectively refuse to protect him?
“Let’s do it.” Feeling blessed by the gods, Lu Shufan became fearless.
More than ten minutes later, the players waiting outside the hospital heard Su Qiong’s strained voice.
They looked over curiously and saw him dragging a coffin outside with great effort.
ERROR could no longer bear watching. Enduring the mental contamination, he went inside and helped carry the coffin out.
“Why has it become heavier?” ERROR asked.
The moment he finished speaking, a sorrowful voice came from inside.
“I’m only in my twenties, but I’ve already lain inside a coffin. Will the gods think I desperately want to die?”
Recognizing the speaker, ERROR dropped the coffin heavily onto the ground, making no attempt to hide his disgust.
“Ow!” The coffin lid flew open, and Lu Shufan cried out in pain, loudly cursing ERROR for his cruelty.
Su Qiong’s bonded item was genuinely useful. Every detachable part was practically a divine artifact.
The bandages provided one hundred percent restraint. The vines were essentially the pinnacle of tentacle-type weapons.
As for the coffin, it was rarely used. The last time had been as a shield.
However, it was constructed from a special material, and the inside formed a separate space capable of blocking sound completely and protecting its occupant from mental attacks.
Even so, because it was a coffin, Lu Shufan—whose courage was smaller than an ant’s—still felt deeply uncomfortable.
“I won’t lend it to you next time.” Su Qiong returned the coffin to its wand form, faint resentment coloring his voice.
Although it was a coffin, Su Qiong had been born while lying inside it and already regarded it as his “home.”
As the saying went, no golden or silver nest was better than one’s own doghouse.
Su Qiong thought his coffin nest was excellent and did not want to hear Lu Shufan criticize it.
Watching Su Qiong’s back, Lu Shufan realized he had said the wrong thing and hurried over to apologize.
He fully displayed the coaxing skills he had cultivated over many years. Only after nearly wearing out his mouth did he finally cheer Su Qiong up.
Lu Shufan released a breath of relief and met ERROR’s gaze, which clearly said, Serves you right.
Lu Shufan suddenly felt rather pathetic.
He had gone to immense effort coaxing someone else’s lover—and had done it with extraordinary enthusiasm.
“Let’s analyze the quest.” Su Qiong had only just finished sulking before instantly switching back into his diligent guide-NPC role and telling everyone what had happened inside the hospital.
“There are currently two possibilities. Either the nightingale is still inside the hospital, or it has gone somewhere else.”
“There should be four possibilities,” ERROR added. “We also need to consider whether the nightingale is alive or dead.”
The beggar girl began crying sadly.
“If the nightingale isn’t in the hospital, where else could it have gone?” Su Qiong murmured.
His gaze drifted to the side, and he noticed that everyone’s information cards had appeared.
Only one person in IF currently possessed such an advanced ability.
A had activated his full-area scan. He successfully located an unusual pink name among the crowd and rapidly approached.
“Su Qiong,” A called from a distance, greeting only him. “Do you have any clues?”
“Yes.” Su Qiong nodded and shared everything with A without reservation.
For the countless time, A felt that Su Qiong possessed far too little wariness and treated everyone with genuine sincerity.
He could only hope no one would ever betray that sincerity.
“…That’s about everything,” Su Qiong finished before remembering to ask, “Do you have any clues?”
“I encountered Guild Leader Yu in another area.”
“Yu Qimiao?”
“Yes. He was trapped. It should be the same situation.”
The surroundings there were also filled with people singing dirges. Yu Qimiao had hidden himself somewhere secluded but could not escape.
“It’s happening elsewhere too?” Upon receiving the clue, several possibilities instantly formed in ERROR’s mind.
Before he could explain them, Su Qiong had already followed A in a frantic rush to rescue Yu Qimiao.
Watching Su Qiong’s retreating back, several players simultaneously thought of an extremely inappropriate phrase:
Chenxiang rescuing his mother.
What a touching display of maternal and filial devotion!
Five minutes later, Su Qiong reached the place where Yu Qimiao was trapped and discovered that it was a cemetery.
As far as the eye could see, gravestones marked the resting places of unhappy people. Their lingering gloom had transformed into songs filled with sorrow and despair.
Although Su Qiong could not be mentally or physically controlled, even he felt oppressed and uncomfortable upon hearing the singing.
The other players followed but did not dare approach. They covered their ears one after another.
If they listened for even a little longer, the song would seize their minds.
Su Qiong had no attention to spare for studying the music. He only wanted to find Yu Qimiao quickly.
However, the cemetery contained nothing but gravestones. Not a single person could be seen.
Su Qiong ran inside and circled it several times without finding anything.
“Yu Qimiao!” he shouted. “Can you hear me? Where are you?”
Su Qiong used his loudest voice, but he could not overpower the singing.
Naturally, Yu Qimiao could not hear him.
In the distance, ERROR covered his ears. Judging from Su Qiong’s expression that he had reached an impasse, he reminded him, “Do you have another way of contacting him? Try it.”
“Ah.” Su Qiong suddenly thought of something.
He removed the bandage from his wand and tied it into a crooked bow.
Then he began emotionally manipulating the bandage.
“If you don’t like this bow, use the surrounding auras to sense where Yu Qimiao is.”
The bandage: “???”
Although unwilling, the bandage despised the bow Su Qiong had tied and desperately wanted to find the beautiful mommy who knew how to make one properly.
After Su Qiong obtained physical senses, his ability to perceive auras had weakened considerably.
Sensing the surrounding atmosphere had originally been the bandages’ ability. Only when Su Qiong completely relied upon them could his perception reach its most sensitive state.
The bandage itself was unrestricted.
It quickly distinguished Yu Qimiao’s presence from the countless chaotic auras and guided Su Qiong deeper into the cemetery.
Only after reaching the farthest point did Su Qiong find Yu Qimiao hiding behind the largest gravestone.
He tightly covered both ears and silently recited something.
Su Qiong assumed it was a mind-clearing incantation, like Lu Shufan’s attempt to defeat inner demons through the power of gods and Buddhas.
After moving closer and listening carefully, he discovered that the content was extremely profound.
“…Within financial markets, decisions depend upon investors’ subjective perceptions.”
Su Qiong: “…”
By connecting to the main system’s server, he learned that Yu Qimiao was reciting major examination material from a university finance course.
Yu Qimiao had focused every bit of his mental strength on his professional field, preventing the dirge from controlling him.
Su Qiong could not help admiring him.
With such perseverance, it was no wonder he had earned so much money and become an outstanding blackhearted capitalist.
Su Qiong wasted no words. He feared that if Yu Qimiao stopped reciting, his mind would instantly be taken.
He took out the coffin, unceremoniously stuffed Yu Qimiao inside, and dragged it out of the cemetery with every ounce of strength he possessed.
“Yuyu, are you all right?” Lu Shufan immediately rushed over. “It was dark and cramped inside the coffin. You weren’t scared, were you?”
Yu Qimiao gave him a strange look. “It was still better than the cemetery.”
Lu Shufan: “…”
That was true.
When choosing the region, Yu Qimiao had selected the cemetery without hesitation and had shown no fear of ghosts at all.
Materialists were terrifying.
“Su Qiong, thank you.” Yu Qimiao sincerely expressed his gratitude.
“You’re welcome!” Su Qiong wiped away nonexistent sweat and asked boastfully, “My item is useful, isn’t it?”
Yu Qimiao patted the coffin. “Extremely useful.”
“Right? Right?”
Lu Shufan suddenly felt as though he were being publicly executed.
After adjusting himself, Yu Qimiao explained the clues he had found.
That morning, after separating from the others, he had gone directly to the cemetery.
He discovered that it was relatively new. Every person buried there had died within the last several years.
Inside the administrator’s office, he also found a registry stating that every person had died from grief after hearing the nightingale’s song.
They had all heard the same song.
Why had some survived while others died?
With that question in mind, Yu Qimiao investigated further and discovered that everyone buried there had a history of abusing the weak.
They had been punished by the nightingale.
“I wanted to search for more clues, but a nightingale flew over and landed on the largest gravestone. I went to find it, but the moment I approached, singing came from inside the grave. I couldn’t move, so I had to use another method to keep my thoughts from stopping and prevent the song from affecting me.”
“What method?” Lu Shufan asked curiously. “I’ll try it next time.”
“It won’t work for you,” Yu Qimiao said.
“You haven’t even told me what it was. How do you know?”
Su Qiong adorably explained, “He was reciting finance exam material. Something about financial markets and investors’ subjective intentions.”
“Huh?”
Everyone looked at Yu Qimiao with reverence.
Inside a brainwashing instance in a deadly game, he had still possessed the mental capacity to recite exam material.
What a ruthless man.
Yu Qimiao did not think he had done anything noteworthy and continued, “Later, the nightingale flew away again. Based on its direction, it probably went toward Shi Yuntian.”
“Boss Shi? That’s bad!” Lu Shufan’s instincts warned him something was wrong. “Boss Shi likes playing solo and never uses his brain in games. He’ll definitely try to cut the nightingale down directly instead of hiding somewhere like I did.”
Lu Shufan shook his head.
“Boss Shi may already have been controlled.”
Although Lu Shufan’s description made Shi Yuntian sound as though he possessed nothing except recklessness, everyone considered it seriously and realized he was correct.
“Then let’s hurry and rescue him.” Having dragged the coffin twice already, Su Qiong could not resist murmuring softly, “I’m so tired.”
The instant he spoke, another skewer of tanghulu appeared in ERROR’s hand as though by magic.
“I originally intended to save this for myself, but it’s too sour and too sweet. It tastes terrible.” ERROR asked, “Do you want it?”
“Yes!” Su Qiong accepted the tanghulu and took a large bite, instantly feeling capable again.
ERROR was so strange.
He clearly did not like tanghulu, yet he had bought two skewers.
