Chapter 343: Queueing Up Together

"What brings you here?"

Standing at the doorway was none other than Changsun Yao and the members of 【World Nuclear Peace House】 she had brought along.

Changsun Yao, gift bag in hand, stepped into 【Zhu Xing Zhen Tai】 and said in a light tone, "Came to deliver an opening gift. Our guild's office is on this street too, so we'll be neighbors from now on."

"Good afternoon—uh, good evening."

You Anjian, the young swordsman who had once teamed up with Li Cheng on missions and bore a striking resemblance to A Bing, also offered a greeting, though his manner was a touch stiff—

The last time they met, Li Cheng had still been a lv5 newbie, as green as a freshly-released Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town.

But now, upon meeting again, Li Cheng was already lv20, with the capital to take over a sprawling shop and make major guilds line up at his door to discuss cooperation.

You Anjian scratched his head, his expression behind the sunglasses a tangled mix of emotions—he had the distinct sense of a Yu Huang Temple monk learning that Zhu Yuanzhang had proclaimed himself emperor: bro, how did you level up so fast?

"What's all this for? Far too kind."

Li Cheng took the gift bag and glanced inside—it was filled with WWII medals, Renaissance calligraphy and paintings, and religious holy relics, all sealed in plastic cases.

These things weren't necessarily all that expensive, but gathering them did take some effort.

Li Cheng closed the bag, and from Changsun Yao's expression he could tell they had other business. "Let's go upstairs to talk."

He led Changsun Yao and the others up to the second floor. Prometheus's male business representative couldn't find a chance to cut in, so he had no choice but to turn and look at his companion in the corner, who was busy trying to chat up Hui Yu.

"You play Honor of Kings too? What a coincidence, so do I. How about we queue up together?"

The female business representative pressed the earpiece hidden in her ear. Prometheus's equipment manufacturing division was paying quite a bit of attention to 【Zhu Xing Zhen Tai】—

At that very moment, a logistics squad was hiding in an armored command vehicle at the end of the street. The moment they heard the female business representative's words, they immediately had their programmer remotely control a phone via computer, downloading and logging into a game account.

By the time the business representative pulled out her phone, the screen had already switched to the game interface, complete with a ranked match record of over a dozen consecutive wins.

"No."

Hui Yu, lounging in a recliner, gave a glance and lowered her head again. "You kill everyone off, what am I supposed to kill?"

? I was thinking you haven't killed a single person either.

The business representative stared at Hui Yu's phone screen—at the support Dian Wei with a record of 0/9, wandering around the jungle, stealing farm from mid, and shouting "please, someone stop me" the whole way—and her eyelid twitched uncontrollably.

Ding-a-ling-ling!

In the middle of her game, the alarm Hui Yu had long preset on her phone went off. "Oh, it's already midnight, time to harvest the crops."

She opened the cabinet beside her, pulled out over thirty phones and tablets from the drawer—each device logged into a different game: Teamfight Tactics, Dungeon & Fighter, Game for Peace, Genshin Impact, Naruto.

She went through them one by one, claiming the daily login rewards.

"Wait a sec—"

In the armored command vehicle at the end of the street, a member of Prometheus's logistics squad caught on, puzzled: "I remember Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail's daily quests refresh at 4 AM, Naruto at 5, Dungeon & Fighter at 6."

The squad's programmer was the first to react, saying in a hollow voice: "She set each phone and tablet to a different country and time zone, so she can claim every mobile game's daily rewards all at once."

"."

The vehicle fell silent. The same thought rose in everyone's mind simultaneously—what kind of god-tier player is this?

————

Second floor of 【Zhu Xing Zhen Tai】, Li Cheng rubbed his palms together and laughed, "The new shop just opened, I haven't had time to set things up properly yet, everyone just find a seat."

Uh.

The members of 【World Nuclear Peace House】 looked at the completely bare second-floor floor, hesitated for a moment, and then chose to stand.

"I did come with something else in mind. I saw on your official website that 【Zhu Xing Zhen Tai】 also runs body modification and medical services?"

Changsun Yao pressed her lips together lightly and pointed at 【Tiegu】 beside her. "Can you take a look at him?"

Tiegu was a nearly two-meter-tall bronze-skinned muscular man, close to forty, with a buzz cut, apparently a melee-type Awakened specializing in body enhancement. "Mm."

Li Cheng pushed up the Information Integration Glasses: Modified perched on his nose bridge and clearly saw clusters of shadows within Tiegu's body. "Parasitized by something?"

"Yes."

Tiegu nodded and took out a full-length mirror from his inventory, holding it up in front of himself.

The mirror's surface blurred, gradually seeing through Tiegu's skin, muscle, and bone.

Within his chest cavity, abdominal cavity, limbs, and even brain lurked over a dozen infant-shaped phantom wraiths.

The wraiths were roughly six centimeters tall, fully formed with limbs and facial features, eyes squinted shut, cowering within Tiegu's body.

"Our guild's last scenario mission was set in a world with a Strange Tales of Liaozhai-style supernatural atmosphere. We were required to replace several demons, go to the City of the Wrongfully Dead, attend a banquet hosted by the Ghost King, and find a way to assassinate him."

Changsun Yao said solemnly, "In the end we did kill the Ghost King, but to keep his cover, Tiegu also ate a Longevity Fruit of unknown origin at the banquet, which led to him being parasitized by these things."

Li Cheng examined them. These ghost infants were half-virtual, half-solid, absorbing the spiritual energy within Tiegu's body during sleep and then expelling it back out. He said casually, "Didn't you try going to 【Evil Science Alliance】? When it comes to messing with souls, they're the professionals, right?"

!

You Anjian spoke up: "We did go to 【Evil Science Alliance】, but according to them, these ghost infants are called 【Sorrow Wedges】. They're the underworld fruit that grows when the blood banyan tree in front of the abandoned-infants tower is watered year-round with the waters of the Yellow Springs. Basically the dark side of the ginseng fruit.

"The 【Sorrow Wedges】 have already fused with Tiegu's spirit and flesh. They'll keep reshaping his essence, stripping away all his human form, emotions, and moral concepts, transforming him toward a Ghost King form.

"The system classifies this change as a positive effect, not a curse, so it can't be dispelled.

"Evil Science Alliance can forcibly rip out the 【Sorrow Wedges】, but the consequence would be damage to Tiegu's soul.

"We asked over a dozen other guilds and medical institutions, and the answers were all more or less the same."

By the Kill Field's rating standards, the Ghost King of the City of the Wrongfully Dead was at least lv30. Most players would have been thrilled to take Tiegu's place and be parasitized head to toe by the ghost infants.

But for Tiegu, who still had parents, a lover, and children waiting for him in the real world, losing human emotions and morality was absolutely unacceptable.

Li Cheng nodded, casually picking up a bottle of mineral water for a sip. "Got it, so you came to me."

"Wanted to ask if you had any way to handle it."

Changsun Yao shook her head with a wry smile. "From the bits and pieces on the forums, you seem to have quite the... methods."

Just as the real world has OnlyFans and Bilibili charging videos, on the forums players also post paywalled image-text threads and GoPro videos, recounting their scenario mission experiences and insights—raking in a bit of subscription money from fans.

To avoid making enemies, these players would hide the IDs of teammates they encountered, referring to them by code names.

But if the data volume is large enough, one can still identify certain distinctive players from their speech patterns, catchphrases, and styles of action.

"Sigh, as expected of an outstanding man like me, even if I deliberately hide myself, I still can't help but be exposed, can I."

Li Cheng's lips suddenly curled up. "'Data post' — I've fallen vertically into the pit of myself, and once in the pit I'm a die-hard fan. This IQ is solidly the 'cool and aloof fishing-type intellectual male' persona. I suggest the fan club quickly open a super topic: #Human High-Quality Intellectual Romance#."

?

Where did you steal this idol-fan-circle jargon from? The concentration is way too high, yo.

Li Cheng seemed to guess their thoughts through the pained expressions on the faces of everyone in 【World Peace House】, and said calmly, "Probably stolen from the super topics of Wei Wuxian + Gu Yiye + Shi Ying."

???

If you want to die, don't drag us along.

Amid the egg-aching, chrysanthemum-tightening expressions of Changsun Yao and the others, Li Cheng hauled a surgical bed out of the dimensional warehouse, patted the bed space, and casually said to Tiegu, "Lie down, let's see if there's any way."

(End of chapter)