Chapter 196

Catching the fleeting panic that flashed through the eyes of Old Mi, High-Level Old Man paused, quietly gave a wink to Madman Nan, and the two walked to one side.

"What's wrong?" Madman Nan asked.

Gugao Laoren's expression was somewhat ugly: "Lao Mi has a problem."

"I don't think so," Madman Nan said doubtfully. "He's the first player to obtain a Puppet, it's normal to be a bit excited!"

"If you obtained a Love Puppet, would you spend an entire night drinking and chatting with the puppet, yet manage to resist turning on a livestream to show it off?" Gugao Laoren asked.

"..." Madman Nan glanced at Old Mi, frowned, and said, "Looking at it that way, it is a bit abnormal."

"Don't you feel that Lao Mi's situation is somewhat like Qingyu and Huaxi?" Gugao Laoren continued to ask.

Hiss!

Madman Nan was violently shaken, his eyes filled with disbelief: "You mean?"

Gulp!

Gugao Laoren swallowed hard: "I suspect Shopkeeper Lin's Love Stick is bidirectional; it didn't just affect the City Lord, it also affected Lao Mi."

"How is that possible?" Madman Nan exclaimed aloud, forgetting to use private chat, and attracted the gazes of several people.

Gugao Laoren glared at him.

Madman Nan also knew the seriousness of the matter, smiled at the crowd, switched to private chat, and said quickly: "How is it possible, this is just a game, isn't it? How could game items affect players?"

"How do you explain Lao Mi's situation?" Gugao Laoren countered.

"Maybe... maybe it's a coincidence!" Madman Nan said incoherently. "Maybe it's not as serious as we think. How could a game affect people in reality? And through such an absurd method—hypnosis? Even if it were hypnosis, it shouldn't be; this is just a game. If players had accidents inside the game, would the Game Company still be in business?"

"What if this isn't a game?" Gugao Laoren asked.

"You mean... this is a real world?" Madman Nan's mind was shaken violently.

"Every NPC has independent thoughts, the world has its own unique history and civilization, the BOSS has no health bar, there is no beginner tutorial, no real plot quests, and not even a proper place to level up. Aside from the useless levels, can you find a single thing here that resembles a game?" Gugao Laoren looked around at the surroundings, his tone somewhat heavy. "All this time, it was Lin Bai's existence that made us treat this as a game. What if we remove him?"

Madman Nan stopped talking.

"Perhaps this is a real world, and we, the players sent here by the Game Company, are the invaders." Gugao Laoren said, enunciating every word, his expression exceptionally solemn.

"Pioneers," Fengzi Nan said dryly. "The Game Company calls us Pioneers. They never mentioned closed beta or open beta; they have always called us Pioneers. Moreover, they have always emphasized that an NPC's life only happens once, and any NPC can be killed."

"This corroborates our speculation about Lin Bai from yesterday," Old Man Gugao looked at Fengzi Nan and said. "Regardless of whether Lin Bai comes from the future or the Righteous Sect, his mission is to save the world and eventually drive us invaders out."

"How could it be like this?" Fengzi Nan was distraught.

"So, when other NPCs have no way to deal with us, Lin Bai's divine ability can directly affect us in reality." Gugao Laoren paused and said, "From another perspective, Lin Bai's so-called laws are very likely real."

"It's to deal with us," Fengzi Nan said, looking dejected.

"Mm," Gugao Laoren nodded.

"This game can't be played anymore." Fengzi Nan looked again at Old Mi, who was still talking about the City Lord, and felt his hair stand on end. "Playing a game and losing your life isn't worth it. Old Gu, let's quit. Let's go to the forums and tell everyone about the Game Company's conspiracy; playing this game will lead to trouble."

"..." Gugao Laoren looked at him and didn't speak for a long time.

"What's wrong with you?" Fengzi Nan asked.

"Are you willing to?" Gugao Laoren suddenly asked.

"What?" Fengzi Nan asked.

"Before playing the game, how much money could you earn?" Gugao Laoren asked.

"..." Fengzi Nan was suddenly shaken and stammered, "Five thousand a month!"

"And now?" Gugao Laoren asked.

"A day... five or sixty thousand a day..." Fengzi Nan's expression turned ugly; his eyes began to struggle, and even his breathing quickened significantly.

"Are you willing to give up an income of fifty or sixty thousand a day to go back to a job that pays five or six thousand a month?" Gugao Laoren sighed and asked leisurely.

"I..." Fengzi Nan opened his mouth but couldn't say anything. After a long while, he said with red eyes, "But, if I keep playing the game and end up like Old Mi... right now he's only being controlled by Lin Bai, but what if Lin Bai gets a way to kill players in the future?"

"To be precise, he isn't being controlled by Lin Bai; he just fell in love with an NPC," Gugao Laoren corrected.

"What's the difference?" Fengzi Nan said frantically. "Don't you think it's terrifying that he can't even control his own emotions? Old Mi's eyes used to be full of Gengmi. Now, he's enthusiastically talking about an old man. Why are players so uninhibited? Isn't it because they can do whatever they want in the game without any punishment? Now there is..."

"They don't know yet," Gugao Laoren interrupted him and said slowly. "Everyone thinks Lao Mi just got a Puppet and is too excited."

Fengzi Nan looked at Old Man Gugao in disbelief, his heart pounding rapidly: "Old Gu, you're crazy!"

"I'm not crazy," Gugao Laoren said. "If they knew Lin Bai possessed the means to counter players, a large portion of people would inevitably quit the game. The Beggar Sect's foundation would collapse. Are you willing to let go of such a big piece of fat? Besides, we have signed long-term contracts with many advertisers. Once the Beggar Sect collapses, who will pay the breach of contract fees?"

"This counts as force majeure," Fengzi Nan muttered.

"Who would believe that?" Gugao Laoren sneered. "Unless someone actually dies in the game, who would believe, based solely on our speculation, that NPCs in the game can counter players?"

"There's the example of Old Mi," Fengzi Nan said.

"What if he's acting?" Gugao Laoren said. "Capital comes into the world dripping with dirty blood from every pore. Such a massive, giant game, and one that very likely involves a real transmigration, the exploration and conquest of an alien world—there's too much involved. Do you think a company with technology far beyond this world wouldn't have ways to cover up the truth?"

Gulp!

Fengzi Nan swallowed again, looking at Old Mi and the others chatting and laughing. A chill ran through his heart, and he felt the whole world had become terrifying.

"Old Feng, think about it. As long as the Beggar Sect continues to grow, we will have a continuous, abundant income, living the life of superior beings in the game—commanding the world, flying through the sky and burrowing into the earth, Undying and Indestructible. Once we quit, we'll have nothing." Old Man Gugao's voice was like a devil's whisper, pointing straight to the depths of Fengzi Nan's heart. "We'd only be able to watch others get rich offline, watching them live different lives while we sleep."

"But..." Fengzi Nan still wanted to argue.

"If the Jiusheng dies, everything will be fine," Gugao Laoren glanced at him and interrupted his words again. "Lin Bai is urgently trying to pass on the Cultivation Method of the laws, but because the Cultivation Method is like child's play, and because of its difficulty, many people have been doubting the truth of the laws. We even speculated yesterday that the laws were a smokescreen thrown out by Lin Bai. So, as long as Lin Bai dies and public opinion is in our hands, with a little guidance, the matter of the laws will vanish into thin air."

"How could we possibly kill Lin Bai?" Perhaps it was the reluctance to lose the high income, or perhaps the reluctance to lose his status of commanding the wind and rain in the game, but Fengzi Nan finally extinguished the thought of quitting the game.

As expected.

Coercion, inducement, and intimidation!

Shopkeeper Lin's methods never fail!

Having successfully dispelled Fengzi Nan's thought of quitting the game, Old Man Gugao smiled: "We can't, but those natives protected by Lin Bai have the ability to kill him."

"It should be that he's worried about us growing too big; Lin Bai's way of doing things is very aggressive. The advantage of doing this is that it can quickly open up the situation, but the disadvantage is equally obvious: the control of the overall situation rests entirely on Lin Bai alone. One wrong step, and everything is lost. Lin Bai is actually walking a tightrope. If we, his nominal 'own people,' backstab him silently, we might just be able to push him into the Abyss."

"Aren't you worried he'll use the laws on you?" Fengzi Nan asked.

"Lin Bai doesn't control the laws; otherwise, he wouldn't borrow our strength at all. If he really mastered the laws and used them at the beginning, he would have scared away a large group of players long ago," Gugao Laoren said. "The matter with Lao Mi should be a test of his, and he even used a tool."

Gugao Laoren wore an expression of having victory in his grasp. "When Lin Bai gave Lao Mi the Love Stick, he kept emphasizing that there was only one chance and it couldn't be used on the wrong person. This point indicates that Lin Bai doesn't have many similar items on hand. At the time, we all treated his arrangements as tasks, so we followed the previous game entirely."

"If we had been suspicious of Lin Bai at the time, we likely would have just found a random passerby, and the Love Stick might have been wasted. As long as it isn't true 'word-follows-law,' if we are careful, we shouldn't fall for it."

"We have a chance?" Lao Feng said.

"A very good chance," Gugao Laoren said. "Lin Bai's control over the human heart is too precise, so he can always easily manipulate the rhythm of others. As long as we don't follow his rhythm, it will be enough to disrupt his plans. Moreover, although Lin Bai hides it very well, he still exposed his greatest weakness."

"What is it?" Lao Feng asked.

"He doesn't have enough time," Gugao Laoren laughed.

"Time?" Lao Feng was stunned.

"Yes. Looking at everything Lin Bai has done, you will find that he has been racing against time, every second counting," Gugao Laoren smiled slightly. "He practiced the Incomplete Dao, not hesitating to leave the entire Jiamu City in a state of Flaw; he practices 'word-follows-law,' not stopping even when it makes him look like a mental patient in the eyes of others. Why do this? Because he knows he cannot give us time to grow. He is racing against us."

"..." Lao Feng was stunned for a long while before saying, "You're right. Shopkeeper Lin is rushing everything he does, and he almost never does a single bit of unnecessary work."

"Lin Bai was never a madman. He is a master of logic and Divination, a layout expert whose actions are precise to the extreme. He is a true genius. No wonder the Justice Sect let him out; it's too terrifying," Gugao Laoren said, his eyes full of admiration when speaking of Lin Bai. "If we were put on the same starting line as him, our whole group would be crushed by him until not even dregs remained."

"He is also suppressing our rhythm right now," Lao Feng said.

"Not anymore," Gugao Laoren said. "Why have the players always been manipulated by Shopkeeper Lin? Because he hits here and strikes there, acting just like a mental patient! But now, we know his ultimate goal. Stripping away his layers of disguise, all his actions have a basis, and dealing with him will be much simpler."

"What about the Justice Sect?" Lao Feng asked. "If Lin Bai dies and the Justice Sect sends someone else, what then?"

"The same thing I said before: if they were going to send someone, they would have done it long ago," Gugao Laoren laughed. "If there were anyone who could help Shopkeeper Lin, he wouldn't have to be so urgent in his actions. With his talent and wisdom, if he could calm his heart and develop slowly, no one would be his opponent." He looked at Lao Feng, "Are you still worried now?"

Lao Feng shook his head.

"Lao Feng, don't tell others about our deductions. Only by letting the people of the Beggar Sect treat this as a game can they exert their greatest subjective initiative," Gugao Laoren looked at the players who were still questioning Lao Mi about the process of conquering the City Lord, then looked at the light clouds and gentle breeze around them, and said with infatuation, "A real world seems even more fun!"

"Yeah! I didn't expect the foreign experts to actually be right," Lao Feng said bitterly.

"It's also possible that the people above us know, they just didn't say anything," Gugao Laoren glanced at him and said, "Lao Feng, you should keep practicing the laws. If the laws can affect people in reality, maybe they can be used when we return to reality."

"..." Lao Feng was stunned.

"Even if they can't be used, being a transcendent god in this world isn't bad either!" Gugao Laoren smiled at him, "Let's compete with Lin Bai on time and see who masters the laws first."

"Alright." At this very moment, the panic that Lao Mi had brought to Lao Feng completely vanished. Looking at the players around him who were still kept in the dark, he even felt a sense of transcendence—that everyone else was drunk while he alone was sober—and he was in high spirits.

【Uncover a trending topic (Completed), drive social public opinion; Reward: One printing press (already issued), can be retrieved at any time】

【Only by keeping the hot topic fermenting can the vitality of the weekly be maintained. Dig deep into the hot topic and build it into a focus to trigger widespread social attention; Reward: Five printing presses and their peripheral equipment】

The topic of the Justice Alliance brought enough heat, and the progress of the Media Tycoon was remarkable.

It was a pity that the love stories in the weekly did not make the world yearn for them, which made Lin Bai feel quite regretful.

After all.

Although the Media System could control public opinion, it did not play a big role in combat. To improve his combat power, he still had to rely on the Yuelao System.

"The players' ability to write stories is not good! It's dry and lacks any artistic sense; no wonder it can't resonate." Flipping through the Justice Weekly, Lin Bai pondered for a moment and decided to take action himself.

(End of this chapter)