The magician stopped in his tracks. His hands rested steadily on Yu Jiu’s shoulders; although his palms exerted no real pressure, Yu Jiu felt as immobilized as a cat held by the back of its neck.
The man’s tone was as light and unhurried as his expression. He leaned in close, revealing a deep-set, striking facial structure with prominent bone definition that carried a hint of mixed-race exoticism.
If one ignored his actions and judged purely by his appearance, he looked the absolute picture of an extraordinary, noble gentleman.
He certainly seemed like a key plot figure, though what did that have to do with a minor cannon-fodder character?
Yu Jiu withdrew the gaze he had been casting behind him, his soft, fair cheeks shifting slightly as he shook his head to indicate everything was fine. Taking advantage of Gu Xun’s momentary distraction, he stepped briskly forward, widening the small gap between them to lightly evade the touch of the man’s hand.
They were merely thrown together while executing a mission by coincidence; there was no need for excessive contact.
Gu Xun’s palm inexplicably missed its mark, the lingering sweetness of Yu Jiu’s scent seeming to linger in his hand like melting honey.
The bright green eyes, alert as a small animal’s, distanced themselves with wariness, looking nothing like the fragile creature the rumors described.
He stared at the small expanse of delicate, exposed skin along the side of Yu Jiu’s slender neck. Beneath the snowy flesh, the rhythmic pulse of a bluish-green vein was growing increasingly distinct, a neck so fragile and slender he could easily enclose it in a gentle grip.
A helpless prey with tear-stained, reddened eye corners, struggling in his hands with beautiful green eyes brimming with tears.
The thin lips curled slightly upward. In the empty space, the smile at the corners of Gu Xun’s mouth widened.
It was far more interesting than he had imagined, well worth the card he had specially spent to obstruct Lu Shiyue.
“091, I have a weird feeling about this,” Yu Jiu said to the system after breaking free from Gu Xun’s control.
091’s internal unease grew. In the original plotline, the morally ambiguous magician hadn’t even appeared yet, his role being closely tied to the villainous Evil God. But right now, the protagonist hadn’t yet grown strong enough to contend with the Evil God.
The plotline was advancing relentlessly, causing many critical plot points that were supposed to appear much later to surface prematurely.
091 had never encountered such a situation. Ever since the protagonist and the host met, the plot had shattered to pieces.
Especially after seeing Gu Xun use a card skill on the host, 091 found it even harder to determine the magician’s true motives.
Even if the host failed the mission, it didn’t matter, 091 self-soothed, the points and performance metrics it had hoarded over the years should surely be enough to support its little baby.
While 091 underwent a mental storm in its mind, it forgot to reply to Yu Jiu.
Perhaps it had gone offline for some reason, so Yu Jiu didn’t press further.
Hearing the bustling noise coming from the group of players, he stopped and turned his head to look.
Lu Shiyue, sporting a head of striking red hair, stood in the center of the players with a look of unprecedented coldness and severity.
A strange emotion stirred within Yu Jiu. Lu Shiyue seemed genuinely furious.
Previously, when the man frowned impatiently and spoke to him in a rough, irritable tone, there might have been dissatisfaction toward him, but there was no real anger.
Right now, however, sharp eyes surging with boiling wrath were locked dead onto Yu Jiu, or more accurately, onto Gu Xun, who was standing very close behind him.
For the first time since entering the instance, the renowned deputy captain of the Blade unit bared his emotions and power so vividly. At the center of his elongated, sharp pupils, faint specks of crimson flickered intermittently. Veins bulged along his sturdy forearms, his hands clenched tightly into fists, and sparks of bright light representing his abilities crackled around his palms.
Like an enraged male stripped of his mate, anxiously displaying his fury, Lu Shiyue gritted his teeth and spat out the name: “Gu Xun…”
[Ding!]
The game’s notification sound shattered the tense, murderous undercurrents at the scene.
[Number tags distribution complete. Please follow your tour guide into the corresponding exhibition hall as soon as possible and complete the check-in task inside.]
The game added coldly, as if sensing the friction among the players.
[Please complete the tour promptly; overdue entries will not be accommodated.]
It was urging the players to carry out their mission.
The light in Lu Shiyue’s palm had not yet faded, and the fire in his eyes burned even brighter; he clearly had no intention of letting go of his plan to settle accounts with Gu Xun.
Ling Xiye, who had consistently remained aloof from the other players, spoke coldly as if watching a farce: “Please follow your respective tour guides to begin the tour.”
He reiterated the game’s warning: “Overdue entries will not be accommodated.”
Yu Jiu was standing somewhat far from Lu Shiyue, feeling puzzled as to why Lu Shiyue had suddenly flared up, acting as though Gu Xun had committed some unforgivable crime against him.
Why was he always acting inexplicably, inexplicably flying into a rage and getting angry?
Lu Shiyue forcibly reined in the spreading murderous intent. Gu Xun’s hidden cards were an unknown, but Lu Shiyue didn’t mind tearing off the polite facade directly.
The little mute hadn’t even realized his number tag had been tampered with, still wearing that dazed expression. The green eyes looking at him made no effort to mask their emotions, bare and brimming with bewildered inquiry.
Stared at by those eyes, Lu Shiyue found his temper extinguished, as if his anger had been forcefully shoved back down his throat. The little mute remained completely pure on the surface, entirely unaware of what had caused his anger in the first place.
Still, it no longer mattered.
Yu Jiu noticed the deep, lingering glance Lu Shiyue cast in his direction before the man lowered his head to tap at something, immediately extinguishing his supernatural ability.
Behind him, Gu Xun wore an expression of utterly bewildered innocence, stretching out a gloved hand with a shrug. “Looks like I’ve offended the deputy captain of the Blade unit.”
Unbothered, he caught up to Yu Jiu, leaning in close with an enlarged, handsome face. Yu Jiu caught a faint trace of gunpowder on him, smelling like the lingering, unscattered residue of freshly burnt explosives.
“Xiao Jiu, do you know why Lu Shiyue is targeting me?”
Gu Xun smiled again. He naturally possessed a sharply aggressive facial structure, but his smiling expression softened that sharpness, subconsciously inviting a sense of closeness.
Unlike Ning Jue and Lu Shiyue, one of whom was a freezing wall keeping everyone a thousand miles away while the other wore a sour face for everyone he met.
Yu Jiu tilted his head, his dark hair cascading past his temple with the slight movement, partially veiling his small ear.
A barely perceptible glimmer of dark intent flashed across the depths of Gu Xun’s eyes. His gloved, slender fingers naturally swept Yu Jiu’s hair behind his ear, his fingertip seemingly brushing past the pearl-like, rounded earlobe by accident.
The rough texture of the glove sent a shiver through Yu Jiu, a tingling, numbing sensation that caused his shoulders to flinch defensively.
“That’s a secret.”
The magician held a gloved index finger up against his lips, his thin lips curving into a mysterious smile, much like the breathtaking moment a magician reveals the climax of a performance to leave the audience breathless.
“If there’s a chance, I’ll tell you.”
Yu Jiu felt thoroughly unenthusiastic. Making such a fuss over nothing, he had thought it was actually something important.
The players followed their tour guide into the corresponding exhibition hall. Ling Xiye approached the two of them without a word, raising his chin to signal them to follow him.
He was thoroughly unenthusiastic as a tour guide; I bet he’ll get customer complaints sooner or later, Yu Jiu grumbled internally to 091.
Passing through a dim corridor, the low-set wall lamps lining either side near the floor cast a faint, dim glow that barely illuminated their footing.
Exhibition Hall 6 held only the two of them, with absolute silence reigning around them save for the sound of their three pairs of footsteps.
Despite being a popular museum attraction in Longxi Town, it felt far quieter than the mountainside park late last night.
“The Longxi Town Museum primarily exhibits the fauna of Longxi Town. Exhibition Hall 6 is the paleontology exhibition hall.”
Ling Xiye maintained his unchanging, formulaic tone of delivery.
He stopped in front of a pitch-black set of double doors.
“We have arrived. You may go inside.”