Watching countless rat skins pour out from the bag, everyone’s eyes widened involuntarily.
『Damn, rat skins? You can play it this way?』
『Just looking at the task requirements, I thought it had to be human skin…』
『But they got way too many rat skins, did the two of them stab into a rat nest or something??』
『Wait, these don’t seem like ordinary rats… look!!』
Several scattered skins fell at Liu Yang’s feet. Just as he was about to pick them up, he came face to face with that swollen, hideous woman’s face. He was so startled that his hand jerked, and the skin slapped flat onto the ground.
“Wh… what is this thing!”
Jiang Gu looked at those human-faced mice, his heart welling with waves of astonishment.
Just from the bizarre appearance of these things alone, it was clear that they were absolutely not ordinary rats, but rather one of the unique Grotesques native to this layer of the instance.
These two newcomers had actually hunted Grotesques the moment they entered the instance?
And under the premise of an S-rank instance upgrade, they had hunted this many?
Truly unheard of.
The strength of these two needed to be reassessed.
However, on the other side, the barrage comments offered a different opinion.
『Damn, where did these two get so many human-faced mice!』
『No, come on, don’t you know the rules? Can you just casually kill Grotesques inside an instance?』
Only then did the barrage comments that had been following Qin Guan’s perspective from earlier finally trickle into the main livestream room, but without exception, they all wore the same hollow-eyed, vacant stare, as if they had suffered some tremendous shock.
『……』
Seeing them return but say nothing, the people in the main livestream room who didn’t know what had happened grew even more anxious.
『Hurry up and tell us, bro, what exactly did you see?』
『I knew these things were sketchy, can someone who knows what’s up come and confirm it?』
The barrage comments that had come over from Qin Guan’s livestream room silently watched the crowd frantically questioning Qin Guan on the public chat, their expressions growing dazed, as if they were looking at their former selves.
Whether out of a subtle sense of revenge or not, they all tacitly refused to explain, leaving behind only a vague remark.
『Don’t ask, just watch and you’ll see』
Hmph, a big shot’s strength was not something these people could question.
They’d figure it out for themselves later.
Looking at the pile of rats that had fallen before his eyes, the hunter’s gaze was peculiar.
“I didn’t expect you to actually catch these guys.”
Qin Guan raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong, is there a problem?”
The hunter rummaged through the pile of rat skins for a long while, picked out the largest and plumpest one, buried his face in it, and took a deep sniff, revealing an intoxicated expression.
The others, seeing this, all recoiled half a step in disgust.
“This one, very good, I like it very much.”
“But unfortunately, it’s not a skin.”
“Not a skin, what do you mean?” Fang Ai shrieked from the side.
“These things are not skins.” The hunter moved his stiff fingers, inching them across the rat skins, his eyes revealing a naked greed.
“But for the sake of cleaning out the rat infestation in my house, I’m willing to make an exception and let you stay one night. You may choose any room on the second floor, but starting tomorrow, you must find real ‘skins.'”
With that, the hunter carefully packed all those limp rat skins into a large sack and left, satisfied.
The group exchanged glances, their chests full of questions but unsure where to even begin asking.
Jiang Gu looked at the two of them, his face hesitant to speak. “…Where’s Wang Ze?”
The final assembly time had long passed, and seeing the burly man fail to appear, everyone had already formed some expectations about his fate.
Qin Guan briefly recounted what they had just encountered, only skipping over the details of Lu Chuan killing the rats and his own request to upgrade the instance to S-rank.
『What a loss, what a loss, I bet everything I had, who knew that burly man was all muscles and no substance, to think he’d be the first to die!』
『Can’t even beat a pretty boy newcomer, I’m speechless』
And the players who had just witnessed Qin Guan’s godlike moves in his livestream room all tacitly kept quiet and didn’t correct them.
Hmph, they’d make them feel the sting of being slapped in the face by a big shot soon enough!
Jiang Gu sighed. He had been in the Filth Room for a long time and deeply understood the reasoning behind certain things.
“All we can say is his luck was bad.”
Meanwhile, Fang Yuan’s attention was focused on the parting words the hunter had left behind.
“He just said… rat skins don’t count as skins, what does that mean?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out either,” Qin Guan said. “The hunter clearly said that any animal’s skin could be used to pay the rent, yet he won’t accept rat skins… Maybe, these things aren’t ‘animals’ in the traditional sense.”
Qin Guan looked up and met Fang Yuan’s gaze. Clearly, both of them had thought of the words on that note at the same time.
House of the White Mountain, there is a woman of wondrous purity, divine and elegant in appearance. Do not approach or touch her.
If this thing wasn’t an animal… then what was it?
They couldn’t reach a conclusion no matter how they discussed it. Seeing that it was getting late, everyone decided to return to their rooms and rest first.
“When we were cleaning the house earlier, we saw four rooms on the second floor. They were originally meant for the eight of us, but now that something happened to Wang Ze… one of us might have to stay alone.”
Fang Yuan and Liu Yang were already a couple, so naturally they would share a room. The old man, namely Uncle Ming, claimed his legs were bad and needed Jiang Gu to look after him. That left the room question to Qin Guan, Lu Chuan, and the deaf-mute little girl.
The little girl couldn’t speak, only huddling quietly in the corner watching them, like some abandoned small animal.
Lu Chuan crossed his arms and studied her for a long while. When he turned back to look at Qin Guan, he instantly put on a pitiful expression identical to hers, except that such a helpless look on a grown man nearly 1.9 meters tall was bizarre no matter how you looked at it.
“I want to sleep with you,” Lu Chuan blinked.
Qin Guan answered without thinking: “No, you watch her tonight.”
Lu Chuan struggled while quietly draping his arm over Qin Guan’s shoulder, inching his head closer to his neck, and said in a low voice, “…I’m worried about you being in danger alone.”
Qin Guan remained perfectly calm: “I face the greatest danger when I’m by your side, don’t I?”
Lu Chuan stopped smiling and looked down at him. “Why would you think that.”
Facing the man’s questioning, Qin Guan looked back without a trace of fear, his mountain-mist-like eyes cold and beautiful, carrying a glassy sheen.
“Appearing out of nowhere and displaying inexplicable strength. With all due respect, you look more suspicious than anyone here, don’t you?”
After a long moment, a low laugh reached his ears. The man leaned over the back of Qin Guan’s neck. He couldn’t see the expression on the other’s face, but he could feel the faint trembling coming from his fingers.
That was an instinctive bodily response to extreme excitement.
“You really are interesting. I like you more and more.”
Lu Chuan pressed close against Qin Guan’s ear and said in a voice so low it was barely audible.
“Tonight, do not open the door for anyone.”
In any case, after a noisy battle over room assignments, everyone except Lu Chuan had found their preferred room and roommate.
“Click.”
Qin Guan closed the door to his room. After repeatedly confirming that the lock was secure, he finally slumped against the door panel as if drained of all strength, revealing a somewhat pained expression.
He reached out and rolled up his sleeve, revealing a wound from a rat bite clearly visible on his arm.