Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 160: The Storytelling Old Man

Chapter 160: Chapter 160: The Storytelling Old Man

"Do we still need to meet up with the other players?" Tao Chengxin asked as he followed the girl in the white dress.

In addition to them and the deceased Shen Tai, there were Wang Qiao, Gao Baimei, and Tang Yuan.

"Of course not," Sun Jirou said. "All three of them are untrustworthy, especially that Tang Yuan."

"The two players who took him hostage the day before yesterday were most likely killed by him."

Tao Chengxin wasn’t genuinely so kind-hearted as to want to bring the others along. What worried her was, "The third task of the instance is to find something. Three people seems a bit few, doesn’t it?"

"Yesterday, there were other players who hadn’t appeared, tracking us." She looked at Xu Huo, "Was that player with Tang Yuan?"

"Do you want to know?" Xu Huo asked in a way that was not clear.

Tao Chengxin was unsure of what he meant and hesitated before saying, "Actually, it’s not that I really want to know."

The girl in the white dress in front laughed, "If you guys want to know, it’s very simple. Yesterday, three groups of people came to find me: first was a man and a woman, the second was a ruthless man acting alone, and the third was rather polite, even gave me money."

"Mr. Xu must recognize these three groups of people, as you installed a surveillance device on the umbrella you gave me, you must have heard our conversation."

Tao Chengxin and Sun Jirou looked at Xu Huo at the same time. His expression was completely different from yesterday’s, and although they had always felt something was odd, they hadn’t realized it due to being on edge. Now, reminded by the girl in the white dress, they understood that he had been playing dumb!

Xu Huo did not deny it, as his objective had already been achieved.

"If Wang Qiao and Gao Baimei didn’t go to the Building Blocks MoMo Shop, they must have gone to Delicious Sausage Shop. As for the person tracking me, if he were alone, there would be no need to ask about my conversation with the tour guide."

He looked at the girl in white, "You told him about Bear’s Paw Restaurant and Delicious Sausage Shop. If Tang Yuan went there, then it’s very likely they are a team."

"You deliberately led us into the trap yesterday to make us discern the authenticity of these places!" Sun Jirou immediately made the connection to his performance yesterday. He had deliberately shown confidence in front of the other players, vaguely hinting at having clues, which had induced them to contemplate tracking him!

Tao Chengxin glared at Xu Huo, "We all fell for it!"

"I did not expect beforehand that someone would cooperate to such an extent." Xu Huo said meaningfully, glancing at the girl in the white dress. At most, he wanted to extract a bit of information from the locals, but the age range he had in mind was thirty-five and older. Even if most of the older inhabitants of Brick Tale Town were gone, one couldn’t verify it alone.

It was more convenient to have other players go looking for people on their own than to try to persuade them spouting words.

Regardless of whether or not anyone found a clue, it was progress.

What he hadn’t expected was for the girl in the white dress to show herself willingly.

The girl in the white dress only smiled and said nothing.

The group reached their destination in silence.

This was a small courtyard at the edge of Fairy Tale City. The girl in the white dress opened the door and invited them in.

The yard was full of sunflowers, and as the four of them stepped in, the two sunflowers facing the entrance suddenly turned their backs to them in unison.

Xu Huo and Sun Jirou did not take it to heart, but Tao Chengxin was startled, "These aren’t some kind of props, are they?"

The girl in the white dress turned around and said, "I heard that this is a specialty of E19 Wormhole Point, called the Not-So-Clever Sunflower, which likes to turn its back to people."

Tao Chengxin half-believed and half-doubted, "Have the sunflowers become sentient?"

The girl in the white dress laughed, "Humans can evolve, and so can plants. This variety of sunflower has developed a special pollen projection range under unique conditions, creating a complete cycle around the sunflower. Once someone breaks this cycle, the sunflower will change direction and start projecting its pollen anew."

"So that’s how it is." Tao Chengxin said, "I’ve only seen evolved animals before; it’s my first time seeing evolved plants."

"Plants aren’t like animals; their changes aren’t as noticeable."

The girl in the white dress invited them into the house and greeted the old man sitting in the rocking chair by the window, "Grandpa Bai, I’m back, and I’ve brought some friends."

The old man in the rocking chair seemed to respond slowly, taking several seconds before turning his head and speaking sluggishly, "Tea."

The girl in the white dress made tea, then pushed the rocking chair next to the couch. After pouring a cup for each, she lifted the cup to the old man’s lips.

The old man’s hands trembled severely; he couldn’t hold the cup and had to rely on the girl in the white dress to take a few sips of tea, then smiled at her, "You drink."

The girl in the white dress used a handkerchief to wipe his mouth.

Xu Huo and the others didn’t touch their tea cups, and the girl in the white dress didn’t mind, herself holding a cup of tea and saying to the old man, "Grandpa Bai, they want to know about what happened twenty years ago."

The old man’s expression changed immediately, and he asked urgently, "Are they Players?"

After the girl in the white dress nodded, he seemed somewhat agitated, trying to rise from the rocking chair, but he failed to straighten his back and fell back down, ending up bracing himself on the armrests and gasping for breath, "Good, good, it’s good that you’re Players, you must spread the truth about Fairy Tale City."

Sun Jirou and Tao Chengxin exchanged glances, "Old man, please tell us about what happened twenty years ago first."

The old man’s cloudy eyes shone, and he said, "There were also Players in Fairy Tale City back then, but unfortunately, they were all killed by the people from the government hall."

"Twenty years ago, just after Fairy Tale City entered the game, the government hall lured many Players to the LT Biopharmaceutical Company using the lie of nurturing Players. They used Players for experiments, and in less than two years, they developed a potion that could cause ordinary people to evolve quickly."

"Evolvers initially saw quick increases in physical and mental abilities upon using the potion, but over time, they started exhibiting symptoms of turning into Aliens."

"But LT told the Players it was just a side effect of the potion, and that by taking their specially developed Antitoxin, the symptoms could be alleviated."

"Not all Players were fools. Once inside the instance, some discovered the truth and joined with other Players in resistance against LT, but they were unexpectedly framed as Cannibal Players, and were injected with a large quantity of Evolution Potion, which made them inhuman in a short amount of time."

"Some Players were deceived and helped LT in hunting down Players who had turned into Aliens. Thus the Players who knew the truth were killed or captured, while those greedy individuals, wanting more Players to bring back useful items and weapons from the instances, actually introduced the potion into the drinking water system of Fairy Tale City."

"In just three months, ah, tens of millions became Aliens; half the population slowly changed," the old man’s eyes filled with tears, "In that one month, Fairy Tale City almost became a dead city, no living person could be seen outside besides the Aliens, everywhere were rotting corpses and blood. Those who were once our brothers and sisters roamed the streets in groups, feasting on the remaining corpses when hungry..."