This Text Adventure Game is definitely poisonous
Chapter 127 - 125: Zhang Yang’s Invitation_1

Chapter 127: Chapter 125: Zhang Yang’s Invitation_1

Zhang Yang sat on the stairs, blowing smoke rings. Hearing footsteps, he turned to see a figure approaching. He quickly stubbed out his cigarette and stood up.

"Mu You, Mr. Mu. I think we’ve met before...No, to be precise, we’ve met twice."

Extending his hand to the young man in front of him with a smile, Zhang Yang said, "Nice to meet you, I’m Zhang Yang, the chief of the K City police department, and also the director of the K City anomalous division."

"Indeed, you’re a big shot, Director Zhang. Nice to meet you." Mu You shook hands with him, while at the same time, the Omniscient Crystal had quietly displayed the other’s information.

"6th level player (Feng Qing Yang), Attributes: Strength 12, Agility 12, Intelligence 12, Constitution 13, HP 1300, Magic Power 1200, Current Skin Loaded: None."

Such balanced attributes, and this ID, is he a fan of martial arts novels...?

"Haha, just call me Old Zhang. It’s not very convenient to talk here, shall we go inside?" Zhang Yang glanced at the shop nearby, requesting gently.

"Alright."

Mu You didn’t refuse. Since the man had come to him, it was better to have an honest conversation.

He unlocked the door, opened it, and led Zhang Yang into the shop.

Mu You got two bottles of drinks from the fridge at the front desk: "The store isn’t fancy, and I haven’t prepared anything. Does black tea work for you?"

"Yes, that’s great."

Zhang Yang accepted the drink with an indifferent smile.

After they sat down around the table, Zhang Yang suddenly pulled out a single-lens ear-mounted glass from his pocket, its style somewhat resembling the ’Combat Power Detector’ from Dragon Ball.

"Sorry, but allow me to use this on you first."

Saying this, Zhang Yang made a few clicks on the device, then hung it on his left ear, looking at Mu You through the lens.

"Strength 12, Agility 24, Intelligence 37, Constitution 12, 10th level player... hmm, just as I thought!"

Zhang Yang muttered to himself, then removed the device. The look in his eyes when he looked at Mu You seemed more satisfied: "Your power should rank in the top ten in all of K City."

"What’s this?"

Mu You didn’t care about his top ten judgement, instead he focused on the lens. After Zhang Yang put this thing on, he was able to directly recite his attributes... Could this be something similar to his Omniscient Crystal?

It’s just that, the attributes Zhang Yang reported were somewhat higher than his actual attributes, and his level was mistaken as being 10th instead of 8th...

"Haha, this is called an ’Attribute Detector’, a recent development. It estimates attributes and level by the target’s magical wavelengths. It’s in beta right now, so the data may not be accurate. There aren’t many of these in the whole country, I only got one because I pulled some strings." Zhang Yang passed the device to Mu You with a laugh, signaling that he could take a look.

Mu You accepted the device without refusal, looked it over, and put it over his eye to take a look.

The results were similar to what Zhang Yang described, this device could only see four-dimensional attributes and estimate the level based on the sum of the attributes, so there was naturally some margin of error.

However, being able to develop such a technology that functions similarly to the Omniscient Crystal was already pretty impressive!

Mu You exhaled and handed the device back to Zhang Yang.

Zhang Yang was somewhat surprised to see Mu You returning it so quickly.

Usually, any player seeing such a novel device would undoubtedly play around with it a bit more, but he didn’t expect him to return it without any hesitation.

Zhang Yang didn’t think much of it, found the right words, and started, "Actually, after the incident at Qubai Mountain, I’ve been wanting to visit you. Had it not been for your guidance in resolving that Class A anomaly, my men don’t know how many sacrifices they’d have had to make. But I’ve been tied up with various matters lately and couldn’t find the time, hence it’s been delayed until today."

Qubai Mountain...

Mu You looked at him rather curiously: "I’m curious, how did you confirm that the anomaly on Qubai Mountain was mine?"

He thought he had been careful, always operating undercover while wearing his skin, and even wearing the Invisibility Cloak all the time. Most importantly, Lu Yao had helped him to erase the footage and hide his presence afterward... Mu You really couldn’t figure out where he had slipped up.

"Heh, indeed, you haven’t left behind any substantive evidence. But you should know, from a national perspective, determining whether someone is a player or not sometimes doesn’t require solid evidence. Changes in your recent fortunes, changes in your frequency and timing of going out, changes in your spending habits, changes in your personal living habits, and so on. When all these are taken into account in a big data analysis, they demonstrate that there’s a high probability that you’ve already become a player."

"Add to this the ’red-clothed man’ spotted near your shop some time ago, the fleeting image in the paranormal live broadcast, and the some bizarre incidents that have recently occurred around this street... each of these on their own might not mean much, but when many are added together, it’s enough for big data to determine that ’the red-clothed man’ is you," Zhang Yang said.

"So that’s how it is..."

Mu You nodded, understanding much more after the other party’s explanation. The analysis of personal lifestyle habits through big data is really hard to guard against.

"Under the power of the state machine, an individual can never escape detection. Not just you, in fact, the individual information and name list of all 13,761 players in K city, all lies in my hands now!"

Zhang Yang boasted a little with a somewhat proud tone before saying, "Among these, you are one of the best at concealing yourself. According to our estimates, you should have become a player half a year ago, but it wasn’t until recently that the state discovered your player identity. Just on this point, you have already surpassed 99.9% of the players."

Half a year ago...

Mu You felt strange in his heart; it seemed that the state’s misjudgment about him was quite severe.

However, he didn’t expose the truth. Having this kind of misunderstanding was good too. It saved others from suspecting his rate of power advancement.

"Heh, don’t be nervous. Currently, I am the only one in the whole of K city who knows your identity. My visit today is mostly to thank you, as an ordinary policeman, for the several things you’ve done recently. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know how much energy I would have had to put in, or how many subordinates I would have had to sacrifice, to suppress these incidents."

Zhang Yang looked at Mu You with sincerity and shook his head, "You independent players are used to hiding yourselves, some for fear of being grabbed by the state to be dissected for research, some for fear of being suppressed by the state, and some others fear of the state confiscating your treasures... In my opinion, these worries are completely unnecessary. The state is not a flood beast, and it does not have such short-sightedness. For outstanding players like you, the state is inclined to cultivate its resources. Why would it casually confiscate your items?"

Regarding Zhang Yang’s words, Mu You remained noncommittal.

It is true that the state wouldn’t arbitrarily confiscate a player’s items, but all this is based on the premise that ’real good stuff hasn’t appeared’. Once items of invaluable value appear, such as unicorns or the Time Pocket Watch, he believes that there’s no chance such things could be kept in private hands.

However, Mu You didn’t voice his thoughts. Instead, he thought for a moment, and asked, "You just mentioned that I could be ranked among the top ten among the players in K city... So why aren’t you looking for the other nine people?"

Zhang Yang responded with a bitter smile, "If I could find them, I would have certainly looked for them already."

"Oh? You mean, they all have joined other forces?"

"Yes."

Zhang Yang nodded and sighed, "You might not know this, but our K city Paranormal Adjustment Bureau is the last to develop in the country, and it was only established a little over 20 days ago. At the start, I only had a few players under me—it was hard to gather even ten. On top of that, we lost two elites at Qubai Mountain... It wasn’t until the recent large-scale internal test that we managed to recruit a batch of new people. But even now, the total number of players in the Bureau is just over 20, and they’re basically all greenhorns. The highest level among them is a support-type player at Level 9. I have none that have high levels or a wealth of combat experience like you do!"

Zhang Yang spoke as though sharing his troubles, indirectly revealing the real purpose of this visit: he’s now like Liu Xuan De before the three visits to the thatched cottage, eager to recruit talent.

When all the other powerful players have been divided up by other factions, Mu You, who is still maintaining his independent status, naturally became his first choice.

"Mr. Mu, let me get straight to the point, I hope you can join our K city Paranormal Adjustment Bureau!" Zhang Yang stopped beating around the bush and straightforwardly issued an invitation.

"Is this... a forced conscription?" Mu You asked with a strange expression.

"Certainly not!"

Zhang Yang quickly waved his hand, "It’s completely voluntary. If you’re willing to contribute to the state, I would be very grateful, but if you refuse, I guarantee there will be no complaints."

Then he shifted his tone and continued, "Also, we don’t just recruit any capable person. Other factions can recruit based on power alone, without many limitations, but we can’t. When national agencies recruit, apart from capabilities, character, ideological awareness, and a clean social background are more important."

Zhang Yang looked at Mu You and said earnestly, "Actually, the main reason I haven’t looked for you before is that I don’t know what kind of person you are. For a powerful player like yourself, joining the Paranormal Adjustment Bureau certainly means being entrusted with important tasks. This makes the moral requirements for you even higher, so I didn’t dare to make the decision lightly."

"It wasn’t until tonight, when you handed over an extremely vicious criminal to the police station. When you could very well have killed him without anyone being the wiser, you chose to hand him over to the police. This might not prove anything, but at least it shows that you have a respect for the law. And this is the quality we need the most!"

"Um..."

Mu You felt awkward listening to this.

Actually, he thinks that his ideological awareness is not that high. The reason why he handed the Werewolf over to the police station is purely because of that Retrospective Curse, which he felt was troublesome to deal with. So he just chose what seemed to be the most suitable method at the time.

Who would have thought, this was somehow misunderstood as him abiding by the law...