If Wen Zheng hadn't said it, Shan Yu would never have been able to see it.
“They’ve come out too, let’s go meet them.” Wen Zheng said, and before Shan Yu could react, he turned and left.
Shan Yu didn't hold back his praise, chasing after them and showering them with compliments until he ran out of words, at which point he could finally make out the outlines of the two people opposite him.
Little Chengmei, with her pink Lolita-style haircut, cried out first, "I've been looking for you for so long—"
Cheng Mei ran over, wearing a pink puffy short skirt, striped stockings, and red armor. She also carried a large sword on her back, which was theoretically only for decoration, making her look like a big rabbit.
The king behind them had a stunningly beautiful face that looked like it stepped out of a comic book, exuding nobility and aloofness. The two of them were completely different from the system-faced, burly man-like duo of streamers on this side, making the fans in the live stream laugh.
Damn, I was arguing on Weibo, and then I switched to this and it gave me a headache.
-It feels like that over there is a fantasy magic RPG style, while this one is a horror shooting survival style.
- Agreed. Why didn't Shan Yu go with Xuan Yuan Tian Lu to escape the war back then, so as not to bring trouble to our Sheng Kong?
-Stop spamming the comments! It's been incredibly laggy since the beginning. Once this is over, the truth will be clear. Don't you understand? If you just want to watch the drama unfold, keep quiet!
-Hahahaha, what's going on with this clash of art styles?--
Chengmei was a fan of Shanyu Yulai, and Shanyu naturally assumed that she would rush towards him like countless other fans had before, so he opened his arms and smiled, "Hello..."
Before he could finish speaking, Chengmei jumped past him and clung to Wen Zheng, exclaiming, "Z-da! I like you so much too!"
Shan Yu's smile froze on his face.
Chengmei acted both infatuated and talkative. After forcibly hugging Wenzheng, she pinched Shanyu's biceps. After wiping away all the oil, she retreated to the king's side, looked up and said, "Baby, you are still the most beautiful."
The king silently took two steps back, standing next to Wen Zheng, and said, "Alright, old acquaintance, stop standing there, let's exchange some information and continue."
Shan Yu suppressed his embarrassment and tried his best to maintain his composure, saying, "Let's go, let's find an indoor place to talk."
The nearest section of the meeting place had not yet been explored. As the four of them entered, they were greeted by a wave of moisture.
The large map on the wall shows that both water sports and ice sports are located here.
The four sat on a bench outside the giant swimming pool and looked at each other.
"Let me introduce myself!" Chengmei raised an arm dramatically, her voice sweet and coquettish, causing the other three to shiver involuntarily.
"My name is Chengmei, I've been a player for three years, I'm from Xia Country, and I'm a fan of Shanyu, Z, Weilu, Biemowoqiang, Yanghe, and Da Niao!"
After a moment of silence, Shan Yu said, "Several of them have retired from the industry, right?"
Chengmei sighed regretfully, her large eyes, which took up a third of her face, drooping sadly: "Yes, whoever I like leaves the industry. Now it's just Shanyu and Z-da, the two of you. You have to keep going, don't give up so easily!"
The two streamers: "………………"
Wen Zheng glanced at the king, who shook his head very slightly.
Shan Yu seemed to have finally calmed down, took a deep breath and said, "Let's sort out the situation of the dungeon. I'll go first."
"When we were teleported in, we were on the fourth floor of the ball sports area. We searched every hall, but there weren't many clues. However, they all had old scoreboards with scores recorded on them."
Chengmei said, "We did too. We searched three districts, but didn't find many clues. Besides the scores for competitive sports, speed and length records also use scoreboards. The number before the colon is in seconds or meters, and the number after the colon is accurate to two decimal places. But the judges' scoring items don't have such scoreboards."
"Wait a minute." Shan Yu: "Three districts? Or three pavilions?"
“Three sections~” Chengmei chuckled, blowing on her pink nails as she said sweetly, “Big Brother is so smart and efficient. At first, I wanted to find some paper and pen or a usable electronic device to speed things up, but then I realized he could remember everything, so I decided not to look for anything~ Big Brother will remember two sections, and I'll keep one section. And then I saw you guys.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he looked at Wen Zheng and saw that he was accepting of the situation well, neither surprised nor praising him.
His words "You're really amazing!" caught in his throat.
If I praise him, I'll seem stupid; if I don't... can a normal person remember that quickly and accurately?!
The king suddenly said, "I just jotted it down casually, and there might be mistakes. Anyway, the doors are all open, so I can just come back and record it again later."
“That’s fine.” Shan Yu found a way out: “This time, our focus isn’t on the scoreboard, but on the characters’ stories. We don’t have any clues about the main plot yet.”
The three nodded, stood up, and began to walk around the huge swimming pool.
Finally separated from Shan Yu, the king quietly crept up behind Wen Zheng and moved his lips very slightly: "Changed?"
Wen Zheng: "It's changed. What's the story with that fan?"
The king frowned slightly: "I don't know. She didn't really like eels. She spoke strangely, her clothes were strange, and she was strange in general."
"Your clothes are weird?" Wen Zheng calmly replied, "Then you should wear something even weirder."
The King: "…………"
"The storm is coming," Wen Zheng suddenly said.
The king turned around with a dark face and asked Shan Yu, who had just approached, fiercely, "What are you doing here?"
Shan Yu: "Huh? Can't I come here?"
Before they could even start arguing, Chengmei's voice suddenly rang out: "Hey—look, there's water here!"
An important clue appeared, and the four of them gathered by the swimming pool. Chengmei said, "Look, are these wheel tracks? And they're two parallel tracks... Why would a wheel have passed by the swimming pool? It carried the water tracks quite far!"
All the clues in this space are in a state of suspension; watermarks are stepped on and then soon return to normal.
Shan Yu said, "The marks are going back and forth between the main gate, the poolside, and the timer board. What is it? Or is it a person?"
Just as he was about to give the most plausible guess, Chengmei jumped up first: "I know! It's a wheelchair!"
Shan Yu: "…………"
In places like the sports stadium, the ground was clean and tidy, with no tire tracks visible. Only in the swimming pool and the gymnastics hall, which we had previously missed, were the tire tracks clearly visible, due to the presence of water in the former and talcum powder in the latter.
Shan Yu quickly tried to salvage the situation: "The protagonist must be disabled, perhaps even paralyzed from the waist down, and even prosthetic technology can't save his legs."
Chengmei asked doubtfully, "Isn't that possible? Who says that someone who is temporarily in a wheelchair will be in one forever? It's possible that athletes might be in a wheelchair temporarily due to injury."
The two began to discuss, but Wen Zheng was unusually silent this time, sitting absentmindedly next to the king.
By the time Shan Yu and Cheng Mei had finished their discussion, Wen Zheng was almost asleep. Because there was no backrest on the bench by the pool, he leaned against the king slightly, his eyes closing for a couple of seconds before opening a crack. He looked incredibly sleepy.
The king, however, was not sleepy. He sat upright, glancing at the ceiling and then at the water in the pool, his expression slightly uneasy.
Because the environment suddenly became quiet, Wen Zheng quickly came to his senses, sat up straight, and said, "Ah, are you finished talking?"
Shan Yu and Cheng Mei remained silent, inwardly screaming: Can't you be serious for once!
“We’re planning to go to the gymnastics hall.” Shan Yu stood up and stretched his arms and legs. “Let’s see if we can find any clues related to wheelchairs.”
What follows is a long walk; the venue is enormous, making it an extreme waste of playtime.
They had searched everywhere they could go, but the main door on the first floor had no key or password and showed no signs of being opened; all five doors were the same. The group then carefully examined each scoreboard, and Shan Yu suddenly raised a point of suspicion—the lower right corner of the base of each scoreboard had been chipped, leaving a small dent.
And the scoreboards in every venue are all the same!
"Case solved!!!" Back at the poolside, Chengmei exclaimed excitedly, "It means the scoreboard isn't a fixed feature in every venue. It's something the main character, or the person in the wheelchair, carries around with him! Wherever he goes, he takes it with him, and the stadium's clock is scrambled!"
As soon as Chengmei finished speaking, the entire sports center was suddenly brightly lit, so bright that people couldn't open their eyes.
Time began to flow, and I could hear a cacophony of voices, laughter, and playful banter.
Suddenly, a group of teenagers appeared in front of them, shouting that so-and-so was a noob and so-and-so was no good. They got ready in front of the pool, and with a whistle from the boy with the side-swept bangs who was standing on the shore as the referee, they jumped into the water with a splash.
The boys swam to the finish line, went ashore, and hugged the boy with the side-swept bangs. Then the sound and the image gradually disappeared.
Chengmei's eyes widened: "Wow... this dungeon is so visually appealing..." But she immediately came to her senses: "Wait a minute, there's no wheelchair or scoreboard?"
Shan Yu took a deep breath and gently tapped the scoreboard: "One more time!"
Similar scenes began to repeat themselves, but this time the boys had grown into young adults. The young man with the side-swept bangs sat in his wheelchair, his eyes filled with melancholy, watching them play, timing them with a stopwatch, recording the time, and adjusting the scoreboard.
The image disappeared again.
"They've tried almost every sport in this stadium, so what do they mainly train in?" Chengmei asked in surprise.
Shan Yu smiled at her: "They can't use the official equipment, they're just playing around, which means that places with scoreboards aren't their events. So..."
"I know! It's the track and field!" Chengmei exclaimed excitedly, "Wow, I'm so smart! You're just so-so."
For the umpteenth time today, Shan Yu held his breath and said, "Let's go, next one."
***
Rick drove to the airport, humming a song with great enthusiasm.
"Take a vacation~ Take a break, take a break~~"
"Boss," the bespectacled male colleague suddenly popped out from the corner, "this isn't a vacation, this is a business trip."
Rick: "...Where did you come from? Get out of here!"
The bespectacled male colleague said, "I'm your business trip partner; the boss approved it." His glasses flashed, and a text message appeared on his phone. Rick let out a dejected howl: "Screw you!"
"Here's an update. The Xia Kingdom police are taking this transnational data breach case very seriously. They have entered the home of the suspect, 'Hong Zhi,' and have temporarily detained him. As for the other suspect, the police are temporarily waiting outside his home at our request."
"Hmm." Rick's expression was unusually serious. "Why did Xia Country react so quickly this time? What do you think, Honey?"
The bespectacled male colleague thought for a moment: "Because of that hacker."
Rick snapped his fingers, his eyes narrowing. "Exactly. To dare to hack our servers so brazenly, to come and go so openly, to collect cheaters' information through illegitimate means, and then to present evidence live across the entire internet—this shows that the person who orchestrated this whole thing has a lot of power. Or perhaps he has a special status that forces even the highest levels of the Xia Kingdom to protect him… This is fascinating."
The bespectacled male colleague: "Oh. Boss, Team A sent you the bug list. You can check your email now. Don't shirk your work."
The two sat in the airport waiting area. Rick glared defiantly at his bespectacled colleague, then, with a sudden thought, opened his laptop and brought up a live stream: "To gather evidence, the most important thing we should do right now is watch the live stream!"
The bespectacled male colleague: "…………"
With boarding still an hour away, Rick projected the message onto a screen, added a translation plugin to the live chat, and started watching the drama unfold with his colleagues.
Bullet comments:
-I just tested this dungeon! It's not actually that difficult, but it's easy to go off-track, especially since the map is so big, running back and forth is really annoying. But Shan Yu and that pink-haired loli are both very clever; they haven't really gone astray and are almost at the core of the story.
If Weibo hadn't exploded today, I might have thought Shan Yu was particularly fierce.
So how did Z know that Shanyu had a problem?
-Maybe something happened to them in real life...
- Hahaha, Shan Yu got slapped on the head by that little girl again!! Who's that little girl? Is she a quiz enthusiast?!
I'm getting more and more uneasy. Once I start to have doubts, every word Shan Yu says seems like a conspiracy, and it disgusts me.
-A true movie star.
-Holy crap... This is incredible news!!! No matter what Z is going to do, today is a day to celebrate!!!
-z can't see the comments and doesn't want to chat with Shanyu, so he's sleepy?