DSMC Chapter 175.1

This was the first time Yan Jiyun had heard the name Su Qiuming.

He didn’t know who this person was, but he could roughly guess that he had once been a very close friend of Qi Feng’s. He just didn’t know what had caused them to fall out, after which they had completely cut ties and never interacted again.

The person who had spoken was from the New Forces Guild. It seemed they had some sort of grudge against Qi Feng.

Yan Jiyun remembered that the guild that had previously burned down Qi Feng’s small tavern hideout was also the New Forces Guild, wasn’t it?

Later, he’d even blown up their branch in the Intermediate level area.

However, the person who had spoken wasn’t either of the two standing at the front. Instead, it was a man in the back who naturally wore a mocking expression.

One sentence had been enough to make Lan Mo this angry. It was clear that Qi Feng’s betrayal back then had caused quite a stir.

However, only the people involved knew what the truth really was.

Qi Feng didn’t want to waste time arguing with them. He turned around and was about to leave, but the people from the New Forces Guild blocked their path.

Lan Mo’s eyes were practically blazing with anger. “What are you doing? Looking for a fight?”

There was only one reason Qi Feng wanted to leave. He didn’t want his bag searched. He didn’t want anyone else to discover Caramel.

The president of the New Forces Guild, Yu Zhe, finally spoke. “Qi Feng, long time no see. Why are you in such a hurry to leave? It’s not easy to run into you. Why don’t we catch up for old times’ sake? We hardly ever get the chance to meet in an instance.”

Qi Feng remained completely calm. No matter what the others said, he wore an indifferent expression, as though none of it had anything to do with him.

Before he could say anything, a woman’s voice suddenly interrupted. “Oh? What are you all standing around here for?”

Yan Jiyun’s ears twitched. Another person?

This woman’s voice was somewhat unfamiliar. He hadn’t heard it before.

Yan Jiyun’s eyes were almost unable to keep up with everything happening outside.

Qi Feng felt Caramel shifting around inside the backpack and suspected that the cat was probably watching the commotion too. After all, cats were naturally curious.

So Qi Feng shifted his position slightly to give him a better view of the woman.

He was inexplicably a little displeased about it. Why does a cat need to look at some pretty lady?

He’d never noticed Caramel showing any particular interest in women before.

Still, Qi Feng ultimately attributed it to the cat’s curiosity. After all, a different voice had suddenly appeared among a crowd of men.

When Lan Mo saw the newcomer, half of his anger immediately disappeared. “Ji Xiang-jie.”

Yan Jiyun couldn’t see the situation outside very clearly. He pulled the backpack zipper down just a tiny bit, doing his best to keep the others from noticing anything unusual inside.

The woman smiled. “Ah, Xiao Lan, you look quite a bit stronger lately.”

“I’m doing all right.” Lan Mo switched personalities in an instant, turning into a professional flatterer. “Ji Xiang-jie, you look even prettier than before.”

Ji Xiang wasn’t exactly what one would call conventionally beautiful. She had a square-shaped face, but appearance naturally couldn’t determine what kind of person someone was.

She was probably not even thirty yet. Anyone who earned Lan Mo’s favor was probably pretty decent in character.

Yan Jiyun also didn’t sense any hostility from Ji Xiang toward Qi Feng and the others. 

There wasn’t a girl in the world who didn’t like being complimented.

Ji Xiang walked up to Qi Feng, and her voice became noticeably softer. “Long time no see.”

Yan Jiyun: “…” That feminine tone changed pretty quickly.

Even just by listening, Yan Jiyun could tell that Ji Xiang had a favorable impression of Qi Feng.

Qi Feng replied politely, “Mm. Long time no see.”

Ji Xiang asked, “Aren’t you planning to go inside?”

Lan Mo couldn’t keep his mouth shut and explained why they’d gotten into an argument. “They want to search Feng-ge’s backpack. The New Forces Guild is using their numbers to bully us.”

Yu Zhe, the president of the New Forces Guild: “…”

Ji Xiang looked toward the two Cruiser Fleet members standing at the entrance and checking everyone’s belongings. “The Cruiser Fleet invited us here to discuss something. Why do you need to search our bags? Did your president tell you to do this?”

Ji Xiang was quite famous among the major guilds. Everyone called her Ji Xiang-jie.

She was known for being fierce, outspoken, and especially fond of standing up for people who were being treated unfairly. If her guild accepted men as well, her Ji Xiang Guild would have ranked among the top three long ago.

After the Ji Xiang Guild arrived, two more guilds showed up. One was the Oxygen Guild, the other was the Mingmen Guild.

Yan Jiyun knew the Mingmen Guild.

He could only blame his memory for being too good. He had encountered their players during the [Hide and Seek] instance.

Despite the boastful name, the players from the Mingmen¹The hanzi is 名门, it means elite/prestigious Guild had been of average quality. He just didn’t know what their president was like.

The Cruiser Fleet player who had been hit with two questions from Ji Xiang-jie stammered, “The vice president said that people we don’t recognize aren’t allowed inside, to prevent anyone from sneaking in with a fake invitation.”

Yan Jiyun: Hmph.

They’re all players. What’s with looking down on people? It’s just some stupid guild. They make it sound like anyone couldn’t start one.

Qi Feng didn’t often appear in front of members of the major guilds. Naturally, players who had only recently arrived wouldn’t recognize him.

Ji Xiang said, “What the hell? You invite people over and then pull this kind of stunt? Do you really think you’re some big shot? Where’s Qi Yunchu²he’s a VP from Cruiser Fleet?”

As she spoke, Yan Jiyun heard a somewhat familiar voice. ‘Isn’t that the man who bought all of my information about the instances?’

“Ji Xiang-jie, I’m here.” Qi Yunchu continued with a smile, “I apologize to Qi Feng. Our guild handled this poorly, but our intentions were good. I hope everyone won’t hold it against us.”

Those capable of accomplishing great things knew when to bend and when to stand firm.

Seeing that their president had personally come out to apologize, the two players blocking the entrance glanced at Qi Feng a few more times before quietly moving toward the back, no longer daring to say anything. 

Qi Yunchu gestured toward Qi Feng. “Feng-ge, shall we?”

Qi Feng nodded. “Mm.”

He had barely spoken from beginning to end. Everyone else had done the talking for him.

More importantly, he simply felt that arguing with others was a waste of breath.

After this little incident, Lan Mo and the others entered as well. However, they were assigned to other lounges.

Only the leaders of each guild — or the captains of invited independent player teams — had been invited to participate in the meeting.

There were simply too many people otherwise, which wouldn’t have been conducive to discussion.

Including Qi Feng, there were ten well-known independent player team leaders who had been invited.

Each guild had sent two representatives, most of them consisting of the president and vice president. Quite a few people were still disappointed that the confrontation outside hadn’t escalated into a fight. Amid the many disappointed sighs, however, Yan Jiyun suddenly heard a familiar voice.

Someone was quietly speaking to his companion. 

There was no way Yan Jiyun could ever forget that voice. It was Chu Mo, whom he’d encountered during the Peak Competition.

Why is he here too? Which guild is he the leader of?

Chu Mo was fairly sociable as well. When he saw Qi Feng, he even called out to greet him, completely unconcerned about the looks of the people around them.

Everyone could choose their own seats. They weren’t following the official seating arrangements used in the real world.

Yan Jiyun was somewhat curious about which guild Chu Mo belonged to.

His luck was rather incredible. He always seemed to run into the presidents of the major guilds. 

It was obvious that today’s meeting hadn’t been hastily arranged.

Qi Feng placed the bag containing the black cat on the seat beside him. At first glance, it looked as though he’d come alone, yet he’d occupied two seats.

Yan Jiyun didn’t dare stick his head out and obediently crouched inside the backpack. Whenever he got hungry, Qi Feng would open a packet of sealed dried fish for him. But he wasn’t here to go on a picnic and eat snacks. He was here to eavesdrop on their meeting and find out what they were planning.

The Cruiser Fleet had organized this meeting, but they didn’t bother with much small talk. Qi Yunchu went straight to the point. “Thank you all for coming today despite your busy schedules and giving our guild the honor of your presence. The purpose of gathering everyone here is very simple. It’s also something we’ve been working on all along. We hope everyone can work together and find a way out.”

He had barely finished his first sentence when different voices came from below. 

“It’s been so many years. No one’s found a way to break out yet.”

“Exactly. We’ve spent so many people and resources on this and gotten nothing. Once our rest period ends, we still have to enter the instances.”

“It’s been so many years, and we’re still stuck in the same place.”

Qi Yunchu gave them time to complain and didn’t interrupt. Only after they had finished venting did he continue. “We didn’t gather everyone here on a whim. Some time ago, we discovered that certain instances had experienced bugs. One was the Peak Competition, and the other was the [Mermaid] instance.”

“About half of the people here should have entered the Peak Competition. You should all remember that you came out much faster than usual, right?”

“That’s true. In the past, we’d have to stay inside for the full five days before we could leave. This time, we really did come out after only two days.”

“President Qi, what does this mean? What bug did you discover?”

Qi Yunchu said, “If we didn’t have an important clue, why would I share it with everyone?”

Yan Jiyun could tell that the Cruiser Fleet wanted to take the lead in searching for the system’s bugs together.

They wanted to leave the instances.

However, he also knew that the real purpose of Qi Yunchu’s meeting wasn’t to gain more support from the others.

He was simply trying to plant an idea in everyone’s minds that they were going to leave.

Qi Feng had probably already seen through Qi Yunchu’s intentions as well.

Some people were actively participating in the discussion, while others remained silent from beginning to end.

Chu Mo, sitting in the back row with his arms crossed, asked, “What important clue did you find?”

Qi Yunchu said, “An important NPC in the Peak Competition suddenly disappeared.”

“Suddenly disappeared? How did you discover that?”

“Aren’t NPCs just data arranged by the system? Can’t they simply be reconstructed after disappearing?”

Chu Mo said, “So it seems things aren’t as everyone assumed? I’ve never heard of an important NPC disappearing before.”

Yu Zhe, the president of the New Forces Guild, asked, “Which instance did the NPC belong to? The Peak Competition had seven arenas, and each one had different content.”

An instance NPC disappearing was a major bug, and there was no reason to hide that information from other players.

i Yunchu told them directly, “According to the information I’ve obtained, it was a black Western dragon. It was originally supposed to confront the players within the scenario, but then it simply disappeared.”

“I believe some of your guild members must have received system update notifications when they entered instances. If they did, that means the NPC was extremely important to the system.”

“The absence of an important NPC could lead to all kinds of problems. If that’s the case, breaking through the game would be easy.”

A black Western dragon? Could it be Lucifer, the one he know?

He Yuanle wasn’t here, otherwise, Yan Jiyun could have used him to ask Qi Yunchu whether he was talking about the dragon they’d encountered.

But Lucifer had even escorted him to the exit, so how could it have disappeared? It had been doing its mission properly, hadn’t it? Did something happen after he left the game?

Yan Jiyun couldn’t figure it out for the moment.

He desperately tried to recall everything that had happened during the Peak Competition, but everything seemed normal. They had cleared the instance normally. Could there have been a problem somewhere else?

For a moment, he couldn’t figure out what Lucifer had done.

Thinking about all the NPCs he’d encountered in his instances, every single one of them had seemed remarkably human.

For other human players, raising their Favorability wasn’t easy. But if he appeared in the form of a cat, raising Favorability seemed considerably easier.

Could it be that these NPCs weren’t merely data?

Yan Jiyun silently recorded this suspicion. He would investigate it properly later.

• 1
  The hanzi is 名门, it means elite/prestigious
• 2
  he’s a VP from Cruiser Fleet