Chapter 67: Please Come With Us

Chapter 67: Please Come With Us

Although I had explained to Fatty Huang that I had nothing to do with the Shadow Pavilion, he still looked utterly unconvinced, which left me at a loss for words.

After a long while, Fatty Huang muttered to himself, his face pained. “But that shouldn’t be possible. Before the war, the Shadow Pavilion had already gathered every capable person in the world into the Elite World. You’re telling me you’re from the Mundane World—how could that be? An ordinary person can’t be this strong. Fine, you have a resistance background, but at most that would make you a descendant of elite people. Even elite people themselves don’t have anyone this strong.”

“Why not?” I said. “Hegel said existence is reasonable. There’s plenty you don’t understand.”

Fatty Huang looked me over. “Who are your parents? They can’t be ordinary elite people, can they?”

“I grew up in the Mundane World, raised by my Grandma,” I said. “When I came out of the mountains, I’d never so much as seen my parents. Even now, I don’t know who my father is.”

“You—” Fatty Huang sighed. “Forget it. No point asking. Asking gets me nowhere.”

We went back to the private dining room and ate in silence for a while. Fatty Huang drank a fair amount of wine, and so did I.

When we parted, I’d already stepped out of the wine house, but Fatty Huang still couldn’t let it go. “You—you’re really not from the Shadow Pavilion?”

“Shadow Pavilion my ass,” I said. “Are you done or not? Want to settle this with your fists?”

“Fine, fine,” Fatty Huang said. “I’ll stop asking. But if you’re really not from the Shadow Pavilion, then I’d say the Shadow Pavilion will search for you like mad. Because you’re absolutely an anomaly—an extreme one. Both the Elite and Mundane Worlds are made up of people, and the normal range for people is level seven to ten. Someone like Pu Liuqian, who reached level twenty, is the distilled essence of hundreds of millions of people, specially tempered by the Shadow Pavilion’s core supercomputer. Your level simply isn’t human.”

“You’re the one who isn’t human,” I said. “If normal people are level seven to ten and you’re level twelve, then you and Pu Liuqian aren’t human either.”

“I’d love not to be human,” Fatty Huang said, “but my strength won’t let me! Right, something important—I really didn’t know you were this strong. So that test just now, the Shadow Pavilion might already know about it. Why don’t you just run?”

I laughed. “Run where? In this virtual world, is there an inch of sky or earth that isn’t the king’s land? I haven’t had my fill of fun yet. If I bail now, what’s the difference between that and being dead? Might as well let someone from the Shadow Pavilion beat me to death—at least then I’d know who did it.”

Fatty Huang nodded. “Fair enough. This is my own carelessness. That Spirit-Calibrating Ruler of mine is only civilian-grade, really. Plenty of wealthy households have one. Since gold-patterned pills don’t work on you, don’t eat any pills from now on. None of them will do a thing.”

“I definitely won’t,” I said. “Last time I ate a gold-patterned pill it did nothing at all. Broke my heart. A hundred points, man.”

“If you ask me,” Fatty Huang said, “you’re going to die anyway, so you might as well play it big. Go straight to the City Lord’s Castle in Ghostdark City and rob the city lord’s pill vault. All the money Ghostdark City pays tribute to the Shadow Pavilion, plus the achievement points ordinary folk trade for immortal pills—it’s all concentrated in the City Lord’s Castle.”

“You’re pretty rotten yourself,” I said. “Robbing money—that kind of unreasonable business doesn’t interest me. I’d rather win money, or grab some high-tech gear like last time. I came here to grow stronger, not to spend money chasing thrills.”

“That’s easy, then,” Fatty Huang said. “Just log out to the real world, and I’ll take you around the major research institutes. They’re packed with high-tech achievements. We’ll hit them one by…