It took Lin Yixin an entire half a minute to finally break her silence.

"Is… is… is this how DID[1] is represented inside the game?"

I nearly vomited blood when I heard her rationalization. After I sat up and put my cloak over her head to shield her from the rain, I showed her the Master of Disguise Ring. "It’s this ring that changed my appearance. If I hadn't concealed my identity, Assassin’s Creed would’ve run off the second he saw me. I would have never been able to have a dialogue with him."

"So, what was the result of your ‘dialogue’?"

"I’ve wrecked almost all the elders of Blood Alliance and Assassin’s Creed once each. Unfortunately, Farewell Song was able to retake the Immortal Blade from Assassin’s Creed, but at least I got the Dragonbone Whip, so the operation is technically a success."

I showed her the Dragonbone Whip in my bag with a chuckle.

Lin Yixin’s eyes looked like blinking stars when she blinked in the dim light of the night. "Chance Meeting said she would pay millions to anyone who returned the Dragonbone Whip to her. Will you claim that money?"

I shook my head without hesitation. "There are things you can do and can’t do in life, and this is one of the latter. I won’t earn my money this way."

"Good!"

……

As I rose to my feet, I saw Xinran slowly making her way toward me on my onager.

I immediately changed back to my disguise and grabbed the reins. Then, I asked her, "Are you okay, Xinran?"

"I’m fine, big brother…"

Lin Yixin was staring at my fake ID in approval. "You’ve chosen a good name~~"

I grinned. "But of course!"

Suddenly, a new troop of cavalrymen entered the forest from the southeast direction. It was the couple hundred Dragonlight Cavalrymen led by Gui Guzi himself. He knocked down four or five Blood Alliance assassins with his new Ghostblade Halberd and allowed his troops to kill them.

When Gui Guzi saw us, he exclaimed in surprise, "Eh? You’re here too, Beauty Lin? And you are…"

Gui Guzi’s expression turned colder all of a sudden. He seemed to have misunderstood something. "Beauty Lin, you’re aware that our Boss Broken Halberd is deeply in love with you, right? I’ve always thought that you were equally in love with him, but who is this man, and why are you alone with him in this wilderness?"

Lin Yixin, the forever troll, pretended to be coy. "It’s exactly what you think…"

The simple Gui Guzi pointed his halberd at Lin Yixin and erupted in anger, "Lu Chen loves you more than his own life, and this is how you treat him!? Pooh! Today, I shall teach you a lesson myself!"

Lin Yixin also raised her Dragonfrost and smirked provocatively at Gui Guzi. "Yo, it looks like someone believes themselves to be invincible just because they wield one of the Twelve Divine Armaments! Come on then. It’s been a long time since I educated you, and what time is better than now?"

Okay, the joke was getting out of hand. I hurriedly unsheathed the Chill of the Nine Provinces, turned on its equipment luster and said to Gui Guzi in a low tone, "Calm down, Little Gui. Do you recognize me now?"

Gui Guzi rubbed his eyes as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. When he looked at Xinran and realized I really was who I was, he let out an awkward laugh and said, "Hahaha, it’s really you, Boss Broken Halberd? But why are you dressed up like a uh… country bumpkin?"

My mouth twitched at his frank evaluation, but I answered, "It’s to fool Blood Alliance. They’re going to run as soon as they spot me otherwise, and that’s just no fun at all. How is our guild doing, by the way?"

Gui Guzi replied, "We managed to encircle and kill over 40000 Blood Alliance assassins, but many of them still managed to escape. It’s because we still don’t have enough Dragonlight Archers. Also, a dozen or so small and middle-sized Japanese guilds emerged from Wallow Ear Canton a while ago and are yelling at us about trespassing. There are about a million of them in total. Sister Eve was just asking me to ask you if we should fight them."

Lin Yixin said expressionlessly, "It’s Swallow Ear Canton, not Wallow Ear Canton…"

The second-hand embarrassment I felt was worse than I thought. "Ahem. It’s just a small detail. Anyway, the answer is yes. Please tell Eve and Chengfeng that we’re going to crush these Wallow—fuck me, I mean Swallow Ear Canton players, but they should meet up with Blazing Hot Lips, The Monarch Descends and the rest of our allies first. My Xinran needs a lot of power of rebirth to restore her legs, and the easiest way to do it is to kill a bunch of people. Once you’ve taken out everyone, just retreat and let them revive so I can absorb their power of rebirth."

Gui Guzi nodded. "No problem. I’ll get it done right away!"

"Mn!"

……

Gui Guzi was just turning around when a new group of players entered the forest. They were all female players, and they were led by Zhou Ping and Hugging Bears in Silence themselves. I should’ve known that the Twelve Musicians would come to Purple Grape City in search of their lost treasure.

I didn’t want to go through another misunderstanding like the one between myself and Lin Yixin or the one between Gui Guzi and Lin Yixin, so I switched back to my true appearance and bathed the forest in equipment luster. Then, I walked up to the Twelve Musicians party with Lin Yixin and greeted them, "Yo. Did you girls come to Purple Grape City for a midnight stroll or something? I didn’t know Twelve Musicians had so much free time on your hands."

Zhou Ping didn’t look too good for obvious reasons. "You know that Blood Alliance has stolen the Dragonbone Whip you sold me, right? Sorry, but I’m not in a joking mood right now..."

I grinned a bit and took out the crystalline whip in my bag. "Oh, you mean this? I just got it from Assassin’s Creed’s corpse a while ago…"

"Ah?!"

For a time, Zhou Ping looked like she couldn’t believe her own eyes. "You… you actually reclaimed the Dragonbone Whip?"

I nodded. "Yep. It’s not too difficult to get a Divine Armament to drop as long as it hasn’t been in a player’s ownership for more than 72 hours."

Zhou Ping respectfully accepted the Dragonbone Whip. She was wearing a leather armor and cloak right now, so she really looked like a BDSM queen after she reequipped the whip. She looked at me and said sincerely, "I promised that I would pay the person who returns the Dragonbone Whip to me a handsome reward. I’ll transfer the money to your account right now…"

"Stop!"

I hurriedly held a palm in front of me. "You’ve already paid me 8 million back in the auction house, so I cannot possibly take more money from you. Just consider this my after-sale service or something. However, this is the first and last time I’m going to help you in regards to this. In the future, you should make sure to bring as many eighth-promotion archers and knights with you as possible. Had you had 10 archers with Clear As Flame or more by your side, all this drama may not have happened at all…"

Zhou Ping nodded. "You’re right. Thank you, Lu Chen!"

I laughed. "You’re welcome."

……

Hugging Bears in Silence had more to say, however. "It’s good that we managed to reclaim the Dragonbone Whip, but Blood Alliance is still targeting the best players of top guilds in Sky City. Not only did the Top 100 players in the champion arena lose a ton of levels to Blood Alliance, practically every top expert in Sky City was—is—threatened by them. Don’t you think that there’s something weird about this?"

I nodded. "It is weird. Since our venture into Dragon God Cave, Blood Alliance has been giving us Top 10 players ‘special’ attention. They’re even targeting Gui Guzi and Li Chengfeng even though it does them no good at all. The mastermind or masterminds behind all this must’ve paid them a lot of money, and it doesn’t look like they’re planning to reveal themselves…"

Hugging Bears in Silence pouted. "How are we going to drag these bastards out into the open then?"

My Beautiful Little Pepper let out a chuckle and wiped away the rainwater on her forehead. She then said with a sweet smile on her face, "That’s simple. The mastermind is specifically targeting the best players of various top guilds, right? It’s because their growth is detrimental to whatever it is they’re plotting. In that case, the mastermind must belong to a guild whose top players have NOT been targeted by Blood Alliance. If we can collect that data, then..."

Gui Guzi’s eyes lit up. "I can help with that! Chaos Moon just sent me a chart that lists out all the players and guilds who have been attacked in Sky City! Just give me three minutes to look through the data, and I’ll be able to give you all an answer!"

"Mn!"

A few minutes later, Gui Guzi looked up at us and reported, "Alright. Of the Top 100 guilds in Sky City, there are 7 in total who haven’t been ambushed by Blood Alliance even once. They are Hegemon Palace, Mad Dragon, Spirit Firmament, Xuanyuan Pavilion, War God Battlefield and Under Heaven. Hegemon Palace and Mad Dragon are among the Top 20, and the other five are ranked at 92nd, 94th, 95th, 96th, 97th and 98th respectively. So, this means that…"

I smiled. "This means that Hegemon Palace and Mad Dragon must be the ones who hired Blood Alliance. Of course, I’m not saying that it’s completely impossible for the other five guilds to be the culprits, but really, who else but Wang Dongliang and Lu Chao possesses the wealth to pay for all these assassinations? I alone am worth hundreds of thousands of RMB per kill. Tens of millions have already been paid out if you look at the latest number of successful assassinations. It has to be them."

Lin Yixin let out a cough before saying, "I think I can offer some corroborating evidence, actually. Three days ago, Snowy Cathaya’s first and third subguilds have lost at least a thousand core players to an unknown party. After I did a quick investigation, I discovered that it was Hegemon Palace who promised them a monthly salary of 10000 RMB…"

Gui Guzi added, "Er, Boss Broken Halberd, I didn’t tell you this because you weren’t exactly free, but… Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls have also lost a thousand players or more in the past three days. They were all subguild elites, and they were all lured away by the promise of high salary just like Snowy Cathaya. I’m aware that over 50% of Dark Moon City’s monthly income is paid to our guild members as salary, but the enemy still managed to give them a better deal."

I tightened my fists. "Damn. Wang Dongliang must be planning something really big then."

Hugging Bears in Silence said, "I know right? It almost feels like he’s planning to rule over Sky City as the sole sovereign. It doesn’t look likely at all. The only experts in Hegemon Palace and Mad Dragon who are worth mentioning are Little Piglet, Shangguan Wan’er, Iron Pardon and the usual faces. They are nothing compared to the top players of Ancient Sword and Snowy Cathaya."

Lin Yixin asked, "What if Blood Alliance is added to the mix?"

Zhou Ping shuddered. "That… may just be enough to turn them into a threat we cannot ignore."

……

It was at this moment a rider entered the forest at a gallop. He reined in his horse at the last moment—causing the Cyan Crystal Dragon on his shoulder to chirp in alarm for a bit—dismounted and greeted us, "Lu Chen, Beauty Lin, Little Gui, you’re all here."

I gave him a nod of acknowledgement before asking, "What’s with the haste, Chengfeng?"

"Er, now that I think about it, it’s not really worth mentioning…"

Li Chengfeng rubbed his nose in embarrassment when he saw our expressions. "Don’t look at me like that. It’s just a weird thing that I feel like I should report. Half an hour ago, I learned that Lu Chao has traveled to the headquarters of Shanghai Shengyi for a meeting with Wang Dongliang. At the end of the meeting, they swore oaths of brotherhood and officially became sworn brothers. You heard me right. They even went through the whole ceremony of incense stick burning, wine cooking and kowtowing…"

I shivered. "Holy shit…"

1. dissociative identity disorder