Chapter 287 As You Wish

Liu Fengsantan valued Drifting's words greatly, and immediately pressed for more details: "What specific kind of mode are we talking about? Can you elaborate, Brother Drifting?"

"It's just like the normal dual-direction quest posting system. While you're getting the City Hall Guard mission, the system will post related quests at places like the guild hall or mercenary hall, provoking conflicts between players and creating difficulties for each other," Drifting said.

"Damn it, they're pulling this trick again," one of the core members cursed, likely having experienced a dual-direction quest and suffered greatly from it.

"Guild quests... mercenary quests..." Liu Fengsantan repeated, immediately saying, "Quick, send people to the guild hall and mercenary hall to see if there are any quests with the kind of content we just mentioned." Recently, everyone in Misty Flowers had been focusing all their energy on this City Hall Guard mission, not knowing when it would end. It had been a long time since anyone paid attention to whether there were any new quests in the guild or mercenary guild. Hearing Drifting's words now, Liu Fengsantan immediately realized they had overlooked something, and could only hope that it wasn't too late to mend the fold.

As for Gu Fei, who had just left, he hadn't even stepped out of the gate when he suddenly heard someone shout, "Brother!"

All around was quiet. The voice was light, yet clear. Although it came suddenly, Gu Fei had already discerned the direction, turning his head to the left. If he wasn't mistaken, the voice came from the base of the wall on the left.

No one was there, only mist. This was the magical construction of the City Hall walls. Inside the walls and outside the walls were two completely different worlds, with no transition between them, suddenly crossing from a clear world into the mist.

"Who is it?" Gu Fei casually asked, still not sure if the person was talking to him.

"Can you spare a moment to talk?" the voice came again. This time Gu Fei had clearly judged the direction, but still saw no one. The person was obviously deliberately hiding in the mist.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Gu Fei said.

"Follow me first!" the person said.

Gu Fei smiled wryly, "I can't even see you, how can I follow you?"

A ball of fire immediately lit up in the mist, floating in mid-air. "Follow the torch!" the person said, showing the standard use of a torch in Xiawu City.

Gu Fei didn't know what the person was up to, but as the saying goes, skill breeds boldness, so he calmly followed. He sped up his pace to try and catch up to see who the person was, but as soon as a vague outline of a figure appeared, the person immediately quickened their pace as well, always maintaining a certain distance from Gu Fei. Although Gu Fei didn't succeed in seeing the person's face clearly, he at least knew their class: either an archer or a thief.

*I'll see what he's trying to pull.* Gu Fei thought to himself, slipping his right hand into his pocket to grip the Dark Night Flowing Light Sword. Perhaps this was a local gang of robbers. Thinking of this possibility, Gu Fei couldn't help but feel a little excited.

The person continued to lead the way, and Gu Fei followed behind in silence. Along the way, they did encounter some other players, and some of them were also walking with torches. Gu Fei thought it was quite strange, but the other players didn't seem to find anything wrong.

They walked like this and eventually exited the city gate. The torchlight continued to move forward, and the surrounding players and voices gradually disappeared.

"Watch your step!" At this time, the silent person suddenly said.

Gu Fei looked down and saw that they were no longer walking on a smooth road, but in what seemed to be ruins, overgrown with weeds and shrubs, with crumbling walls blocking the way. Gu Fei walked around, thinking, *Are the robbers in Xiawu City too careful? With such unique weather conditions, do they really need to find such a desolate place?*

Finally, the torchlight in front stopped moving, and Gu Fei couldn't help but stop as well. Ahead might be a trap, and Gu Fei didn't want to rush forward rashly. He stopped in place, silently sensing his surroundings. No one was there, or rather, everyone was in the mist. In any case, all he could see around him were ruins, and nothing else.

"We're here," the person said.

"Oh... so, what exactly is it you want?" Gu Fei said.

"You don't seem to be from this city?" the person asked.

"Yep!" Gu Fei replied.

"Where you come from and where you're going, we don't care about any of that. However, you also seem to have a quest at the City Hall, so we have something in common," the person said.

"We?"

"That's right, we." The voice speaking had changed, and figures began to appear from the mist. One, two, three... there were actually eight people in total. Gu Fei counted clearly, and just as he was about to see what kind of people they were, they suddenly all stopped.

"You don't seem to be wearing a face covering?" one person asked.

"Face covering?" Gu Fei was puzzled.

"That's right. Because we don't want to know each other's identities, we're all wearing face coverings. As an outsider, you might not be planning to stay in Xiawu City for long, so you might not care, but we still want to remind you," the person said.

"I see, well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do!" Gu Fei took out a black cloth from his pocket and covered his face. Then he saw one of the eight figures raise a hand, and a dark object flew towards Gu Fei. It unfolded in the air during the second half of its flight, revealing itself to be an extremely wide black poncho.

Seeing it about to be blown away by the wind, Gu Fei quickly used his sword to hook the poncho back. "This..." Gu Fei was puzzled, and the eight people finally emerged from the mist, each indeed wearing a face covering, and draped in this wide poncho. At first glance, they looked like octuplets.

"Do I... have to wear this too?" Gu Fei asked.

"That's up to you. The poncho is just everyone's number," one of them said.

"Number?"

The person nodded, "As I said before, we don't know each other. We're only temporarily gathered together for our respective quests. But, because we have to face Misty Flowers, the strongest guild in Xiawu City, no one wants to leave any trouble behind, so we have to be a little mysterious." As he spoke, he lifted the corner of his poncho and showed Gu Fei the number "Four" embroidered on it.

Gu Fei quickly lifted the corner of his own poncho and saw that it was embroidered with the number "Nine".

"Everyone is anonymous, so we refer to each other by number. You can call me 'Four', 'Old Four', 'No. 4', whatever you want, but never call me 'Little Four'. I don't like that," said the player numbered Four.

"Don't call me 'Old Two'," said player number Two.

"Don't call me 'Little Three'," said player number Three.

"Everyone is welcome to call me 'Old Eight'," said player number Eight.

Gu Fei silently put on the poncho, nodded and said, "I don't mind, call me whatever."

"Now that you've accepted, you must know why we've gathered here, and why we called you over," Four said.

"Although no one has explicitly told me, I think I understand," Gu Fei said, "You're all players who received dual-direction quests related to Misty Flowers, so you've gathered together to complete your quests, right?"

"That's right," Four said, "Too many guys gave up their quests after realizing that they had to go up against Misty Flowers. Of course, there were also those who were forced to give up after failing. As of now, I think there are only nine of us left," Four said.

"Then, what are your quest objectives? This shouldn't be something only you can know, right? It's better to tell each other so we can cooperate," Gu Fei said.

"Of course," Four said. The eight people then introduced their quest objectives to Gu Fei one by one, and finally asked Gu Fei, "What about you?"

"Me? Assassinate Giordano," Gu Fei said.

Although they were wearing face coverings, Gu Fei could feel the surprise on their faces. Preparing to go up against Misty Flowers, they naturally knew about Misty Flowers' quest, and knew that this NPC named Giordano seemed to be an important figure in their quest. If this person was killed, Misty Flowers' quest would probably be completely ruined, right?

Of course, these people wouldn't think about Misty Flowers. After a brief moment of surprise, they immediately continued to ask, "How much information do you have so far?"

"Uh, Giordano is in the Guard Room on the third floor, but there are a lot of guards there, so it's not convenient to make a move. He does go out to patrol the courtyard at dawn, but there are too many guards in the courtyard, and Misty Flowers' players are watching closely, so I haven't found a good opportunity yet," Gu Fei said.

The eight people nodded repeatedly as they listened. Suddenly, player number Six spoke up, "Besides that, you seem to know something else."

"Oh? What is it?"

"How did you manage to avoid the attention of everyone in Misty Flowers and suddenly appear outside City Hall?" player number Six asked.

"Heh," Gu Fei smiled, "Speaking of that, why don't we talk about how much information you've gathered so far?" This group gathered together, not talking about identity, not talking about friendship, it was simply naked mutual exploitation. Since he had entered this circle, Gu Fei could only follow their rules. He couldn't let himself be sold out and still be counting the money for them, right? Before revealing his own cards, Gu Fei naturally had to first learn some information from them, to see if there was any valuable information.

As a result, player number Four sighed, "If we had enough useful information, we would have already completed our quests, would we still be squatting here racking our brains? Perhaps what you know is the last piece of the puzzle for us to complete our quests."

"I see! Well, you still have to let me see what the other pieces look like first!" Gu Fei said.

"Alright, I'll tell you in detail," Four said, squatting down and picking up a branch at random to draw on the ground. Gu Fei immediately saw that this guy was drawing a sketch of the City Hall courtyard. He then piled up dirt mounds, arranged pebbles, drew arrows, and described the activities of the system NPCs in the City Hall in extremely detailed.