Chapter 1 The Truth

From the private room came the insistent shouts of the Han family’s young master: “Sword Ghost, speak up if you have something to say!”

But Sword Ghost wasn't even in the private room at the moment. He was slumped over the counter, lifelessly asking Xiao Lei, “Where’s the wine? Didn’t you tell me to get the wine? Give me the wine!”

Xiao Lei smiled wryly, looking towards Gu Fei and Brother Yu. He knew Sword Ghost was a friend of theirs.

Brother Yu started to get up, but Gu Fei stopped him. He glanced around and saw two small warriors in newbie gear at a nearby table.

"Hey, brothers!" Gu Fei called out to them.

The two turned their heads.

"Help me out! Drag that guy out back and dump him. I'm a mage; I'm not strong enough," Gu Fei said, pointing at Sword Ghost.

The two looked blank, not moving.

Gu Fei thought for a moment, then reached into his pocket and handed over two gold coins. "Help me out!"

The two small warriors' eyes lit up. As far as ordinary people were concerned, they didn't care whether you were a mage; gold coins were the beautiful toys they loved. This wasn't something a beginner player could easily see. Gu Fei was already a rich man in the game, thanks to that mercenary job yesterday.

The two small warriors took the gold coins and got up, immediately going over to prop up Sword Ghost. Sword Ghost was so drunk he couldn't even straighten his back, and he had no ability to resist. The two quickly carried him out of the bar. Before long, the two had returned, looking at Gu Fei excitedly. "Big brother, is there anyone else you want to throw out?"

"No, no, thank you!" Gu Fei said to the two.

"Is this okay?" Brother Yu asked, looking a little worried.

"It's fine, don't worry!" Gu Fei said. At that moment, the Han family’s young master’s singing voice came from the private room, and Gu Fei immediately had the urge to call the two small warriors back.

"He looks like a cultured guy, talks like he's reciting poetry, how come..." Gu Fei muttered.

"Looks like you don't know," Brother Yu laughed. "Han family’s young master – that's the new name he changed to for this game. In previous games, his name was Drunk Ghost."

"Then is Sword Ghost called Smoke Ghost?" Gu Fei asked.

"I think so before the *Magic Domain* game!" Brother Yu nodded seriously.

"Really!" Gu Fei was completely convinced. "Then why did he change his name?"

"Well... I heard it's because that inseparable Smoke Ghost-Drunk Ghost combo was always being fantasized about by fujoshi, so Sword Ghost refused to be called Smoke Ghost anymore when playing *Magic Domain*. This time, in Parallel World, the young master simply changed his name as well," Brother Yu explained.

"Oh..." Gu Fei replied slowly, finally asking, "What are fujoshi?"

"Uh... a kind of strange creature," Brother Yu said.

Gu Fei figured it sounded pretty complicated, so he didn't bother asking, and waved at Xiao Lei. "Xiao Lei, two glasses of the most expensive wine."

"Don't you think that's a bit of a waste?" Brother Yu was taken aback. As an intelligence expert, he knew very well what the price of the most expensive wine was.

"It's fine, it's fine," Gu Fei waved his hand. When the wine was brought up and he asked the price, Gu Fei gasped. "That really is expensive! Put it on the Han family young master’s tab!"

"Ah?" Xiao Lei was stunned.

"Isn't he still in there? Just put everything from our table on his," Gu Fei said.

"Oh!" Xiao Lei didn't say much. He wasn't worried about not getting the money. Such behavior of taking things without paying was fraud, and could be reported to the system. And in order to protect this very realistic business system, the system's protection in this area was very thorough. In front of the system god, even the strongest player was just a paper tiger.

"You're too bad!" Brother Yu looked at Gu Fei and said, "You're really hiding your true nature!"

"Drink up! It's a rare opportunity!" Gu Fei raised his glass.

Brother Yu took a sip, clicking his tongue in wonder. "It really is different, worth the price."

"Mm-hmm! Especially since we don't have to pay for it ourselves," Gu Fei picked it up and drank it all in one gulp. "Xiao Lei, another glass."

Brother Yu: "..."

"Right, you said you had something to ask me." Seeing that Gu Fei had already gotten his second glass of wine, Brother Yu quickly asked. He was worried that Gu Fei would also get drunk soon if this continued.

"Yeah, I do have something." Gu Fei put down his glass. "In this game, is there such a thing as a quest that can be claimed bi-directionally by two people, and then the two sides end up on opposite sides? For example..." Gu Fei was afraid he wasn't explaining clearly enough, and wanted to give another example, but Brother Yu had already nodded and said, "That's right, that's possible, and it's a major feature of Parallel World. Generally speaking, guild quests that can involve multiple people have a higher chance of getting this kind of bi-directional quest, while single-player quests have a smaller chance of getting this kind of situation."

"The content of bi-directional quests is mostly about snatching and protecting, this kind of opposing content." Brother Yu's information was really quite accurate; the situation with Resurgence’s Amethyst was already clear at a glance.

"But..." Gu Fei still had some doubts in his mind, and told the story of Resurgence’s Amethyst.

Brother Yu laughed when he heard it. "They made a mistake. The quest information they collected from the forums was about finding a treasure chest; but the quest they received was about reclaiming a treasure chest. The two quests sound similar, but the content is different. A quest like reclaiming a treasure chest wouldn't have anyone writing a walkthrough, because the opponents you face are different each time. How could there be any fixed rules?"

"That makes sense!" Gu Fei nodded frequently, and drank another glass in one gulp. "Xiao Lei, wine!"

"Can you hold your liquor?" Brother Yu asked worriedly.

"Don't worry." Gu Fei laughed. "I'm only drinking this one glass; I'm not like those two guys."

Brother Yu nodded, then asked, "Why are you concerned about this? Did you join a guild?"

"No way! Why would I?" Gu Fei said quickly. If he said that he was mixed up with a bunch of girls, wouldn't he be laughed to death? In the end, he told a little lie, roughly adapting what happened by Yunxiao Lake, describing himself as the kind of guy who was just hanging around in the back watching people fight over the treasure chest.

"Yunxiao Lake... Heh!" The intelligence king Brother Yu, of course, knew what kind of place that was, and immediately showed an ambiguous smile when he heard that Gu Fei had gone there.

"Passing by, passing by!" Gu Fei said quickly. "Right, I also met Royal Godwind; he was doing a quest to protect a treasure chest." This last sentence was purely to change the subject; Gu Fei hadn't originally planned to mention Royal Godwind.

"Oh? Did he join a guild? I haven't heard about that," Brother Yu said.

"His guild seems pretty strong; they wiped out everyone who came to snatch the treasure chest. I heard it was either Whirlwind Slash or Snipe, or Sneak Attack. They all sounded like experts," Gu Fei said.

"Oh, then they're not weak! In Cloudsea City, there's probably only one guild like that," Brother Yu said.

"Which one?"

"Boundless Ocean."

"What a corny name!"

Brother Yu smiled. "In online games, guilds with corny names are usually not too weak."

"Why?"

"Think about it! Such a corny name, a lot of people must have thought of it. The fact that they were able to build it means that this guild was built relatively early. If it was built early, relatively speaking, it had a longer development time, so it's probably not too weak," Brother Yu said.

"That makes sense, that makes sense!" Gu Fei really learned something today. It was like hearing a wise man's words, better than reading books for ten years. It seemed that he needed to communicate more with Brother Yu to strengthen some basic online game common sense. After all, online games were not real life. It would be better to avoid mistakes like wanting to intercept people by the lake before, but being forcibly knocked to the ground and ignored.

"Alright!" Gu Fei drank the third glass of wine and stood up. "Nothing else, I'm leaving."

"See you later." Brother Yu nodded, watching Gu Fei leave the bar. "Xiao Lei!" Brother Yu called out.

"What is it?" Xiao Lei came over.

Brother Yu pointed to the wine on the table. "Bring me a bottle of this most expensive wine; I'll take it with me."

Xiao Lei was stunned for a long time, and finally asked, "Also on the young master’s tab?"

"Of course." Brother Yu had a very calm smile on his face. "But don't say I ordered it."

Gu Fei, who had left the bar, returned to Resurgence’s Amethyst. He had learned the whole story and thought it was necessary to go back and inform them, so that they wouldn't be complaining without knowing what was going on.

As a member of the guild, he had the authority to directly push open the guild room door. As soon as Gu Fei pushed the door open and entered, all the women's eyes immediately turned to him, their expressions seeming a little different than before.

Everyone had heard the story of Yunxiao Lake, and it could basically be said that it was solved thanks to Gu Fei. However, there was a major flaw in this story: Gu Fei knew the archer who ambushed them.

The guild's current understanding of Gu Fei was limited to three points: high level, broken equipment, and random stats.

Just these last two noob attributes were enough for people to discriminate against him. It was really hard to convince people that such a mage could defeat a level 30 top-quality archer. Now that they heard Gu Fei knew this person, they couldn't help but suspect there was something fishy going on. The fishy thing was that the two were acting together to help Gu Fei establish an image so that he could gain a foothold in this girl's guild.

It was Lie Lie who made this hypothesis. She also gave another example: How could such a garbage mage have such a high level? Apart from having a group of equally high-level friends who were close enough to carry him all the way, was there any other way?

In addition, the story was told by Xiao Yu. And Xiao Yu's attributes, hey... needless to say, even if there were any obvious problems at the time, she certainly wouldn't be able to see them.

Also, Xiao Yu was the one that Qian Li Zui himself picked to be in his group. Could this also be intentional?

In short, anything could not stand analysis. And the girls paid attention to details. With everyone talking at once, Gu Fei, who had originally saved Xiao Yu and snatched back a treasure chest, was forcibly analyzed by them into a super pervert with a deep mind and a knack for calculation.

In the end, the girls were divided into three factions. The most numerous were those who firmly believed that Gu Fei was also a bad guy with ulterior motives, led by Lie Lie. A few people, such as July and Luo Luo, did not take the things that the girls guessed and fabricated seriously. Xiao Yu was the only one who was completely at a loss.

At this time, Gu Fei entered the room, and the three factions looked at him in unison. When Gu Fei took two more steps closer, everyone smelled a strong smell of alcohol. Gu Fei, who already had a bad image, fell dozens of percentage points further in the eyes of the first faction of girls.

Even the girls in the second faction couldn't help but frown at this time. The guild had encountered setbacks in its first action, and everyone was in pain. This guy actually went to drink. This was really too unkind.

And classmate Xiao Yu continued to be at a loss: "What's that smell? Ah, what's that smell?"