Chapter 2 The Sixteenth

[Side Quest Progress Updated]

[Deliver all letters before midnight, current progress 2/13]

The system voice chimed in, and the content in the taskbar changed accordingly.

"Damn it…" The second house owner's reaction was identical to the first. He resentfully took the letter and turned to slam the door.

Brother Jue was quick-eyed and fast-footed. He promptly stuck the toe of his shoe into the door crack and grabbed the doorknob from the outside, interjecting, "Hold on, I have another question."

"What?" the house owner replied impatiently.

"Do you… have any relatives in this town?" Feng Bujue asked.

"Huh?" The house owner replied in a very strange tone. "Why do you ask?" He paused for half a second, then added, "I have no relatives, not a single one."

Having said that, he didn't even bother to close the door before turning and walking away.

"Hey! Hey!" Feng Bujue shouted twice more, but the other party completely ignored him. Judging from the sound of his footsteps… the guy seemed to have gone upstairs.

Subsequently, Brother Jue tried to break in, but the door crack was too narrow, and the chain lock on the inside was too sturdy… After trying for three minutes, he had to give up.

"There's a problem…" Feng Bujue muttered as he returned to his bicycle. "There's definitely a problem…" He pedaled forward, his mind racing. "Why do I feel like this guy and the first house owner are the same person… Could this guy have taken my letter at 3 First Avenue and then come to 9 Second Avenue to impersonate the second house owner?" He shook his head slightly. "Hmm… seems unlikely. I'm riding pretty fast, and I'm taking the shortest route. Even if he had a motorcycle or a horse… it would be a tight squeeze for him to bypass me and arrive ahead of time. Unless… there's an underground tunnel connecting those two houses, and the tunnel has some kind of transportation faster than a bicycle, he couldn't do it."

With that thought, he briefly reviewed the plot and soundtrack of the classic film *Tunnel Warfare* in his mind, and then… overturned the above hypothesis.

"Hmm… even if they're not the same person, they must be connected." Feng Bujue continued, "Although I didn't get a clear look at his face, the voice, figure, and even tone of these two people are extremely similar…" He carefully recalled his conversation with the second house owner. "But judging from the performance of Fatty Number Two (naturally, this was also a temporary code name Brother Jue gave to the NPC), he didn't seem to be lying. At least he himself believes… that he has no other relatives in town."

Brother Jue raised a hand and scratched his head. "Could it be because… decades ago… Fatty Number One's dad often visited Fatty Number Two's house? Or Fatty Number Two's dad often visited Fatty Number One's house? Or Fatty Number One's mom often…" He shrugged, stopping this meaningless speculation. "Hmm… actually, these situations seem to fall under the same category…" After realizing this, he added, "Then I'll tentatively reserve the possibility that they're brothers and think about other hypotheses…"

And so, he rode his bike and thought…

About five minutes later, Brother Jue's eyes sharpened, and he smiled. "Got it!"

The next second, he muttered in a low voice, "Clones…"

As the saying goes, "The mentally ill have broad minds." Brother Jue wasn't exactly ill, but his mentality was indeed different from ordinary people, and his thinking… could be described as groundbreaking.

"That's right… if I think of it that way, it makes sense." Feng Bujue said with considerable confidence, "That sentence 'not a single relative' can also be explained by this conclusion."

As he pondered, he happened to arrive at the address of the recipient of the third letter: [7 Third Avenue.]

This was another two-story house. There was no mailbox in front of the house, and the lawn was yellow. The structure and shape of the house were no different from the previous two.

Tap tap tap—

"Open the door, open the door, open the door!" This time, Brother Jue simply skipped the "Is anyone there?" question. He directly slapped the door panel and shouted for someone to come out, as if he were there to ransack the place.

Soon, there was movement inside the house again.

Second floor, fatty, slippers… you know the drill.

A little over a minute later, the door opened a crack, and a fat figure stood in the shadows, asking in an annoyed tone, "Who are you looking for?"

"Mailman," Feng Bujue replied coldly, narrowing his eyes. "Delivering a letter." He held up his ID in front of the other party, then handed over the envelope. "Let me guess… you don't want to accept it, do you?"

Fatty Number Three was stunned for a few seconds, then nodded like a rattle drum. "Yeah, yeah! I don't want it!"

"Do I have to recite your instruction code before you'll accept it?" Feng Bujue drawled, staring with dead fish eyes.

"Uh… yes," Fatty Number Three replied.

"Ah…" Brother Jue sighed. "Let me confirm… how many digits is your code?"

"Th-three… three digits," Fatty Number Three answered somewhat reluctantly.

"Damn it…" Feng Bujue cursed fiercely, then thought to himself, "Three digits… guessing isn't impossible. If my luck is bad, I'll just have to recite eight hundred numbers, and I can definitely finish in fifteen minutes… but according to this trend, the codes afterward might be even longer… If I get a seven-digit code later, even if I recite it at the speed of a tongue twister, I won't finish by nightfall…"

"Do… do you even know the code?" Fatty Number Three saw that Brother Jue looked troubled, and continued, "If you don't know it, just go back!"

"Hmm…" Feng Bujue thought for two seconds, then replied, "Suppose… and please note, this is just a hypothetical, suppose I don't know it, then… where should I go to get your instruction code?"

"Only the ghost mailman knows everyone's instruction code," Fatty Number Three replied.

"What?" Brother Jue paused for half a second, then continued, "Are you… are you trying to trick me?"

"What makes you say that?" Fatty Number Three retorted.

"You should know… if you talk to the ghost mailman, he'll attack you with a 'soul shock'," Feng Bujue said.

"Yeah," Fatty Number Three replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "That's why everyone writes him letters." He paused for a moment. "Who would be stupid enough to talk to him?"

"You fat bastard, just you wait…" The next second, Feng Bujue turned around and walked away, muttering curses under his breath.

Combining the content of the "Work Manual", Fatty Number Three's answer should be credible. At this moment, Brother Jue finally realized… this side quest was far from as simple as it looked. Whether he could complete it before midnight would depend on the progress he made next…