Su Changxing slightly furrowed his brow and confidently said:

"Don’t bother testing it, it’s definitely poisoned. Once you eat it, it’s over... Did anyone else touch the food just now?"

Zhen Qi Yi thought for a moment and said, "There were other people cooking in the kitchen earlier, but no one should have touched it, and I tasted it before."

"So that means the poison was added when you brought it over."

Su Changxing then turned his head to look at the others, and many people cast their gazes towards him.

It seemed like nothing unusual; these people were all ordinary people, and for an ordinary person to poison something right under Zhen Qi Yi’s nose was simply impossible.

Of course, the poison wouldn’t just walk on its own into the food, so there must be a third party here, and their target is either him or Jin!

Su Changxing pondered slightly and immediately headed to the second floor of the hotel. They were all on the first floor, so if the poisoner wanted to hide, they would have to be upstairs.

The second floor was still intact, but going further up was mostly collapsed into ruins. There was nothing on this floor except for the leftover corpses, piled together and somewhat stinking.

Su Changxing continued to the third floor. As soon as he went up, he noticed something was off, smelling fresh blood, faintly masked by the seawater.

"Did someone die?"

He slightly furrowed his brow and walked towards the ruins where the smell came from, pushing aside the surface rubble to vaguely see three corpses.

Although the faces of the corpses had been scratched beyond recognition, he immediately identified one of them as one of the people below.

...

A text flashed within a chat window.

"How did he find out? I used an Expert Level poison; it should be hard to detect. This is too fake, wasn’t the task we took just a Level C mission?"

"The other party is a Golden Quality Level 19; we’re definitely no match for them. Don’t expose yourself, prepare to abandon and evacuate."

"Hmm, is this considered a hidden mission? It’s my first time encountering a Golden Quality Level 19."

"No matter what mission it is, we must give up; don’t take risks."

...

"Bang~"

At the same time, an explosion sounded from below.

Su Changxing leaped forward, crashing through the rubble and jumping down from the third floor, seeing three people in black raincoats rushing out from the explosion, running along the street.

One of them had their arm blown off and shouted to a teammate, "Wasn’t she supposed to be Level 0? Why is this place formidable, and there’s a rare BOSS?"

"Run quickly, the target has come down from above, he has long-range attack means, watch out for dodging," another person warned.

BOSS?

Su Changxing slightly furrowed his brow, noticing that these three were probably not Gladiators, as their words were bizarre.

He picked up the Sniper Rifle and aimed at the back of one of the people, shooting, the bullet flew fluidly, passing through the raindrops’ gaps.

That person noticed Su Changxing shooting, their body’s Speed suddenly increased, dodging to the side but still being hit in the shoulder by the oblique shot bullet.

"Bang~"

With the light gunshot sound, his shoulder exploded, and he fell heavily to the ground.

And his companions didn’t even glance back, continuing to run forward.

Su Changxing lost sight of them, having to drag the Scythe to chase, their Speed wasn’t too fast, he should be able to catch up easily.

When he caught up, he found those two had already disappeared into the rain, leaving only the one behind still struggling on the ground, making painful sounds.

Su Changxing intentionally didn’t kill him to leave a living mouth to question for information.

[Jet Black Raincoat (Upper Rank B): Task item, not a drop of water can penetrate...]

Relying on this raincoat to resist the rainwater from above?

Task item?

Su Changxing approached, the rain sliding down his face, looked at the other person, and said, "Who are you people?"

This was a handsome young man, his face unnaturally seemed like a sculpted artwork.

Too perfect is the greatest imperfection; this is not real.

"Who are we?"

His expression twisted into a maniacal laugh: "You NPCs are scarily intelligent, you can even ask who we are?"

He showed no Terror of death, his expression twisted in pain seemed just a natural bodily reaction, yet he was rather indignant:

"What a lousy task, it’s difficulty doesn’t match the Level, causing me to lose experience points for nothing."

No way to communicate, the two of them were completely on different channels... Su Changxing pulled out the revolver, aimed it at his head with a gentle smile, and said:

"Hmm, let’s make a deal, I might consider not killing you."

"Is that possible?"

The person showed a surprised expression, saying: "What deal, if I could not die, that would be best."

In his understanding, caught by such a mission target, they would usually be killed immediately, but this NPC actually proposed such a request, could it really be some kind of hidden mission.

The moment Su Changxing proposed the deal, a message popped up on his phone.

[Kill the intruder, and you can get a generous reward]

He ignored the message on his phone and tentatively asked, "Are you playing a game?"

The air was filled with the sound of raindrops hitting, standing within it yet feeling calm.

[The target initiates a trade with you, do you accept?]

The person was stunned for a few seconds and then said:

"Yes, I’m playing a game, you’re NPCs... you actually have such awareness, was it set by the system? I hadn’t noticed before."

Su Changxing carefully observed his reaction; he was very relaxed, showing no signs of lying, and asked, "How did you come here?"

The person naturally replied:

"Mission, a Dungeon-type mission, you are our target, had I known you were this strong, we should have given up... what else do you want to know, I can tell you everything as long as you don’t kill me, well, I think this deal is quite good and humane."

To him, telling Su Changxing this information wouldn’t have any impact, it was basically a free transaction.

This indeed seemed like a game to him... Su Changxing thought for a moment and asked, "I’m curious about what method you used to enter the game?"

The person unhesitatingly replied:

"Game pod, though you might not understand if I told you. It’s related to some kind of consciousness mapping technology, but I’m curious how this game operates... such computational power might be beyond even supercomputers."

"Have we completed the transaction now, will you let me go?"

Su Changxing stared at him, raised an eyebrow, and said, "What transaction?"

"Really."

The person immediately got angry and said, "How can you go back on your word, the system even told me the transaction was completed."

"Did it?"

Su Changxing checked his phone, and sure enough, there was information about the transaction, but it didn’t force him to execute it.

The person also didn’t understand what was going on and said, "Of course there was, and you were the one who proposed the deal."