Global Collapse-Chapter 480 - 455: Behind-the-Scenes Assassin Qiao Mou Chu_1
Or perhaps all their teammates had died in the previous event.
Although Gu Mian and his companions felt otherwise, the death rate for the dragon boat event was quite high.
The school bus was considerably long, so Gu Mian and his companions, speaking softly at the rear, wouldn’t be heard by those in the front.
After a brief pause, the school bus started again, and the scenery outside became a blur.
"But Doctor, I just remembered something," Fatty said slowly, glancing out the window. "I recall we came here because the book *Second World* mentioned Xile Town. But after arriving, we completely forgot about that and only focused on the dragon boat event."
Gu Mian patted Fatty’s shoulder. "Only you forgot about it; I didn’t."
As he spoke, he pulled out the book *Second World* from beneath him. "I’ve thoroughly studied the description of Xile Town in the book and compared it to the Xile Town we recently visited. Some architectural details match up. I also observed the previous areas of Yan Chuan and Hou Ming, and they align with some descriptions in the book too."
However, discovering these things wasn’t particularly useful. It only suggested that the author of the book might have gathered material from these three cities during their travels.
This cursed practice of sourcing material externally.
Gu Mian strongly suspected that the original version of *Second World* was one of the instance worlds. The copy he held was merely a partially plagiarized version, and the original was nowhere to be found.
"Doctor, according to your theory that instances originate from several different worlds, if one of those worlds is the original *Second World*, then other worlds might also exist in reality in some form. If we can find these ’form worlds,’ we’ll be invincible!" Fatty voiced his thoughts, looking as if he were daydreaming.
Gu Mian opened the book in his hand. "First of all, you can’t even find the original version of *this* book, so stop daydreaming about other worlds."
"Logically speaking," Fatty offered sincerely, "perhaps the NPCs in the instances would know something. Of course, those passerby NPCs who are clearly cannon fodder wouldn’t know anything. But someone like Mr. Green..."
Speaking of whom, Gu Mian hadn’t seen Mr. Green in a long time. Their last meeting was during the lantern riddle event. Mr. Green had left Xiao Hong in Gu Mian’s care and then vanished without a trace.
...Well, it wasn’t exactly ’entrusting.’ 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
As he thought about this, Gu Mian glanced at Xiao Hong, who was sitting quietly beside him. Then, he looked past Xiao Hong to Xiao Qiao, who was sitting rigidly beside her.
As a celebrity who could be recognized at any moment, Xiao Qiao had also carefully disguised herself. The two girls, heavily concealed, sat together. Only at times like this would Gu Mian confuse Xiao Hong with Xiao Qiao.
"Speaking of which, didn’t you meet Mr. Green?" Gu Mian decided to temporarily ignore how Xiao Qiao knew Mr. Green. "When was the last time you saw him?"
Xiao Qiao adopted a thoughtful expression. After two seconds, she said, "It was on Qingming Festival, in a car repair shop instance. We players were acting as mechanics. We needed to use parts to repair a car and then drive the repaired car to escape. However, some ghosts had transformed into parts. If you were unlucky enough to pick a ghost-transformed part while repairing the car, they would crawl out from all sorts of places to kill you when you tried to escape..."
"I bet if the Doctor was in that instance, he would’ve definitely scooped up all the parts," Fatty suddenly chimed in.
"Get to the point," Gu Mian said, his eyebrow twitching.
"When I encountered Mr. Green, I was selecting parts. At that moment, he was driving a freshly repaired bus out of the repair shop—Bus Route 444."
As Xiao Qiao spoke, Gu Mian suddenly felt a strange sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen this Bus 444 somewhere before.
Two seconds later, he remembered. "I had a few traffic accidents when I used to drive the Spirit Car..."
"Yeah," Fatty leaned in promptly. "You even crashed into a special instance. That instance was called ’Bus 444’."
Gu Mian recalled crashing into that instance during the New Year, a joyous occasion, only for it to be repaired after Qingming Festival. The game’s instance restoration capability was truly unimpressive.
But did repairing an instance require sending it to *another* instance for repairs?
Xiao Qiao’s voice continued, "That’s where I saw Mr. Green. He told me that the next time I met Gu Mian, I should take him to see the ’Death Phase’ instance."
Gu Mian had indeed discovered something in the ’Death Phase’ instance.
He had met a ghost who claimed to have seen him at the crematorium and had seen a colorful mosaic in that ghost’s eyes.
Although he had found something, that discovery hadn’t provided any real clues.
Gu Mian then asked, "Did he say anything else?"
Xiao Qiao paused for a moment. Half a second later, she said, "He told you to get your brakes fixed."
Was he telling him to stop crashing into instances?
While they were speaking in hushed tones, the third wave of passengers boarded the bus.
The silent second-place contestant from the dragon boat race remained quiet, appearing to be someone not skilled in communication.
Now, the third-place contestants from the dragon boat race boarded—three players in total. They glanced at the man at the very front and then at Gu Mian’s group at the very back, eventually choosing seats slightly forward of the middle.
Since they didn’t come within three meters of Gu Mian, he couldn’t see their nicknames.
"There weren’t many NPCs in the dragon boat race, but there should be plenty in the college entrance exam event," Fatty said, retracting his gaze from the three new arrivals and starting to muse. "There’ll be proctors, security guards, inspectors, and patrolling supervisors, I imagine."
As he spoke, he looked at Gu Mian. "Doctor, this is a prime opportunity for some... aggressive questioning. Don’t let it slip by."
Gu Mian touched Fatty’s forehead and said sadly, "What on earth made you so deranged?"
Fatty asked, "...Doctor, are you actually going to answer the questions seriously?"
Gu Mian fell silent.
In those few seconds of Gu Mian’s silence, Fatty had already pictured Gu Mian beating up their proctor in front of all the other examinees.
Time passed quickly. After they chatted for a while, it was already past one in the morning.
At one twenty-five, the school bus stopped again.
Gu Mian immediately felt that the scenery outside the window looked familiar.
The next group of players boarding the bus also looked familiar.
The first to board was a cloaked man. Gu Mian was sure he had seen that cloak not long ago; it belonged to a man with a very pleasant voice who, nevertheless, always kept himself completely covered from head to toe.
Following the cloaked man was none other than 007, whom Gu Mian had briefly ’borrowed’ during the dragon boat event.
That’s right, this was 007’s hometown. Gu Mian had brought her back here just two months ago.
Chu Changge paused for a moment upon seeing the cloaked man board the bus, then slowly uttered, "Fourth."
This group was the fourth-place team from the dragon boat race.
Three other people—two men and a woman—followed 007 onto the bus.
As soon as 007 got on the bus, she spotted Gu Mian sitting in the back row. She stopped instantly and said to her teammates, "Let’s sit at the front."
The cloaked man seemed to glance toward the back row, then smiled. "Alright."
This was the third time Gu Mian had seen this cloaked man.
The first time was during the lantern riddle event; his nickname had been a red ’Anonymous’, yet he had claimed to be Xie Bi’an.
The second time was during the recent dragon boat event, where he had been 007’s teammate.
And the third time was now.
Gu Mian realized that this Xie Bi’an always seemed to be involved in these events. Since the game began, there had only been three events, and he had encountered this man in all three.
Just then, he noticed Xiao Qiao seemed somewhat restless.
He saw Xiao Qiao staring intently at Xie Bi’an, who had just sat down in the second row. Surprisingly, Gu Mian could read deep confusion in her usually vacant eyes. If she could display this level of acting skill when filming TV series, she wouldn’t have been so viciously criticized.
This was the first time Xiao Qiao had seen Xie Bi’an. When Gu Mian encountered Xie Bi’an during the dragon boat event, Xiao Qiao hadn’t boarded the boat yet.
Xiao Qiao kept her wide eyes fixed on the back of Xie Bi’an’s head for a long moment. Just when Gu Mian thought she was about to rush towards him, she suddenly turned her head, looking at Chu Changge.
Then, to Gu Mian’s surprise, he heard Xiao Qiao say something utterly bewildering to Chu Changge, "He’s not dead?"
A puzzled Gu Mian turned his head to look at them both. "Are you two plotting a murder?"
