Chapter 65: Coco

Guan Ling didn’t know why Xing Ye asked his reason for choosing the following fate camp and continued on happily, “Boss, apart from these two QR codes, I also found two following fate players and a big secret!”

He found the other two following fate players? Guan Ling sure was efficient. Xing Ye didn’t really trust him, but having a following fate player in their team really was efficient. No wonder Di Kuang wanted to collect so many following fate teammates.

After Xing Ye memorized the QR codes, he returned them to Guan Ling. “You can allocate them yourself.”

“Huh?” Guan Ling said, “Boss, you know my starting abilities. It’d be a waste leaving QR codes with me.”

“You can tell from the name, Losing the Family Fortune, that it’s an ability only meant to be used as a last resort. You can’t treat it as a common use ability. If you think like that, then your only use would be a defense prop and you’d never be able to fight with your teammates.” Xing Ye said.

Ever since Guan Ling got his abilities, he had always happily treated himself as a support class player with a high and safe position. Even in the small, makeshift team he was in before he joined Di Kuang’s, he had rarely got to use QR codes and spent most of the time trying to survive. You could say Xing Ye’s words completely toppled everything Guan Ling knew and he couldn’t help but think, could I also fight on the front lines?

Cao Qian understood the other’s mood and patted his shoulder. “Xing Ye’s right, don’t keep yourself limited in a box.”

Cao Qian had once also only thought of herself as a hired thug, able to be thrown away at a moment’s notice. She never took the initiative to think for herself, it was Xing Ye who slowly guided and grew her ability to think.

Cao Qian spoke up, “You should keep all the QR codes. I can’t ask for them, you were the one who found them. If you practice using QR codes more, maybe you can find a different fighting style.”

Hearing that, Guan Ling scanned the QR codes onto his phone and thumped his chest strongly as he shouted, “Boss, I’ll work hard!”

“Mhm, work hard and become stronger.” Xing Ye said dully, “Say what you discovered earlier.”

Guan Ling explained excitedly, “The two following fate players are very arrogant. They’re more experienced than me. One of them is the son of the richest puppet in the city, as well as the owner of the mine. The other is the son of the public security bureau’s chief. Not only do they have both money and power, they’re also long time partners. They have no intention of cooperating with us, so we might end up fighting with them later.

“However, they were willing to swap information before it reaches a critical point in the plot. Cao Qian and I discussed it before deciding to trade intelligence about Old Nect and Master Benedict for more information.

“The public security chief’s son discovered his dad would secretly send a portion of his salary every month to a puppet named Coco. That puppet didn’t have a job or go outside the city to mine. It just stayed at home all day, completely reliant on the public security chief.”

Xing Ye listened to Guan Ling as he drew out the QR codes he just memorized with a charcoal pencil. During the time Guan Ling reported his findings, Xing Ye had already memorized the QR codes by heart.

“Did you tell them about Benedict’s son?” Xing Ye asked.

“Of course not,” Guan Ling said. “We didn’t tell them any crucial information like that, but we did tell them about the mine outside the city. They’re planning to check it out tomorrow.”

Xing Ye praised him, “Nicely done.”

He would’ve done the exact same thing, hiding the most important clues while trading for information he needed.  

Xing Ye thought before saying, “The system was very clever in assigning roles to the following fate players. Almost all of them have important ties with the plot.

The city lord, Old Nect, the master of the mines, the public security bureau- these are all the most important people in Puppet City. If you collect all the information they hold, you would pretty much be able to see through this world’s plot.”

“Really?” Guan Ling thought for a long time, but still couldn’t piece all the random pieces of the plot together. “All I know is that the city lord is bad and wants to kill Benedict, while Old Nect is good, somebody we need to help.”

Xing Ye narrated what he had found in the city today and summed it up, “There’s no clear line between good people and bad people. We can’t completely believe Old Nect’s words. Benedict only created puppets and didn’t take responsibility for giving them life. He didn’t teach them how to behave with integrity. Even a newborn baby needed their parents to patiently teach them, but Benedict didn’t even try to do anything. In the end, when he found out Puppet City wasn’t as good as he had imagined, he washed his hands and left. Do you think what he did was right?”

Guan Ling shook his head.

Xing Ye: “After Benedict left, the city lord and the public security chief struggled to fix this terrible mess, slowly turning Puppet City into the relatively orderly city we see today. He hated Benedict and didn’t want such an irresponsible Master to continue bearing down on the city. Was that wrong?

“Outside the city, we saw Benedict had a mine with much more primary ore than the city’s government controlled mine. He built a laboratory in the mine and many powerful attack type puppets. If you were the city lord, would you be able to endure such valuable resources and powerful, armed troops right outside your city?

“Old Nect kept saying he loved and respected Benedict. He said he had never seen those mechanical puppets before, but then, why did he have a remote control that’s capable of stopping them? He claimed he would support Benedict no matter what he did, but then why did he want to send us to that mine twice with no intention of ever going himself?

“The mines have always been property of the city’s government, so why should anybody apart from the city lord control the lifesource of Puppet City’s inhabitants?”

The series of questions left Guan Ling completely dumbfounded. He had originally been super proud of himself for exchanging information, but after hearing Xing Ye’s analysis, he felt like his brain had gone rusty again.

Cao Qian held a pen and paper, mapping out a diagram of all the relations. After Xing Ye was done, she pointed at the diagram and asked, “Why didn’t you have any questions about the public security chief?”

“We don’t have enough information about him. I actually think he’s the most important piece here. For the time being, let’s find Coco instead of going to the mines tomorrow.”

“The two following fate players found Coco a long time ago. She’s an ordinary female puppet and appears to be a housewife. She’s very honest and well-behaved. In the end, the public security chief’s son could only guess his father was having an affair.” Guan Ling said.

“Is that so?” Xing Ye touched his chin before revealing a satisfied smile, “I think I probably understand.”

“U-Understand what?” Guan Ling couldn’t help but squish himself in a corner. His brain was basically useless!

Xing Ye said, “On the surface, it looks like Benedict is the truth speaking puppet. Many years ago, he fled Puppet City due to the city lord’s persecution, but the puppet body he made for his son was still left in the city. His wish should be to find his son’s body, so he would request the player to bring the puppet into the mines.

The two following fate players should’ve very quickly discovered Coco had been protecting Benedict’s son all along. She was too ordinary, so ordinary that it was very unlikely the city lord would find her. That’s how Benedict’s son managed to stay concealed for so many years.

After helping Benedict install the heart inside the body, the players would have completed their mission and left the world. Everybody probably would’ve received… around 100 or 200 points.”

If it was before, Guan Ling would’ve said, oh, doesn’t that mean they’ve won?

But after experiencing the campus world’s true ending and hitting a gold rush of 2000 points, he already understood 100 or 200 points was only the surface ending’s rewards. Furthermore, after getting the surface ending, the world’s real ending would be incomparably dreadful.

TL's Note

“Mhm, work hard and become stronger.” Xing Ye said dully, “Say what you discovered earlier.”

I thought about rewording this (and last chapter, at the end) so Xing Ye sounded less of an asshat, but considering how bad his mood is, just let him be an asshat lol.