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Chapter 64
The next day, when Jing Huan woke up, WeChat was already flooded with messages from various group chats. He specifically checked the time\u2014just a few minutes past eight. Their server must have just finished maintenance.
As expected, the guild group chat had another 99+ messages, and even the dorm group had over forty messages.
He really couldn\u2019t understand why those two, who lived together and saw each other all the time, could still engage in awkward small talk in the group every single day.
Jing Huan groggily blinked his eyes several times before gradually waking up, then slowly opened the group chat.
It turned out they weren’t chatting.
Over forty messages, all of them were game screenshots.
[Brother Big or Not, coordinates: Penglai Wonderland 19,41]
[No Asking About Return Date, coordinates: Main City 129,18]
\u3010Sweet Luoluo, Unknown Exotic Coordinates 99, 83\u3011
\u2026\u2026\u2026
Jing Huan instantly sobered up.
Damn it… these are all their guild members’ coordinates.
Xiao Jing Ya: What are you guys doing?
Lu Wenhao: Murder time, the alt account is ready and waiting for them to leave the safe zone. Why are you up so early?
Xiao Jing ya: …Some shop downstairs is blasting music, it’s so loud.
Gao Zixiang: So jealous of you, we had to wake up at 6:30.
Xiao Jing ya: ??
Gao Zixiang: Afraid that Nine Heroes would cause trouble and launch the server early, so we wouldn’t get the first-mover advantage.
Lu Wenhao: We’re the ones with foresight, getting in right at server launch. Everyone else is still stuck in the queue, hahaha!
Xiao Jing: Why can’t I get in? It’s just two servers’ worth of players, it shouldn’t be this bad, right?
Lu Wenhao: You’re overthinking it. The other servers are full of people just here to watch the chaos. Since you’re awake now, why don’t you help us create accounts? My wife’s account doesn’t have anyone operating it right now.
Xiao Jing: …No, I’m going back to sleep. Bye.
After sending this message, Jing Huan immediately opened the guild chat.
As expected, it was flooded with screenshots of coordinates.
Chun Xiao: Everyone, please hold off on daily quests for today! Those in parties should team up to protect our guild’s merchants, and those without parties should stay in safe zones! Thank you for your hard work! I\u2019ll issue guild bonuses every day this week as compensation!
Chun Xiao rallied everyone with a single call, and the team was brimming with fighting spirit, ready for battle at any moment.
The thrill is what makes gaming fun, and now that excitement has come knocking on their door, the guild members were absolutely exhilarated.
Jing Huan also loved the thrill.
The thought of server mergers and territory battles was enough to get the adrenaline pumping.
If only those two silly roommates of his weren’t in the opposing faction.
Recalling their bold declarations from last night, Jing Huan felt a headache coming on.
He had considered coming clean to them yesterday, asking them not to interfere in his matters with Heart’s Desire. But the moment he thought back to everything he’d done over the past few months, that idea vanished without a trace.
The secret of him pretending to be a woman, acting cutesy, taking thigh photos, and wooing a male online friend\u2014this was something he’d take to his grave.
If a second person finds out, that person will have to be buried with him.
His phone vibrated softly, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Xiang: Find me when you wake up.
Xiao Jing: I’m here! Good morning, brother~~(\u2267\u25bd\u2266)\/~
Xiang: Morning, are you coming online today?
Little Jing: I don\u2019t know. The messages in the guild chat look pretty scary T\u25bdT… Are you going online, bro?
Xiang: Mm.
Xiang: I promised Chunxiao that I\u2019d help them grab the main city\u2019s herb field.
Each of the nine major maps in the game has its own exclusive herb field, with only one guild being able to harvest from each. Among them, the herb quality in the main city is the highest. Before server mergers, the harvesting rights for the main city’s herb field had always been held by the Idle Pavilion.
The harvesting rights rotate every two months, with only the guild that has the highest guild funds during the election week being able to secure the main city’s herb field. Guild funds cannot be directly topped up; they can only be earned by the guild’s merchants trading with NPCs across various maps using silver notes. A guild can only have ten merchant positions at any given time.
In short, to seize the main city’s herb field, you need to protect your own merchants and hunt down enemy guild merchants during the election week.
Xiang: It’s fine if you don’t want to log in to the game. I’ve already informed Chun Xiao, so you don’t have to come.
Xiao Jing: No no no, I want to stand together with big bro. Wait for me, bro~ I’ll log in as soon as I finish washing up~ [kiss]
“Is Little Jing coming or not?” Lu Hang was picking up medicine, “If she’s not coming, we’ll need to find a new teammate.”
Xiang Huaizi typed on the keyboard: “She’s coming.”
“Alright.” Lu Hang glanced up at the server merge announcement at the top of the game screen and muttered, “Heaven-Sent Romance… this server name sounds vaguely familiar.”
Huai Zhi didn’t pay much attention. Lu Hang had stayed on other servers before coming to Mirror Flower, Water Moon. Combined with his frequent participation in offline events, it wasn’t surprising he recognized many people from other regions.
Until a loudspeaker message popped up in the game\u2014
[Loudspeaker] Half-Life: Where are the people from Idler’s Pavilion? All hiding in the safe zone??
Half-Life?
This name… seems somewhat familiar.
Xiang Huaizhi furrowed his brows, clicked on the user’s profile to take a look.
Half-Life, Level 150, Fox Fairy Cave.
Fox Fairy Cave…
Just as Xiang Huaizhi was vaguely recalling something, he heard someone behind him exclaim loudly: “Holy shit\u2014”
Lu Hang slapped the table and laughed: “Isn’t that Lu Wenhao and the others?”
Fearing Xiang Huaizhi might not remember, he turned to remind him, “Those juniors we met at the resort! Didn’t you watch them play video games too? Half-Life is Lu Wenhao… the slightly chubby one!”
Xiang Huaizhi froze momentarily, instinctively glancing at the nearby WeChat interface.
“What a coincidence!” Lu Hang chuckled as he opened Half-Life’s profile and added him as a friend. “Tsk, I should go talk to him. How dare he challenge his senior like that…”
“Don’t,” Xiang Huaizhi immediately stopped him.
Watching Lu Hang’s puzzled gaze, Xiang Huaizhi pursed his lips, taking a long moment to come up with an excuse: “We’re in rival guilds now. Saying that would only put them in a difficult position.”
If they found out that Lu Hang was Lu Tiaotiao, he probably wouldn\u2019t be able to keep it a secret either. After all, his name and ID shared two characters, and his voice was similar\u2014it was just too obvious.
For now, he didn\u2019t want Jing Huan to know his identity.
“What\u2019s so difficult about it? We could always turn conflict into harmony.”
Xiang Huaizhi asked calmly, “Then who owns the medicinal herb fields in the main city?”
Lu Hang was taken aback. “Of course they belong to us!”
After saying this, he also realized that reconciling this matter wouldn’t be easy. After all, the two factions combined had about four hundred members, and each faction had to be responsible for their own members. They couldn’t just give it up.
They were both elite teams in their factions and might end up fighting later.
Lu Hang: “Then what should we do? Pretend we don’t know them? That’s not right\u2014they even took us in before.”
Xiang Huaizhi pondered for a moment: “We’ll talk after things are settled. This fight won’t last long\u2014a month at most.”
“Will that…work?” Lu Hang didn’t think too much and quickly fell into Xiang Huaizhi’s logic. “Seems possible. When the time comes, I’ll act like I just found out. It shouldn’t blow our cover… Then during the fight later, we’ll avoid them. If we don’t acknowledge them, fine, but we shouldn’t go as far as killing them either.”
Xiang Huaizhi gave a perfunctory “Mm” in response.
No wonder when mentioning the server merge yesterday, Jing Huan kept spamming crying emojis.
His roommate probably didn’t know he was playing a female character in the game, nor that he was currently pursuing a man in-game.
Jing Huan turned on his computer without even eating breakfast.
The guild’s voice chat currently had over 180 people online. It was the weekend, so most guild members were inside discussing battle strategies for later.
“Why are there only a hundred and eighty-some people here?” Qiufeng asked. “I saw the guild’s online count is two hundred.”
“Good, this is the perfect chance to weed out those spy accounts from other guilds hiding in ours. I’ll kick them out later,” Chunxiao said calmly. “The market opens at nine, just twenty minutes left. Everyone, form your teams now. Their guild has two strong teams\u2014I’ll post their IDs in the public chat. If you see them, don’t engage. Leave them for me and Xinxiangwangzhi’s team to handle.”
Jing Huan logged into the game while listening. As soon as the interface loaded, a team invitation popped up.
[Xin Xiangwangzhi has invited you to join his party. Accept, Decline.]
Jing Huan froze for a moment, then immediately clicked accept.
“Brother,” he said, his voice still hoarse from just waking up. “Seeing you as soon as I log in must mean today’s my lucky day.”
Xiang Huaizhi led him to the main city and tossed a pile of high-tier potions at him: “I watched you log off yesterday.”
Jing Huan’s mind was slow to catch up: “Huh?”
“I was waiting for you,” Xiang Huaizhi explained. “It has nothing to do with luck.”
Jing Huan had logged off yesterday in the wilderness map, and since the market hadn’t opened yet, assassins from both guilds were hunting lone members there. Worried he might get PK’d, Xiang Huaizhi came to pick him up.
Jing Huan blinked, quietly processing this information.
Was Xiang Huaizhi specifically waiting for him to come online?
As the voice call fell silent, Xiang Huaizhi realized his slip and added, “Just picking up a teammate. Even if it were Lu Tiaotiao stuck in the wilderness, I’d go get them too.”
After speaking, he didn’t give Jing Huan time to think and dragged the others into the team as well.
“Ahhh, so exciting, I can’t wait any longer,” Zui Ai Yu Yu exclaimed excitedly. “How much longer until the market opens?”
Love is Sharing with You” said, “Just a few more minutes.
“Let’s go secure a spot first,” Lu Hang suggested. “Head to the Silk Road\u2014it’s a must-pass route for merchants.”
The Silk Road map was packed with people, with members from the Xianren Pavilion and Wuji guilds crowding the area, mixed in with alt accounts from other guilds spectating the battle and players from other servers who came to watch the commotion.
Having played the game for so long, Jing Huan was witnessing such a scene for the first time, and he couldn’t help but straighten his back in excitement.
[Horn] Ban Sheng: Xianren Pavilion, you still have three minutes to surrender [smug]
Jing Huan: “…”
Why does Lu Wenhao act like such a goofball?
People who say such things before a great battle don’t survive past two chapters in novels.
He really wanted to advise his roommate to tone it down, but feared giving himself away, so he had no choice but to let it be.
At exactly nine o’clock, the fierce battle began, and the Silk Road completely turned into a battlefield.
Just as Xiang Huaizhi was about to go after the enemy faction’s merchants, he saw Bansheng leading his team, marching grandly in this direction.
Xiang Yu was already prepared for battle, but her brother suddenly turned away, moving out of Half-Life’s attack range.
She asked in confusion, “Bro, isn’t that Half-Life one of their main team members? Why didn’t you target him?”
Xiang Huaizhi replied, “I spotted their guild’s merchant. Priority is killing the merchant first.”
Jing Huan had just let out a sigh of relief when a WeChat message notification chimed.
Lu Wenhao: @Xiao Jing Ah Damn it, Huahuan, I was just about to reach Xinxiangwanzhi when he took one look at me and bolted! What a coward!!
Xiao Jing Ah: \u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026If that’s the case, maybe just let it go then.
Lu Wenhao: ?
Lu Wenhao: Don’t worry, there’s no way I’m letting him escape. Just wait, bro’s gonna teach him a lesson for you today!
“Teach him a lesson” my ass.
Get the hell away from me, thank you very much.
Unfortunately, the heavens didn’t hear Jing Huan’s prayers\u2014three hours later, the two teams still ended up clashing.
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