Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo applauded.

Yan Jiayu looked up, spotted him, and her face lit up with surprise. She stepped off the player she'd been pinning to the ground and said with a beaming smile, "What a coincidence!"

"Should I wait until you're done dealing with this?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.

Yan Jiayu nodded with a smile, then asked, "Do you need help dealing with anyone on your end? I just came out of a dungeon and got my hands on an incredibly powerful item!"

Without giving him any chance to refuse, Yan Jiayu stomped down hard, producing a series of "crack, crack" breaking sounds under her foot, and called out over her shoulder, "Da Mao! Get out here and work!"

Xu Huo was slightly surprised, then watched as a stone lion—yes, an actual stone lion—slowly shuffled out. With every step, its paws scraped across the ground with the distinctive grating sound of stone, its movements so fluid and lifelike that it seemed like a real animal, yet its appearance was hardly different from the stone statues placed at the gates of grand buildings.

A stone lion that had come to life.

It walked up to Yan Jiayu with a look of mild disdain, and she pressed her hand on its head to give it a couple of rough pats—even though the stone-carved mane had absolutely no softness to it, Yan Jiayu didn't seem to mind the roughness on her palm. Then she swept her hand forward and commanded, "Da Mao, go catch them!"

Despite its utterly unimposing name, the moment Da Mao moved, it displayed speed and power that rivaled any Mutated Animal. The naked eye could barely keep up with its velocity; before anyone could even register the series of face-sized paw prints left indented in the hardened road surface, it had already sent the two players who'd been tailing Xu Huo flying out from their hiding spot!

The stone lion pounced a couple of times, then gave up the chase, stared at the fleeing figures for two seconds, and slowly swished its tail as it trotted back.

Yan Jiayu let out a sigh. "It's not very obedient. And it's lazy."

Xu Huo chuckled. "Maybe it doesn't like the name Da Mao."

Yan Jiayu wore an expression of absolute disbelief. "I wrote out several names and let it pick one itself."

Having witnessed the subtle relationship between "willing" and "forced," Xu Huo wasn't entirely sure how much of that "let it pick itself" held any water.

"Are those two important?" Yan Jiayu asked.

"They probably just thought I was a dangerous person. Letting them go is fine." Xu Huo gestured with his chin toward the player on the ground who was spitting up blood while weakly trying to pry her foot off him. "What are you going to do with this one?"

Yan Jiayu looked down.

"Granny... I know I was wrong... From now on I'll definitely turn over a new leaf and be a good person..." Before he could finish his sentence, the Demon-Subduing Pestle came down and snapped his neck.

"This guy was really bad. I ran into him right after coming out of the dungeon, and he was especially slippery—I tailed him for a whole day before I finally cornered him." Yan Jiayu explained briefly, then called the stone lion over again. She patted its back and looked at Xu Huo with sparkling eyes. "Want to ride it?"

The stone lion turned its head and stared at him.

"No need. You should have heard of Like Repels Like." Xu Huo shook his head. "It probably doesn't like men."

Yan Jiayu bent down to look at the stone lion's hind legs. "How do you know it's male?"

"A dragon has nine sons, and this is a Suanni, the one that commonly appears on incense burners." Xu Huo said.

Yan Jiayu took a tail swipe to the face for that, rubbing her cheek and saying, "No wonder it's so lazy. My senior brothers are lazy like that too."

"What kind of item is this?" Xu Huo studied the stone lion. Although its form was that of an animal, it was fundamentally an inanimate object, just one that possessed a certain degree of intelligence. It reminded him somewhat of Mr. Dong.

"You'll never guess—it's an A-class item." Yan Jiayu stroked the stone curls on Da Mao's head. "Not a Special Item though. Sure, quite a few items with intelligence are Special Items, but Special Items can't be upgraded. Ordinary items, just like dungeons, have a chance to upgrade."

Xu Huo gave a slight nod. That was indeed the common belief, though the usual method players used to upgrade ordinary items was combining multiple ones into a single higher-tier item. It was rare to see a single item upgrade on its own.

But in the Hundred-Person Art Gallery he'd visited before, the Curator was clearly an intelligent evolved being too, and it had found a way to upgrade the dungeon itself. So it wasn't hard to understand that an intelligent item could upgrade on its own.

"Items with a human touch are just different." The joy radiating from Yan Jiayu's face stood in stark contrast to the stone lion's disdainful expression. She added, "In the future, Da Mao will definitely become a Super Item."

"Then let me congratulate you in advance." Xu Huo smiled, then added with a hint of meaning in his tone, "The name Da Mao is definitely going to set a new record on the Super Item leaderboard."

The stone lion headbutted Yan Jiayu in the rear.

She stored it back into her item slot, and Xu Huo noticed her right arm wasn't moving quite right. "You're injured?"

"I hurt it fighting Da Mao. The bone probably cracked, not broken, just a bit sore." Yan Jiayu said nonchalantly, patting her leg. "Anyway, my leg's not fully healed yet, so I might as well treat both at once and not waste potions."

When Xu Huo had left Zone 014, she'd broken her leg kicking someone in a Random Dungeon, and now she was already bouncing around like this. Truly gifted.

"Let's find a place to eat and have a proper chat." He said.

The two returned to the bustling downtown area. It wasn't mealtime yet, so finding a place to eat wasn't difficult. They sat down, and Yan Jiayu proactively ordered liquor.

"Your tolerance gotten that good?" Xu Huo remarked casually.

Yan Jiayu gave a mysterious smile. "I evolved a new characteristic. I can drink a thousand cups without getting drunk."

Xu Huo was intrigued. "Tell me about it."

"It evolved right after I finished fighting Da Mao," Yan Jiayu recalled seriously, "Nothing special about it. It's just that at the time, Da Mao was sneaking drinks at a distillery, so maybe it's related to that."

Xu Huo, however, gave her a scrutinizing look. "Have you considered that you might have undergone Secondary Evolution?"

"Super Evolution?" Yan Jiayu paused. "I didn't feel anything. Super Evolution either means your body evolves again, or you can interfere with the outside world. Not getting drunk from alcohol—that evolution isn't useful for anything."

Xu Huo chuckled. "Don't you think your injuries are healing too fast? The most effective potions provided in the game target flesh wounds. Broken bones take much longer. Maybe you've been unconsciously adjusting your own body. Try to control your body from the inside—you might be surprised by what you find."

"That makes sense. I'll give it a try later." Yan Jiayu urged him to eat.

As they chatted, she learned he had a place in District 011, and she said, "I've never been to District 011. When are you leaving? I want to go check it out too."

"There's still a fight to be had here in Zone 009, but sticking around has lost its appeal."

"In a couple of days. I still have some things to take care of." Xu Huo said.

"Perfect. I heard there's a really skilled painter in Zone 009, and her paintings work better than a psychologist's sessions. I want to buy a couple to take back as gifts." Yan Jiayu shifted to another topic. "The exhibition hall seems to be not far from here."

"The paintings... they're probably gone." Xu Huo said slowly. The paintings were gone, and so was the painter.

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