Before Shangguan Xi had even heard him out, his hair was already standing on end. But Xu Huo quickly added, “Or perhaps she plans to team up with you to get rid of me. After all, the energy is in your hands.”
Apparently, to Shangguan Xi, working with that woman was even harder to accept than being questioned by Xu Huo. His face darkened. “I know most players don’t have a choice. Sometimes I’m no saint myself, but most of the time, I’m still a decent person. I can’t stand people who scheme behind others’ backs, and I absolutely won’t work with someone like that.”
“Do you have enough energy?” Ding Wei continued asking from below. “The underground warehouse has already been emptied.”
“How much energy was in that warehouse?” Xu Huo asked Teacher Ai.
“Enough to fill three luggage compartments with room to spare.” Teacher Ai glanced at the sky. “It’s almost dawn. Some Mutants are active during the day, too, so you’d better reach an agreement quickly.”
Xu Huo asked Shangguan Xi for his communicator.
“You really plan to work with them?” Shangguan Xi asked, surprise mingled with confusion.
Xu Huo tossed a communicator down. His first words were, “If we’re going to cooperate, you’ll have to show some sincerity. Hand over the energy first. That goes for the other one over there, too.”
The player who had been keeping his distance from Ding Wei finally moved a little closer and spoke into the communicator. “Friend, that’s a bit much, isn’t it? If I give you the energy, I’ll be left with nothing.”
Ding Wei took the same stance, but her voice was sweet and playful, making it difficult to reject her outright. “Mr. Xu, at least give me something to fall back on. Each side should hold something to bargain with. That’s the foundation of cooperation. Otherwise, I’ll be worried that my partner could abandon me at any moment.”
Unfortunately, Xu Huo wasn’t buying it. “There must be more than one warehouse in W18. We can fight first and settle this by strength, or wait for more players to show up.”
That would put both sides at a disadvantage. Ding Wei and the other player didn’t want to waste time, and Xu Huo might not want to either.
“Mr. Xu, this won’t do either of us any good. Why don’t you think it over a little more…”
Before Ding Wei could finish, Xu Huo was already standing in front of her. Face-to-face, he replied, “There’s no need. We can move on to the next step right now.”
The moment she saw him, Ding Wei reflexively retreated, leaping several times until she was fifty meters away, on the roof of a building. But just as her feet touched down, in the blink of an eye, Xu Huo, who had been far away beneath the Protective Wall, was in front of her again. This time, the two stood three meters apart.
Ding Wei didn’t retreat again, but she didn’t attack either. Xu Huo had the initiative and hadn’t made a move against her. The smile vanished from her face, and she made a slight concession. “Mr. Xu, I can give you the energy, but what’s your offer?”
“A guide and an off-road vehicle. Is that not enough sincerity?” Xu Huo raised an eyebrow, paused, then added, “If you have a Spatial Item, you can go straight to W19 Base.”
Ding Wei’s expression darkened, but she soon put on another smile. “You’re so capable, Mr. Xu. Can’t you show a weak woman a little mercy?”
“Sure.” Xu Huo readily agreed. “If you don’t feel safe handing over all the energy, I’ll take half, and you can split the other half between you. How does that sound?”
Now there wasn’t a trace of a smile left on Ding Wei’s face. Hesitation flickered in her eyes, and Xu Huo noticed. He added, “You don’t have to cooperate, but if you don’t, stop following me.”
Ding Wei stared at him in alarm and disbelief.
“You can think it over.” Xu Huo returned to the wall. Instead of using Gentleman’s Bearing, he climbed up slowly, gripping the piano wire.
After he returned to the wall, Ding Wei and the male player began discussing the matter.
“They probably know each other,” Shangguan Xi said. “They got lucky, landing in the same place.”
Xu Huo glanced at him without replying, then had him give one of the communicators he’d obtained to Teacher Ai as well. The communicators here had a touch of futuristic technology, but with limited materials, they were quite large. They looked more like semitransparent tablets, with handgrips at the four corners, and could support simple holographic projections.
After bringing up the map, he asked Teacher Ai to mark the location.
Teacher Ai circled a spot. “The wind is strong in the desert at night. Animals usually come out to forage during the day. It hasn’t started getting hot yet, so this is exactly when Mutants tend to appear. But there aren’t many large Mutants in the desert. Most have evolved in ways that make them poisonous.”
It was only a little over two thousand meters away.
“I’ll take someone over first,” Xu Huo told Shangguan Xi. “I’ll let you know when we find the vehicle.”
Shangguan Xi nodded and took out two pieces of energy. “Do you want to take it all, or just some for now?”
Xu Huo took the two pieces from him without saying anything more, then left with Teacher Ai.
The destination was only a little over two thousand meters away, so a few uses of Go to Destination were enough to get them there. When they arrived at the place Teacher Ai had indicated, all they could see was a stretch of yellow sand. The wind was even stronger here. Without a protective shield, it was nearly impossible to keep their eyes open.
Xu Huo looked at Teacher Ai. He felt around and knocked on the calf of his right leg. A metal pillar rose first from a low dune more than ten meters away. Then several more pillars appeared around it, forming a steep slope with the central pillar. The sand pushed upward flowed down the slope into a deep trough encircling the side, gradually clearing the area in the middle.
This was probably a facility designed specifically to keep sandstorms from burying things. But it had been buried for too long, so by the time the vehicle emerged, it was still half covered. Even so, the exposed portion gave them a glimpse of its shape.
The body, made entirely of Black Metal, had a solid, substantial look. The vehicle was about five meters wide and ten meters long. From a distance, it looked like a beetle crouching against the ground. Apart from the large windshield at the front, the windows on the sides and rear were small and narrow, but there were more of them. A welded metal bar also ran along the outside.
The interior was spacious, but a partition made entirely of metal separated the front and rear sections, with only two viewing slits, each half a palm’s width, between them. The ten-meter-long vehicle was also divided into three sections, with each of the two rear sections connected to the front by a quick-release coupling.
“When things get desperate, you can only abandon your teammates.” Teacher Ai ran a hand over the vehicle’s rough tire. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve ridden in a vehicle like this, but I’ve never once made it back to base in one piece.”
“Maybe today will be different.” Xu Huo gestured for him to open the door.
Teacher Ai pulled out the keypad from the driver’s seat and entered a code. Then he turned around and said, “Could you give me a hand getting up there?”
“Do it yourself.” Xu Huo used Standardized Weightlessness, making him float.
Once he was airborne, Teacher Ai grabbed the door himself and climbed inside. There were no foot controls in the driver’s seat. Every instrument had to be operated by hand. He started the main switch with practiced ease, gripped the two handles in front of him, and pressed a button with his thumb. An operation panel popped up in front of the handles. It had no clear labels, only a few simple symbols, each representing a different command.