“What did you just say?!”
Although before this Xia Li had also imagined many kinds of reasons for Lunene becoming a Seeker and running over to clear Death Games—such as wanting to escape a boring life, wanting to earn money for a debt-ridden orphanage, wanting to escape an obese and evil old rich merchant who had set his eyes on her, and so on… but that Xushinige would actually take the initiative to go find a person like Lunene was simply far too bizarre.
“Mm, Baron Xushinige actually did not only specifically name me,” Lunene said, “He also specifically named Penny, Sasara, and Little Nuan and a few others; they are all like me, stupid and ugly and unpopular, never adopted by anyone.”
“Lunene you are very pretty, not the slightest bit ugly, really.” Xia Li hurriedly reached out and patted Lunene, comforting her.
But at the same time, the doubts in her heart grew even deeper.
When she first encountered Xushinige, although Weeping of the Shadow greatly disliked him, in Xia Li’s view Xushinige was a cheerful and kind good person, and moreover, his invitation for Xia Li to join the Death Game clear was absolutely sincere, and the reasons were also reasonable and logical.
Therefore, Xia Li felt that him bringing so many people to participate in the clear of “Secluded Forest Girls’ Academy” was indeed only for the sake of allowing young people who harbored the dream of becoming Seekers to safely take the first step…
But looking at it now, the situation seemed very wrong.
“Lunene, did you previously have the intention of clearing Death Games?”
“No. Although sometimes I would also hear of such a thing, Lunene is very timid, so I fundamentally never considered participating,” the cat-girl little loli said, “The others are the same.”
“Then why did you still…”
“Because Lord Xushinige guaranteed to everyone that actually Death Games do not necessarily kill people; he has methods to keep everyone safe. Moreover, he also gave everyone a great many sugar candies, and guaranteed that as long as one can clear the Game, there will be money to eat this kind of sugar candy every day,” Lunene took out a handful of candies from her pocket and handed one piece to Xia Li, “Here, you try it.”
“Mm…” Xia Li peeled open the candy wrapper and stuffed the object inside into her mouth—this was a genuine liquor-filled chocolate.
What was used was not the cheap cocoa butter substitute made from hydrogenated vegetable oil (in the slums, the so-called chocolate sold was for the vast majority this kind of thing), but real high-grade chocolate.
Although compared to the top-tier desserts the original body had tasted in the past at the empire’s tea parties and social gatherings, these candies were still a bit lacking in meaning, on the ground this was already absolute high-grade goods!
While swallowing the chocolate, several cold beads of sweat seeped out on Xia Li’s forehead.
In terms of the requirements for clearing Death Games, a soft and powerless muddle-headed little fool like Lunene could almost not play half a point of usefulness; in fact, among the more than forty newcomers recruited this time, more than thirty people could hardly be called qualified.
If it were Lunene wholeheartedly wanting to step onto the path of Seekers and actively running over to plead with Xushinige, that might still make sense.
But like the present situation…
“This matter has even more problems than we imagined.” Weeping of the Shadow said, “These superior liquor-filled chocolates could already buy a usable pistol or a good knife on the market! That fellow Xushinige instead used them to deceive stupid lolis from the orphanage into coming to clear Death Games! This kind of thing is fundamentally unreasonable!”
“But Baron Xushinige is not a person who would perform unreasonable actions,” Xia Li shook her head, “Since he chose to do this, then there must certainly be a reason that is reasonable to him… wait!”
“What’s wrong?” When Xia Li suddenly stopped her footsteps, Lunene who was eating candy was startled.
“Something’s wrong! One person is missing here!” At the large entrance of the warehouse, Xia Li stopped—according to the original defensive deployment, there should have been one sentry standing guard here.
But at this very moment, in front of the pitch-black large door there was not a single person.
“Eh… should there be someone here? Why don’t I remember?”
“Because I told you the situation of the sentry deployment three times, but you just could not remember!” Xia Li somewhat angrily tugged at the ears of the cat-eared loli, “In short, there should originally have been one person here, but that person is now missing; this is a big problem!”
“Could it be that she actually went to play hide-and-seek with other people?” After starting her not-very-bright brain and thinking for a while, Lunene reached this genius conclusion.
“At the very least say she went to the toilet! What the hell is hide-and-seek?!” Xia Li instead grabbed the other party’s cat tail and fiercely stroked the fur backward several times.
“Wuu-aww—” Lunene let out a miserable cry.
“Moreover, I can guarantee that this person definitely met with an accident.” Xia Li squatted down in front of the pitch-black warehouse entrance and picked up one object that had fallen on the ground.
That was one of the cheapest and lowest-grade crude firearms in the slums, a “single-shot” pistol manufactured from inferior scrap steel and tinplate, with a selling price of only 150 yuan.
It fired the most common 9mm bullets, but had neither a magazine nor aiming devices nor a safety, and did not even have a trigger guard.
When using it, one needed to open the chamber, use a metal push rod to push out the spent casing, then stuff in a new cartridge.
Because the quality of the newcomers participating in this clear was not ordinary poor, and people like Xia Li who could rely on massive bleeding (in the literal sense) to exchange for a full set of equipment were even fewer, therefore even this kind of “single-shot” counted as “high-grade equipment” among these newcomers.
At least Xia Li did not believe that the person responsible for standing sentry would be willing to casually throw this thing away and leave.
Unless… she had “played hide-and-seek” because of certain force majeure factors.
“That… should we go tell Lord Xushinige?” Lunene uneasily asked.
Although this stupid loli was ordinarily dazed and foolish, her intuition toward danger was still rather sharp.
“No.” Xia Li said.
“Why?”
“Because all these matters are… very strange.” Xia Li shook her head—after realizing how unreasonable Xushinige’s actions were, she currently already did not dare trust that sunny and cheerful baron very much, “In short, let’s first go inside and take a look.”
Just like the warehouses of all ordinary middle schools, the environment inside this building was rather crude, piled with large amounts of desks, chairs, benches, soft pads, boxes, cleaning tools, paint buckets, bundles of printing paper, and other not-very-valuable coarse and clumsy objects.
Although in theory the people participating in the clear could take these possessions away as “spoils of war,” ordinarily extremely few people would do so.
Because it had long been unused, a thin layer of dust had accumulated on the floor of the warehouse.
Therefore, Xia Li easily discovered several small shoe prints—someone had once walked inside the warehouse.
But strangely, those shoe prints extended outward from the depths of the warehouse.
Even more eerie was that not far from this string of shoe prints, Xia Li also discovered a trace left by dragging a heavy object.
“The traces extend to the innermost part of the warehouse. If I remember correctly, that fellow Xushinige said he had checked there, but there was nothing inside.” Weeping of the Shadow said, “In this kind of enclosed space of limited area, the probability of missing a suspicious target is extremely low. Therefore, either he and his assistants were all blind, or…”
“…They are deliberately lying?”
A large bead of sweat emerged from Xia Li’s forehead; she first extended her hand toward the hilt of Weeping of the Shadow, but after thinking a bit, still chose to draw that .38-caliber revolver.
As for the picked-up “single-shot,” she directly stuffed it into the carrying pouch at her waist, and did not give it to Lunene.
After all, handing this kind of thing that had neither safety nor trigger guard to a stupid loli who was always muddle-headed was simply no different from “please create an accidental discharge incident”!
In the deepest part of the warehouse, all sorts of daily tools and consumables were piled up like mountains, cutting the space into an intricate maze-like appearance.
In the deepest part of this “maze,” Xia Li discovered a human silhouette crouching in a corner, looking as if it was crying.
“Ah ah, this should be that missing person!” Lunene said, “She must have gotten lost while playing hide-and-seek, so she has been hiding here crying the whole time! This is the great deduction of Detective Lunene—”
“What the hell kind of deduction is this?!” Xia Li knocked once on Lunene’s forehead.
Unlike this stupid loli whose number of brain cells was severely insufficient, Xia Li of course could not possibly believe that there would be someone so stupid as to get lost inside a warehouse.
However, the situation of the person in front of her eyes was indeed a bit eerie.
“Please… please… please help me…”
After discovering Xia Li and Lunene, that crying silhouette extended one hand toward Xia Li. “Please help me!”
“What’s wrong with you? Are you injured?” Xia Li vigilantly looked around the surroundings.
However, the other party did not answer this question, and only continued extending a hand toward her: “It hurts… it hurts… help me!”
“Alright, I’m coming right now.” After confirming that there was no danger in the surroundings, Xia Li approached the other party.
But just as she attempted to help that person up, the other party suddenly took out from behind a continuously writhing mass of something and slapped it toward Xia Li’s face!