Chapter 965: Panlong Town and Morio Town? |
Looking at the surprised face of Liu Xing, Dio continued: "According to Crimson Ghoul's investigation, although those who leave Morio Town all disappear mysteriously after a few years... to put it plainly, they are captured by Swollen Woman. However, if you stay in Morio Town, you won't have any problems, and you won't become the first target of the undercover agents and assassins sent by Swollen Woman; so I have already decided, now I am just like Mai Yuqiang, only one target away from leaving Morio Town, but I plan to stay here and retire, as Morio Town is also a nice place for retirement. I really like the various Chinese cuisines here, they are much tastier than the fish and chips in England."
Hearing this, Liu Xing couldn't help but ask: "Does Crimson Ghoul know why Swollen Woman is doing this? What is the situation with those who have been captured now?"
"You are giving Crimson Ghoul too much credit, Liu Xing," Dio replied seriously. "Swollen Woman is a powerful Great Old One, and although Crimson Ghoul is also strong, he is still far from a Great Old One. After all, Crimson Ghoul is just a Ghoul, a kin of the Great Old One Mordiggian, so there's a limit to what a Ghoul can achieve; although Crimson Ghoul did investigate why Swollen Woman is doing this, he ultimately found nothing. However, Crimson Ghoul did discover that several missing persons have appeared in China, and it seems that everything is normal."
Everything normal?
That's abnormal!
Liu Xing shook his head. It seems Swollen Woman is also preparing to cause trouble. But speaking of which, Liu Xing couldn't help but recall Aughra, because the things Aughra did in the past now seem a bit off to Liu Xing.
Now thinking carefully, Liu Xing always feels like Aughra is plotting against him, because at that time he was just a regular new player, not worth the attention of an entity like Aughra... It could even be said he was being followed, as he often encountered Aughra during that time.
Fortunately, Aughra has been lying low recently, otherwise Liu Xing would really have to consider whether he should gather enough points to leave the Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall.
So, what exactly are these avatars of Nyarlathotep planning to do?
After confirming Dio's situation, Liu Xing took him into the room to meet again with Li Hanxing and Sun Huiwen.
Of course, Liu Xing introduced Dio as a friend from England, who was in a state of suspended animation due to an encounter with a mythical creature, so Liu Xing's reaction upon seeing Dio was quite big.
As for whether Li Hanxing and Sun Huiwen believe it or not, that's not Liu Xing's problem to consider, because he believes it himself.
After introducing Dio's situation to Li Hanxing and others, Liu Xing let Dio start to explain the things Mai Yuqiang didn't have time to mention.
"Regarding Morio Town, the most important thing you need to pay attention to is to stay away from the dock area," Dio said seriously. "Although there haven't been any murders in the dock area, we have confirmed that many fishing boats there might be related to Swollen Woman, so we have reason to suspect that the dock area is actually a gathering place for Swollen Woman's underlings, and by underlings, I don't mean the undercover agents or assassins she sends out, but rather those kinds of workers."
Li Hanxing looked at Dio surprisingly and asked, "Workers? What kind of workers does Morio Town need? What is this operation?"
Dio sighed deeply and explained, "These so-called workers are actually supervisors. Their main base is in the dock area, but they often appear in various places in Morio Town under different identities, the most common being fish delivery workers. Since the dock area in Morio Town has long offered door-to-door delivery services, they have a reason to appear at any location at any time, which then allows them to monitor us, but they won't actually do anything to us."
"However, if someone enters the dock area trying to evade an assassin's attack, these workers will intervene to drive the person out of the dock area, or even provide guidance to the assassin; and if ordinary people stay in the dock area too long, these workers will start to drive them away for various reasons, or even deliberately cause trouble, like arranging some people to pose as thugs. In most cases, the dock area is populated only by their own people—a group of Swollen Woman's fanatic believers."
"Of course, the dock area does have special treatment for some people, like you, Liu Xing, who have neither joined the Morio Town Protection Association but have a deep understanding of mythical creatures and secret cults... to put it plainly, you are like fish that delivered themselves to the net. If you enter the dock area, these workers will somehow get you to the Morio Town Protection Association, and you would likely have to stay with the Morio Town Protection Association for a few years."
After Dio finished introducing the dock area, Li Hanxing couldn't help but ask, "What's the strength of these workers in the dock area? Can we just take them down directly? After all, they're not really good people."
Dio shrugged and said with a smile, "We've certainly thought about that, and we've even tried it, but we've already confirmed that the number of fanatic believers in the dock area has exceeded two hundred, and although their strength isn't much, their various tricks are really hard to guard against, so it's very difficult to take down a worker in the dock area, and they are also very smart. They leave the dock area during the day and never take shortcuts, and they greet ordinary people to maintain their presence."
"So trying to take action against these workers outside the dock area isn't easy, and if we fail, we could end up worse off than before. If they gather in the dock area, our Morio Town Protection Association might not be able to win against them, and even if we could, we would likely lose two-thirds of our personnel, a cost we're not willing to bear. However, we finally managed to take down a worker, but guess what? He appeared unharmed in the dock area the very next day."
"Oh? How did this worker resurrect? Did he reanimate a corpse or create a new body?" Liu Xing asked curiously.
Dio took out his mobile phone and showed a video. In the video, a person was releasing flames from both hands, incinerating a humanoid figure not far away.
What caught Liu Xing's attention was that the person setting the fire was Wang Haiyang.
Isn't he just an ordinary high school student?
Liu Xing looked at Dio with some confusion, and Dio smiled and said, "Yes, Wang Haiyang may be young, but he is also exceptionally gifted. He awakened his flame ability at a very young age, so his parents were introduced by someone and left Shudu in China to come to Morio Town. However, his parents are still unaware of the real situation in Morio Town, so this guy still has to go to school honestly."
Liu Xing nodded... Wait, Liu Xing was halfway through nodding when he suddenly realized that something seemed off.
The name Wang Haiyang sounded familiar, and he was also from Shudu, related to fire...
Panlong Town!
Liu Xing frowned, finally recalling why the name Wang Haiyang sounded familiar.
In the Panlong Town module, there is a key NPC named Wang Haiyang, and in the story, he died in a fire at a Black Internet Cafe. Panlong Town is in Shudu, and at that time, Wang Haiyang was an elementary student. If he were still alive, he would indeed be attending high school now.
So, is Morio Town's Wang Haiyang the same person as Panlong Town's Wang Haiyang?
In Liu Xing's view, these two Wang Haiyangs are very likely the same person, as there are too many similarities between them.
Most importantly, the Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall is not likely to have difficulties with naming, so it should be able to ensure that NPCs in all modules do not share the same name.
Moreover, this Wang Haiyang is an important NPC both in the Panlong Town module and in today's Morio Town, so Liu Xing believes this is definitely not a mere coincidence.
But now the question arises again: why would Wang Haiyang, who "died" in the Panlong Town module, appear in Morio Town, an island nation?
Although the Cthulhu RPG Game's plot is very sci-fi, it still follows logic, so there must be a reason why Wang Haiyang is now in Morio Town.
Liu Xing carefully considered and realized that Wang Haiyang's "death" was entirely based on the word of Hu Cang's family, and he had never seen Wang Haiyang in the Panlong Town module.
This means that Hu Cang might have lied about Wang Haiyang's "death"... Of course, it's also possible that Hu Cang didn't know Wang Haiyang wasn't dead.
But for some reason, Liu Xing felt that it was more likely that Hu Cang was lying, but this made Liu Xing even more puzzled, because Hu Cang had no reason to lie to him.
After all, he's just an NPC in the Panlong Town module, and concealing Wang Haiyang's "death" wouldn't benefit him.
It couldn't possibly be that Hu Cang had foreseen that he would come to Morio Town and that Wang Haiyang would be there too, so he wanted to surprise him at this time, could it?
"Liu Xing, what's wrong with you? Are you performing a face-changing act?"
At this moment, looking at Liu Xing, whose expression hadn't changed for a few seconds, Li Hanxing couldn't help but ask.
Liu Xing shook his head and smiled, "It's nothing, I just suddenly thought of some past events."
Seeing that Liu Xing had no intention of elaborating further, Sun Huiwen stood up to change the topic, "By the way, Mr. Dio, what do you think about Bai Liang? Could he really be the assassin Mr. Mai Yuqiang mentioned?"
Hearing this question, Dio's expression instantly became serious, "Personally, I don't think Bai Liang is an assassin sent by Swollen Woman, but rather a typical distraction. Because from the beginning, Bai Liang caught our attention, especially since his resume mentioned that he had been working in other cities in the island nation for several years, he should be very familiar with the island nation's overtime culture. Therefore, Bai Liang's performance at the department store in Morio Town is a bit strange, most importantly because he hasn't been fired or transferred after so long."
"So Mai Yuqiang, Wang Haiyang in the video just now, and I decided to investigate him carefully, but we ended up with nothing, because Bai Liang's daily life is very regular. He goes to work on time every day, buys all the food and daily necessities he needs for the week every Sunday, shops for clothes and shoes on the first day of each month, and goes to the hospital for a full-body checkup on the last day of the year."
"In short, Bai Liang is an extremely disciplined person, perhaps even suffering from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Apart from the few special days mentioned, Bai Liang's behavior at other times is like a robot, meticulously executing the preset program. Additionally, it's worth noting that Bai Liang's parents are both deceased and buried in his home country, and he doesn't have much contact with his relatives."
"Is he married?" Li Hanxing couldn't help but ask.
Dio shook his head and laughed, "How could that be possible? How many people do you think would want to live with a robot every day? Although Bai Liang looks good and has a decent income, no one has ever tried to date him, nor has anyone ever tried to set him up, because no matter how you look at it, it's a thankless task. So, after investigating all this, we thought Bai Liang might actually be an assassin sent by Swollen Woman."
"But, everything needs evidence. Our Morio Town Protection Association can't just act on Bai Liang's suspicious behavior and take him down ahead of time. And even if he really is an assassin sent by Swollen Woman, if we catch him before he actually acts, he wouldn't be able to offer us any benefits, and we can't detain him by force, because that would trigger Swollen Woman's contingency plan, turning him into a humanoid mythical creature."
"Initially, we detained a person who was confirmed to be an assassin but hadn't yet acted. As a result, on the third night, he turned into a half-human, half-insect monster, and we ultimately lost two people just to deal with him. So, the three of us could only take turns tracking Bai Liang, waiting for him to act so we could strike. But after waiting a year, Bai Liang didn't show any flaws, so Wang Haiyang and I decided to give up, with only Mai Yuqiang still persisting."
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Chapter 966: Bao