Chapter 252: Cold-Blooded Animal

On the Game Forum homepage, a large number of posts tagged with the keyword “Unnamed Guild” appeared.

Since Qi Si’s confidentiality measures were reasonably effective—though mainly because the guild had too few members—all the information players had was limited to the in-game broadcast when the guild was established, and the manually entered information that appeared at the very bottom of the leaderboard.

Some expressed anticipation and curiosity. The name “Unnamed Guild” sounded amusing, fitting the hedonistic trend spreading through the Ruins of the Sunset during this period. These players were happy to join the new guild for fun, perhaps even becoming founding elders.

Another group expressed worry and lamentation. They considered themselves insightful people, specializing in conspiracy theories, constantly talking about insider information. They proposed possibilities including, but not limited to, “established guilds harvesting new guilds” and “established guilds creating shell guilds for experimentation.”

A small fraction of people demonstrated impressive memory, noticing the name Qi Si had entered in the Vice Guild Master column.

#Personal Prediction: The most complicated aspect of the Unnamed Guild is the Vice Guild Master named Si Qi#

【Floor 1 (OP): Everyone should feel the same way. The name “Si Qi” is too unique and rare. The possibility of someone having the same name is very low. If it feels familiar, you must have genuinely encountered him before.

When the OP first saw this name, they immediately suspected something was up, so they performed an advanced search on the forum. The results showed that he was the new player who was supposedly parasitized by the Puppeteer in the Hopeless Sea instance but eventually managed to break free of the control.

Why do I say he’s not simple? The matter of the Hopeless Sea isn’t truly over; there are only two possible outcomes.

The first is that Si Qi never broke free of the Puppeteer’s control, and all the information transmitted was a smokescreen. Since a puppet is essentially the Puppeteer’s representative, his sudden high-profile appearance suggests that Sera definitely has major plans and ambitions.

The second is that Si Qi broke free of the Puppeteer’s control and achieved MVP clearance of the Hopeless Sea instance.

This first indicates that he possesses skills originating from the same source as the Puppeteer, meaning he might reach that level if he grows stronger. Secondly, any instance that attracts the Puppeteer must be extraordinary, and his gains might be far greater than anyone imagines.

Chang Xu’s live broadcast recordings indirectly show that Si Qi’s intelligence is above average, and he is meticulous with details. So why would he risk attracting attention by entering his real name in the Vice Guild Master column?

Either his strength has reached a level where he is unafraid of targeted attacks from others, or he intentionally wants to attract the attention of certain forces, harboring other schemes.】

【Floor 2: Learned something new. So, is there a possibility that some troublemaker used Si Qi’s name to establish the guild? As everyone knows, names can be entered arbitrarily as long as a connection can be fabricated.】

【Floor 3: OP’s little essay is completely off-topic. What do you mean “most complicated”? If someone of Si Qi’s caliber can only be relegated to the position of Vice Guild Master, then the Guild Master, Lin Crow, is clearly the more complicated one.】

【Floor 4: I actually think the OP’s analysis makes some sense. Si Qi is too mysterious; he never streams, and no recordings of him have surfaced. His sudden appearance now is likely a calculated move pushed by some faction. The question is, which faction does he belong to.】

【Floor 5: I suspect the Unnamed Guild has some connection to the Balance Guild. The Guild Master’s name is Lin Crow, and “Wūyā” is clearly a codename. I’ve heard that members of the Balance Guild traditionally use animal names as codenames.】

【…】

Jiangcheng University, Library.

Lin Chen sat in the corner of the Study Room, diligently spamming posts on the Eerie Game Forum with his tablet computer.

Qi Si had previously told him that replying 100 times would allow him to level up to Tier 2 and see more core information. He kept this in mind and planned to complete the upgrade mission within a day.

The forum had no privacy settings. All reply content could be seen by clicking on the homepage, and posts couldn’t be deleted, only edited one by one.

Copying and pasting meaningless replies like unity slogans or attacks on the Sera Guild to spam 100 posts would be a total black mark on his record.

Lin Chen ultimately couldn’t bring himself to do it, so he simply pulled up the useful posts he had previously favorited, reviewed the content, took notes, and then posted the summarized key points in the comment section.

That shouldn’t… affect the layout, right?

Two hours later, Lin Chen finally leveled up to Tier 2.

He exited the favorites interface and returned to the forum homepage, where he was bombarded by a pile of discussion posts about the Unnamed Guild.

Driven by a strange impulse, he clicked on the post whose title contained the words “Si Qi”… Meanwhile, in the Divine Temple, Qi Si combined the information provided by Si Qi and the Puppeteer, added some vague statements, and transmitted a confusing divine oracle to the high-ranking member of the Balance Church named “White Crow.”

—Interpreting the divine oracle is the job of the charlatans, and imagining the Divine Revelation is the job of the believers. The true intent of the deity is irrelevant; it is enough just to sit peacefully in the shrine and serve as a banner.

Qi Si believed that the Balance Church, having lain dormant for many years and urgently needing an opportunity to emerge, would definitely be happy to get involved in the upcoming mess and stir the waters even muddier.

He spent a little more time studying the automatic point deduction setting he had previously implemented using the Sea-God Scepter.

The newly established rule was running quite successfully. In just one day, 42,000 points had accumulated in the Point Pool, and some corresponding Crimson Points had been distributed, with most of the daily necessities on the shelves being redeemed.

Qi Si restocked a batch of daily necessities from the Game Mall, set a random, non-low price, and put them on the shelves.

As for whether the currency system would collapse, or whether the unfortunate souls under his control would be unable to survive, those were not matters he needed to consider.

With a massive population base, consumables were everywhere. If someone was disobedient, he could just kill them. If one batch died, he would simply replace them with a new one.

99% of the foundation supported the top 1%. The pyramid structure was stable in every sense. Under the rules established by the vested interests, unless one possessed the absolute strength to resist tyranny, they could only accept exploitation and oppression.

“Distributing Crimson Points based on the point ratio is still too troublesome to calculate, and the total amount usually doesn’t round off… Maybe in the future, I can consider keeping the total number of Crimson Points distributed constant each time, and decide how to allocate them based on the players’ contributions?”

Qi Si pondered aimlessly, slowly closed his eyes, and silently chanted, “Exit the Game Space.”

His consciousness drifted upward after withdrawal, then heavily plunged at a certain moment, like being caught by a fishing net, passing through a viscous water surface, and falling onto a dry shore.

The exhaustion from establishing the guild spread through his limbs. His soul felt as if it had been sealed inside a plastic bag full of drowsiness. Qi Si didn’t even open his eyes before rolling over and falling asleep.

He had a strange dream and saw Jin Yusheng.

Jin Yusheng was dressed in a red Tang Suit, holding a folding fan, sitting in a pure white room, playing Weiqi against himself.

After seeing Qi Si standing at the door, he smiled and waved: “Old Qi, come play a round with me. Playing alone here makes me look like an idiot.”

Qi Si knew he was dreaming and had no desire to use his brain to play chess with someone in a dream, so he turned around and left, not forgetting to close the door behind him.

Unexpectedly, the door led to another room. Jin Yusheng was sitting by the chessboard, extending the same invitation to play with nearly identical expression, movements, and tone as in the first room.

Qi Si: “…”

The new room had several doors. He chose the one furthest from him, pushed it open, and once again saw Jin Yusheng holding a Weiqi piece… After entering a few more rooms, the situation was exactly the same. The scene was genuinely alarming for an ordinary person.

Qi Si could only yield gracefully and sit down on the other side of the chessboard, picking up the black pieces and placing the first one in the upper right corner of the board.

After a chaotic struggle, he lost, losing without suspense, being almost entirely dominated.

Jin Yusheng collected all the pieces into their respective bowls and scattered into countless points of light with a smile.

Although Qi Si had only intended to go through the motions, the taste of failure was truly unpleasant.

Therefore, he entered another room and sat down in front of the chessboard.

This time, he changed the placement of a few moves, and the decline was not as obvious, but he was still surrounded and killed by the white pieces at the last moment.

Jin Yusheng scattered into points of light again. Qi Si stood up and walked into the next room… After losing forty-six consecutive games, Qi Si sat in front of the chessboard in the forty-seventh room, resting his chin in his hand and staring at Jin Yusheng.

Jin Yusheng suddenly spoke: “Old Qi, why don’t you go learn how to play Weiqi? Every time you just try to avoid the losing path without knowing exactly where you went wrong, you won’t win no matter how many times you repeat it.”

Qi Si had indeed never learned to play Weiqi; he only knew the rules of the game. He didn’t plan to learn either—it was boring and a waste of time.

He said, “Oh,” picked up the iron chessboard, and smashed it into Jin Yusheng’s face, making a crisp sound of a hard object crushing a skull.

If this were reality, Qi Si wouldn’t do this. After all, useful pawns are hard to find, especially ones that have been PUA’d for six years and are thoroughly accustomed to him.

But since he was dreaming, he had no such concerns.

Qi Si expressionlessly held the chessboard and smashed it onto Jin Yusheng’s head, again and again… until “Jin Yusheng’s” head was dented and smooth, silky blood flowed out like a spring, only then did he toss the chessboard aside.

Time was up. Qi Si fell backward and woke up from the dream.

His phone showed the time as 6:00 AM on April 13th. He had slept for a full sixteen hours without eating.

There were seven missed call records, all from Lin Chen; he had also received three text messages, sent by Lin Chen.

—He figured some controversy involving him must have erupted on the forum.

Qi Si had no intention of answering the calls or reading the texts, nor did he bother to check the forum.

The cloudy morning was as gray as dusk. Looking out the window, vast concrete buildings were obscured by dark clouds, as if covered by a thick, opaque tablecloth, their tops devoured by invisible monsters.

Qi Si played happy match for a while, got out of bed promptly at 6:30, took one of the uniformly white shirts from his wardrobe, and changed out of the wrinkled clothes he had slept in.

The air was heavy with moisture. Fine beads of water, like insect eggs, beaded on the pale tiles of the washroom floor, and the worn glass on the washstand was completely fogged up.

Qi Si brushed his teeth, washed his face, and used the toilet, crushing the water droplets on the floor into a thin film of water.

He left his apartment, took the elevator down, walked out of the residential complex, and slipped into the neighboring morning market.

When he passed the breakfast shop he frequented, the Proprietress called out to him: “Young man, it’s been a long time since you came to Auntie’s place to eat!”

Qi Si changed direction and entered the breakfast shop: “Mhm, one Egg-stuffed Pancake.”

He scanned nine yuan, and said casually: “I went back to my hometown a few days ago to deal with some matters, only got back yesterday, and just made myself a bowl of instant noodles.”

The Proprietress tossed the dough into the pan, cracked an egg on top, and said normally: “Ah, your generation are all only children. If anything happens, you have to handle everything yourself. It’s really not easy.”

Qi Si found a plastic stool and sat down, staring absently at the flow of people coming and going on the street.

He still remembered the sense of familiarity he felt yesterday in the Ruins of the Sunset—someone was spying on him, and it was an acquaintance.

As his understanding of the Eerie Game deepened, he was already certain that his entry into the game was not an accident.

Si Qi had tried countless times to pull him into the game before he was sixteen, failing without exception. The question was, who had the ability to accomplish what Si Qi could not, despite the limitations of the rules.

Guild forces are deeply entrenched. The power that beings who reach that level can mobilize is unimaginable, and those who grow to that extent must be cautious enough to have likely already made arrangements, including significant investigation and surveillance of him… So, who could it be?

“Auntie will be going back to her hometown in a couple of days too. The shop will be closed for half a month.”

The Proprietress put the sausage on the dough, flipped it with a spatula, and rolled the pancake into a cylinder: “One of Auntie’s little sisters died, and Auntie has to go see her off…”

Qi Si had never been able to understand feelings like friendship or familial affection, nor did he know what use there was in attending a funeral after someone had died.

He was like a cold-blooded animal, such as a venomous snake, accustomed to treating the people around him as part of the environment, regardless of closeness or distance—only familiar or unfamiliar, dangerous or safe… Yet at this moment, he listened silently, forcing an expression of mourning and pity.

The Proprietress sighed: “Ah, our generation, one after another, we’re getting old and dying just like that… To be honest, after fifty or sixty years, we’ve lived enough. The only thing we can’t let go of are our children and grandchildren…”

The Egg-stuffed Pancake was ready.

Qi Si carried the plastic bag, mingling with the continuous stream of people, and headed toward the exit of the morning market.

He had only walked a few steps when he suddenly heard a young man’s voice call out from behind: “Mom, can you lend me some more money? I’m going to see Xiaojuan, and I can’t wear these clothes…”

Two seconds later, the Proprietress’s voice rang out: “I transferred the money to your WeChat. Go dress up nicely and take Xiaojuan out for a good meal and fun… But don’t take it to gamble again.”

“Got it, Mom, I’m leaving!”

Qi Si looked back and only saw a thin figure, about his age and similar in build. This must be the Proprietress’s son.

He didn’t linger. As usual, he walked to the trash can in the corner of the morning market, fed the sausage to a dog, and returned home with the remaining pancake.

He took small bites of the pancake, finally having the leisure to examine the text messages sent by Lin Chen.

The first message said that many people on the forum had noticed his existence, and the discussion was escalating, with some even suspecting the Unnamed Guild was connected to the Balance Guild.

The second message expressed concern and worry, asking why he never answered his phone and if he had run into any trouble.

The third message, carefully worded, extended an invitation, saying that since he had helped him so much, Lin Chen hoped to treat him to a meal if it was convenient.

Qi Si suddenly realized that many relationships need to be maintained.

He had mostly dealt with one-time or transactional relationships, and often couldn’t be bothered to force a smile for acquaintances with whom he cooperated multiple times.

While this might effectively reduce unnecessary energy expenditure and save time, it certainly did not align with the conventional understanding of maintaining cooperative relationships.

Not everyone is an interest-driven animal. Prolonged indifference can lead to alienation in relationships and potentially cause a series of troubles.

“So, should I be glad that Jin Yusheng hasn’t caused any trouble in these six years?”

Qi Si smiled, finding himself humorous, then accessed a mobile shopping APP, bought a box of oranges, and entered Jin Yusheng’s address in the shipping destination field.