Mutated Pheromones

From the four friends’ point of view, the whole thing was simple. 

After that one incident with Phoenix Rune’s party being blocked, they speculated that Vault of Heavens Essence and Traceless Water knew each other. After discussing with the Phoenix Rune’s party, the guild officer came up with a plan to ‘expose the spy’. Thus, the guild officer sent his own spy inside of Traceless Water’s guild to approach Vault of Heavens Essence.

Then Fruity’s friend’s underling carried through with the plan, which only required Vault of Heavens Essence to respond to the question.

The guild officer arranged and administered the scheme himself. Fruity and others didn’t know the process, they only saw the result, which was the screenshot they posted. Then they set their next plan in motion, sharing their party’s location and getting themselves and their guild members killed.

Once their guildmates were killed repeatedly, and when their fury was at their peak, she and her friends would share the screenshots to cause a loud discord and to show that Vault of Heavens Essence was a veteran player, and not truly in a relationship with their guild leader. Then they would get the guild leader out of the sticky situation. When the angry mob with a murderous intent readied their pitchfork, along with their leader, who might be enraged from being killed repeatedly, the little summoner would be removed from the guild like a rocket. So they didn’t need to worry about whether the fake boyfriend knew if the so-called plan was real or not. 

Even if the little summoner asked Traceless Water about the so-called plan when he got online, it wouldn’t matter if he came to handle the aftermath himself, because the members of Phoenix Rune would have come to the rescue. If he showed his face, then they would know for sure that Vault of Heavens Essence was a spy.

If Vault of Heavens Essence sent the chat history between him and Traceless Water regarding the discussion of this matter to prove that he was framed, they could say that he deliberately prepared the conversation in an event that he was exposed. Despite that, the facts out of his mouth were beyond dispute. No guild member would believe him. Plus, with his fake relationship with the guild leader out in the open, there would be no more public displays of affection between the two. Everything was perfect.

However, it turned out that the premise of their plan was wrong.

Vault of Heavens Essence might not know Traceless Water at all, so he passed the matter to their leader directly.

Fruity’s heart was pounding. Her brain was processing at a rapid speed as she was trying to gradually calm herself down.

Everything’s fine. The Phoenix Rune created this misunderstanding. They didn’t have a hand in this. She could always convince others they were misled.

Although she didn’t manage to give the little summoner what he deserved, at least now everyone knew about him and the leader being a fake couple. She counted this as a success. 

To clarify this, she hastened to inform her other three friends to stay strong and don’t show any flaws. 

During this time, the guild members were still chewing over the big guilds and how despicable they were. Then Jiang Xiao suddenly ordered, “Revive on the spot.”

This startled all the members, as they excitedly cheered, “You thought of a way to counter-attack?”

Jiang Xiao replied, “No, the cavalry has arrived.”

Being startled for the second time, after they clicked ‘Revive on Spot’, to find that a group of various guilds were charging through the canyon entrance. 

Upon a closer look, the top five guilds, except for Blizzard Moonflower, the number one guild in this server, were all present.

As an unavoidable path to the ten member instance dungeon, the canyon would inevitably be crowded with players, easy for news to spread.

These large guilds wanted to recruit the White Koi’s leader. When they learned he was in trouble, needless to say, they would drop everything and come.

The throwaway accounts who were camp killing noticed the change and immediately turned tail and ran, planning to log off once they reached the plain. 

But as they rushed to the canyon exit, they saw a large number of players appeared and blocked their escape, trapping them in the canyon with the White Koi guild members.

This was not normal.

Mountains surrounded the plain, with the canyon path being the only road. If these other guilds wanted to trap them, the reinforcements would need to use the entrance, so logically speaking, there shouldn’t be players at the exit. Unless those players went around them through the cliffs on both sides, but their own guild was among the reinforcements, their guild would have informed them if other guilds decided to climb the cliff.

Unless…there was already a party stationed at the exit?! 

They took a closer look at the people by the exit and spotted Eastern Blizzard, Sunken Moon, and Dying Star. They immediately sucked in a breath. The team before them was the top guild, Blizzard Moonflower!!

Qtfc Sjrafgc Dilhhjgv gfmflnfv Kfwqfra’r cbalmf, tf jcv Zbbc Xbv mtjcufv yjmx ab atflg wjlc jmmbeca jcv ifv atflg uelivwjaf vbkc ogbw atf miloo. Qlat atf ajyifr aegcfv, tf rfca j wfrrjuf.

[(Local) Eastern Blizzard: There’s no use logging off now.]

Ktf atgbkjkjs jmmbecar qjerfv atflg jmalbc. 

Ktfs kfgf gfjiis qijcclcu ab ub booilcf. Yo mbegrf, atfs kbeiv kjca ab ibu boo ktfc ojmfv jujlcra atfrf wjcs ijguf uelivr, jcv rlcmf atfs mbeivc’a qgbmffv klat atflg bglulcji qijc bo ibuulcu boo bc atf qijlcr ktlif abrrlcu lcreiar, atflg bcis bqalbc kjr ab ibu boo bc atf rqba. Dea…kts vlv Sjrafgc Dilhhjgv rabq atfw?

Eastern Blizzard seemed to know that he gotten their attention as he sent large messages to the world chat.

[(World) Eastern Blizzard: Super Alt Account (long sword), Winded Guest (stave monk), KKK (assassin)…]

It was a very long list that went over the character limit and had to be broken down into three messages. 

[(Local) Eastern Blizzard: This is everyone, right?]

The disposable accounts continued to stare at him, not understanding his intention.

Even if he counted everyone, their character IDs were already recorded in the White Koi’s members’ chat history. What use was there?

As they were about to jeer and to curse, three new horn messages appeared. 

[(Horn) Sunken Moon: Everyone, please look at the information listed in the world chat. I would much appreciate it if anyone could let me know which these throwaway accounts belong to. Don’t worry, this’ll be a secret between us (smile).]

[(Horn) Dying Star: Ditto.]

[(Horn) Inky I Love You: This is Inked Sun, ditto as well. I might consider giving my signature on my naked photo as thanks (flushed).]

An explosion was suddenly set off in this quiet game world. 

Eastern Blizzard almost choked to death by his own saliva. “Inked God, are you for real?”

Sunken Moon chuckled. “You still haven’t grasped his personality yet? He will certainly remove all of his character’s equipment and print it out to sign.”

Inked Sun chirped, “That’s right. Only my future wife can see my nudes. But for the sake of knowing each other for one day, if you’re interested, with an appropriate price, I can consider it.”

Eastern Blizzard’s mouth twitched. “…I’ll have to pass on that. Thank you for your consideration.” 

Inked Sun playfully tsked and made an off command on not knowing how to seize the opportunity. When he saw someone else covering his horn message, he replaced it with a new one.

Currently, the party of offenders was not in a pleasant mood.

Phoenix Rune’s guild officer was also not in a pleasant mood.

In order to avoid being recognized, he used disposable accounts the guild barely used, and he even bought some at the last moment. Even if White Koi wanted to investigate afterwards, they wouldn’t know where to start. Also, with the screenshot, they would probably assume it was Traceless Water’s doing, and wouldn’t doubt him. 

But this was different.

With the three gods’ large influence and the questionable integrity of his guildmates, there was no secret that could be kept forever when others were involved. If one of the players on this had a weak conscience, they would definitely leak the secret. 

Sure enough, after five minutes, Sunken Moon gave an update with the horn, telling them they knew who was the culprit, posted a YY room number and invited several guild leaders to join for a chat.

Players that loved to get in on the action also searched the YY room, to find the room was created in White Koi’s chat. 

They were super curious and wanted to join the secondary room below, but were stopped by the password prompt. They began to inquire one by one to get to the bottom of this matter. 

At the moment, all the requested guild leaders and guild officers were present. 

Sunken Moon summarized the throwaway accounts and their camp killing, then let Tempest take over the rest. 

All the White Koi members that were involved in this were in the room. Jiang Xiao didn’t want to hear them shouting, so he muted their mics and said, “Please enlighten us. These throwaway accounts are Phoenix Rune’s. Would the guild leader care to explain himself?” 

The leader of Phoenix Rune knew that something bad was going to happen when he saw the large list of names. He gave an awkward dry cough. “I just learned of this and am asking the other members right now. My apologies for everything, and I’ll give you an explanation on this.”

Jiang Xiao made an affirmative sound and posted a screenshot on the false charge against Yue Ran, asking, “What does Traceless Water have to say about this image?”

Traceless Water really had no idea.

When he learned that the White Koi was being slaughtered, he was thrilled that some idiot’s failed plan provided him with a chance to get close to White Koi’s leader, so he came to the canyon with his members. But now seeing the screenshot, he abruptly blurted out, “The fuck! Are they trying to place the blame on me? Please have some IQ! I’m not acquainted with Vault of Heavens Essence!” 

When Sugar in Sweetheart heard this, her heart immediately sunk. 

Her boyfriend was being scolded bloody by the guild leader right now, and he would most likely be pushed out as the scapegoat. But they only did this because of Traceless Water!

She didn’t have the right to speak, so she could only vent out her anger on Traceless Water in the chat.

Jiang Xiao glanced at her message and unmuted her. He calmly requested, “If you have something to say, say it now.” 

After she went over everything, she bellowed, “You still dare to say you are not acquainted with Vault of Heavens Essence! If that’s true, why the fuck did you block us that time?”

Traceless Water choked.

The ‘that time’ she mentioned was when he pretended to be Moon God’s fan to kill Vault of Heavens Essence. But he couldn’t reveal such a dishonourable act.

Sugar in Sweetheart saw him speechless and jabbed, “See, you have nothing to say for yourself!” 

As Traceless Water was pondering over a countermeasure, he suddenly heard a message ping and saw it was sent from Eastern Blizzard. The content was very simple: [The three great gods just informed me. If you don’t tell the truth, they’ll post horn messages in the game. If you tell the truth, they’ll accept it as a pardon.]

He wiped his cold sweat off his forehead and ground his teeth after two seconds of hesitation. “Alright, this isn’t as shameful as our current situation.”

He told the whole truth and sneered once he was finished. “Alright, that’s everything. It’s your turn now. Why were you there with Phoenix Rune’s disposable accounts?”

Sugar in Sweetheart was thoroughly shocked. She didn’t expect that to be the case. 

The leader of Phoenix Rune was so angry that he felt an oncoming migraine. Now he knew they were here because of such a petty and stupid thing, he scolded his officer for another new round again.

Jiang Xiao pulled out the ‘It Looked Extremely Like Love’ forum, and posted it along with the screenshot that was shared by F0x. He interrogated, “Some of our guild members were there on that day. What were they doing?”

Traceless Water recalled, “Just standing in front of Vault of Heavens Essence saying how if we want to kill him, we would have to go through them first. I think that was it.”

Jiang Xiao turned to Sugar in Sweetheart. “Are you done thinking? What was your party doing that day?” 

When she returned to reality, she saw the screenshot posted in the chat room and thought that they would never be in this mess in the first place if it wasn’t for Fruity. Now she and her boyfriend were most likely going to be removed from the guild, which meant he would very likely break up with her…she burst into sobs as she confessed, with tears flowing down her cheeks, selling her friend out.

Jiang Xiao brought up, “Today as well?”

Sugar in Sweetheart cried, “Yes, it was all for her!”

“Then, this matter is clear,” Jiang Xiao announced. “Regarding the disposable accounts, the Phoenix Rune guild already gave me an explanation. I’ll settle my guild’s dispute. This meeting is over.” 

With that, he kicked everyone out of the room, leaving only his own guild members.

With his authority, he called out to Fruity and others, “What else do you have to say for yourselves?”

The four ladies’ faces turned ghostly pale.

They thought of numerous grievous excuses, yet none of them had a chance to use those excuses, as Jiang Xiao didn’t bother to ask them first. Instead, he summoned and confronted all the guild leaders and officers. Now it was too late to say anything. 

Bashful Rain was crying for real this time. “It was all Fruity’s fault, she encouraged us!”

F0x followed, “That’s right. It was all her idea!”

Pear Blossom Rain echoed with a bitter smile, “Indeed.”

Fruity clenched her teeth. “I have a recording here. All three of you volunteered.”  

Jiang Xiao didn’t want to listen to their cat fight. He removed them from the guild one by one and stated, “Today, the highest death count for a single person is seven, and I’ll double it for you. You have two minutes to run. From today on, I’ll kill any of you each time on sight, until the kill count reaches fourteen. If any guild members have any objection, you’re welcome to leave the guild with them.”

The guild chat and YY chat were silent. Obviously, there was no objection.

The four former members’ faces turned even paler.

They all knew their leader’s personality. He would absolutely keep his word. If they wanted to escape from this fate, they could only either stop playing the game or spend money to buy a name change coupon, either method required for them to pay in blood. 

Jiang Xiao kicked them out of the voice room and switched to the game window, waiting for the timer to reach zero.

Yue Ran quietly watched the whole show and glanced at his older cousin. “How are you feeling?”

Qin Xiujie got up and came over. “Excuse me.”

Yue Ran didn’t know what his cousin wanted but he moved aside. 

Not only did Qin Xiujie buy him a name change and appearance coupons, but he also filled Yue Ran’s account with a large sum of in-game currency that could only be obtained from real cash exchange. “There, you can change your look now.”

Yue Ran blinked and finally realized what his cousin meant.

His cousin would no longer pursue Pear Blossom Rain, his days pretending to play a couple were over!

He immediately typed in the guild chat in excitement. This was the last time he needed to stay in character. 

[(Guild) Vault of Heavens Essence<: I’m sorry, I’m sorry (tear). I didn’t know things would end up like this. For everything that has happened today, I no longer have the honour to stay in the guild. I’ll be returning to my old account. Thanks, everyone for taking care of me during this period. Farewell (cry) (wave) (bow).]

As soon as he sent that message, he left the guild and went offline on the spot. Disappeared without a trace.

Jiang Xiao: “…”