Chapter 44

Chapter 44

Luo Qingyue stood at a moderate distance, watching him.

Bai Fuling mirrored his position, looking back.

Strangely, the first thing that popped into Bai Fuling's mind was the earworm of an advertising jingle: Keep looking, keep looking, and I'll drink you up~

Although the slogan was a bit abstract, it perfectly encapsulated the current situation.

Bai Fuling was no fool. Based on his gaming experience, the repeated mentions of "hungry" in the pre-mutation dialogue were definitely significant—and now, this NPC was locked directly onto him.

Bai Fuling straightened up and tried calling out the other's name: "Luo Qingyue?" he said.

"..." Luo Qingyue did not respond.

His current state didn't seem like that of a conscious human. His eyes shimmered with a faint, glimmering light, his eyelids unblinking, like inorganic glass beads.

A string of ellipses popped up in the dialogue box.

But Bai Fuling also got the answer he wanted—he saw that the NPC's name was now red! This meant a high probability of triggering combat mode.

In other words, the target for resolving his "hunger" was locked onto him? Talk about being so hungry you're not picky.

Great, the player Fresh Cabbage was about to become truly fresh cabbage. Bai Fuling mused darkly. Presumably, this was the moment the NPC most approved of his name.

He reached into his backpack, preparing for combat.

Before clicking on the axe, Bai Fuling glanced at the biscuits and the special offal burger in his inventory grid.

Wait a minute. An idea flashed through his mind, and his movements suddenly halted. In a situation like this, it wasn't necessarily mandatory to immediately start combat, right?

The truth is, when you're hungry, you should eat, not fight—since [Luo Qingyue] explicitly stated he was hungry, then feeding him was the best way to resolve the crisis.

The biscuits were taken from Luo Qingyue's drawer, and the NPC didn't seem interested in them, so taking them out probably wouldn't be appealing. So, after hesitating for only half a second, Bai Fuling decisively selected the offal burger in the grid.

Liao Zhiqiu had mentioned earlier that this was the "cat's" favorite food. Considering Luo Qingyue's current situation and the game's plot, it was most likely related to the "cat." Therefore, the offal burger was the ideal choice.

He knew it—every item he obtained earlier had its use! Something gifted by a named NPC like Liao Zhiqiu definitely had its value.

Since this thing wasn't suitable for the player to eat, it was perfect for the NPC.

Bai Fuling took out the offal burger from his backpack. Holding the flashlight in one hand, he lifted the burger with the other.

Then, he froze again.

The ideal food had been found, but now the problem was:

How to feed it correctly without accidentally triggering combat?

What if he threw the offal burger, but the NPC system recognized the item thrown by the player as a weapon and immediately initiated combat??

The player wasn't afraid of a fight, but in a situation with clues, using violence to break through instead of using the clues would likely result in missing the opportunity for deeper exploration.

In that brief moment, Bai Fuling brainstormed.

Recalling real-life feeding experiences, he controlled the on-screen character to crouch halfway down, deciding to use the super irresistible ultimate weapon that small animals could never resist—

"Pspsps, pspspsps." Bai Fuling beckoned with a hooked finger.

That's right, it was the universal onomatopoeia for calling dogs and cats! The mysterious call that stray cats and dogs on the street could never resist!

Presumably, a mutated NPC would also fall for it too.

Bai Fuling crouched on the ground, looking expectantly at Luo Qingyue standing not far away.

"..." A string of ellipses appeared above Luo Qingyue's head.

But as Bai Fuling had hoped, he finally began to move.

Luo Qingyue wore cloth shoes, so his movements were silent. The earlier 'tap tap' background sounds while going downstairs were actually the player's footsteps. Now, he approached without a sound.

Luo Qingyue's movements were small but swift. The elongated pixelated shadow behind him stretched out menacingly, merging with the darkness. He was like an agile monster, arriving beside Bai Fuling in the blink of an eye, bending down.

Bai Fuling wasn't afraid. He selected the burger in his hand, clicked [Gift], and readily offered it to the person before him.

"Here, try it. You should like it?"

"..." Luo Qingyue lowered his body, his gaze falling on the offal burger. He leaned in, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed.

He moved closer, seemingly sniffing it back and forth. After a few seconds, he slowly opened his mouth and bit into the burger—then just like that, he took the offal burger away in his mouth.

Bai Fuling was quite surprised by this: Wow, he can bite half a burger in one go!

A strange meme popped into his mind: In the library, there is one skilled in ventriloquism.jpg

Well, taking a whole burger in one bite certainly counts as a form of ventriloquism too.

Luo Qingyue, burger in mouth, sat down and began to munch. He casually separated the two burger buns, dropping the bread on the ground, and only bit into the offal inside.

Ambient sounds of muffled chewing and swallowing could be heard. Luo Qingyue ate quickly, making a purring, rumbling sound in his throat. In a few bites, he swallowed the heart, leaving only faint red streaks—just some pixel lines—between his fingers.

Witnessing this scene firsthand would be quite sanity-draining, but what Bai Fuling saw was an abstract pixelated version, so it didn't feel as intense.

After finishing the burger Bai Fuling fed him, Luo Qingyue looked up, and several small pink hearts appeared above his head. He seemed very happy with the meal. The originally hostile red name, full of danger, relaxed and turned into a normal white name.

Did affection increase? Combat status was also canceled. Bai Fuling blinked and took advantage of this gap to open the character index to check.

Luo Qingyue's illustration looked no different from before, but unlike others, an extra shadow was drawn behind him.

Bai Fuling stared at that distorted shadow for a few seconds, then continued looking down.

-

○ Pink Heart (40%): [Luo Qingyue] thinks you are a lively student. Sometimes a bit troublesome, but he doesn't dislike interacting with you.

○ Pink Heart (51%): Purr purr, he likes you!! Delicious!!!

○ Purple Triangle (19%): *** (Hidden)

○ Gray Gift Box (30%): Requires completion of the task [Cat's Secret]

-

Bai Fuling looked at the second item.

Initially, when he saw Luo Qingyue's two pink hearts, he felt something was off. Now it seemed there was indeed a hint of another personality.

But just by feeding one offal burger, the second personality's affection had already soared to over half. And this description... well, it really didn't seem like human thinking.

Looking at it this way, that thin book on the shelf with the red crayon-drawn smiley face probably wasn't placed there by Luo Qingyue's second personality. This second personality didn't have that many thoughts.

Moreover, Luo Qingyue didn't show much aggressiveness—at least not yet.

Bai Fuling could hardly picture the other person precisely slitting a passerby's throat under a crescent moon, then extracting their heart. The method of the Crescent Scythe Murder Case seemed more like the work of a rational individual.

It appeared this was a story involving more people. So finishing the task wasn't going to be that easy after all!

Just as Bai Fuling was thinking this, he saw Luo Qingyue on the screen approaching him again.

He pounced. The player had no time to dodge before the character was knocked down.

"!" Bai Fuling was greatly startled.

Wait, didn't I already feed him? Why was he still attacking the player—and his name had clearly turned to a normal white one!

Bai Fuling swiped his fingers wildly across the screen, trying to escape the current situation. However, the screen only displayed the familiar prompt:

"He's too strong; you can't break free."

With normal methods ineffective, Bai Fuling thought fast and clicked on [Unstuck] in the settings, planning to reuse the old trick.

But this time, the character on the screen did not break free from the NPC's grasp as before. Instead, a new line of text popped up.

"Unstuck is not allowed in the current state."

Bai Fuling: ...

How could there be restrictions?!

Well, actually, players know it's normal for the game to have restrictions on [Unstuck] to prevent cheating in certain scenarios.

But knowing is one thing; actually finding it unusable is another.

Bai Fuling failed to escape using the game system. He realized that while pinned, with his wrists held, the character couldn't even open the backpack.

So he simply stopped sliding the screen to make the character struggle. Like a dead fish, he lay flat, intending to see what the NPC was going to do. Struggling was useless anyway, so better not swipe the screen randomly to avoid triggering continuous, unstoppable actions later.

This NPC couldn't possibly take a bite out of the player, right!

If the NPC really intended to attack the player again... well, looking on the bright side, your first permadeath would be kind of memorable, in a way.

Trying to look on the bright side, Bai Fuling thought about starting a screen recording to keep as a memento. However, the phone's screen recording button was obscured by a tangle of dark, scribbly lines and couldn't be used—whether due to game settings or a virus was unclear.

His attention returned to the game.

On the screen, Luo Qingyue, with hearts representing affection floating above his head, pinned Bai Fuling to the ground and leaned in—burying his head in the player's neck.

Contrary to the imagined loss of HP, Luo Qingyue did not bite the player's neck. He just nuzzled enthusiastically, burying his head there, then withdrew his hands, curled up, and leaned against the player.

Luo Qingyue's build was larger than the player's, making the way he was leaning look a little weird. However, his soft, fluffy hairstyle nicely balanced it out, making him look like a big, fluffy dog. He just lay there leaning against the player.

Bai Fuling: ?

Bai Fuling controlled his character to sit up. Luo Qingyue remained curled on the ground.

Noticing Bai Fuling's movement, Luo Qingyue raised himself slightly and then rested his head on the player's lap, looking very much like a pet.

... He'd thought the second personality had mutated into some organ-eating, bloodthirsty thing, but who would have thought that even after mutation, its core was still a ball of Cotton Spirit!

—Or perhaps this second personality had a wild side, but now that he was full and content, only the gentle side was showing.

Bai Fuling thought for a few seconds and decided not to worry about it for now. It was a good thing the NPC showed no aggressive intent towards the player.

Well, since things had gotten to this point, it was best to repair the electrical box first and then go to the underground storage room to search for more clues.

The flashlight had been knocked to the ground in the pounce and seemed broken. Now its light was very dim, almost useless.

Bai Fuling reached out to pick up the flashlight that had rolled nearby. He patted it but found that the logic of "if an appliance is broken, just pat it and it'll work" didn't apply here. So he simply gave up on repairing it and turned it off completely.

Without the flashlight, the player could only see a short distance. But this didn't hinder his exploration.

Just before he could control his character to stand up, he heard a faint, melodic sound in the background... no, it was the sound of a whistle or flute—why would there be such a sound here?

Bai Fuling turned up the volume, trying to identify what was faintly coming through the background noise.

Luo Qingyue reacted faster than he did. When the whistle sounded, he rolled over and got up, his eyes gazing into the darker distance.

The pouring rain and thunderclaps were clearly audible, almost drowning out other sounds. But the faint whistle still stubbornly pierced through, like a wisp of eerie wind.

Luo Qingyue got up from the ground, still with that non-human expression, biting his finger, his eyes looking into the distance.

He took a few steps, then stopped, looking at Bai Fuling from the edge of the player's field of vision. His bright eyes peered through his slightly long bangs, and then he headed into the darkness.

This scenario felt somewhat familiar. Bai Fuling stood still, thinking for two seconds, then suddenly understood. Oh! It's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," right? Alice chasing the White Rabbit to explore a new map.

Understood. This no-budget, no-name, no-frills game couldn't afford the "Ha○y Potter" license, so it circled back and chose the old, copyright-free "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Bai Fuling nodded solemnly. Since the game developers were trying so hard, he would cooperate and go explore.

Now he wasn't Fresh Cabbage, but Niu Gulu Cabbage-Alice-Fresh!

Author's Note:

Bai Fuling: Thought the NPC was going to eat me, but it was just soft nuzzling? Turns out even mutated cotton is still cotton!