"Hmm?"
Qi Xia was taken aback. He hadn't expected Lin Qin's starting point to be this.
"Are you overthinking this?"
Qi Xia shook his head and said, "Every day I hold Xiao An, waiting until she falls asleep, and then I go sit by the desk myself."
"Oh..."
Lin Qin nodded as if suddenly relieved.
"Then wouldn't it be very hard on you?"
"I..."
Qi Xia wanted to say something, but was momentarily at a loss for words.
"Lin Qin, you might not understand my line of work. If I relax my guard for even a moment, what awaits me will very likely be a bottomless abyss."
"Is that so?"
Lin Qin replied, seemingly half-understanding, and then murmured as if talking to herself, "Actually, I am really curious about you. You look like a very smart person, but in the end, you make a living by conning people..." Hearing these words, Qi Xia silently lowered his head.
"I don't want to either," he said.
"But this is the only thing I can do."
The long night of the second day was even longer than the first. The pitch-black darkness of the night hung in midair, refusing to leave, like a friend unseen for a long time. Although Qi Xia and Lin Qin both slept for a while, more or less, when dawn broke, they still felt unbearable soreness all over their bodies.
Meanwhile, Doctor Zhao and Xiao Ran looked as if they hadn't slept all night. They had been staring at the door and Qi Xia the whole time. Now, their faces were somewhat haggard, with heavy dark circles under their eyes.
They were not only afraid of those bugs outside the door rushing in, but even more afraid that Qi Xia would raise a giant black sword at dawn to murder them. Fortunately, they waited until daybreak, and neither of these things happened.
"Let's go."
Qi Xia stretched and said to Lin Qin, "It's time to start today's journey." A day had passed, and Qi Xia's earnings were zero. The original quota of collecting three hundred and sixty Dao every day had also become four hundred a day.
Judging from yesterday's situation, the rewards for many games would increase according to the rise in difficulty. If he wanted to quickly achieve his goal, he had to participate in a few extremely dangerous games today. The two did not bid farewell to Xiao Ran and Doctor Zhao.
They stood up, picked up the aluminum pot, and walked out the door. The traces of the bugs could no longer be seen outside the door at all. He wondered where those monsters with astonishing numbers hid during the day?
Could they all be in the nearby buildings? The air remained murky, but Qi Xia had gradually grown accustomed to this smell that carried a stench amidst the rot. After bringing Lin Qin outside, he passed the restaurant opposite them and then walked towards the road on the right.
The buildings here were different from the place where Qi Xia encountered the Human Rat; most of them were shops. The two walked along the street all the way to the end, and still found no traces of human activity. Now standing at a T-junction, Qi Xia looked to the left and right.
If they had been here, did they go left or right? Qi Xia asked himself, he didn't really understand Lawyer Zhang and Officer Li, nor could he deduce their decisions. Right at this moment, Lin Qin discovered something near the corner of the wall on the right side.
"Qi Xia, look."
She pointed to a corner by the wall, where there were some whitish marks. Hearing this, Qi Xia leaned over and found two crooked symbols here. They looked both like the numbers 5 and 2, and the letters S and Z. "Could this have been left by them?"
Lin Qin looked at the two symbols and asked with some doubt.
"Most likely."
Qi Xia nodded.
"The Z could represent Lawyer Zhang."
"What about the S?"
Lin Qin asked again.
"If it's Officer Li, shouldn't he use L?"
"I can't understand it either..."
After speaking, he paused and asked, "Lin Qin, do you remember Officer Li's real name?"
"Real name...?"
Lin Qin lowered her head and thought for a while, then suddenly thought of something.
"Ah, he once said during the first game that his name is Li Shangwu!"
After saying that, she looked at the symbol that looked like both an S and a 5. "Could this really be left by them?" Lin Qin said.
"But how would they know we are coming?"
Qi Xia was also somewhat puzzled. If they really wanted to leave them some information, the content should have been clearer. Now that he thought about it, the only possibility was that they were seemingly afraid of getting lost, so they left this kind of symbol that only they themselves could understand.
"No matter what, there must be someone in this direction. Let's go take a look first."
The two confirmed the direction and set off once more. Walking forward along the dilapidated street, sure enough, in less than twenty minutes, Qi Xia heard clamorous arguing coming from inside a building.
"Damn it! This time doesn't count! Again!" a man roared.
"Do it again if you have the guts!"
As soon as the words fell, he was pushed out the door by a massive force, falling heavily to the ground.
"Ouch... mother..."
The man rubbed his buttocks, cursing as he spoke.
"You just wait for me..."
Qi Xia glanced at him, and his face darkened. The person pushed out the door was none other than the short, fat middle-aged man they had met before, Old Lu.
The city Qi Xia was in did not look small in scale; to actually be able to bump into the same person for two consecutive days was truly too much of a coincidence. Old Lu also noticed Qi Xia.
"Eh? You kid...?"
After saying this, he seemed to recall something again, so he shook his head, stood up, and was about to leave with a look of chagrin.
"Wait a minute..."
Qi Xia called out to stop him.
"Have you seen anyone else around here?"
Hearing this, Old Lu turned his head and gave Qi Xia a look of contempt.
"Yo? Isn't this Lord King of Hell? I haven't even finished using the life I bought from you, and you're here to collect money again?"
Qi Xia shook his head helplessly after hearing this and said, "I don't want to argue with you about what happened before. I am currently looking for my companions. If you can help, I will find a way to repay you."
"Repay?"
Old Lu's eyes rolled around, and then he walked over with a fake smile on his face.
"Alright, since you said so, then do me a favor. As long as you make me satisfied, I will tell you right away where the two people I saw just now are."
"Two people...? Alright, what favor do you need my help with?"
Qi Xia asked coldly. He stretched out his hand and pointed at the room in front of them, which was a Go club.
"Help me go in and win against that pig."
Old Lu said with a smile.
"I want to make him lose so completely he won't even have his underwear left."
"Pig?"
Qi Xia turned his head to look, and sure enough, a filthy pig-headed man was sitting inside the Go club. Black and white Go pieces were laid out in front of him, and two empty bowls were placed to the side.
Qi Xia rubbed his nose, then turned around to ask Old Lu, "Old Lu, it's no problem for me to help you, but you have to answer me first. Did you really see other people just now?" Old Lu paused, then said, "I saw them."
Qi Xia took another step forward, getting close to this fat man, and asked again, "I'll ask you one more time. Have you seen anyone else?" Old Lu was somewhat afraid.
He kept staring at Qi Xia's eyes.
"I really did see them..."
"Two people?"
"Yes."
"One man, one woman?"
"Yeah..."
"What features did they have?"
"Ah?"
Hearing this, Old Lu hurriedly recalled, "The man was dead serious, and the woman didn't like to talk much..." Old Lu kept retreating backward, looking as if he still had lingering fear toward Qi Xia. He knew that this man had once pinned Zhang Shan to the ground and beaten him, making him very difficult to deal with.
And Qi Xia, through a few consecutive pressed questions, found that the other party did not seem to be lying, so he said, "Alright, I accept." The corners of Lin Qin's mouth lifted slightly as she whispered, "Qi Xia, you also know psychology?"