Chapter 126 The Other Side of the Wall

Feng Bujue paused for a few seconds, then opened his mouth and said, "The distance between the two pillars on either side of that object is exactly nine meters." Almost at the instant he finished the word "meters," he added, "Run!"

The moment Qiufeng took a step, the sound of the building collapsing came from behind him. This showed that Qiufeng's "perception" had already activated spC-233.

The loud noise behind him did not interfere with Qiufeng's actions. He charged headlong until he stopped beside his three teammates, then turned to observe the changes over there.

spC-233 only needed 0.23 seconds to destroy matter, and the process was silent. So, by the time the sound of the collapse rang out, the destruction was already complete. The sound Qiufeng heard was a follow-up reaction, the sound of the building materials above the ceiling falling.

From the perspective of Feng Bujue, Ji Chang, and Honghu, almost as soon as Feng Bujue shouted "Run," the two support pillars themselves, as well as the wall between the pillars, were disintegrated. A section of the ceiling and the floor parallel to the wall also suddenly disappeared. Some concrete chunks falling from the second floor hit spC-233, and together they plunged into the crack in the ground.

A building of this size, covering thousands of square meters, would naturally not suffer any structural collapse simply because a wall and two pillars in a corner were destroyed.

After the small-scale collapse, the dust dissipated. Behind the wall, a pitch-black space appeared. And the rectangular cracks in the ceiling and the floor became two pathways.

"What's going on? Anything related to nine gets erased?" Qiufeng asked.

Honghu replied, "Looks like it." He immediately understood why Feng Bujue hadn't planned to let him be the one to act from the start.

Ji Chang also said, "So you let Qiufeng go because his math is worse..." He paused, something flashed in his mind. "Oh, I see, three of us have nicknames that start with nine strokes, and Honghu is level 29. Is that the connection?"

"Ah, that's the idea," Feng Bujue replied.

Qiufeng said, "But have you considered... from your point of view, my only connection to 9 is the character 'Qiu' (秋). But from my perspective, I can think of n connections."

"That's unavoidable. Before the action, I couldn't tell you the object's properties, nor could I confirm any questions related to nine with you, because that would only speed up your thinking after getting the information," Feng Bujue replied. "In any case... the fact that you're still alive proves that my strategy was successful."

Feng Bujue shrugged. "I was pretty confident in this plan. When I shouted, you were already standing about twenty meters away from that thing, and its range only extended to twenty-three meters. Even an ordinary person in real life would only need two or three seconds to reach a safe area.

The time it took you to hear that sentence, realize the significance of the number 9, and then think of the first connection between yourself and 9, was enough for you to step out of that thing's range of effect.

Of course, if, from your perspective, you had an unusually close connection to this number, and you thought of it within a fraction of a second... then you'd be out of luck."

Qiufeng had no objections to Feng Bujue's attitude and remarks, because he felt that what the other said was reasonable. The success rate of this plan was indeed high, and the other party had designed it very carefully, ensuring his safety to the greatest extent.

However, Qiufeng raised another question: "Wait... you said the range of effect of that thing is twenty-three meters?"

"Yes," Feng Bujue said.

The other three exchanged glances, and finally Honghu opened his mouth and said, "Then the problem is... now that this thing has fallen into the ground, unless it fell a full twenty-three meters, otherwise..."

"Otherwise, that passage is still within its range of effect. Now that we know the rules, we'll be erased as soon as we approach that corner," Ji Chang continued.

"You don't have to worry about that," suddenly, a woman's voice rang out.

A hint of surprise appeared on the faces of the four players, because the source of the voice was in the dark space behind the wall.

Accompanied by the clacking of tall, high-heeled leather boots on the ground, a graceful figure walked out of the darkness.

As in their last meeting, x-23's face was still so pure and beautiful, her skin still delicate and snow-white, her long black hair draped behind her neck, swaying in the wind. But the difference was that her outfit had become a black, one-piece leather suit, her shapely figure even more eye-catching under the wrapping of the leather.

Apart from the clothes, she had hardly changed at all. Feng Bujue had no reason not to recognize her. After all, Brother Jue had only met two derivatives in total.

"What are you doing here?" Feng Bujue said. "This is a four-person script..."

"Can't you think of any other lines to greet a friend?" Twenty-three flashed a charming smile, and the fangs in her mouth also showed at that moment, scaring Honghu and the other two.

Although Twenty-three was about thirty meters away from the players, her voice could be heard very clearly in their ears.

"Haha... sorry," Feng Bujue also smiled awkwardly. He knew that for Twenty-three, the last time she saw him might have been a year or two ago, or even longer.

Twenty-three replied, "As you can see, I am no longer limited by the rules of level four and level three."

Upon hearing this, Feng Bujue immediately understood that Twenty-three was at least a level two derivative, which was why she could appear here. "That's good... it seems you no longer have to live that life of struggling to survive every moment."

"Yes, it is," Twenty-three replied. According to general conversational etiquette, after saying this, she should probably ask Feng Bujue how he was doing, but she didn't ask. Moreover, the way she looked at Feng Bujue seemed to reveal a hint of sympathy.

"Um... you suddenly appeared here, it's not just to say hello to me, is it?" Feng Bujue asked.

"I'm doing some recycling work recently," Twenty-three replied casually, and immediately changed the topic. "By the way, I can't stay here for long, so I'll make it quick." She paused slightly for a second, observed the state of all four players, and then continued, "Your main mission is to enter the Mystery Club, right?" Without waiting for the other party to answer, she continued, "The person in charge of that club is a very strange fellow, and his strength is second only to the Four Pillar Gods." She glanced at the black space behind her. "He created a buffer space to prevent me from entering the script to retrieve spC-233. And when you solve this puzzle, the blockage in the buffer space disappears on its own."

"So... that person in charge also counted you as part of the script's progress," Feng Bujue continued.

Twenty-three said, "Yes, I 'must' take this *** away as soon as possible, so... after I leave, you can continue to move forward." As she spoke, she raised her right hand and moved her fingers slightly.

The next second, spC-233 rose rapidly from the cracked ground, hovering beside Twenty-three.

"He's upstairs..." Twenty-three looked up, a little bit of light seemed to flow through her pupils. "Be careful on the road, Feng Bujue."

Feng Bujue replied, "Ah, I will. Take care of yourself too... after all, you..."

"I have to leave," Twenty-three interrupted Brother Jue. She beckoned, and the spC-233 beside her flew into the black space behind the wall on its own.

"Will we meet again?" Feng Bujue asked.

The last time they parted, Twenty-three said "Farewell forever," but she did not "die" as she had expected, but reappeared. Therefore, Feng Bujue asked this question.

"We will..." Twenty-three replied. After saying that, she turned around and stepped into the darkness.

At the moment when her figure disappeared into the darkness, she muttered again, "... We definitely will."

After Twenty-three entered that space, the wall that had been disintegrated and disappeared miraculously recovered. Luminous data streams poured down like a waterfall, reshaping the wall. However, the gap leading to the second floor and the hole in the ground were still there, and the concrete chunks that had fallen from the ceiling were still scattered on the ground.

"Uh... Brother Feng," about a minute later, someone among the three teammates finally spoke. It was Qiufeng who spoke first, "Can you explain... what's going on here?"

"That beauty should be an NPC," Ji Chang said. "Why would an NPC mention words like 'script'?"

Honghu said, "Moreover, scripts are randomly generated. Why do you and that NPC seem to have known each other for a long time..."

Feng Bujue really didn't know how to answer them. After all, the game company had already greeted him, and the two GMs, Pan Feng and Hua Xiong, had also discussed this matter with him. It was best to keep the derivative's affairs a secret if possible.

"Actually... she's a special, humanoid program in the game, like a recycling bin," Feng Bujue began to use his novelist's ability to improvise a story. "As you can see, she is not affected by ***-233. And you also heard, she said she was doing 'recycling work'." He said with a serious expression, "I've seen her once in another script before, so she knows me." He lowered his voice mysteriously. "Don't spread this around, if it spreads on a large scale, I won't be responsible if Dream Company bans your accounts."

The three were dubious after hearing this, but even if they suspected something, they had no basis to refute Feng Bujue's claims.

"Well... indeed, given Dream Company's prank settings in the game, it's not impossible for their employees to design intelligent programs into beautiful women and let them run around in the scripts..." Ji Chang muttered.

Qiufeng also buried his doubts in his heart and joked, "Brother Feng, the other party is a humanoid program, what's with this casual attitude when you guys are talking... you can't have romance between different dimensions."

Feng Bujue was not one to be silent after being criticized. He immediately hooked the corners of his mouth and chuckled, "Hmph... I didn't expect you to evolve into a Lightning Qiufeng without a thunderstone."

"Are you still not over that Pokémon joke!"

Honghu watched them silently from the side, not reacting to their cold jokes at all.

At this moment, Honghu was integrating information and thinking about the problem. He obviously didn't believe Feng Bujue's explanation either, but, unlike Qiufeng and Ji Chang, he quickly thought of a word, a word he had only seen on the forum, and the information related to it was just some unconfirmed legends.

However, the scene just now seemed to be perfectly explained by that word - Derivative.