Since it was a private meeting, Gu Tiandong didn't follow Mo Bai upstairs. Non-VIP players weren't allowed on the third floor anyway.

Gu Tiandong lingered near the elevator and reminded Mo Bai that she should immediately use her smart assistant's emergency alert if she noticed anything strange.

Mo Bai thought Gu Tiandong was just stating the obvious, but she still felt cared for and nodded obediently.

She took the elevator up, came to the door of VIP Room 5, took a deep breath, and raised her hand to ring the doorbell.

But before her hand touched the button, the door opened automatically. As soon as it did, Mo Bai caught a whiff of an alluring scent. One that was nearly impossible to resist.

She unconsciously licked her lips as a strange feeling rose up inside her.

A strange, primal urge surged through her chest: admiration, longing, hunger, madness, and an instinct to devour that scent, to make it hers.

When the door opened, Mo Bai felt her grip on reality begin to slip. She wasn't sure if she could hold back once she stepped inside, as the scent might completely overwhelm her.

She froze at the door, not daring to enter.

"Why don't you come in?" A low, husky voice came from inside, oozing a sense of luxurious indulgence.

The scent, combined with the voice, made Mo Bai feel dizzy, and her longing grew harder to suppress. Desire burned hotter and hotter until her gums itched as if begging to bite something.

Without hesitation, she raised her arm and bit down hard on her forearm.

She didn't even feel any pain. It was only when the taste of her own blood filled her mouth and nose, blunting the effect of the scent, that she regained some consciousness.

"Heh." A mocking chuckle came from the room, as if to say, "That's all?"

Mo Bai felt an unexplainable sense of defeat. She hadn't even seen the person, and already felt like she had "lost."

Was this what it meant to be a powerful player? As a newbie, she couldn't even get to the other side, let alone have a proper conversation or negotiation.

Mo Bai clenched her fists, and the cool-headedness she had in front of Mommy and Daddy resurfaced, dissolving her unwillingness to accept defeat.

There was no need to get angry about this. The other party was an 'Intermediate-9' player, while she was only at 'Beginner-3.'

They were never equal to begin with.

It was like expecting a three-month-old baby to fight a college student. Nobody would say the baby was useless.

Still, it wasn't as though she had no way to resist the scent.

After upgrading, Mo Bai's 'Environment Optimization' ability could now alter five cubic decimeters of space, which was about the size of a 5-liter water jug, just big enough to cover her head.

First, she converted all the air around her head to clean air, sweeping away the scent and clearing her mind.

However, since gases would continue to diffuse and seep in, Mo Bai created a layer of vacuum outside the air to block the scent from invading.

Technically, placing a glass dome over her head would have been most effective, but that would have required altering the chemical properties of matter and would have required a significant amount of mental energy.

After her upgrade, she could change chemical properties twice instead of once, physical state five times instead of twice, and physical movement seven times instead of three. (T/N: Changed physical quantities [Ch4] to physical movement)

In this situation, making a vacuum barrier with her physical movement ability was far more energy-efficient than creating a glass helmet out of thin air. Even though the vacuum would still get invaded by the scent over time, she could keep refreshing it. Naturally, she would pick the energy-saving option that she could use repeatedly.

Additionally, a glass dome on her head would look ridiculous, and it would instantly expose her defense method.

But a vacuum barrier was invisible. The other person wouldn't immediately know what she'd done to resist the scent, which could actually provide a certain degree of intimidation.

With the fragrance blocked, Mo Bai wheeled herself steadily into the room, and the door closed naturally behind her.

Even though she blocked out the scent, the moment the door closed,  she could feel the aroma growing thicker inside the room.

She nearly lost consciousness from simply smelling the escaping aroma in the hallway.  If she'd directly inhaled the scent inside, the result would have been unimaginable.

The VIP suite was dimly lit. In the middle was a luxurious sofa set, accompanied by a coffee table filled with drinks and food. A man was sitting quietly at the center of the sofa, staring at Mo Bai.

Mo Bai met his gaze fearlessly.

He was handsome, not in Gu Tiandong's androgynous way, but in a mysterious and striking way.

He had black hair and black eyes, and every now and then, a flicker of deep purple would flash in his pupils, though Mo Bai couldn't tell if it was just the lighting.

He sat upright on the sofa, fingers interlaced on his lap. A haze of purple mist surrounded him, making him look both mysterious and dangerous.

Of course, Mo Bai suspected the purple haze was just an effect of the dim lighting.

"Um…" Mo Bai cleared her throat and was the first to break the silence. "Could you turn the lights up a bit? My eyesight isn't great."

She spoke to her wristband, which could transmit her words to other nearby wristbands. Since she and Mo Xiangyou weren't friends, she couldn't use the direct message function, but since they were close enough, she could use the 'nearby target' option.

After all, sound doesn't travel through a vacuum, so her voice couldn't get past her own barrier.

Mo Xiangyou heard her voice through his wristband and raised an eyebrow. He clapped his hands, and the lights in the room instantly became as bright as daylight.

But Mo Xiangyou's eyes still glowed faintly purple, and the mist around him remained.

So it wasn't just a lighting trick.

Mo Xiangyou spoke to Mo Bai, moving his lips.

Mo Bai: "……"

She couldn't read lips, so she had no idea what he said.

Seeing Mo Bai's blank expression, Mo Xiangyou smiled, then said into his wristband, "Are you deaf, or did you set up a vacuum barrier to block my scent?"

Since he'd figured out her trick, Mo Bai just admitted, "Vacuum barrier."

"Alright, let's talk this way, then," Mo Xiangyou replied.

Mo Bai frowned slightly and said to her wristband, "Can we stop testing each other now? You've seen that I'm capable of resisting your power, so shouldn't you turn off that scent?"

But Mo Xiangyou shook his head. "That's a passive ability from my Observation Group title. Players below the advanced level can't control it. I'm not testing you. If you can't even meet me face-to-face, there's no point in meeting at all."

Mo Bai thought about her own title and nodded in agreement.

Her title worked on Daddy and Mommy in the 'Playing House' game. But in Peach Blossom Land, her new title's effects were weaker on players than on NPCs, but close contact could still influence them.

So far, the only Player she'd gotten close to was Gu Tiandong, who was clearly under the "admiration" effect. Otherwise, he wouldn't have treated her so well or lent her points.

Her own title's effect wasn't harmful, and she could just avoid close contact with other players. Even if she did, the effects could be positive or negative.

But Mo Xiangyou's title was like an indiscriminate attack, and the range was huge. Mo Bai had almost gone mad just from a whiff. If she got too close, she might really lose her mind.

No wonder Mo Xiangyou always went solo and never joined teams.

Mo Bai had to wonder how he'd managed to reach 'Intermediate-9' while carrying such a dangerous scent. It must have been a rough road.

But that was his private business, so she decided not to pry about the title. Instead, she asked, "The 'Enhanced Mutant,' 'Phantom Butterfly,' and 'Castle Instance' posts were all yours. All three are directly related to me. Were you looking for me from the start?"

Mo Xiangyou dodged the question. "Aren't you curious about my title? Don't you want to ask about Observation Group titles?"

"I'm curious, but I don't like digging into people's privacy. If you want to tell me, I'll listen. But I'd rather you get to the point, and by the way, I already paid 10,000 points for the 'Phantom Butterfly' info. You still haven't given me anything concrete."

"That's a long story," Mo Xiangyou said, his face full of worries, as if he didn't know where to begin.

Mo Bai quickly replied, "Then please settle the bill first. If you don't have the information, refund the money. It's very important to me. Thanks"

Mo Xiangyou muttered. "I didn't expect you to care so much about money."

Mo Bai: "You players who breeze through all three newbie dungeons can never understand my pain!"

She lost 30,000 points, enough to buy a square meter of property!

Mo Xiangyou replied helplessly. "The 'Phantom Butterfly' is an A-level monster with a twisted personality. It feeds on pain. It finds the pain of mutants, who both hate humans and wish they were human, especially delicious. So it loves raising mutants, playing with their feelings, and feeding on the emotional pain it causes them.

It has raised lots of mutants. Whenever a mutant starts to feel happy, the Phantom Butterfly loses interest, abandons or kills them, and then moves on to the next."

Mo Bai: "……"

So that's why an A-level monster would bother with a B-level monster like Daddy. The Phantom Butterfly simply kept a whole bunch of mutants.

She had also wondered before. 'Homebody Corpse' was only a C-level monster, so why did Mommy get tangled up with Daddy to start a family? Clearly, the Phantom Butterfly had orchestrated it.

The Phantom Butterfly forced Daddy and Mommy to form a family, then played the role of the 'mistress.' It savored Daddy's pain from being haunted by the 'Homebody Corpse' and unable to be with the one he truly loved.

What a twisted monster!

Mo Xiangyou continued, "The Phantom Butterfly is extremely vindictive. If you ruin its toys, it'll make you the next one. It has two really troublesome powers. One is 'Phantom Shapeshifting.' It can turn into any player, NPC, or robot, hiding in plain sight and making it almost impossible to spot. The other is 'Thousand-Mile Tracking.' Once it's locked onto someone, no place is safe. Even if they hide in Peach Blossom Land or anywhere in the Infinite World, it can track its prey into the next instance and strike when least expected.

Once, a Player defeated a 'Speed Mutant' in a C-level forced dungeon. Unaware of the consequences, he entered a daily instance that he had completed dozens of times the following day. Unfortunately, he ended up dying in that instance.

His teammates later said that after his death, a butterfly tattoo appeared on his back. No one knew what the Phantom Butterfly had disguised itself as, or how it got close. The Player just died quietly."

Mo Bai: "……"

Suddenly, something really off occurred to her. Something she should have noticed but had overlooked.

When she called customer service to sign up for "The Count's Castle" instance, they informed her that eight people were already registered, with two slots left. Once full, the dungeon would open.

But after she signed up, they didn't ask her to wait for it to fill up. Instead, they just told her the dungeon would start in seven days.

Could it be that the other spot was filled the moment she signed up? And the 'Player'... might actually be the Phantom Butterfly in disguise?

"Why did you know that the Phantom Butterfly intel would get my attention?" Mo Bai stared at Mo Xiangyou.

Mo Xiangyou smiled. "I had two visions. In one, you were dying in the castle with a purple butterfly tattoo on your back. In the other, you left the castle dungeon safely."

"Your foresight ability?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou nodded. "I can only glimpse fragments of the future, and what I see can't be changed or reversed. It's the first time I've seen someone with two completely different outcomes. I thought it was interesting. So I spent money to collect the Phantom Butterfly info, then sold it to you."

Reflecting on Mo Bai's stinginess with money, Mo Xiangyou deliberately added, "The intel cost me 200,000 points, and I only sold it for 10,000. A big loss on my part."

Mo Bai: "……"

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming debt of 190,000 points weighing heavily on her!

 

 

The Author Has Something to Say:

Tomorrow the story will go VIP! It’ll still update at noon, with three VIP chapters. Love you all, muah~
After going VIP, there will be more updates!

PS: Mo Xiangyou and Mo Bai just happen to share the same surname (the silly author just really likes this surname). There’s no special relationship between them! Just making that clear.