Fortunately, Mo Bai was merely short on money, not blinded by it.

She quickly guessed that what Mo Xiangyou had just said was meant to make her feel indebted to him, so she would owe him a favor without even knowing why.

Mo Bai said, "If you are willing to spend 200,000 points to gain my attention, it shows that I am worth more than that. It is merely an investment that can result in gains or losses, and you bear the consequences yourself."

Mo Xiangyou's eyes flickered with appreciation. "Neither swayed by gain nor loss, neither cold-blooded nor bound by moral constraints. Your core is remarkably steady."

"Even if you're giving me a compliment, your tone feels a bit condescending, and it doesn't really make me feel happy," Mo Bai said.

Ever since she walked in, Mo Xiangyou gave off the vibe of someone in control. He assessed, examined, and studied her like a rare creature and had all sorts of attitudes, but never one of equality.

Mo Bai understood that she was a new player, lacking experience compared to a veteran like Mo Xiangyou, but that didn't justify his judgment of her.

If she had been the one to seek him out, begging a seasoned player for help, his behavior would have made sense.

But right now, he was the one who sought her out. He clearly wanted to use her for something. If she put up with being looked down on, that would just be pathetic.

She wouldn't tolerate such humiliation. "I only came up here to get the intel on'Phantom Butterfly.' Now that I have it, there's nothing more to discuss. I'm leaving."

She turned her wheelchair around and started heading for the door.

Mo Xiangyou hurriedly called after her, "Wait. Aren't you curious how I can foresee your future? Don't you wonder why I'd bother to foresee the future of a rookie like you?"

Mo Bai simply replied, "Where I come from, we have a saying: 'Curiosity killed the cat.' I value my life, so I don't want to be that cat."

Seeing she wasn't pretending, but was truly able to let go of her curiosity and leave, Mo Xiangyou knew he'd lost this round of psychological games.

If he didn't reveal something now, he would never get another chance to meet Mo Bai again.

Right as Mo Bai's hand touched the door, Mo Xiangyou said something simple that made her pause.

"I saw my own death, and when I died, you were there."

Mo Bai turned her wheelchair around to face him.

He was so handsome that even when he frowned, he had a kind of sorrow that made people want to feel sorry for him.

"Did I have any role in your death? Or do you mean that if I become stronger, I might be able to prevent it?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou shook his head. "The futures I see can't be changed. No matter what you do, fate will find a way to end up at that scene. It's like a stream constantly flowing to the sea. Even if you dig extra channels, it just winds a bit, but the destination is the same.

"My future is already determined."

"Then what's the point of finding me?" Mo Bai said.

A strange weight pressed on her chest, as though she were somehow being burdened with another person's life.

"But I saw two visions of my death. In the first, you weren't there. In the second, you were kneeling on one knee, your palm on my corpse, quietly mourning for me." A trace of loneliness crossed Mo Xiangyou's face, and he said softly, "I hope I die in the second vision."

"If you saw two versions, that means fate can be changed. Aren't you going to try to see a third outcome?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou shook his head. "It never happened before. There's always only one vision. But because of you, there are two. In those two, only your actions change, not mine. That means my fate is fixed, but yours is full of possibilities."

"I'm that special?" Mo Bai frowned.

If she weren't so broke or if the system offered loans, she might have wondered if Mo Xiangyou was part of some scam.

"I don't know. That's why I had to see you. When I looked into your future, I still saw two possible outcomes," Mo Xiangyou said. "I want to know what you did to cause that."

"I only entered this game three days ago, and I haven't even been in Peach Blossom Land for ten hours. What could I have possibly done?" Mo Bai said, still lost.

"Three days ago…" Mo Xiangyou thought for a moment. "I saw the second vision around 8 a.m. today. Where were you at that time?"

Mo Bai did a quick calculation. "I'd just arrived in Peach Blossom Land, checking out my dungeon rewards with the smart assistant."

She spent an hour, only to find out she was broke.

"That's when you entered Peach Blossom Land," Mo Xiangyou said firmly. "You're the special one."

"But I didn't do anything," Mo Bai still didn't get it.

At that moment, Xiao Qi whispered in her ear, "You're the only player in the database who lost the last two stages of the beginner dungeons."

"I lost the last two because I killed 'Homebody Corpse' and 'Enhanced Mutant.' The system decided I was strong enough to skip the rest, so the problem must be that I killed the boss monsters?" Mo Bai asked in her mind.

Xiao Qi couldn't answer.

So Mo Bai gave a brief account of her first beginner dungeon. "I met a C-level monster and a B-level monster in the beginner instance. I killed them both. The B-level was the 'Enhanced Mutant,' which is why the 'Phantom Butterfly' is after me…"

"Your beginner instance had a B-level monster? And you killed it?" Mo Xiangyou was stunned, interrupting her before she finished. "You really are a special player. But I don't know why the system targeted you."

Mo Bai was numb to it all. "Wasn't everyone's beginner instance like this? I thought it was normal."

Mo Xiangyou instinctively touched his left shoulder and said, "My newbie dungeon was to find and purify the pollution source in an abandoned factory. The pollution source was a C-level monster. Because of my scent, it could find me no matter where I hid. I couldn't avoid its attacks, much less beat it. "

"How did you pass?" Mo Bai asked.

"It caught me and bit hard into my shoulder, taking a chunk of flesh. Once it ate it, the stinky monster became fragrant and stopped polluting the factory." Mo Xiangyou explained.

Mo Bai winced. "Just hearing about it hurts. Could this be your ability in your title?"

Asking about someone's ability was taboo unless you were very close. Mo Bai hadn't even asked Gu Tiandong about his, even though she already guessed his evolutionary direction.

But Mo Xiangyou was different. If he was willing to describe his dungeon in detail, he must want to share something, so Mo Bai was fine with following his lead.

Mo Xiangyou nodded. "When I was still a beginner, my Observation Group title was 'Burning Fragrance.' Its effect was to burn myself to attract monsters and dispel bad odors. 'Burn myself' meant sacrificing my own flesh and blood."

Mo Bai winced just hearing the effects. She thought of her own 'Broken Porcelain Doll' title, and couldn't help but feel some empathy for Mo Xiangyou. Her voice softened: "Your beginner dungeon really was custom-designed for your title. But after the newbie stage, how did you level up? Walking around the dungeons as a living perfume bottle must've attracted every monster. Did you—"

"Yes," Mo Xiangyou said, "I always teamed up with others. I would lure monsters with my scent, and the others would clear the instance."

His initial ability didn't repel monsters. It only repelled bad smells. Any monster attracted by his scent wouldn't die. They would just notice his scent.

And the scent made them want to bite him. His way of clearing dungeons sounded very painful.

"What about your foresight ability? Precognitive ability is also very valuable. Your teammates must have tried their best to protect you?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou shook his head. "At first, it wasn't called foresight. It was called 'Lingering Fragrance.' Anything that picked up my scent, player or monster, would retain a trace of it for a while."

Mo Bai frowned. "So all it did was leave a scent behind? No other effects?"

"That's right. It just made it easy to track monsters, so the team could hunt them down," Mo Xiangyou said blandly, like that part of his past could no longer move him.

"I knew I was weak, and I could only rely on teammates. I guess that's the fate of Observation Group players. But at least I never abandoned my dignity. When I reached intermediate, my title and ability underwent a drastic change."

That was his biggest secret, so Mo Bai didn't press for more. She just waited quietly.

However, Mo Xiangyou didn't continue. He simply added, "My title became offensive, and my ability changed from lingering scent to actual foresight. I can't tell you all the details, but I can say this: I can only foresee the future of people who will have my scent on them."

That was a confusing statement. Mo Bai had to think for a while before she understood, then asked, "You mean that someday in the future, I'll pick up your scent? Even though I don't have it now, you can still foresee my future because of something that'll happen later?"

"Yes," Mo Xiangyou said.

"Then how would I get your scent? Don't tell me I'd have to bite you like that monster did?" Mo Bai said in disbelief.

"Absorbing my blood will also work," Mo Xiangyou answered.

"What's your blood type?" Mo Bai asked.

"O," Mo Xiangyou replied.

Mo Bai nodded. "I'm type A, but O is a universal donor. In an emergency, O-type blood can be used for transfusions. It must be a blood transfusion, there is no other possibility."

She immediately ruled out the possibility of her ever biting Mo Xiangyou in the future.

No way she'd do something like that.

Even if, right now, she kind of wanted to.

Mo Bai rubbed her nose and suddenly caught a whiff of his scent. That's when she realized that his fragrance had finally seeped through her vacuum barrier and mixed with the purified air around her.

She quickly used her abilities, cleaned the air, and created a new vacuum barrier, finally able to breathe and think clearly again.

If she met Mo Xiangyou without any preparation, she might really bite him.

Mo Bai couldn't help but smack her forehead. What was up with all these Observation Group abilities? Why were they all so bizarrely twisted?

Trying to organize her thoughts, she said, "So you first saw your own future with me in it, and that led you to find me. But can foresight see your own future? Did you… bite yourself?"

"No, I couldn't originally see my own future. But after my last forced dungeon, I reached the conditions to advance to a higher tier. Each time we level up, our energy spikes to the next rank's peak. I used that surge to briefly glimpse my own future, then stopped the advancement halfway." Mo Xiangyou explained.

Mo Bai asked, "Can you really stop yourself from leveling up? I always get promoted automatically."

"Beginners level up automatically, but from intermediate to advanced, you can choose not to promote. Because when you reach advanced, forced dungeons get way harder, and the death rate spikes. A lot of people stay at 'Intermediate-9,' grinding daily dungeons for points and enjoying life in the Infinite World. Even if they die one day in a forced dungeon, the survival rate is still better than at an advanced level," Mo Xiangyou said.

"I've heard only advanced players can enter 'Neverland' and a lot of people long for it," Mo Bai said.

"It's just like humans longing for the land of immortals. But how many had ever reached that place? Most are just regular people. Even in Peach Blossom Land, there are high-level players who rushed to Neverland full of hope, only to be kicked out and drift through life in Peach Blossom Land, or die soon after arriving. If you're not strong enough, you can't live in a fairy tale world."

Mo Bai quietly absorbed the information about Neverland and high-level players. She felt like it was all too distant for her right now, so she pushed it aside and focused on the present.

"So when you were about to be promoted, you used all that energy to see your own death, and then stopped. Soon after, you saw a second future, one that included me. Afterward, you went through all this trouble today just to meet me?"

"Yes," Mo Xiangyou answered frankly. "Besides, I also wanted to give you some information to help you get through 'The Count's Castle.' A B-level dungeon with two hidden A-level monsters. I'm afraid you'll suffer heavy casualties in this level."

"Why help me? I can't change your fate," Mo Bai said.

Mo Xiangyou smiled. "You can't change the fact that I'll die, but you can change what happens after. My body, my remains. I want to leave them with you. The 'lingering fragrance' on you tells me that you'll you can maximize their value."

Mo Bai: "……"

For no apparent reason, she was being entrusted with his remains.

Facing Mo Xiangyou's grief, she couldn't even say, "I'll help change your fate."

She was just too weak.

Mo Bai steadied herself and decided not to think about the distant future, but to focus on the current events.

If she wanted to change Mo Xiangyou's fate, she had to get stronger. To get stronger, she had to survive. To survive, she had to clear the next dungeon.

Putting on a shameless smile, she asked, "You already spent so many points collecting 'Phantom Butterfly' intel for me. Can you send me 'The Count's Castle' info too?"

Mo Xiangyou tilted his head, looking at her with a faint, teasing charm.

Mo Bai rubbed her eyes, trying not to be distracted by his looks. "I'm broke. I can't afford 20,000 points."

"That stuff is useless. It's all fake," Mo Xiangyou replied coolly.

Mo Bai was shocked. "You sold eight copies of fake info? Eight players received fake intel?"

She did a quick count. That meant everyone except her and 'Phantom Butterfly' had bought the fake info!

"How else could I help you clear the dungeon?" Mo Xiangyou said coldly. "'The Count's Castle' is a forced dungeon with a 50% death rate. The more people who die, the better your odds."

At that moment, Mo Bai really saw the purple glint in Mo Xiangyou's eyes: cold and utterly devoid of human warmth.

To Mo Xiangyou, the players going through the dungeon with Mo Bai were just numbers under the death rate.

"What? You think I'm cold-blooded? That's how death games work. If you don't act first, someone else will," Mo Xiangyou said.

"I haven't experienced the brutality of a forced dungeon yet, so I'm still softhearted. But I'm more worried about you. Aren't you afraid those people will come after you for selling them fake info?" Mo Bai asked.

"The last one who did… I think his surname was Sheng. He lost control and bit me. That violated the Security Rules, so the system punished him by sealing his abilities for a month. Unfortunately, his next forced dungeon is in ten days. No abilities, and he still has to go. Too bad for him, Peach Blossom Land will lose another resident," Mo Xiangyou said calmly, as if he had already sentenced Sheng Yan to death.

Mo Bai looked at Mo Xiangyou silently. Logically, he helped her and shared a lot of veteran knowledge. So they should be friends, right?

But Mo Xiangyou's way of doing things completely clashed with Mo Bai's values.

Mo Xiangyou glanced at Mo Bai. "We're not friends. I just need something from you. You don't have to judge how I act, and you don't have to worry about my death. A person like me isn't worth mourning."

Finally, he waved her off. "Go."

With that, Mo Xiangyou leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes.