This time, Mo Xiangyou didn't arrange to meet in a VIP room at the free market. Instead, he invited Mo Bai directly to his home.

Mo Bai extravagantly took a taxi to the seaside villa where Mo Xiangyou lived.

The moment she stepped into the courtyard, she caught a faint fragrance in the air.

This time, she used Environmental Rejection.

She cleared away all the strange scents around the villa, completely eliminating the abnormal fragrance that constantly emanated from Mo Xiangyou. For the next hour, it would be impossible for it to recover.

Mo Xiangyou, who had been watering flowers inside, sensed something unusual about himself. He sniffed the back of his hand, then lowered his head to smell the orchid in front of him.

It was the first time since entering the Infinite World that he had smelled the scent of flowers.

The fragrance on his body had always been too strong, masking every other smell around him. Oftentimes, he couldn't even taste food properly because of it.

The strange fragrance itself wasn't pleasant. It carried an intense allure, like an apple overripe to the point of rot. Beneath the rich sweetness lurked a faint odor of decay.

It was the scent of death.

But humans adapt to smells. As the saying goes, "Spend long enough in a shop selling salted fish and you'll no longer notice the stench."

Many odors fade with familiarity.

But what Mo Xiangyou had adapted to was only the fragrance. He had never grown used to the deathly undertone hidden beneath it.

The stench of a corpse is hard to dispel. It signifies death and danger, so the body refuses to adapt because it's warning the brain to flee from peril.

But Mo Xiangyou couldn't shake off his identity as a member of the Observation Group, nor could he escape his ability.

To cover the scent on his body, he had planted countless strongly fragrant flowers in his home and blended various perfumes. None of them, however, could overpower the strange fragrance he carried.

And now, at this very moment, he could actually smell the flowers.

What happened? Did heaven take pity on him and change his identity as a member of the Observation Group?

The thought flashed through his mind. He shook his head self-deprecatingly and dismissed his naïve speculation.

Half an hour ago, he had sent his address to Mo Bai. She should have arrived by now.

Could this be her doing?

How far had her ability evolved to accomplish something like this?

Mo Xiangyou set down the watering can and walked out of the room.

As soon as he stepped outside, new scents rushed toward him.

The freshness of the wind. The dampness of the soil. The warmth of sunlight. The salty tang of the waves.

Everything felt new. The sky was the same sky, the clouds the same clouds, yet the world had changed. Even the colors before his eyes seemed more vivid.

Amid the mingled scents, Mo Xiangyou saw Mo Bai standing in the garden, healthy and whole.

She was no longer a porcelain doll that would shatter at a touch. There was a resilience to her now, something that shone brighter than the most brilliant flower in the garden.

"What did you do?" Mo Xiangyou took a deep breath, greedily drawing in the scent of nature.

"Environmental Rejection." Mo Bai explained briefly. "You've got a great place here, with so many flowers. The rent must be expensive."

"It's a standalone property, so I won't affect anyone else," Mo Xiangyou replied. "Moreover, I have prophetic abilities. Earning points is easier for me than for you. And I'm not as foolish as the Sheng brothers who spent a fortune to buy a house. No one in the Infinite World knows how long they'll live. Imagine dying right after buying a house. That would be a total waste."

"How do people usually seek your prophecy? If I remember correctly, you can only follow the trail of a scent and see the future of those who consume your flesh or blood," Mo Bai said.

"I tell them about my ability," Mo Xiangyou answered. "Then I offer them a glass of red wine mixed with my fresh blood. If they're willing to drink it, I can see their future."

"Including the future of those who might come into contact with your flesh and blood?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou caught the hidden meaning in her words. "You want to predict your own future?"

Mo Bai nodded. "When we first met, I couldn't understand how you could predict my future so precisely when we'd never even met. You said it was because I would inevitably come into contact with the strange fragrance someday. Back then, I thought I liked the uncertainty of the future, so I didn't seek out a prophecy about myself.

But people change quickly. Now I really want to know what my future holds."

"It seems your state of mind changed a lot after going into that forced instance with Sheng Yan," Mo Xiangyou said. "It was only a beginner-level forced instance, and you cleared it in four days. Why do you look so troubled now?"

"In the future you saw, was there nothing about this instance?" Mo Bai asked.

"I couldn't see it. It was like my eyes were blindfolded. No sight, no sound," Mo Xiangyou said.

Mo Bai suddenly smiled. "So you actually tried to predict the outcome of that forced instance for me and Sheng Yan. You just failed."

"So what if I did?" Mo Xiangyou said lightly.

Mo Bai looked at him as though she could see straight through him. "I suddenly realized something. The first time we met, I was already at the trading market. Meeting in your VIP room was perfectly normal.

But the second time, there was no need for you to invite me to a VIP room. It's crowded and noisy there, hardly a place to discuss important matters. Since you invited me to your home this time, you could have done so last time too. So why insist on the less private trading market?"

"Perhaps we weren't that familiar then," Mo Xiangyou said.

"We're still not that familiar. This is only our third meeting," Mo Bai said firmly. "You invited me to the VIP room for Sheng Yan."

Sheng Yan was bewitched by Mo Xiangyou's strange fragrance, and in a delirious state, he bit Mo Xiangyou. The system judged it as attacking a player in Peach Blossom Land, so his ability was sealed.

In the process, Sheng Yan swallowed the strange fragrance, which enabled Mo Xiangyou to foresee the path of the scent.

If Mo Xiangyou didn't want Sheng Yan and Mo Bai to meet, he had countless ways to prevent it.

Yet that day was perfectly timed. If Mo Bai arrived at the trading market a minute earlier or later, she wouldn't have encountered Sheng Yan.

Mo Bai believed that behind the coincidence lay Mo Xiangyou's kindness.

He knew that Sheng Yan, stripped of his ability, would surely die in a forced instance. Following the trail of scent, he kept searching for a way to help and eventually found Mo Bai.

It was Mo Xiangyou who facilitated the cooperation between Mo Bai and Sheng Yan.

But his rank was too low to see the circumstances of a mutated-level instance. And he could never have imagined that two beginner players would trigger such a high-level instance.

On the surface, Mo Xiangyou seemed full of hatred for the world, wishing death upon every member of the Combat Group. But inside, he was still soft-hearted and willing to help others.

Mo Bai needed someone like him in the team she wanted to build.

"I want you to help me predict my future," Mo Bai said. "I want to see whether we have a chance of forming a team."

Mo Xiangyou gave his usual mocking smile. "There's only one way I can team up with you, and that's if you obtain my corpse."

"You mean you'll become my teammate in the form of a card?" Mo Bai directly exposed him.

Mo Xiangyou stared at her in disbelief as if her words were like thunder on a clear day. After a long moment, he finally managed to open his mouth, "How could you say that? Why didn't the rules stop you? Who told you? Has someone managed to bypass the rules to tell you this information?"

"No one told me. I just figured it out," Mo Bai said. "Everything leaves traces. Where there are traces, there's logic. And where there's logic, nothing is impossible to deduce. As for why I can say it out loud, I suppose it's because both of us already know. Between two people in the know, there's no need to hide it."

Mo Xiangyou glanced around warily. Even though this was his own home and no one else was present, he still said cautiously, "Let's discuss this inside."

He led Mo Bai into his three-story villa. The moment she stepped in, a dense floral fragrance hit her nose, making her sneeze several times.

The entire first floor was filled with flowers, and it was as beautiful as a fairy-tale garden.

All the windows were open, and bees and butterflies flitted among the blossoms.

Mo Bai looked at the butterflies fluttering above the flowers and said with faint distaste, "Let's go somewhere without butterflies."

She was on the verge of developing butterfly PTSD.

Mo Xiangyou took her straight to the study on the third floor. Though there were no flowers there, incense diffusers, burners, perfumes, and even mosquito coils filled the air with scent, making Mo Bai slightly dizzy.

"You're fragrant enough already. Doesn't all this extra fragrance bother you?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou replied pointedly, "No matter how rich the floral scent is, it can't mask the stench of a corpse. A body beneath a bed of roses will eventually be discovered. I only want to smell something other than the strange fragrance."

Mo Bai quickly adapted to the scent. She sat in a sandalwood chair while Mo Xiangyou poured her a cup of tea.

"What did you go through in that last instance?" he asked. "How were you able to guess the secret of the Observation Group?"

Mo Bai took out the Information Extraction card. "I used this card."

She briefly explained the sensations the card had given her, the difficulty of the instance, Du Heng's identity, and the existence of Mending Heaven within Neverland. She added, "Don't be too pessimistic. Neverland isn't some dragon's lair or tiger's den. There are still organizations there that hold goodwill toward the Observation Group."

"I know," Mo Xiangyou said. "But I won't live long enough to reach Neverland. In the future I've seen, I'll become a card in my next instance."

Mo Bai paused mid-sip and couldn't help but ask, "When is your next instance?"

"In 86 days. I was supposed to enter the sequel of an A-rank instance, Plague Garden. But just a few hours ago, the system notified me that due to certain unforeseen events, my follow-up instance has been changed to Disease Town. And it's an extremely difficult S-rank instance." Mo Xiangyou sighed. "The reason I was able to stop leveling up in my last instance was because it technically didn't end yet. I hadn't truly completed it, so I could pause midway. But this time, I probably won't be able to stop."

"My next instance is also Disease Town," Mo Bai said.

Mo Xiangyou wasn't surprised. "No wonder you're planning to collect my corpse. It turns out, we'll be entering the same instance. That explains everything."

"I won't let you die," Mo Bai said seriously.

But Mo Xiangyou replied without much optimism, "I understand how you feel. But sometimes, human strength is just too limited. Back then, Sheng Lei also said that he would avenge Xu Qirui. In the end, not only did he fail to get revenge, but he even lost his own life as well."

This was the first time Mo Xiangyou had brought up Sheng Lei's death. No matter how Sheng Yan had pressed him before, he always refused to reveal the cause.

"Who is Xu Qirui?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou reached out and tapped the Information Extraction card lying on the table in front of her.

"He's Xu Qirui?" Mo Bai picked up the card. She recalled Sheng Yan mentioning that Sheng Lei had always resented this old friend, believing that Xu Qirui had forgotten about him after going to Neverland.

If Sheng Lei died trying to avenge Xu Qirui, then that meant Sheng Lei had discovered the secret of the Observation Group.

"Wasn't Sheng Lei an intermediate player? How did he learn about that?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou explained, "Plague Garden was a very special A-rank instance. It was divided into two-phase missions: Phase One, Plague Garden, and Phase Two, Disease Hospital. After completing Phase One, we became eligible to level up. Sheng Lei was already at Intermediate-9, so he chose to advance immediately. But during my own level-up process, I glimpsed the future and stopped midway.

"After resting for three days in the now-safe Plague Garden, we proceeded to Phase Two, Disease Hospital. There, we encountered two high-ranked players disguised as intermediate players."

"Like Du Heng?" Mo Bai asked sharply. "Why would they go to the Disease Hospital?"

"They claimed they were searching for some kind of clue. Once I realized they were high-ranked players, I kept my distance, so I don't know their exact purpose.

Sheng Lei was also a high-ranked player by then. He thought having more allies would be better, so he befriended them. They said they were from an organization called Avici in Neverland and warmly invited Sheng Lei to join.

At first, Sheng Lei got along with them very well. He even agreed to look them up after reaching Neverland. But as the conversation went on, he suddenly turned hostile.

He sent me a message, asking me to help him kill those high-ranked players. He said it would benefit me as well.

I refused because I only wanted to clear the instance and didn't want to complicate things.

I don't know what happened afterward. I only know that Sheng Lei didn't die at the hands of the instance boss, but at the hands of those two players."

Mo Bai fell silent for a long while before asking, "You refused Sheng Lei's request. Do you feel that makes you an accomplice in his death? And that's why you won't explain the truth to Sheng Yan?"

The way Mo Xiangyou had behaved in front of Sheng Yan made it seem as if he himself had killed Sheng Lei. If he hadn't taken that attitude, Sheng Yan wouldn't have been consumed by rage and treated him as an enemy.

"I'm not that…" Mo Xiangyou started to retort stubbornly, but when he met Mo Bai's all-seeing gaze, his words were caught in his throat. "Regardless of what other players are like, Sheng Lei was different. He didn't treat the Observation Group as tools. He even wanted to avenge his dead friend. I refused the only person who ever showed goodwill toward the Observation Group. That makes me an accomplice too."

"You're good in every way except your mouth is too stubborn," Mo Bai sighed. "You're clearly kind, yet you always act like you want to destroy the world."

"I'm not as good as you think," Mo Xiangyou said.

Mo Bai continued, "You didn't tell Sheng Yan the truth because he's only a beginner-level player and has no way to take revenge on advanced-level players. It's better for him to believe that Sheng Lei died at the hands of the instance boss. At least, he won't be consumed by hatred. Isn't that right?"

"If he becomes an advanced-level player someday, it won't matter if I tell him. But right now, he doesn't even have the qualifications to enter Neverland. There's no point in telling him," Mo Xiangyou said calmly.

"What does Sheng Yan's future look like?" Mo Bai asked.

"The strange fragrance has a time limit. I can only see three months ahead," Mo Xiangyou replied. "As long as Sheng Yan survives the forced instance, he'll bounce around alive and well for the next three months."

"Even if he enters Disease Town?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou frowned. "What's wrong with your group? None of you are high-ranked, yet you're all squeezing into S-rank instances. Disease Town is too high-level. Unless I'm inside the instance myself, I can't see anything."

"So even if Disease Town is a high-level instance, you can still see some fragments of the future once you're inside?" Mo Bai asked.

Mo Xiangyou nodded.

Mo Bai made up her mind. "Then give me a prophecy too. The more clues you have, the more of the future you'll see, right?"

Mo Xiangyou studied her for a moment. Then, he pricked his finger and let a drop of fresh blood fall into her teacup.

Mo Bai lifted the cup and was about to drink when she heard him say, "My predictions aren't free. Three hundred thousand points per reading."

Her hand froze... Maybe she didn't need this prophecy after all.

"You can pay in installments," Mo Xiangyou added. "For the next three months, pay me ten thousand per month. The remaining two hundred and eighty thousand can be settled in a lump sum after we clear Disease Town. If I die in Disease Town, you don't have to pay."

Mo Bai laughed. "I was actually considering defaulting on the payment. But now that you've put it that way, I suppose I have no choice but to pay."

With that, she drank the tea in one gulp.