PFRG: Chapter 160

Hua Qianmei’s somewhat deflated expression didn’t arouse any sympathy among the players when it was projected on the screen.

If Ji Xingque’s overly careless reaction to amnesia just made people feel powerless to complain, then Lu Nanling’s divine statement made everyone speechless.

This extremely unbalanced mentality continued until half an hour when Lu Nanling actually completed the setting of tonight’s menu without any difficulty. Then it reached a peak.

As a human being, they couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, make others look so worthless!

They were so sorry. They couldn’t even describe themselves as trash. This type of comparison would only make everyone feel that they weren’t even as good as paramecium…

Chi Ting stayed in the room until almost dawn before he went downstairs at a leisurely pace.

He had already known the consequences of Lu Nanling and Ji Xingque losing their memories, so he was naturally not as shocked as the players watching the game outside. He was mainly thinking about the final purchase results he had obtained this morning when he went downstairs.

According to last night’s plan, Lu Nanling directly entered the maximum quantity for the incense purchase quantity for the rooms he and Ji Xingque were in.

On the one hand, this approach achieved the collection of all the types of incense at one time. On the other hand, it was actually conducting a test. Now the final test results were enough to give an answer.

The number of incense sticks in the mailboxes at the doors of the two rooms didn’t reach the input purchase quantity in the end. The amount purchased by Lu Nanling’s room was obviously much more than that of Ji Xingque.

This proved that there was an upper limit to the number of purchases that could be made. This upper limit depended on the memories forgotten by the players who slept in the room that day. When the players completely lose their memories, the so-called purchases would completely stop. It was for this reason that compared to Ji Xingque, Lu Nanling was able to complete more of the purchasing task since he lost fewer memories in the previous few days.

“What are you thinking about?”

The words that suddenly entered his ears brought Chi Ting back to his senses.

He looked back at Lou Yueren and didn’t hide it. “I was thinking that the plan of repeated use has been completely shelved.”

Lou Yueren immediately understood what Chi Ting was referring to and laughed noncommittally. “Otherwise, do you want to make Ji Xingque and Lu Nanling lose their memories once a day, directly relying on the recycling of the two to solve all procurement problems? If it was so easy for players to exploit bugs, the designer of this instance probably has nothing to do anymore.”

“Yes.” The exquisite and elegant decorations of the lobby had already entered his peripheral vision. Chi Ting pondered on it for a moment. “The guy we met last time in the Ark Laboratory seemed to be named No 4. I heard him say that there are currently only six living instance designers. Even if there are still five, excluding No 7 whose style didn’t match, we still don’t know who designed this instance.”

At this mouth, the corners of his mouth twitched. “So you really don’t have any impression of these instance designers?”

In fact, Chi Ting thought that Lou Yueren would reject it immediately. He didn’t expect that this person would fall into silence for some reason. After more than ten seconds, he said again, “Maybe I have some impression, but I really don’t remember what they look like.”

“Oh, I see.”

Once this was brought up suddenly, Lou Yueren knew that Chi Ting had probably guessed that he was hiding something. He didn’t expect that this man wouldn’t continue to ask questions after just one response.

He repeatedly glanced at this man’s back before tacitly changing the subject. “But compared to these things that aren’t even remotely related, I think we should continue to think about this instance. Ji Xingque and Lu Nanling shouldn’t be able to purchase a lot of food now. So what are you going to do tonight? Will you let Song Xuefeng and Hua Qianmei go?”

“No.” Chi Ting corrected without hesitation. “Tonight, it will be me and Old Song. Meimei…”

He cleared his throat. His usual tone of voice inexplicably carried a hint of firmness that Lou Yueren couldn’t understand at this moment. “Unless it is absolutely necessary, we absolutely can’t let her take risks.”

Lou Yueren was slightly stunned. He vaguely felt that he seemed to understand something from Chi Ting’s rare, resolute expression.

A few overly bloody scenes flashed through his mind. It instinctively told him that it would be better not to continue asking, so he tactfully cleared his throat and said, “We’ll talk about the details after the business is over tonight.”

“Then I have to hope that nothing unexpected happens…” Chi Ting let out a long sigh and walked into the lobby.

In fact, Chi Ting was never a person who liked to worry about things that might happen. However, his eyelids had twitched several times in the past few days, and he always had a bad premonition. In particular, after the business closed a few days ago, he was sure that Lou Yueren must’ve smelled an unusual smell, but they both tacitly didn’t say much. It was just that this bad premonition became more and more intense as the days passed. Now it was already the fifth day of business after they entered the instance.

No matter how long it had been brewing, if there were other storms that hadn’t appeared then it was time for them to show up.

The pointer moved to the 12 o’clock position again.

The tightly closed door creaked open again by someone from the outside.

Let’s follow Lu Nanling’s method and call the NPCs they saw on the first day Lv 1 customers. Judging from the situation in the first four days, after the lv 3 customers appeared on the third day, there were no more Lv 1 customers in the restaurant that opened yesterday. This situation gave people the most intuitive feeling, as if Lv 1 customers were completely eliminated after entering the difficult levels. But Chi Ting actually had a stronger feeling. Rather than being eliminated, it was better to say that they had evolved into Lv 4 customers.

If they observed carefully, they could find that the clothing styles of the newly appeared Lv 4 customers had actually appeared on lv 1 customers before, but the faces of the new NPCs were much more impressive. It was as if a mass of rotten meat had been completely devoured on the face, but it was trying hard to be rejuvenated, intending to gradually generate a new look.

It wasn’t just these new customers. Even the Lv 2 and Lv 3 customers who started to appear in the past two days had pits and holes on their faces. It was as if they were undergoing an overturn and reorganization.

Considering the memories that everyone had lost during the purchasing process, it was difficult for Chi Ting to prevent himself from having some bad ideas. However, he had been able to control himself from saying this idea out loud before. Then the moment he saw the first figure of the night open the door and walk in, he got a confirmation that he didn’t want.

Chi Ting couldn’t help taking in a deep breath. The sound of people gasping was heard all around him.

“Is this the guest we have been receiving every night these days? Why do I feel that…” Ji Xingque, who was standing at the door of the back kitchen, turned around and asked Song Xuefeng next to him for confirmation. He pointed at the door and then at another figure. “Isn’t this a bit strange?”

“They are the ones we received, but they didn’t look like this before.” Song Xuefeng’s eyes were rarely tired, and his brow furrowed. There were a few seconds of silence before he said sincerely, “The instances here are really more uncomfortable than the last one.”

To prevent Ji Xingque from asking more long-winded questions, he took the lead in pulling the other person’s collar and walked into the kitchen. “Take your seats. The side dishes will be served soon.”

The movement made by the two people wasn’t small, but no one else was paying attention to them.

Hua Qianmei remembered the situation of the previous few days very clearly, and her expression was complicated. “I thought the appearance yesterday was disgusting enough. How do these NPCs manage to make people feel more disgusted every day?”

Lu Nanling was still thinking, but he understood after hearing this. “They weren’t like this yesterday, right? So, these NPCs are really gradually changing their appearance every day.”

“This isn’t a good chance.” Hua Qianmei sneered. She glanced at her captain meaningfully but didn’t say much in the end.

She held the tablet for taking orders in her hand and skillfully put on a service smile. Then she walked towards their guest for the night.

Chi Ting received the look just now and naturally knew what Hua Qianmei wanted to say. He also pressed on his pained temples.

The person who came in was a Lv 3 customer.

Just like the changes of the previous day, if nothing unexpected happened, tonight’s customers would evolve into three categories: Lv 3, Lv 4, and the newly added Lv 5.

Compared to yesterday, the deeply decayed soft flesh on the face had regenerated very quickly. Apart from slight adjustments to the skeleton, the entire face had gradually started to look like a normal human being.

It felt like a half-finished facial model, waiting for more detailed carvings to become the final product. But no matter what, at least compared to the previous days, this stage could be regarded as a gradually formed work of art.

At the very least, the face of the Lv 3 customer vaguely resembled him.

Before this, Chi Ting himself was the person who participated in the largest number of purchases among all the members of the team.

It could basically be inferred that these NPCs should’ve gradually changed because they consumed the incense purchased with the players’ memories. This change was obviously intensifying as the consumption of food increased. As time passed, no one knew to what extent they would develop in the next two days.

Now it was him. So what next?

If he wasn’t mistaken, Lu Nanling and Ji Xingque had just completed a large purchase and would be next. Then it would be followed by Lou Yueren, Song Xuefeng, and Hua Qianmei.

Up to now, all aspects of this instance had finally surfaced.

It wasn’t just here. The NPCs in other instances were probably gradually becoming like those players.

Or maybe this was the purpose of this instance.

As they played against other teams participating in the instance, they also needed to play the final game against themselves.

Sure enough, it was true that everyone’s biggest opponent was themselves?

Chi Ting was thinking this when he suddenly sensed something.

Faced with danger, his hands instinctively fell on his beads. Then he suddenly stopped when he caught sight of the dark shadows lurking around his feet.

After a few seconds, he sincerely asked someone next to him, “…What are you doing?”

Lou Yueren was leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. He didn’t look like his shadows were ready to fight.

Chi Ting finished speaking, and the surroundings fell into a strange silence for a few seconds.

Then Lou Yueren said with an unclear expression, “Don’t pay attention to me. Just treat me as if I’m fine and going crazy on my own.”

Chi Ting blinked in an even more puzzled manner.

Lou Yueren finally turned around and met Chi Ting’s gaze. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but finally held up his chin slowly and said, “It is really nothing. It is fine if I just watch these things playing cosplay, but they are imitating you so poorly that I can’t control the itch.”

There was a pause before he added in a deep voice, “I can still hold back even if I’m crazy. Don’t worry. I remember the final goal of the instance. I won’t really cut your ‘sales volume’ until the very last moment. After all, we still have to rely on them to rank high and get tickets to the quarterfinals. I, remember, all, of, this, very, clearly.”

It wasn’t difficult to hear that Lou Yueren was indeed enduring it with great difficulty. Even the last few notes squeezed out from between his teeth sounded like he was intentionally reminding himself.

It had to be said that according to his usual casual style, the fact that he didn’t cut the ‘low-imitation version of Chi Ting’ into pieces on the spot was indeed an exceptional obedience to organizational discipline.

After Lou Yueren answered, he was waiting for Chi Ting’s response. However, he had no answer after some time. He was about to speak again when he heard Chi Ting suddenly laugh softly.

The next second, Lou Yueren saw the hand reaching out to him and patted his shoulder very considerately.

Chi Ting’s words were equally considerate. One could even hear from his tone that he was trying hard to hold back a laugh. “Yes, I’ll have to work hard tonight.”