CHAPTER 413: CHAPTER 174: DELIVERING INTELLIGENCE, A GREAT ENEMY AT SIDE (5K)_2

But he was still willing to come, feeling both afraid and excited at the same time—it was kind of like when you just got your driver’s license, and you can’t help but hope that one day a cop pulls you over, but instead of giving you a ticket, he points ahead and says: Chase down that car in front.

Of course, the main thing was, Fu Guangfei still figured, if he came over here and hung around near Wen Yan’s manor, he’d probably be safe. Brother Wen wasn’t like everyone else; Brother Wen had a whole bunch of people working for him, basically an NPC by now.

Wen Yan saw Fu Guangfei and waved him over, leading him into the manor.

"Why are you here again? This place is pretty dangerous. Don’t come in the future."

"Minister Cai said..."

The moment Wen Yan heard "Cai Heizi," his face darkened.

"Cai Heizi is really something else, sending a kid to go on adventures."

Fu Guangfei shrank his neck and didn’t dare reply, just like last time when their physics teacher cussed out the principal—none of the students dared to chime in.

The only reason he dared curse was people said the physics teacher and the principal used to be classmates, and back in the day, the teacher even beat up the principal; as for the students, they wouldn’t dare do that themselves. At most, they’d gossip in private.

It was the same now—in Fu Guangfei’s eyes, Minister Cai was a really big deal.

Wen Yan patted Fu Guangfei on the shoulder.

"What did Cai Heizi want you to do? Got anything to say?"

"I memorized it. Want me to write it out from memory?"

Wen Yan paused and chuckled.

There it was—the special skill every student has.

He glanced at those long-winded classical texts from back in school—he didn’t even fully understand them now, so how did they manage to memorize them word for word back then, and not just one, but several at a time?

Wen Yan had a paper person fetch pen and paper, and Fu Guangfei sat up straight, looking serious as hell, gripped the pen and, after thinking for a bit, started scribbling away with his head down.

Wen Yan poured a cup of tea for Fu Guangfei and sat not far away, waiting patiently.

After more than twenty minutes, Fu Guangfei finally let out a long breath, lifted his head, and with a face full of pride—typical of a teenager—handed over a page covered in writing to Wen Yan.

"Bro, look, this should be it. Definitely not a single word wrong."

"Impressive." Wen Yan gave a big thumbs up, straightforward and blunt with his praise.

This page had to be the equivalent of at least two essays, easy.

Wen Yan scanned through the info that had been written down—there was quite a bit.

It covered the current situation up top, which places had already been checked out and were known to have disappearances, and which ghosts had vanished, all that stuff.

Everything was laid out clearly, point by point, concise and well-organized.

At the end, Cai Heizi had said that in under three minutes, more than a dozen players died at once—there’s something seriously dangerous in the Netherworld, so he should be careful and keep himself safe. The higher-ups were doing everything they could to find a way to rescue people.

And of course, if possible, they hoped Wen Yan could give them some intel, because so far, after the Scorching Sun Department folks got their game qualifications, every time they entered the Netherworld, they just wandered around a boundless wasteland getting nowhere.

The only real information they had was that you could get lost super easily there. It’s just darkness, flatness, stretching on forever, zero landmarks. Trying not to get lost or wander in circles is seriously a tall order.

Overall, because the Scorching Sun Department’s pros were relentlessly "steering the discourse," and plus deliberately suppressing the news, there actually weren’t many people who knew about all this, and of those who did know, most were keeping things on the down-low.

Wen Yan pondered for a bit—he didn’t seem to have any particularly valuable information himself, so he just wrote two things down.

First, yesterday way off on the horizon, there were huge fire clouds lighting up a huge part of the sky.

Second, caught a ghost; according to its confession, there’s apparently a pretty scary big ghost to the north of the manor, and it probably swallowed a dozen or so people at once—most likely the folks the Scorching Sun Department were talking about.

There wasn’t much more of value to share beyond that.

Oh, and by the way, he mentioned he picked up some guy called Lin Jue, who couldn’t get back because his Soul Clothing was busted.

He told Little Thief that when he went back, if his body wasn’t dead or burned yet, to hold onto it for now—Lin Jue might still have a shot at returning.

And, he’d received some burned paper money, and asked Brother Fu’s family to burn some other stuff as well.

Wen Yan thought it over and brought out Brother Fu’s incense candle crossbow, letting Little Thief have a look.

Then added a suggestion: had the Scorching Sun Department try to use the types and specs of grave goods to design and make a few items that could slot together perfectly—so they could be easily assembled into a crossbow, and sturdy, too.

Most importantly, the more powerful, the better.

Theoretically, grave goods were only supposed to be usable when arriving, but if you could bring them to the Netherworld and hand them off to someone else, it wouldn’t affect using the Soul Clothing to get back in the end.

Little Thief stared at the incense candle crossbow in Wen Yan’s hand, looking totally gobsmacked, especially after seeing this thing could actually fire incense sticks as crossbow bolts—and they hit hard, too. He couldn’t help but suck in a breath through his teeth.

"Damn, who knew you could do this?!?"

"This is why you should study harder. If you don’t study, even if you had these parts, you’d never think to make a crossbow out of them." Wen Yan clapped Little Thief on the shoulder, squeezing in an educational moment wherever he could.

"So badass."

"Remember—tell Cai Heizi, the crossbow needs to be as powerful as possible. And most importantly, don’t keep coming here, it’s too dangerous. Tell Cai Heizi, if there’s anything he needs to tell me, just tell Fuyu Mountain and my Fourth Great-uncle Master can message me."