Embers Ad Infinitum

First City’s Hunter’s Guild was located along a crowded street northwest of the Red Wolf Zone.

It was a five-story building that wasn’t attached to any other buildings. The lobby was several times larger than that of its sister branch in Weed City, but it wasn’t as electronic. Only 20 machines that allowed one to peruse and take on missions were set up. Others had to rely on the large screens or the kiosk booths.

This resulted in the local Hunter’s Guild having a large number of employees. It also gave many people a living by explaining missions to illiterate Ruin Hunters. The entire lobby was crowded and abnormally noisy.

After Bai Chen informed a receptionist that she had information to sell to the guild, she quickly passed through the lobby and went to the second floor under his guidance.

During this process, Genava received a lot of attention as expected. But compared to other places, robots appeared much more frequently in First City. Many Ruin Hunters had one such member in the team, so nobody found it strange.

On the second floor, in Room 205.

Bai Chen, Long Yuehong, and Genava saw a black-robed elder with a high nose and slightly white hair. He was about 50 years old, and his light-blue eyes reflected the two people opposite him. “What information do you have to sell to the guild?”

Before Bai Chen could answer, Genava—who had barely managed to keep his chair from creaking—asked, “I wonder how I may address you?”

The elder laughed. “It’s rare to encounter such a polite robot.”

Most robots’ priority was to obey their master’s instructions.

Long Yuehong cussed inwardly upon hearing this wistful comment and quickly said to Genava, “Who taught you to ask someone’s name directly without considering the situation?”

The red light in Genava’s eyes flickered. “Hey said so. He told me that one has to be polite.”

As expected… Long Yuehong wasn’t surprised at all. The reason he had asked was to lead the elder opposite him to think that this robot had been corrupted by its owner, not that the robot in front of him might very well come from Mechanical Paradise and be a smart bot.

“There’s no need to listen to him all the time. His brain is different from normal people.” Long Yuehong naturally wouldn’t let go of the rare opportunity to badmouth Shang Jianyao behind his back.

The elder opposite him raised his hand and pressed it down. “It’s not a bad thing to be polite. My name is Friedrich.”

Bai Chen then nodded slightly. “Mr. Friedrich, we have information regarding the white wolf in the North Shore Mountains.”

“Is that so?” Friedrich was a little surprised. “You guys just came back from the North Shore Mountains?”

“No.” Bai Chen took out a neatly folded piece of paper from her pocket. “We previously encountered an enemy with a similar situation to the white wolf. We believe that there should be some similarities between the two. You can use this to gather some useful information.”

Friedrich tapped the table’s surface with his right index finger and thought for a few seconds. “In other words, you can’t be sure that this information will definitely come in handy?”

“Yes.” Bai Chen didn’t deny it. “But similarly, you can’t be sure that it won’t come in handy.”

This conversation is like a tongue twister. Little White’s Red River language is still much better than mine… Long Yuehong muttered silently. He only dared to call Bai Chen’s nickname inwardly; it was the same for ‘Big White.’

Hey was an exception; he would shout it a few times from time to time. In any case, he and Shang Jianyao were used to denigrating the other. The only thing they needed to consider was whether they could withstand the other party’s verbal counterattack.

As for Old Ge, he didn’t have any intention of teasing him. He felt that it didn’t matter.

Friedrich retracted his right hand and smiled. “This makes me feel like I’m gambling.”

“But you are the house,” Bai Chen replied calmly.

Ruin Hunters had to consider the consequences of directly selling information to the guild. This wasn’t a one-time deal of skinning the sheep. If the guild discovered that one was suspected of fraud after obtaining the information and reading it, punishments would range from requesting compensation and deducting a certain amount of credit points—with a note entering their records—to being blacklisted or even offering a mission to capture the person in question.

Individuals were always insignificant when compared to the guild. As long as one still wanted to be a Ruin Hunter, very few people would play any tricks in this regard. Of course, there were also situations where one had no choice but to scam the guild. One could only consider becoming a Dark Hunter and not accept missions through the guild, just like the earliest Ruin Hunters.

Friedrich laughed. “You’re very calm. Tell me, how much do you want?”

“400 Oray.” Bai Chen offered a price.

This was enough for a family of three in Green Olive Zone to live for a year. If they were more thrifty, they could even last two years.

However, this was nothing compared to the price of a military exoskeleton and a mechanical arm that could easily be priced around 10,000 Oray. Such resources were often priceless.

For the Old Task Force, this information was mainly to fill their thinning wallets. After all, they weren’t offering all the information regarding Qiao Chu. Furthermore, they didn’t know the abilities of the Eighth Research Institute’s commissioner well.

Friedrich thought for a moment and said, “I hope it’s worth the price.”

He immediately picked up the phone on the table and dialed a number, requesting the other party to go through the procedure and approve 400 Oray.

After he hung up, Bai Chen pushed the folded paper over.

Friedrich picked up his reading glasses, unfolded the paper in his hand, and read it carefully. “…We once encountered a person named Qiao Chu. The guild’s bounty for intelligence on him was a ton of flour… He can make people involuntarily like him, be infatuated with him, and obey his orders… This is suspected to be a price, not an Awakened ability… His known abilities are ‘forcefully changing the target’s hobby’ and ‘making people depressed.’ The rest is unknown… If the wolf in the North Shore Mountains didn’t obtain the ability to bewitch others through mutation, one has to consider that it has other abilities…”

Friedrich looked up at Bai Chen and Long Yuehong. “You met Qiao Chu? You guys actually escaped him and survived to this day?”

He was surprised by the latter matter.

Without changing her expression, Bai Chen pointed at Genava beside her and said, “We had him.”

“Him?” Friedrich asked.

In Red River language, ‘him’ and ‘her’ were pronounced differently, unlike Ashlandic. It was obvious.

Bai Chen casually explained, “I’m a wilderness nomad. My parents died early, and I relied on the smart bot to survive until adulthood.”

“I see…” Friedrich expressed his understanding.

Long Yuehong was secretly speechless. He didn’t expect Little White to be as good at lying as his team leader.

There were clearly no robots back then! Besides, it wasn’t Genava who brought her up! I wonder if Little White was like this to begin with or if she was influenced by Team Leader… Long Yuehong fell into deep thought.

At this moment, Friedrich sighed. “From the looks of it, that kind of charm doesn’t work on robots. This is also a very important piece of information. Alright, your intelligence is indeed worth 400 Oray.”

Jiang Baimian had priced it at 400 Oray using the previous bounty as reference. A kilogram of ordinary-grade flour was about 4 to 6 Drace in First City—it was equivalent to 0.5 Oray.

Of course, this was also during years without disasters. In places like First City and Weed City, a kilogram of flour was worth a life in many settlements in the Ashlands.

Overall, 400 Oray was equivalent to 800 kilograms of ordinary-grade flour, making it about the same price as the previous bounty.

Bai Chen quickly obtained 400 Oray notes. She took out 50 Oray from it and pushed it to Friedrich as she said, “I want to commission a mission.”

Friedrich pointed at the floor. “You can commission missions below.”

Bai Chen didn’t stop and continued, “The content is to help us find a friend. He’s very sensitive and is also a Ruin Hunter. He will definitely hide when he sees that someone has issued a mission to search for him. We can only ask the guild for help and privately entrust it to local Ruin Hunters with sufficient connections. There’s no need to get detailed information. Just tell us where he lives or where he often appears.”

There was always a vice president in the Hunter’s Guild who was in charge of such missions that had confidentiality requirements.

Fredrich took the stack of notes and shook them. “If it’s only this bit of payment, it’s hard to say how long it will take. For 50 Oray, nobody will mobilize everyone they know to help search.”

“No problem.” Bai Chen took out another piece of paper.

On it was Jiang Baimian’s depiction of Han Wanghuo’s appearance; it could be said to be lifelike. At the same time, she also labeled the color of his eyes, aliases, and other details.

After entrusting this matter, Bai Chen led Long Yuehong and Genava back to the first-floor lobby.

They casually browsed through the available missions and didn’t consider accepting them. They mainly wanted to understand First City’s current situation.

After leaving the lobby and returning to the street, they were just about to turn elsewhere when they suddenly saw a convoy drive by on the road ahead.

These were all sedans. They were dark in color, and the glass seemed to have been processed. The interior couldn’t be seen from the outside.

Such a large convoy gave Long Yuehong a sense of grandeur as he subconsciously held his breath. He turned his head to glance at Bai Chen and realized that she was staring ahead in a daze.

After the convoy disappeared at the end of the road, Long Yuehong asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Bai Chen shook her head.

…

In a room in the Harvest Bathhouse.

“You think this matter is related to the Anti-intellectualism Church?” After Jiang Baimian heard Shang Jianyao’s description, she thought for a moment and asked, “Was the Zhao family behind the assassination of Xu Liyan? That’s not right. Zhao Zhengqi and Zhao Yide were also in the Aristocratic Council Chamber. They would’ve been blown up as well! Is there a conflict within the Zhao family?”

Shang Jianyao didn’t answer Jiang Baimian’s question and continued, “There are also a few people that exist in Zhao Shouren’s memories that were born in the manor and grew up there. However, it’s obvious they were brought there from another family. Many of the details don’t match. They often enter and leave.”