“What did my sister tell you?” After the matter was resolved, Han Yuze quietly approached.
Jiang Shi glanced at him and gave a fairly objective assessment, saying, “The favorability during this period hasn’t been in vain.”
Han Yuze: “Hmm?”
Jiang Shi smiled at him. “What I mean is, if your cousin doesn’t mind, perhaps you could ask Miss Jiang to take you in as a follower.”
Han Yuze was momentarily taken aback, but soon understood.
There was no trace of anger, and he smiled back at Jiang Shi. “Let’s not ask about that. Whether big or small, I’ll just serve you.”
With that statement, Jiang Shi’s gaze locked directly onto him.
Since the confession at San Tingpo last time, he naturally understood Han Yuze’s intentions. And precisely because of this, he could now clearly sense the subtle pause in breath.
After all, since then, the two hadn’t directly discussed this topic. Now, Han Yuze suddenly teased about it, causing Jiang Shi’s smile to momentarily falter before he casually changed his tone, “Well, it all depends on whether there’s an opportunity in the future.”
“No rush, take your time.”
Han Yuze understood Jiang Shi’s temperament very well. Since he mentioned waiting for the future, it completely indicated there was still a chance, and a rather substantial one at that. So, at this moment, he didn’t feel any urgency. He sensibly refrained from continuing the topic, saying, “Looks like someone has seriously offended the Sky Vine’s people in this round. I remember that brat who was just a participant a while ago. When next week’s competition starts, it might get lively.”
Jiang Shi’s mind was still on the conversation about whether Han Yuze would serve him in a higher or lower capacity, so he didn’t fully transition yet, “He’s a participant?”
Originally, Han Yuze thought he wouldn’t be mistaken, but being asked made him hesitate, “He should be?”
Jiang Shi almost laughed, “That’s great then.”
Jiang Shi’s consistent principle was never to regret any actions. Whether dealing with the Sky Vine or even those professional guilds bullying his family, if given another chance, he’d unquestionably strike again.
And today’s events were far from over.
Even if the Sky Vine’s people wanted to back down, it would depend on their willingness. If that brat was still a contestant, it could, in a way, be seen as an opportunity handed to him.
Jiang Shi suddenly felt a bit excited about next week’s competition.
Counting the days until the second week of the tournament wasn’t just happening on Jiang Shi’s end.
The members of the Sky Vine guild were doing the same.
Surprisingly, their anticipation was for the same reason as Jiang Shi’s.
However, the Sky Vine members didn’t anticipate the upcoming competition because of humiliation but out of necessity, compelled by the extreme circumstances, making them seek attention through the next match.
In the world of holographic online games, there were hardly any secrets.
The locations where the two sides had guarded the corpse were not far from the entrance of the instance’s resurrection point. Many people passed by, inevitably witnessing this drama.
As expected, there were bored onlookers who followed the incident from the beginning to the end, summarizing the entire process, adding artistic embellishments, turning it into a thrilling story, and posting it on the official forum.
During the competition, the official forum was already full of discussions. With this post, it stirred up a storm, pushing the conflict between the Sky Vine and the Seven Silver Coins to the forefront.
Among the forum users discussing, some believed that after the Seven Silver Coins won the first battle, they became overly arrogant in their actions. However, more people mocked the Sky Vine for enduring such humiliation without retaliating and wondered if they’d strike back in the upcoming week’s match.
As the focal point of attention, when Little Ghost returned to the guild, naturally, he didn’t dare to raise his head before the guild management.
Ultimately, he had caused this mess. Though he hadn’t anticipated the Seven Silver Coins to be so assertive in protecting a newcomer undercover, considering the situation now, facing all the uncontrollable public pressure, he indeed had no face left to say anything.
The Sky Vine guild held several management meetings to seriously criticize Little Ghost’s behavior.
But criticism aside, the more crucial aspect was the tactical discussion concerning the next week’s match.
The die had been cast. Pursuing responsibility was now meaningless. The only course of action was to shut the mouths of those netizens mocking them as much as possible during the next week’s competition.
However, knowing what to do and the harsh realities of execution often differed greatly.
The Sky Vine wasn’t foolish. Despite being displeased with the public favoritism toward the Seven Silver Coins, they could see from the first week’s competition that their strength couldn’t match up. Even if they wanted to make a move in the second week, under normal circumstances, they might end up embarrassing themselves.
Just when they racked their brains and couldn’t come up with a solution, someone unexpectedly approached them.
The representative of Old Dream Time got straight to the point upon their first meeting, expressing their willingness to form an alliance with Sky Vine for next week’s competition.
In this phase of ranking and contesting for advancement positions, it wasn’t uncommon for guilds to collaborate in alliances. However, the suddenness of Old Dream Time’s proposal made the President of Sky Vine slightly cautious.
Rather than agreeing outright, he cautiously inquired about the reasons.
The representative from Old Dream Time seemed to anticipate this reaction and promptly responded, “It’s simple. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
The President of Sky Vine furrowed his brow, “Do you also have a feud with Seven Silver Coins? Because of last week’s boss fight incident?”
The other person smiled, “That’s part of the reason, but not entirely. If we talk about grudges, it started way before your conflict, long before the Nianhua Cup.”
The President of Sky Vine truly hadn’t realized that despite Seven Silver Coins being a relatively new guild, they’d managed to provoke quite a few others.
He was somewhat hesitant, but at present, there seemed to be no other choice except cooperating with Old Dream Time. Moreover, from various perspectives, forming this alliance seemed to be more advantageous than disadvantageous. So, he finally nodded, “Let’s give the alliance a try then.”
The representative from Old Dream Time was visibly pleased with the successful alliance and happily went back to report.
As mentioned before, the enemy of an enemy is a friend. Seven Silver Coins’ adversaries were never their primary concern. What mattered to them was that the more enemies these troublesome individuals made, the more people they could pull into their faction. Although their individual strengths couldn’t match those people, with enough collaborators, they would eventually make Seven Silver Coins suffer and prevent them from being arrogant.
Jiang Shi was unaware of the decision made by Sky Vine and Old Dream Time to band together.
For him, the incident of Jiang Yan being bullied was just an interlude. During this time, he primarily focused on farming forging materials, allowing Muchuan Pants to make slight adjustments to the team’s equipment. Then they adapted themselves to the modified equipment attributes through training.
Among them, most adapted well to the equipment changes, but scavenger was something they were least accustomed to.
Due to the game’s unique mechanics, all equipment before scavenger focused mainly on movement speed, with attributes like attack causing minimal to no damage.
This made Jiang Yan accustomed to avoiding confrontation as much as possible. But in any competitive event, this approach would not work.
After spending some time clearing dungeons together, Jiang Shi decided it was time for drastic measures.
So, as the second week of the competition approached, scavengier was given an absolute task – to eliminate 20 players on the field.
“Can’t we just not kill anyone?” Scavenger clearly lacked enthusiasm.
“No,” Jiang Shi didn’t leave room for negotiation.
Scavenger was about to say something when Gentleman Fan approached and lightly patted her shoulder, smiling mischievously, “Sis, you can do it. If needed, I’ll scavenge heads with you.”
Scavenger moved her lips slightly and sighed in the end, “Fine, I’ll give it a try.”
The final days passed swiftly, and the second week of the first round of matches finally arrived on Wednesday in Zone C.
The map revealed for this round, the Water Pavilion Sanctuary, wasn’t as ridiculously challenging as the previous week’s map.
As the official commentator for Zone C, Tetanus, spoke with the same energy as always, “Alright, welcome everyone to the site of the second match of the first round in Zone C! Today’s map is the Water Pavilion Sanctuary, a scenic area covered with shallow waters. Compared to last week’s Hurricane Stone Steps, this map should bring tears of joy to all the contestants present here.”
This statement reminded the audience of the “spectacle” from the last week’s competition, provoking chuckles in the crowd.
“Looking at the map itself, the complexity of the terrain and the openness of the view have basically avoided the application of some special tactics. This means that today’s outcome will mainly depend on the direct confrontation of true strengths,” Tetanus adjusted his tone timely, “Alright, the teams from various guilds have officially set out from random spawn points! The match has begun, let’s look forward to today’s intense battles!”
The atmosphere on-site had been energized, and the participants inside the arena were actively moving.
Just when everyone was anticipating clashes between various guilds, at the 12-minute mark into the game, everyone noticed the actions of Old Dream Time and Sky Vine.
Upon the initial contact, neither side showed any intention of engaging in combat but rather gathered together quite amicably.
From a bird’s-eye view, it was evident they were engaged in low-volume communication.
Tetanus, the official commentator, observed everything and, based on years of experience, could guess what was happening. His tone expressed a mixture of surprise and excitement, “Just yesterday, there was an internal collaboration in Zone B’s competition. Looking at it now, will today’s match witness the second alliance of this year’s Nianhua Cup? Sky Vine secured the second position in last week’s competition, and although Old Dream Time didn’t rank well, they are definitely one of the breakout candidates within Zone C. What kind of spark will be ignited by the collaboration between these two guilds, and who will be their primary target? It’s indeed something to look forward to!”
If the earlier statements had excited the audience, the last words made the online spectators roll their eyes at the commentator’s pretended ignorance.
One forum was buzzing with discussion, while the other had just seen its boss stolen from right under its nose last week.
Is there even a need to question who these two guilds would target?
Thinking this, everyone subconsciously glanced towards the area where Seven Silver Coins were located.
For some reason, despite the sympathy for the joint force against the alliance, when it came to these particular individuals, it felt like adding insult to injury for the united opposition…