Chapter 248
Chapter 248 Soft Rice Guy???
Ling Mo and Xia Xinyan jumped down through the outermost corridor.
The lighting underground was dim, but to be safe, Ling Mo didn’t use a flashlight; instead, he opted for a high-grade night vision device. Apart from being black and white, it made visibility nearly as clear as during the day.
As for Xia Xinyan, she had night vision abilities all on her own.
The abandoned building had hardly any flat surfaces and was mostly at steep angles, with some areas nearly slanted at forty-five degrees, making it hard to find a place to stand.
Xia Xinyan’s catgirl abilities were showing their full advantage here; it was like she had returned home. Even in the hardest-to-navigate spots, she could run as if strolling on flat ground, but unfortunately, Ling Mo didn’t have such finesse—his physical condition, aside from enhancements, was still comparable to an average person.
So, Xia Xinyan would walk for a while, then stop to wait for Ling Mo to crawl over slowly before continuing again—watching it almost felt like she was teasing him.
Ling Mo didn’t mind, though. After all, it was nice to have a moment of peace without anyone interrupting their world, even if this place wasn’t the most romantic setting.
It was just that Xia Xinyan took the dungeon too seriously. Aside from the most basic exchanges, she didn’t talk much during their journey, finally prompting him to bring up a topic: “By the way, do you intend to recruit those people up there into Canglong?”
“Hmm? Pretty much,” Xia Xinyan paused at a steel rebar sticking out from the wall and nodded. “Canglong is a newly developing organization, and now is the time we need talent. Once we grow stronger later, it will be our shared power. We can’t let Zhang Daren be the only one worrying about it.”
At least she wasn’t quite used to being a hands-off manager.
After a moment’s pause, Xia Xinyan continued, “Mo Mo, I don’t want to rely on the Summer Family forever. To have a say in the future, I must have my own power. Got it?”
Ling Mo pondered over her words as he climbed up the wall.
He unconditionally trusted Xia Xinyan, and aside from her being his girlfriend, she had solid grounds for his trust—she was reincarnated. Even if her previous achievements were not remarkable, she now knew the names and statuses of those who were strong in her past life. Thus, upon coming back to this world, absorbing those who were yet to grow strong into her own power was indeed the best choice for them.
If he were in her shoes, he would do the same.
Honestly, after the fat guy took over Canglong, he wanted to be a hands-off manager, since he was clueless about managing organizations. Helping would probably just complicate things, so it was better to let the fat guy handle it and save him the trouble.
But seeing how much Xia Xinyan cared about Canglong changed his mindset a bit.
Just as Xia Xinyan said, Canglong was now their shared strength.
And the future…
He knew that having personal strength wouldn’t achieve much. After all, no matter how strong one person might be, they couldn’t contend with a whole organization.
So, to get the Summer Family to recognize his strength and be willing to hand Xia Xinyan over to him… perhaps what he needed now was a substantial force of his own?
Looks like he needed to chat with the fat guy later.
However, now was not the time to think deeply about this. He paused for a moment and continued, “The people up top lack the guts; this might affect their future strength upgrades.”
At this point, they shouldn’t even dare to take a risk. From that alone, one could gauge their level—not just their strength, but their growth potential.
As the saying goes, the timid starve while the bold thrive.
“They’re unsure if this place is related to their mission objectives, so they’re hesitant to come down. That’s normal,” Xia Xinyan seemed to see things clearly. “And since they know us, they must also be aware that our strength surpasses theirs—dungeon quests typically have a consistent difficulty level with players in the same instance, and the target we face is likely much stronger than their mission target. If they die at our target’s hands, that would be quite unfortunate.”
“Even so, I still think they should come down and try their luck. Worst case, they can just run if they can’t win; that’s not embarrassing. If they can’t even take the first step, how can they grow?” Ling Mo shook his head. “Besides, this place looks pretty safe; we haven’t encountered anything that can move yet…”
“That’s hard to say.” Xia Xinyan smiled slightly, tilting her head to glance in one direction.
Suddenly, she transformed into a black cat and pounced directly into Ling Mo’s arms.
Just as Ling Mo climbed up, he almost got knocked back down by her leap.
He hurriedly held his little girlfriend in his arms, unable to resist giving her cat ears a squeeze. But before he could say anything, a scornful voice came from the direction Xia Xinyan had been looking at: “Oh! I thought it was someone important; isn’t that the superstar Ling the Soft Rice Guy!”
Simultaneously, several beams of flashlight light shone over.
Ling Mo instinctively looked up and saw four men standing at the gap ahead.
“Looks like you’re quite the stylish Soft Rice Brother,” said the one with a hedgehog haircut, the only one among them wearing night vision goggles. “Where’s Miss Xia? Did she get bored and kick you to the curb?”
With that, all four burst into laughter.
Ling Mo raised an eyebrow. “Do we know each other?”
He couldn’t fathom where these guys were getting such malice from.
“You don’t know us, but we know you.” The hedgehog-haired guy teased. “Ling Ge! You’re pretty famous online! Who knows how many young girls’ hearts you’ve swayed! Honestly, you’ve got quite the skills. Why don’t you share with us how to make a rich lady fall for you and even get her to play along? We also want to find a rich lady to reach the top of life and get both fame and fortune!”
Another round of loud laughter echoed.
Ling Mo: “??? ”
“Well, that works,” the hedgehog-haired guy grinned, pulling out a baton. “Since you’ve run into us, guess you just have bad luck. We won’t play along in your act—hey, just think, our first trophy in the team is actually Ling the Soft Rice Guy! I’m so excited about this! Sorry, buddy, but we need a good score, so you’ll have to blame…”
Then he suddenly charged toward Ling Mo: “It’s just that I can’t stand prissy boys like you who have no skills!! ”
Ling Mo immediately retreated a few steps, holding Xia Xinyan to dodge the hedgehog-haired guy’s attack, while the other three quickly surrounded him with weapons in this chaotic terrain, momentarily entangling him.
But with their meager skills, they couldn’t hurt him at all, even with Ling Mo still holding Xia Xinyan without fighting back.
So he felt quite relaxed, albeit a bit confused.
Soft Rice Guy? When did he become the Soft Rice Guy?
This reminded him of what Xia Xinyan had mentioned before, about his online image and things like that…
Could it be that’s why Xia Xinyan turned into a cat to let him handle the situation alone?
And just where did this rumor come from?
Looks like he needed to have a good chat with these guys in front of him.
