Embers Ad Infinitum

The hunter's guild in the original city is located northwest of the Red Giant Wolf District, on a street bustling with people and traffic.

It has its own five-story building. The lobby area is several times that of its colleagues in Weed City, but its level of electronics is not as good as it. There are only twenty machines that can read and receive tasks on their own, and the rest are all passed through a block. Big screen and windows to complete.

This resulted in the local hunter guild having a large number of employees, and also allowed many people to make a living by explaining tasks to the relic hunters who did not know the word. The entire hall was crowded and extremely noisy.

After Bai Chen informed a receptionist that he had information to sell to the guild, he quickly led him through the hall and onto the second floor.

During this process, Gnawa received a lot of attention as expected, but compared to other places, the frequency of robots appearing in the First City was much higher. Many ruin hunter teams had such a member, so no one thought that strangeness.

On the second floor, in room 205.

Bai Chen, Long Yuehong and Gennava saw an old man with a straight nose, slightly gray hair, and a black robe.

He was probably in his fifties, and his light blue eyes reflected the appearance of the two people opposite him:

"What information do you have to sell to the guild?"

Before Bai Chen could answer, Gnawa, who barely managed to sit down without making any creaking noise from his chair, already asked:

"Don't know what to call you?"

The old man laughed:

"It's rare to encounter such a polite robot."

The priority of most robots is to obey their masters.

When Long Yuehong heard this sigh, she secretly said "bad thing" and quickly said to Gnawa:

“Who taught you to ask someone’s name without considering the context?”

Gnawa's eyes flashed red:

"That's what He said. He said you should be polite."

Sure enough... Long Yuehong was not surprised at all.

He just asked that in order to guide the half-century-old man opposite him to think in the direction of "this robot has been taught bad by its master", rather than that the robot in front of him is likely to come from "Mechanical Paradise" and belong to an intelligent person.

"You don't have to always listen to him, his brain is different from normal people." Long Yuehong rarely had the opportunity to speak ill of Shang Jianyao behind his back, so of course he would not miss it.

The old man opposite raised his hand and said:

“It’s not a bad thing to be polite.

"My name is Friedrich."

Bai Chen then nodded gently:

"Mr. Friedrich, we have information about the giant white wolf in the mountains on the north coast."

"Really?" Frederic was a little surprised, "You just came back from the mountains on the north coast?"

"No." Bai Chen took out a neatly folded piece of paper from his pocket, "We have encountered enemies similar to that giant white wolf before, and we think there should be some similarities between the two. , you can get some useful information from here to there.”

Friedrich tapped the surface of the table with his right index finger, pondered for a few seconds and said:

"That is to say, you are not sure that this information will come in handy?"

"Yes." Bai Chen did not deny it, "But similarly, you can't be sure that it won't come in handy."

This conversation was like a tongue twister. Xiaobai's Honghe dialect is still much better than mine... Long Yuehong muttered silently.

He dared to call Bai Chen's nickname in his heart.

The same goes for "Baymax".

Only "Hey", he would shout a few times from time to time. Anyway, he and Shang Jianyao were used to each other's quarrels. The only thing that needed to be considered was whether they could withstand the other's verbal counterattack in the future.

As for "Lao Ge", he didn't mean it as a joke and it didn't matter to him.

Friedrich took back his right hand and said with a smile:

"It makes me feel like I'm gambling."

"But you are the banker." Bai Chen responded calmly.

Relic hunters need to consider the consequences of selling information directly to the guild.

This is not a one-and-done deal. If the guild gets the information and reads it, and finds that you are suspected of fraud, the guild will recover the reward, deduct a certain amount of credit points, and add corresponding records. The guild will add you to the blacklist or even arrest you. Capture your mission.

Individuals always seem small compared to guilds. As long as they still want to make a living as a ruin hunter, few people will do tricks in this regard.

Of course, there are also situations where you have to cheat the guild. Then you can only consider turning into a "dark hunter" and not accepting and handing in tasks through the guild, like the earliest ruin hunters.

Friedrich smiled:

"You're calm.

"Tell me, how much payment do you want?"

"400 Ole." Bai Chen offered the price.

This is enough for a family of three in Green Olive District to live for a year, or even two years if they are more frugal.

But compared with the price of military exoskeleton devices and robotic arms, which often cost tens of thousands, it is really a drop in the bucket - such materials are often expensive but not marketable.

As far as the "old investigation team" is concerned, this information is mainly to fill shy wallets first. After all, they have not given out all the information related to Qiao Chu, and they do not know much about the abilities of the special correspondent of the Eighth Research Institute. Not that fully.

Friedrich thought for a while and said:

“Hopefully it’s worthy of the price.”

He immediately picked up the phone on the table, dialed a number, and asked the other party to go through the process now and approve 400 Orei.

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

Friedrich picked up the reading glasses placed next to him, unfolded the paper in his hand, and read it carefully:

"...We once met a man named Qiao Chu. The reward for his information in the guild was a ton of flour... He can make people like him, be obsessed with him, and obey his orders involuntarily... This is suspicious The price, not the ability of the awakened person... His abilities currently known include 'the hobby of forcibly changing the target' and 'making people depressed', and the rest are unknown... If the giant wolf in the mountains on the north coast did not obtain the charm of others through distortion, ability, then you need to consider that it has other abilities..."

Friedrich raised his head and looked at Bai Chen and Long Yuehong:

"Have you ever met Qiao Chu?

"You were able to get rid of him and survive until now?"

What surprised him was the next thing.

Bai Chen pointed at Gnawa next to him and said without changing his expression:

"He's here."

"Him?" Friedrich asked.

In Honghe language, he and she are different words, which can be heard at a glance.

Bai Chen explained casually:

"I am a wanderer in the wilderness. My parents died young and I only survived to adulthood thanks to the care of intelligent robots."

"That's right..." Frederic expressed understanding.

Long Yuehong was secretly stunned as she listened. She didn't expect Xiaobai to be as deceptive as the team leader.

Obviously there were no robots at that time!

Moreover, it was not Gnawa who took care of her growing up!

I don’t know whether Xiaobai was like this originally or was influenced by the team leader... Long Yuehong fell into deep thought.

At this time, Friedrich sighed:

“It seems that the charm does not work on robots, which is also a very important piece of information.

"Okay, your information does have a price of 400 ores."

Jiang Baimian decided on 400 ores mainly based on the previous reward: the price of one kilogram of ordinary grade flour in the original city was about 4 to 6 drase, which was approximately equal to 0.5 ores.

Of course, that is, in disaster-free years, this is true in places like the First City and Weed City. In many settlements in the dust, one kilogram of flour can be worth a life in some cases.

In general, 400 orei is equivalent to about 800 kilograms of ordinary grade flour, which is similar to the previous reward price.

Soon, Bai Chen got a full 400 Ole banknotes.

She counted out 50 ores, pushed it to Friedrich, and said:

"I would like to entrust a task."

Friedrich pointed to the floor:

"The commissioned task is below."

Bai Chen didn't stop and continued:

"The content is to help us find a friend. He is very sensitive and is also a relic hunter. When he sees someone posting a mission to find him, he will definitely hide. We can only ask the guild for help and privately entrust it to some relic hunters who have enough connections in the local area. .

"There is no need to obtain detailed information, just tell us where he lives or which area he frequents more often."

——The Hunter Guild always has a vice-president who is in charge of tasks that require confidentiality and are not released publicly.

Friedrich took the stack of banknotes, turned them over and said:

"With this little reward, it's hard to say how long it will take. No one will mobilize everyone they know to help find him for 50 Ore."

"No problem." Bai Chen took out another piece of paper.

Above is the appearance of Han Wanghuo painted by Jiang Baimian, which is lifelike.

At the same time, she also marked the eye color, character name and other content next to it.

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

They casually browsed through the recent missions without considering taking them, mainly because they wanted to understand the current situation in the original city.

After leaving the hall and returning to the street, they were about to turn somewhere else when they suddenly saw a motorcade passing by on the road ahead.

These are cars, dark in color, and the glass seems to have been treated so that the inside cannot be seen from the outside.

Such a large convoy gave Long Yuehong a feeling of overwhelming momentum, and she subconsciously held her breath.

He glanced sideways at Bai Chen and found that she was staring blankly ahead.

"What happened?" Long Yuehong asked after the convoy disappeared at the end of the road.

"Nothing." Bai Chen shook his head.

…………

Harvest bathroom, in one room.

"Do you think this matter is related to the 'anti-intellectual religion'?" After listening to Shang Jianyao's description, Jiang Baimian asked thoughtfully, "Did the Zhao family do the assassination of Xu Liyan? No, Zhao Zhengqi and Zhao Yide were also there. The noble meeting hall will be blown up together! Are there conflicts within the Zhao family?"

Shang Jianyao did not respond to Jiang Baimian's question and said to himself:

"There are still a few people who exist in Zhao Shouren's memory. They were born in the manor and grew up in the manor. But at first glance, they look like they were brought from other families. Many details don't match up. They often come and go."