In fact, they were only a little more than an hour away from Jiuzhaigou Valley, but the BMW pulled over in Pansong County. It seemed that they were going to stay here for tonight. Su Bai didn’t say anything, though he really preferred a better hotel in Jiuzhaigou Valley. Unfortunately, he couldn’t leave all the other people in his car and drive away by himself.

But the most important reason was that he had a bad feeling not long after that incident. After he pulled over and all the others were in the restaurant, he took out his cellphone and saw a private message in WeChat from "Kongbu66".

"The next story world will have its difficulty raised by 30%."

Reading this message, Su Bai was a little confused. Why raise the difficulty all of a sudden?

Generally, in most stories, most players would have only a slim chance of surviving; even the tiniest lift on the difficulty would kill their hope for survival, let alone 30%.

So on what basis could this difficulty raise be sanctioned?

Su Bai thought it over, took a screenshot of the message and sent it to Fatty. Although it was awkward between him and Fatty, for now, Fatty was the only person he could turn to for help.

Fatty replied immediately: "Did you kill anyone in reality? Especially with no particular reason? I mean, they didn’t screw around with you or your family or your friends, but you just killed them. Or did you kill too many people?"

Su Bai thought about it and answered "No".

But on a second thought, he looked at Lucky on his laps and replied: "Maybe. But it wasn’t me, it was my pet."

"Well, that’s it. It’s your pet, so all the people it kills will be counted on you. You should take care of yourself from now on. Killing ordinary people won’t be a big problem as long as you don’t kill too many or some particular people. Punishment will become even harsher when you kill audiences in reality for no reason."

The last sentence was a hint for Su Bai, and he understood. He replied "Got it" and then put his cellphone back into his pocket.

Then he realized that Lucky was looking up at him and it had seen the dialogue on his cellphone.

The cat rubbed its head against Su Bai’s arm as if it felt sorry. Normally, Lucky was indifferent, but realizing that it had brought so much trouble to Su Bai, it began to feel a little embarrassed; it enjoyed the pleasure of killing but Su Bai was involved and could even get killed in the next story world.

But Su Bai didn’t take it too serious. He stretched out his hand and rubbed Lucky’s head, "It’s okay. Those you killed were bad people. It’s worth dying for."

He got out of the car with Lucky in his arms and went into the restaurant. The others were already settled down around a table when he took a seat. They were chatting and joking, but Su Bai didn’t talk much, as he had always been during the trip. So the others didn’t bother talking to him, and he was sort of enjoying not being disturbed.

The hotpot with yak meat and wild mushrooms was pretty delicious. Su Bai was satisfied with this meal.

Li Yu had kept his words; he paid for the dinner and said that he had ordered rooms in a hotel for them to take a break.

Walking out of the restaurant, Su Bai felt a little heated after the steaming hotpot. He looked around and could barely found any supermarket. There were numerous restaurants, though. Probably because the local population was too small, the county was no bigger than a town in some eastern areas, so a supermarket would gain far less than a restaurant.

"Su Bai, aren’t you going to the hotel?" Grace asked as she passed by, holding Liu Gang’s hand.

"Need to buy cigarettes. I’ll catch up with you guys later." Su Bai waved his hand to them.

He walked across the road. His car was parked in a distant place with fences. Li Yu was planning to park by the road right in front of the hotel, but there was a guy from another hotel, he didn’t get mad after being turned down. Instead, he smiled and warned them that it was not safe to park by the road at night. Therefore, Su Bai and Li Yu had to ask the hotel staff to arrange some better places for them to park.

In a shop, Su Bai bought a carton of cigarettes, some drinks and peanuts. Then he walked out with a bag.

Pansong was a county surrounded by mountains, but because of the altitude, most tourists would feel suffocated and depressed even if they didn’t have severe altitude stress. As a result, few people could be in the mood for enjoying such a scenic view. Of course, Jiuzhaigou Valley would be different: the beautiful view there was indeed so charming that people would ignore the altitudes.

"How about a pendant, sir?"

A little girl in Tibetan clothes came to Su Bai with many pendants in her hands for sale.

"How much?" Su Bai asked.

"Thirty yuan each. They’re pretty," The girl answered.

Actually, such decorations in scenic areas wouldn’t be very valuable as souvenirs, because most of them sold in shops or peddled along the streets were bought wholesale from Chengdu, or even Yiwu[1] in Zhejiang Province.

Su Bai looked at the girl and asked, "Are you one of the Han people[2] or Tibetans?"

The girl stuck out her tongue naughtily and answered honestly: "One of the Han people."

Su Bai smiled, patted the girl’s head and took out a hundred from his wallet. "I’ll take three. Keep the change."

The girl handed over four. "I’ll give you four, keep the change. Ha ha." Then she turned around and ran away happily.

Su Bai bundled the four pendants into his pocket. Then he looked at Lucky on his shoulder. On a second thought, he took out one of the pendants and put it around Lucky’s neck.

Lucky was surprised; it didn’t think Su Bai would dare to put such a cheap pendant around its neck.

"It suits you."

Su Bai felt Lucky’s fur. Though the cat looked dissatisfied, it didn’t get angry or take it off.

Back in the hotel, Su Bai checked in with his own ID card and got a key card from the front desk staff. Li Yu was somehow generous, at least he covered their accommodation fee as promised, and Su Bai would love to have someone else to pay his bills as well.

This hotel wasn’t a very good one. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any good hotel in Pansong, even if they were willing to pay. No one would invest on high-end hotels here because it was only a place for stopover since it was only an hour’s drive from Jiuzhaigou Valley and Huang Long Scenic Spot, which were filled with starred hotels.

This hotel had a styled name: Pansong Cultural Hotel. However, Su Bai had been paying attention when he was in the elevator and found nothing special except for some Tibetan-styled paintings. In the elevator, there was a girl in a thin blue down jacket; apparently, she was another tourist.

"Traveling for pleasure?" The girl struck up a conversation.

"Yep." Su Bai nodded.

"Staying by yourself?"

"Yep."

The elevator door opened. Su Bai walked out, found his room and opened it with his key card; immediately, there came a strong smell of moisture. Alright, better take things as they come. Su Bai had put Lucky onto the bed and was going to take a shower when he heard a knock on his door. He opened the door without his tops. It was the girl he met in the elevator.

"Hi, I’m a college student traveling on a tight budget. In order to earn enough money for my trip, I’ll sleep with you for eight hundred. What say you?"

Su Bai didn’t say anything. Seeing this, the girl took out her student ID card. She really was a college student from an inland city. Besides, judging by her clothes and the way she talked, she looked nothing like a local prostitute.

"This is my student’s ID card, as true as steel. Eight hundred isn’t expensive for a real college girl, right? How about a discount? Five hundred, since you’re so cute. Or six hundred for a whole night?"

Su Bai took out his wallet; he’d rather pay her six hundred just to shut her up and send her back to her own room. He was not fanatic for virginity or pretending to be innocent, and he wasn’t despising the girl for selling herself. But as a rich boy, he never lacked girls; it was not necessary to yield to his desire for now. He could be casual about everything else, but he was quite picky about booty calls.

But the girl had mistaken his action as an agreement, so she waved her hand: "It’s okay to pay afterwards. You were about to take a shower, right? You can take that shower now, I’ll get a condom from my room."

Then she left before he took out the money.

"Hum."

Su Bai smiled, left the money on the shoe cabinet, took off his pants and went to the bathroom. About five minutes later, the door was knocked again. He went out naked, cracked the door and threw out the six hundred he had put on the shoe cabinet:

"I’m tired. Just leave."

Then he closed the door and went back to the bathroom.

Outside the door, the monk Seven looked at the six hundred bills falling in front of him, totally confused.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Yiwu: a city of about 1.2 million people in central Zhejiang Province, China, famous for its small commodity trade and vibrant market and is a regional tourist destination. — Wikipedia

[2] Han people: An East Asian ethnic group. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia and about 17% of the global population, making them the world’s largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. In China, there are 56 ethnic groups, 55 of them are considered as minorities and the Han people are the only ethnic group known as non-minority. — Wikipedia