Chapter 124 : Bound to Win
Bound to Win
After hesitating for a long time, even as the auction outside officially began, Cecilia still couldn't find the courage to push open the wooden door in front of her.
Not for any other reason—it was mainly because the outfit she was wearing now was just too embarrassing.
For the past ten-plus years, when Cecilia was still Chen Zixuan, she had never worn formalwear even once. Back when she was a boy, she probably could never have imagined that the first time in her life she would wear formal clothing, it would be a women's suit—complete with a pencil skirt and black stockings.
She let out a soft sigh, turned around, and sat back down in the middle of the room, her expressionless gaze meeting Gu Yanxi's silently across from her. Those light blue eyes were filled with resignation.
"You wearing those clothes... how should I put this... you actually look pretty good..."
Gu Yanxi had already been staring, her eyes fixed, lips parted slightly as she murmured softly.
Ever since Cecilia had taken off the [Rose Maid] five-piece set she'd worn for so long, and changed into this set of Merchant Alliance standard women's suit exchanged from Little Persimmon Puppy, gu Yanxi's gaze had never left Cecilia.
The girl in front of her was formally dressed—the black suit and skirt cut perfectly, loose where it should be, tight where it should be. The pencil skirt made her figure appear even more shapely, with black stockings tightly wrapping her well-proportioned legs. The six-centimeter pointed high heels only added to a unique charm that was hard to conceal.
Even more fatal was that, considering twin-tails only suited a cute style and clashed with this outfit, under Gu Yanxi's help, Cecilia had, for the first time, tried a new hairstyle.
Her once delicate twin-tails had become a more aggressive high ponytail, neat bangs pushed up, revealing a smooth forehead and a pair of indifferent almond-shaped eyes beneath, the pupils a clear blue, the corners of her eyes slightly tilted. Aside from her height still being a small regret, her mature and commanding aura was on full display.
Being stared at like that by Gu Yanxi, Cecilia inevitably felt embarrassed and deeply uncomfortable, her legs squeezing together unconsciously.
To be honest, after getting used to the extremely shameful maid outfit, Cecilia now had developed a certain resistance to such girls' clothes. In theory, she shouldn't have been as unconfident as she was now.
What really unsettled her was actually the issue with her own panel.
Sure enough, as soon as she took off the Rose Maid set, just as Cecilia expected, her panel stats immediately plummeted. Aside from still having over 600 points in attack power, all other stats fell to about the same level as an average player.
In her current condition, fighting one or two ordinary players might not be a problem, but if there were any more, it would be tough for her.
It seemed that, if things went as Little Persimmon Puppy anticipated and other parties sent people to cause trouble tonight, she would need to find an opportunity to take off this flashy but useless outfit and change back into the [Rose Maid] set.
While Cecilia was lost in thought, several hundred meters away in a dimly lit alleyway, dozens of suspicious-looking players were silently gathering together.
If Yuewu were here, she would have recognized at a glance that most of the thirty-some people present belonged to one of the country's top gaming guilds—[Slaughter Paradise].
"We're about to move. Before we set off, let me emphasize one last time—this operation must be handled with extreme caution. Be careful, be careful, and be even more careful! Wait for the guild leader's orders before acting, and don't speak. Keep everything to private messages. Create some chaos first if you can, grab the goods and leave immediately. For heaven's sake, don't run your mouths and expose our identities—if that happens, none of you can bear the consequences. Understood?"
In the center of the crowd, a man in his twenties took a deep breath. His face was grim and his manner extremely serious as he spoke.
This player was dressed in a mage's robe, with round glasses fitted with a gold chain perched on his nose. He was the merchant Cecilia and Little Persimmon Puppy had met outside the Adventurers' Guild that morning—the very competitor Little Persimmon Puppy had always kept an eye on.
His username was [Golden Wheel]—perhaps because he'd admired the Golden Wheel King since he was young, he named himself after him in the game. Although the name was somewhat mockable, just as Little Persimmon Puppy described, he was indeed, much like the Golden Wheel King, an exceptionally sinister and ruthless figure.
Since the very first day of Legend of Kaloran's open beta, golden Wheel had capitalized on the network and wealth he'd built up in other games to engage in equipment acquisition and resale. Through coercion, temptation, and deceit, he bought rare equipment and items from random players at low prices, and then resold them at high prices, making a considerable profit in just these two weeks.
After he finished speaking, the entire group fell silent—no one replied. Everyone acted like a mute, simply nodding vigorously.
"Good. Now that all twenty-two are here, I'll give out the items. These are rare items I bought at a high price from the Mystery Merchant. Other than us, probably no one else in this game has ever seen these things, so you can rest assured—there's no way anyone will know you did it."
Seeing everyone so serious, golden Wheel nodded in satisfaction.
He opened his inventory and, looking at the pitifully few items left inside, a fleeting look of pain appeared on his face. Still, thinking of the hefty rewards if the plan succeeded, he gritted his teeth, took out the items, and began distributing them one by one to everyone present.
The item he referred to had the appearance of a black badge and was called [Nameless Badge]. Like most potions, it was a one-time consumable. Once pinned to the player's chest, it activated instantly, lasting thirty minutes.
For thirty minutes after wearing the badge, a player's game nickname, physical appearance, and equipment would all be concealed. From others' perspective, it was like watching a moving mosaic.
Although the [Nameless Badge] was extremely powerful, its price was steep: when Golden Wheel had bought them from the Mystery Merchant, the cost was 180 gold coins apiece, which, converted to RMB, was roughly 36,000 yuan in cash per badge.
Just one Nameless Badge was already exorbitantly expensive, let alone the fact that to convince the members of [Slaughter Paradise] to take the risk and cooperate, golden Wheel had to go "bleeding," taking out twenty-two of them at once.
Just this one expense could probably buy a 100-square-meter apartment in the center of a second-tier city outright.
This alone showed just how obsessed—and how confident—he was in this plan to disrupt the auction. He was determined to win!