Lin Sanjiu's eyes bulged and her brain was unable to process the information she just received.
Originally, she wanted to make use of this chance to persuade Puppeteer to release the Progressor Alliance. However, after listening to what Puppeteer said, the script that she had prepared was stuck in her throat, and all she could manage through her lips was a vowel "ah" filled with question.
With a cold laugh, Puppeteer got up from the ground which Lin Sanjiu hurriedly followed. Both of them completed the Stamina Point exchange procedure on a touch screen device and sent the little boy away.
"They are the ones who gave you the information about this pocket dimension? The Progressor Alliance? Really?" Lin Sanjiu's words escaped her lips in a disbelieving voice. She couldn't bring herself to trust Puppeteer just yet, "Why would they tell you about this pocket dimension if they want to keep the grand prize only for themselves?"
Puppeteer raised his chin slightly, exposing a hint of wicked, sarcastic expression on his face, "The connection between Progressor Alliance and I is not a recent thing. There are too many capable beings hiding in the Twelve Worlds. Even if it's me, I have to have some connections with a few clandestine alliances to make sure my plans run smoothly. Considering this, rather than working with people who are soon to be eliminated, I choose to work with Growth Types. Despite all this, never once had I had the notion that they would cook up such a trick behind my back."
Lin Sanjiu tightened her jaw. Her face turned ugly.
She had a pretty good grasp of the current situation. Looking from another point of view, Aker did not lie to her.
Stalling Puppeteer long enough for him to bump into Santa Claus and get them to engage in internecine strife was the plan all along. Besides, everything Aker had said—aside from the thing involving Rena and Reno—was true, so Lin Sanjiu found no reason to not believe in him. Of course, it appeared to her now that he would not come to reinforce her as planned.
And this was not the worst part.
"So he wanting me to delay you for an hour was all a ruse?" Lin Sanjiu's voice turned chilly. She finally saw the real problem, "So we have no idea when will Santa Claus arrive here!"
"An hour?" Puppeteer cast Lin Sanjiu a sidelong glance; his face scrunched, seemingly torn between disgust and surprise at Lin Sanjiu's words, "Are you real? Do you think you are capable of stalling me for an hour?"
Lin Sanjiu was tongue-tied. Puppeteer was telling the truth. Including the time they had talked and other things, she barely held him for thirty—no, probably less than thirty minutes.
"Those freaks from Progressor Alliance should know very well that you couldn't stall me for so long," After saying this, Puppeteer turned his head to the left as if he had lost interest in furthering this discussion with Lin Sanjiu. Then, from the direction of his gaze, his three puppets that he sent off to catch the artist appeared carrying that artist on their shoulders as they walked to him, "I guess, that green hat old fart will appear anytime now."
After running through the possible consequences of asking about the bad blood between him and Santa Claus in her brain, Lin Sanjiu decided to keep quiet and leave the topic untouched.
"Well, at least I have limbered up after battling you. Now, I can go full strength when that old fart gets here—Huh, so he is not a human?" Puppeteer said as his puppets flung the artist on the ground. After darting a glance at the man that was tied like a dumpling, he winced, "I have enough Special Items. Take him with you and get lost!"
As long as he didn't want to fight with her, Lin Sanjiu would not care about his tone.
Since Lin Sanjiu had no purpose to stay here any longer, she decided to leave Santa Claus to Puppeteer. All she had to do now was look for Aker and get whatever information he was hiding from her. With that resolution in her mind, she nodded to Puppeteer and immediately went the way she came from after replacing the artist into her card.
After all, Puppeteer was a person who acted whenever the mood took him. He was volatile and unpredictable. If she didn't leave now, she might not be able to do so later.
Obviously, she was paranoid. It didn't matter to Puppeteer whether she decided to stay or leave. For him, she was either a nuisance or a dispensable figure depending on the circumstances and his mood. Right now, it was the latter as he did not do anything to her even as she turned her back to him and walked a considerable distance away.
Looking over her shoulders, Lin Sanjiu saw the lanky figure that was yards away from her doing his last preparations and gathering his puppets for the upcoming battle.
Lin Sanjiu hastened her steps and plunged into the barbeque restaurant that they fought in not long ago.
"Boss," she called softly while walking on a floor of shattered glass shards, "Are you here?"
In Starry Carnival Amusement Park, a player could summon the staff with merely a call. Just as Lin Sanjiu's voice was dying away, a slothful voice suddenly appeared behind her, "We're under renovation. No selling today."
"I'm not here to eat," Lin Sanjiu quickly turned toward the dead-alive female store owner. She was still wearing the same qipao dress, "I'm here to inquire about Aker."
"Haven't I told you earlier? I can't take your Stamina Points if you're not here to eat," Lin Sanjiu never thought the female shop owner would reject her. Before Lin Sanjiu could say anything further, the female store owner pointed towards a shop at the far end of "Pumpkin's Route." Her crimson colored nails glimmered in the darkness, "I suggest you try your luck over there at that shop. They are still open."
Even though it was troublesome, as long as she could get Aker's coordinates, Lin Sanjiu felt that it was worth the trip. Following the guidance of the female store owner, Lin Sanjiu strode down the Pumpkin Road and came to a dead end. Further ahead was the attraction she saw in the evening. It was an enormous, enveloping veil of darkness under the stygian sky. All she could see was the outline of the swell and sweep.
Since night had fallen, most of the shops had sunk into the darkness save one. There was a carved bamboo lamp outside of one shop. Its warm tone made that particular shop stand out from the rest and was a nice beacon for Lin Sanjiu to pinpoint her target.
"What are they selling?" Lin Sanjiu mumbled as she lifted the door curtain.
It was a little, quaint shop. The burlap door curtain that clouded with a myriad of bamboo shadows gave off a Japanese shop vibe. Just as Lin Sanjiu stepped inside, an arm appeared and halted her progress. A pilgarlic man, who was apparently the staff of this pocket dimension, appeared in front of her. Nervousness filled his face, "What do you want? I'm sorry, but we don't entertain female customers here."
" Why can't they entertain females? "
Even though the shop owner had evoked Lin Sanjiu's interest, she still decided to ignore her curiosity first and concentrate on what she had come for, "I'm here to ask about a player's coordinates, do you have them?"
The pilgarlic man jaw tightened, his muscles wound up so tight like a spring that was about to break. As he wiped the sweat that oozed from his forehead, he stuttered, "Y-yes. I have the coordinates of all players, but I can't give it to you unless you buy something from me first."
"Let me go in, then! Why are you—"
Before Lin Sanjiu could finish her sentence, she glanced aside and finally saw the reason the pilgarlic man did not allow her to enter his shop. On the casing just beside the door curtain, there were two words engraved in an enchanting pink that read "Luscious Lounge."
Her eyes widened as Lin Sanjiu slowly turned her head and exchanged glances with the pilgarlic man. The man's face instantly flushed red. He rubbed his hand and said awkwardly, "We just opened recently, and we're not yet ready to serve female customers. Why don't you come back next week?"
"The hell would I want to revisit you next week!"
She had no time to blabber with this middle-aged man, and her patience was thinning. She shoved the man aside, lifted her feet and stomped into the shop. The shop owner stumbled on his own feet and almost fell. A female voice rang out. Only then Lin Sanjiu realized that there was a customer inside.
A man, who seemed to be a posthuman, was holding a glass of wine, sitting on a wine table in the corner. His hand froze in mid-air.
Sitting beside him was a petite woman with curly hair. The couple did nothing but stared at the tall woman who had spoiled their right moment. Lin Sanjiu ignored the pilgarlic shop owner marched toward the couple. She dragged the petite woman up from her seat.
"Hey, what are you doing—"
Before that male posthuman could finish uttering his sentence, a dark shadow whipped in front of him, and the next thing he knew, the wine glass in his hand had been snatched away by the woman with vile expression and skeletal wings on her back.
Clank. The petite woman bewilderedly toasted with Lin Sanjiu and gulped the wine down her throat.
"Now, she had a drink with me," Lin Sanjiu turned back to the shop owner. She extended her wrist, as a signal for the shop owner to scan her wrist to charge her Stamina Points. "Can you tell me the coordinates of Aker now?"
The shop owner begrudgingly scanned her wrist, "Fine, fine. Please leave then after I've told you his coordinates. Your very presence here will affect my business. Aker is now on the "Grizzly's Route." He has cleared an attraction, and he is on his way to the next."
Stunned, Lin Sanjiu unconsciously freed the petite woman, and she fell back to her seat, "He is still on the "Grizzly's Route?" Are you certain?"
According to Aker's plan, Santa Claus should've bumped into Puppeteer at any time sooner or later. It was hard for Lin Sanjiu to believe that Aker still had the time and mood to roam freely on "Grizzly's Route" while clearing the attraction. If she were Aker, she would have long rushed to "Pumpkin Route" and claimed the fruit of her well-cherished plan.
Or was Aker going to come over here when their fight was coming to an end?
At this moment, Lin Sanjiu's second-sight kicked-in. She somehow felt something was not right, " If Aker doesn't come earlier, how's he suppose to tie the loose end if something out of his hands happened? "
Lin Sanjiu ignored the shop owner that was urging her to leave his shop. Instead, she grabbed herself a seat and pulled out a paper crane. She wanted to discuss with Puppeteer about the moot point in Aker's plan. Ultimately, she wished Puppeteer could win the fight as this was the only way that benefited her the most.
The shop owner could not continue his business with Lin Sanjiu sitting inside his Luscious Lounge. Perspiration filled everybody's foreheads excluding Lin Sanjiu. Luckily, Puppeteer was not far away from her, so the paper crane flew back to her within a few minutes.
However, Puppeteer's reply had stunned Lin Sanjiu. She could not return to her senses for quite a few seconds.
"Who is Aker?" Puppeteer's grim voice was brimmed with anger. He was probably not happy with Lin Sanjiu for disturbing him, "Why would I know his coordinates?"
" He didn't know Aker, the mastermind of this whole plan? "
Just as Lin Sanjiu was figuring out Puppeteer's words, his voice once again came out from the paper crane, "But the name rang a bell. Hmm, I couldn't remember where I had heard it before." Then the paper crane fell silent again for a few seconds before continuing, "Isn't he the runner who runs errands for the Progressor Alliance?"
Lin Sanjiu marveled at the fact that she did not exchange information with Puppeteer after they had ended their battle, but anyway, she was unable to associate the description "somebody who runs errands" with the impression Aker had given to her.
Her mind was all fog, full of different kinds of questions. She disregarded the question of if she angered the Puppeteer by spamming him with paper cranes; she just felt that she needed to tell Puppeteer everything she knew right now in as much detail as she could.
The other three people did not utter a syllable nor make a move even after the paper crane had flown away. All of them just hoped that Lin Sanjiu would leave right now.
As if it was summoned by Lin Sanjiu's heated gaze, the paper crane once again returned to her. This time, Puppeteer had taken quite a long time to reply.
"So you don't know who the prime mover behind the Progressor Alliance is?" Puppeteer sounded a little bit surprised, "Roughly ten months ago, there was a major shuffling happened inside the management of the Progressor Alliance. Of course, I played a big role in it; otherwise, that man would not have been able to claim the throne without much fuss. I'm not sure about Aker, but the principal of the Progressor Alliance now is a man that goes by the name Geran."
Just as Lin Sanjiu's muscles drew together tightly, a soft jarring sound like a wine glass knocked on the table drifted into her ear. However, she could be very sure that the sound wasn't coming from the wine glass.
Slowly turning her body, Lin Sanjiu rose to her feet.
The male posthuman, who was indulging himself with the girl, suddenly changed his expression. With a vicious gaze, he stared right into Lin Sanjiu's eyes.
"When you talked about Aker, I thought you guys had some enmity, so I did not do anything." the male posthuman spoke after a while. His face turned pale, "Then when you talked about Mr. Geran, only then I saw the light. So you're Lin Sanjiu, right?"
Lin Sanjiu remained cemented on the spot. Her body was tensed up, and she did not even dare to move her eyes.
In that posthuman's hand, a glimpse of green color leaked from the spaces between his fingers. She knew it was the green Santa hat magnet.
Nevertheless, she was too slow.
Suddenly, the Luscious Lounge turned dim, and a huge green shadow loomed over the shop.