Chapter 3: Loyalty—Faithfulness!
“Slap—!”
The sound of the slap mixed with thunder in the night sky, and the stubbled man fell to the ground, his head twisted to one side.
Chu Huaixu looked at him with an icy gaze, wanting to test whether the 【Information Detection】 function still worked.
In Borrowed Sword, players had an 【Information Detection】 function that could retrieve some basic information about NPCs.
Of course, what you could retrieve depended on your own permission level and the target’s level or rank.
For example, if the NPC’s character level was much higher than yours, or had a special identity, or was connected to a mysterious major event, then when you used 【Information Detection】, it would just display three question marks.
Using cultivation-system terms from Borrowed Sword, a player’s 【Information Detection】 was essentially an upgraded form of divine sense.
Only divine sense could detect cultivation level, magical treasures, and skill attributes, while 【Information Detection】 could pull up more basic info.
However, Huaixu’s 【Information Detection】 function remained locked.
“What the hell?” he felt even more perplexed.
If he could detect some info about the other side, he could at least know his current situation, gauge the scenario, and analyze why they were chasing him, planning to lock him in the Heavenly Prison.
Besides that, there was one more crucial point—the 【Dao Gate】!
“Why did he say I’m trying to infiltrate Dao Gate?” Huaixu thought to himself.
The world background of Borrowed Sword was called Xuanhuang Realm.
Xuanhuang Realm was divided into four continents: East, West, South, and North.
Among them, North and South continents had fallen and become restricted zones during the previous Great Calamity.
From the 【Map】, Huaixu could see that his current location was the Eastern Continent.
The 【Dao Gate】 was one of the four major sects of the Eastern Continent.
Only Eastern Continent prodigies could join Dao Gate.
Among players, few could be accepted into Dao Gate.
Once successful, it was basically like launching to great heights—with much higher future potential.
That meant in real life, playing the game could feel like a job, earning quite a bit of money from Borrowed Sword every month.
Huaixu had basically confirmed that he had transmigrated into Borrowed Sword, and even its timeline had changed.
Thus, Dao Gate became the top priority!
After 【Information Detection】 failed, he raised his hand and slapped the stubbled man again.
He wished he had spared his life earlier—could’ve questioned him before killing.
“Useless thing!”
“Think carefully—why are you so easy to kill!”
……
To Huaixu, the stubbled man really was too weak.
Huaixu had ranked second on the female “must-hire companion” list—so he must have some outstanding qualities.
Appearance, strength, voice, emotional value—all rounded.
Therefore, even though he rarely took male players’ companion bookings, he still managed to be forty-ninth on the male “must-hire companion” list. Can you believe it?
Yes, in these two lists, gender wasn’t strictly limited.
Add in silly players and the massive “contact lists,” and you can imagine how the rankings come out.
Of course, when he teamed with male players, he mainly helped carry them in gameplay—never offering extra-time services.
Speaking of it, Borrowed Sword—like most games—had a face-slapping feature.
Simply put, when you buy an account and create a character, you get one free opportunity to modify your appearance.
If you want to change appearance again, you’d have to pay a hefty fee, comparable to real-world cosmetic surgery.
Believe it or not, some brainless people even took out cosmetic loans to surgically alter their game avatars.
And high-tier companion players like Huaixu—on the “must-hire” lists—when they initiate face-modification, they used full-body scanning to perfectly replicate their real selves, ensuring no difference between online and offline, avoiding any deception.
These companion players got platform certification.
Only those certified could make the “must-hire” list.
It’s worth noting that full-body scanning didn’t consume the face-modification chance.
Huaixu was the standard fox-type handsome guy, with a slightly fox-like face.
If the animated series Chinese Strange Tales made a live-action version, he could audition as the “Fox Scholar.”
He might not be as sinister as in the anime, but as a male game model, he definitely knew how to perform.
Excellent modeling ability usually went hand in hand with acting skills.
As for why he could easily kill the stubbled man, there were two main reasons.
First, in the creation origin of Borrowed Sword, newly created game characters had slightly better physical attributes than ordinary mortals.
So he joked with the stubbled man that he was a student-athlete.
Second—and more importantly—it was bodily control!
For a normal person, bodily control wasn’t perfect.
For example, if you swing your arm trying to stop it at the nine‑o’clock position, it’s hard to stop exactly right.
But in Borrowed Sword, you could do that.
Of course, mastering excellent bodily control required adaptation—to know your limits.
As an experienced “account‑activator” player, Huaixu was very familiar with this.
Because of that, he could frequently dodge the stubbled man’s swinging blade, killing him as easily as killing a dog.
But now the problem was he was too strong.
“The useful information retrievable is just too little,” Huaixu lifted the umbrella’s canopy and looked at the still‑raining night sky.
He couldn’t even check his own identity info—the function was restricted.
“This is clearly a starting scenario with built‑in main‑line mission—his character must have an identity and past,” he thought.
Yet Huaixu now knew nothing.
“Fortunately, although I transmigrated, some player functions still remain—I still have a bit of a cheat code.”
The next moment, he heard the system notification sound: “Ding! Task system permissions are about to open!”
Huaixu instantly brightened.
“Nice, nice—heaven bless me, Model Brother.”
……
On a small hillside beside the dense forest, two men in black robes and masks silently observed everything that had happened.
The man on the left wore a golden mask; the man on the right wore a silver mask.
Earlier, the silver‑masked man couldn’t help but exclaim, “He killed him so easily—this new recruit sent by our organization has incredibly powerful bodily control!”
The golden‑masked man clicked his tongue in admiration and said, “His Art‑Dao talent is probably not low.”
“Sir, we should send talents like him to the border of our Moon Country. Though he is a False Spirit Embryo, he’s definitely a good candidate for Body Training. We can refine him at the border for several years. His achievements would be considerable,” the silver‑masked man said.
The golden‑masked man nodded slightly, “Putting him in Mirror Country’s Dao Gate as an external gate laborer is indeed a pity.”
Both masked men were operatives dispatched by a spy organization from Moon Country, secretly stationed in Mirror Country for years.
The organization had no name—or rather the name was simply 【Organization】.
The two had long been seasoned undercover agents, jointly in charge of welcoming new recruits.
Over the past two years, they often complained that the organization had been sending subpar recruits.
But when a good one came along, they felt a touch of regret.
Currently, their “welcoming” job was basically complete.
According to organizational tradition, their welcoming didn’t mean meeting recruits in person.
“Welcoming” meant “we already know we’ve received him,” and “guiding” meant “teaching him a lesson.”
The stubbled man, now dead, was from the Mirror Country’s patrol office.
It was these two masked men who had used certain means to let the patrol office know the identity of this young new recruit, which led to the chase earlier.
The purpose was to make the recruit stumble right at the start, unaware of how he was exposed—so he’d be more cautious.
—Low profile! Low profile! And even lower profile!
What they hadn’t expected was that this kid was really skilled—completing a solo kill so easily.
Clean! Neat! Decisive! Ruthless!
He even showed off a bit before and after attacking.
Soon after, the masked men observing from the darkness saw Huaixu slap twice.
The stubbled man’s corpse was swollen from the blows.
The two masked men looked at each other immediately.
No way! This temperament and morality—suits undercover work perfectly, damn it?
“This recruit sent by the organization is… unique, huh?” the golden‑masked man spoke.
The silver‑masked man nodded, “Sir, I truly think he should go to the border!”
The golden‑masked man lifted his hand and said in a low voice, “Let it be. The organization arranged things this way for a reason. We just need to do our duty.”
“Yes!” the silver‑masked man bowed.
No matter how absurd the organization’s actions might be, they’d obey absolutely.
Because everything they’d experienced since childhood had already trained them into what the organization needed.
The two believed that this fox‑faced young man must have gone through the same.
As long as he had that experience, as long as he had that deeply engraved memory—then the three of them would share three common traits:
Loyalty! Loyalty! And … loyalty!