Chapter 28: Bai Fu, a True Friend of Players
“I wanted to personally investigate the cause of Cao Wenliang’s death, but I have an urgent matter now, so don’t deal with those outsiders for the time being—first help me finish this.”
As soon as she entered the Wildfire Gang Boss’s office, Bai Fu received a new task.
【You triggered the faction quest [Material Collection (Special)]】
【Quest Description: Type II amoeba is a mutant creature living in the polluted zone—bloodthirsty and vicious, a headache for all scavengers. But research indicates its venom sac has special properties. The Wildfire Gang Boss wants you to collect venom sacs.】
【Quest Objective: Collect 50 Type II amoeba venom sacs within seven days (0/50)】
【Reward: 100 XP per venom sac; additional 5,000 XP for completing the collection; 20 faction reputation】
【Accept / Decline】
One venom sac is 100 XP—50 of them gives 5,000, plus the bonus. Completing this quest yields a full 10,000 XP.
The reward was undoubtedly generous.
Even for Bai Fu, collecting 50 venom sacs in seven days wasn’t easy.
Her defense could easily withstand the amoeba’s physical attacks, but what made Type II amoebas truly terrifying was their toxic spittle when threatened.
That poison inflicted terrible corrosive damage and, if mixed with human blood, could trigger mutations turning victims into abominations.
Bai Fu was not willing to gamble on whether she could survive being ambushed by them.
But being unwilling to gamble didn’t mean she wouldn’t accept the task.
The quest didn’t require that she personally cut the sacs from the amoebas—she could subcontract it to players after accepting.
If she offered ample benefits, players would dare to poke even the world boss’s rear!
“I guarantee the quest will be done!”
The Gang Boss smiled in satisfaction. “I’ll allocate 50,000 credit coins from logistics. If you need funds during the operation, apply anytime.”
What a pleasant surprise!
That was 50,000 credit coins.
Bai Fu grinned widely.
In the Wildfire Gang—a bunch of scoundrels—a supplier who didn’t take a little cut during procurement wasn’t a proper supplier!
After leaving the Boss’s office, she went to logistics and requested 5,000 coins, then went home.
Feeding Anya for a thousand days—now was the time for Fishing Master Anya to take action again!
…
Outside the abandoned cooling plant.
Next to the polluted zone, this was the domain of scavengers and desperadoes. Even the Wildfire Gang avoided it unless necessary, so it naturally became players’ favorite playground.
In the afternoon, Excavation‑Princess was walking down the “shopping street” lined with stalls, live‑streaming as usual.
Since Bai Fu hadn’t appeared much these past two days, her stream’s heat had dropped considerably.
She remained calm—she’d been through quieter times; this was nothing.
Excavation‑Princess was optimistic about the game Beyond the Stars and believed that clinging to Bai Fu’s big leg would make her a top streamer soon!
【Today let’s experience some wasteland vibes】
While walking, she noticed a white-haired figure ahead.
【Diggy, do you recognize that white-haired loli ahead?】
【Is that the little sis‑in‑law?】
Comments flooded the stream.
Little sis‑in‑law?
Excavation‑Princess stared at the figure and suddenly realized—it was the little girl always with Fu Fu.
She ran over: “That—hey, hey, you—the one always beside Fu Fu…”
Anya turned irritably: “Hey, what’re you saying… Oh, it’s you. I do have a name: An~ya. Remember it? Really—alright, go play your game, I’m very busy now, no time to chat.”
She strode to another vendor, leaving Excavation‑Princess in a daze.
Excavation‑Princess shook her head, then hurried to catch up: “What’re you busy with? Maybe I can help.”
“You?” Anya dragged the word out, suspicious.
Excavation‑Princess’s face blushed.
Even if she was terrible, she at least had a group of competent friends—didn’t she understand the power of bonds!
Anya said, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking down on you—I know you’re fearless, and I know you have a lot of companions—but being fearless or having companions isn’t the issue.”
“Then what is it?” Excavation‑Princess asked quickly.
“Money—probably tens of thousands of credit coins.”
“Goodbye!”
Excavation‑Princess turned and left—she couldn’t even scrape together hundreds, let alone tens of thousands.
After walking about ten meters, she turned back: “Tell me more specifics—maybe I can help in another way.”
Anya snorted: “Fine. Actually, I came to buy Type II amoeba venom sacs. The Boss wants 50. I asked vendors, but walked half a street and couldn’t find a single one. I don’t have the money to pay hunters to gather them—at this rate, the Boss will have to go into the polluted zone himself.”
Her anxiety showed.
Excavation‑Princess asked tentatively: “Are those amoebas really that dangerous?”
“Of course.” Anya explained the Type II amoeba’s nature.
Excavation‑Princess jumped: “Why is Fu Fu collecting venom sacs?”
Anya shook her head: “I don’t know. I just overheard the Boss wanting to collect them, and I was a bit worried—wondered if I could help. What, you want to help me collect them?”
As Excavation‑Princess opened her mouth, an in‑game notification popped up.
【You triggered a commission quest [Collect Venom Sacs]】
【Quest Description: …】
【Quest Objective: Collect Type II amoeba venom sacs】
【Reward: 100 XP per venom sac, Anya’s favorability +1】7
Excavation‑Princess froze, and a moment later she happily shared the quest interface to the live stream.
Excavation‑Princess: “Eek, a quest popped for me too, hahaha!”
“Diggy are you okay? It’s just a quest, not like you passed the imperial exam.”
“This quest doesn’t reward much, if memory serves Type II amoeba is a level‑4 monster, but each venom sac only gives 100 XP.”
“Indeed, I fought it before—its HP wasn’t high, but one spit of venom took away a third of my health.”
Excavation‑Princess: “Kids, you’re way too naive—do you really think the value of this quest lies in those 100 XP?”
Her words baffled the viewers in the stream.
Excavation‑Princess: “Sheesh, you guys call yourselves disciples of the Fu Sect—XP isn’t what matters. Did you realize this is the first quest triggered by us through Fu Fu and Anya?”
Fuck, that actually seems true?
Excavation‑Princess, proud as could be: “Once I level up Anya’s favorability, I can learn more about Fu Fu through her, triggering Fu Fu’s story quest—not long now, hahahaha.”
As she laughed, the chat jumped several times in activity.
Some yelled “holy shit, awesome,” some expressed envy and jealousy, some just went wild, and some rushed toward her location.
Damn it—this kind of opportunity can’t be hogged by Excavation‑Princess; I’ve got to be the first to trigger the hidden quest!
“Hey.” At this moment, Anya raised her hand and waved it in front of Excavation‑Princess’s eyes. “Dazed?”
Excavation‑Princess snapped back: “No no no, I’ll help you, but by myself it’s not enough—I want to recruit more people.”
Anya’s eyes lit up: “That’s obviously fine, but, you’re really going to help me?”
Excavation‑Princess responded: “Of course! Also, can you do me a favor?”
Anya instinctively took a step back, eyeing Excavation‑Princess warily.
Excavation‑Princess hurried on: “It’s nothing bad—I just want you not to tell Fu Fu right now, wait until after the sacs are all gathered, keep it a surprise.”
“Oh, I thought you were going to ask something else. Fine, I’ll try—but if the Boss gets impatient about going into the polluted zone himself, I’ll have to tell him early.”
“That’s totally fine.”
Anya looked over Excavation‑Princess a few times: “You’re really nice—thank you. How should I call you?”
Haha, that favorability definitely just rose!
Excavation‑Princess’s eyes curved into crescents as she smiled: “Just call me Sister Excavation‑Princess. Let’s go—first we’ll ask around here and see if anyone’s selling venom sacs.”
Anya didn’t refuse, and as the two of them walked the street asking around, one player after another ran over.
Without exception, each of those players accepted the quest from Anya.
Excavation‑Princess wasn’t worried at all—she never intended to conceal anything. Being the first was enough!
“Move it, we’re heading to the polluted zone to hunt Type II amoeba now.”
“Hold on, let me buy some anti‑infection medicine first—that’ll at least increase our survival odds.”1
In the noisy bustle, a large group of players charged toward the polluted zone.
Anya hurried to the meeting point she’d arranged with Bai Fu.
“Boss, you’re amazing—you didn’t spend a single cent but still got them to obediently do the job!”
She began to suspect Bai Fu might actually have the charm of a succubus.
If so, could they open a factory and let those outsiders come in to work for free?
Bai Fu patted Anya’s head: “Stay calm, stay calm.”
Just as expected—in assigning Anya a quartermaster quest, Anya indeed could now issue tasks to players.
This was perfect: another way to squeeze benefits out of the player base.
This success owed much to Anya’s task release and Excavation‑Princess’s imagination.
If we analyze carefully, Excavation‑Princess deserves the most credit—she not only went to the stream and riffed on it right after getting the quest, but in previous days she repeatedly fed other players the idea that “there’s a hidden quest on Bai Fu.”
If not for that, the viewers wouldn’t have believed her nonsense so readily and flocked to work for free.
“Excavation‑Princess is terrible at gaming, but just her imagination makes her worth training.”
Bai Fu’s approach to players was to make them her leveling accelerators—she would extract all kinds of benefits from them, but if a player showed potential, she wouldn’t hesitate to cultivate them, because that allowed her to gain even more.
Of course, cultivating a player requires that the player won’t betray her for minor gains.
Clearly Excavation‑Princess met that criterion—as a gaming UP and streamer, her popularity was now deeply tied to Bai Fu’s.
The more popular she got, the more viewers she’d have.
Besides Excavation‑Princess the promotional chief, Bai Fu intended to cultivate a few more players with decent combat ability—to make them examples, attracting other players to fight for her.
Relying on popularity alone to keep good relations with players isn’t stable—you need to add some tangible incentive as spice.
“Let’s go home for now. In two to three days they’ll probably finish the quest.”
Bai Fu didn’t intend to wait idly.
When the next day came, she brought Anya back to yesterday’s “shopping street” and found Excavation‑Princess and the others buying things.
“Fu Fu, what are you doing here?”
Seeing them, Excavation‑Princess froze.
She noticed Anya was looking down with a hurt expression—did that mean…
“I already know what you helped me with from Anya.” Bai Fu sighed.
As expected.
Excavation‑Princess had a sudden thought—wasn’t this her chance to raise Anya’s favorability?
She hurried forward a few steps and placed Anya behind her: “Fu Fu, the kid’s young, can’t fight. I suggested helping you—I swear she just cares about you, what did she do wrong.”
Excavation‑Princess felt she must look very heroic—maybe she’d become a giant of light in Anya’s eyes.
Heh, other people only know how to grind quests, but boosting favorability comes from these seemingly trivial details!
Bai Fu gently shook her head: “Since things are this far, I can only accept your kindness, but I won’t let it go unrewarded. I’ll buy the venom sacs you collected—for 200 coins each.”
Ah?
Excavation‑Princess and Big‑Star beside her hastily refused: “No no no, how could we let Fu Fu spend money.”
Bai Fu said: “You better accept—they aren’t my coins, they’re from the Wildfire Gang. If you don’t take them, someone else will. You all need the money, right?”
Missing it—who wasn’t?
These words immediately moved the players to tears.
"[Damn, this is Fu Fu—the true friend of players. If it were another NPC, upon learning we worked for her for free, she’d be overjoyed. How could she give us money from the Wildfire Gang’s funds?]"
"[Brother, no regrets joining the Fu Sect in this life!]"
"[I’m doomed, I’m doomed—after meeting Fu Fu, I feel I’ll never fancy anyone else again. Am I going to stay single now?]"
"[Wake up—you were single before meeting Fu Bao too.]"
Bai Fu secretly chuckled.
If she had just included the 200 credits in the quest reward from the start, the player reaction would never have been this big—they’d have taken it for granted.3
This time she really hit it big.
Collecting 50 venom sacs, she paid players 10,000 credits.
It seemed like a lot, but she’d still make 40,000 credits from the gang.
She didn’t intend to go all in—she planned to leave 10,000 for the Wildfire Gang to show off her thriftiness.
“You’ve helped me a great deal. Just giving you this money isn’t enough to express my gratitude. If you have other requests, feel free to make them. I’ll try to fulfill them.”
Her words caused another stir among the players.
“Uh, nothing really…”
“It seems like we actually don’t have any real wants.”
“Well… could we have a Profession Knowledge Book?”
“Hey, why are you asking for that?”
The player who raised their hand was immediately pushed down.
“A Profession Knowledge Book?” Bai Fu frowned slightly. “I remember the Wildfire Gang has one in their library. It’s not easy to get, but I’ll see what I can do.”
The moment she spoke, every player was stunned. Could she really do that?
No, that’s too risky—what if Bai Fu gets caught stealing from the Wildfire Gang’s library?
Some players tried to persuade her to give it up, but Bai Fu insisted, and they could only quietly hold their gratitude in their hearts.
"[Should I go steal the Wildfire Gang’s Profession Knowledge Book to feed you guys.gif]"
That night, a player edited a picture and posted it to the community.
The post rocketed to No. 1 on the community’s trending list.
Bai Fu couldn’t help chuckling.
The gains from this operation were far better than she had imagined.
She waited another day, and finally the players collected all 50 venom sacs.
Before she could celebrate too much, troubling news reached her ears.
“Yesterday when we followed the Boss to arrest the outsiders, we killed two outsiders who looked exactly the same.”
Bai Fu: “Could they be twins?”
“At first we thought that too, but after a while, we saw him a third time.”
“Triplets?”
“That seems unlikely.”
Bai Fu realized the secret of player resurrection might be about to be exposed.