Chapter 64 Qin Jianyuan's Utility Knife

"No."

"I didn't hear any strange sounds."

"Bang!" Bai Luying slammed his hand hard against the table. He already looked fierce with his stern face, and now he was intentionally lowering his voice, which sounded quite frightening.

"Comrade Wang Guiying, please cooperate with our work!"

Wang Guiying shrank her neck in fear.

Clearly just two kids who looked less than thirty years old, how could they be so fierce? They were as scary as the Tibetan Mastiffs raised in the village.

"I'm not lying! I really didn't hear any strange sounds. If I didn't hear them, I didn't hear them. How do you want me to make something up for you!" Although Wang Guiying's voice was small, her expression was firm. No matter how much they asked, she insisted she hadn't heard anything.

Kong Ningxiang gave Bai Luying a look.

Wang Guiying indeed wasn't lying; she truly hadn't heard any sounds.

But logically, there should definitely be a notification when the system levels up in stars. If Wang Guiying wasn't lying—at least, if she believed she wasn't lying—then there were only two possibilities.

Either the instance was special, or she simply didn't hear it.

"Then what was your state like in the instance? Were you conscious the whole time? Did you hear any strange sounds or see anything strange?"

This time, Wang Guiying nodded.

"I was there for about four days. I was only conscious for the first day or two. After that, although I did things according to their requirements, my consciousness was groggy, like I hadn't woken up. I kept hearing the sound of someone talking in my ears."

"At first, the voice was blurry. I couldn't tell who was speaking or what was being said. It was like being hard of hearing, very uncomfortable. My head wasn't working well either; my thoughts were slow, as if I hadn't slept enough. But in that situation in the instance, who could sleep! So I didn't take it seriously."

"Later, the longer I stayed, the clearer the voice in my ear became. It was a mother crying, saying she hadn't taken good care of her child, crying and asking where her son was, where her son was, why he hadn't come home yet, and so on. It made one feel miserable, quite unpleasant."

Saying this, Wang Guiying sighed.

"It's normal. After all, she's a mother. If I lost my child, I'd cry until my eyes went blind."

"Later, that woman kept crying and crying in my ear. I couldn't sleep well, and eventually, my brain wouldn't turn. I didn't remember what I did or what happened. I just stayed in the room sleeping. If I couldn't sleep, I'd force myself to. A person can't go without sleep, or they'd be tired to death, right?"

Bai Luying made notes in his notebook.

Kong Ningxiang asked again, "Then do you remember how you cleared the instance?"

Wang Guiying thought for a moment and shook her head again.

"I don't remember. I was sleeping the whole time. I couldn't hear others talking, and I couldn't help with what others were doing. Now I can't remember anything; I don't even know how I left. I just felt like I was lying on the bed, curled up in the covers, and then the instance just ended on its own."

Kong Ningxiang frowned and gave a subtle nod to Bai Luying, indicating that Aunt Wang wasn't lying.

This is tricky.

She was actually a free-rider who just coasted along. It seemed they wouldn't be able to get any information about the instance from her.

This wasn't good news.

The key observation subject was honest and told the truth, but no useful information could be extracted.

"Then do you remember who entered the instance with you?"

"How could I forget that? Five of us went in, and only two came out alive. Whether dead or alive, who could forget?"

Kong Ningxiang's eyes suddenly lit up.

Finally, a useful clue!

There were only two survivors of the three-star Who Am I. Besides Wang Guiying, it must be Perfect Chrysanthemum Thirty-Six Folds!

...Why did this name feel so embarrassing every time it was spoken aloud?

The person at the top of the leaderboard who chose the name was either vulgar or liked to be abstract. Of course, Kong Ningxiang was more inclined towards a third possibility—he was purely mentally unstable.

No one knew the gender of the rank one player; they could only guess based on the name.

Kong Ningxiang asked with a smile, "Then Auntie, do you remember the other person who came out with you? Male or female? What was their name? What did they look like? How tall were they? Did they have an accent?"

This string of questions made the already nervous Wang Guiying even more tense. She thought blankly for a while before shaking her head:

"I can't remember clearly. I just know it was a young lady. As for her height, appearance, accent... I can't recall any of it."

That's fine; it's still some progress. At least they figured out the rank one player was a woman, and the name was just her being abstract.

But other than that, it was all nonsense, completely useless.

Kong Ningxiang's expression remained unchanged, but Bai Luying couldn't hold back.

He slammed his fist on the table: "Comrade Wang Guiying! Please cooperate! Everyone stands together after entering this instance, and the five of you stayed together for three days. You're telling me you can't remember her appearance? If you keep being dishonest, we'll have to take mandatory measures!"

He was very fierce. Wang Guiying had finally managed to relax a bit, but with his outburst, her shoulders hunched up again.

However, even though she was scared and restless, Wang Guiying didn't change her story.

"I really don't remember! Oh, throughout my life, except for a few white lies when doing business, I've always been a person who says what they mean! If I say I don't remember, I don't remember. I couldn't possibly be lying!"

As she spoke, she took something out and placed it in front of the two of them: "Look, this is what she gave me!"

Kong Ningxiang looked closely—

It was actually a b-grade prop!

[Qin Jianyuan's Utility Knife: The first time he completely skinned a cat's entire body, he used this utility knife. He cherishes it very much and keeps it carefully in a drawer at home. A very sharp small knife. Aside from the blade being a bit small and the handle being a bit small, making it inconvenient to use, there are no other drawbacks. Of course, this was originally a child's utility knife; if an adult insists on using it, there's nothing to be done.]

Many people enter instances, but most clear them with B or C ranks. The system gives at most one prop. The functions of these props are varied, but generally speaking, they aren't very useful.

Those that make rice cook with distinct grains, those that turn water into other colors, those that make toenails one millimeter shorter... they have many functions, but they're useless in an instance, basically belonging to the category of "junk."

The Special Security Bureau studied those props and summarized a simple rule:

The more the prop itself was valued by its former owner, or the greater the role the prop once played, the higher its grade after mutating into a prop.

For example, if Cinderella had a hundred pairs of shoes in her life and all hundred pairs became props, there's no doubt that the Glass Slippers given to her by the Fairy Godmother would be the highest grade.

But a high prop grade is one thing; the direction of mutation also needs to be useful. If the grade is high but the mutation direction is wrong, it's still useless.