Sitting by the bench, Xu Feng was getting a headache, believing he was being poached by two people simultaneously.
'There's no way these two who are like peas in one pod would message coincidentally at the same time.' He fixed his glasses and opened up the message.
Autumn Breeze: Hi, Lin Feng, the raid ended in a success. So shouldn't we have celebrated for the aftermath, instead of sneakily leaving?
"And here I thought I was shameless enough." He twitched his brows, having underestimated how shameless Autumn Breeze could be.
Did she really take him for an idiot or a fool?
Just what kind of excuse was that?
No, maybe it wasn't an excuse, but her indirect manner of asking him to show up and stop hiding.
Taking a deep breath, Xu Feng finally realized that this Autumn Breeze looked simple on the surface, but was actually quite the schemer underneath.
'Damn, this woman is really nefarious.' He exclaimed inwardly. Not only was she indirectly telling him to show up, but she was also saying how heartless and dishonorable he was by sneakily leaving without a word.
"She's even more difficult to interact with compared to Gentle Wind." Xu Feng pondered long and hard on how to respond to the message.
If only he didn't open the message, then he could have kept it there without the need to read it.
However, now that he did and it was marked as read, he was sure Autumn Breeze also noticed it.
Thus, even if he attempted to change the status to unread, it was already too late, and doing so might even give her another leverage to screw him over.
After pondering long and hard, Xu Feng decided to play rogue as well.
Lin Feng: Who are you?
Since Autumn Breeze obtained his contact through constant pestering, there was no point in going anonymous with her.
Luckily, the Divine World was quite lax in this aspect and allowed users to go anonymous or not with different players.
His response to her trapped question could have been said to be a textbook answer. 'Heh, by pretending to not recognize you, what charges can you accuse me of?'
Sure enough, the advantage soon returned to him when Autumn Breeze was forced to explain who she was.
Autumn Breeze: You are really heartless, Lin Feng. How could you forget about me when we literally completed the raid together just recently?
Lin Feng: Ahh, right, yes, my bad. What do you want?
Autumn Breeze: Our Silver Wind Guild is now experiencing exploding popularity because of your contribution, so we wanted to have a celebration.
Lin Feng: I'll have to pass. My boss just assigned me a new task, so I can't afford to idle around.
'Heh, you wanted a celebration? More like you wanted to poach me.' Xu Feng exclaimed inwardly, having understood her intention rather quickly.
After all, it was a common tactic to use celebration as a disguise to conceal their true intention. Had he attended the celebration, then they would surely bring up the topic of recruiting him to their guild.
Having experienced what it meant to be discarded like a stray dog, Xu Feng would rather kill himself than allow himself to suffer that kind of path again.
Even if Autumn Breeze and Gentle Wind weren't such people, Xu Feng still wouldn't place his bet on them.
The only person he could trust was himself.
A few minutes had gone by, and Autumn Breeze hadn't yet responded, proving his response was concise and swift.
It was clear that his message and intention had been delivered perfectly. She knew not to push the boundary further and just leave it as it was for now.
Right at this time, Xu Feng suddenly heard a shout from afar.
"Feng, I'm over here!"
"..."
Speechless, Xu Feng wondered what was wrong with Zhao Kai for shouting.
'Does he really need to shout my name?' He twitched his brows. Luckily, the saving grace here was that he only called him by his first name, and it was a common one at that.
If he decided to call him Xu Feng, then it would have been disastrous. He had been trying to conceal his identity, but Zhao Kai nearly exposed him the first thing they met up in the Divine World.
Unwilling to become the focus of attention, Xu Feng stood up and rushed toward Zhao Kai, dragging him away to a discreet corner.
"Shush, Kai, from now on, only refer to us by username–" Xu Feng suddenly paused when he realized his in-game username was now somewhat popular.
The Game Forum was filled with posts of the raid completion, along with the list of members that were in it.
"Anyway, just stop being so loud and attention-seeking. You don't even act like that in the real world." He sighed softly.
Meanwhile, Zhao Kai scratched his head and smiled briefly. "Well, I didn't mean to be attention-seeking, Feng. It's just that I felt free and alive here compared to the real world. I don't even feel the pressure that I always felt there."
"I supposed it's not that bad to act carefree." Xu Feng suddenly said, patting on his shoulder. "Just make sure to call me Feng and nothing else. I don't want others to know my identity."
"Gotcha, Brother Feng." Zhao Kai flashed a cheeky smile and proceeded to point at himself.
"Call me Shadow Blade in here as well."
"Alright, Shadow Blade who actually uses a gun and not a blade."
Sometime later, the two were about to exit Oakwood Town but were subsequently delayed upon Zhao Kai's insistence on getting some food.
"Brother Feng, buy me a meal? I'm starving." He acted coyly, sending a cold shiver down Xu Feng's spine for his acting.
Had it been a gentle and charming woman, it would have been cute, but him?
With a disgusted expression, Xu Feng moved away from him and asked, "Didn't you just eat like a pig earlier?"
"Yeah, but that was hours ago. My stomach is grumbling now." Zhao Kai then proceeded to rub his stomach shamelessly in front of him.
