Because time was tight, Zane ultimately didn't get his wish to play a round of Gwent.
But it didn't matter. What Zane cared about was never the gains or losses of a single place.
"This is the territory of the Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society."
Led by the man, Zane quickly arrived at a mountain hollow. After a period of development, this place had already formed a simple gathering area.
Rows of crude barracks were built around a central campfire. Although the infrastructure was very basic, Zane could still see the relaxed expressions and smiles on the faces of the people moving between the barracks.
"By the way, how exactly do you guys 'mess around' in this messing-around mutual aid society?"
"It's not messing around… it's returning souls…"
"Ghost-messing mutual aid society?"
"It's Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society!"
The man couldn't help putting on a pained expression. This guy looked honest and handsome, but he just had to have a mouth.
Along the way, it was either "Living in a place like this, are you trying to become waaagh savages?", "Hiding so well, are you dodging debt collectors?", or "Why don't you come with me? I know a place called the Water Curtain Cave of Mount Huaguo, guaranteed you'll all become mountain kings there."
Facing the man's correction, Zane nodded perfunctorily.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you win. Return of Souls, not messing around… but speaking of which, you guys return souls while living in the mountains, isn't that still messing around?" Zane blinked, showing an innocent expression.
"Whenever I don't go home at night, my master says I went out messing around again. You guys don't go home for so many days, how is that not messing around… By the way, what do you even eat here? Mushrooms?"
Zane didn't realize he had accidentally exposed the fact that he wasn't actually Rover.
"What do you mean I win? You were the one who said it wrong in the first place!"
But by now, the man was practically driven insane and had no energy left to care about what exactly Zane had said.
Seeing the man like this, Zane felt a bit sorry.
After all, where else in the world could you find a Rover as kind-hearted as him?
You can't just keep shearing the same sheep forever. After messing with this man, he still had to mess with the others too.
After a brief moment of guilt, Zane waved his hand and said to the man, "Alright, I'm tired. You're dismissed."
Hearing this, the man didn't even bother correcting Zane anymore. As if granted amnesty, he turned and left without looking back.
Whoever wants to lead this guy can do it themselves. Staying with him for even one more second is disrespecting my own life.
Besides, it's said Rover's combat power is as high as ten thousand, while his is only a hundred.
What the man didn't expect was that this single turn of his would send the Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society further and further down an irreversible path.
Watching the man leave, Zane curled his lips.
"Sure enough, men are all big pig hooves. You said you'd take me to find people to play cards with, but you left first."
Unfortunately, the man had already gone far away and didn't hear Zane's complaint.
Otherwise, he might have been so angry he would ascend spinning into the sky.
"Alright, who's next?" Zane quickly threw his black-and-white reversal out of his mind. Right now, the priority was to find someone to play a round of Gwent.
"Hello, I'm new here." Zane walked up to a man and greeted him warmly, while showing just the right amount of forced composure on his face.
He looked exactly like someone who had lost someone important but had to keep going. "I lost someone important in the war. How can I bring them back to life?"
Since that man had said earlier that the Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society could help retrieve the souls of the dead, then the people here must all be pitiful people who had lost someone important.
Seeing the faint sadness on Zane's face, the man in dark clothes didn't doubt him and showed a regretful expression.
"My condolences, my friend. My name is Jinlu. My good friend Yuan and I are guards here." The man introduced himself and pointed at a man in white not far away who was waving at him.
"Yuan is my friend. We both served in the Midnight Rangers… He went into severe overclocking to save me, and couldn't be brought back."
Hearing Jinlu say this, Zane looked in surprise at Yuan, who looked no different from a human. But if you looked closely, you would notice that Yuan wasn't breathing.
Like… a puppet.
Yuan also noticed Zane's surprise and showed an open, relaxed smile. "Being able to see Brother Jinlu again is enough for me, even though I know I'm just a puppet."
While Yuan greeted Zane, Zane was also observing him.
Although he looked no different from a human, if you paid close attention, his movements weren't as flexible as a real person's.
(So this Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society uses some method to make puppets look like humans…)
As for how to turn a puppet into a human… don't ask. The answer is always some all-purpose energy… well, there's no such energy here, so just call it all-purpose resonance ability.
But Zane noticed something else from this puppet named Yuan.
Because he had lost his frequency, his sensitivity to changes in external frequencies had become extremely sharp. This was also why he could sense the appearance of soundless zones.
From this puppet, Zane felt an extremely chaotic frequency. These frequencies were like magnets, constantly stimulating the frequencies of the people around to fluctuate.
Simply put, staying with these puppets increased the risk of overclocking…
Seeing Zane staring at Yuan, Jinlu thought he had seen someone "revived" and remembered his own important person. So he stepped forward and patted Zane's shoulder.
"As long as you join the society, you can see your important person again, just like Yuan. By the way, it should've been Li Rong who brought you here. He's also our comrade. The one he lost was his daughter."
Treating puppets as humans?
"So this is why your Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society hides here?"
Jinlu nodded. "The Jinzhou patrol doesn't allow these kinds of puppets to appear in the city, so they confiscate and destroy them wherever they find them."
As Jinlu spoke, a look of indignation appeared on his face, but he soon let out a helpless sigh.
He had once been part of the Midnight Rangers, so he naturally understood the reason behind the patrol's actions.
Overclocking among Resonators often brought huge disasters to the surroundings. And the existence of these puppets made overclocking uncontrollable.
Turning those Resonators who stayed with them into human-shaped bombs.
And yet, these people were willing to abandon everything in Jinzhou, even their own lives, just to join this organization, all for the chance to see someone important again.
Honestly, Zane admired their resolve.
But admiration didn't mean agreement.
"Looks like I need to find a chance to meet the leader of the Return of Souls Mutual Aid Society."
Hearing this, Jinlu thought Zane, after seeing "revived" Yuan, also wanted to see his lost loved one as soon as possible, so he reassured him.
"Don't worry, Master Yanshi will definitely help you revive the person you want to see again."
Zane shrugged noncommittally, then put on a somewhat sorrowful expression.
"My friend used to play cards with me all the time… ever since it died, I haven't touched these cards for a long time." As he spoke, Zane forced out two tears.
"I'm afraid seeing these cards will remind me of the happy times we had together. Back then, we talked about everything. It knew my strengths and weaknesses, and I knew its depths. We even slept side by side… but now, it's all gone."
Seeing the grief on Zane's face that didn't seem fake at all, Jinlu couldn't help but look sad as well.
"It's alright. All misfortune will pass."
"Yes, we will meet again in the end… but before that, can you play a game of cards with me? A game named after it."
Since he had put it that way, and Jinlu wasn't someone with extremely low emotional intelligence like Zane, he naturally nodded in agreement.
Seeing Jinlu agree, Zane silently took out a deck of cards from his pocket.
"Let's play a round of Gwent!"
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