Chapter 252: Exit Strategy

Chapter 252: Chapter 252: Exit Strategy

"You’re just telling me not to get ahead of myself..." Feng Ling sighed. "I get it. I’ll find a way to lower my Pollution Value before I can assimilate the Eye of Horus."

Huangfu Miaomiao, feeling bad for Feng Ling, pouted. "But every Card she has left is useful. It’s a shame to have to get rid of any."

Feng Ling counted on her fingers. "First, The Queen Mother of the West is a definite keeper. The Mantis’s Bone Blade is too useful to get rid of. Same with the Killing Bee’s mark and the bat’s night-vision ability. Then there are the six Red Ghost Centipede cards, each worth one Pollution Value. I could get rid of four of them. And leaving me with two Teeth and Claws is enough... But is running through four Mazes just to lower my Pollution Value by four points really worth it?"

You could only draw a Card from a Divine Statue once. To draw four times, she would naturally have to run through four different Mazes.

Feng Ling thought the trade-off was abysmal.

But there was no way she was giving up the Eye of Horus, so she could only take things one step at a time.

Xu Yiming, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke. "Rats are coming."

Everyone’s nerves immediately tightened. They looked up and, sure enough, saw several dark figures emerge from the distant fog, speeding right for them.

Feng Ling frowned slightly, and her Cat Owl and Cat Spider immediately lunged to intercept the Mouse Monsters.

There weren’t many of the monsters. The Cat Owl and Cat Spider could handle them without Feng Ling needing to lift a finger.

"They must have been attracted by the offerings," Li Qing said.

There were already too many corpses on the ground that they hadn’t had time to clear away. Now, with the addition of a few more rats killed by the Cat Owl and Cat Spider, there were even more.

Feng Ling sighed. "This is never-ending. We’re not Cleaner Fish."

"Exactly," Huangfu Miaomiao agreed. "Even if we clean this place up, once we leave, there’s no way to guarantee the rats won’t keep bringing offerings here. It’d be a total waste of effort."

Li Qing mused, "It’s a tricky situation. The Maze God Statue is made of a special material; it can’t be destroyed. Unless we stand guard here forever, we can’t stop the rats from making offerings to the Maze Master."

"If we can’t stop them, why bother trying? Why don’t we just go on the offensive?" Feng Ling suggested, struck by a sudden idea.

All eyes turned to her.

A small smile played on Feng Ling’s lips. "Our goal in this Maze was to find the Divine Statue and lower our Pollution Value, so killing the Maze Master was always our lowest priority. Destroying the offering tables was just a way to weaken it and make it easier for us to operate. But now that we’ve accomplished our main objective, why not just go straight for the kill?"

To put it simply—

Before, we weren’t in a rush to kill it, planning to weaken it gradually while we explored.

Now we don’t need to explore anymore, so let’s just kill it and get this over with.

Ye Zheng said, "Then let’s make a plan."

The moment Li Qing heard the word "plan," he couldn’t help but think, ’She’s incapable of making a plan.’

"We’ll pack more explosives into the breach we made earlier and detonate them. If that doesn’t kill the Maze Boss, we’ll finish it off by hand," Feng Ling said with casual fluency. "And if we still can’t kill it then, we run. We leave the Maze, get more explosives, and come back to try again."

In Feng Ling’s eyes, running away solved most problems, unless you ran into a speed-type opponent you simply couldn’t outrun.

However, she suspected that Ye Zheng, as the former captain of an Inspection Team, would despise her for including "running away" as a step in the plan.

’No matter. I’m ready for it,’ Feng Ling thought. ’After Ye Zheng shoots me down, I’ll just tell her I’m being prudent! As the saying goes, "Where there’s life, there’s hope." All logic is on my side.’

Feng Ling crossed her arms, lifted her chin slightly, and looked at Ye Zheng, brimming with confidence.

After listening, Ye Zheng replied coolly, "What you just described isn’t a plan."

Feng Ling: "..."

’Fantastic. She just invalidated my idea by definition.’

"If you were acting alone, a rough concept like that might be enough. But if you need others to coordinate with you, the plan must be as detailed and clear as possible. Everyone on the team needs to know what they’re supposed to do and when. They need to know the follow-up steps for both success and failure, as well as the contingency measures and retreat routes..." Ye Zheng stared at her, her face devoid of expression. "All of that, decided upon after discussion—that’s what you call an action plan."

Feng Ling’s confident expression crumbled into something complicated and hard to describe.

"In that case... I’ll just go alone," Feng Ling said. It all felt like too much trouble. ’She’s making something simple so complicated,’ she thought with a surge of irritation.

Ye Zheng gazed at her intently. "It’s true that going alone is easier, but you can’t be alone forever. These are things you’ll have to learn sooner or later."

Not far away, the Cat Owl flapped its wings and the Cat Spider let out a warning hiss.

More Mouse Monsters were heading their way.

Xu Yiming worked up the courage to interrupt them. "Shouldn’t we find a safe place to continue this discussion?"

"Let’s go to the safe house," Feng Ling said with a frown. "Eight offering tables means eight safe houses. If the layout is the same, we should find one if we turn left here and walk for a bit."

No one disagreed.

The group followed Feng Ling’s lead, turning onto another street and easily finding a new safe house.

The safe house on this street was a coffee shop with two floors. The ground floor had a counter, plush seating, and artsy wooden tables and chairs. The upstairs area was designed as a book cafe, with walls lined with bookshelves full of books. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Feng Ling and Ye Zheng had barely stepped inside before they headed upstairs, as Ye Zheng had said she wanted to speak with Feng Ling privately.

Huangfu Miaomiao, who was used to sticking close to Feng Ling, was left behind, forced to stare blankly at the ceiling on the ground floor.

"What could they possibly need to talk about alone?" Huangfu Miaomiao lamented, resting her chin on her hands with a soft sigh. "...But the change in her is so obvious. Now that her Pollution Value has dropped, she’s suddenly so much more lucid."

"She is much more lucid," Li Qing said quietly. "And it’s precisely because she’s lucid that she’s making arrangements for the future."

"Arrangements for the future?" Huangfu Miaomiao turned to him and asked, confused. "What kind of arrangements?"

Li Qing glanced toward the top of the stairs, his voice dropping even lower. "She just said that Feng Ling will have to learn sooner or later."

"What’s wrong with that?" Huangfu Miaomiao frowned. "Can you stop being so mysterious? Either spit it out or don’t say anything at all."

Li Qing pressed his lips together and fell silent.

"Just say it already!" Huangfu Miaomiao stood and leaned in closer to him. "What’s going on with those two? We have a Demon Contract. Don’t you dare hide things from me, or you might just drop dead."

Li Qing gave her a helpless look and finally spoke again. "Humans aren’t like us. Some of them live for a certain belief. Once they realize they can no longer accomplish their goal, they find a way to pass that belief on to someone else. Don’t you think the two of them are in a similar situation? My guess is, she wants to teach Feng Ling a few things while she’s still clear-headed."