Chapter 158: Changes in the Elven Forest

"Oh, crap!" Hearing Vivienne's voice, Zhuge Taxue was instantly startled. She whipped her head around and spotted Chen Hao, who had already turned to leave. Immediately after, a scream that made eardrums ring tore from her throat. At the same time, she crossed her arms over her chest and squatted down entirely into the bathwater.

In her panic, Zhuge Taxue also grabbed Vivienne, pulling the little girl into the water with her. Thinking Zhuge Taxue was just playing around, Vivienne giggled happily.

"When did you get here?" Zhuge Taxue's face was flushed bright red. With only her head above the water, she glared at Chen Hao and demanded loudly.

Chen Hao couldn't tell if her crimson flush was from soaking in the hot spring for too long, from the embarrassment of being accidentally seen naked, or from anger at realizing she had been—pah! No, not that. Accidentally caught on display.

However, since he had already been caught, Chen Hao decided not to hide or beat around the bush; doing so would only make him look like a guilty thief. He simply strode into the room as bold as brass, pretending everything was fine, and half-joked, "Nice figure!"

The moment the words left his mouth, Chen Hao regretted them, wishing he could slap himself across the face. Wasn't this practically telling Zhuge Taxue that he had seen everything?

Sure enough, Zhuge Taxue's face turned even redder. She glared fiercely at Chen Hao. "Let me tell you, don't think you can do whatever you want just because you're my boss now! I am no secretary of yours, so you can forget about any unwritten rules!"

"Cough, cough!" Chen Hao coughed awkwardly. What was all this nonsense? True to form, Zhuge Taxue's blunt conversational style always caught him off guard. Still, seeing that she was able to joke around with him—suggesting she wasn't overly furious—he couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.

It wasn't that Zhuge Taxue didn't care about being seen by Chen Hao. In fact, she could more or less guess that he had stumbled upon the place by accident, and that seeing her and Vivienne bathing was purely unintentional.

After all, judging by his reaction the moment she spotted him, he had clearly intended to leave to avoid any awkwardness. That at least proved he had no intention of peeping.

Men like Chen Hao were truly a rare breed. Let's face it—men are usually bastards who will take advantage of any freebie whenever they get the chance, especially when bathing with gorgeous beauties like her and Vivienne, which was the ultimate fantasy of every lecherous scoundrel.

Since Chen Hao had chosen to walk away, it meant he had no desire to take advantage of the situation, which involuntarily sparked a bit of favorable impression toward him in Zhuge Taxue's heart. Speaking the way she did now was simply her own way of breaking the ice and avoiding awkwardness, just as he had.

Chen Hao was sharp-witted and caught onto Zhuge Taxue's meaning almost immediately. He casually picked up the two women's clothes from a nearby rack and tossed them to the edge of the pool. "Alright! Put your clothes on first! I'll wait for you outside. It seems this game business is getting more and more interesting..."

With that, Chen Hao turned and walked straight out of the bathroom, heading to the hallway to wait for them.

When the three of them finally stood face-to-face again, Zhuge Taxue's complexion had returned to normal. Vivienne, however, looked rather regretful as she muttered, "Sigh... Chen Hao, why didn't you come and soak in the hot spring with us? It's so comfortable! This is a natural tree-eye hot spring, you know! We only get the chance once a month!"

"Hey there, Vivienne! I'll come join the hot spring next time I get the chance!" Chen Hao said with a smile, reaching out to pat Vivienne on the head.

The little girl didn't mind at all as Chen Hao's large hand ruffled her damp hair into a mess. Instead, she rewarded him with a sweet smile. "I didn't think we'd meet again so soon! Did you use a magic array to get here again? Your magic skills are so brilliant! You can appear right inside my house without me sensing a thing. Zhuge-jiejie is the same way, too!"

Hearing Vivienne say this, Chen Hao finally asked, "By the way, how did you end up here?"

Zhuge Taxue spread her hands, opening her mouth to speak, when she noticed Chen Hao's gaze fixed on her a bit strangely. She suddenly realized that the clothes she was wearing were rather thin. Combined with her earlier embarrassment, she hadn't thoroughly dried herself off before getting dressed, hastily pulling her garments over damp skin.

When thin fabric comes into contact with water, it naturally becomes somewhat translucent, and the strange look in Chen Hao's eyes was obviously because parts of her body were somewhat exposed.

However, Zhuge Taxue quickly brushed it off. Besides, he had already seen it just now, and since this was in a game anyway, let him look! Instead, she gave Chen Hao a teasing look. "All the evil desires, none of the guts, huh? Go on, look your fill! After all, a weak little girl like me is no match for you, Great Young Master Chen. Even if you wanted to use your status as my boss to enforce some unwritten rules, I wouldn't have the power to resist, right?"

As she spoke, Zhuge Taxue intentionally took a step forward, thrusting her proud chest outward as she closed in on Chen Hao.

"You... you shouldn't do this... This isn't right... Really!" Chen Hao was sweating profusely by now.

Watching Chen Hao's cautious, gingerly demeanor made Zhuge Taxue find it all the more amusing. Having such a handsome man cornered by her like a naughty child who had done something wrong filled her with an indescribable sense of triumph. It seemed this young lady was still quite formidable after all!

"What's so wrong about it?" Zhuge Taxue leaned her lips close to Chen Hao's ear and blew softly.

"Ha-ha!" Suddenly, Vivienne burst out laughing nearby, clapping her hands as she giggled. "Zhuge-jiejie, are you and Chen Hao playing the game of blowing air into each other's ears? I want to play too, count me in!"

...

The mood that Zhuge Taxue had so painstakingly built up was instantly shattered by Vivienne. For a moment, even Zhuge Taxue didn't know how to carry on her performance.

Seeing this, Chen Hao quickly seized the opportunity to push Zhuge Taxue away. "Cut the joking around, let's talk about business. You lesbian!"

"Tch~~ No fun at all!" Zhuge Taxue said, looking disappointed. "Fine, fine. I'll let it slide today since I'm the bigger person. As for how I ended up at Vivienne's place, I actually want to ask you the same thing!

Did you tamper with anything on my end before logging into the game? Why is it that after entering, I didn't see a character creation interface or a normal newbie spawn point, but instead appeared right here with Vivienne?"

Imitating Zhuge Taxue's gesture, Chen Hao spread both hands. "I'd like to know what's going on myself! It seems my situation is identical to yours! Though I'm kind of used to it by now—every time I log into the game, I end up in some inexplicable place. The only common denominator is that Vivienne is always nearby.

Come to think of it, why is it only you here? I wonder where Mengyan ran off to? I was planning to add you guys as friends once I logged in, but dammit! My character doesn't even have a normal operation menu. I couldn't even search for a character if I tried!"

"Right, what about you? Didn't you have a normal operation menu when you logged in earlier? Hurry up and add Mengyan to see what's going on!"

In virtual reality, adding friends wasn't done by searching for other people's character names, because virtual reality didn't allow multiple characters per account; every single account corresponded to an independent ID. Since these IDs could not be duplicated, as long as one knew the friend's device serial number, the addition could go through smoothly.

However, Zhuge Taxue shook her head regretfully. "My dear boss, my dear Young Master Chen, you pervert who peeked at my body—I feel a heavy responsibility to inform you. After logging into this time, I became just like you, completely devoid of any menu interface. Not only are the menus gone, but even my inventory has vanished!"

...

Vivienne listened to the pair's conversation with a blank expression, only speaking up hesitantly after a moment. "Are you guys trying to find someone you can't locate?"

"Uh..." Both of them turned their heads, completely at a loss for how to answer Vivienne's question. To this day, Vivienne still didn't realize that her existence was merely part of a virtual world, and that the two of them were nothing more than outsiders—existences hailing from a completely different plane of reality, as far as she was concerned.

Yet, Vivienne still innocently regarded the two of them as friendly visitors from the human world and cared deeply about their troubles. The problem was that the two of them simply had no idea how to explain all of this to her.

In the end, Chen Hao nodded. "Yeah! You could say that!"

"If that's the case, why don't we go for a walk in the Elven Forest? We might just run into your friends!" Vivienne said with a cheerful smile.

"Huh?" Chen Hao froze. "Go to the Elven Forest? Why?" It wasn't his first time in the Elven Forest, and he had heard all about the situation inside from Vivienne herself.

The Elven Forest, as the name implied, was where the Elven race lived, and humans rarely ever appeared there. Even if humans did show up, they would be rounded up the moment they were discovered and politely escorted out of the forest.

Moreover, aside from Vivienne, Chen Hao hadn't seen a single elf in the forest this time. He simply couldn't fathom what going for a walk had to do with finding Mengyan.

Vivienne slapped her forehead. "Oh! I forgot to tell you! Earlier today, a whole bunch of elves I didn't recognize suddenly appeared inside the Elven Forest! Well... I suppose I didn't recognize a single one of them...

And, and, besides the Elven race, there are also tons and tons of humans! They all walked out of a huge, massive building, and there are all kinds of people among them! This is the first time I've ever seen so many humans appear in the Elven Forest all at once!

What's even more interesting is that those unfamiliar elves didn't seem surprised by the appearance of those humans at all! Not only did they not round them up and escort them out of the forest, but they were actually greeting them very warmly!"

...