Chapter Sixty: We Must Handle Public Relations

"Alright!" Fox Soft-Snow finally breathed a sigh of relief, having at last found her purpose. Huang Yunshuo and Morning Dew Frost turned and slipped into the woods, carefully maintaining their distance from Fox Soft-Snow to ensure she could benefit from the group experience sharing. Only then did they find a spot to set up a sticky net.

Huang Yunshuo squeezed through the mesh and emerged on the other side. With a rocket launcher aimed at the treetops ahead, the thrilling grind began anew!

————

In the deep, vast reaches of the cosmos.

This was a sprawling star sector near the Yoke-Jaw Rift Nebula, where a sun with thirteen planets blazed not far away. Numerous enormous battleships, exquisitely crafted yet menacing in appearance, were docked here, with squadrons of fighter craft weaving through space in tight formations. The absence of atmospheric filtering made the metallic hulls gleam blindingly, while their flanks and rears, untouched by starlight, lay in shadow—an arresting contrast of brilliance and gloom.

Many medium and small ships moved in and out of a colossal ring-shaped mothership, so vast it rivaled a planet. Surrounded by layers of escorting warships, its three-tiered circular hull enclosed a bulky yet agile central body, its flattened form lending it nimbleness. Seen from afar, every window of the mothership was ablaze with light, while mecha squads streamed in and out of its ring.

At a certain moment, the mothership's kilometer-long body began to slowly turn, its prow eventually settling on a particular direction. As its movement ceased, about one-twentieth of the fleet broke formation and accelerated away, heading where the mothership pointed. Looking along that line, through the dense nebula and endless stars, one could just discern a vast, desolate, cavernous interstellar wasteland.

Their target: the Abyssal Cavern.

"Damn it!"

Crash!

An elegant crystal cup was hurled to the floor, shattering into pieces. A tall, pale man, still furious after smashing the cup, pounded his fist against the armrest of his chair.

"Each town gathers players from fifty starter villages. The player count is impressive—over ten million. But when will our guild's elite finally assemble?" He raged. "Epoch Reforged has the most absurd mechanics! In Glacial Glory, you can pay your way to long-distance travel at level ten. That's why our Tang Dynasty Smoke guild remains unshaken. Boss fights, PK battles, exploration, securing wild zones—you can't play without a legion of elite players! Otherwise, what's the point?"

"If only we could gather everyone, I'd have a squad waiting in that town the moment that bitch arrives—I'd kill her ten thousand times a day!" The tall man roared endlessly.

"Vice President, this 'Nightly Flowing Light, Resplendent Moon'—do we know which Glacial Glory server she's on? Could she have a history with us?" asked a middle-aged man beside him, wearing green glasses and pondering aloud.

So far, 'Nightly Flowing Light, Resplendent Moon' had amassed over 5,000 kills across both the black and white guild lists. In starter village ufC94031, the 210 Tang Dynasty Smoke players had each been slain more than twenty times, most of them already mentally broken. Nearly 200 had quit the guild, but the guild prefix remained, and 'Nightly Flowing Light, Resplendent Moon' showed no mercy—camped outside the general store, killing any player with the 'Tang Smoke' tag as soon as they appeared.

The Tang Dynasty Smoke members suffered terribly: without aerosol sprays, they couldn't grind in the wild; trying to buy from others was futile, since their prior provocations had made everyone refuse to deal with them. Level ten players wishing to leave the village were forced to enter the general store as part of a quest, only to be killed each time. Except for a brief offline period, 'Nightly Flowing Light, Resplendent Moon' never left the store’s entrance, her ID now permanently blacklisted.

Initially, these players had relied on guild-sent aerosols via mail, but that support ceased once they quit. Most crucially, their guild prefix marked them with the Tang Dynasty Smoke emblem, a permanent stigma even after leaving the guild.

Their morale shattered from repeated slaughter, and forums brimmed with featured posts chronicling Tang Dynasty Smoke being humiliated, its reputation sinking lower each hour. At level twenty, Epoch Reforged would enable guild nameplates—though not full factions yet, those bearing the guild tag would essentially wear its badge, sparking a recruitment frenzy. Yet at this critical juncture, such a scandal erupted. In this interstellar age, with networks more pervasive than ever, who would still want to join Tang Dynasty Smoke?

A single step behind leads to endless setbacks—the middle-aged man seemed to foresee the guild's bleak future.

"Of course there's no history! Those starter village trash brought this on themselves! Saw a pretty girl and tried to flirt; one kill wasn't enough, so they attacked in waves like a fortress siege. Lost every piece of gear, down to their last copper coin—they can't even afford medicine!" The tall man's voice shook with contempt. "How did I end up with such a bunch of idiots under me?"

The middle-aged man curled his lip at the tirade. Who was he kidding? He knew Tang Dynasty Smoke's true nature—plenty of members just like that. As long as they didn't provoke anyone formidable, everyone laughed it off. But when they crossed a powerhouse, like those few cases in Glacial Glory, disaster befell the whole guild, with everyone scrambling to shift blame and curse the culprits—never realizing most were just as culpable.

"Vice President, don't worry. I'll think of a way to manage PR. Surely 'Nightly Flowing Light, Resplendent Moon' has friends? If we approach her through them, there's a chance we can settle this," the middle-aged man said.

The tall man sighed. "That's all we can do, Lao Liao. I'll allocate one hundred million credits for this operation. Settle it fast! As long as she leaves the starter village, everything else is negotiable!"

"Understood!" Lao Liao, the middle-aged man, straightened and nodded firmly.

Location: Roger Young-class Large Starship.

Roger Young Node Operations Group, Interstellar Live Platform.

"Xiao Ruo, I've just noticed from the data—there are lots of user reports about a stream with ID drz02825. But from my end, the stream is new yet highly active, with lots of gifts and engagement. We can't act rashly; follow up and report back," said a bald middle-aged man in the operations director's office to his tall, elegant subordinate.

"Got it, Boss! You can trust Starry Ruo!" The tall woman in a smart suit slapped her chest confidently, assuring him there'd be no problem, and strode out of his office.

"drz02825… What a strange name. 'Big Dummy, do you love me?'" she mused, chuckling.

Arriving at her own office, Xiao Ruo entered the room number and began reviewing the basic info.

"Not even twenty-four hours since launch, and the follower count is already at two hundred ninety thousand? So many people sending yachts—this streamer is really popular?" She glanced at the streamer’s ID, the bold word "Dummy" staring back at her, and her mind went blank.