When the female player saw Xu Huo, she immediately opened her mouth to curse, but after seeing Si Ming being carried in his hand, she swallowed her words back down.

Xu Huo looked at her with a half-smile. The female player quickly put on an apologetic grin, "Brother Five, could you please lend me a hand?"

Zhuo Wangsun used an item to remove the mycelium from her body, managing to pull her onto clean ground. Compared to the female player, Si Ming looked utterly hopeless. He said weakly, "Even if we escape, we're still fatally poisoned. We'll die once we reach the next station."

Zhuo Wangsun had stayed behind to search for the counteracting fungi, while the female player and Si Ming hadn't left because they hadn't cleared the dungeon. Without clearing it, they had no return ticket. Even if they used train tickets to go to the next dungeon, they might become food for others when passing through the station. Compared to being eaten alive, it was better to die here.

"Did Xin Hui die?" Zhuo Wangsun asked Xu Huo.

Xin Hui's motives were suspicious. Since Xu Huo had returned alone, Xin Hui was probably done for.

Xu Huo nodded without further explanation, simply saying, "High-level players have come to Clown City, so the dungeon ended early."

The three of them, Zhuo Wangsun and the others, looked shocked and nervous, "High-level players entered the cleanup area?"

"Not exactly," Xu Huo said. "But we definitely can't go forward anymore. We have to head back."

"Going back isn't difficult, but if high-level players are fighting up ahead, we should leave first," Zhuo Wangsun couldn't help but look at Xu Huo. "Can you sell me one of those antidotes you gave Jin Dong earlier?"

The female player also looked at him hopefully, "We're all infected with fungi, only you're fine. You must have a way, right?"

"I do have antidotes here..." Xu Huo deliberately hesitated. "But they might not be effective."

"I'll pay two hundred thousand White Bills for one," Zhuo Wangsun said generously. "If you have extras, I can buy two more."

"Two hundred thousand isn't enough," Xu Huo shook his head.

"Plus another fifty thousand!" Zhuo Wangsun immediately added. "Brother Old Wu, why don't you name a price? As long as I can afford it, I won't bargain!"

Xu Huo was also straightforward, giving him an antidote mixed with King Fungus mycelium, exchanging goods for money on the spot.

"Wait," the female player stopped Zhuo Wangsun, implying something with her tone, "Are you sure this antidote really works?"

Zhuo Wangsun took the antidote before saying, "Brother Old Wu has saved me more than once before. If he wanted to harm me, he wouldn't need to use a potion."

Wouldn't killing him directly be simpler?

"That's not what I meant..." the female player gave an awkward smile. Only after seeing the scars on Zhuo Wangsun's arm fade away did she grit her teeth and say, "I can trade with an item."

Beside them, Si Ming directly took out his best item, "A pathfinding mechanical bird. It can walk and fly, perfect for scouting dangers. It even saved my life in the last dungeon."

"An E-grade item," Xu Huo wasn't very satisfied.

"Plus thirty thousand White Bills, all for you," Si Ming added.

The female player hesitated repeatedly before also taking out an E-grade item and ten thousand White Bills.

"I can give you the potions, but you have to help me with something," Xu Huo said. "Before coming to the foggy forest, I saved two children in that abandoned city. Later, I need to send them into Clown City."

All three looked at him in surprise. Zhuo Wangsun said, "Even if you send them into Clown City, they won't survive."

"The situation is different now. You'll understand once we're out. Not just the cleanup area, the entire Clown City is about to fall," Xu Huo said. "This potion can last for a while. You won't have to worry about infection when we go out."

The four of them quickly exited the underground nest. From the foggy forest location, they couldn't see much, but after climbing to higher ground, the lights from Sunrise Clown City became visible. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

"So there really is another Clown City," Zhuo Wangsun sighed.

"Is that a water sphere?" the female player hesitantly pointed at the shimmering object enveloping the city.

Before anyone else could speak, that enormous water sphere suddenly sank a section, as if the city had collapsed under its weight. The water sphere then burst apart.

"How many people must have died?" Si Ming frowned. "Those high-level players really don't value ordinary people's lives at all!"

The paper-folding player and the few players who chased after clearly knew each other. The two sides had probably been chasing each other for a while, and coming to Clown City was just a coincidence, unrelated to Clown City itself.

They probably wouldn't stay in Clown City long. Xu Huo also wasn't sure if the Nüwa Stone and King Fungus he obtained from Xin Lang had caught the paper-folding player's attention, so he needed to quickly finish things here and leave.

Without further delay, the four of them sped toward Sunset Clown City.

The commotion at Sunrise Clown City was significant, not only scaring away the Mutants but also making the warriors lingering in the cleanup area feel uneasy, causing them to start moving westward.

The truth that the cleanup area mission was just a scam had already spread among the warriors. Especially after the Protective Wall of Sunrise Clown City collapsed, the game dividing into red and blue teams was confirmed. The warriors took off their glasses one after another, avoiding Mutants while also retrieving those injured teammates who had been forced to flee the group.

Xu Huo and the other three quickly caught up with the large group about to reach the abandoned city. Craftsman Tu and the others, as well as Sister Shan whom they had met before, were still alive.

Upon seeing Xu Huo and Zhuo Wangsun, Craftsman Tu and the others, who had just been actively explaining the Clown City situation to others a second ago, immediately fell silent. Compared to Sister Shan and those who had accidentally killed companions, their actions were far more despicable. They had concealed their deeds from others all along the way. Now that people who knew their true nature had appeared, these guys wished they could vanish on the spot.

Xu Huo ignored them, sending Zhuo Wangsun to pick up Fish Ball and Ice Cream, while he himself went to the underground crack in the city center to distribute water mixed with mycelium to those white-haired people.

Zhuo Wangsun and the others had already verified that regardless of the fungus type, whether infected with one or multiple kinds, the potion mixed with mycelium was sufficient to alleviate infection symptoms. So water mixed with King Fungus mycelium was enough for these ordinary people.

Within just a few minutes, signs of infection on these people began to fade. If what Xin Lang said was true, that the King Fungus could survive in the human body for a period, then these people wouldn't be infected again for a while.

The voices of these people who had long hidden underground hadn't recovered yet. So when the symptoms on their heads disappeared, they cried and laughed, letting out hoarse, unpleasant cheers.

Above ground, Sister Shan and the others threw ropes down, pulling people up one by one.

These warriors, born in Clown City, who once held passionate hopes of reclaiming their homeland, hugged each other and wept bitterly upon meeting—for the years of suffering and torment, and for the relief of surviving disaster.

Zhuo Wangsun also brought the two children over. Xu Huo gave them the antidote to drink and sent them back to their parents.

"Will these two groups fight to the death?" Zhuo Wangsun subtly pointed at Craftsman Tu and the others, who were shamefacedly hiding in a corner.