Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 505 Package
"Yumen?" Zhulong was taken aback. "What are those hunters doing gathered at Yumen?"

“I’m not quite sure…” Yang Qiaoxi shook her head. “It seems like some kind of treasure was found in some no-man’s land… but the problem is, there’s still no accurate explanation of what this treasure is. Some people say it’s a few boxes of gold left behind in the no-man’s land by some rich man, some say it’s a powerful magical artifact… hiccup… and some people have even more outrageous ideas, saying it’s some kind of meat-based Tai Sui, and eating one bite will grant you a long life… hiccup… I still think that gold is the most plausible explanation.”

Meat Tai Sui?
Sun Hang thought to himself that he had already devoured the strange creature Tai Sui, so what kind of thing would this fleshy Tai Sui be?
Could it be a kind of strange creature similar to Tai Sui?

However, if it really is a creature of the same kind as Tai Sui, then after humans fuse with it, from a certain perspective, this creature can indeed make people live to be a hundred years old—injuries such as broken arms and legs can heal in minutes, and even if a certain organ in the body becomes diseased, it can be removed and replaced with a new one made of mycelium...

The problem is that to perfectly integrate the Tai Sui meme, one either needs to possess the devouring ability of a glutton like Sun Hang, or inherit the Tai Sui meme from Sun Hang as a "child infected person" like Song Yarong and others.

What's with taking a bite right away?

If an ordinary person were to actually eat a bite of Tai Sui, there would be a 90% chance of them dying instantly, and a less than 10% chance of them turning into a ghost or a ghost creature. As for becoming a stable infected person with the Tai Sui meme, the probability would be so low that there would be a long string of zeros after the decimal point.

As for people who are already infected consuming Tai Sui, the Tai Sui meme will first fight with the original meme in the infected person's body—just like a virus invading the human body and the human body's own immune system. The first to suffer will definitely be the body of the infected person, who is the battlefield.

If the two sides are evenly matched, then the infected person will suffer greatly. A fever of over 40 degrees Celsius might be considered good. The body's tissues will dissolve, a large number of cancerous growths will proliferate wildly, limbs will deform, the body's endocrine and circulatory systems will completely collapse, and multiple organs will fail simultaneously. Sun Hang has seen many "specimens" of strange shapes in the Tianfu City Strange Object Research Institute. The source of these "specimens" is the human bodies that have become the battleground between the two strange object memes.

Without the ability to devour, it is extremely dangerous for an infected person to forcibly fuse with a different meme.

While infected individuals are not easily reinfected, if someone were foolish enough to swallow an entire piece of *Tai Sui* (a type of fungus), even their own "meme immune system" wouldn't be able to withstand such a reckless act.

Of course, besides being evenly matched, there are two other scenarios.

In one scenario, the internal meme is much stronger than the external meme. In this case, the external meme will be eliminated or assimilated in a very short time, and the infected person's own strength may be enhanced to a very small extent. In most cases, nothing will happen.

The second scenario is when the foreign meme is much stronger than the internal meme. In this case, the infected person's fate may be even worse than that of an ordinary person. Ordinary people do not have "resistance" during the infection process, but the weak "resistance behavior" of the weak meme in the infected person's body is very likely to trigger a stress response from the foreign meme, thereby greatly accelerating the infection process.

In the second scenario, the probability of successfully replacing an infected person's original meme with a stronger foreign meme, like "blood transfusion," is zero.

It's not zero.00000, it's exactly zero.

Whether in practice or in theory, its probability is zero.

Unless that person's original meme originated from Taotie.

Before Sun Hang appeared, all scholars in the field of strange object research unanimously believed that this behavior was no different from suicide.

Oh, there are still some differences.

This method still has a chance of giving rise to ghostly remains or strange objects, which is more troublesome than the harmless "self-disposal method" of suicide.

After a few words, Yang Qiaoxi had almost finished the entire bottle of Fenjiu, but she looked much the same as when she had just drunk a few glasses, still in a state between being slightly tipsy and sober.

"What a pity... hiccup... I should have known you would bring me Xinghua Village wine..." Yang Qiaoxi tilted her head back and poured the last few drops of liquid from the bottle into her mouth. "I should have bought some snacks to go with the wine on my way back... Fenjiu wine is only good with peanuts and braised pork."

"I ordered takeout for you," Zhulong said considerately. "Half a pound of boiled mutton, half a pound of peanuts... Prices in Longcheng seem to have gone up quite a bit since the last time I came."

"Is this all the snacks you have to go with your drinks? Aren't you going to drink?" Yang Qiaoxi grabbed Zhulong's sleeve.

“I plan to visit a few other friends.” Zhulong gently pulled his fingers away from the other’s. “I’ll take my leave now. If you have any news, please feel free to contact me… We’ll probably be staying in Dragon City for a while.”

"There's a concert later, aren't you going to stay and watch?"

“I’m more interested in blues and jazz than rock,” Zhulong said with a smile.

"Tch, what a boring man." Yang Qiaoxi stood up, carrying the empty wine bottle, and swayed as she walked towards the inner room. "I'm going to take a nap first. Goodbye."

"it is good."

……

After leaving Yang Qiaoxi's tavern, Sun Hang turned on his phone—by this time, he was able to log into the Dragon City Hunter Forum without any problems.

The real name of the Dragon City Hunter Forum is not this, but rather borrows a line from a poem by Wang Changling: "The bright moon of Qin and the pass of Han".

The third and fourth lines of this poem are the famous lines: "If only the Flying General of Longcheng were here, the barbarian horses would not dare to cross the Yin Mountains."

Sure enough, Copperfingers had already posted the task of delivering the package to Yumen on the forum.

Because this was a newly posted task, the moderator pinned the post to the top—and the post's daily views were much higher than those of the old, forgotten posts piled up below.

Those tasks that have been accumulating over the years and have been ignored generally only have single-digit views today, but this new task post has already exceeded four digits in less than thirty minutes since it was published.

The Hunter Forum's pageviews are counted by the number of people, not the number of views. Even if the same user clicks on a post multiple times, it will only be counted as one pageview. This means that at least a thousand people clicked on the post in the past half hour.

However, the post's prefix is ​​still "Task pending".

Sun Hang asked the mastermind to register an anonymous account for him, and then opened the post.

The description of the mission was almost identical to what Copper Finger and Sun Hang had said, and the most frequent question in the replies was about the contents of the package.

However, Copperfinger did not respond to the post after it was published, completely adopting a "take it or leave it" attitude.

Sun Hang glanced at Copper Finger's last online time, which was three minutes ago. This meant that Copper Finger had seen the dissenting voices, but simply chose not to pay attention to them.

"Why risk your life for 20,000 yuan?" The most upvoted comment below said this.

"If there are any contraband items in the package, forget about making money. If it gets confiscated at the checkpoint, will I have to pay out of my own pocket to compensate my employer for the loss? Hahahaha?"

"If you can't even speak clearly, don't post missions here. Also, I'm using this thread to recruit reliable teammates. I'm a veteran hunter with fourteen years of experience, a know-it-all in Dragon City, and have over seventy years of experience exploring uninhabited areas. I'm reliable in both skill and character. If you're interested, please message me privately."

"So, what exactly is in the package?"

"Could it be the 'meat taisui' that's been all over the news lately?"

"If it really is a 'meat monster,' why send it to Yumen instead of the mainland? Has the person upstairs lost their mind?"

"Watch your mouth. I was just saying it casually. What did I do to you?" "An idiot is an idiot. Stay away from me. I have a phobia of stupidity."

"Is the dog barking again?"

"Don't be a coward, dog!"

"Is the dog barking again?"

"Don't be a coward, dog!"

……

The latter half of the post had almost devolved into a flame war between the two individuals, while the replies within the thread were filled with netizens eager to fan the flames. As for the original content of the post, no one was mentioning it anymore...

"Mastermind, contact Copper Fingers for me," Sun Hang said.

"Ok."

The phone rang for less than three seconds before the other end answered, with that familiar voice: "Who is it?"

“We just met not long ago, at that little pub.”

"It's you? If you're here to ask about the contents of the package, I'm afraid I have no comment." The other person's tone was extremely decisive.

“No, no, no, I don’t care what’s in the package,” Sun Hang said. “I just wanted to tell you that I’ve changed my mind, and I’ll take this mission.”

"Really?"

"Do I really need to make this kind of joke?"

"Send me your dynamic hunter code, and I'll transfer the quest to you."

Soon after, Sun Hang received a text message on his phone saying "Task successfully transferred." The sender was the "Dragon City Hunter Management Bureau." In Dragon City, hunters must register with this department when accepting missions or exploring uninhabited areas, rather than with the Monster Research Institute, which is more common in other cities.

The main reason is that there are too many free hunters in Dragon City, so a special department must be set up to manage them.

"The item is in locker A16 on the basement floor of the Siming Street Department Store. The unlock code is 0417," Copper Finger said. "Alright, this mission is no longer my concern. Don't come looking for me with any problems later... If you need the contact information of the mission issuer, you can go directly to the Hunter Management Bureau."

After saying that, Copper Finger hung up the phone.

"Are you really short of 20,000 yuan?" Zhulong glanced at Sun Hang and asked.

“Anyway, we’ll definitely be going to Yumen later. Since it’s on the way, we might as well take this mission.” Sun Hang said while looking at his phone. “The mission has eleven days left, which is plenty of time.”

"Aren't you afraid the contents of the package will be a hassle?" Zhulong asked.

“Now that the package is in my hands, whether he opens it or not is not up to him.” Sun Hang chuckled. “Then let’s split up. You go find your old friends, and I’ll go to Siming Street to pick up the package.”

“Okay, be as careful as possible.” Zhulong nodded. “People have received bomb packages and virus packages before, but fortunately they were intercepted at the security checkpoint… Although these things shouldn’t hurt you, it’s still best to be cautious.”

……

……

Using a navigation app, we found that Siming Street wasn't far from where Sun Hang was. After Sun Hang led Xue Yue around two intersections, the seven-story retro building with red bricks on its walls came into view.

Longcheng Department Store.

Sun Hang went straight down to the basement level. The lockers here weren't for shoppers to temporarily store their luggage and packages; they were more like bank vaults. The service wasn't free either. Level A lockers cost 50 yuan per day until the items were retrieved.

"Which locker is your item in?" a sales clerk in a mall uniform asked.

"A16."

"Lot A16..." The clerk immediately bent down to look at the computer record. "Excuse me, the items in Locker A16 are rather special. Only hunters or mercenaries who accept delivery missions can retrieve them. Could you please show me your receipt for accepting this mission?"

Sun Hang handed the phone over directly.

Sun Hang silently gave this service a thumbs up in his heart—spending money really makes a difference. With this safety measure in place, even if the unlocking password is leaked, there's no need to worry about your belongings being stolen.

"Mr. Sun Hang...right?" The waiter nodded after comparing a series of information. "What is the unlock code?"

“0417,” Sun Hang said.

The waiter immediately entered the password into the computer, but instead of opening locker A16, he opened a small drawer located at the entrance.

A finely crafted metal key lay in the drawer.

"Oh... so the key to unlock this cabinet doesn't open the cabinet itself, but the cabinet with the key used to lock it," Sun Hang muttered.

"Yes, Class A lockers are generally used to store valuable items, and they all use a combination of physical keys and digital passwords for security," the waiter said. "In addition, we do not provide self-service here; key safekeeping and item retrieval are handled by dedicated staff."

Another waiter took the key and walked among a row of safes, inserting the key into one of the locks.

Half a minute later, he carefully carried a box wrapped in white cloth to Sun Hang.

"This is what's inside A16?"

"Yes, it's all here," the waiter said. "Would you like us to provide you with a safety bag?"

"No need." Sun Hang took the box and casually stuffed it into his backpack.

(End of this chapter)