A Random quest is a kind of ordinary quest, yet plainly distinct from the conventional sort. Its appearance follows no fixed location or pattern, arising instead at random from the ongoing lives of the Lost Continent’s inhabitants. Nor can such a quest be accepted at any time once it appears — it vanishes after an indeterminate interval, and that interval is generally very short. This marble-retrieval quest, for instance, existed for only five minutes; had no one taken it within those five minutes, it would have vanished of its own accord. And should one accept it and fail to finish within that span… well, the little girl won’t wait around that long.

Likewise, being a kind of ordinary quest, a Random quest’s rewards are no richer than an ordinary quest’s. Though some may be a little more unusual.

Ye Tianxie had always been a very kind and loving person… before a helpless little girl, at any rate, this was what he believed. And besides, this quest looked as simple as a quest could possibly be — fetch a marble.

“Now, little sister, don’t cry. I’ll get your marble back for you right away.”

He crouched, reaching an arm down into that round hole whose bottom couldn’t be seen… and at once, Ye Tianxie realized that this quest was not only far from simple, but for him, no ordinary sort of difficult.

The arm he’d extended touched nothing solid. He couldn’t reach the marble that ought to be down there at all. It left him thoroughly stuck.

Had this been the real world, he could simply have found something to dig up the surrounding ground; eight or ten meters down, he’d have reached it eventually. But in a virtual game world, players essentially cannot destroy the scenery. Destruction requires a weapon or item with a destruction property, and the odds of such things appearing are pitifully low — so low they may as well not exist. Even Ye Tianxie, with his years of virtual gaming behind him, had only heard such a property existed; he had never seen or owned one.

Seeing him withdraw his arm, the little girl stepped closer, gazing at him hopefully. “Big brother, did you get it?”

Ye Tianxie was silent for three seconds, then smiled. “Wait just a moment, little sister. I’ll have it out for you right away.”

He shifted his gaze to the hole, his lips barely moving, and said in the lowest voice he could manage, “Guoguo, go down and get that marble.”

Guoguo’s body could be seen and touched by Ye Tianxie alone, and her voice heard by him alone. And however softly Ye Tianxie spoke, Guoguo could hear him perfectly. He could never fit down that hole — but there was room enough for Guoguo to drift down it. Guoguo, dozing on his shoulder, glanced at the deep hole and shook her little head hard. “Boo… no, no, it’ll get my cute dress dirty… And besides, besides, it looks so deep and dark down there. What if there are bugs or venomous snakes or other scary things… No, no.”

“Even if every bug and snake in the world came, not one of them could bite you… Be good. I’ll buy you lollipops.”

“Don’t want any… I’ve still got lots of lollipops to eat.”

“I’m your master. You have to do as I say!”

“Hm? Why do I have to do as you say just because you’re my master?”

“…Fine.” Ye Tianxie gave up and deployed his trump card, saying slowly, “If you fetch the marble for master, tonight I’ll have that woman make you candied water chestnuts.”

Over these few short days with Su Feifei, his understanding of her had shifted day by day, and each day’s shift had been considerable. It had also, to no small degree, overturned his understanding of rich men’s daughters… Or perhaps Su Feifei was simply a different sort of rich man’s daughter. On the first day he had seen her liveliness and boldness, her stubbornness and obstinacy laid bare, and had begun to learn about her past. But from the second day, he had come to know another side of her. How many people of luxurious birth cook their own food and keep their own house? And this only child of Asia’s richest man, who by rights should have her hands filled and her mouth fed without a care in the world… she not only could do it, but what she produced was frankly not fit for human beings.

It was fit for immortals.

From the congee she made that first evening to all three meals the following day, Ye Tianxie had suddenly realized that in this bargain of his with Su Luo, he had come out enormously ahead.

“Candied water chestnuts… candied water chestnuts… Wah, wah, really? Really?”

A little trail of drool ran from the corner of Guoguo’s mouth and wetted a patch of the snow-white dress at her chest. She sucked it back in hard, shot off Ye Tianxie’s shoulder with a whoosh, and flew into that deep little hole.

Watching her impatient departure, Ye Tianxie was speechless… He had to rely on Su Feifei to command the Guoguo who called him master and never once obeyed him.

Was there a more pathetic master anywhere?

A little while later the snow-white figure came climbing out, and Ye Tianxie saw at once that she was clutching a small transparent marble. Guoguo was a very strange existence: she could touch and handle any object with her body just as a normal person would, yet when the outside world reached for her, all it met was empty air. The sole exception was Ye Tianxie. The phenomenon was flatly anti-scientific, and however hard he racked his brain he could not work out why.

“Got it, I got it!” Guoguo dropped the marble from above, and it landed neatly in Ye Tianxie’s hand. Only then did she float lightly back onto his shoulder, turn herself about at once, and — having confirmed that her dress hadn’t been dirtied in the slightest — let out a small sigh of relief. She tugged his hair. “Master, I got the marble. Remember to have Sister Feifei make me candied water chestnuts. You have to remember… I want them so much… If master goes back on his word, Guoguo will be very angry…”

Ye Tianxie nodded like a chicken pecking rice, turned, and set the marble down before the little girl.

“Here you are, little sister. Look — your marble’s been found.”

Delight spread across the little girl’s face. She took the marble in her hands and said happily, “Thank you, big brother. This is my favorite marble, because it’s prettier than all my others — like a beautiful crystal. And Mama gave it to me. I love Mama best of all… only Mama’s fallen gravely ill now, and the doctor says she’s going to… Big brother, thank you, truly.”

“Ding… Little girl Shasha’s favorability toward you increases by 25.”

“You’re welcome.” Ye Tianxie smiled, muttering inwardly… Surely the quest reward isn’t just favorability?

“Oh — Mama says that when you receive a kindness from someone, you must know how to repay it… Big brother, this is for you.”

A large white marble appeared in the girl’s hand, and she held it out to him. “This is an elemental lamp for lighting the way. Mama says there are lots of light elements inside, and if you just touch it here, the light elements are released and dark places become bright. One light elemental lamp lasts a long time. This one’s nearly used up — there’s about three minutes left. Papa threw it away, but Mama says we should be thrifty, so I secretly picked it up again… Big brother, it’s yours.”

The white marble came to hand so light it seemed to have no weight at all. Ye Tianxie glanced at this globe with its three minutes of light and smiled kindly. “Thank you, little sister. I’ll treasure it.”

When the girl spoke of her mother, the attachment and the buried grief in her voice sent an inexplicable ache through him… Only emotion this untainted could touch that string in the depths of his heart, the one he never wanted touched. He committed the girl’s name to memory — Shasha. She was only a small inhabitant of this game world, and perhaps he would never see her again, yet he remembered her name all the same, and could not have said why.

(Author’s note: Remember this little girl Shasha’s name, and every word she said. She’ll appear again in two or three million words…)

(End of Chapter 93)