Chapter 33: China Zone 2 player MOMO successfully passed ......

The pocket in which the gopher was kept was placed on the coffee table by Tang Mo, the pocket was tied so tightly that the gopher could not get out, but a little bit of golden powder seeped out through the gap in the pocket. It was the sight of this gold powder that made Granny Wolf cry out in surprise. She threw away her parasol, the bottle of wine and the spices, and ran to the coffee table to untie the pockets.

Tang Mo couldn't let the gopher get away the moment the pocket opened. But before he could do so, the wolf grandmother grabbed the gopher by the back of its neck and lifted it up.

The golden gopher chirps, and Granny Wolf swallows as she looks at it. She looked at it for a moment, then turned her head to look at Tang Mo. The look in her eyes is so complex it could be a million word novel, full of appetite, angst, depression and barely perceptible glimpses of conscience.

Granny Wolf stuffs the golden gopher back into her pocket, gripping it with her big, hairy, black hands.

After a long time, she took a deep breath, as if she had finally made a decision. In a harsh tone she growled: "Just five coins, not a penny more! You stinky thing, get your ass back to your earthling father and don't let me see you, and your hair, again!"

Tang Mo's hand had been pressed against the matchstick since Granny Wolf had entered the house, not daring to relax. At these words, he suddenly sighed with relief.

Granny Wolf went into her bedroom, took a dirty yellow sock from under her pillow, dug it out, and pulled out five copper coins. There were only five coins in all, and she counted them three times before reluctantly handing them to Tang Mo.

"Dingdong! Obtained 'Granny Wolf's Copper Coin', Hint: Use the copper coin to exchange for the prop 'Granny Wolf's Little Parasol'."

After handing the coin to Tang Mo, Granny Wolf picks up the seasoning packet from the floor, walks into the kitchen and opens the cupboard, pulling out a piece of cured Digimon bacon from inside. She sprinkled the cumin over the dried out bacon, her eyes fixed on Tang Mo, chewing on the meat. The naked gaze was as if she was eating Tang Mo's meat instead of bacon.

Tang Mo's heart dropped its last shred of defensiveness after seeing Granny Wolf bring out the bacon for dinner.

It seems that after completing his task, Wolfie really did not eat him. Perhaps it was The black tower's restriction that she could not eat him once he had completed his task.

Tang Mo looked at the five coins in his hand, thought about it for a while and decided, "I'd like to exchange them for the little parasol."

"Huh?" The wolf-grandmother bit off a piece of the earthling's tendon and opened her bloody mouth wide.

The black tower has a hint, so this should be an option, and Tang Mo says calmly, "I'd like to trade the coins for a small parasol."

The wolf grandmother's gaze became odd all of a sudden as she scanned Tang Mo up and down, her eyes lingering on the five copper coins, her gaze greedy, her expression yet a little suspicious. She sneered, her pointed wolf mouth stained with much flesh, and laughed oddly, "What do you need a little parasol for, a little girl."

Tang Mo continued, "Can I change it?"

Granny Wolf took a big bite of meat: "What does a little girl want with a parasol, stink or no stink."

Tang Mo: "......" After a moment, he nods expressionlessly, "I stink."

She said she didn't want to give Tang Mo the parasol, but her green eyes never moved from the five coins. After eating the chunk of tendon meat, she brought the parasol to her, "Five coins for it, okay?

Tang Mo hands over the copper coin.

Granny Wolf hurriedly took the copper coin and threw the little parasol into Tang Mo's arms, muttering under her breath, "What a stinkin' beauty the little girl is, she must have learned it from that earthling father of hers ......"

Tang Mo: "......"

When the meat was finished and the parasol had been replaced, Granny Wolf started to drive Tang Mo away.

Tang Mo had been stalling for time because he hadn't heard the sound of The black tower prompting the completion of the main quest so far. Could it be that his main quest was not over yet? He had to stay in Granny Wolf's house for a while longer.

Seeing that her granddaughter was still stuck, Granny Wolf grinned sorrowfully and licked her teeth, "My dear granddaughter, are you sure you don't want to go?"

Tang Mo's heart tightened as he took a step backwards, his mind racing, and said, "What is a golden gopher of time and space?"

So interrupted, Granny Wolf subconsciously replied, "You don't even know about the golden-haired gopher of time and space? Your mother has really been so enamoured by that filthy underground man that she won't even tell you about it."

Granny Wolf grabbed the Golden Gopher from her pocket and pulled a mouse spinning wheel out of the cupboard. The golden-haired gopher danced its limbs in the air, frantically trying to escape. But when Granny Wolf put it into the spinning wheel, it acted as if it had been possessed. First it took a tentative step, the wheel moved and it excitedly spread its limbs and ran gleefully.

Tang Mo looked at the golden-haired gopher and suddenly, he saw an overlap of space-time around the spinning wheel. He saw a second gopher! This one looked exactly like the first one and was also running in the wheel. Then came a third, a fourth and a fifth ......

The shadows of the seven golden-haired gophers overlap one moment and separate the next. The faster the golden-haired gopher ran, the more these gopher shadows split.

Granny Wolf looks on with delight at the golden-haired gopher, the sound of swallowing unusually pronounced in the hut.

"This is the golden-haired gopher of time and space." Grandmother Wolf looked at the golden-haired gopher for a while, mumbling a few words about "braised gopher", "sweet and sour gopher" and "fried gopher", and then she looked slyly at Tang Mo's brain and swallowed.

Tang Mo suddenly remembered the phrase "her head, sweetness".

Tang Mo: "......"

The main quest is not over yet and Tang Mo does not dare to leave Granny Wolf's cottage easily. A raspy, odd laugh escaped Granny Wolf's throat as she slowly walked towards Tang Mo and gently asked, "My dear granddaughter, Granny has a particularly fun little toy in her bedroom, would you like to go with Granny to see it in her bedroom ......"

Tang Mo clenched his teeth and in a flash, he made a decision: ignore the main quest for now and get out of here.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door outside the house.

"Granny Wolf, the Underlander's caravan is about to pass through the Valley of Monsters. Can your little Red Riding Hood go back to the Kingdom of the Underlanders with this caravan of merchants and would you like me to take her out of the valley? Granny Wolf, are you home."

Grandma Wolf had just opened her sharp teeth and was staring at Tang Mo with greedy eyes when she suddenly heard the sound and closed her big mouth.

Tang Mo finally knew exactly what Granny Wolf was doing when he was taken by the gorilla monster to her hut seven days ago and knocked on the door. With great speed, he saw Granny Wolf straighten her pink dress, put on her beautiful hat and open the door.

She moved little by little to the courtyard gate: "Uncle Ape, you are so concerned about my Little Red Riding Hood."

Tang Mo followed her out.

The gorilla monster said, "Little Red Riding Hood is your granddaughter, Grandma, we all have to take good care of her. Little Red Riding Hood, the merchants from your Underlander kingdom are coming through here, so come with me and look for them. They are good Underlanders and often sell us goods at very cheap prices, never cheating our kind and lovely monsters like the king's merchants do."

Tang Mo nodded and took advantage of the situation to leave the courtyard and walk over to the gorilla monster.

The wolf's grandmother's face turned green and she glared at Tang Mo with a vicious look. Tang Mo stood calmly, looking down at the ground, but in his mind he kept thinking about why the main quest hadn't been completed and what he still needed to do. If he really wanted to go back to Granny Wolf's hut, how would he sneak into the monster valley.

A clear child's voice rang out at this point.

"Dingdong! Completed the main quest 'A pleasant game of gopher in Monster Valley' with a total of 11 black-furred gophers and one golden-furred gopher hit."

Tang Mo's eyes widened and his heart, which had been hanging in mid-air, finally dropped. However, he had only just put it halfway down when he heard the child's voice continue, "One black-furred gopher counts as one point, and one golden-furred gopher counts as ten points. Players have earned a total of 21 points. The player's point total exceeds twenty points, triggering the reward 'Care from the Ape'."

Tang Mo's heart thudded as he suddenly realised something and froze in place.

And the beep from The black tower continues: "Dingdong! Player MOMO has triggered the hidden main quest 'Catch the Golden Gopher' and successfully cleared The black tower level 1 (normal mode) ...... crossed off. Successfully cleared The black tower level 1 (hard mode)."

Tang Mo's eyes went black, his fingers trembled, and at that moment he suddenly understood what it meant to be malicious from The black tower.

...... you god damn hard mode!!!

The gorilla and Granny Wolf were still talking when a blinding white light flashed before Tang Mo's eyes.

Meanwhile, across the globe, a loud and pleasant child's voice rang out in the minds of twenty-three players.

"Dingdong! Official China 2 player MOMO has successfully cleared The black tower level 1 (hard mode)."

"Dingdong! China Zone 2 Official Player MOMO ......"

The global broadcast of The black tower was broadcast three times, and the twenty-three players stopped moving at that moment and looked in amazement at the nearest The black tower.

Outside the sixth ring road of Beijing, Fu Wenduo is in a hurry when he hears this voice. At first he stared, "Difficult mode?" Then he gave a low laugh and continued on his way to the south.

A bloodied blonde woman in Los Angeles, USA, heard the voice and muttered, "What is difficult mode ......"

In Europe, a bald man sat on a soft sofa and was drinking red wine. Hearing this he frowned, "My tower attack game is in normal mode, what is hard mode?"

China Three people heard this voice, three in the US and four in Europe ......

Of the twenty-three players, except for Fu Wenduo, the other twenty-two all mentally recited the name once.

"...... MOMO ."

Tang Mo, who has just been transported back to Nanjing, has no idea that he has become a worldwide sensation. But it's okay to know, it's MOMO who is on fire anyway, and three days later, there will be no more MOMO in the world.

Tang Mo is now transported to the counter of a souvenir supermarket off Nanjing Road.

The black tower in Shanghai is located on Nanjing Road, where Tang Mo was when he entered the tower attack game seven days ago, and where he has now been transported to, along with a small pink lace-trimmed parasol and his backpack.

Tang Mo didn't move for the first time after he was teleported back. He stood in front of the counter, looking at the empty glass counter, his eyes glancing at the small parasol on the side. Tang Mo's face was very calm as he picked up the parasol and stuffed it into his backpack. Having done so, he walks out of the souvenir shop with a blank face and walks straight towards The black tower.

The black tower hovers a hundred metres above the ground, and Tang Mo walks up to it and looks up at the huge tower.

A minute later, he picked up an iron bar from the ground, gripped it with both hands and smashed it hard against a broken monument below The black tower. There was no expression on his face as he took the iron bar and smashed it against the crumbling monolith one by one.

A man and a woman walked past him, took one look at him and hurried around and away, not expressing surprise.

Since the game has officially started, numerous people have come to this place. They couldn't do anything about The black tower, but they were so angry that they could only take it out on things around The black tower. The shops near The black tower were smashed to pieces by the angry people, and the monument had been smashed so many times that it had been reduced to rubble. The iron bar that Tang Mo picked up from the ground was thrown there by the people who had smashed the monument.

There are a few people like Tang Mo who let their anger out, and others who stay away from him at best and don't find it surprising because they've probably smashed them too.

After seven blows, Tang Mo dropped the iron bar and left Nanjing Road with his backpack.

After venting, Tang Mo finally felt more at ease.

As it gets darker and the streets become less crowded, Tang Mo walks into a mall and finds an unoccupied clothing shop. He had finally had a chance to catch his breath since he had been given ten days' notice to play the tower attack game.

After calming down, Tang Mo gave a helpless laugh and took the small parasol out of his backpack. He remembered what he had just done by smashing the monolith and rubbed his chin for a moment: "...... Well, it's a bit childish."

It was indeed childish, but anger got the better of Tang Mo and he couldn't control it for a moment.

Since Earth went online, Tang Mo has been more accepting of reality and has kept his cool, not running around The black tower like most players do to vent his anger by smashing things up. But this time, The black tower really pissed him off.

Tang Mo had no idea that his main quest for this tower attack game would be a literal "good old fashioned gopher game".

You fucking gopher! Your whole family go gophering!

Tang Mo mentally exploded in silence.

Yes, this tower game is a simple game of gopher. From start to finish, The black tower issued eight rules, none of which said that Tang Mo had to catch the golden gopher in order to complete the task. Even when The black tower says at the end that Grandma Wolf hates gophers and wants her granddaughter to catch them, The black tower still doesn't say that you can't complete the mission unless you catch the gopher.

This is a game of whack-a-mole.

One black-haired gopher counts as one point and one golden-haired gopher counts as ten points.

With the Golden Gopher disrupting time and space, seven Tang Mo can earn up to 28 points in seven days just for fighting the Black Gopher. Once you exceed 20 points, you will trigger "Care from the Ape" and the Ape Monster will knock on Granny Wolf's door and take the Tang Mo away.

From the beginning, Granny Wolf said that if Tang Mo couldn't catch the gopher, she would eat Tang Mo. Even she didn't think Tang Mo could catch the golden gopher, so she had wine and seasoning ready to eat Tang Mo when she returned. So The black tower's reward for completing the main quest is "care from the gorilla" to save the player's life.

As long as you have fought 20 black-haired gophers and survived them without incident, Granny Wolf can't eat you.

Tang Mo's act of capturing the Golden Gopher was tantamount to over-achieving the main quest, and he triggered the hidden main quest that took the normal mode tower attack game to hard mode.

Are you angry with Tang Mo?

He was determined to die and went to great lengths to catch the golden gopher, but in the end The black tower said: Sorry, I didn't expect you to be so good and overachieved our mission. Here's a medal for you, congratulations on completing the hard mode.

Tang Mo was so angry that he just wanted to curse, so he couldn't hold back for a moment and smashed the stone tablet. He smashed the monument seven times in total, counting every day for seven days.

After this incident, Tang Mo sat at the counter, shielding himself with the cabinet, and wondered darkly, "There are currently three known modes of Tower Attack, Retarded, Normal and Hard. There may be other modes as well. I'll have to pay attention to all the rules of The black tower, it's likely to set up language traps in unexpected places."

The black tower may seem to have tricked Tang Mo into trying to catch the golden gopher in this 'delightful gopher game in Monster Valley'. But in fact, it was The black tower that made the game more difficult.

If Grandma Wolf had not asked Tang Mo to catch the golden gopher, then Tang Mo's first reaction to the gopher game would have been to hit as many gophers as possible, the more you hit, the more rewards you get. Then it would be easier to reach 20 points. However, once the thought "I want to catch the golden gopher" is planted in his mind, he will try hard to keep all of himself in the same hole.

Tricking players into catching golden gophers and hitting as few black gophers as possible is the biggest hurdle in this game.

One black-haired gopher counts as one point, not counting the gold-haired gophers, and each Tang Mo stands in a different hole each day to earn a maximum of 28 points.

Like this time, Tang Mo got 21 points. If you don't count the golden gopher he caught, he only had 11 points in total, far short of the 20 point requirement.

Tang Mo has actually been thinking about a question, can other players really complete the task of catching the golden gopher except him?

Without the archiver, Tang Mo is unable to contact Fu Wenduo without knowing that he has fallen into the Golden Gopher's time trap.

Without the ability to change his name, Tang Mo cannot contact his other selves, leaving all Tang Mo standing in the same hole.

Maybe other players have other special props and powers, but to get through this game is so demanding on the player themselves that it doesn't feel like a normal tower attack game at all. Unless this game was made specifically for Tang Mo. In retrospect, it's not wrong, it's a tower attack game on hard mode.

After reflecting on his successful and unsuccessful game of Tower Attack, Tang Mo summed up a few points of note. After reflecting, he started to look at the rewards he had received.

The first one is a small parasol from Granny Wolf. Tang Mo took the little parasol out of his backpack and opened it halfway to see no hints.

It was already dark and the mall was pitch black. Tang Mo thought about it, took out his torch and shone it on the parasol to look for clues. When he shone the torch on the top of the parasol, a small line of writing appeared.

[Props: Granny Wolf's Little Parasol]

[Owned by: MOMO].

[Quality: Fine].

[Grade: Level 2].

[Attacking Power: Strong]

[Function: Extremely defensive, the umbrella is extremely hard and the tip is unbelievably sharp. Open the small parasol to act as a defence, close it to act as an attacker. Nice shape.]

[Restriction: You must shout "Little Red Riding Hood Energy, Magical Girl Transformation!" when using the parasol]

[Remark: Grandma Wolf's little parasol is as girly as her granddaughter with its pink lace trim].

Tang Mo: "......"

With the "Give Back Your Grandpa" ability, Tang Mo's lower limit had been lowered to a certain level. The corners of his mouth twitched as he looked at the restrictions on using the parasol. He was going to do the same thing he did when he got the "Return Your Grandpa" ability and decided that he would never use it in his life, but then he looked at the quality of the parasol and its extremely powerful features ......

Tang Mo didn't set himself up again, and silently put away his little parasol.

Next, there was a reward for Tang Mo as he was transported away from The black tower. He took a gold coin from his pocket and turned it from side to side, running his fingers carefully over the pattern on the coin, looking for clues to the prop.

As Tang Mo is transported, The black tower whispers a phrase in his ear.

"Ding Dong! Player MOMO has successfully cleared the first level of The black tower (hard mode). As the first player in the world to clear the hard mode, he receives the additional bonus 'King's Gold'."

This is the gold coin.

This is a heavy gold coin, and judging by its weight, it is definitely unadulterated and made of pure gold. On the obverse of the coin is an image of a man wearing a crown, and on the reverse of the coin is some strange writing that Tang Mo cannot read. He looked at the writing, but finally looked at the man with the crown on the obverse of the coin.

"The King of the Kingdom of the Underlanders?"

The king's gold coins, Tang Mo's first thought, was of the kingdom of the Underlanders. As the gorilla had taken him away it had been said that the king's merchants liked to cheat them monsters and sell them cheap goods at a high price.

Probably guessing where the gold coin came from, Tang Mo searched carefully for its functional description. He searched for a while, burned it, bit it with his teeth, and finally covered his slightly sore teeth and came to the conclusion, "It's definitely 100% pure gold." The coin was bent by his bite!

Tang Mo broke the bent coin back and it recovered, and a small line of writing appeared above the coin. Tang Mo's eyes lit up.

[Props: King's Gold]

[Owned by: MOMO].

[Quality: Rare].

[Grade: Level 1].

[Attack Power: None]

[Function: Abort any game of The black tower, choose to quit the game or watch as a spectator].

Tang Mo's heart gave a violent jerk at this line. His breathing quickened and after a few seconds he calmed down and continued to read on.

[Restriction: Disposable item, can only be used once. During the siege game, you may not use any supernatural powers or props to help the player who is participating in the game to pass the game.]

[Remark: Take the king's death-free gold coin, you are the king's advocate!

Tang Mo meditated, "Surely? ......"

It is impossible to use such an unconstrained prop at will, and the fact that it can only be used once is arguably the biggest restriction.

But even though it was a disposable item, Tang Mo couldn't help but feel emotional. He squeezed the tiny gold coin and looked at it for a good five minutes before pocketing it. The coin was kept close to him in the inside pocket of his shirt, the innermost, zipped and most secret pocket of his shirt.

Until now, Tang Mo has owned two rare items in total. One is the archiver fire egg and the other is the king's gold coin.

Each rare item tells Tang Mo, in the simplest and most brutal way possible, what makes it rare with its unbelievable functionality. Even the King's Coin, which is a one-off item, has the ability to "forfeit any game of The black tower", which is enough to keep Tang Mo calm.

"You can't use it casually, not until the last minute." Tang Mo Xin said, "For example, in the game of gopher, you can't use it even if you don't catch a golden-haired gopher. You can only use it when you are about to be killed by Grandma Wolf."

There are advantages and disadvantages to this prop. It has the obvious benefit of giving Tang Mo a free pass. But its downside is hard to see, but not impossible. With a fallback, the player may not be so desperate to play the game and throw in the towel in case of danger. Because he will always think: I still have a chance to give up.

The King's gold must be used at the point of a sword and never used until a certain death.

With his two new items, Tang Mo lay contentedly on the cold floor of the clothing shop, feeling a little sleepy. He hadn't had a good night's sleep since he was told to play Tower Attack half a month ago. He hadn't closed his eyes in the seven days he had spent catching the golden gopher. Now that the game is finally over, Tang Mo slowly closes his eyes and falls asleep.

But even in his sleep, his whole body is tense and he reacts immediately to any movement.

A good night's sleep.

"Bang..."

The sound of a huge object hitting the floor and Tang Mo opened his eyes abruptly and pressed his hand to the large match. He listened quietly for a moment and realised that the sound was coming from outside the clothing shop. He picked up his backpack and walked gingerly to the front of the shop, shielding himself with a cardboard box and looking out quietly.

The sky is wide open and it is already early morning.

In the corridor on the first floor opposite, a young woman in a dress looked ahead with a frightened expression on her face, she was looking right at the dead end of Tang Mo's vision and there was no way to know what she was looking at. Step by step, the woman stepped back and pressed her entire body against the glass fence of the mall corridor.

This glass fence is half broken, and in front of several other glass fences, several potted plants have been placed. Only this glass fence behind the woman has some soil scattered on the ground and the potted plants are missing.

Tang Mo's verdict: the object that just fell was most likely a potted plant.

The young woman covered her mouth in fear, her body trembling. The next second she suddenly turned and ran, shouting piteously, "They're here too! They're coming, they're coming!!!"

The young woman ran off quickly, but in a few moments Tang Mo heard a few more voices in the mall.

Four more people ran away from this mall.

Tang Mo frowned as he waited for a moment to make sure no one else ran out before he took out the large match with one hand, holding the giant match, and walked out of the clothing shop. As he left the shop and looked across the first floor corridor, the blood that had frozen on the floor of the corridor came into view.

Tang Mo's heart tightened and he took the matches and walked across to the first floor.

The images that had been blocked by the floor were finally all exposed to Tang Mo's view. He finally knew exactly what the young woman had just seen.

In front of a cashier's counter in a milk tea shop, a middle-aged man fell to the ground with his eyes wide open, staring ahead in disbelief. A large hole had been gouged out of his chest and blood was flowing down the wound, staining his clothes red and spilling blood all over the floor.

And in that black, bloody hole, his heart was gone.

Tang Mo fought back a feeling of revulsion and stepped forward to examine the man's wounds.

The heart was ripped out forcefully, the ribs were shattered to powder and there were very visible lacerations to the blood vessels.

Tang Mo looked around again and after searching the second and ground floors for ten minutes, he finally found the heart by the stairs on the ground floor. To be precise, it was a heart that was only half left. It seemed to have been gnawed on by something, this heart had been bitten in half and thrown on the floor.

Killings have been commonplace since Earth came online, with a body seen almost every three days. But killing with this technique, even ...... may have eaten half of the heart.

A sense of foreboding rises in Tang Mo's heart.

What he doesn't know, of course, is that at this very moment, west of Shanghai, a short, chubby man is hiding in a small car, pulling his thin, bamboo-like companion with him. They had their heads down as far as possible so as not to reveal their position.

In the narrow space, the two boys' breathing was heavy and their hearts were beating violently.

"Zhao ...... Zhao Ziang, is your hand okay?" The bamboo boy's voice trembled.

The little fat man's right arm was now slashed with a bone-deep wound, thick blood dripping down his arm onto the ground in a clatter. He covered the wound with one hand to keep the blood from dripping on the ground and making a sound. His voice was very hoarse: "No ...... it's all right. Let's go back, we can't go to the west, they're coming from the west. When they are gone, we go back to Shanshan and find Brother Strange."

The boy with the bamboo pole nodded heavily, "Yes!"

The little fat man was about to say something else through clenched teeth when suddenly, a sharp laugh came from above their heads.

"Oops, found it yo."

--------------------

What the author has to say.

Mr. Fu School: The whole world knows how mushy my Tangtang is. [Unhappy to have Tangtang's face all to himself

Tangtang: ...... Obviously the whole world knows how good you are, okay! I only have twenty three of them!!!

-----------

So there's a loophole in the gopher game... did the girls notice that?

The black tower did not tailor the game for Tangtang, at least until now, Tangtang is only the 24th person, and not completely noticed by The black tower ~ but want to play 20 black hair gopher is also very difficult, because Tangtang cautious, will not play the black hair gopher on the first day, it is easy to directly lose 7 The next hole chosen each day must not overlap ~ of course, the biggest difficulty in this game is tricking the player into catching the golden gopher ~