Chapter 586 - Riddle (1/2)
A peaceful week pa.s.sed quickly.
Zhang Heng was flipping through a book about photographic composition in the library this afternoon. He then received a call from Shen Xixi.
“Is it convenient to talk now?”
“Wait a minute.”
Zhang Heng got up, left the borrowing area, walked into the safe pa.s.sage, and glanced around. There were only a few freshmen discussing a.s.signments around him, and no one even noticed when he walked past.
Picking up the phone, he asked, “What’s the matter?”
“I remember you telling me before that you know how to drive?”
“Yeah.”
Zhang Heng knew Shen Xixi wasn’t talking about whether he had a driving license, but she spoke of driving skills.
“Can you please help me with something?” Shen Xixi asked, “Heard about the news that was circulating in the forum recently?”
“Sorry, I haven’t been on the forum much this week.”
“Oh, if that’s the case, you should take a look at the forum news first. After that, if you want to talk, you can come to the Time Sculpting restaurant in Food Alley to look for me.”
“Sounds good.”
Zhang Heng hung up the phone, opened his laptop, plugged in the USB flash drive that allowed him to hide his IP address, logged into the player’s forum, and started browsing the most popular posts. He did not need to search long, though. After a glance, he instantly knew what Shen Xixi wanted to discuss with him.
The most exciting news circulating the forum was the Sphinx. Unlike Moresby and Zavilcha that Zhang Heng had encountered before, the Sphinx was the mythical creature that everyone had heard of. It originated from Egyptian mythology, but most of its famous tales came from Greek mythology. According to legends, Sphinx would squat on the cliff near Thebes city, intercepting bystanders and asking them to solve a riddle”What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?”
Whoever failed to solve the riddle would get eaten by the Sphinx. Until one day, Oedipus pa.s.sed by and solved the riddle. The Sphinx was so ashamed of itself that it jumped to its death.
Like all Greek myths, the story was the kind filled with wisdom. Discounting the fact that Sphinx jumped to its death after Oedipus solved the riddle, each mythology also described the Sphinx as a monster with a lion’s torso, a woman’s face, and had wings on its back. Since it had a pair of wings, it could not jump off the cliff to kill itself.
The post about the Sphinx’s spotting was first uploaded by a player named Goldbach. He said he was a high school teacher. One night, while he was on the way home after work, he saw a creature akin to a large hunting dog springing out from the side of the road. Its appearanceuncannily similar to what the myths and legends described the Sphinx looked like. There, it stood beside a garbage bin. Then, what happened after that played out exactly like the myth.
The monster made Goldbach solve a riddle. If the answer were correct, he would let Goldbach walk away, but punishment was in store if he gave the wrong answer.
Goldbach felt nervous suddenly. As a player, he quickly realized that he had encountered a supernatural incident that would most likely cost him his life. Although the Sphinx did not mention that it would take his life, Goldbach knew from the myth about the fate of those who failed to solve the riddle.
It scared Goldbach to death. He lived in a relatively rural settlement, and there were not many pedestrians on the road. He was not the kind of player who specialized in combat either. All he could do was bite the bullet and start listening to the riddle that the Sphinx had for him. Fortunately, the riddle was as bad as it was recorded in the myth.