The Old Clock Has Gone Mad

The stronghold beneath the poaching group.

Beside the Pal Terminal, two pale blue figures appeared one after another.

“Senior Brother, we’re back~”

“Old Zhong, let me tell you, I’m scary strong now... Holy crap!? What are you guys doing???”

The moment Mu Yawen and Zhou Yue landed, they were stunned by the scene before them.

Zhong Yi and Zhou Qiaoling were each clutching one of Qiwanwang’s wings, desperately dragging it toward the campfire.

“Senior Brother Zhong, Qiwanwang is too heavy... it has the [Heavyweight] trait!!”

“It doesn’t seem to activate normally, but when it’s sleeping, it’s seriously heavy... Junior Sister Qiaoling, put in more effort, we’re almost there!”

Zhong Yi and Zhou Qiaoling used every bit of strength they had, barely managing to push the slumbering Qiwanwang onto the campfire.

Qiwanwang slept peacefully, the snore bubble on its nose glowing with dazzling red light.

Mu Yawen and Zhou Yue watched this scene completely dumbfounded.

“Junior Brother Mu, Old Zhong has gone nuts...”

Zhou Yue whispered in disbelief.

“Looks like Junior Sister Qiaoling has rubbed off on him...”

Mu Yawen was equally shocked.

After all, what they were witnessing was far too dark.

Not long ago, Zhong Yi had explicitly said he would absolutely never hurt a Pal.

Oh wait, no—it later became “try not to hurt Pals whenever possible.”

“Senior Brother Zhong, what are you two doing?”

Mu Yawen couldn’t help but ask.

“Curing the Pals, of course... Old Zhou’s a genius, huh—just burn them with fire and send them back to the Pal Terminal to recover, and all their illnesses are gone!”

Zhong Yi said with a grin, giving Zhou Yue a thumbs-up.

“Wait... so I’m the cult leader??”

Zhou Yue was completely confused.

That said, everyone was only joking around.

No one actually felt any real discomfort.

The reason was simple: when Lu Ze created the illusion, he used visuals to soften the impact.

If the Pals screamed in agony, begged for mercy, or sobbed when placed on the fire—

then without a doubt, not even Zhou Qiaoling, the so-called Demon Child, would have had the heart to do something so cruel.

Lu Ze designed the Pals to be highly intelligent.

For example, they reacted during combat, showed expressions and gestures when kept together long-term, and had unique temperaments and personalities as individuals.

But inside the base, that sense of intelligence was deliberately downplayed.

Only numerical anomalies appeared, never emotional ones—they’d smile happily even when shoved into a fire pit, completely oblivious, never triggering any pity from players.

Lu Ze’s goal was to let players commit wrongdoing without truly becoming villains.

Take Minecraft for instance.

If the villagers in Minecraft each had super-realistic intelligence and personalities like Sudier or Linxi, Zhong Yi would never have used villagers for experiments or research in his entire life.

It was precisely because the villagers lacked true sentience and only followed basic behavioral logic that players could treat them as tools.

The Pals in Palworld were the same.

When they died, they merely showed dizzy spiral eyes; when they suffered torment in the base, they just wrinkled their brows listlessly; when they got sick, they simply lay down and went to sleep...

Everything gave players a clear sense of it being an illusion.

So players never felt strong guilt.

Soon, the burnt-to-death Qiwanwang walked out of the Pal Terminal, full of energy and vigour, and immediately ran to the fields to water the crops.

“I see... so you need to cook them good food and prepare nice beds, otherwise they’ll get upset and even go on strike?”

After listening to Zhong Yi’s explanation, Zhou Yue said with sudden realization.

“Exactly~ Old Zhou, take a look at the base you built... even a dog would shake its head at this.”

Zhong Yi pointed at the messy base with a look of disgust on his face.

The new home was Zhou Yue’s responsibility to build.

At the time, his luck was terrible, so he lost the rock-paper-scissors match and was forced to stay behind for construction.

To get out and catch Pals sooner, he threw the base together in a hurry.

There was no layout planning, the base looked all crooked and skewed, and anyone with OCD would probably be digging their toes into the floor for half the day.

“Pfft, you’re not a dog, so how would you...”

Before Zhou Yue could finish, Zong Mingzi—who had just chopped wood and came looking for food—walked past and shook his head with extreme disdain.

Although the dog seemed to be upset that the wild berries weren’t tasty, it looked exactly like a dog shaking its head in disapproval.

“Um... alright, fair enough, it really does call for a head shake.”

Zhou Yue’s face turned slightly awkward.

He suddenly remembered that last time, when hatching eggs, the three of them agreed—whoever hatched the worst one would stay behind to build the base.

By that rule, his Blaze Bull was clearly the worst of the bunch.

Staying behind to build again?

Zhou Yue, who loved combat, was itching to go out and was reluctant to stay.

Especially when he saw Zhou Qiaoling hatching an enormous Flame Drake from a large Fire-type Pal egg she found on the volcano—with Level 5 kindling and Level 5 mining talents1 that made everyone jealous.

“Don’t worry, no one’s planning to make you stay for construction.”

Zhong Yi could read Zhou Yue’s thoughts at a glance and laughed, patting him on the shoulder.

“I know exactly what your building skills are like—where everything looks like a damn coffin...”

“Brother, you’re right, you’re absolutely right!”

Just to get out and catch Pals, Zhou Yue smiled shamelessly.

“You two go out and explore; I’ll stay and build the base.”

Zhong Yi nodded and gave Zhou Yue what he wanted.

This wasn’t just empty talk—after the Pal illness incident, he’d realized that base construction had its own depth of knowledge.

Earlier, he’d been too busy levelling up and catching Pals to study many of the mechanics, and he was now fully engrossed in it.

“Hehe, Senior Brother, I’ll stay and help you build!”

Mu Yawen patted his head, volunteering enthusiastically.

“Sounds good! With your help, our new home is going to look amazing!”

Zhong Yi agreed happily.

Mu Yawen lacked some quick wit in the illusion, but he made up for it with solid reliability.

Back in Minecraft, Mu Yawen had focused on building—he was a straight-up maniac who rebuilt the sect’s spirit peak in Minecraft.

With Mu Yawen’s help, Zhong Yi immediately wanted to turn the base into its fully completed form.

“Senior Brother, I’ve been wanting to build a big house for a while now. We’ve got plenty of wood—could you give me a hand?”

Mu Yawen asked with a smile.

“No problem!”

Zhong Yi nodded with exaggerated seriousness, his mind full of visions of a beautiful, grand base.

“When the two of us team up, building this base will be a piece of cake!”

“Senior Brother, hearing you say that... my heart suddenly feels uneasy...”

“???”