Edited by Jules
Under Wang Taidi and Qi Ning’s guidance, the two walked towards the only hotel in town.
The hotel was pretty much as rundown as everywhere else in town. The old neon sign already could no longer light up, and a thick layer of dust had accumulated on it. If they didn’t look closely, they simply wouldn’t be able to decipher what was written on it.
When they entered the hotel, it was dark inside.
There were very few electric lights, and most of them had already gone on strike. The floor was completely dusty, and it didn’t look like there were any cleaners here at all.
The air even had a smell unique to old houses; the entire ambience was extremely disconcerting.
The phone in the hotel was even the very old type where you had to turn the numbers on the dial.
In view of the information they had read and the extent to which news of the town was sealed off, this place didn’t seem like it had any connection to the outside world at all. Xiao Lan suspected that this phone couldn’t make any calls at all.
Xiao Lan and the others were just about to head upstairs, when an extremely rude voice rang out beside them.
“Hey, you foreigners, come and register.” The voice sounded extremely coarse, and had no trace of service hospitality at all.
They looked in the direction of the voice, and realised it came from the dark reception desk.
Sitting behind the hotel’s reception desk was a fat old man.
His hair was sparse and his face was filled with spots. Like the people in the town, he, too, was disabled.
One of the old man’s eyes had been gouged out, leaving behind an empty hole. His left hand was also twisted, his palm bent at a strange angle.
“This guy is the owner of the hotel,” Wang Taidi explained to Xiao Lan and Luo in a soft voice.
The hotel owner was gazing at them the same way the others in town did, as if he would pounce and take a bite at any moment.
It looked like even someone who opened their doors for business in Mona Town still wasn’t friendly towards outsiders.
The man slapped the table heavily. “Register! Every foreigner must register! The two newcomers, you aren’t exceptions!”
Luo stepped forward and began to register the both of them.
This registration was very perfunctory: just write down who you were and what you came for. All of it could be easily fabricated.
As such, Luo also took advantage of the situation to display his skills in making things up.
While Luo was registering them, Xiao Lan took the chance to ask, “Do all the guests from outside stay here?”
The owner shot him a glance. “Hmph, all of them stay here. Fills up my territory with the stink you guys bring with you. You all carry no signs of faith at all. Why does Sara always pay attention to you hypocritical foreigners?”
Xiao Lan caught the key words. “Signs of faith?”
The boss pointed at his empty eye socket. “This is a gift offered to Sara.”
He then pointed at his twisted hand. “This is a sign of devout faith. You foreigners all say you yearn for Sara, but you don’t do anything at all. A bunch of liars filled with deceit.”
Xiao Lan asked, “Do all the foreigners come to find Sara?”
The owner’s face twisted. “Hehe, who knows what you foreigners want?”
Xiao Lan still wanted to ask more questions, but the owner interrupted him roughly. “Get lost! Don’t vainly try to get information about Sara from me! Sara will not accept any of you! They will only become one with us!!!”
Xiao Lan’s brows furrowed slightly.
It seemed that the reason these people rejected outsiders was because they were afraid the outsiders would fight for Sara’s attention?
Why did this feel slightly like fighting for favour?
Honestly, he had zero intentions of becoming one with this sort of thing whose form he had no idea of.
You all worry too much.
At that moment, Luo finished registering them, cutting off the owner’s words.
The boss took what Luo wrote and looked at it for a long time, but was still unable to understand what ‘A journey in search of spiritual salvation’ and ‘People must strive for lofty ideals’ was.
The owner scratched the sparse hair on his head, but didn’t want to reveal his ignorance in front of the foreigners.
As such, he didn’t ask too much, but just put away the registration book and said, “Alright, you can get lost now. Don’t bother me if there’s nothing important. The hotel will provide food and beverage for you; at that time, it’ll be sent straight to your rooms.”
Xiao Lan asked, “May I ask when the food will be delivered?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The owner’s tone revealed some impatience. “Whenever it’s done is when it’ll be given to you. This place doesn’t have a restaurant for you to enjoy either. We aren’t like you foreigners who like to gather together.”
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Xiao Lan and Luo walked into their room.
The room was just as ratty and gave no sense of anticipation; they could clearly see the street next to them through the cracks in the wall.
One wall had an eye-shaped totem drawn on it. It was as if the totem was watching the room, and next to it was even written, ‘This place is watched by Sara’.
Xiao Lan looked at the eye. “Seriously uncomfortable.”
Luo drew closer to the totem on the wall and reached out to touch it. “I don’t feel any energy fluctuations. This is just a normal scrawl. If you don’t feel comfortable, I can change a bit of this diagram.”
Xiao Lan looked at his boyfriend’s smile.
Then, he thought of Luo’s art style, which contained a boldness in its crude wildness, and an unruliness revealed in its lack of restraint.
If he were to see Luo’s art upon opening his eyes, he might as well look at this thing. In any case, both were hard on the eyes, but at least he could make out what this drawing was.
Xiao Lan shook his head. “No need.”
He simply walked up and dragged over a cupboard with his bare hands to cover this totem.
Luo sighed a little regretfully. When would sir appreciate his artwork?
Suddenly, both of them turned to the window at the same time.
It was already a little dark outside at the moment, but the sky was still a fiery red from the burning mountain fire around them.
Against this backdrop, a head was hanging down over their room window and staring at them with a malicious smile.
Sensing their gazes, the spying head didn’t panic.
He mouthed at them: Heehee… Foreigners…
Then, he tried to escape upwards.
Xiao Lan rushed to the window, and just happened to see a long, long neck connected to this head.
The neck was stretching out from a body in a neighbouring building. From the clothes on the body, this should also be one of the town’s residents.
The person withdrew his neck and his head twisted around as he walked into his house, humming a strange song.
He didn’t seem concerned about being beaten up by members of society; perhaps, to him, monitoring these foreigners was more important.
Luo flexed his fingers. “Shall I deal with him, sir?”
Xiao Lan shook his head. “It seems they’re monitoring us from everywhere. It’s useless to deal with just one or two of them. Moreover, looking at the mental states of the town’s residents, I suspect that if we did anything, they would directly attack us. It’s better not to provoke them for the time being.”
Of course, when they should provoke them was another matter.
Xiao Lan frowned slightly. “But… They seriously don’t look too human anymore. Perhaps, after staying here for a long time, we’ll also become like that.”
Luo said, “Only the best of the advanced players have the qualifications to enter this instance. Given your constitutions, the change would be very slow.”
Xiao Lan nodded, temporarily suppressing the unease in his heart.
Wang Ke was one of the top advanced players, and was also a melee fighter with a tough constitution. Although he was restrained due to his skill, it shouldn’t be that easy for him to assimilate.
Before actually seeing him, it was still better not to make too many conjectures.
That would just be worrying too much for nothing.
Later, everyone gathered in Wang Taidi’s room to discuss the follow-up.
So far, they hadn’t found the main plot for Sara’s Song, and the game hint was extremely vague. Searching for Wang Ke wouldn’t be easy.
Xiao Lan compared the information which they had. “Our information is virtually the same, but none of it points to a concrete location. Taidi, how about you?”
Wang Taidi shook his head. “Tao ge’s mental condition was unstable, and he didn’t clearly say where my ge disappeared. I tried many times, but he was unable to fully recount what happened; all I learned was that there are lots of monsters there. Also, I suspect my ge might not hang around where he was ambushed.”
It seemed they still had to look for clues themselves.
Wang Taidi said, “Since Tao ge mentioned an altar before, we might as well look for information about this altar first and find 【Rock of Forgiveness】 to give ourselves an escape route.”
Qi Ning turned his head to Wang Taidi. “To actually be this calm, your growth has surprised me very much.”
Wang Taidi smiled a little self-mockingly. “I only understood later that emotions won’t be of any help. The calmer I am, the closer I will be to my goal.”
Among them, he felt the most sense of urgency in finding Wang Ke, so much so that he had already suppressed this feeling for a very long time.
But Wang Taidi also knew very well that the closer they got to the critical moment, the more he couldn’t make any mistakes.
He didn’t want to reach the very end only for his actions to cause all of his efforts to fall short at the last moment.
At that moment, there was the thump of something heavy falling to the floor outside the door.
It was followed by a man’s bellow. It was incoherent garble, and they couldn’t hear what he was saying.
They exchanged looks and opened the door.
In the corridor, one of the tightly shut doors was now open.
A bearded man was lying on the threshold and rolling around on the floor.
He didn’t care about the dirt on the floor in the slightest, bawling as he rolled about. The original colour of his clothes was no longer discernible, whether because it hadn’t been washed in so long or he had just rolled around too much.
But this man had no disabilities or physical deformities like the other town residents.
Following the man’s movements, Xiao Lan saw the reason he was rolling around.
A knife had been stabbed into his thigh. Blood gushed out of the wound; it looked like the knife had gone very deep.
But the man’s reaction was very strange. He looked at his wound with trembling hands, and seemed like he wanted to take the knife out, yet also wanted to drive it deeper.
“Heh… Heh… Sara… will see my devotion…” He stopped rolling around and reached out to grab the hilt of the knife.
But he was also very hesitant, and his arm trembled even more severely so that he was unable to continue moving.
It seemed that his hesitation made him very ashamed. The man suddenly covered his face and burst into tears. “Wu… Ahhhhh… wuwuwu…”
The sobbing echoed in the corridor and was a little piercing, putting those who heard it on edge.
But the other rooms in the corridor remained as silent as ever. Aside from Xiao Lan and the others, absolutely no one was interested in coming out to take a look.
The man would cry for a while, then try to grab the knife for a while.
His movements were repetitive, and in their wake, his mood fluctuated erratically between depressed and high.
It was like he was unhinged.
But this person was the least like the others they had seen ever since they entered the town.
He didn’t seem to be as fervent in his belief toward Sara; at least, he would hesitate when he mutilated himself, and didn’t look as addicted and excited like the others.
Xiao Lan tried to talk to him. “Hello…”
But the man didn’t respond to his words; he was immersed in his own world as he cried and laughed.
In the end, however, he didn’t continue driving the knife deeper.
When he finally wore himself out from crying, he shifted and began to crawl back into his room, dragging a trail of blood behind him.
During the entire process, he didn’t give the spectators a single glance, as if they were just wall columns.
“Dad won’t talk to you.” At that moment, a soft but flat voice rang out.
A pale little girl walked out from the shadow behind the door.
She looked very normal, with all her limbs intact and without any disabilities, nor any deformities, so much so that she seemed to be in a better mental state than the man.
Xiao Lan asked, “Why do you say that?”
The girl said, “Dad only has Sara in his eyes. He came because he was chasing Sara’s singing.”
Xiao Lan looked at her. “Chasing? You guys came from somewhere else?”
The little girl was still expressionless. “We used to live in another small town. One day, dad said he heard Sara’s singing and wanted to chase the world’s most beautiful singing, so he brought me here, but I’ve never heard anything.”
Xiao Lan confirmed again, “Everyone staying here are foreigners?”
The little girl nodded.
“Dad spends all day thinking about Sara, and won’t play with me. He’s becoming more and more like the people in this town.” The girl’s voice was a little indifferent. “He’ll also become crazy sooner or later.”
Xiao Lan looked at the girl’s dark eyes. “You don’t want to leave this place?”
The girl shook her head. “Dad won’t leave.”
Xiao Lan suddenly pointed at Wang Taidi and asked, “Have you seen another big brother who looks a little like this one? He has short hair.”
The girl studied Wang Taidi closely, then nodded under the other’s nervous gaze.
Wang Taidi hurriedly asked, “Then do you know where he is?”
The girl pointed at the rooms Xiao Lan and the others were staying in and said softly, “Foreigners who stay in your rooms all disappear. He was also the same.”
After that, the girl closed the door.
They stood in the corridor, and silence fell for a brief moment.
After a while, Xiao Lan opened his mouth and said, “She’s probably saying that players who enter are arranged to have these rooms. Regardless of whether they succeed in becoming contract players or fail, they naturally wouldn’t stay here anymore.”
“Mn.” Wang Taidi nodded, laughing to lighten the mood. “At least it means we didn’t come to the wrong place.”
At that moment, the hotel owner’s bulky figure appeared in the corridor.
He was carrying a basket, and crudely tossed the food boxes he was holding in front of different room doors. It was clear that those rooms were occupied.
As he walked, the owner cursed to demonstrate his dissatisfaction towards the foreigners.
When he saw Xiao Lan and the others standing in the corridor, his face darkened even more.
He directly threw the food boxes at their feet. “Hmph, unruly foreigners, what are you plotting now?”
Without waiting for a response, he walked off.
It was as if staying even a second longer with them would infect him. “Once I saw you, I knew you guys were the most unruly bunch… The more unruly, the quicker you’ll die…”
After the owner’s figure disappeared at the other end of the corridor, Wang Taidi reached down, picked up a box, and opened it.
“…” He sank into a strange silence.
Next to him, Qi Ning also took a glance: “…”
Drawn by their reaction, Xiao Lan came over to look: “…”
Seeing that even Xiao Lan, who was proudly part of the dark cuisine group, had also fallen silent, Luo also couldn’t resist taking a look: “…”
For a moment, their language system crashed.
Because the thing in this box honestly already surpassed the category of dark cuisine.
In any case, dark cuisine was still cuisine, but what the hell was this?
Dried rat, the eyes of some unknown organism in porridge, and even frog sashimi with the skin on. The side dish was some sort of yellow-brown mushy beans.
Wang Taidi had the expression of one who had nothing left to live for in the face of the frog. “…Isn’t this a little too stimulating?”
Qi Ning started to laugh quietly. “Hehe, I really want to dissect them…”
Xiao Lan asked a tricky question. “Won’t they have constipation from eating this?”
Wang Taidi closed this demonic box and proposed, “Let’s find a kitchen and cook for ourselves ba. Although we can go a few days without eating, the game has just started and there’s no need to treat ourselves like that.”
Xiao Lan nodded. “Alright. Fortunately, I can cook.”
Luo looked at his sir with incredulous eyes. Where did this confidence come from?!
Wang Taidi’s gaze turned alarmed and he hurriedly said, “Nonono… uh… Let me do it ba, let me show you guys the results of my practice.”
The fear from being dominated by Xiao Lan’s cooking that one time emerged in his heart once more. He didn’t want to go through that wandering-hell-like experience ever again.
Qi Ning, who hadn’t suffered Xiao Lan’s vicious hands, turned to Wang Taidi in confusion —
Why were his eyes filled with the desire to survive?
Baobao Notes
Apologies for the long hiatus. After a long time hesitating, (and consulting my editor) I’ve decided I’m going to give this one more go. If I’m unable to consistently put up weekly updates then I’ll have to resign myself to stop translating until I have more free time.
As long as you’re happy translator! Don’t push yourself too much, thank you for the chapter!!
Also caught, bug,
Room for Xiao Lan and Wang Taidi → room for Xiao Lan and Luo
I missed you~
Thanks for the chapter ~
Don’t push yourself too much!! It’s ok to take as many break as you need, you’re doing your best already
Xiao lan’s cuisine is the true villain of this story
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Thank you for the update~
+1 on Bamboo, don’t push yourself too much~ Stay well~
Thanks for the update
Don’t worry about it!
Just keep focusing on yourself and what you want to do!
thanks for the chapter <3
Luo: Where did sir’s confidence come from?
It came from the same place your confidence in your art skills came from!!!
😂😂😂😂
This is exactly what I came here to say xD
Thx for the ch ٩(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )و
And as the others already said, if you don’t want to do this anymore, it’s completely fine :3
What if the little girl is Sara?
I hope you continue to translate! Thank you for your work on this!