Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-CherryApple, Proofreader-adjective
The person the siblings referred to as “dad” was a woodcutter with a ruddy face and thick black fingers.
Hearing his daughter’s cries, he rushed out of the kitchen, wearing satin clothes that did not fit his temperament and holding a wooden spoon that was still stained with oil and soup.
The brother left the table, stretched his hands, and walked unsteadily towards his father.
His stomach had swollen to the point that it resembled a pregnant woman.
If a normal person’s stomach and intestines were bloated by such a large amount of food, it would’ve been overwhelmed and the insides would’ve ruptured.
Seeing his children suffering in this way, the woodcutter was also distraught.
He hugged them and went to soothe them.
It’s just that he wasn’t able to organize his words well enough, so he was just going back and forth with “It’s okay” and “Does it hurt?”
Utter nonsense.
It took him so long to spit out two useful sentences.
“Dad will call the doctor tomorrow.”
“If the best doctor in town can’t treat you, dad will take you to the city.”
Hearing this, however, the sister’s mind was on the verge of collapse.
Her thin fingers, almost devoid of flesh , grabbed the tablecloth and tossed all the delicacies and low quality game onto the ground.
She stomped on the ground, and let out a shriek that could tear her vocal cords raw, “I’m dying!”
“I can’t wait until tomorrow! I’m going to die!”
The father hugged her and looked at the brother, the veins on his face swelled to the point where they looked like they were about to explode.
Such a situation, for a soft-hearted man who was manipulated by his new wife to abandon his two children seriously exceeded the CPU processing capacity of his brain.
The brother was in a slightly better state than the sister.
He hugged his father’s neck and curled up in his arms, his long, and slender legs curled under his bulging belly.
He couldn’t stop swallowing and tried not to look at his father.
His peacock-green eyes were downcast, staring straight at the sludge-filled gap between the floorboards.
Under the warm light, it still felt dark and chilly.
Nan Zhou and the others temporarily stayed away from that chaotic place.
Given their physical condition, they too could not afford to waste time.
Through their experience in the previous timeline, they figured their goal should be to travel through the various timelines of the fairy tale, searching for the real door to leave.
Just like when they pushed open the hidden door behind the display shelf.
Until they find the real door that allows them to leave.
After patrolling the back of the house, the sky had been completely obscured, and there was only a crescent moon left. The cold, sharp hook of the moon pierced a corner of the sky like a fishhook, allowing the sinking darkness to keep spilling out, coloring the sky an intense, deep black.
Nan Zhou found that the advantage of this game was that their path was clearly laid out for them.
In the last timeline, there were only two locations available for them to explore.
The candy house and the swamp.
In this timeline, the vines and trees blocking the opposite path disappeared, opening up three areas for them to explore.
The candy house, the big swamp, and the little log cabin.
Behind the log cabin, there were familiar vines around the trees, indicating more regions blocked off.
They had already explored the candy house and the big swamp.
Nan Zhou had carefully observed the candy house a second time.
The door that had been behind the display shelf had disappeared.
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.
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Ktf lcafglbg bo atf ibu mjylc kjr rlwlijg ab j ojgwfg’r tberf.
Although there were many miscellaneous items, the space wasn’t very large.
But even after thoroughly searching, Nan Zhou still couldn’t find a trace of the door in the log cabin.
Jiang Fang, on the other hand, found a tombstone not far behind the cabin.
They couldn’t use a light on such a dark night, or else the people in the house would be alerted of the three intruders.
Therefore, Jiang Fang could only roll up his sleeves and use his fingertips to read the clues from the tombstone.
An unfamiliar name was engraved on the tomb.
There are only a few characters in “Candy House”, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out to whom the grave belonged to.
After the two children returned home with the witch’s treasure, the stepmother died of a sudden illness.
This grave, he figured, belonged to the stepmother.
The soil around the grave was soft, and the nicks in the tombstone still had stone bits in them that haven’t been cleaned off.
At first glance, the fresh tomb and the new tombstone seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary.
Jiang Fang picked up a little soil with his fingertips, brought it to the tip of his nose, and sniffed it lightly.
There was a strange smell in the soil.
He rubbed his fingers, ground them finely, and sifted the bits of soil from his fingertips.
In the end, what remained on the tip of his thumb was a rust-colored smudge.
Jiang Fang, “There is blood in the soil.”
Nan Zhou grabbed his wrist to check and further verified, “It’s not completely dry.”
The three gathered at the grave and had a short meeting.
The severe hunger and her nerves made Li Yinhang feel suffocated, “Someone dug a grave?”
Nan Zhou, “The question should be, ‘whose blood is it?’”
… Li Yinhang admired Nan Zhou’s desire to enlighten her despite the fact that he too was suffering from the agony of hunger.
So, she also forced herself to cheer up despite the hunger and depression and slowly began to think, “The three people in the log cabin were not injured…”
As soon as the words came out, a cold feeling coiled up from the soil under her feet and up her spine.
She incredulously sought the approval of the two men, “… It can’t be…”
After guiding her mind to keep up with them, Nan Zhou ignored her and said to Jiang Fang, “Their abnormality is very similar to the candy house. There may be a direct relationship.”
Li Yinhang: “Is it because they… ate candy from the candy house?”
“This is not certain.” Jiang Fang said, “Perhaps it is the problem of the candy, perhaps, it is the problem of that house itself.”
Nan Zhou made an additional explanation: “Judging from the current situation, the candy house isn’t maintained by the witch’s magic power. The evidence being that the candy house did not disappear after the witch was boiled to death. This means that the candy house itself is an independent existence from the witch, and even long before the witch came here, it existed.”
Jiang Fang agreed with Nan Zhou, “Now we can create a reasonable assumption..”
Nan Zhou nodded, “No food can fill the stomach of that pair of children.”
“To be precise, it’s not that ‘any food’ can’t fill their stomach.”
Jiang Fang said, “When the witch was still alive, why not use the candy that can be created infinitely and eat one’s fill? Instead she used the dazzling candy house as a trap to lure people into the house.”
This conjecture sent chills down the spine, making Li Yinhang almost unable to squat.
Li Yinhang said in a somber voice, “Those who have eaten candy in the candy house… have been infected by the curse of the candy house. Only by eating human flesh can they…”
Then, the new soil of the cemetery, and the blood stains seeping on the surface of the soil…
“Just now, didn’t you notice?” Nan Zhou said, “The brother’s hunger seems to be a little better than the sister’s.”
Jiang Fang, “Maybe it’s because he is more stable and more tolerant.”
Jiang Fang put his hand on the tombstone, or maybe it’s because he… turned his back on everyone and stole something to eat.
Li Yinhang was initially feeling a terrible hollowness in her stomach due to hunger, but when she heard these words, her brain conjured a disgusting image that almost made her dry heave.
She stiffly blocked her mouth and swallowed.
She couldn’t help but look at the dark and dreary grave and asked in a suppressed voice, “Then how are we… going to find the door?”
Could it be that the door would be under the tombstone?
Under the corpse of… a woman who had been eaten to pieces?
Neither Jiang Fang nor Nan Zhou responded to her question, as if they were leaving her to think for herself.
However, neither of them had many ideas.
Suddenly, a shrill cry of pain exploded from the log cabin, stabbing at the trio’s nerves like knives.
They came to the window as fast as they could, lowering their bodies and looking in…
With just a glance, Li Yinhang’s face immediately turned pale.
The brother, who had just been tamely leaning against his father, took an embracing position and bit off a portion of flesh from his father’s neck.
Blood spurted.
The father was not expecting this scene, and screamed in horror and fear, pulling at his son’s clothes, trying to rip him off himself.
But the brother held his father in a bloody embrace, he grinned at him with red stained teeth, with pieces of skin hanging from the corner of his lips. He used his hands to tear into his father’s neck as he used a vice-like grip to keep him in place to messily bite and chew on his father’s flesh as if it was raw beef.
When the sister saw this bloody scene, she opened her mouth to scream when her freckled little nose twitched.
… Another twitch.
Her peacock green eyes suddenly lit up, like a wolf that had caught scent of a supreme delicacy on earth.
The impact of this hellish scene was too overwhelming.
Li Yinhang’s legs weakened, she knelt on the soft soil and lowered her head, covering her mouth. She couldn’t bear it any longer and retched.
She had nothing to throw up, the sticky white bile slipped through her fingers onto the ground.
In the previous instance, she had been focusing on hiking the entire time, just like “Bronze“, so she never witnessed such a sight.
After dumping her non-existent food, she couldn’t bear to hear the harsh screams coming from the window, shrinking herself into a ball, she plugged her ears and focused on Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou.
——If they aren’t going to do anything, I’ll just watch.
——If they want to act brave and do right, I’ll also just follow and observe.
Because Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang had seen Zheng Xinghe who had dismantled himself into parts on the snowy mountain, and they had prepared psychologically earlier, their reaction was naturally not as strong as Li Yinhang’s.
The good thing was that the house is now a mess.
The father rolled all over the floor, crying and wailing in pain.
The two little wolves with green eyes only cared about their own hunger and the food at hand.
Neither of them had time to care about the slight commotion outside the window.
Seeing that the second little wolf began to swerve anxiously, walking greedily towards her father who was rushing side to side like a trapped beast, Nan Zhou’s expression froze for a moment, and he “picked” a stone from the ground.
His wrist was suddenly caught by Jiang Fang.
Jiang Fang asked him, “What are you doing?”
Nan Zhou said frankly, “Smashing the glass.”
Jiang Fang, “And then what?”
Nan Zhou, “Attract them out, and then control them.”
Jiang Fang looked at him closely, “You want to save this woodcutter?”
Nan Zhou returned the same serious gaze, “Yes.”
Jiang Fang’s grip on his wrist tightened, “How much power can your light chain use now? Under such light conditions?”
Nan Zhou, “Without the finger chain, there is still myself.”
Jiang Fang, “Are you sure you want to consume unnecessary physical strength here?”
Nan Zhou: “What do you mean by ‘unnecessary’?”
Jiang Fang’s voice was extremely low and his speech extremely fast, “Teacher Nan, don’t forget that we are against the clock.”
“In the previous timeline, there was no trace of this father’s existence.”
“If you save him here, it will cause a paradox.”
“Have you ever thought about what if we were to go backward?”
“That’s not what you’re thinking.”
Nan Zhou twisted his head.
His voice had no tone of blame or anger, just a calm statement of fact, “You’re thinking that the ‘door’ could be on that woodcutter.”
Li Yinhang firmly plugged her ears and looked blankly at the two men who rarely fell into a dispute of opinion.
The two of them spoke in a voice that could only be heard by each other, mixed with the screams coming from inside the house, she had no idea what the two were arguing about.
She could only vaguely see that Nan Zhou was saying “door”.
Obviously, the door that allows them to leave, does not exist in plain sight.
Since the door in this game is a non-fixed prop that can be moved, it is likely to be hidden in some place that is beyond the reach of the imagination of ordinary people.
For example, the siblings’ swollen stomachs from hunger.
For example, in the previous timeline, a woodcutter no longer exists.
The possibility that the door is in the tomb is very small because the stepmother has barely any relationship with the candy house.
Of course, it does not rule out the possibility that the door may be a symbol of the sin of the brother digging up the body and eating it, and that it does exist in the tomb.
They most certainly could wait until the three people had finished their squabbling, before quietly digging up the grave to conduct their investigation.
This also means that they can not intervene in this tragedy of children eating their father.
Once their whereabouts are exposed, then the hungry siblings will most likely turn their fangs on them.
The most sensible approach was to not expose themselves at all, sit on top of the mountain to watch the tigers fight, let them fight on their own, and act according to the opportunity.
More importantly, because of hunger, Nan Zhou’s physical strength is bound to have significantly reduced.
And these two hungry little beasts, Jiang Fang was afraid that he would be injured, and even more afraid that he would rely on Nan Zhou to take the risks, and he would be helpless because of this ridiculous hunger.
Seeing that he was being stubborn, the fire in Jiang Fang’s heart suddenly rose.
He grabbed Nan Zhou’s wrist and exerted a hard force.
After a cracking sound, Jiang Fang blurted out, “Mr. Nan… Nan Zhou!”
“Don’t get too immersed into the game, he’s just a character, not a human being!”
Before he could finish his sentence, Jiang Fang bit his own tongue.
The taste of blood like rust flooded his taste buds.
When Nan Zhou heard this sentence, he suddenly quieted down.
——He should have known…
Jiang Fang’s judgment was the most ruthless and correct.
Right now is not the best time to expose yourself.
Exposing oneself would not only lead to attacks but also most likely cut off their way back.
Not to mention the waste of precious physical strength, but also to drag down the weak Li Yinhang.
Just, for a moment, Nan Zhou empathized with the woodcutter.
Because he was also fighting against an inescapable fate.
Because that unknown judgment will come upon him inexplicably one day.
This reminded Nan Zhou of his past self.
After recognizing the situation, he squatted beside the stiff Jiang Fang, and calmly thought that Brother Fang’s words just now were a little familiar.
It seems that Nan Zhou once heard such a sentence somewhere.
Where was it?
thanks for the update 🥰
ahhhh QAQ
thanks for the chapter <3
Jiang Fang, don’t do that😣
Thank you very much for the translation 🤍
Thank you for the update ❤️💯
Hmm was it the right decision? 👀
Thank you for the update!