Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Pierce, Proofreader-adjective
Described by Nan Zhou, Li Yinhang’s goosebumps almost rushed straight to her head.
She wasn’t sure if it was a psychological effect, but she had consumed roasted brain flowers before entering this instance. Now that she was inside one, she found it revolting.
She suspected that she smelled a faint smell of raw fat.
Even her breath became greasy.
Under such psychological duress, Li Yinhang even felt ill to her stomach when she breathed.
——This is a fucking mental attack.
Thinking of the unprecedented difficulty of ‘Star Coin 11’, Li Yinhang had the initial experience that she was going to die.
Seeing Li Yinhang’s face redden a little, Jiang Fang held her shoulders and pulled out the decorative silver chain on his choker. He dangled it gently in front of her eyes, creating a halo in the dim light. It successfully attracted Li Yinhang’s attention.
Jiang Fang, “Are you claustrophobic?”
Li Yinhang tried to adjust her breathing and answered in a loud voice, “No.”
Jiang Fang, “Are you afraid of the dark?”
Li Yinhang shook her head.
Jiang Fang, “Afraid of sound?”
Li Yinhang, “A little.”
Jiang Fang, “Smell?”
During the conversation with Jiang Fang, Li Yinhang sailed back from the edge of the cliff as she struggled a little with her broken psyche.
She did her best to face her fear by “expressing fear” and responded with a positive, “Hmm.”
Jiang Fang’s eyes were filled with a compelling gentleness, “There’s no smell here. You can be at ease when you breathe.”
Seeing Li Yinhang’s breathing recover smoothly, Jiang Fang smiled and turned away.
Almost the moment he turned around, his smile naturally disappeared.
His gentleness was special. He didn’t want a burden on his team to drag the others down.
With the problem solved, evidently there was no need for his tenderness.
He walked over to Nan Zhou, “Teacher Nan, feeling okay?”
At this time the SAN value monster was looking left and right, there was no sign of discomfort, “What?”
Jiang Fang, “…… Nothing.”
Nan Zhou looked around and saw that Li Yinhang’s face still had a flushed pallor. He couldn’t help but frown, “Is Li Yinhang uncomfortable?”
Li Yinhang tried to swallow the acidic water overflowing in her mouth,”I am almost feeling better.”
Nan Zhou’s tone was a little confused, “Why are you uncomfortable?”
Li Yinhang’s eyes were full of sorrow, disgusted by the residual taste from the acid reflux that made her eyes teary.
——Wasn’t it you who said we were in someone else’s head?!
After Li Yinhang euphemistically expressed her source of discomfort, Nan Zhou did not express any sympathy the first time.
Nan Zhou, “You feel sick, so you will vomit at any time?”
Nan Zhou, “It is very impolite to vomit in someone else’s head.”
Nan Zhou, “Since you have the initiative to disgust others, why are you uncomfortable?”
Li Yinhang, “…”
Li Yinhang suddenly felt better.
The effect of Nan Zhou’s logic was even better than Jiang Fang’s diversionary tactics.
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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And this door should be a concrete entrance to some kind of brain nerve?
Nan Zhou knocked at the door and asked politely, “Is anyone there?”
Jiang Fang, “…”
For a moment, he didn’t know which was worse: the absolute silence or someone responding to the call?
Li Yinhang finally calmed down.
She stood beside Nan Zhou and also looked at the ordinary door. It appeared that the door’s surface was covered with a white spider silk-like tissue.
There was a short distance between the doorway and the ground, and there was a faint light from the inside.
Nan Zhou kneeled down on one knee and looked inside the doorway.
It was a kaleidoscopic luminescence with a halo of illusion like the luster of sunlight reflected on the oil paint.
Nan Zhou whispered to himself:
“If we are really in one’s mind…”
“What kind of personality does this person have?”
After he confirmed the behavior of the other two, and made sure that everyone was ready, Nan Zhou pressed down on the door handle.
The scene suddenly changed.
The strange sound of chewing disappeared.
Once they entered the door, it completely disappeared behind them.
A breeze laced with the scent of wood, books, and ink brushed against their faces.
Nan Zhou opened his eyes and found that they were in a huge… Single floored library.
The large dome of the library resembled a page being flipped over, with one corner elevated high, bringing about a peculiar change to the other three corners.
Like the floor and walls, the bookshelves were also made of oak.
The arc-shaped bookshelves in the shape of brackets surrounded the three people.
Nan Zhou took a few steps forward, walked past a few shelves, and found that they were randomly arranged.
Moreover, all three of them had a hardcover book in their hands.
Nan Zhou opened his book.
Inside were empty pages.
From the title page to the back cover, there was not a single word or picture of content.
He flipped the blank pages of the book in his hand, creating a rustling sound. It made the people aware of how silent their surroundings were.
Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang exchanged a look.
Nan Zhou, “I’ll go up and take a look.”
Following what he said, Nan Zhou clamped the blank book to his side, and stepped on the edge of the bookshelf nearby. He jumped three times, and stood on top of the bookshelf.
They were in the middle of this weird library.
Circles and layers overlap, creating a chaotic disorder.
Layers of curved bookshelves expanded away from the center, echoing each other.
It was like a labyrinth in an eight trigrams array.
At the end, it formed a complete circle.
The only exit for this maze-like library was found southeast of them.
It was a wooden door carved with mysterious embossed patterns.
Jiang Fang observed their surroundings from the bottom while asking Nan Zhou, “What do you see?”
Nan Zhou briefly summarized, “This library is like a labyrinth. At the end of it is a door.”
Li Yinhang’s spirit was lifted, “Then we can win if we get out of this labyrinth and go through that door, right?”
Nan Zhou lowered his head and said seriously, “No.”
Li Yinhang was just about to speak when she saw a one-legged little tin soldier. It carried a musket and bayonet and jumped over and appeared at one end of the bookshelf.
Jiang Fang turned sideways and quickly shielded Li Yinhang behind him with his left hand. He then took out the offensive playing cards.
Nan Zhou sat on top of the bookshelf, he dropped one leg down and looked at the tin soldier who was only knee-high in length.
—— …… Eyes full of curiosity.
The tin soldier held his bayonet and thumped it on the ground, before saying in a pleasant male voice.
“You want to open the door to get out, don’t you?”
“Use your brains, come and help him.”
After saying that, he clicked the heel of his spiked leather shoe and jumped forward.
Li Yinhang and Jiang Fang exchanged glances and chose to follow it.
Nan Zhou did not climb down. Rather, he strode across the bookshelves with a light and silent pace to point them to the nearest path.
As well as to determine whether the tin soldier, who was leading them down the road, didn’t organize an ambush or trap.
It took them ten whole minutes to get out of these labyrinth-like bookcases, led by the tin soldier.
They finally arrived at the door.
Li Yinhang didn’t understand what Nan Zhou meant a while ago until she got to the door.
A chessboard was embedded on the bowl-like door.
There was a dry corpse-like human shape. His shoulder-length hair fell over his shoulders. His withered hand was guarding an unfinished chess game on one side of the chessboard. A pair of dry eyes were open. There were rings of thin, bluish-gray lines that were practically drooping at the corners of his lips.
He appeared to be like a clay doll that was determined to sit there and die, and a simple flick of a finger might disintegrate him on the spot.
The white pieces he was playing against moved as if there was a ghost player controlling them.
The white chess piece moved on its own.
When they came close to the board, the black chess piece had been checkmated by the white chess piece.
The black king chess piece fell on the chessboard, gleaming like glass.
The one-legged tin soldier stood on his toes, seriously admiring the chessboard. He then talked to the corpse, “Lost again.”
The corpse stared at the chessboard, silently lost in thought.
Li Yinhang, “……”
Li Yinhang who had only played Gobang in class with her desk mate carefully looked at the other two and whispered, “Which one of you…… has played this……”
She couldn’t even recall the official name of this board game for a moment.
After she held her breath for a few seconds, she dubiously said, “…… Chess?”
Nan Zhou looked at the chessboard and said, “I can learn it now.”
Jiang Fang gazed at Nan Zhou, “I know a little.”
Nan Zhou looked at him.
Jiang Fang smiled more gently, “When I was in college, I participated in two school-level competitions.”
Nan Zhou’s eyes lit up, “You have to teach me later.”
Jiang Fang had noticed the abnormality on the chessboard and stretched out his hand. At the same time, he gently promised, “… Sure.”
He found that the eight black chess pieces were still in their original position and had not been touched from beginning to end.
And when he tried to move the pieces, he realized that all eight black pieces seemed to be fused to the board and could not be moved at all.
One rook, one bishop, one knight, and five pawns, all with blurred faces and completely immobilized.
Eight against sixteen, it would be strange to win.
It seemed that the one-legged tin soldier didn’t call them to play chess.
Sure enough, the tin soldier guided them to the corpse and said, “Here. I brought you these three individuals, who can help you look for your chess pieces.”
The dried corpse didn’t look up.
He just raised his eyelids, and all three of them could hear the sound of his dry skin cracking.
Li Yinhang didn’t dare to think about the specific ingredients of those crumbles, similar to a crispy 饹饇‘s skin, which fell on the corpse’s lap from his eyelids.
The one-legged tin soldier seemed to be afraid that he would make noise, he rattled on the spot and then with a click, he slowly turned his head, round cartoon eyes blinked at the trio, “My friend lost his important pieces.”
“Their souls are too naughty, always attracted by those stories that they find fresh and relevant to them. They linger to all kinds of books and hide in them.”
“As long as you bring their books here, they can be revived on the chessboard.”
“All you have to do is find them.”
“If my friend wins the next game, you can go out.”
The tin soldier’s eyes were fixed on them and his voice became low.
“But we need to have a consensus on a few prohibitions.”
“Number One: You are prohibited to destroy the bookcases.”
“Number Two: You are prohibited to cause any commotion… My friend needs to concentrate on his chess game and hates to be disturbed.”
“And Number Three: You are prohibited to be seen by the other tin soldiers. I am already cheating by bringing you to help my friend. Every thirty minutes, they will patrol around the library in groups of five. If you are seen by them, you will be treated as thieves; if you are caught by them, you will be made into tin soldiers.”
“A friendly tip: They will come in about ten minutes.”
“For every prohibition that you violate…”
“The book you are holding will eat a part of your story.”
The righteous tin soldier raised his bayonet to them.
“Help my friend win.”
“Or, stay and become one of our stories.”
Li Yinhang turned around and looked at the labyrinth of books behind her. Her head buzzed several times.
Eat the story?
Become a story?
What did that mean?
Could it be that a portion of their memory would be eaten by the book?
Then…… becoming the same creature as this emotionless chess-playing corpse in front of her if we violated those prohibitions?
Before she could make sense of it, she saw Nan Zhou seriously pointing at the inanimate pieces and heard him ask the tin soldier, “Can you break them off? This is not difficult to do.”
Tin Soldier, “…”
Nan Zhou took the initiative and said, “I’ll show you.”
The one-legged tin soldier’s pocket-sized musket was erected to stop Nan Zhou’s movement. Obviously a firm defender of the rules of the game.
After that, he stood on his tiptoes and continued to watch his corpse friend’s chess game.
Inexplicably, Li Yinhang, who was stuffed with a strange task, was confused and muttered in a low voice, “But what does this have to do with [Brain Invasion]?”
Nan Zhou, who just failed to do something, cleverly said with an extremely flat expression, “Probably because this is the superior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe? In charge of movement, learning, planning, calculation, and working memory.”
After making this wild guess, he looked at the sea of overlapping books, “All these books, maybe the owner of this brain has read them.”
——————
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Brother Fang: Gentle special offer, online abduction of cats.jpg
“online abduction of cats.jpg” wtf?
Thank you for new chapter
thanks for the chapter <3
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