Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Pierce, Proofreader-adjective
After hearing what the NPC said, Li Yinhang finally remembered.
Wasn’t this the work of Hans Christian Andersen?
Eleven brothers were casted with a spell by their insidious stepmother’s curse that turned them into wild swans.
And the beautiful and tragic little princess who trekked far and wide to find a way to break the curse for her brothers.
She had to use stinging nettles from the graveyards to knit into shirts. She had to endure excruciating blistered hands from the nettle stings, which would eventually help her brothers regain their human forms.
The ending was certainly a happy one for all.
Jiang Fang lowered his eyes and asked Nan Zhou softly, “Do you know this story?”
Nan Zhou nodded, “Yes, I’ve read it.”
The blond girl blatantly displayed her blood-stained hands, and her peach blossom-like eyes curled up with a delightful charm, “Please make a choice.”
Nan Zhou would not be led by her words.
He asked rhetorically, “What are the rules of the game for the player and the chosen ‘Wild Swans’, respectively?”
“It’s simple.”
The young girl smiled with an eerie, artificial gentleness, “The two ‘Wild Swans’ that will be chosen won’t have to do anything. Just stay here, wait, and trust your partner. That’s it.”
She stepped on the soft and fresh grass under her feet.
The fragrance from the crushed grass filled the air, as she continued to answer in a soft voice.
“As for the chosen player, they will become the ‘Princess’.”
“I have knitted two dresses of nettles and put them in one place.”
“That will be the starting point of the ‘Princess’.”
“When you’ve decided who the ‘Princess’ will be, she will proceed to her appointed starting point. Just take the nettle cloth I placed there, put it on the ‘Wild Swans’ to lift the curse, and the door to victory will naturally open for you.”
Nan Zhou confirmed to the girl, “That is the end?”
The girl nodded gracefully.
Nan Zhou, “After we confirm the ‘Princess’ candidate, will they be teleported from here to another starting point?”
The young lady gave another nod.
Nan Zhou, “Would the ‘Princess’ face any danger on their way here?”
The girl answered all questions with a serene expression, “There is no danger.”
This answer was quite surprising.
Nan Zhou raised his eyebrows, “‘There is no danger’?”
The girl’s melodious voice was like the spring water that fitted perfectly with the blue sky behind her, the fresh sea of grass, and the pink lambs like cotton candy.
Exceptionally marvelous, yet utterly bullshit.
The young girl gave a definite and identical answer, “There is no danger.”
“There will be no swamps. There will be no bad weather. There will be no king who will try to kidnap you, and there will be no hunters-”
She seemed very satisfied with the simple, fairy-tale-like design of the game.
Speaking happily, she opened her hand.
A gust of breeze blew right after and lifted the corner of her nettled-patterned blue dress.
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.
She said with a smile, “In short, there will be no ‘foreign objects’ that will threaten the life of the ‘Princess’.”
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Dea jii atgff cbalmfv atja tfg kglra kjr jr ktlaf jr pjvf.
Tfa atf qjiw kjr vffqis rmjggfv klat yibbv.
Ktlr jvvfv j vloofgfca jcv ffglf abemt ab tfg iluta jcv ufcaif abcf.
Vfflcu cflatfg j gfrqbcrf cbg j vlrjqqblcafv ibbx, rtf cjaegjiis tecu tfg jgw vbkc jcv mjrejiis megifv j ibmx bo ubivfc megir lc ogbca bo tfg obgftfjv, “Yo mbegrf, la klii ralii gfdelgf rbwf qtsrlmji foobga, jcv atf ifnfi klii cba yf klatbea vloolmeias.”
“The ‘Princess’ has to walk through thirteen doors in total.”
“The door that the ‘Princess’ walked through will not disappear, but will always wait in place.”
“As long as the ‘Princess’ decides that the game is too difficult and doesn’t want to continue, she just needs to turn around and push open the door she passed through, and she can directly leave the game.”
“But then, the two friends of the ‘Princess’, will stay here forever and live happily ever after~”
As if to echo her words, along with the words “happily ever after”, a line of snow-white, coffee-brown, and fiery-red swans flew up into the clouds, with the field of greenery as their backdrop.
The blonde smiled, revealing a row of beautiful and neat teeth, and made a thoughtful conclusion, “Of course, after successfully passing through the thirteen doors, the ‘Princess’ can take away the ‘Wild Swans’.”
Under the influence of Nan Zhou, Li Yinhang also began to interpret the instance information with reverse thinking.
She confirmed to the blonde girl, “The physical strength needed for this task would be something that any of the three of us could complete?”
The young girl nodded and smiled, “Yes.”
Li Yinhang made up her mind.
If the details the young NPC girl provided to them were true…
Li Yinhang turned her head and volunteered, “I’ll go.”
Nan Zhou raised his eyebrows in slight surprise, “Of course, I’ll go.”
He thought it should be a matter without much trouble.
Li Yinhang said, “The NPC said the ‘Princess’ should do the task, shouldn’t it be obvious to ask for girls? My stamina is good, and I need to do an exercise alone. Besides, she said that there will be no dangerous ‘foreign objects’ on the road.”
Li Yinhang gave four reasons in one breath.
Nan Zhou’s response was only four words, “No. I should go.”
He didn’t think Li Yinhang should use this instance’s game as an exercise.
He was thinking that under the candy-colored, transparent, and harmless shell of this instance, there was a strange aura.
In this kind of situation where he couldn’t figure out the reality either, letting her go was not an exercise, but more like a death sentence.
Just as Nan Zhou was about to dissuade her, he heard Jiang Fang respond from behind, “I’ll do it.”
Nan Zhou turned back and looked at him faintly. He was not happy and stared at him, “…”
Nan Zhou felt his knightly ability was questioned.
——How come none of them wanted my protection?
Jiang Fang squarely gazed at him and gave his reason.
“Just now, Yinhang and you both wasted a lot of physical strength in the library.”
“Especially you. You’re mentally sensitive, and after doing so much damage, your body hasn’t fully recovered, right?”
Nan Zhou pursed his lips.
This was considered a tacit acceptance of Jiang Fang’s judgment.
Jiang Fang took a step closer to Nan Zhou and lowered his voice, “I’m a person who has no way to readily give my full trust to others.”
“If I let you or Yinhang go and let myself become a ‘Wild Swan’ that can’t do anything, waiting here and having my fate decided by others, I can’t stand it.”
His rare honesty made Li Yinhang beside him all but flinch.
She had long seen the coldness that Jiang Fang hid under his perfect smile, as well as his almost fanatical desire to control.
But she didn’t expect that he would acknowledge it and be willing to express his vulnerability.
“I am not willing to put my safety in the hands of others…”
Jiang Fang pressed his voice to the lowest level, to the point where he was almost inaudible, “… But if you were at the end, I would definitely come.”
That way, he could pretend he never said it.
And Nan Zhou could also hear his innermost thoughts.
After listening to Jiang Fang’s confession, Nan Zhou lowered his head and observed his heart with some surprise.
It was beating too fast, painfully hitting his ribs.
This made Nan Zhou awfully uncomfortable.
He thought, “I clearly thought there was no full moon here.”
After a short silence, Nan Zhou took out the A-grade item [Right Hand Light Finger Chain], and the S-rank skill card [Silent Burst] from his warehouse, and handed it over to Jiang Fang.
This was his tacit approval of Jiang Fang’s decision.
Li Yinhang, on the other hand, took the initiative to give up her [Don’t Go Out in Sandy Weather] and [Your mother is Shouting at You to Wear Autumn Pants].
Jiang Fang smiled but didn’t refuse. He picked out a few items that he couldn’t use in his storage slot and exchanged items with them.
The two, who decided to stay, made concerted efforts to put the most effective props into Jiang Fang’s hands, to deal with the thirteen doors that the blonde girl called “no danger” but had unpredictable “difficulties”.
The blonde girl who had an overview of the scene remained unmoved.
Her smile seemed to be stuck on her face with glue.
She smiled and asked, “So, have you decided on a candidate?”
After getting the unanimous and affirmative answer from the trio, the girl raised her bloody index finger and drew two rays of light in the air.
Similar to the warm, golden light in fairy tales, the figures of Nan Zhou and Li Yinhang quickly shrank.
Clothes and skin were fused by the light that flooded in like golden water.
Plump and fluffy feathers grew and bloomed from their bodies.
There was no pain, just an itchy sensation.
After determining that they had really transformed, Li Yinhang spread her wings first to see the color of her feathers.
Even if she had turned into a swan, she had hoped to become a petite and beautiful female swan.
To her disappointment, she was merely an ordinary, gray-feathered swan.
To make matters worse, she was sure no one could even distinguish whether she was a male or female swan.
And even if Nan Zhou had turned into another species, he was much more exquisite than her to the naked eye.
She thought sadly, “Life is unfair even in a fairy tale.”
Nan Zhou’s feathers were immaculately clean, the roots were snow-white, and there were no traces of impurities.
The “fur” on the neck was particularly fluffy and soft, like a warm, white scarf in winter.
The tail seemed to be tied with a pure white streamer.
As well as a bright red beak, and black, lustrous eyes.
Every kind of “color” on him was brought into full play.
After Li Yinhang and Nan Zhou both turned into swans, the only thing they had in common was the addition of a pure gold collar on the upper side of their left leg.
The collar glowed brilliantly with shimmering light, and there was a smaller, decorative gold ring on it.
“This is a temporary sign, which means you belong to this place for the time being.”
Seeing Li Yinhang curiously peck the golden ring on her leg, the blonde gently explained, “When the game is over, remember to take it off in time. Otherwise, it will hurt when you become a human again.”
“However, if you don’t want to take it off, there would be no problem. After a bit of pain, it would be a permanent gift. Consider it a present from me to you.”
Nan Zhou didn’t pay much attention to the laughing girl’s explanation.
He raised his head and looked straight at Jiang Fang before him.
Jiang Fang gently touched his head with his lips, and whispered, “Have you thought of what part of the brain this is?”
Nan Zhou shook his head.
There was too little information, so it was hard to judge.
Jiang Fang just asked, so that he would think about other things and not worry too much about himself.
With his thumb, he lightly tapped a soft patch between Nan Zhou’s forehead, leaving a “hairy” fingerprint.
——It feels good.
——Want to pick up the swan…
But he hid his thoughts under a reassuring smile.
“Don’t wander around.”
“Wait for me to come back.”
Nan Zhou suddenly felt that this sentence was familiar.
——this face, this voice, this phrase.
The familiarity made him suspicious that he was under the full moon again, and even his breathing was ‘disrupted’ for a few breaths.
But the familiarity was fleeting.
As if the tightening feeling in his heart was just the product of an illusion.
Nan Zhou nodded, “I will wait for you here.”
Jiang Fang brushed the fur on top of his head with his fingertips, raised his head, and nodded slightly to the blond girl, indicating that it was time to start.
His figure was enveloped by the same shiny golden light as before.
When he emerged from the golden light that covered the sky, everything in front of him made him raise his eyebrows slightly.
The scene did not change that much.
Clear sky, green grass, and a small pool in the distance.
Only without sheep, swans, and Nan Zhou.
With no cover, Jiang Fang saw without much hindrance that there was a small, square, black dot about 800 meters directly away from him.
It seemed to be a door.
The sight in front of him, as well as the task he eventually had to achieve, reminded Jiang Fang of… a virtual reality simulation, side-scrolling video game.
He looked down at his own body.
The face was still his face, and the choker around his neck had not changed.
But the clothes on his body changed.
He was dressed in a royal blue and beige white Lolita skirt, which made his complexion look even paler than the backdrop of winter in Eastern Europe. The exquisite white pearl brooches were layered down. The shimmering specks on the skirt resembled the particles that were sprinkled after the stars were ‘kneaded.’
He tugged the yarn knot on his chest, then turned his head to look at the thin straps behind him, which showed more than half of his right shoulder. It was tied to his thin waist. Seeing this he almost laughed out loud.
——He really was a princess ah.
The girl stood in front of him, smiled, and said, “The game starts here.”
“When you have entered the first door, you have the right to leave at any time.”
And then, her smile became wickedly venomous, “You shouldn’t let your friends down. They were willing to turn into swans for you.”
Thank you for the chapter!
LoL, I want to see him in pretty dress!
Thank you for new chapter
I really expected him to dress as a Princess and he really did! I wish Nan Zhou could’ve seen him! Jiang Fang’s really beautiful. 😍
thanks for the chapter <3
AAAH I HAVE A BAD FEELING !!! I think the trials might not be about physical endurance, or physical pain, but about your fears and your wants. If that’s the case, I have no idea who would be the better candidate. (also, why was no one enquiring about the swans during the Q&A? My first thought literally was that the kid’s bloody hands happened by butchering the swans while waiting for the princess to come find them)
Same (⊙_☉)
Like I was thinking , since the lamp lady has her hands covered in blood then maybe she might be butchering the swans or like while transforming something will go wrong. Thank God nothing happened (^.^)