Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-CherryApple, Proofreader-adjective
Nan Zhou slept very deeply.
After waking up, he found that Jiang Fang had a hand resting on the edge of his sleeve, quite casually.
But when Nan Zhou tried to pull his hand back, Jiang Fang clutched at the corner of his sleeve.
He furrowed his brows in a grimace.
Nan Zhou saw that he wouldn’t let go, so he took off his coat and put it on Jiang Fang.
He got up and walked towards the lake.
After feeding a round of swans, the blonde girl was sitting by the blue lake to rest.
Seeing Nan Zhou approaching her, she blossomed into a brilliant smile, “Have you rested enough?”
Nan Zhou glanced at her reflection in the water.
Young and beautiful, with long hair as fluffy as cotton candy and brilliant as gold.
He answered softly, “Yes.”
The young girl noticed his gaze resting on the water, and she smiled brighter.
Her expression was gentle. “Why aren’t you looking at me? Why are you looking at my reflection instead?”
She was quite a bit regretful.
It would have been good if Jiang Fang had failed.
Ever since she started raising swans here, Nan Zhou was the most beautiful one she had come across in terms of color.
She was really reluctant to let him go like that.
Nan Zhou finally moved his gaze away from the rippling water, “I have some questions that I wanted to ask you.”
The blonde girl smiled and held her peach cheeks, “You may.”
Nan Zhou said, “I’ve read a few stories related to you.”
The young girl proudly nodded her head, and her manners and temperament reflected her background and good upbringing.
Nan Zhou, “So, what is it that you fear?”
The young girl didn’t receive the praises she imagined but instead got such a perplexing question.
Her face gradually darkened.
While waiting for Jiang Fang to awake, Nan Zhou did not sit by idly.
He looked back at the young girl feeding the swans and thought about it.
In his early childhood, Nan Zhou had read the fairy tale of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”.
Likewise he also read “The Wild Swans”.
The theme of the fairy tale “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” was ‘loneliness’.
The theme reflected the tin soldier they met in the previous game—always in the library, lonely, restless, and longing for freedom.
The tin soldier in the fairy tale also had a crippled partner that he secretly adored who couldn’t give him a response.
This was also in line with what Nan Zhou and the others encountered.
Therefore, this further contrasted the abnormality of the “protagonist” in front of him.
Elisa, the protagonist of “The Wild Swans” in Nan Zhou’s impression, was a complicated and contradictory girl.
She was both timid and cowardly, but also brave and tough at the same time.
For the sake of her eleven brothers who were cursed by her stepmother, she was willing to get blisters all over her delicate hands from the nettle stings.
Even though she was nearly burned as a witch for offending the church due to her eccentric behavior, she followed the rules and never spoke about her grievances until she had finished weaving the nettle clothes that would restore her brothers to normal.
But she was a quiet and delicate girl, who was rather introverted, traditional, and pious.
In short, the girl in front of him was completely different from the blonde girl in the fairy tales.
This young girl was confident, lively, cheerful, and loved to laugh.
She could even easily make a few jokes with people.
If there was no tin soldier as a reference, Nan Zhou wouldn’t have noticed the abnormality. He would have only regarded her as a Princess Elisa whose character had been altered by game.
Nan Zhou said, “The character of Elisa is brave. Although she would be afraid, she wouldn’t let that stop her.”
“You’re not like her.”
“Turning people into swans is not something Elisa would do, either.”
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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Her snow-white skin had become withered and wrinkled, and the layers of wrinkles looked like the disgusting segments of the body of a centipede.
——She was only impersonating Elisa… the wicked stepmother.
The villain who transformed the protagonist Elisa’s brothers into wild swans.
Only she had the ability to turn people into swans.
And she was extremely jealous of Elisa’s beauty in adulthood and tried to ruin her appearance with walnut juice and stinky ointment.
As for her love of the number “eleven”, it was because she turned her eleven stepsons into wild swans, and by doing so she was able to get rid of Elisa, a rare success in her life.
So, of course she liked this number.
She was in charge of the “fear” level and was always afraid of herself.
What she feared was her own truth.
The blonde girl’s smile crumbled in the face of the truth.
She hurriedly knelt beside the crystal-clear lake, scratching her face in vain, as if trying to retain her youthful beauty that was lost like water.
But the illusion had shattered, her fear towards the evil deeds she had committed—concealed underneath the beautiful lies—was finally revealed.
Nan Zhou stood up and walked away, not even throwing a last glance at her.
The stepmother, who had been stripped of her beauty by the truth, no longer had her warm and elegant smile.
She shouted furiously, “Come back here! Come back!”
Hearing this, Nan Zhou stopped and turned around.
Then he shook his head gently at her.
I’m not going back.
The stepmother was devastated by this unacceptable moment of truth.
She covered her face and cried out in sorrow.
The gentle wind caused ripples across the mirror-like lake, which made her withered face look even more distorted and repulsive.
In this particular game, she could not die.
Therefore, this face, which should have belonged to her, would always be here with her, all her life.
……
Jiang Fang didn’t know for how long he had slept.
He watched Nan Zhou return to him step by step.
Nan Zhou squatted on one knee beside Jiang Fang, and without realizing it, performed a noble standard knightley salute.
Nan Zhou said, “I went to bully her.”
Jiang Fang was amused by his serious tone, “You aren’t afraid that she’ll go crazy?”
“We have finished this game already. She has no leverage on us.” Nan Zhou said, “You also said that in this world, people don’t die.”
“But she could attack you.”
Nan Zhou thought about it and said seriously, “Isn’t that good?”
Jiang Fang thought back to Nan Zhou’s previous theory, “You can’t fight back unless she hits you first. Wouldn’t you be in the wrong otherwise?”
Nan Zhou solemnly said, “Yeah.”
Jiang Fang pressed one elbow on his knee and looked at Nan Zhou, “So, has your anger subsided?”
“… ‘Anger subsided’?” Nan Zhou couldn’t understand for a moment, “When did I get angry?”
Jiang Fang’s voice carried a bit of coquettish grievances, “You took off your coat and just left me here alone.”
Nan Zhou paused and came to a sudden realization, “Oh.”
“You were holding my sleeve while you were asleep, so you weren’t asking for my clothes, but wanted me to stay, right?”
Jiang Fang, “……”
He coughed lightly, “… Teacher Nan, there are some things we can’t say so openly, okay?”
Nan Zhou, “Why?”
Nan Zhou, “Ah.”
Nan Zhou, “You’re shy?”
Jiang Fang, “……”
Nan Zhou understood again, obediently putting his index finger against his lips, then made a “shhh” gesture.
Carefully studying Jiang Fang’s reddish earlobes, Nan Zhou felt that he still had a long way to go to understand the complexity of human beings.
Li Yinhang had already woken up.
After silently watching the whole process of the blonde girl shedding her skin and changing her face, she subconsciously moved closer to Nan Zhou.
She asked the two in a small voice, “Are we leaving?”
Nan Zhou, “Hmm.”
Jiang Fang, “Let’s go.”
Before the stepmother regained her senses, the three pushed open the only door and stepped into the brain corridor again.
Just like the previous time, as the door closed, it disappeared naturally, and there was no turning back.
Although they had been mentally prepared, their expressions stiffened for a moment when they heard the pervasive rude chewing sound again.
Li Yinhang couldn’t help but say, “Is this thing already eating its next meal, or has it been eating this whole time without stopping?”
No one could answer her question.
It was as if they were in the brain of a gourmand.
Outside, this person was eating non-stop, like a pig, without any consideration for the capacity of its stomach pouch.
The structure of the brain corridor was disjointed and overly complex, hence, Nan Zhou had a hard time determining the exact function behind each door.
And they still had four doors left to enter.
The time left for them was not much.
With no information, they could only go through the doors to gather the details.
So they picked a door randomly, looked at each other, and pushed open the door.
They were hit with fog and darkness the moment they stepped inside.
In the darkness, they were shrouded in a perceivable humidity that carried with it the stench of fish.
Affected by some unknown influence, the mobile phone that Li Yinhang had been holding also went dark.
She tried to tap the screen again, but the phone didn’t work anymore.
Nan Zhou thought this darkness would pass quickly.
But the darkness stretched on, boundless and endless.
After standing still in the darkness for three minutes, he took two steps forward and found that the place they were in was narrow and cramped.
As soon as his fingertips touched the soft inner wall next to him, the “wall” would twitch and contract with unusual sensitivity.
As if it were a living thing…
In the dark, people will not be willing to stand alone and without support, and will actively seek solid support.
Li Yinhang also had her palm placed against the wall for support.
——Have to say, the feeling of this “wall” was very disgusting.
Similar to the brain corridor outside, there was a sticky sensation.
She was so disgusted that she immediately drew back her hand and rubbed it against the seams on her pants.
Jiang Fang was different.
His palm was attached to Nan Zhou’s waist.
Nan Zhou was hugged for a moment, but immediately thought he understood his intentions, “Hold tighter.”
After the three of them confirmed that they were still together, they started exploring the place using the wall as a guide.
The place was indeed not very big.
It took them a few minutes to explore the dark place.
It was a small room.
Inside the room, there is a very soft bed.
There was a simple wooden closet that creaked harshly when it opened and closed.
There was also a square table with one foot missing.
In its place, there was a stack of books barely maintaining the table’s balance.
The only door in the room was the one which they came in through.
Unfortunately, it was latched shut so strongly that even Nan Zhou could not open it from the inside.
The darkness heightened one’s other senses, and as a result, caused one’s nerves to stiffen.
For example, Li Yinhang was now terrified of accidently touching a rigid and icy face of an NPC when groping around.
The thought of a pair of eyes watching them silently somewhere in this cramped room, she couldn’t help breaking out in cold sweat.
So, when she accidentally stepped on something soft, she didn’t even think to scream, she jumped away faster and further than a rabbit. As a result, she kicked on the hard foot of the bed and hurt her toe so painfully that she jumped again, hissing and sucking in the air.
Nan Zhou felt around to reach where she was standing, and took the object she stepped on in his hand.
——A cloak with a hood?
He said, “A cloak.”
With that, he brought the garment up to his nose.
Nan Zhou could easily identify the faint smell of blood coming from it.
The stunned Li Yinhang came over, “What fairy tale has such a small house and a fight…”
Before she finished her sentence, she figured out which it was.
Wasn’t this in the top three in the fairy tale popularity list?
But before she could say the name, the wall Nan Zhou was in contact with suddenly contracted.
The wall seems to be squeezing and releasing some invisible substance.
And almost at the same moment, the three people felt extremely tired all of a sudden.
The three of them had already rested in a place with beautiful scenery and were at their most vigilant states when they entered an unfamiliar area. It was absolutely impossible for them to feel sleepy at such a time.
They came to the same conclusion.
——This was by the influence of the world behind this door.
Li Yinhang forced herself to resist the dizziness, ignoring the sticky feeling of the “wall”, she supported herself against the medullary “wall” and asked in a trembling voice, “What’s going on…”
Nan Zhou bit his lip and found that the pain did not relieve his sleepiness.
His consciousness was falling uncontrollably towards the abyss of sleepiness.
Before he completely lost logic, Nan Zhou suppressed his voice and said, “I seem to have guessed… where this is.”
He said a term that Li Yinhang had never heard before, “The… pineal gland in the brain.”
Li yinhang kept biting her tongue. “What’s that for?”
Nan Zhou, “It is light-sensitive, secretes melatonin… to help sleep…”
Li Yinhang, “……”
——Should have known that they could’ve come here to sleep ah.
But after thinking about it, she realized that once they step into the game process, it would be extremely difficult, every step would be dangerous, and there would be no time to rest at all.
Unexpectedly, Nan Zhou actually had an additional explanation.
He continued the second half of the sentence he did not finish: “… It is also the one in charge of the secretion of reproductive hormones.”
Li Yinhang, “……”
Jiang Fang struggled with a barely sober consciousness and guided the two people, who were already staggering, to approach the soft and clean bed.
He made a simple footnote for Nan Zhou, “The social significance of the earliest version of Little Red Riding Hood was indeed to admonish the importance of chastity.”
“The little girl and the big bad wolf were symbols of a certain era, in order to admonish young women against listening to the coaxing of men and to be clean and loving.”
Li Yinhang, whose consciousness gradually became muddled, suddenly rejoiced in her forever alone status and the fact that she had been single since birth.
Even if her reproductive hormones suddenly surged, there was no target to fuel her imagination with.
Unless it was to her bank account.
——Thinking about that scene was a turn-on.
Before she fell completely asleep, she tried to confirm the safety of her teammates. “Mr. Nan… Have you ever been in love before?”
Nan Zhou shook his head, “I have not.”
She continued to ask, “Brother Fang…”
Jiang Fang, “……”
Jiang Fang, “I have not either.”
Li Yinhang was relieved.
Although it surprised Li Yinhang that a beauty with such a high level of affinity as Jiang Fang had no relationship experience, it was not unfathomable.
Moreover, since entering the game, because she was quite shy, she spent most of her time deadpan huddled between the two, basically leaving no room for them to communicate beyond friendship.
Since no one had had such an experience, wouldn’t it be easier to just sleep peacefully and get through the game?
With good expectations in mind, she just fell asleep headfirst.
Thank you for the chapter!
Oh, our poor lil Li Yinhang. I have a feeling it won’t be that easy.
Thanks for the chapter!!~ ♡
The little team goes to bed
Thank you very much for the translation
Unless it was to her bank account.
–Thinking about that scene was a turn-on.
Guess I have something in common with Li Yinhang then.
Hmm never fell in love 😏 I don’t believe it
Thank you for the update ❤️💯
Thx for the chappy
(≡^∇^≡)