Originally, they thought that the next mission would be to help An Yan recover her memories. Unexpectedly, before these two NPCs even started talking, the pendants on their waists started glowing first.
Also glowing simultaneously were the two pendants on Jiang Chen that belonged to Ling Huai and Gary.
The four pendants flew into the air and spun gently in a circle, releasing a beautiful light blue halo.
The 8-man squad watched in unison, but their focus wasn’t on witnessing this wondrous view.
5cum: “I discovered an issue. Gary’s pendant was given to us by our gatekeeper old man. Then the pendant on Gary should be gatekeeper old man’s, right?”
This Majesty is Most Beautiful: “Ohh, they exchanged tokens!”
Avian Ruler: “Could it be that the person who had a little something with the gatekeeper old man wasn’t the Oracle, but Gary?”
Gou Cheng: “Is this why the old man cried like that when hearing Gary’s name? He thought that his lover and his little sister eloped?”
Fang JingXing’s heart jumped: “No, perhaps their identities had been switched.”
The group looked at him abruptly: “…….Ah?”
Jiang Chen also glanced at him.
Fang JingXing said: “Just a guess.”
He said: “I recall when the siblings saw each other again, after Ling Huai called him Ge, Gary’s expression didn’t seem quite right. It took him a while to answer.”
As they spoke, the blue light grew brighter and brighter, shining on Gary and An Yan’s bodies.
The two people were both startled. Immediately afterwards, An Yan covered her mouth and started to cry. Gary’s eyes also turned red. He hugged the person in front of him and said, choking with emotions: “I… I switched back……”
Switched back!
Oh my god, this story is a bit deep.
After all that, Gary and the gatekeeper old man’s souls were actually swapped.
Then the gatekeeper old man, who they’ve been interacting with day and night all this time, was actually Gary?
The glow dissipated. The two people finished hugging and explained their story to the group.
An Yan said: “Back then when Ling Huai disappeared, my brother and Gary had swapped souls but couldn’t tell anyone about it. I also only managed to guess the truth after seeing their exchanged pendants, and then communicating with him through hand gestures for quite a while.”
The group thought: So it’s like this.
An Yan said: “We found out that we had been cursed. Originally, we wanted to search for a solution together. Who knew my brother’s body couldn’t leave the Main City at all, and according to the rules, he had to stay and defend the city. Gary had no choice but to stay in my brother’s stead and allow my brother and I to search for Ling Huai and the method to lift the curse. We searched all the way to this tribe.”
She said: “We managed to find out that the person who placed the curse on Gary and my brother was the former chief of this tribe, Nine Rocks.”
But this was useless because Nine Rocks wasn’t in the tribe.
And immediately afterwards, she was captured. They knew the rest.
Avian Ruler has always liked playing story quests and was deeply and emotionally involved. He said: “That’s so tragic!”
An Yan and the other NPC, however, didn’t have the interest in considering that. Instead, they held the no longer glowing pendants and said: “These were made from ordinary materials, but they can break our curse. Could they be the medium that Nine Rocks used to place the curse?”
The 8-man squad pondered for a moment and perked up.
Ling Huai’s pendant also lit up.
In other words, can these also save Ling Huai?
Then does this mean they are almost done?
The group hastily returned to find Ling Huai.
This time, without waiting for their summons, Ling Huai was already standing on the surface of the river.
The three people had another round of crying. After Ling Huai calmed down, she stuck her tongue out: “I’m sorry, but I’m already dead.”
Everyone was stunned.
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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Saying this, she looked at Jiang Chen: “Oh right, the summoning talisman I gave you is also a physical object. That was something I figured out how to make later on.”
Jiang Chen remained silent.
An Yan said: “My brother and Gary’s souls were also not inside their bodies. Although your situation is not the same, but… but perhaps once we find your body, you can return as well?”
Ling Huai was very optimistic: “I also think the same!”
She said in frustration: “But I don’t know where my body is.”
Jiang Chen and Fang JingXing said simultaneously: “In the Main City.”
Avian Ruler said: “Ah?”
Fang JingXing said: “She said before that she can go to any branch of the river. The only portion she can’t enter is the Main City.”
Avian Ruler and the others all felt terrible.
This kind and easily embarrassed little lady has been wandering around Glimmering Lights River for 10 years.
The closest three people to her— one had forcibly lost her memory and become an irritable priestess; one was trapped inside a forest, unable to leave; and one was stationed to defend the main city, of which the body held the soul of her dearest big brother.
He patrolled the city for 10 years and walked across the bridges everyday, but did not know that his dearest sister’s body was right inside the river beneath his feet.
Their pain was the source of the energy that trapped her.
They felt suffering because of her, and she was sealed because of them.
Avian Ruler: “Oh fuck, so malicious!”
This Majesty is Most Beautiful: “Such a pretty little lady, how could that bastard do such a vicious thing!”
5cum: “That’s not nice, even scumbags must consider the bottom line.”
Gou Cheng: “Kill him!”
Xie ChengYan: “This story writer is a bit savage.”
They waited until the three people finished talking and received the new mission: Find Ling Huai’s body.
Without another word, they headed straight to Fractured Star City and followed the flow of the Glimmering Lights River.
After walking to the 6th bridge, they saw the four pendants fly into the air again and start spinning. Immediately afterwards, a light blue coffin of ice emerged from the surface of the water and rose up little by little.
Currently, there’s a special leveling event on the server. The Forest of Despair was too remote, so basically no one wanted to go there. As such, the squad had a lot of peace and quiet.
The Main City was not the same.
As the center of Wandering Dreams, the Main City was full of people all day, every day.
As soon as they entered the city, the players immediately noticed that there were two NPCs in their squad. Knowing it might be the hidden story quest, they secretly followed behind them, wanting to see what’s going on. When they saw this scene, they instantly became thrilled.
[Horn] Invalid Name: Oh fuck, come to the Main City quickly and see the coffin! It’s the hidden story quest ahhh [screenshot][screenshot][screenshot]
The entire server was in uproar.
All the players inside the Main City immediately started to rush this way. Players in other places also came after hearing the news.
The people in the three realms couldn’t leave, so they could only shout at a distance through world chat.
[World] Charadeka: Leaving the dungeon right now, wait for me!
[World] Love Don’t Leave: Me too, wait for me!
[World] Anti-Inflammatories: Why the fuck is it now? I just got to lvl 34 ahhhhh!
[World] Sober and Intoxicated: I’m also not lvl 35, please live stream ahhhhh!
[World] The Strongest Puppeteer: Live stream +1
[World] The Person in the Mirror: Can someone tell the Aces to pause briefly? I’m a little far.
But the Aces ignored them completely.
As soon as the ice coffin appeared, the gatekeeper old man, whose soul had returned to the proper place, rushed out of the guild and met up with Gary and the others.
Under the traction of the pendants, the ice coffin continued to rise into the air and slowly landed on the bridge. The chains and shackles around it started to break and shatter.
The seal was finally broken.
The next second, a familiar figure leapt out of the water and floated over the ice coffin.
The surrounding players immediately started shouting: “Oh oh oh”.
“Oh fuck, another person appeared out of the water!”
“She looks the same as the person inside the coffin.”
“Aiya, this little lady is pretty!”
The 8-man squad ignored them and worked together to lift the coffin lid.
Gary and the others rushed to the coffin. Seeing Ling Huai with her eyes closed tightly, not breathing at all while her spirit floated up above, having no intentions of heading inside, they all hung their heads, shoulders trembling.
Ling Huai stuck out her tongue: “Ai, I knew this was going to happen.”
She looked towards Jiang Chen and the rest and smiled at them with tears in her eyes: “Thank you guys for saving us.”
Avian Ruler watched as her figure gradually faded and couldn’t stand it: “No way!”
Gou Cheng: “Doing the quest was tiring enough, now you want us to eat knives!”
This Majesty is Most Beautiful: “That’s right, we played it for so long, just to give us a BE!”
5cum: “Beautiful, I won’t be forgetting you in a short while.”
Looking down at the person in the ice coffin and her three close, grieving friends, Jiang Chen was not very happy.
This reminded him of himself and the few who could not be saved. He started to question if the path he chose was wrong and started to comb through the quest line carefully again. Suddenly, he recalled a statement.
—This is a very good medicine. I hear it can even bring the dead back to life.
Waving aside the crowd, he turned and walked off in a hurry.
Surprised, Fang JingXing followed him hastily. Seeing him running towards the direction of the teleportation array, a thought sparked in his head, and he quickly recalled a crucial point.
Yet right at the same time, they noticed a familiar figure about 20 meters in front of them. Jiang Chen immediately grabbed him and discovered that he could be moved.
The little dissatisfied gremlin Oracle screamed ‘ouch’: “What are you doing? I’m here for treatments, I’m not divinating today!”
Ignoring him, Jiang Chen dragged him and started running back. Charging into the crowd, he pressed the Oracle against the ice coffin.
The story quest triggered automatically. The Oracle was stunned at first. Then, he quickly pulled out the medicine bottle and poured the remaining medicine into Ling Huai’s mouth.
Avian Ruler and the others stopped wailing and held their breath nervously.
The surrounding people looked on curiously while secretly recording this scene.
A few seconds later, Ling Huai’s spirit vanished completely. With a soft flutter of eyelashes, the person inside the ice coffin opened her eyes.
Gary and the others instantly reached out to her with their hands and said with choked emotions: “Ling Huai, welcome back.”
With a ‘Wah’, Ling Huai started bawling and hugged them.
The five people hugged into a pile, crying and laughing. Even the little gremlin seemed very cute.
A golden announcement instantly spread throughout the entire server: Congratulations players Total Annihilation, Abyss, Avian Ruler, Gou Cheng, 5cum, Love Escapist, This Majesty is Most Beautiful, and Qing Yan for achieving first clear to the story quest [Ling Huai]! And obtaining a perfect completion!
The crowd on the bridge applauded: “Aces, you’re awesome!”
The world chat was also extremely rowdy.
[World] White Hair for Life: Amazing, how many days has it been, and they’ve already cleared the hidden story quest.
[World] Opening a Window: Not even a week, right?
[World] Saw the Cloud: Notice the announcement. It’s even a perfect completion!
[World] My Sorrow: Sure enough, we can only envy the lives of awesome people!
[World] Skittles: This is a bit too impressive!
[World] Waiting to Fly: I heard that the one in beta was not even cleared after 20 days.
[World] My Dear Lady: Kneeling [Worship]
Ling Huai and the others played around rambunctiously for a while and then left together.
The ice coffin disappeared. A treasure chest appeared on the ground.
Instantly, the players on the bridge looked at it with their eyes gleaming.
The hidden story quest reward!
First clear! And a perfect completion! How many items this must be!
Jiang Chen picked up the chest and got up, saying: “Open it in the guild.”
The crowd said: “……Don’t be like that, Ace. Just let us see~”
Jiang Chen said: “Too noisy.”
The crowd said: “We promise we won’t say anything!”
Fang JingXing said: “Oh? It even gave me a divine weapon.”
The crowd said: “Oh fuck!”
Fang JingXing said: “Your promise doesn’t seem to be useful.”
The crowd: “……”
Too fucking treacherous, to trick us like that!
Ignoring their pleas to stay, the 8-man squad turned around and headed toward the guild.
As soon as they reached the gates, they encountered a familiar old man gatekeeper.
Avian Ruler still hasn’t pacified his emotions. Hugging the other, he immediately started to cry: “Bro, I know the suffering in your heart. I understand, I understand everything!”
Love Escapist said: “Since we finished the quest, our conversations with him should be different now compared to others.”
Stunned briefly, Avian Ruler attempted to converse with the old man gatekeeper.
Sure enough, the guard’s soul had returned. With a smile, he said that Ling Huai and the others went to help the Oracle find treatment; they would be back very soon.
The 8-man squad fell silent in unison.
Avian Ruler hugged him and started crying again: “Oh no, that little gremlin is not going to stop until he kills himself. Your sister and the other won’t be coming back again anytime soon!”
Not sure if they should laugh or cry, the remaining people dragged Avian Ruler into the guild.
The crowd sat down on the ground in the garden and looked at the treasure chest in the middle.
Jiang Chen said: “You open it.”
Despite knowing the truth, Fang JingXing feigned confusion very skillfully: “En? Why?”
Jiang Chen shot him a look: “What do you think?”
With a smile, Fang JingXing reached out and opened the treasure chest.
Secret story quest successfully completed woop woop! 🥳🥳
Time for trolling ovo
I knew that gatekeeper was going to turn out to be Gary some way or another. With how treacherous this quest was of course Gary was going to be right under their noses the whole time.
I thought the gatekeeper was Gary in the first place and ended up actually being correct in a roundabout way! xD
Thanks for the update 🤣❤️🤣❤️
haha yes JingXing you have to open it, otherwise god knows how a’Chen’s black hands will absolutely annihilate the reward 😂
Jiang Chen needs to hold Fang JingXing’s hands, maybe some of that luck will transfer— definitely not because I want them to hold hands 😊
hahahaha…. yes JingXing give your wifey some of your luck, it’ll transfer away anyway when the two becomes one at night 😳
I remember JC said”Glimmering lights, fractured star, and the bounty board— In this life I don’t regret coming to Wandering Dreams”I wonder if this is foreshadowing and is related to the story…
Right now we’ve gone through Glimmering lights and fractured star… I wonder if the bounty board is coming right up 👀🧍🏻♀️😌