Jiang Chen originally had no feelings towards these five little ducklings, but after going out for a stroll and seeing them following behind him obediently the entire way, he felt that they were actually pretty cute.
Not to mention, he couldn’t just toss them aside without a care.
As such, he and the staff workers built a nest for them. Then he asked for materials on feeding and raising them to study.
Team leader Chen watched this with open mouthed astonishment.
The internet addicted youth had transformed overnight into a duck farmer. This change in style was really too abrupt and fierce. He silently shot a glance at Wooden Plaque Qin.
Team leader Qin was also looking that way and said: “How nice.”
With an expression of “Am I fucking dreaming”, Team leader Chen walked off as if floating on air.
However, he was mind blown too early. There has always been a limit to Jiang Chen’s patience. After two days of novelty and seeing the little ducklings adapting to their new environment, he no longer watched over them constantly and once again returned to his room to view the competition videos, only coming to walk the ducks every morning, afternoon, and night.
The two Team leaders were still studying the research procedures, even working overtime on the weekends.
They were very knowledgeable in their field and the more crucial the step, the louder they argued. One time, they couldn’t control the volume of their voices, so even Jiang Chen heard the commotion.
On this day, they had finished eating lunch and were digesting food in the garden where they started discussing the procedures and began to bicker once more.
In the middle of the argument, they suddenly heard a sound of quacking and turned to look. Seeing Jiang Chen bringing the ducklings over, they forcibly swallowed their anger in unison. The sight itself made Jiang Chen feel bad for them.
Jiang Chen said: “You guys talk, no need to worry about me.”
Team leader Chen secretly gathered his breath again. Chest aching dully, he felt like if this continued, he’s going to need a fast-acting nitroglycerin.
He ignored the deadpan face of the person next to him and asked: “Did you pick names for them yet?”
Jiang Chen said: “No.”
Looking at these two people’s unsightly faces, Jiang Chen decided to find them something to do, so they could switch up their mood. He said: “How about you help me name them?”
Perhaps because when the box opened, the first person they saw was Jiang Chen. As such, they followed him outside the first time also.
As soon as he stopped, the five ducklings stopped walking forward as well and crowded next to him, quacking nonstop.
The two relenting Team leaders looked down and glanced at them.
Team leader Chen: “MaoMao.”
Team leader Qin: “HuangHuang.”
Team leader Chen: “DanDan.”
Team leader Qin: “……QingQing.”
Team leader Chen: “ZhongZhong.”
All five names were present now.
Team leader Chen was very happy: “I’ll tell them to get small signs and hang one on each of them.”
Jiang Chen looked at these two team leaders, who were terrible at picking names, and added calmly: “That’s their baby nicknames, what about their full names.”
Team leader Chen: “…….”
Team leader Qin: “……”
Under the accompaniment of the “yayaya” quacking, the three people exchanged looks with each other.
A few seconds later, Team leader Chen said: “Jiang…… XingYun!”
Team leader Qin kind of wanted to ask the assistant why he bought five.
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.
After falling silent for a few seconds, he said: “Jiang XingWen.”
Team leader Chen followed up closely: “Jiang XingWu.”
Ktlr alwf, Kfjw ifjvfg Hlc atbeuta bo bcf nfgs delmxis: “Aljcu WlcuVtejcu.”
Kfjw ifjvfg Jtfc rjlv: “Aljcu WlcuHejc.”
Wen Wu Shuang Quan, plus a lucky. That’s pretty good.
Cr remt, Aljcu Jtfc vfmlvfv ab rabq ybatfglcu atfw. Kjxlcu atfrf olnf vemxilcur, ktb tjv atflg ojafr vfmlvfv rb fjrlis, tf aegcfv jcv mbcalcefv tlr kjix.
Coafg fzqfglfcmlcu atlr lcafggeqalbc, atf akb Kfjw ifjvfgr tjv lcvffv mjiwfv vbkc jcv rajgafv ab mtja jybea atf qgfnlber lrref qfjmfoeiis.
Three days later, the little duckling’s name tags were made, only the size of a thumb and very delicate. They were tied onto each of the duckling’s legs. Simultaneously, the two Team leaders finally decided on a procedure with their ‘arguments’.
The cryofreeze team checked it several times and finally thawed the 6th person.
The atmosphere was taut since the morning. The cryofreeze them was more reticent than usual, and even walked much faster as well. After Jiang Chen finished walking the ducklings and then fed them food, he could no longer see anyone around.
As usual, he went to watch videos. After watching a few matches, he got up to move around a bit.
When he went outside to take a stroll for the 4th time, he encountered the cryofreeze team in the first floor lobby.
Everyone turned to look at him in unison.
Jiang Chen also looked back at them, giving a cursory glance across their faces.
Anguish, numbness, exhaustion, graveness…… Oh, they couldn’t bring this one back either.
The atmosphere was both heavy and solemn.
Fortunately, a rather optimistic worker spoke up: “Where are you going?”
Jiang Chen said: “Taking a stroll.”
The other people also returned to their senses. Two people wanted to go see the ducklings with him. The remaining majority all needed to recuperate slightly.
Leading these two people, who wanted to divert their attention by ‘smothering their faces in ducklings’, Jiang Chen walked outside while asking: “Where are the two Team leaders?”
The workers sighed wearily: “Still inside.”
Inside the laboratory, the volunteer has long been transported away. The room had also been cleaned up properly.
The two people sat on the ground against the wall, no one speaking at all. After a long time, Team leader Chen finally said hoarsely: “You shouldn’t have come here.”
After many years of interactions, they understood each other very well.
Even someone cheerful like him was about to get PTSD. For someone with such a strong sense of responsibility like Lao-Qin, getting PTSD would be considered light. If not managed properly, it might even leave a lifelong psychological trauma for him.
Team leader Qin closed his eyes, not replying.
A moment later, he stood up, turned around and left.
Team leader Chen said: “Where are you going?”
Team leader Qin said coolly: “Reviewing the disk and looking at the material. Meeting in the afternoon.”
Are you still fucking human?
Team leader Chen stared at this tense, straight back for a moment, then also climbed back up.
It’s unknown if Wooden Plaque Qin was human or not, but appearance wise, he’s really resilient.
This was not the case however. After Jiang Chen finished eating lunch and was digesting his food, he bumped into the other in the garden. Passing by, he saw the other holding a cigarette in his hand. Later at night when he took the ducklings out to see the world, coincidentally, he bumped into the other again and saw he was still holding the cigarette in his hand, pressing it within his fingers as if deciding if he should smoke or not.
Jiang Chen examined the wrinkles on the cigarette and asked: “The same one that you were holding at lunch?”
Team leader Qin was lost in thought at this time. Hearing those words, he looked towards Jiang Chen: “En, I only smoke one per day. I’ve already finished today’s.”
Secretly saying to himself, that’s really quite self-restrained, Jiang Chen didn’t know how to reply, so he nodded his head and got ready to leave.
Team leader Qin suddenly said: “I heard when you woke up, you were dreaming about standing on the championship stage. A group of people were calling your name, then you heard Lao-Chen and the other’s voices?”
Jiang Chen said: “You were there that night. Do you still remember the cheers?”
Team leader Qin still remembered. After all, that was the first time and also the last time in his life that he’s gone to see an esports competition in person.
He asked: “Why is it that one?”
Jiang Chen said: “Just a dream, how could there be any rhyme or reason.”
Having said that, however, he still added: “Maybe because I knew I was retiring at that time, and also knew I didn’t have long to live, so I wanted to remember that moment forever.”
Team leader Qin replied with an ‘en’ and spaced out again.
Jiang Chen guided the ducklings back to their nest and touched their heads one by one before returning to the sick ward.
After watching a few matches at night, he laid in bed listening to the AI reading out loud. Abruptly hearing Total Annihilation, he said: “Recite it again.”
The little nurse said: “What?”
Jiang Chen said: “The previous words, recite them again.”
The little nurse naturally wouldn’t ponder over why he wanted to hear this and recited them again for him.
Total Annihilation.
Jiang Chen looked at the ceiling, thinking to himself this name definitely appeared in the forums again.
He was correct.
On the Wandering Dreams forum, the thread regarding why Total Annihilation no longer logged online has already reached several hundred replies.
It’s been over 10 days. Even a lot of ordinary players have reached max level. Yet the Ace was still stuck at level 85.
Since he didn’t log in, the other two people who always played with him, also stopped being very active.
People were accustomed to Mercury Reflects Fate making the headlines every once in a while. Now that it’s suddenly quiet, everyone expressed they were somewhat unused to it.
“Did the Ace suddenly vanish?”
“Don’t vanish, I still really want to see him cause even more trouble.”
“I don’t know if he vanished or not. I just want to know what’s going on between those three people.”
“Didn’t Qing Yan say that the Ace has something to deal with?”
“You believe in everything he says?”
“A player from Mercury Reflects Fate reporting in with my statement. Now that the Ace is not here, the game is peaceful and tranquil. Sometimes, there are people challenging each other, couples breaking up, or groups playing dungeons in the chat. Clearly this is the normal way of gaming, so why am I so dissatisfied ahhhhh!”
“Don’t you have some kind of inside info?”
As such, the players from Mercury Reflects Fate recount everything they knew.
The fifth day the Ace stopped coming online, Qing Yan sent a horn saying he was busy, then stopped appearing in chat after that. Abyss, on the other hand, never said anything from start to finish.
Some speculated that there’s an issue between the three of them. Some really believed that the Ace was busy. Some guessed the Ace was a college student starting school— that he hit his head during basic military training and was currently recuperating.
There were also a few who had rather unique viewpoints. This was because they discovered that Indulge’s guild leader, Savant Initiate, finally got online. This timing was a bit too coincidental, as such, they felt that Savant Initiate didn’t get along with the Ace and forced the Ace away.
“What did Savant Initiate say to that?”
“Savant Initiate said ‘Noted.’”
“And then?”
“And then he didn’t say anything else. It’s people from their guild that helped translate, saying this meant “Noted, kneel, keep [b–bing] and I’ll kill you.”
“I was on the server with Indulge in the past. It’s impossible for Salvant Initiate to not accept him. Have you seen how weird their guild is?”
“I don’t care why the Ace left. I only care whether he’ll come back or not.”
“Don’t know. However, even though the Ace is not here, his impact is still present. Didn’t you see, none of the 10 servers have started the hidden story quest yet.”
“Didn’t people start playing the hidden story quest a while ago?”
“The comment above is talking about the one they found during the beta. Even now, no one dares to start it.”
“Why?”
“Why else? For the reward of course.”
The hidden story quest can only be played once. With the experience of [Ling Huai] in the front of their minds, none of the 10 servers’ Aces had the confidence to compare to those two.
The bitterness of playing a hidden story quest normally, you can understand by just watching those anguished players, who are playing [Ling Huai] without a guide right now.
It’s true that the first clear rewards were generous, but there were also differences between first clear rewards.
At the moment, the reward seemed very likely related to the time it takes to clear the quest. Who didn’t want to obtain more items?
Actually, there were some people who considered relinquishing the extra time-related rewards to start the hidden story quest right now. If they gritted their teeth and grinded it down for a month or two, it’d be fine to only receive first clear rewards. However, they gave up on this idea after thinking about it some more.
Grinding for that long to obtain a first clear reward wasn’t too terrible.
What would be terrible is playing halfway and the Ace logs in, then breezes through and completes the quest in a week. Then other people purchase the guide and also breeze through, surpassing them to grab the first clear. When that time comes, who will they cry to?
As such, even though the Aces of the 10 servers have reached max level, they were still waiting and observing.
“Total Annihilation is not here, why not find Abyss to play it?”
“That’s right. Why must the two Aces always do everything together? Abyss should also have the ability to take down the story quest, right? Aren’t a lot of people suspecting that’s Captain Fang?”
“Supposedly, they asked already, but Abyss didn’t agree.”
“Not to mention, he hasn’t logged in lately either……”
In Mercury Reflects Fate, the 7 guild leaders gathered together and looked at their friend list.
Total Annihilation, Abyss, and Qing Yan were all offline.
White Dragonbone: “I bet 2. Abyss steals the guy or they break off relations.”
The Person in the Mirror: “Speaking logically, the current situation looks like Total Annihilation broke off relations with them.”
Wooden Shackles: “I asked Love Escapist. Love Escapist said the guy’s busy. The wager has not ended.”
White Dragonbone: “Alright, you guys can live a few more days.”
The Person in the Mirror, Xing TianCheng, Gu Wen, and Early Departure, who all bet on 1, said: “Who knows, perhaps you guys will end up dying.”
The Person in the Mirror said: “But see, I didn’t guess wrong. At least Qing Yan and Abyss both have arrows pointed at Total Annihilation. I have the all-seeing eyes. In the end, it’s definitely Total Annihilation and Qing Yan who will prevail through hardships. You guys just wait to run naked.”
Wooden Shackles said, puzzled: “However, just what’s going on with him? Not coming online after so many days.”
The rest of the people said: “Should be something major.”
💖✨💖✨
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter!🫶
Thank you for the chapter!!!!
I’m literally choking right now, what the heck is “furry furry”, “yellow, yellow”, “egg egg” (I’m sorry what???😭😭😭), “green green” (where are they green???😭😭😭), and “heavy heavy”!!!!
At least the name Wen Wu Shuang Quang sounds good bro… 😢
Thank you for the chapter btw <3
It sounds better in Chinese I promise
It better! 😤
R.I.P the children of those old men, look at their bad naming sense I’m scared for those unborn children
😰
Team Leader Qin, with your screen time please do not be a second male lead. Just be with Team Leader Chen, ok 🙂