The glow from the setting sun poured into the room, the colour of clouds on fire. Warmth from the sun’s rays slowly crawled up the mattress, landing hot and ticklish against a pair of eyes shut in slumber like a child blowing on someone’s eyelids to get them to wake up.
Wu Sheng flipped over and suddenly arose. He lifted his eyes and met the familiar face laying in the bed across from him. Xu Wang slept facing him, riding on top of his mattress still deep in his dreams. Dusky sunlight fell on his features and set them alight. Besides his usual snappy candidness, there was an additional trace of docility and quiet in his face. Wu Sheng lay there and watched him quietly. Inside, his heart felt like a calm, wide ocean. Blue, expansive, serene, steady.
Some time later…
“What are you doing?”
Xu Wang had woken up a while ago, opening his eyes to the sight of Wu Sheng staring fixedly at him. That was one thing, but he was also totally spaced out. Whatever he was thinking of made amusement and happiness swirl in the depths of his pupils.
Wu Sheng jolted back to his senses, although his expression remained unchanged. Looking straight at Xu Wang, he said, “You were just talking in your sleep and I was thinking about whether to wake you or not.”
“Talking in my sleep?” Xu Wang rose a suspicious brow. “What did I say?”
As expressionless as ever, Wu Sheng mimicked, “Class representative, save me…”
Feeling uneasy, Xu Wang squinted as he studied the other man guardedly. He couldn’t believe it, yet he had no evidence…
“Class representative, I can’t be without you,” Wu Sheng continued.
Xu Wang let out a breath as he listened to this recounting of sleep talk that sounded nothing like him. Mollified, he said, “Wu Sheng, you know what OOC means?”
Class representative, who was still deeply invested in his “script,” stiffened at his question. “Hmm?”
Xu Wang took a breath again and glanced at him. “Next time you want to make up nonsense, don’t make up dialogue based off your own fantasies.”
They’d fallen asleep at 5 AM and woken at 5 PM; feeling refreshed after twelve hours of sleep, they washed up briefly and came alive again. There was no movement from next door, and Xu Wang, worried that they weren’t awake yet, sent a text in their group chat—
Arf Arf: Awake yet?
A response came quickly in the four-person group chat titled “Miserable Children.”—
Money Lover: Nope.
Tea Sage Lu Yu’s Biggest Fanboy: Yep.
Xu Wang laughed and was about to reply, except someone else was faster—
Brother Sheng: Old Qian, go back to sleep. We’re going to eat.
Again, the reply came back within a second, but this time is was a voice message: “Who’s sleeping? I’m already dressed! Where are we eating?”
Ten minutes later, the four of them met up in the hall and headed off to the restaurant.
Beiyuemiao Village was lively at dusk; there were children running around all over the place, cooking smoke rising from the single-story houses all around, and the zooming of cars, electric bikes, and donkey carts on the single road. The setting sun dragged their shadows out behind them. Hustle and bustle everywhere.
This time they walked further than last time and found a decent-looking Xiabei restaurant. The delectable smell of oil over a stove assaulted their nostrils as soon as they stepped in. They asked for a private room in order to be able to converse openly. As soon as their butts hit the chairs, Qian Ai grabbed the menu with a, “this meal is my treat” and began ordering dishes for them.
When the waiter left, leaving just the four of them in the room, Qian Ai leaned back in his seat and let out a long sigh. “In the blink of an eye, it’s nighttime again. Happiness is so short-lived…” When he’d been ordering food, he’d been lively and perky, but now his voice was filled with exhaustion and helplessness.
“Are we supposed to live like this forever?” Kuang Jinxin asked. He had his head tilted, propped against a hand.
“Suppose so.” Xu Wang sighed inaudibly and picked up the water kettle, meaning to pour hot water for his teammates.
“Wait,” Kuang Jinxin said hurriedly. “He retrieved an independently packaged bag of tea leaves from his pocket and then distributed a bit into each person’s tea cup. Then he grabbed the kettle from Xu Wang’s hands and poured water into each cup.
Fresh, aromatic hot air wafted up from the cups.
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.
“Green tea,” said Kuang Jinxin with a smile. “It helps refresh the mind and relieve fatigue.”
There’s a traditional way of complimenting someone in which you would say that if you followed that person, there’s always food to eat, except when it came to Kuang Jinxin, it was appropriate to change “food” to “tea.”
Xu Wang and Wu Sheng were used to it by now, but this was Qian Ai’s first time experiencing this. “You bring tea leaves on your person?” he asked in surprise.
Kuang Jinxin scratched his head bashfully. “My family cultivates tea, and it’s what I study in college.”
“There’s such a major?”
“Yup, tea sciences.”
“You really learn new things every day…” Qian Ai nodded, then fell silent. It was impossible to strike a conversation about a field he knew nothing about. After two seconds of silence, he called out the door, “Waiter! Is the food ready yet?” He was much more suited for the world of food and drink.
The food came swiftly, likely on account of the fact that Qian Ai’s voice was loud enough to travel back to the kitchens. Soon, the entire table was covered in dishes.
Xu Wang stared at the food, then at Qian Ai. “You ordered… all of this?”
“Don’t worry,” Qian Ai patted himself on the chest, “I said it was my treat, so I won’t leav the bill to you!”
“That’s not my point,” Xu Wang said helplessly. “Can we even finish all this food?”
Twenty minutes later, he regretted his incredibly ignorant question.
“Alright, finished the bianbiang noodles. What should I eat next? It’s up to you guys!”
“Lamb in a water broth? Paomo stirfry? Tofu strips and egg sandwich?”
“Ah, thanks to Old Xia in Hainan for the fire arrow! I’ll be eating the lamb then—“
Slurp, slurp—
“The broth is super savoury, very meaty, but not salty. There’s not pungent taste from the lamb…”
One table, two worlds.
One side of the table—the side perfectly captured by the phone mounted on the selfie stick—was filled with half the food that Qian Ai ordered. On the other side of the recording phone sat Xu Wang, Wu Sheng, and Kuang Jinxin, along with the remaining half of the food. The food on each side was exactly the same; in other words, Qian Ai was eating the same amount of food that the three of them were sharing.
He wasn’t doing it for the sake of the livestream. It was quite apparent that he was having the time of his life, each laugh line in his face expressing his love for food and satisfaction.
After the lamb broth was finished, some of his viewers likely left, because then Qian Ai faced the camera somberly and said, “Those who like Shaanxi dishes better appreciate this moment, because I bet tomorrow we won’t get to eat them anymore…”
“What will I eat tomorrow?” Qian Ai read off a question from a viewer. He sighed heavily. “I won’t know till tonight, I suppose it’s up to fate…”
Streaming was really an addicting sort of thing, thought Xu Wang. Never mind the viewers who were watching, even sitting behind the scenes, he felt like giving Qian Ai a virtual flower or stars or something.
As he watched Qian Ai, he was suddenly struck by envy. In order to come on this trip, he quit his job, and it was likely that until they left Owl for good, he wouldn’t be able to get another job. But their current lifestyle didn’t affect Qian Ai in the slightest; it must be so nice to be able to work like normal.
The easiest way to get yourself out of low spirits is to turn to people who are suffering the same loss as you, and to Xu Wang in this moment, that was Wu Sheng and Kuang Jinxin. One just started a company and was in the middle of a major project, the other was in the middle of a college internship and should be getting work experience, except the appearance of Owl…
Clickety clack, clickety clack.
The sudden onslaught of fierce clicking sounds cut into Xu Wang’s thoughts. When he turned around, he found Wu Sheng typing on a laptop that he’d whipped out from seemingly nowhere. His hands flew over the keyboard so fast, they were just a blur.
Xu Wang glimpsed the computer screen. There was some kind of messaging software open, along with a bunch of code he couldn’t make heads or tails of. Wu Sheng probably didn’t want to bother Qian Ai’s streaming, as he was communicating via the message app—
[No, this was different from what we estimated. How many times have I said it, if you find a problem, fix it. If you try going around it, the only result is a decrease in user experience quality…]
That was all Xu Wang gathered from his quick glance before the screen turned back to a page full of code. Wu Sheng went back to his “speedy task completing” like he was fixing the so-called “problem” that they were talking about in the chat.
Xu Wang felt ruffled, because this left only Kuang Jinxin as his one remaining comrade. When he turned around, the kid was on his cell phone. Xu Wang moved over to him, but before he could speak, he discovered that the latter was in the middle of writing a Zhihu response to a question asking about how to tell the difference between good Pu’er and bad Pu’er.
Kuang Jinxin hadn’t finished typing his reply yet, but his answer was already beginning to look like a mini essay.
Great, so the only one without a proper job in here was Xu Wang himself. He gazed out the window, feeling lost and empty, a burning fire raging in his chest that made him want to have it out with life itself.
__
Xu Wang’s will to fight persisted until midnight when Owl’s call came. He was the first to jump into the purple vortex, valiant and raring at the bit like he wanted to fight someone to the death.
But the four of them had already handed in their task here and there was nothing left to do but remain idle. Yesterday the airport terminal had seemed like an ominous, dangerous place, but today it just seemed like a normal bustling airport, with smiling traveler walking to and fro, all kinds of food, and brand name stores. The atmosphere was completely different from the previous night.
However, the notification that sounded in their ears didn’t direct them to check in to a flight, but to inform them of their coordinates for the third task— (118.9987，37.7662)
Everyone turned to Wu Sheng.
After a moment of silence, he raised his head. “Shandong.”
Xu Wang held a hand against his forehead, the first thought passing through his mind being that he had to buy another damn plane ticket. “These commuting fees are too high, don’t you think?!”
Qian Ai, after looking dazed for two seconds, finally nodded. “I see, so we’ll be eating whole grain jianbing next.”
Kuang Jinxin didn’t react; since coming in, he’d been sweeping his eyes across the scene.
“Xiao Kuang, what are you looking at?” Xu Wang asked him.
“I keep feeling like someone’s watching us.” Kuang Jinxin frowned.
His words sent the other three men on guard. Submitting the task made them temporarily forget that this stage was an open stage and that it was possible to run into other teams, whether or not they’d submitted their tasks.
They had already gotten a taste of what it meant to be exposed, and once was enough.
With that thought in mind, they swiftly made their way to a nearby cafe and chose an inconspicuous corner to sit down in. They had a view of the terminal through the gaps of the makeshift fence around the shop.
As soon as they sat in their seats, a waiter came asking what they wanted to drink. Three coffees and a tea were ordered just for the sake of it, although after the waiter took their order and left, he never came back with their beverages.
“I knew it was all fake, it’s all just for show,” Qian Ai lamented, slightly disappointed.
“Quit fantasizing,” Xu Wang said. He’d suspected as much. “If we could eat and drink all we wanted in here, why would anyone bother submitting tasks?”
“Yeah,” Kuang Jinxin said in realization. “If you can eat, drink, do whatever you want here, you wouldn’t even need a job anymore. Just come here every night and you’d never be short of food or clothing.”
“Never mind the coffee.” Wu Sheng pushed them back on topic. “Have you all received your rewards?” he asked in a low tone.
Kuang Jinxin nodded and clicked into his <Stationery Box>: <[DEF] Candy House> <[ATK] Go On, Hit Me>
“Em…” Wu Sheng stared at those two icons for a long time. “Why don’t you make the introductions?”
Kuang Jinxin scratched his head, perturbed. “The defensive item… must be like the rabbit holes. Maybe it can create a safe house to hide in?”
“I’m more curious about that weapon,” Qian Ai commented, raising his hand. Xu Wang and Wu Sheng nodded their heads in succession.
His teammates were looking at him with so much anticipation in their eyes and Kuang Jinxin wanted to be able to give them a satisfactory answer, but alas, it was too difficult. “Go on, hit me” was way too obscure of a name; nothing could be discerned from it besides that whoever said it probably deserved to be beat up.
“Brother Xu, Brother Wu,” Kuang Jinxin said instead, “what did you guys get?”
His diversion appeared to be the right choice.
Xu Wang, who’d been waiting cheerfully for Kuang Jinxin’s explanation, deflated in an instant as he stuck his arm out.
The three of them looked over—<[DEF] One Last Cup of Wine>, <[ATK] Chang’e Goes to the Moon>
At least with Kuang Jinxin’s “Candy House,” they could try to guess what it was, but Xu Wang’s two items…
“Let’s forget the defensive item for now, either way it’s something to protect yourself with. No matter how weird it is, it’s not unimaginable.” Qian Ai leaned closer and stared at the icon of the pretty maiden leaping for the moon. “But what the heck is Chang’e Goes to the Moon supposed to be?”
“Since it’s a weapon…” Wu Sheng ran through past instances in his mind, then came up with—“It must be like Cast Into the Four Winds, maybe it sends our opponents straight to the moon.”
Qian Ai: “…”
Bejcu Alczlc: “…”
We Qjcu: “Prc’a atja j ilaaif abb gbwjcalm…”
Qe Vtfcu: “Pc ktja kjs lr j qijcfajgs bypfma klat cb bzsufc, cb obbv, cb ilof, jcv cb kjafg gbwjcalm? Pa’v yf ygeaji ab yf rfca atfgf.”
Xu Wang: “I think, let’s take a look at your rewards.”
Wu Sheng didn’t appear bothered by the forced change of subject and clicked into his stationery box matter-of-factly. <DEF] Cloak of Invisibility>, <[ATK] Intense Glare of Death>
“A cloak!” Kuang Jinxin burst out excitedly before clapping his hand over his mouth. The envy was still evidence in his voice however: “An invisibility cloak, that’s so awesome…”
Xu Wang was envious too, although not because of the cloak, but because of the rare sight of such a plain, easy to understand name. But as for the other one… “I seriously need one of you guys to explain to me,” he said, although he was looking only at Wu Sheng, “how an intense glare of death is supposed to be a weapon.”
Wu Sheng didn’t say anything, just turned a “deeply sentimental” stare onto Xu Wang.
One second.
Kkb rfmbcvr.
Mlnf rfmbcvr.
Ten seconds…
“…” It took all of Xu Wang’s willpower to not look away. That was a bloody weapon of mass destruction right there!
Compared to Xu Wang, Kuang Jinxin, and Wu Sheng, who all had at least one item with questionable abilities, Qian Ai’s were much simpler. His two rewards were <[DEF] Centre Ring No. 13> and <[ATK] Invincible Wheel of Flames>. Centre Ring No. 13 was obvious just from its name, car racing. And nothing sounded more like a weapon than an invincible wheel of flames.
If the rewards were some kind of test, Qian Ai practically passed with flying colours.
“It’s just a coincidence,” he said humbly, so as not to upset his other team members.
“If you compare, the first stage was so easy,” Kuang Jinxin suddenly remarked. “We used a sleigh just to run, faced bears with just fish tornados, and at the ice fall Brother Xu got skate shoes. Each stage has its designated items, it’s obvious.”
“It’s in order to familiarize each of us with the programming,” Wu Sheng said. “If we didn’t get such a tutorial, we wouldn’t even know what to do, and that means the program failed. Countless users would be stuck at the entrance, unable to use the internal application.”
Kuang Jinxin blinked cluelessly, then turned to Xu Wang, who patted him on the shoulder. “If this were a game, the first stage would be the tutorial. It was there to familiarise us with the rules so that we’d be able to participate in the later stages the game designed.”
Kuang Jinxin glanced at Wu Sheng apologetically for a moment and then faced Xu Wang again. “I prefer your explanation,” he said truthfully.
That conclusion sent Wu Sheng reeling and he turned his gaze away from the coffee shop. Suddenly, he zeroed in on a certain direction and narrowed his eyes, a guarded look passing through his gaze.
“What is it?” Xu Wang, feeling that something was up, leaned over and joined him in his scrutiny of the scene beyond the fence.
“Counter 9,” Wu Sheng replied. “There’s a team checking in over there.”
Thank you for the chapter. I should know better than to read an arc that’s just starting but I just couldn’t resist. =)
the reward names are interesting, it is like its own mini puzzle that they need to decipher.
thanks for the chapter <3
I don’t even have to look at the raws to know this would be impossible to mtl like I usually would… chinese idioms are a pain in the ass. Hallelujah to translators like you, otherwise plebs like us would never be able to read this novel.
Thank you very much. This CP feels fresh and the story is good, I have great hopes for the future.
Oh they can still see other teams doing task 2 even though they finished it.
It’s so romantic <3 – If you call a place where you could just die romantic.. okay…
xDDD Those two are killing me lolol
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶