TN: I’ve updated the novel page with some info. Please note: Reading translator’s notes is extremely important for this novel, especially starting from this chapter, because it contains a game involving Chinese idioms.
The sleigh jolted as the bear’s paws landed. The reindeer, unaware of what was happening behind them, continued hurtling onwards with all their might at a much slower pace due to the sudden added weight.
The other three men seemed to sense that something was wrong and all turned around instinctively, and immediately, their scalps started prickling with fear just like Xu Wang a second ago.
The bear had found its balance and was beginning to work its way into the sleigh.
Completely defenceless, Xu Wang impulsively sent a flying kick toward’s the bear’s head. It didn’t even attempt to evade him — rather, it simply opened its jaws, getting ready to chomp down. By the time he realised this, it was already too late to take his leg back. His foot breached the opening of the bear’s mouth, which started closing down on its prize, but then — a long leg flashed from beside him and hit the bear square in the forehead.
The force of the kick sent the bear reeling backwards, and as its jaws clamped down, it only managed to get the tip of Xu Wang’s foot. He reacted instinctively, yanking his leg back the instant its teeth made contact.
Cold air bit at his foot; he had lost his shoe.
Wu Sheng sent a few more consecutive kicks the bear’s way until it lost its grip on the sleigh and fell into the snow with a resounding thump. Then he began screaming at Xu Wang. “Are you trying to lose your foot? Don’t you know that injuries we get here are brought back to reality? Are you trying to hop on one foot for the rest of your life?”
Xu Wang’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, words refusing to come out. It wasn’t the yelling (he knew that was out of concern for him), but seriously, did he have to put it so starkly?
“Fuck, is that thing even real? It has to be a robot, I mean doesn’t it ever run out of stamina?” Everyone turned at Sun Jiang’s cursing, and found that the bear was once again catching up to them. After Wu Sheng’s barrage of kicking, the sleigh had managed to get several metres ahead of it, but it was now less than ten metres away.
Kuang Jinxin, who was still clinging on to a reindeer’s buttocks, was the furthest away out of any of them from the threat, but this apparently did not give him any added solace. He looked back at his teammates, then at the bear, and burst out crying, “Yesterday we got rid of it as soon as we got on the sleigh. What is going on today?”
“We can’t keep going on like this.” Wu Sheng looked down at the map on his forearm. “We’re about to reach our designated coordinates. If we still haven’t lost it by then, we’ve got two choices. One, we gamble with our lives. Stop the sleigh, face the possibility of the bear killing us all, and see if that triggers some notification. Two, we don’t stop the sleigh. But then everything we’ve done tonight would’ve been all for nothing.”
Xu Wang tapped him on the shoulder. “Just get straight to the third option.”
“You know I have a third idea?” Wu Sheng asked, surprised.
Xu Wang flashed him an innocent, harmonious smile. “Whenever you start acting so pretentious, it always means you have something up your sleeve.”
Speechless, Wu Sheng decided that maybe coming back to the country was a mistake.
“When we start nearing our destination, nobody do anything. Wait until the bear gets into the sleigh, then we all jump down. The sleigh will be pulled off, and the bear with it,” he said, summarising the plan he just came up with.
Kuang Jinxin swallowed nervously, but was the first to agree. “It sounds risky, but I think that’s our best shot.”
Sun Jiang said nothing, but his silence was consent. Xu Wang nodded seriously, no long joking around.
With everyone in agreement, Wu Sheng bent down to check his wrist, then said, “According to our current speed of travel, we’re going to reach the coordinates in about two minutes. Everyone get ready.”
Both Kuang Jinxin and Sun Jiang rolled up their sleeves, each inspecting their respective maps. Xu Wang peered over at them and found that they had opened the <Cheat Sheet> option. He clicked the same button on his menu, and a similar interface popped up — a small map, with a navigation point labeled (116.4085,39.9616). Near it were four tiny square dots moving towards its direction.
Xu Wang recalled Wu Sheng mentioning that all four of them had to reach a designated destination. This explained things: The reindeer weren’t galloping randomly without a destination in mind, they were headed for the coordinates. The small map was the layout of the area, and naturally, the four square dots represented them.
The sleigh jerked around violently and slowed — the bear had gotten a grasp on the back of it again.
The map showed them nearing their destination. The four men glanced at each other, then each gave a nod. This was their only chance.
They all held their breaths, keeping still. Meanwhile, the black bear was making the attempt to climb into the sleigh again. This time, all of them — save Kuang Jinxin, who was much further up — moved forward to make ample space for it. The bear came up and over the back of the sleigh, landing on the floor with a thump that rung out like a starting gun, sending all four men into action.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
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.
The renewed weightlessness of the sleigh seemed to give the reindeer an extra dose of motivation and they set off, antlers flying, pulling the sleigh far off into the distance at the speed of lightning.
We Qjcu ofii bcab atf rcbk jcv aewyifv j ofk mlgmifr yfobgf rabqqlcu jygeqais. Qtfc atfs’v wjvf atf pewq, atf riflut tjv jigfjvs gfvemfv rqffv rluclolmjcais, yea atf rcbks ugbecv atfs’v ijcvfv bc kjrc’a gfwbafis rboa. Ktf obgmf bo atf ijcvlcu vlrbglfcafv tlw jcv ilxfis abgf bqfc tlr kbecv, yfmjerf atf ojlca qeirlcu frmjijafv larfio ab j qfgrlrafca atgbyylcu.
The other members of the team landed in similar fashion; tumbling around in the snow had made them all look like snowmen. Wu Sheng was nearest to him and had crawled up, making his way over. “How’s your shoulder?”
Xu Wang didn’t move. A moment later, Wu Sheng bent over and pulled him up by the arm himself. Whether it was mere coincidence or deliberate, the arm he pulled was the uninjured one.
Xu Wang yanked it back as soon as he could, then brushed the snow off his body without looking up. “It’s fine,” he lied, ignoring the pounding of his heart. “As you recall, I used to fight one against three back in the day.”
“Yeah,” Wu Sheng replied, at last finding the opportunity to shoot an innocent smile right back at him, “by the time I called the teacher over, those three brats had already shoved you into the goalpost.”
Although years had passed, this incident still pissed Xu Wang off–“Couldn’t you just have come help me? Why did you go call the teacher?”
“No shit,” said Wu Sheng with a raised brow and an air of righteousness, “the three you decided to pick a fight with were burly, rough guys. I wasn’t as tall back then, what good would I have been able to do? Those types of situations call for wits!”
“Hey guys, it’s not that I want to cut off this lovely trip down memory lane, but…” Kuang Jinxin waved a hand before the two of them and guided their attention towards the distance. “It appears that the bear jumped off with us.”
Some ten metres away, the bear, who had obviously fallen with quite some force, was just beginning to come back to his senses and was snuffling around.
Xu Wang shot a wide-eyed look at Wu Sheng. “Wasn’t the sleigh supposed to carry the bear away? Why did it jump down with us?”
“It’s unreasonable for you to ask me that, go ask the bear,” Wu Sheng replied, an innocuous expression on his face.
For fuck’s sake!
Xu Wang had half a mind to look up at the sky and let out a long exhale. Why was it that whenever he decided to believe and depend on this guy, he managed to come up with one hundred and one ways to screw up?
“What are we waiting for?” The sight of the bear scrambling onto its feet made Sun Jiang want to punch someone. “Brothers, let’s figure out where the coordinates are fast!”
As soon as he spoke, he began shuffling right and left in an attempt to find the location of the exact coordinates. Xu Wang started off with the intention of going to help out, but as soon as he took a step, a piercing coldness suddenly shot up his body, and then he remembered: He’d lost a shoe.
He hadn’t felt a thing when he’d hopped off the sleigh and started tumbling in the snow, and then he’d been too busy bickering with Wu Sheng; he’d completely forgotten about his poor foot. It wasn’t until he tried to walk just now that he discovered it completely numb.
While he was standing there on one foot like a pheasant, Wu Sheng seemed to also have remembered the “bear almost snatched Xu Wang’s foot” episode on the sleigh. Without any hesitation whatsoever, he bent down to take off one of his shoes to give to Xu Wang. But he’d just started on his laces when a dinging sound rang out.
No. Four dinging sounds rang out.
A notification bell went off on all four of their wrists.
Xu Wang raised his arm and exited <Cheat Sheet> back to the main menu. This time, <Stationery Box> had a “1” next to it. When he clicked on it, the previously empty menu had a new item on it: [DEF] My Skate Shoes.
“What the heck is this?” He shot a confused look at his teammates. “Are we supposed to fight off the bear with skate shoes?”
Wu Sheng was looking down at his own menu, but raised his head at Xu Wang’s inquiry. He looked just as lost, like someone fumbling around in the dark. “Skate shoes?” he asked questioningly.
Perplexed, Xu Wang waved his arm. “In Stationery Box, didn’t we get it as a new item?”
Wu Sheng shook his head. “Our notification was for Cheat Sheet.”
Xu Wang stared at him blankly, completely nonplussed. “Aren’t… we on the same team?”
A few beats passed as Wu Sheng pondered this, but then his eyes cleared. “I think our tasks are all different. What task we get is probably random, or maybe they gave you your item because you’re missing a shoe.”
“So what hint did you guys get?”
“It says, ‘Stand still, don’t move.'”
“What the hell kind of hint is that? And also…” Xu Wang scrutinised Wu Sheng up and down, “it says to stand still, why are you squatting?”
Wu Sheng stared silently off in the distance, refusing to answer him.
At that moment, Kuang Jinxin’s pitiful voice cut in. “Xu Wang, I don’t think it’s a hint. It’s an order…”
Xu Wang looked over at him. The boy was standing with one foot forward, one foot behind. His front leg was bent while the back leg was straight. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like he had frozen mid-step. In fact, his posture was quite majestic, all except for his face, which was the picture of misery.
The <Cheat Sheet> had said to “stand still, don’t move.” Xu Wang connected the dots, and then his face paled. “Don’t tell me you’re all…”
Kuang Jinxin’s mouth was slack, he couldn’t look any more pitiful if he tried. “I just took one step forward, and then couldn’t move anymore.”
All of a sudden, it occured to Xu Wang why Wu Sheng’s hand was frozen on his shoe, and why he had to crane his neck awkwardly to read the <Cheat Sheet> notification on his wrist.
They were fortunate that the alert showed up on the same menu they’d been on previously. If it’d been in <Stationery Box> instead like Xu Wang’s, they wouldn’t even have been able to switch menus in their current frozen state.
Thoughts still racing in his mind, Xu Wang darted a look towards Sun Jiang, who was also paralyzed from the neck down. The only thing he had going for him was that unlike Kuang Jinxin and Wu Sheng, he hadn’t been in any awkward position when the paralysing happened. He was simply standing there, rigid and straight, like a telephone pole.
The man was practically steaming at his ears. When he saw Xu Wang looking at him, he shouted, “Why are you just standing there? Hurry up and use whatever they gave you, maybe it’s the whole objective here!”
In contrast, Wu Sheng was a lot calmer and had read the anxiety in Xu Wang’s expression. “Don’t worry about us,” he said determinedly. “Since standing still is what’s supposed to happen when everyone reaches the coordinates, then I doubt this will put us in any fatal danger, otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.”
His words put Xu Wang at ease. He took a deep breath, then clicked on <My Skate Shoes>.
The second the icon disappeared, he felt as if he gained ten centimetres. He looked down and discovered that his other shoe had also vanished, and in its place was a pair of skate shoes… complete with four wheels beneath each show.
Weren’t these just basically roller skates?!
“Watch out!!” The three paralysed men suddenly shouted out a warning all at once.
All Xu Wang saw was the onslaught of a dark shadow in the corner of his eye. He shifted to the left, sliding several metres out. The snow was packed so tightly like it’d been compacted by a pavement roller, which made skating around on it effortless.
After missing its target, the bear got up to lunge again, but then it suddenly noticed the three paralysed men near it and immediately switched gears. Xu Wang watched it, his breath nearly coming to a halt. He could evade the bear, but his teammates were currently rooted in the snow!
With their lives hanging in the balance, he reached down and picked up a hard slab of snow and threw it onto the bear’s back, but he was one step too late. When the snow landed on the bear, it had already begun charging towards the three men.
Bang!
That sounded painful.
Xu Wang watched, eyes wide, as the bear crashed into a wall of some sort and slid down when it was just a breadth away from the other men. But there was nothing surrounding them at all, nothing that could be seen.
The force of this crash sent the bear, who’d not yet recovered from jumping the sleigh, crashing into the snow covered in frost. It didn’t make a sound, and finally, just an inch away from the three men’s feet, it stopped moving.
Xu Wang’s head was spinning from the chain of events that had transpired; he came to the tragic realisation that in this world, he was just a useless, ignorant, and physically incapable member of the team. Currently, his teammates were standing placidly still in their positions, but there was nothing he could do — without a new notification, what other choice did he have?
In a flurry of frustration, he raised his head to the sky and begged the heavens to drop down an instruction manual or a guidebook or something.
Naturally, nothing happened. But before he looked back down, he noticed something in their surroundings that he’d previously neglected.
A mountain, with its entire side covered in icefalls.
It was right before him, looming behind his three teammates. Giant waterfalls cascaded down like the Milky Way, the winter solidifying them in their most majestic state: translucent and crystallised, frozen in the midst of flight. Listening closely, he could hear the faint trickling of water, tinkling like beads on a jade curtain.
Suddenly, as if it sensed Xu Wang’s probing gaze, the icefall emitted a ray of glittering light, blinding him temporarily so he couldn’t open his eyes. When the piercing light faded and he focused back on it, the characters “where dragons coil and tigers crouch” shone on the icefall in gold, as if a writing brush had been dipped in gold paint and the words written with a powerful, brandishing flourish.
Xu Wang stared, dazed, but before he could react, the characters suddenly began transforming themselves into new ones: “gold winds and jade jew.” Then he noticed that on the upper right corner of the icefall, there was a timer counting down. It went from ten, to nine, to eight…
He scratched his head, completely mind boggled. Wu Sheng, who had witnessed each one of his fleeting expressions, spoke up and asked, “What happened? Where did that light come from just now?”
“There’s an icefall covering the entirety of the mountainside behind you guys,” Xu Wang replied, coming back to his senses. “After the light flashed, words started appearing on the ice, first ‘where dragons coil and tigers crouch,’ and then ‘autumnal winds and jade dew’…”
Toot toot!
A warning sound pierced the air. The timer went from 2 seconds back to 10, and “autumnal winds and jade dew” vanished, replaced by “summer insects speaking of ice.”
“I got it!” Xu Wang suddenly shouted, understanding. “It wants us to guess the idioms! That is, I explain it, you guys guess it. I can’t say any of the characters in the idiom. Because I said it out loud just now, the timer stopped and restarted, and the words changed!”
Wu Sheng clearly understood him, but from the dumbfounded look on his face, it was apparent that the game they were meant to play was nowhere near what he’d initially assumed.
Beside him, Sun Jiang face straight up clouded over with an are you fucking kidding me expression.
“This is my expertise, last year our class played this at our annual get-together!” Kuang Jinxin spoke so jubilantly that it was like he’d forgotten there was still a black bear lying an inch away from his feet. He rared up, itching to start. “Xu Wang, what idiom is it now? Hurry and get started!”
“Alright, but each idiom only gets ten seconds, and if the time expires the words change, so we have to be fast!” Xu Wang exclaimed in one breath, then immediately began searching for words to describe the idiom before him. “Um… it’s like… someone who doesn’t know what they’re saying…”
The timer ended.
On the ice, the new idiom flashed: “a face like peach blossoms.”
Kuang Jinxin was counting down the seconds to himself, but when Xu Wang’s voice trailed off, he understood that time was up and the idiom had changed again. “Xu Wang, you don’t have to explain in detail, just use actions, or context, anything that can lead us as fast as possible!” he urged.
“Calm down, don’t stress.” Wu Sheng had also accepted this new reality of theirs and was in full battle mode. “We’ll all guess together, ten seconds is more than enough.”
His voice was steady and carried a composed strength, completely different from the way he sounded when he was ridiculing or roasting someone.
The idiom changed: “cutthroat friends.”
Xu Wang immediately started motioning across his neck, as if he was cutting his own throat with a sword. As he continued motioning, he repeated, “When a relationship between two people is really, really good!”
He made the motion of cutting his throat, then slapped a fist onto his chest. Suddenly, Kuang Jinxin’s eyes flashed. “The Love of Boat Trackers!”
“An idiom! Idiom, my son!” Xu Wang felt like he was going to have a breakdown. Were all ’95 onward kids these days into such vintage music?!
The timer ended and a new idiom appeared: “love for all seasons.”
Xu Wang decided to go all out and sent a flying kiss towards Wu Sheng. “I want to get married with you and — what comes next?”
This was what Kuang Jinxin had meant by context, giving half a sentence and having them finish the latter half with the idiom.
Wu Sheng caught his kiss, and seemingly understanding his intentions, replied, “…dream under the clouds and rain of Wushan.”
Xu Wang: “…”
“Come together like fish and water?”
Xu Wang: “…”
“Blend together like milk and water?”
Xu Wang: “…”
“Spark a fire in a bundle of dry wood?”
“Can you get your mind out of the gutter?!?!” As Xu Wang shouted at him in hopelessness, the idiom changed again.
None of them noticed when the black bear on the ground twitched.
Ahahaha, poor Xu Wang. Thanks for the chapter!~
thanks for the chapter! ♡ so the bear is the punishment when they miss an idiom?
hahaha they are so silly. At least the bear cant reach them!
thanks for the chapter <3
Thanks for your hard work!
😂 Wu Shang…
Hahahahahh Damn they were all silly! Xu Wang especially suffer this time😂
Thanks for the chapter<3
Haha XW is trying his best to not facepalm~
Thanks for the chapter~
Gosh I love this so much
Is the bear secretly laughing at them? None of the answers were correct. The bear must be mocking them.🤔
Oh gosh, I would so lose if it were me who has to describe that hahahaha. Good luck Xu Wang & co. xD
Thx for the ch ٩(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )و
Haha poor Xu Wang. And he’s going to have it even harder 🕯
Thank you for the chapter 💕
Lol even the best was triggered by the sexy times guessing
Well at least Xu Wang knows that Wu Sheng has it bad ahahahahha