Not wanting to get involved with him in this risky battle, Xu Wang pulled out his “landlord” posture and shoved the man smoothly back into the living room.
Silence descended in the air all of a sudden as the two of them sat, one on the couch and one in a chair, staring at each other with just the coffee table between them. Xu Wang kept his face serene, but inside, his heart was knocking down walls with its pounding. He just knew that it was fatal for the two of them to be left alone with each other.
“How’s…” The first person to speak was Wu Sheng, which Xu Wang did not expect. And he thought he’d been the only one racking his brains, searching for something to say.
“How’s your body?”
“…..” What kind of weird question was that!
“Good enough to beat up two of you.”
“I was asking about your shoulder.”
“…..”
Kuang Jinxin and Sun Jiang’s arrival was what finally put an end to this extraordinarily awkward scene. The two men must have napped during the day, because they looked perky enough.
The owl’s call sounded just as the clock struck midnight.
Hoot hoot—-
Nothing happened; the living room was still. The three men looked at Xu Wang, who sighed and got up, leading his teammates to his bedroom.
There lay the bed full of quicksand.
Wu Sheng nodded. “What a… fine door this is.”
In contrast to the first two times this happened, this time, all four men jumped voluntarily inside with the vigorous energy of people preparing for battle. Xu Wang was the last to go in; right before jumping, he grabbed a pocket knife from the nearby table.
Then there was the familiar feeling of weightlessness, of falling downwards, and in the blink of an eye, all four of them landed in the snow. Almost that very instant, the object on their wrists started dinging all at once, so that a single ding– became a cacophony of noise.
This time they were prepared. Before entering Owl, they’d already rolled up their sleeves, and as soon as the notifications sounded, they immediately began scouring the contents on their wrists.
Xu Wang received four notifications. Two came from <Stationery Box>. The originally empty menu had two new items: <[DEF] Hand-drawn Dungeon> and <[ATK] Cao Chong Weighs an Elephant>. There was also a new location in <Cheat Sheet>: (109.7395,38.3437); and finally in <Score>, there were words scrolling across the screen similar to what they’d seen previously with other teams. <Kuang Jinxin, Sun Jiang, Wu Sheng, Xu Wang, 1/23 tasks submitted.>
They must have received these notifications the instant they submitted the task last time, but because they went back to reality, they were only seeing them now.
“‘Owl’ knows our names.” This quiet observation came from Wu Sheng, who had also seen the update in <Score>. The thought was sobering.
“It’s capable of dragging us in here, playing us like monkeys and forcing us to complete tasks. Whatever other supernatural ability it has isn’t going to surprise me.” Xu Wang meant his words to mock himself, but in actuality, they set Wu Sheng at ease and made himself relax too. “I’m currently more concerned about this,” he said, showing his <Stationery Box> to his teammates. He pointed at the two new items. “This ‘Hand-drawn Dungeon‘ I’m assuming is used to imprison a wild animal. But what is ‘Cao Chong Weighs an Elephant‘ supposed to be?”
Surprise flashed across Wu Sheng’s eyes. Rather than responding, he simply revealed his own wrist.
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.
Xu Wang discovered that in his <Stationery Box>, the new items were <[DEF] Molting Cicada> and <[ATK] Cloud Scattering Whirlwinds>. He checked the other two; everyone’s <Cheat Sheet> and <Score> menus contained the same updates. The only differences lay in the items that appeared in their <Stationery Box>. Kuang Jinxin received <[DEF] Cunning Rabbit with Three Burrows> and <[ATK] Flood of Tears>; Sun Jiang received <[DEF] Mystifying Fog> and <[ATK] Spontaneous Thunder>. ¹
Dfobgf, jii atflg lafwr tjv yffc atf rjwf klat atf fzmfqalbc bo “Vxjaf Vtbfr,” ktlmt ifv atfw jii ab jrrewf atja atlr alwf kbeiv yf atf rjwf. Dea ktja mbcobecvfv atfw atf wbra kjr atf mtjgjmafglralmr bo fjmt bo atfrf lafwr.
The items with [DEF] in front of them were easy to understand; the other [DEF] items from before, “Jingle Bells” and “Fish Tornado,” made it evident that these items were meant to be used to escape from dangerous situations and to defend oneself. But this time, there was the addition of items labeled [ATK], and they all sounded absolutely bizarre.
“Jibev Vmjaafglcu Qtlgiklcvr,” Qe Vtfcu gfwjgxfv joafg j wbwfca bo rlifcmf, “P ufa la. C qbkfgoei klcv jr j kfjqbc.”
Xu Wang had no idea where Wu Sheng got his confidence, but admittedly, the name of Wu Sheng’s weapon was a lot more straightforward than his “Cao Chong Weighs an Elephant.”
Following that logic, Sun Jiang’s was even more obvious. “Spontaneous Thunder” probably involved striking opponents down with thunder.
“Xu-ge,” came Kuang Jinxin’s faltering voice, interrupting Xu Wang’s swirling thoughts, “if you don’t like the elephant, let’s trade.”
No one knew whether their items could be exchanged, but even so, Xu Wang stared at Kuang Jinxin’s “Flood of Tears” for a good, long while before shaking his head. “You were meant to have it, so you should keep it,” he concluded firmly.
Kuang Jinxin took another look at his weapon that didn’t even sound like a weapon and felt as if he himself was about to burst into tears.
“If these are items we have to use for our second task, why did we all end up with different ones?” Sun Jiang asked, not understanding — or rather, not accepting this new reality. “If, like ‘Skate Shoes,’ these items are meant to aid us during very specific moments, then if we fail the task today, doesn’t that mean when we come back again we won’t have any of these items anymore?”
“Maybe it’s not that complicated. These could just be a reward for successfully completing the previous task.” Xu Wang got up and brushed the snow off himself. His nerves were on edge, but his body was succumbing to the fatigue that beset him and he yawned several times in a row. “Who knows, let’s just take it one step at a time.”
Sun Jiang had already gotten up and was inspecting their whereabouts, hackles raised and ready for battle. When he saw that Wu Sheng was still sitting down, he was about to lose his mind. “Say, are you planning on taking a nap here first?”
“That’s not necessary,” Wu Sheng replied steadily, finally standing up. “But I think that no matter how much we stress over this tonight, it’s pointless, unless one of you can conjure an aeroplane for us.”
“What do you mean?” Sun Jiang furrowed his brows.
Xu Wang and Kuang Jinxin also stared at Wu Sheng questioningly.
Wu Sheng stuck his wrist out and clicked through the menus until the new location coordinates displayed on the screen. “This, isn’t in Beijing.”
Sun Jiang, who’d been ready to fight him, let out a snort of laughter at his words. He cackled in the sort of way one did when they absolutely did not believe a word they were hearing. “Then do tell, where is that?”
Dismissing Sun Jiang’s laughter, Wu Sheng clicked out of his screen, back to the image of the Owl. After he withdrew his arm, he spat out, with absolute certainty, two words: “Northern Shaanxi.”
Practise is the sole criterion for testing truth.The team set off in a line and traipsed through the snow for nearly two hours, going around in circles and searching all the places they’d been before, places they’d never been before, but no event was triggered, no task began, and there was not a single sighting of any kind of wild creature. In the end, both Sun Jiang, who’d been filled with doubts, and Kuang Jinxin, who’d been at least half doubtful, had to acknowledge that Wu Sheng was right.
This result didn’t remotely surprise Xu Wang, who’d expected things to turn out like this.
They settled down in a cave near the icefall. The stone floor was cold, but a lot better than sitting in snow. Xu Wang dug his phone out — it was only 2 AM.
“Are we really just going to sit here and wait until 5 AM?” Both times, Xu Wang had been bounced back into reality in advance. The first time had been because of his injury, the second time because they’d submitted their task. This was the first time he was experiencing sitting around doing nothing until it was “time to go home.”
“You’re welcome to dance or sing to pass the time.” Wu Sheng suggested mindlessly, scratching at the floor with a stone that he got from who-knows-where. “There’s only the four of us here, no matter how terrible your singing is, you’re not going to manifest any demons or ghosts.”
Xu Wang ground his teeth together, wanting to shoot something back, but Kuang Jinxin leaned over Wu Sheng’s side, observing the image that was appearing on the ground with great concentration. He asked, “Wu-ge, what are you drawing?”
Wu Sheng didn’t even raise his head, completely focused on his task. “A longitude and latitude map.”
The longer Kuang Jinxin stared at the horizontal and vertical lines criss-crossing over an ambiguously-drawn outline, the more familiar the shape seemed. It was the rooster shape that made up their country! His eyes widened in disbelief. “Brother Wu, did you seriously draw a map of the entire country with all the longitude and latitude lines matched up?!”
“Not exactly, there’s still a few provinces missing.” Wu Sheng’s hands hadn’t stopped.
“But that’s still amazing!” Kuang Jinxin’s eyes were gleaming. “When you told us those coordinates are in northern Shaanxi, I could hardly believe it because I was like, ‘How can anyone pinpoint a location just from a string of numbers?'”
At least, Wu Sheng set the stone down and raised his head. “It’s not as complicated as you think,” he said with a modest smile. “It’s just two maps, one with geographical locations, the other with longitude and latitude lines. You just overlap them in your mind and separate them into regions–”
“Wu Sheng~~” Xu Wang interrupted him, rolling his eyes, dragging out the last syllable in a warning, reminding him to drop the pretentiousness.
Wu Sheng shot him a look that said, Okay, I got it. Then he turned back to Kuang Jinxin and said soberly, “Memory is just a natural gift.”
Kuang Jinxin: “…..”
Xu Wang: “…..”
It was unnecessary to be so pompous!!
Poor little Kuang, Wu Sheng’s one-shot made him shrink into a sad, piteous corner. Xu Wang moved to go comfort him; as he stood up, he unconsciously brushed a hand past his jacket pocket, then he froze. He put it hand back over his pocket and patted it a few times, but still, there was nothing. At last, he stuck his hand inside and felt inside. It was empty.
The pocket knife was gone.
He clearly remembered placing the knife securely in this specific pocket before jumping in…..
“What’s wrong?” Wu Sheng raised his head to see Xu Wang patting around his pockets with a bewildered look on his face.
There was nothing to hide, so Xu Wang just explained matter-of-factly, “I brought a pocket knife with me for self-defence, but now it’s gone.”
Sun Jiang and Kuang Jinxin both tensed up simultaneously. In a place like this where anything could happen, losing a knife could be nothing, or it could be a disaster.
Wu Sheng frowned, but remained calm. “Did you have it with you when you first entered and just discovered it was missing, or was it gone the instant you entered?”
“Is there a difference?” Sun Jiang hadn’t yet connected the dots. “Either way, it’s missing.”
But Xu Wang understood. Because even though he’d only interacted with Wu Sheng after ten years for one day and three nights, he was fully aware of Wu Sheng’s “programmer brain.” That is to say, to Wu Sheng, 1 was 1, 0 was 0. Logic and conditions had to fit together neatly. There was no in-between, no 0.5.
“I didn’t touch my pocket after we came in, so I don’t know whether it just disappeared or it was already gone when we got here.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do about it,” Wu Sheng replied regretfully. The lack of a clear answer clearly bothered him. “There aren’t enough variables, so we can’t conclude if this place automatically takes away anything that can be ‘weaponised,’ or whether you were careless and dropped the knife somewhere.”
It’s not that the business of the knife bothered Xu Wang all that much — after all, it was just a tiny pocket knife. The coordinates in <Cheat Sheet> were far more concerning: “If those coordinates really are in northern Shaanxi–”
“There’s no ifs,” Wu Sheng cut in without hesitation. “It is,” he added more forcefully.
If it weren’t out of line, Xu Wang really wanted to kick him. “Fine — It is northern Shaanxi. So how are we supposed to get there?”
“Since we can’t get there from here, then we have to get there in real life,” Wu Sheng answered straight away.
“How am I supposed to explain this to my boss?” Xu Wang forced a smile on his face and acted out how this conversation would go, squeezing the words out of his mouth one by one. “Manager, would you mind giving me a few days off? Why? Oh, just you know, wanna go take a quick trip to those ole Communist grounds.”
“Okay, that’s such a valid reason.”
“Get over here.”
“No thanks.”
“I promise I won’t hit you.”
“But you’ll kiss me.”
“…..”
One slip of foot brings an eternity of regret!
Ding—-
The unexpected notification echoes around the cave, deafening.
Xu Wang looked down immediately. The update was for <Roster>. Originally, the screen had looked like this:
1/23 Xu Wang [Withdraw]
1/23 Kuang Jinxin [Kick]
1/23 Sun Jiang [Kick]
1/23 Wu Sheng [Kick]
But now there were only three names left in the roster, and on top of the list, words scrolled across the screen: <Sun Jiang has withdrawn.>
Kuang Jinxin and Wu Sheng, who also had their heads lowered, peering at their wrists, also became enlightened with this news.
Before anyone could speak, Sun Jiang laughed, albeit apologetically. “I won’t leave Beijing. Even if my company allowed it, my family wouldn’t understand. Never mind the fact that if we try spilling secrets about this place our heads split open; even if we could tell anyone, no one would believe it. I can’t have my wife and kid fearing for my life every single day.” His voice lightened. “If I refuse to go, even if you guys get there, I doubt you can trigger the next sequence of events. So rather than wait to be kicked, I prefer to voluntarily withdraw…”
He spoke casually as if he didn’t care, but his tone was sincere. “Since it allows us to withdraw, that means people are allowed to join. Trust me, I have a feeling that the next person you meet will be a lot more reliable than this old man.”
Thank you for the new chapter, and thank you for the detailed TNs!~
thanks for the chapter <3
Thanks for the chapter<3
thanks for the chapter! ♡
This story is really interesting! I like the banter and the characters so far
Thanks for your hard work!
If they are allowed to withdraw, why haven’t any of them done it before? Or is this option only available now that they completed a mission?
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter 🥰
if the old man withdrew will he be obliged to enter another team or the Owl Game will be nice to him and make his memories dissapear?
thank you for the chapter!