Note: Last chapter of the arc!!! X3
Edited by RinRin~
The sudden cursing at the end gave Shan Ziwei a fright. There was a moment of silence in the stall, then came the sound of a key turning in the lock, accompanied by a murmur akin to a drowning man resigned to his fate.
“I wish to go to wherever Princess Rose is sleeping a century in the future.”
Shan Ziwei’s eyes widened. He heard the man next door say to him in a tone of near torment, “I don’t have any time left – you must use your time wisely!”
Silence abruptly ensued.
Shan Ziwei was shell-shocked. As he’d already experienced Mobius Cabin, he naturally understood what had happened. Is this the advice that the future “him” brought? The future “him”……
Shan Ziwei didn’t dare follow that thought to completion. To be honest, he’d already somewhat realized that his solution was too simple and he’d most likely overlooked a giant logical error. However, Shan Ziwei could not admit it and didn’t dare to admit it, because once he did, it would mean that his last hope of salvaging the situation and returning to the correct path would be lost.
As if to prove something, Shan Ziwei gritted his teeth and pushed open the door, desperately sprinting towards the party venue.
Hurry, yes, he must hurry, or he will step into the tragedy that the future “him” was entangled in.
The female guest in the washroom was still standing in front of the mirror, slowly fixing her make-up. Seeing a white haired individual in blue clothes racing out of the compartment, her originally steady hands shook and the brush drew a wide arc to her chin.
Reaching the party venue again, Shan Ziwei once again ran into the entire royal family gathered near the entrance. When they saw Shan Ziwei, the three immediately walked over enthusiastically. “My Lady Witch, how do you like the celebration?”
Shan Ziwei quickly examined the king and queen, but couldn’t tell which one was the player at all. Although he had no intentions against the player, he was forced to be careful due to the “identity disclosure” path of story mode. Shan Ziwei couldn’t guarantee that once the other party found out that he was one too, they wouldn’t expose him. After all, not only was this another way to clear the board, they could get an additional chess piece by eliminating another player.
So a certain hypersexual obediently played the role of a ‘witch attending the celebration of the princess’s birth’ in the story of 《Princess Rose》.
“Not bad.” The white-haired witch nodded modestly, and he drew a symbol above the little princess’s forehead, “This is my next gift to her, wisdom.”
The king and queen were so happy they couldn’t close their mouths. Shan Ziwei was in a rush, so he gave a cold and perfunctory farewell before leaving them. Mulling over what the future “him” had said, he realized that he couldn’t go to where “the first him” spawns because there was already a “second him” standing guard there.To prevent accidentally bumping into each other, Shan Ziwei decided to start from a different angle. He glanced around and his eyes brightened when he saw the table.
In the beginning, he’d climbed under the table in order to clear the sleeping skill. He remembered which table it was, so wouldn’t everything be solved if he left a message under the table in advance?
Putting thoughts to action, Shan Ziwei asked a nearby attendant for some charcoal, and then quickly found ‘that’ table in the celebration hall. While no one was paying attention, he closed his eyes and crawled under the table while invisible.
Shan Ziwei squatted underneath the table. He looked up at the bottom of the dark wooden table above him. Forget writing something there, normal people wouldn’t look under the table in the first place. Under his feet was a smooth marble floor, thus he had no choice but to use the tablecloth.
Shan Ziwei used the charcoal pen in his hand, to carefully scratch at the tablecloth, afraid that excess force would cause the marks to be visible from the outside. After leaving the message, in order to assure himself, Shan Ziwei also climbed out to confirm that the marks weren’t visible from the outside. Just as he was looking at his masterpiece with satisfaction, Shan Ziwei felt that someone pat him on the shoulder.
A certain panicking hypersexual turned around quickly and found the queen smiling at him with Princess Rose in her arms.
“Lady Witch, what are you doing here?”
Shan Ziwei very cleverly swiped a glass of red wine from the table and motioned to the queen.
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.
“Tbe ilxf klcf? Ktfc sbe wera ags beg Kgbmxfcyffgfcjerifrf Pmf Qlcf. ” Ktf deffc kjgwis fcafgajlcfv Vtjc Ilkfl. Vtf tfiv Ebrf lc tfg jgwr klat j ojmf oeii bo jvbgjalbc. “Ktjcx sbe obg yifrrlcu Ebrf. Qlat yfjeas jcv klrvbw, rtf klii regfis yfmbwf atf wbra kbcvfgoei qglcmfrr lc atf kbgiv.”
“Ufgrbcjiis, P vbc’a atlcx klrvbw jcv yfjeas jgf fcbeut.” Vtjc Ilkfl mbcrlvfgfv tlr gbif bo ‘atf klamt’, jcv vfmlvfv ab qfgofma atlr rmfcf. “P klii jirb ulnf tfg ‘xlcvcfrr’, rb atja rtf klii yf ecregqjrrfv.”
The queen was so surprised that she wanted to hold Shan Ziwei’s hand to express her happiness and gratitude. Instead, her actions frightened a certain hypersexual. Shan Ziwei reactively stepped back, completely forgetting that he had a glass full of wine in his hand and that there was a table full of food and wine behind him.
The bright red liquid ran down the blue dress and spread over the entire tablecloth in an instant. The queen gasped and quickly called a maid to help Shan Ziwei to change his clothes.
“I deeply apologize, Lady Witch, I overstepped.”
Shan Ziwei’s face paled. He didn’t care about the wine on his clothes at all. Instead, he stared at the tablecloth that was dyed red with wine.
“This… Would you like us to change the tablecloth as well?”
The queen thought that the witch was unsatisfied, and immediately called for an attendant, “Of course she would, change them at once.”
Shan Ziwei opened his mouth but could not come up with a reason to stop them. He himself was also semi-forced to change his clothes by the queen’s maid. By the time he returned, the party had already ended.
Shan Ziwei stood in the empty meeting hall. It felt like his heart was being squeezed by an invisible hand. He felt a strong and unyielding force, as if no matter what he did, everything was meaningless and history was bound to be repeated no matter what he tried.
——Was there really no way?
This idea only lingered for a moment before it was squashed by Shan Ziwei. He took out the Bluebeard’s Key and stubbornly tried again.
When Shan Ziwei opened the door, he saw that female guest standing in the women’s bathroom again. He finally remembered why she felt so familiar to him. At the very beginning, he’d ran in here due to his hypersexuality acting up, and this female guest had pointed at him and yelled “Ghost!”.
Shan Ziwei asked, with a strange urge, “Did you see me?”
The female guest immediately paled. She stared at Shan Ziwei and shouted with a palpitating heart, “I-I didn’t see anything!”
Under the Shan Ziwei gaze, she quickly changed her words like a frightened lamb, as though afraid to offend him. “No-no-no… I-I just…… No, I’ve seen…… a lot…… many, many…… of…… you.”
Of course, many, many “me”s, no wonder she thought I was a “ghost”.
The corners of his mouth tugged up, and the feeling of powerlessness of repeating his predecessor’s steps again and again reappeared. However, it only strengthened his resolve to break out of this loop. He suddenly had another idea, and immediately rushed out to find the king and queen.
The queen looked at the approaching Shan Ziwei in surprise, and then said happily, “Lady Witch, you’ve already cleaned up. I’m deeply apologetic about just now.”
“Lady witch is the most powerful magician in our kingdom.” The king took the queen’s shoulder and said, “Please don’t hold a grudge over this small matter.”
“Of course, I’m the greatest magician ever, and that’s why I don’t believe the previous gifts were enough.” Shan Ziwei used the king’s words to support his actions. He raised his hand and drew another extremely complex magic array for Rose. “I shall give the princess eternal wealth, virtue and status. I have given her every good characteristic that has ever existed in this world, however——”
Not waiting for the king and queen to react with happiness, Shan Ziwei’s words immediately took a turn, “I will also prophesize a curse that the princess cannot escape.”
This was what Shan Ziwei wanted to do. He planned to complete the plot《Princess Rose》in one breath. As long as he set everything up now, the initial “him” didn’t even need to bother in the first place.
The king’s expression was not good, but he held on and asked, “What curse?”
“Your young daughter will be fatally injured by a spindle just as she reaches adulthood. However——”
“Your Majesty the Queen!”
Shan Ziwei’s words were interrupted by a maid’s scream. He turned to look and found that the queen’s eyes had rolled up already. The king was struggling to keep the queen upright while also keeping the baby in her arms safe. He had little attention to spare for Shan Ziwei.
The maid’s cry immediately set off a string of chaos. Everyone at the celebration crowded to get a glimpse of the queen. The guards were guarding the king, while those who like to be busybodies were being busybodies. Shan Ziwei unwittingly got squeezed out in the excitement. In the dense crowd, a certain hypersexual was like a frog in the frying pan. His mind immediately blank, solely forced on getting away.
Fortunately, the frog jumped out of the crowd before it was cooked for good. His Hearts SP was pitifully clinging on with 1% left, and it was terrifyingly close to being emptied out for good.
Shan Ziwei leaned against a pillar as he gasped for breath. His body was boiling hot, but his heart was stone cold. He watched as the mass of people continued to move toward the center of the incident. A while later, it seemed that someone had said something and the crowd began to disperse. A maid pushed out of the crowd and looked around. Catching sight of him, she walked quickly towards him, saluted and said, “Lady Witch, Her Majesty the Queen has recovered. Your presence is requested.”
Shan Ziwei closed his eyes for a moment. Just as soon as he was about to step forward, he heard a cry from afar. “My child!”
His foot was still in the air, but it abruptly swerved to face a different direction. The maid was a little flustered and tried to stop Shan Ziwei from leaving, but then she heard Shan Ziwei speak. “You have the wrong person.” He pointed towards the center of the venue, “The witch is there.”
The maid subconsciously turned back, but didn’t see anything. When she looked back at Shan Ziwei again, his figure had already disappeared.
Shan Ziwei leaned tiredly against the partition of the women’s bathroom. Whether he admitted it or not, the facts were already clearly laid out before him.
——There was no way to change the past.
Because the law of cause and effect could not be violated.
Shan Ziwei was reminded of a story a friend once told him. It was about a time-traveller who tried to stop his parents from meeting each other, but he accidentally stepped on a banana peel, cracked his skull and was hospitalized. In the end, he missed the opportunity to stop them from meeting. The funniest thing was that the person who threw out this banana peel was his father’s love rival. In order to avoid paying for the medical expenses, the rival left the city. Without the rival’s hindrance, his parents came together happily without obstruction. As a result, the time-traveler who was supposed to prevent their parents from getting married, instead became the key to their love.
Every time a time traveller’s actions would create changes in the timeline in a way that would invoke a paradox, some kind of accident would always seem to incidentally occur. I’m pretty sure it was called……
“The Great Banana Peel Mechanism…...”
And he was exactly that poor time-traveller who stepped on the banana peel. To prevent a paradox in cause and effect, every ray of sunshine, every gust of wind and every accident possible was set to prevent him from changing the past, pushing him to unwittingly “complete” the past even more holistically. In fact, the house of Mobius has already demonstrated the laws of causality that is followed here. However, he was so preoccupied with creating parallel worlds that he got smacked hard by reality at Rose’s birthday celebration.
Shan Ziwei fumed angrily. “Goddamned banana peel mechanism…”
When he realized what he’d just said, Shan Ziwei froze. He suddenly realized something and turned to knock on the partition behind him.
“Are you – ah no, am ‘I’ on the other side?”
A vague “um” came from the other side. Shan Ziwei’s mood was very complicated. He had the impulse to not say anything and rebel against the system, but after thinking about it, he found that if he didn’t say it, the one who’ll regret it in the end was still ‘himself’.
“Listen to me, when you act, be careful of the king and queen. One of them is a player, I don’t know which——he didn’t tell me——anyways…..holy fuck!!”
The sudden cursing wasn’t unreasonable, for his field of vision immediately flashed red, exactly like the moments preceding a spiritual breakdown. The only difference was that a sentence appeared in the middle of his vision.
[WARNING: 1 minute left in game time. ]
As soon as Shan Ziwei read the words, his vision slowly returned to normal. However, his shocked heart could not return to its calm state.
1 minute 1 minute 1 minute! In other words, he’d already been in this game for 11 hours and 59 minutes! Another minute and he would be forcefully logged out + banned for a week!
At this point, most players would choose to quit the game on their own, but Shan Ziwei was not willing. He’d even endured Donkeyskin peeling his skin and Snow White draining his blood for this game. Now there was just one plotline left, how could he give up!
Shan Ziwei took out Bluebeard’s key and plugged it into the keyhole. His mind no longer held any other thoughts, he only wanted to see Rose as soon as possible.
“I wish to go to wherever Princess Rose is sleeping a century in the future.”
Shan Ziwei didn’t waste a single second as he charged into the mercury screen, but he didn’t forget to leave behind some words for the “younger generation”.
“I don’t have any time left – you must use your time wisely!”
Shan Ziwei was stunned the moment he stepped through the screen. He’d thought that he would return to the attic where Princess Rose was sleeping. He didn’t expect to be at the entrance of the bell tower. Shan Ziwei suddenly remembered the wooden door that he had ripped out earlier, and severely regretted everything: it turns out that if there was no door nearby, you could only appear at the next nearest door!!
There was no more time for him to complain, and Shan Ziwei began to climb up the stairs like he was in a 100 meter sprint. Every cell in his body was investing oxygen in this extreme race against time. Even his brain was lower on the priority list. Therefore, when Shan Ziwei finally reached the top of the tower, gasping for breath, his oxygen-deprived brain hadn’t even come up with how to pass the stage yet.
However, when Shan Ziwei saw Princess Rose laying there alone, he realized that he had another path he could take.
——To be honest, even though there was no prince around, there was no need for one anyway, right?
The white-haired witch walked quickly to the sleeping princess’s side. He knelt on one knee, picked up the beautiful face of the princess, and gave him a forceful kiss.
一Everything fell silent.
His long lashes were fluttered like the wings of a butterfly. The princess’s dark eyes reflected a touch of white. He revealed a lazy and satisfied smile as he hooked his arms around the witch’s neck.
“I knew you would come back to me in the end.”
A gentle tug, and the witch’s body, lacking it’s operator, fell into his arms.
“You see, you only need to be good and lay in my arms just like this.”
The princess tightened his arms around the shell in his embrace. He was so satisfied that he could not help himself.
“How could I bear to let you die.”
Rinrin: RIP Shanzi, 3/3 ‘endings’. Also, I’m pretty curious about how the events seemed to the other player….the queen(s?)
Iz: Oml this chap took me for a ride. I love it. Also yeah, who was the player in the end?
Thanks for the chapter!
👌👌👌
no matter what you do the past and future won’t change
now that the game is ending Shanzi can go asap to a therapist xd
thank you for the chapter!
Oh my God LOL 😂
Thanks for the chapter! 💕
Wait.. How did he know that one was a player
Jeez, this was certainly a ride… it was so complicated to me. (:P)
Thank you so much for the chapter! <3
Wait how did he know that one was a player?
I am not going to lie, this arc was so painful to get thru, I didn’t even know what was happening anymore.
SZ is severely overworked lol He’s the Evil Queen Mother, Old Witch, Lady Witch, Prince ×3, and God Mother all in one instance 😂
Also who is the first SZ and where does he get or know all this info being told to our MC current SZ 😅
I’ve never been so relieved to see the end of an arc lol damn, I need a rest after that!
Birb Shanzi just rolling his eyes in the corner probably wishing to get outta here.
What he needs the most right now is a therapist.