translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
Dozens of meters away, in <The Nightingale and The Rose> group.
Raphael, who was setting up defenses by the window, was more unfortunate than Thin Fire. Raphael had originally planned to just turn around and go, leaving the jumping and bouncing Wu Jin who was by the window on his own.
Unexpectedly, two people showed up from the narrow bedroom door behind him, pushing him back towards the window.
Raphael: “……”
Raphael and Wu Jin’s two former teammates were overjoyed, “Leica, oh, wait, Brother Wang Ping!”
Wu Jin asked casually, “How many people from your group have been eliminated?”
“Two people!” The roommates didn’t mind answering him.
Wu Jin smiled and waved his hand. Based on their former friendship built as a team, it was an easy matter to trade the script with them and read through what they had. Raphael, who’d originally retreated to the door, came back and acted as though nothing had happened after he saw the scripts.
Wu Jin criticized him, “If it wasn’t that we’d fought together in the 100 to 60 round, we wouldn’t be trading scripts with you! Why are you so awkward! You don’t even want leads that send themselves straight up to your door!”
“If you don’t want them, I won’t give it to you!”
Raphael: “… I want them.”
Wu Jin took advantage and continued to chatter on, “Fine then, taking my script means you owe a debt to Leica…”
Wu Jin’s gaze swept through a dialogue in the script, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
On the other side, Raphael flipped through it quickly, and then threw it back at Wu Jin’s camouflaged small round face. Then, he slammed the window behind him.
Outside the window, Wu Jin and Wei Shi met up again quickly.
Wu Jin whispered, “<The Nightingale and The Rose>.”
Just now when he read through the script, the lines of writing that entered his eyes were quickly assembled into a complete story in his mind. Many details were filtered through the comparison between the three scripts.
“The main story is the same as the original version. The student went to look for the girl with the red rose, but the girl had already accepted the invitation from the noble.”
Noble, prince, king, 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.
The young girl in <The Nightingale and The Rose> rejected the red rose made of blood and met the young King at the nobles’ ball. In <Snow White>, the King married the most beautiful girl at the ball, and the script implicitly mentioned that ‘people were willing to pay whatever it took to dance with her’.
Wu Jin confirmed it, “The Queen in <Snow White> is the same girl after she reached adulthood.”
“What about <Red Dancing Shoes>.” Wei Shi spoke.
Qe Alc fztjifv jcv mtjcufv atf abqlm, “Ktlr lr atf nbmjir ugbeq. Ktf ulgi lr pera j reqqbgalcu gbif. Ktf m-qbrlalbc lr ulnfc ab atf Rlutalcujif, jcv atf Rlutalcujif rlcur j tswc.”
At the end of <Red Dancing Shoes>, it was a hymn that set Karen free. In Andersen’s first version of the story, Karen confessed day and night in the church and sang hymns to death row prisoners. Finally, an angel brought a red rose and guided her to heaven.
“Pc atf clutalcujif’r tswc ab atf raevfca, atfgf lr bcf rfcafcmf lc atf isglmr––Njclas tjr wjvf wf rjv, ws offa jgf fwqas, jcv P mjc’a ijcv, yea ws nblmf jcv klcur jgf vfnbea. Ccufir tjnf ulnfc wf gbrfr, jcv P kbeiv ilxf ab ulnf sbe atlr gbrf abvjs. Df tjqqs, yf tjqqs. Ktf gfkjgv P jrx obg ogbw sbe lr bcis ab tjnf sbeg ibnf jcv ab yf j ojlatoei ibnfg…”
The nightingale was Karen.
Wu Jin looked up at the thorned roses all over the lawn and in front of the trainees’ windows.
The tragedy in <The Nightingale and The Rose> focused on the contradiction between the ‘nightingale’ and the ‘man’.
The nightingale was noble, and the student and girl were hypocritical, vain, and despicable. In the wild growth of thorns, for every rose that was produced, a nightingale had died.
“Two people were eliminated in <The Nightingale and The Rose> over the past day and night.” Wu Jin said, “The ghost appeared in the window with wings and rose blossoms, and her upper body went in through the window, pulling out the unprepared trainees, smashing them into the flowers.”
“The ‘hunter’ in this group might not necessarily be a female ghost. She is the nightingale who punishes students for breaking their promises.”
“Additionally.” Wu Jin spoke slowly, “She’s also Karen.”
“The Nightingale is ‘Karen’ after the story from <Red Dancing Shoes>.” Wu Jin’s speech gradually picked up speed, “Karen ascended by singing hymns, and arrived in heaven presenting roses. Although she’d lost her feet, she was given wings and a singing voice and became a nightingale. The scripts for <Red Dancing Shoes> and <The Nightingale and The Rose> overlap completely with the clues from the hymn, the roses, and the feet.”
“Andersen wrote about vanity and redemption. Wilde is the same, but it was a failed salvation. After the nightingale died, the student didn’t fulfil his promise to love the girl faithfully. The red rose became a curse for vanity.”
“The vain girl married the king as she wished, then persecuted her daughter, Snow White. Finally, the curse was lifted, and the Queen danced to death in red iron shoes.”
“After the Queen died, the curse didn’t end. The soldier took the curse out of the palace, and the vain little girl in the red dancing shoes at her mother’s funeral became the next person to carry the curse, having to cut off her feet in order to get rid of the dancing shoes.”
“Then, the girl became the nightingale, and the nightingale cursed the girl, and the girl became the Queen.”
“It goes around and back again, never ending.”
<Red Dancing Shoes>, <The Nightingale and The Rose>, <Snow White>.
Time seemed to be twisted into a mobius ring. The girl was the Queen’s past, the Queen was cursed with the red dancing shoes, and Karen’s feet were cut off because of the red shoes. Karen was redeemed as a free nightingale, and the girl was then cursed by the nightingale…
Wu Jin’s back suddenly felt chilled!
The three plays were connected end to end in a bizarre way, and the female ghosts, as the hunters of the instance, were also trapped in this Mobius circle of fate forever. Unless they could destroy the other parties in one go, the only other way for them to accumulate strength was to kill the sacrifices––
“The battlefields will converge sooner or later.” Wu Jin was certain.
“Judging from the timeline, the Queen restrained Karen, who, as the past, restrained the nightingale, and the nightingale cursed the queen. The marks that indicate the three female ghosts are particularly prominent, so––”
Wei Shi spoke simply, “The mirror restrains Karen, the red shoes restrain the Nightingale, and roses restrain the Queen.”
Wu Jin snapped his fingers.
Bingo.
Then, Wu Jin rushed to the flowers to snatch up roses and make an amulet!
“……” Wei Shi pulled him up, then bent over and broke off a rose that still wet with dew, handing it to Wu Jin.
Wu Jin couldn’t control the flush of heat that rose up behind his ears.
The red rose in front of him overlapped with countless champagne roses in his memory. The big boss paired with this beautiful rose was so handsome!
Wu Jin’s heartbeat sped up, and he immediately took down a rose to give to the big boss. Wei Shi raised his eyebrows. The little rabbit spirit who’d gotten a gift was incredibly sticky, and the youth in front of him was in high spirits, his lips slightly parted as though wanting a kiss––
Wei Shi skillfully pressed him down and bent over.
Wu Jin hesitated slightly, finally inserting the rose into Wei Shi’s thick hair.
“……” Wei Shi showed the level of an S level professional survival show trainee in an instant. His arm moved up quickly to block the move, and the rough fingers with gun calluses pressed down fiercely on the rose branch, protecting his character setup!
Wu Jin: “……”
Wu Jin reacted abruptly, “… Weren’t you asking me to put the flower in? Why’d you put your head down, then!”
Wei Shi’s expression darkened dangerously.
Wu Jin howled, his cheeks flaming as he protested, “… What, could it be that you want, you want… No way! There are so many cameras here, even if Floating Entertainment is the sponsor, there’s still no way! In broad daylight…”
At this time, their wrist watches suddenly vibrated.
The number of survivors had just dropped by 3.
It was unknown if it had been done by ghosts or other players.
The survival count was reduced to 37.
Wu Jin controlled his expressions.
“Prepare to go back.” Wu Jin put the rose away and buttoned up the cuffs of his training clothing.
Now, he and the big boss had the top information advantage, higher than Yu Chu, Caesar, and far better than the King of Hearts.
Everything was ready. How could they lose with so much behind them!
Wu Jin was very excited. The rules were very clear in his heart, the King of Hearts would die, Scarf would remain standing, and the whole world would be at the Great Witch’s feet––
Wei Shi pinched the back of Wu Jin’s neck, “Not leaving?”
This little rabbit wasn’t kissing him and wasn’t walking. He was just standing there foolishly.
Wu Jin squeaked.
His blood stirred with thoughts of war.
C-position, red dancing shoes, roses, and mirrors. This would become his home court.
Juurensha: This is a cool instance, but I have to point out, the Queen in the Snow White story is usually Snow White’s stepmother not her mother. Snow White’s mother is the one who wishes for a daughter with skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, and a mouth as red as blood, and then she dies after giving birth to her.
It’s possible that in an earlier version of the story, it was really Snow White’s mother. There are several instances where fairy tales have changed the mother into a step mother to make the story more child friendly. I don’t know for Snow White, though.
mother. In a version sent to another folklorist prior to the first
edition, additionally, she does not order a servant to take her to the
woods, but takes her there herself to gather flowers and abandons her;
in the first edition, this task was transferred to a servant.[17] It is believed that the change to a stepmother in later editions was to tone down the story for children.[18][19]”
So you’re quite right ^^
😁😁
I am happy that I had heard of this piece, that originally the evil Queen in Snow White really is her biological mother. Though I never heard about any red iron shoes as punishment in any Snow White ver. before. So this instance really is invigorating for me to know more about fairy tales.
in the first published version (1812), the queen was the mother
there’s more info here: https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2013/10/24/the-twisted-history-of-snow-white
In the 1812 version (first version) of the Snow White the Evil Queen is indeed the jealous mother of Snow White.
woww you guys all know more than i do hahahaha i had to look some of this stuff up @_@
Thanks for the chapter! ^^)
okay,,, that is hella cool of an overlap. I’d totes read it if it were an actual book or fic.
thanks for the update!!!
How big is the author’s brain? 😲
only about 100000x the size of mine, lol
As usual, the logic working behind each instance is mind blowing jwjxkekd gAH I love this book (σ≧▽≦)σ
Yes, the Brothers Grimm version is the stepmother, but the classic tale they gathered together to write is actually almost always told as a biological mother. The brothers chose to use the rare stepmother version instead. There’s actually a book written about this. Here’s an article on it =)
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/the-tale-of-snow-white-and-what-the-various-versions-mean-to-us/
Connecting all of these stories…. gosh author big brain,,, it’s so awesome ahh
thanks for the chapter!
It’s a bloodthirsty rabbit! So exciting!
the whole connection and looping of these 3 stories is sooo cool. dada big brain >.<
Oh no, Little Witch is celebrating early. That usually means things won’t work out the way they planned it. Thanks for the chapter!
Wowww! Little Witch finally put all the clues together. I was going circle with my own theories, that I never considered them to be in a loop. I just thought they are the past of each other and “Karen” is just there lol. Probably because I am unfamiliar with The Nightingale and The Rose. I didn’t relate the missing leg with the flying nightingale even when the hymn is said. Now all the pieces that restraint the ghosts are in Little Witch hands.