Arc 3: Luodong VillageSource: https://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=5039729
This translation was originally posted on https://love4baihe.blogspot.com
The moment the thin, rotten ghost claw rushed over with a fierce gust of wind, the dream barely tore apart, and the blurry world revealed its original appearance.
The rain outside had stopped sometime ago, and only a nearly full moon hung high in the sky, its silvery light as cold as frost, like a layer of white silk covering the earth.
Her eyelids were sticky and sore, feeling as if they weighed a ton. She could barely open them. Qin Dongwan immediately saw two figures, one tall and one short, standing back to back, but keeping a slight distance between them to avoid any intimate contact.
It was Luo Shu and Hua Qingjiu.
Neither of them talked much. Standing together, only their light breathing could be heard. There was not even any unnecessary conversation. Hearing the sound of Qin Dongwan slowly getting up and bumping into a chair, the girl standing under the moonlight suddenly turned around. Only after seeing the familiar person did the caution on her face slowly disappear.
"Awake?"
What she actually wanted to say was "Feeling better?" But for some reason, she swallowed the words before they came out.
The conversation between Tang Zihang and Qin Dongwan stayed in her heart like a tiny thorn. It was not very painful, but it still pricked.
She had accepted countless hateful looks, disgusted words, and cold attitudes. She answered them with even colder and more heartless methods, until after climbing several levels before this, she did not have even one friend. The one who first treated her kindly was Qin Dongwan. The one now unwilling to be so close to her was also Qin Dongwan...
Countless thoughts mixed together. The anger that had just risen was completely put out by the innocent look in the girl's eyes.
"I'm going to the bathroom. A'Shu, can you help me watch the door?"
Before sleeping, Tang Zihang had forced Qin Dongwan to drink two large bowls of ginger soup. After waking up, she suddenly needed to pee badly. There was no way she could hold it until morning.
Hearing this, Hua Qingjiu politely went inside, giving them enough privacy.
Only the two of them were left in the small backyard.
"Go."
The bathroom was very small. There was only a place covered by a plastic sheet for bathing. Right beside it was a filthy toilet. The whole room was less than ten square meters.
After what happened before, Qin Dongwan did not dare close the door while using the toilet. She finished as quickly as possible and reached for the toilet paper placed on top of the toilet, only to find there was none left.
The others would definitely need to use the bathroom in the morning too.
Qin Dongwan searched her pocket and only found a tissue that had been soaked by rain and turned into a soggy lump. She regretfully threw it into the trash can.
A small cabinet not far away was already covered in spider webs, but the spider that made them was nowhere to be seen.
After hesitating for a moment, Qin Dongwan carefully hooked the cabinet door open with her foot. The scene inside immediately came into view.
The girl's face froze.
…
A few minutes later, Tang Zihang, who had just been woken up, was still yawning. When his eyes landed on something red, he let out a loud scream and was almost knocked unconscious by Luo Shu's punch to the head.
The others also lost all sleep because of his noise. They stared at the red dress placed on the table in the middle.
It was a beautiful wedding dress.
The peacock sewn with fine stitches looked lifelike. The peonies bloomed like fire. Lucky clouds floated along the skirt.
Most girls in the mountains still married according to old customs. Every stitch carried their longing and hope for future love, along with their attachment and reluctance to leave their families.
To them, a married daughter was like spilled water. It could never be taken back. After saying goodbye to her family, she had to devote herself to living well with her husband.
When Qin Dongwan was in college, she had studied the customs of some regions. She knew that for some families, a beautiful and delicate wedding dress had to be made completely by hand. It could not be entrusted to others. Otherwise, the happiness it brought would not be pure.
But...
"There's blood on the back of this dress."
No one dared turn on the lights inside the small restaurant. But by touch and smell alone, Luo Shu, who roughly grabbed the wedding dress and crumpled it into a ball, still found the bloodstains on the back.
The smell was not very strong. It had probably been there for a long time and had mostly been covered by the smell of dust. She only noticed it after smelling it several times.
"Why is there a woman's wedding dress here?"
The one who spoke was Lin Fengque. He happened to ask what Qin Dongwan wanted to ask.
When they first came in, the owner sitting in the restaurant had clearly been an old man with gray hair. The wedding dress looked slightly old, but it definitely did not seem like something that had been stored away for many years.
In other words, the wedding dress could not belong to that man's wife.
"And who would keep wedding clothes in a bathroom?"
Tang Zihang's brain rarely showed signs of intelligence.
Qin Dongwan said, "...The cabinet in the bathroom looked like it hadn't been opened for a long time. It's also very small. Not many people would discover it there. Besides, it wouldn't be suitable to keep it in the restaurant. Putting it in the kitchen would expose it to oil smoke and might even cause a fire."
In other words, after thinking it over, the bathroom was the only barely suitable place.
Before they could solve the old incident, a new mystery rolled in like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger.
The hidden clues from before kept circling in Qin Dongwan's mind. The uneasy feeling attacked again, making her head ache.
After getting soaked in the rain, she caught a serious cold. She might even have a fever. Her whole head felt heavy and dizzy. Thinking itself was torture.
"This is only the second level. It shouldn't be too difficult. At least the clues shouldn't be unrelated to the main story."
Hua Qingjiu took over.
He always thought more carefully than everyone else and only spoke when he was confident.
Unless there was a side story like the Internet Addiction Center level, with hints given from the beginning, the clues in the game should all be related to the main story.
"Search the house again?"
The discomfort returned.
Qin Dongwan lay back on the table. She subconsciously looked first at the human skin and skeleton that had not moved from the rattan chair.
The scattered remains alone made her teeth ache. Thinking back to her nightmare, goosebumps rose all over her body again.
After confirming that this was probably closely related to the main story, everyone except Qin Dongwan began another search.
Although none of them had rested well and everyone felt unwell, they were still energetic young people. Their health was not bad, and they searched with full effort.
She had only dozed off on the table for a short while before a hand suddenly shook her awake.
An old paper still gave off the smell of dried ink as the cold wind carried it into her nose.
Qin Dongwan pushed herself up and rested one hand on Luo Shu's shoulder. Seeing that Luo Shu did not avoid her, she quietly let out a sigh of relief.
The cold moon generously shone its light, lighting the confusion of those moving forward. As the scroll slowly unfolded, so did tiny pieces of the truth hidden within.
The writing on the scroll was obscure and difficult to understand. It might have been the local dialect, or perhaps an ancient language that few people knew. There was no way for them to tell.
But the stick figures clearly showed scenes that made everyone's heart race. Those legendary arts, Qimen Dunjia, the Five Elements, the Eight Trigrams, and even strange techniques, were now displayed before these ordinary people as something real.
*Traditional Chinese systems used in philosophy, religion, military, and fortune-telling, often treated as mystical arts in folklores.
The power of the Five Elements: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. None could be missing. Whoever gathered all five powers could bring the dead back to life on the night of the full moon, offering their soul as the sacrifice.
The drawing showed someone collecting the power of the Five Elements through all kinds of unbelievable methods. In the end, they offered their own soul as a sacrifice and exchanged it for their lover's resurrection.
Even Lin Fengque, who had seen many things, had never seen such a strange technique.
Every step of collecting the so-called power could almost be called self-harm.
The human body did not naturally contain the Five Elements, yet this technique required the power of the Five Elements to be forced into the body.
First, swallow gold. Swallowing gold was a common way to commit suicide in ancient times. Gold itself was not poisonous, and eating only a little would not kill someone.
Then swallow wood and drink large amounts of water. That would count as obtaining the source, violently changing part of the body.
Fire and earth were even harsher.
One had to enter the fire with their own body, then be buried in the earth for half a day before obtaining even the lowest level Five Elements body.
If this method appeared in the real world, anyone who saw it would only call it insane and throw it away like trash, treating it as a prank by someone who had read too many fantasy novels.
But in this world, someone might really have been foolish enough to believe it.
Or perhaps it was not foolishness, but an obsession that could no longer be shaken.
The strange arts of Miao region*, with Gu poison as the most powerful, requires utmost sincerity and faith, and success lies in the heart.
*Miaojiang (è‹—ç–†) region in southern China inhabited by ethnic minority group Miao people. In Wuxias and Xianxias, Miaojiang is often romanticized as a mysterious, misty land home to secretive, poison-wielding clans.
Turning the page over, faint water stains blurred part of the writing. Written in words the players could understand was one crooked line.
"Lingling, Grandpa is coming to find you."
Qin Dongwan’s breathing became rapid, and her mind cleared a lot. She suddenly stood up, but everything went black before her eyes. After standing still for a moment, she ran to the rattan chair and dragged the remaining skeleton and the chair over together.
The pale moonlight revealed what the old man looked like before he died. Aside from the age spots, the skin that had not yet rotted still faintly showed burn scars. The sight was shocking.
It was almost exactly as she had thought.
The “Wheel of Death" is a cruel game. While players are trying to escape, they also have to witness the stories of so many NPCs. People can be ruthless, but few can truly be heartless. Even after reading so many stories of protagonists in infinite flow novels struggling to survive and rationally beating up their teammates and kicking NPCs, Qin Dongwan, at least, cannot do that here.
The girl's breathing carried faint mist, becoming faster beneath the moonlight.
The NPCs here were not completely ghosts, nor were they simply piles of data.They lived according to their routines, yet they also had their own thoughts and emotions.
Reason told her that throwing away unnecessary emotions would let her survive more easily in this escape game. But if she ever reached the point where she would not feel sad for anyone, then she would no longer be Qin Dongwan. Nor would she have been chosen to enter the death game and save Luo Shu.
Hua Qingjiu and Luo Shu were unmoved, Tang Zihang and Lin Fengque looked regretful, and Qin Dongwan wiped her wet eyes and regained her composure.
Whether she wanted to let emotions affect her or not, it seemed they would have to investigate this incident from beginning to end.
"The Mountain God marrying a bride... the night of the full moon... I think I know what's going on."
The "patient" Qin Dongwan accepted the cup of hot water Tang Zihang handed over.
Warmth spread through her palms little by little, swallowing the cold that rushed wildly through her body.
"Pingping was the girl who married the Mountain God. In the end, she didn't gain the so-called happiness. But those girls who also couldn't find happiness in ordinary families still believed that rumor. They still chose to marry the Mountain God. But according to the Xiangxi legend, marrying the Mountain God actually means dying. The celebration afterward is only a lie people tell themselves.”
"Besides, think about it. This Mountain God definitely isn't anything reliable. Pingping accidentally survived after marrying him, so she wanted to help him become human, so they could truly stay together forever."
"From what we learned before, if they want to become human, they probably have to kill people to achieve it."
The people Pingping lured into the river. The man slaughtered by the Mountain God in the forest and whose brain was eaten. Even on the first night, when Pingping turned into a ghost, she tried to attack Qin Dongwan. Everything proved that the two of them were definitely not doing anything good.
"This also explains why Pingping's parents knew she was dead but could still be resurrected. It's because Pingping is a ghost, but she can transform into human form during the day, which others probably don't know."
"The villagers believed in ghosts and gods. Pingping's family couldn't possibly tell everyone their daughter had become a ghost. As parents, they naturally wanted their daughter to be happy, so they silently accepted Pingping killing other people.”
What happened after that became easy to explain. At this point, everything finally connected into one clear chain. In this dungeon, the full moon was an ominous sign. The Mountain God most likely needed the full moon night to obtain a true human form.
The game never gave useless clues.
The moon in the sky growing fuller each day had been the biggest hint all along.
"Pingping killed people for the Mountain God only so she could stay with him forever."
"The Mountain God also said before that when the time came, Pingping would once again become his bride through a sacrifice. The full moon night is probably when it's possible to break free from the Mountain God's control. As for what power can fight against him, ordinary people like us definitely can't.,When the time comes, we'll still have to visit his lair."
Her clear and organized analysis earned everyone's approval and admiration. Even Luo Shu looked slightly surprised.
In a way, Qin Dongwan and Luo Shu were perfect teammates. One excelled at reasoning. The other excelled at fighting. Qin Dongwan could find hope in the smallest clues. What came next was exactly what a player with overwhelming strength like Luo Shu did best.
As the layers of fog were peeled away, Luo Shu felt an unprecedented sense of clarity.
"Th-then if we really can't do anything against the Mountain God, should we use this Five Elements technique? At least a few of us could still survive in the end."
Tang Zihang was the one who had found the page about the Five Elements technique. The method written on it had truly broadened everyone's horizons. He really could not accept that its purpose ended here, so he still wanted to struggle a little.
"...Then we'll leave this glorious mission to you. First, go find some gold. Swallow enough of it without dying. Then eat wood and drink water. Get burned by fire and buried in dirt. After all that self-harm, use it to bring a dead person back to life. The people will remember you. Truly heroic."
Lin Fengque could not help flicking him on the head.
Now that everything had become much clearer, everyone's mood improved as well.
After taking turns keeping watch and catching up on sleep, they packed up after daybreak, ate a little food, and prepared to leave. After all, Pingping had already discovered them there last night. With the hatred between both sides, if they did not leave quickly, they would likely be caught.
As for why Pingping had not come back again that night, it was most likely because in the corpse-driving secret art, the corpse had to return to the grave at a fixed time. Otherwise, all the effort would easily be wasted.
Before leaving, Tang Zihang hesitated for a moment. In the end, he rolled up the paper and took it with him, feeling that it might still be useful later.
….
After raining all night, water had collected along the uneven mountain path. Every step sank into mud. None of them had changed clothes for days. They had neither the time nor the mood to bathe. All of them looked filthy.
To avoid any problems, they followed the previous plan. Lin Fengque would go first to draw Pingping's attention.
From their earlier observations, they could basically confirm that she only transforms into a ghost at night. During the day, she was no different from an ordinary girl. Even if they really had to fight, although Lin Fengque was not an especially strong man who exercised often, he could still handle a petite, ordinary girl.
To be safe, Luo Shu quietly followed from a distance, ready for anything.
Early in the morning, the girl walked out of her house as usual, humming happily. Judging from the way she looked, she seemed to be going shopping.
Lin Fengque turned his tour group jacket inside out and found that it was still wearable. The clean side showed, making him look refined and elegant enough to move the hearts of many girls.
He casually walked toward the intersection. The moment their eyes met, Pingping's face immediately darkened.
Watching quietly from afar, Qin Dongwan could not help guessing. Maybe this guy was an expert with women. Or maybe he had some other identity.
The girl, who had been angry just moments ago, was soon cheered up by a few words from Lin Fengque.
After all, on the surface, they had no conflict. The only people Pingping hated were Qin Dongwan and Luo Shu.
To use an inappropriate comparison, she was like an ancient empress sadly trying to send other women onto the Mountain God's bed. But Qin Dongwan and Luo Shu had no intention of becoming "concubines." Everything was only her vicious wishful thinking.
The two talked as they walked and soon disappeared at the end of the road. Luo Shu quietly followed without looking back, using her small body to conceal her movements, appearing elusive and unpredictable.
They split into two groups: Qin Dongwan, Hua Qingjiu, and Tang Zihang headed toward the mountain where the Mountain God lived to investigate.
Qin Dongwan had an excellent memory. Following the path from before, she found her way back without taking many wrong turns. Before entering the game, all three of them had lived in cities and were not used to such winding mountain roads. The rain had also made the paths slippery. By the time they reached the mountain, it was probably already noon. The towering mountain looked as if heavenly lightning had split it down the middle, leaving a huge crack. Not a single blade of grass grew inside it. There was not even moss.
No one knew what lay deeper inside. The ancient mountain had stood through countless years of sun and rain. The surrounding forest was still lush and thriving. Only the entrance leading into the crack was completely barren, with no cover at all.
The three rested for a while. Qin Dongwan suggested waiting until Luo Shu and Lin Fengque returned before going in together.
Hua Qingjiu immediately objected.
"I'll go in. If there's no danger, you can come later."
"Brother Hua, th-that's not a good idea."
Tang Zihang quickly said.
Although he wasn't the sharpest of them all, he knew that the first person to enter would bear the greatest risk. Wild beasts roamed the deep mountains, making it dangerous even on ordinary days; venturing alone would be a matter of life and death. Let alone in a perilous dungeon, where a single careless move could be fatal.
"I still think everyone should wait here and not act rashly. Even if we're going in, we should go together."
Qin Dongwan couldn't bring herself to send a teammate into danger alone. Recalling Hua Qingjiu's coldness towards the NPCs, Qin Dongwan's feelings instantly became complicated. Just as she was about to persuade him again, the man had already stood up from the rock where he had been resting.
He looked down at the two of them sitting side by side. His eyes were cold and completely emotionless behind his rimless glasses. Even so, remembering that they were still teammates, Hua Qingjiu quickly explained:
Nevertheless, remembering that the two were still teammates, Hua Qingjiu quickly explained:
"I'm going alone because I have the highest chance of survival. Tang Zihang has accomplished nothing from beginning to end. Qin Dongwan, you're injured, and your stamina isn't good. I'll scout the situation inside. If something's wrong, I'll come back. If I'm injured, I'll shout loudly and use the echo to tell you. If I don't come back, Tang Zihang can enter first, Qin Dongwan goes last."
Tang Zihang had originally been touched. After thinking about those words, his expression dimmed slightly. After giving that simple explanation, Hua Qingjiu did not waste any more time, he turned around and walked straight inside.
He was not the kind of person who acted tough while secretly being softhearted. He truly did not want to, or rather, had never thought about caring how others felt.
Qin Dongwan had nothing to say. In a death game, talking about feelings itself was a kind of luxury. A player like Hua Qingjiu was the one most suited for this game. But she always felt there was something strange about him. She just could not put it into words.
….
The wait was long and unbearable.
Hua Qingjiu still had not returned, and no strange sounds came from inside. This was deep in the mountains. Any sound would be amplified many times here. But no movement did not mean there was no danger. The Mountain God's power might kill someone before they even had the chance to cry for help. But if they kept refusing to explore, their progress would only come to a stop.
Hua Qingjiu is right, they can't waste time here.
Only after being completely separated today did Qin Dongwan realize that, at some point, she had developed a strange dependence on Luo Shu. Maybe it was because, before entering this novel, she had seen how overwhelmingly powerful Luo Shu was. Or maybe it was because this villainess, who looked so fierce, had actually never shown much hostility toward her.
Whenever danger appeared, she instinctively relied on Luo Shu. It was a typical mix of admiration for strength and dependence.
But she forgot. The mission that brought her into this world was to survive and save Luo Shu, not to let Luo Shu save her again and again.
She would be afraid. She would feel fear. She would also rely on experience and sharp observation to survive. But if she failed to realize this fatal dependence now, her ability to adapt to the game would slowly disappear until nothing remained.
Looking toward the crack deep within the mountains, the darkening sky made that place look even stranger. The twisted opening looked like a giant mouth, ready to swallow someone whole. Birds flew back into the forest to their nests. Another night was fast approaching.
Night always brought greater fear and even more danger. Their time was running out. They had to find clues before night fell. Otherwise, today's trip would have been in vain.
Her head was still throbbing faintly, but Qin Dongwan could no longer care.
"Tang Erha, I'm going in first. Stay here. If I don't come out after about half an hour, then either something happened to me, or I have something very important to do. You can choose to go in, or stay here and wait for Luo Shu and Lin Fengque. As long as they're alive, they'll definitely come. If you choose to go in and notice something wrong, leave immediately and hide, or run. Don't talk. Don't make any noise. Just look at the situation inside once and leave. Remember?"
"Didn't Brother Hua say..."
"Are you listening to him or to me?"
Tang Zihang answered without hesitation.
"I'm listening to you."
Qin Dongwan could not help but laugh.
Back in middle school, the thing she hated most was being the group leader. She always thought she had no ability to lead and could not shoulder any responsibility. But in this death game, everyone might have to carry their own responsibilities at any moment. Even someone who seemed insignificant might one day have to shoulder the burden for the group.
After giving her instructions, Qin Dongwan turned and left without hesitation.
The mountain blocked their view, only by entering could they see everything inside. She walked forward, the narrow passage gradually widened. Even though she had prepared herself mentally, what she saw still made her scalp go numb.
Inside...was a graveyard of bones. There were also women lying among the rocks with barely any clothes left on them. Not a single part of their bodies remained unharmed. It was obvious that all signs of life had long disappeared. Vultures, nature's undertakers, circled down from the sky whenever they saw corpses, burying their heads in the rotting flesh, and choosing among the dead.
Qin Dongwan scanned the area but didn't see Hua Qingjiu. She did not know whether to feel relieved or worried.
The sun was about to set, its golden-orange light spread across the field of corpses. Not a trace of life could be seen in the forest. Qin Dongwan hurriedly searched the area.
Suddenly, she heard heavy panting coming from outside, along with heavy footsteps. Realizing something was wrong, she sprinted to a nearby tree, climbed up, and hid herself among the thick branches and leaves.
Her eyes remained fixed on the entrance.
The temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
What should have been just a few minutes felt like an eternity to Qin Dongwan. When that "thing" finally entered, icy fear gripped her heart like ghostly claws. Even the hand holding the branch began trembling. She did not dare breathe.
The front half of the creature was a tiger, the back half was a snake. Its majestic tiger head carried eyes filled with hatred, completely unworthy of the king of beasts. Its thick, rough tongue still dripped with blood.
The person following behind was someone Qin Dongwan knew all too well. It was Pingping. She slowly admired the fingernails dyed with balsam flowers while acting coquettish before the monster.
"I already told you, I was only talking to him for a bit. He was a handsome young man too. Why did you attack him right away? You're really jealous."
Something happened to Lin Fengque?
Qin Dongwan's heart tightened.
The snake-tiger did not answer. But from the conversation, she knew it was the so-called Mountain God. A tiger's head and a snake's body.
In the folk stories of some tribes, such creatures represented gods, possessing both the tiger's might and the snake's agility. But this Mountain God was not a guardian deity. He only possessed the tiger's bloodlust and the snake's malice.
A cold and evil god.
Pingping continued talking to herself:
"Another woman. How much yin energy do you still need to absorb? You're still angry at me. I only talked to that boy for a while. I didn't do anything. Good thing I stopped you in time. Otherwise you would've killed him. We still need him for the sacrifice on the full moon night. I'll give the handsome ones to you. After you transform, you'll stay handsome forever."
The Mountain God remained silent.
Pingping said a few more words and then stopped. The two of them went into the cave to rest. Qin Dongwan was very anxious and didn't dare to take the opportunity to escape. She felt sore all over and dizzy from staying in the tree.
She hadn't recovered from her cold and hadn't rested properly. The stress from her journey had pushed her to the limit, both mentally and physically, and she could no longer bear it. After adjusting her position a little, Qin Dongwan found that the tree could barely support her body, so she lay down comfortably and prepared to take a nap.
Mosquitoes buzzed in her ears, and countless other insects swarmed around her. She had only been lying down for a few minutes when the cold wind successfully woke her from her drowsiness. Qin Dongwan simply crossed her arms and leaned against a tree branch, her head throbbing as if it were about to explode.
Later on, unable to resist the waves of drowsiness and fatigue, she soon drifted off to sleep.
Qin Dongwan had another hazy dream. In the dream, the Mountain God's cold snake tail pressed against her face, stealing all the warmth from her body. Its huge bloody mouth opened wide and bit down on her without warning. She awoke with a start, finding it was the darkest hour before dawn, and a chilling wind was blowing. Her thin clothes offered little protection against the unusual cold. Even her fingers had gone stiff.
She rubbed her hands together to get the blood flowing again.The alternating cold and warmth made her feel uncomfortable, but thankfully it was not too serious. The hour before dawn was the darkest part of the night. The sounds of insects echoed through the mountains, barely easing the terrifying silence.
Qin Dongwan had not slept well for two nights. Her eyelids were sticky and sore. Her head throbbed, and chills spread through her entire body. She had almost no strength left.
There was no warm bed, no medicine. She had barely drunk any water all day. Her throat was so dry it felt like it was burning, though that was the mildest of her symptoms.
Fortunately, the Mountain God never came looking for trouble.
She finally endured until the first streaks of dawn appeared on the horizon. Just then, she heard movement below. Qin Dongwan, who had unknowingly fallen asleep again, opened her eyes and saw a tall young man striding out of the cave.
His appearance was no longer as terrifying as before, he had returned to a normal human form. But his face looked strangely unnatural. Even from this distance, it gave off an indescribable sense of wrongness.
The morning mist scattered beneath the rising sun. The temperature warmed slightly.
The Mountain God lazily stretched before wandering outside.
Pingping followed closely behind, still muttering something.
Only after confirming the two had gone far away did Qin Dongwan slowly climb down from the tree.
Luckily, she had been as mischievous as a little monkey when she was young. Whenever she visited the countryside, she learned to climb trees from the local children.
Otherwise, she would probably have become a corpse long ago.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she suddenly heard footsteps rustling across the dirt.
Qin Dongwan nervously turned around.
Standing there was Hua Qingjiu, who also looked exhausted.
"Come with me."
He clearly hadn't slept well either, but the situation was urgent, and he didn't bother with any unnecessary explanations. Qin Dongwan was cautious and deliberately kept a distance from him until they reached the mountainside and met their teammates. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief, her heart finally calming down.
Lin Fengque was badly injured, his leg was limping, and he had a cut on his waist, but thankfully his life was not in danger.
At that moment, Luo Shu was using a hammer to smash at the mountain rocks with all her strength. Something hidden inside gradually appeared. The moment Qin Dongwan saw it, she forgot all about Lin Fengque's injuries. She immediately stepped forward. A fair hand reached into the opening and pulled out a broken hard fragment.
Judging from the craftsmanship, it resembles a half-moon.
"A full moon night?"
Today was their sixth day here, the instance required them to escape the Mountain God's control within seven days. This was already the second-to-last day. The moon-shaped disc they had found was clearly missing one half. If the missing half were found, it would likely become a complete full moon.
"I didn't have time to go inside last night. I heard that monster and Pingping coming back, so I climbed a tree to hide first. Dongwan, did you find anything? Brother Hua discovered that the directions of sunrise and sunset are reversed, so he brought us here to check the mountain. We heard something strange inside the rocks, so we dug this out."
Tang Zihang faithfully explained everything to Qin Dongwan. She was still not feeling well, she simply nodded to show she understood. Luo Shu put the moon fragment into her pocket. Then she took a pill from another pocket and placed it in Qin Dongwan's hand.
"It's for colds. I checked. It hasn't expired."
Qin Dongwan looked surprised.
"...I got it from the pharmacy."
Gods and ghosts could not be offended because they were the bosses of this level. But Luo Shu had no interest in following Lin Fengque the whole time. After confirming Pingping was not causing any trouble, she wandered around by herself. When she found that the pharmacy owner was just an ordinary person, she planned to buy some medicine. Then she realized she had no money, so she taught him a lesson with her fists.
Anyway, they were only a pile of data.
"Thank you."
The longer Qin Dongwan spent with Luo Shu, the more she realized Luo Shu was not as malicious as she had imagined. At least not toward her. Her thoughts were simple; all she wanted was for the other person to treat her well too. Qin Dongwan had taken the first step, Luo Shu accepted it completely. Sometimes, she even hid little moments of unexpected kindness in the smallest details.
She might even become Luo Shu's first friend.
"It's about time. Let's stop wandering around here in case the Mountain God comes back. I'm injured, and Qin Dongwan is sick. We should return and rest first.”
Lin Fengque touched his throbbing wound. He was even worried it might fester. The Mountain God's attack had been unbelievably powerful, far beyond what an ordinary person could withstand.This was the first time he had ever been beaten so badly.Naturally, he was not very happy about it.
The group headed back together, they had planned to return to the small restaurant to rest. But halfway there, they saw the buzz cut guy arguing with Zhao Huaqiong. They had hardly paid any attention to those two over the past few days, and almost forgotten they existed.
Source: https://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=5039729
This translation was originally posted on https://love4baihe.blogspot.com
None of them expected Buzz Cut, who had killed Pingping, to still be alive.
Seeing the surprise on everyone's faces, Buzz Cut immediately exploded.
"What a fucking bad luck! What kind of bullshit dungeon is this? I already told you it wasn't me! It wasn't me! Are every one of you blind? That little bitch obviously had something wrong with her. If I didn't kill her, was I supposed to wait for her to kill us?"
Author's Note:
The difference between Qin Dongwan and the original female lead is that Qin Dongwan can sometimes be overly kind. This is one of her flaws in the early part of the story. She is a growth-type protagonist, and she will gradually overcome this weakness as the story goes on.
However, she helps others whenever it is within her ability, and she never uses morality to force others to do the same.
