Chapter 28

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Chapter 28: Star Death Reality Show (XI)

“I hope it’ll work,” Lara looked at the speaker and sighed deeply.

“I hope so,” Francis also said.

“I hope so,” Annie said lightly, then turned and left the church.

The other people were also ready to leave, but Qi Leren suddenly stopped everyone: “Please wait a moment. To be safe, we’d better arrange someone to guard this speaker, so we don’t wake up tomorrow and find that it’s been destroyed.”

“You’re right, we’d better take turns guarding it.” Lara agreed with Qi Leren’s opinion and praised, “You’re quite careful.”

—If you’re threatened by a three-headed hellhound day after day, you will also learn to be careful about everything, so you won’t be chased by said hellhound for ten kilometers, Qi Leren thought.

This time Janet didn’t sing the opposite tune: “Well, I just want to know the answer.”

So apart from Annie who had left, Xue Jiahui who was in poor health, and Lara who had to take care of Xue Jiahui, the remaining eight people set a rotation for guarding the speaker in pairs. In order, they were Francis and Jing Sixue, Du Yue and Jing Siyu, Dr. Lu and Alex, and Qi Leren and Janet, each with six hours.

“Why is my partner a man?” Dr. Lu muttered while looking at Alex, who was a big man who had been paired with him.

“You seem like you need a stronger teammate,” Qi Leren said coldly.

“Well little chicken, even I didn’t ask to be with Alex, so don’t complain,” Janet shrugged her shoulders.

Dr. Lu, Little Chicken: ?????

After the break, except for Francis and Jing Sixue, who were on duty as the first post, the rest of them returned to their houses one after another. Some went together to find more materials hidden in the village, and some went back to their houses to have a rest. Lara said that she would temporarily move to Xue Jiahui’s house to take care of her as well as inform her on some basic information—Qi Leren thought she meant that she would monitor Xue Jiahui to see if she would show any flaws—After that, Lara guided Xue Jiahui to try to have her identify which house was hers, and Francis also wanted to join them.

Qi Leren looked at Lara and Xue Jiahui’s retreating backs. He was somewhat uneasy, but if he spoke to them now, he would be a naked suspect in the eyes of the audience. He had to find Annie’s breakthrough as soon as possible. The sooner the better.

“I think this program has the atmosphere of a blind date show,” Dr. Lu said thoughtfully as he watched the people leaving.

“Ah? It does?” Du Yue asked nervously.

“Yes, you see, when we first got off the spaceship, Janet despised Alex yet slept with him in an instant. Francis and Lara had worked together before, and they played a couple, but they didn’t have any special sparks. Even so, the spaceship landed only three days ago, and they now have an atmosphere that they would go on a date when they return. Xue Jiahui will, too. She seems to like He Yi very much, but now one is missing and one has amnesia, so it’s impossible for the time being. There are also Annie and Mark. Didn’t Qi Leren say that Mark listened to Annie before? Maybe there’s a situation,” Dr. Lu gave a giggle.

“These two people are too different in age. Mark could be Annie’s father.” Du Yue didn’t believe it.

“Age isn’t a problem. Ah… These two people don’t actually have a couple’s atmosphere. It’s probably just that the black uncle takes special care of the little girl,” Dr. Lu said. “Hey, but speaking of it, the three of us have no situation at all. Should we also ask the girls on a date or something?”

Du Yue said honestly: “No need, the three of us are fine.”

Qi Leren thought this sounded wrong.

Dr. Lu said: “You don’t understand, it won’t be popular if there’s no gossip to speculate on these days!”

“Be serious, don’t be so noisy,” Qi Leren ruthlessly suppressed his two teammates’ nonsense, and the three discussed what to do next.

Some words were hard to say with the cameras. Qi Leren questioned whether Xue Jiahui could be parasitized by the octopus, but now there is no link of “Xue Jiahui identifies the octopus in the experimental record book as the amphioctopus”, and the logic chain was broken again. Qi Leren couldn’t rashly say his guess in front of the audience. Even if he said it, the other contestants wouldn’t believe it. In the face of such a bizarre and cruel truth, people would instinctively look for other answers.

They still needed stronger evidence.

“Let’s go and have a look at Annie’s house, at least to understand how Mark and He Yi disappeared at that time, whether there’s any attic in her house, and… when we were in the basement of Jing Siyu’s house, what the explosion from outside was. I feel that all this has some connection to Annie,” Qi Leren said.

The three men then went to Annie’s house and knocked on the door, but when they asked to come in and have a look, Annie turned her head and showed a malicious smile, moving her hand that was hidden behind her back to reveal the corner of an axe.

“You can have a try,” Annie said faintly. “I welcome action at any time.”

After being rejected, the three people had no choice but to renegotiate. Dr. Lu said that Mark and Annie hadn’t found many materials in the beginning. Maybe today or tomorrow, Annie would run out of food and water. She would definitely go out to look for more materials. They just had to wait for the opportunity and slip in when Annie left the house.

Qi Leren agreed with this idea, and the three people found an empty house that was close to Annie’s house but where no contestants lived, and started a war-like observation operation.

Qi Leren was on the first shift, because Dr. Lu was sleepy and was about to pass out at any time. Du Yue was tired as well, so the two of them had a rest first. At two o'clock in the afternoon, Du Yue was woken up by Qi Leren. It was his turn to guard the speaker in the church, and Du Yue went away with a yawn. In the afternoon, when Dr. Lu woke up, he replaced Qi Leren and waited for Annie when it was Qi Leren’s turn to sleep. When Du Yue came back, it was Dr. Lu’s turn to guard the speaker, and Du Yue kept guarding Annie.

Qi Leren, who hadn’t slept for more than 30 hours, had barely recovered after midnight. At this time, Dr. Lu was still away guarding the speaker with Alex, while Du Yue was sitting by the window and intently observing for movement from Annie’s house.

“Qianbei, are you awake? Hurry and eat something.” As soon as Du Yue heard the sound of Qi Leren getting up, he immediately turned his head and put canned food in front of Qi Leren, eagerly waiting for him to eat.

“Thanks.” Qi Leren was in good spirits. After drinking some water, he began to eat. “Has Annie made any noise?”

“No, she’s been staying in her own house and no one else has come. What is she doing?” Du Yue was extremely depressed.

In order to prevent the risk of carelessly saying something that shouldn’t be said, the two men simply turned off the tracking cameras while they talked nonsense. Du Yue talked about some things he had done in school, and also talked about the girls he had a crush on. After talking for a long time, he found that Qi Leren had been smiling and nodding but hadn’t spoken, so he couldn’t help but brush his hair shyly: “After talking so much, I’ve bored you, right? It’s just some boring high school life…”

“No, it’s interesting. What about the girl you liked, after that? Have you confessed to her?” Qi Leren couldn’t help gossiping.

“Er… I did make a move… but she had someone she liked,” Du Yue said defeatedly.

“That’s a pity. Are they together?”

“No… When I first noticed her, she hadn’t met the right person. She was a lovely person, but at that time I didn’t have any special ideas about her, just thought she was lovely. Then she suddenly fell in love…” Du Yue was depressed and very forlorn.

“And then you found out that you liked her?” Qi Leren cared for the young man like a big brother.

“Actually, I don’t know if I like her. I just think it’s very moving that she likes someone with all her heart,” Du Yue said laughingly, revealing the lovely dimples in his cheeks. “I didn’t want to be with her. I may not actually like her, but I was moved by her like that.”

Qi Leren, who felt that he had fallen behind the times and couldn’t figure out what this young person was thinking, continued to dig deep into the gossip: “You just said that you made some sort of confession? How did you confess?”

“Ah… It can’t really be called a confession, I just bullied her, hahahahahaha. She probably hates me to death. When I wanted to work hard at it, she suddenly disappeared,” Du Yue said.

Qi Leren was taken aback: “Disappeared?”

“Yes, during the holiday she went hiking in the mountains with a few friends. When the mountain collapsed, all eight people disappeared…” Du Yue said thoughtfully, “After I entered here, it was inevitable that these two things would be linked. I suspect that she may have encountered the same thing as me.”

“It’s very likely.” Qi Leren also thought about this problem. He didn’t know what the Novice Village he and Dr. Lu had experienced was in the eyes of people in the real world. Had many people mysteriously gone missing, or had a murderer slashed innocent people and three among them went missing?

Du Yue spread out his hands, pretending to be free and easy, and said, “Maybe there will be a chance for us to meet each other in the future, but if we really can’t… That’s it. With first loves, it’s always like this where it amounts to nothing, not to mention that this isn’t even the first love.”

Qi Leren, whose first love had been a hell-level difficulty riddled with death flags: “…”

“You can also talk about this, qianbei. Do you have a lover?” Du Yue asked nervously.

“Yes,” Qi Leren confessed.

“Wow, what kind of person is she? Is she beautiful? Who had a crush on who first? How did you meet each other? In the real world or in the game?”

“Why are you so gossipy?” Qi Leren suddenly found himself in a distressing situation.

“Qianbei, go ahead, I’m listening!” Du Yue looked like a dog with its ears peaked in alert.

“What is there to say?”

“You can say anything, say if she’s beautiful first?”

Qi Leren recalled the Witchcraft Sacrifice task and how he had been amazed at his “goddess” at first sight, and his smile quietly spread on from his lips to his eyes: “Very beautiful. Especially beautiful.”

“Do you have any photos?” Du Yue asked.

Qi Leren shook his head.

Du Yue sighed disappointedly: “Well, who liked who first?”

Qi Leren thought about it: “It should be me, love at first sight.”

Du Yue was shocked and stared at Qi Leren, only to hear him continue to say: “It’s incredible. I’ve never liked anyone before, but at that moment, I completely abandoned my reason and fell in love with a stranger at first sight. When I first saw him*, I vaguely felt that I had been waiting for this person my whole life. If I hadn’t come here, if I hadn’t met him, if he hadn’t responded to me, maybe I would have started a relationship with another person without really having feelings for them, or have even gotten married, and my whole life would just pass like that. In such a life, I wouldn’t know that I had lived a sad life, in the illusion that such a life was already happy, because I wouldn’t know what kind of miracle I had missed.”

*{E/N: A reminder that he and she are pronounced the same in Chinese}

Gentle and calm feelings flowed in his heart, so that all of his memories were coated with a soft warm light. It was clear that most of the time this relationship had had nothing to do with happiness and sweetness, but was full of self-doubt, resistance, restraint, and patience. However, time has passed, and after his tragic death stopped the long-lasting pain, love had burned through the thorns covering it and been reborn, leaving a heart that couldn’t be burned and that shone like gold.

He felt that it was very sweet. Even if it was once painful, it was covered with a layer of sweet icing.

Qi Leren wore a smile that was full of tenderness: “I am very lucky to have met such a lover and to be loved by him. I am really lucky.”

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Editor’s Notes: I noticed after I posted the previous chapter that there are now over a hundred people following this blog. I just want to say a big thank you to everyone. I’m sure that the follower count is only a fraction of the total number of readers, and honestly that is really amazing to me. Thank you for reading and enjoying my little passion project <3

On a more on topic note, while she is still working on Part III, BMBL has recently confirmed Welcome to the Nightmare Game IV. It’s gonna be a long ride, folks :D

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