Chapter 6

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Chapter 6: Resurrection Overture (VI)

On the way back, Qi Leren and Chen Baiqi never said a word.

They came all the way to the coast and smoked a cigarette together in the sea breeze. Qi Leren still wasn’t used to smoking, but when nicotine entered his body he became strangely relaxed. After smoking one, Chen Baiqi handed another to him, and Qi Leren held it in his hand but didn’t light it.

“Where has he gone now?” Qi Leren asked, facing the salty sea breeze.

“If he isn’t lost in Neverland’s spiritual enchantment, then he should have arrived at the Vatican, confessed his ‘crime’ to the Pope, went to Purgatory for atonement, and continued your unfinished task.” Chen Baiqi lit another cigarette for herself. “This is what a braindead person like him would do, right?”

Qi Leren remained silent.

“Growing up in an atheistic society, we can’t understand the pressure brought by faith. Whether it’s the right to live or the right to love, in our eyes, when faith begins to trample on people’s rights, faith is no longer worth believing in. However, people in this world are different from us. This is a world where faith equals strength. They can only be more pious and fanatical than the world where we once lived. To prove that their faith is wrong would be thousands of times more difficult than in our world. Therefore, Ning Zhou doesn’t feel that his faith is wrong. Even if he has doubts in his heart, he still can’t abandon all of this. He will only convince himself that he’s wrong, but that he can’t correct this mistake. He can only accept the punishment of his mistake and bear everything,” Chen Baiqi said.

Qi Leren also understood. Even in their world devout believers still believed in the existence of God, but when you compared it to this world with its power of faith and power of evil?

“A way to look at it is that it’s like a child who grew up in a happy family. They’re a little naive, but also very kind, optimistic, and honest, and they have a sound personality. That sounds very ordinary, right? But in this Nightmare World, such an ordinary thing is the most extraordinary. What’s rare is that you can think from the perspective of others and are even willing to pay and sacrifice for others. It’s probably because you’re this sort of person that you impressed Ning Zhou”

Qi Leren was ashamed. He wasn’t as good as Chen Baiqi said, nor as good as Ning Zhou thought.

“Qi Leren,” Chen Baiqi called his name.

Qi Leren looked at her.

Her expression was more serious than ever: “I am very, very afraid right now… I’m afraid that Ning Zhou will go crazy. Maybe a part of his spiritual world has collapsed with your death. If possible, you must heal him.”

Qi Leren couldn’t speak, so he could only nod hard and silently swallow the sour itch deep in his throat.

“I really admire him.” Chen Baiqi stared at him and said slowly, “How much courage does a person need to deny his past, destroy his present and future with his own hands, and let himself live and die through the struggle of abandoning his faith, just for his right to love. From now on, you are his God and his sin. You should heal him, redeem him, be his scabbard, be his armor, and become his faith. Qi Leren, you should take good care of him.”

Qi Leren’s eyes became moist again: “I know… I will. Give me the information about Purgatory and I’ll bring him back.”

Chen Baiqi shook her head. “No. Ning Zhou and I agreed to keep in touch. Although the Underground Ant City is inhabited by humans and demons, there are still many supply points that can communicate with the Village of Dusk. When he arrives at the Underground Ant City, he will send me a letter from a supply point, with the address of the supply point attached. I can write to him according to this address and tell him that you’re still alive. Purgatory is deep in the Underground Ant City, which is too big and dangerous… I’ve been there and know what it’s like. Finding someone in the sea of people is tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s better to wait for his letter. When the letter comes and is replied to, he can be contacted within a month at most.”

“That’s fine, I’ll wait for him,” Qi Leren said.

Chen Baiqi smiled and handed him a heavy book: “Here you are.”

“This is…” Qi Leren took the book and opened it. It turned out to be a handwritten version of the Canon, which looked very old with its paper having turned yellow.

“Before getting married, you should have a good understanding of each other’s religious beliefs. Although Ning Zhou left the Holy See, he’s essentially a believer who abides by the precepts. It never hurts to know more,” Chen Baiqi said.

Qi Leren’s face burned a little: “It’s too early to speak of marriage now.”

Chen Baiqi gave him an oblique look: “You’ll regret it.”

“Ah?”

“Ning Zhou is a man who won’t do anything to you without getting married. If you don’t want to continue to live with your own hand, please propose quickly.”

“……”

In the gentle evening breeze, Chen Baiqi smiled and said, “Hurry up and get Ning Zhou back, and I’ll host your wedding.”

“…Thank you very much.” Qi Leren sucked on his cigarette.

Before ending this conversation, Chen Baiqi instructed Qi Leren to come to her tomorrow.

“What can I do for you?” Qi Leren asked.

Chen Baiqi smiled darkly: “I’ll clean you up for Ning Zhou… Ahem, it’s to train you for him. You’re too weak now and you haven’t even laid a good foundation. If you want to go further, you have to practice from scratch.”

Qi Leren felt a chill go down his back. He had already foreseen that he would live an “extraordinarily fulfilling” life in the coming days.

When Qi Leren arrived home, it was already early morning. When he took out his key to open the door, he suddenly felt something was wrong… Why didn’t the key fit into the keyhole?!

Just as he was competing with the door lock, the door suddenly opened, and two homeowners looked at each other inside and outside the door.

Qi Leren suddenly understood—while he’d been lying in the tree stump, the system decided that he was dead and took back the automatically allocated house, giving it to a new person!

This newcomer was tall and big and Qi Leren visually guessed that he was almost 190 centimeters, but the boy with such a sporty figure had two sharp little tiger teeth* and two dimples beside his mouth. He smiled sweetly: “Who are you?”

*{E/N: aka snaggleteeth, considered very cute in much of East Asia. Think the little fangs that some anime girls have.}

Qi Leren was expressionless: “Former homeowner.”

The newcomer blinked twice, suddenly opened his mouth wide, and grasped his hand excitedly: “Qianbei*! Are you the qianbei who left a suicide note in the house?! There’s so many task clues in your suicide note! I did several tasks according to your tips and they all succeeded! I earned a lot of survival days! Thank you, qianbei!”

*{E/N: “Senior”}

“…” Qi Leren’s mood at that moment couldn’t be described even with effort. He’d almost forgotten. Before going to the Holy City for the Holy Nun’s mission, in order to prevent the secret of the Nightmare Game from being buried forever with his death, he’d left a letter in his house recording how he downloaded the Nightmare Game on his laptop, and how he’d entered the Novice Village and arrived in this Nightmare World.

In order to win the person’s trust, he’d also written down a lot of tasks he’d performed while playing the Nightmare Game on his computer. At the end, he’d written down what he was going to do in the main task. At that time, his plan was that if he came back alive, this letter would naturally return to his own hands and not be obtained by others. If he died, the house would be taken back by the system and distributed to another newcomer, and this letter would be left to future generations with it.

I wanted to do this, at least to avoid such a big clue being irresponsibly buried in the ground because of my own death. I never expected such an embarrassing situation! He was still alive, but this house already had a “new love”!

“Qianbei, my name is Du Yue and I’m in the third year of high school, but I’ve been admitted to a university in advance because of my good athletic performance…” The newcomer shook his own affairs like a bean rattle and asked with doubt at the end, “But qianbei, shouldn’t you be dead?”

At this moment, Qi Leren felt the radiant aura of a protagonist in the other’s body and also felt a dead flag fluttering in the wind—his present self was too much like an NPC who had set up too many golden cheats for the protagonist before croaking. After all, the lead responsibility for the “mentor” was to die.

“I was dead before, but I had a one-time resurrection tool so I survived… It seems that the system thought I was dead, so it assigned the house to you,” Qi Leren said sadly.

“Ah? So? It doesn’t matter, qianbei, you can live with me, this house is so big, it would be no problem to live in it with seven or eight people!” Du Yue enthusiastically pulled Qi Leren and walked into the house. As soon as he entered the door, Qi Leren stepped on a pile of garbage bags that weren’t tied well, and dirty kitchen waste leaked out.

Du Yue scratched his head in embarrassment: “I’m not very good at cleaning up…”

Qi Leren expressed his understanding that most boys in high school were still pampered at home, and there aren’t many boys who have been prepared since childhood like him.

“I’ll go to my friend to tell him I’m safe and probably stay with him, and then go to the exchange center. Maybe you can still be allocated a new residence so you can live in peace. Also, don’t tell anyone what’s in the diary. Remember, no one,” Qi Leren smiled, waved at Du Yue, and turned away from his former home despite his reservations.

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Editor’s Notes: As with “jiejie” a few chapters ago, I’ve decided to keep “qianbei” in pinyin since personally I think it reads more naturally, as they aren’t forms of address that we typically use in the same way in English. Hopefully this isn’t too confusing to anyone.

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