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Chapter Ten – Evil, Too Evil
Du-du-duel?!
Wei Wei was so shocked she couldn’t type. After a beat she said: “Zhen Shui was willing to duel?”
In no way did Zhen Shui seem like that kind of irrational person.
In [Dreams of Jianghu], there were two types of one-on-one battle. One type was informal sparring, which was commonly called PK. The other was duelling. In sparring, losing wasn’t very important. There were no losses of experience or drops in levels, but just sparring points. Duels were different. Each loss in a duel was a one level drop. If the player was a lower-level one, then it was still okay. The one level drop could be made back easily. For higher-levels, like Wei Wei and Zhen Shui Wu Xiang, a one-level drop was the loss of more than half a month’s worth of work.
Zhen Shui Wu Xiang was the type to spend money to play the game. All his equipment were top-level and he was always willing to spend more to get stronger. But in a duel with Nai He Da Shen who would have used the same level equipment … …
It was akin to suicide!
Wei Wei had partnered up with both of them before, so she understood their strengths very well. Here it had to be said that they were just too far apart in skill level. Nai He Da Shen was out of the atmosphere, a stunning galaxy, inhuman. Zhen Shui Wu Xiang was just on par with Wei Wei.
So Wei Wei was strongly suspicious that Zhen Shui Wu Xiang couldn’t think it through and wanted to die.
Yu Gong replied to her: “It’s not whether he wanted to or not, Laosan announced the challenge on the World Channel. That announcement, it was so underhanded, if he didn’t take it, he couldn’t ever play in this server again.”
And there was a written challenge, how formal … … We Wei was mortified and asked: “What was the challenge?”
Hou Zi Jiu: He wrote that he wanted a three-battle match. Said if Zhen Shui Wu Xiang won even one battle, it would be considered that Zhen Shui won. He wouldn’t ask about the video again. And in the duel, he wouldn’t bring his divine pet. If Zhen Shui didn’t go to battle with this kind of conditions, Zhen Shui couldn’t be considered a man. Losing was better than not coming.
Not using divine-level pets… …
You could win this way?
Wei Wei was still mortified. It was said that Da Shen was inhuman. This proved it once again. And this kind of conditions really really ~~really didn’t allow anyone to say anything. If Nai He had just asked for a fair duel with Zhen Shui, then even if Zhen Shui didn’t fight, admitting that he wasn’t as good as Nai He, it wouldn’t have given him any embarrassment. But provoking a battle this way made it so that Zhen Shui had to battle. Otherwise, he really would be shamed by everyone.
Hou Zi Jiu said: “Afterwards, I started to pity Zhen Shui Wu Xiang. Poor guy. If it was one match to determine victory, then he would only lose one level. If it was best two out of three, after losing two, he could immediately admit defeat and lose two levels. But Nai He had to play it so that everybody, including him, knew that he would lose the third round but he still had to suffer through it for his honor.”
Yu Gong Pa Shan: Evil, underhanded, too evil.
Nai He said: You guys are reading too much into it. I just didn’t want to waste time talking.
Wei Wei thought that it was true and Nai He’s reason made sense. If it had been a fair challenge, Zhen Shui would have found an excuse not to fight and try to argue instead. Talking back and forth would have wasted time. Da Shen’s challenge was a fatal strike.
Mo Zha Ta: Well, Zhen Shui Wu Xiang was somewhat brave, he didn’t battle with his pet either. Did you already consider this point?
Nai He dismissed him. He said: “Why would I consider him?”
>o< Exactly! Wei Wei thought in her heart, Da Shen didn’t need to consider others. After thinking it over, Wei Wei suddenly found the main point: “Three?”
The red-robed warrior ran to the minstrel and asked in shock: “You killed him three times?”
Nai He: En.
Wei Wei: . . . . . .
No wonder Zhen Shui Wu Xiang didn’t reply to her message. At this point, he probably wanted to die. Three levels, that would take at least two months to gain back.
Mo Zha Ta said: “You should have given yourself a margin. In the one in a thousand chance you lost, like if your electricity or your internet broke, then you really would have let him go? And the video?”
Yi Xiao Nai He carelessly said: “A loss is just a loss. I lose, there is still my furen here.”
Hou Zi Jiu agreed: “Hehehe, yes yes. Nai He only said he wouldn’t care, but didn’t say anything about saozi. Saozi is much stronger than laosan. Didn’t you see that it’s always saozi battling monsters? Nai He is just the boytoy.”
Wei Wei: You flatter me >o<
Yu Gong Pa Shan still was relishing and mourning: “Evil, way too evil.”
Since they just finished fighting a boss, Hou Zi Jiu and the others didn’t want to move. They lazily sat down on the ground to practice inner energy and chat. Because Verdant Mountains was one of the herb-gathering spots, Wei Wei started gathering herbs.
After a while, Wei Wei found the system had refreshed and added a new message.
System: The sky-shaking robber Meng Dong Xing has escaped from the Sky Prison, entered the palace in the night and stolen Princess Xiang Xue’s jewelery box. His crime cannot be pardoned. Requesting all the heroes in the world to help capture Meng Dong Xing and transport him to the government. There are rich rewards.
Wei Wei said: “Meng-boss came out again, capture?”
Meng Dong Xing Boss was one of the more hard-working bosses in Dreams. Each day, he would escape from Sky Prison, immediately following the urges of his profession to steal something. Then the system would send out a capture warrant and everybody would try to find him. After capture, the government officials would send him back to the Sky Prison. On the second day, he would continue to escape. But Meng-boss was also one of the more welcomed bosses, because if they managed to capture him, whatever he had stolen would become the reward for the players. Usually, whatever Meng-boss stole was pretty good.
One time, Wei Wei was very lucky. Meng-boss had stolen a box of silver money and coincidently been stumbled upon by Wei Wei. She had gone up alone against Meng-boss and finally defeated him with just a drop of health left. That entire box had been hers alone. Of course, there were unlucky ones. One time, the system said that Meng-boss had stolen Dong Fang Bu Bai’s personal blade[1]. The moment the announcement came out, the players went into a frenzy. Dong Fang Bu Bai’s personal blade. That would be a very amazing weapon so all players, regardless of level, abandoned their quests to capture the boss. At the end, Meng-boss was captured by a high-ranked player. When that player took a look at the blade, he was so angry he almost quit the game.
Because the description of that weapon was ––
The knife that Dong Fang Bu Bai used to castrate himself.
Hou Zi Jiu said: “A princess’s jewellery? Not interested.”
Mo Zha Ta: Don’t wanna move.
Yu Gong Pa Shan: I’m browsing the forums, the video’s been deleted.
Hou Zi Jiu: Aw ~~why was he so compliant?
Wei Wei: >o< why do I feel you are so regretful that he did that?
Hou Zi Jiu: Totally regretful.
Yu Gong Pa Shan: If he didn’t delete, we would, hehehehe.
Hou Zi Jiu: Hack his computer.
Yu Gong Pa Shan: Bankrupt his account.
Mo Zha Ta: What do I do? Sell his wife?
Yu Gong Pa Shan: But since he deleted, we don’t have a reason to act.
Wei Wei: = = You guys are too despicable.
Yu Gong Pa Shan played the humble card: “You flatter us. Compared to Nai He, it’s nine cows to our one hair.[2]”
Wei Wei sweated. Could “nine cows to a hair” be used this way?
Nai He: Wei Wei, we’re leaving.
“En, where?” Wei Wei asked as she joined his team.
“Somewhere without them.”
Just after joining the team, the landscape changed in the blind of an eye and Wei Wei found herself standing on top of the peak of Sunset Mountains.[3]
On Sunset Peak to watch the sunset.
This was one of the most unpopular yet most beautiful places in the game. Because there were no monsters, no quests and therefore no experience to be gained at this place. But since meeting Nai He, this was one of the places that Wei Wei frequently came to.
The sun was half hidden behind the clouds, the rays shooting in all directions. It highlighted the red-clothed warrior to be more bright and beautiful but the white-haired musician became more aloof and out of this world.
Wei Wei set her chin on her hand and watched. Slowly she typed: “This place is really beautiful.”
Nai He: En.
For a time, nobody said anything. After a long while Nai He said: “This incident should have waited for you to solve. Too many people were paying attention though, so I thought it would be better to get it over with as fast as possible.”
In front of the computer, Wei Wei blinked. She blanked out for a long time before realizing that he was explaining to her why he had invited Zhen Shui to duel.
In reality, he didn’t need to explain anything to her. He solved it very well… …but she didn’t know why, Wei Wei felt there arose in her heart a sliver of feeling similar to being emotionally touched.
This kind of feeling hadn’t risen when he had given her that spectacular wedding, nor when he was taking revenge for her. Instead, it was at this time, under such picturesque conditions, because of the fact he was simply just explaining this to her.
Wei Wei didn’t know what to say to him, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. In the end, she sent a smiley face.
Nai He didn’t say anything else. Wei Wei stood silently at his side. She didn’t move or leave, just looking at the silent picture. She felt that this moment in time was tranquil yet distant.
[1]东方不败 (Dong Fang Bu Bai): A character from one of the classical wuxia novels, The Smiling Proud Wanderer (笑傲江湖) by Jin Yong. What was notable about this character was that he had invincible martial arts abilities that came from the Sunflower manual (葵花宝典) but which required him to castrate himself. Eventually, he was only able to get killed because he was distracted by his injured lover who was also being attacked. [2]九牛一毛: nine cows and a hair. Idiom meaning what is being compared is drastically insignificant as each cow has many hairs and there are nine of them. [3]落霞峰: 落霞 means sunset, so the real name is Sunset Peak or Sunset Mountain
Thank you for the chapter. I’m so happy I found this it’s been a very enjoyable read so far.
Thanks for the chapter! This story is such an undiscovered gem. What a great guy. Wei Wei is truly fortunate.