“I want you… to hand over all of your remaining time.”
This was not Ye Jinran’s personal request. It was the will of the Main God.
He served only as a temporary bridge, allowing the player to communicate and negotiate with the Main God. The assistance she would receive did not come from him and naturally, the price to be collected would not go to him either.
This short term mediating role was something Ye Jinran took on voluntarily. After much consideration, he believed that giving He Ran accurate information about the coming disaster might lead the dungeon to develop in a direction more pleasing to the Main God.
Because of that, he consulted his superior and obtained the opportunity to conduct this transaction. Among all her assets, He Ran possessed the greatest amount of time.
Even after their life countdown reached zero, players inside the dungeon would not die immediately. They could still extend their lifespan by clearing dungeons and earning more time as rewards.
Her death countdown was simply too long, so long that she lacked both fear and reverence toward the Infinite Game. The Main God was displeased with her lack of urgency and decided to shove her closer to the edge of the cliff.
Surely no one actually believed that becoming a player in the Infinite Game meant you could lie flat and slack off, right?
At the same time, the Main God displayed a level of mercy so scarce it was nearly nonexistent for humans but in His own eyes, it was almost a little excessive.
This was a voluntary transaction. She could refuse the deal without paying any price and decline the offered assistance.
If He Ran truly decided to lie flat and not care about the game’s success or failure, she could still keep that excessively long reserve of remaining time.
But was making such a decision really that simple?
Ye Jinran gazed into the girl’s eyes and saw inside them a tangled, conflicted struggle and beneath that, a faint but undeniable firmness.
After a long moment, she exhaled softly. “In what form… will the information about that disaster be given to me?”
Understanding her concern, Ye Jinran’s lips curved slightly. “In a way that only you will be able to know.”
“I’m not a professional… ” she said. “Even if I get the data, I can’t calculate anything the way my classmates can.”
“Of course that has already been considered. When the time comes, you will be provided with the appropriate formulas, programs and computational tools. The results can be printed out in a format your classmates can understand.”
He Ran’s eyes flashed sharply. She caught the key word immediately. “We? The one negotiating with me isn’t just Black, is it?”
Ye Jinran replied lightly, “The system shop does not belong to me alone. The ‘me’ standing in front of you… has very limited abilities.”
The truth that he was the one and only “wage slave” working in a so called global chain store absolutely could not be known by a second person! If he pretended that there were many powerful entities behind him, maybe players would hesitate a little more the next time they planned to attack the system shop.
Besides, at this very moment he was indeed communicating with the Main God while also speaking to He Ran, who stood before him as a player. The content of the deal had been discussed between him and the Main God, so technically, what he said was not a lie.
“…Fine,” He Ran murmured in resignation, lowering her head. “I’ll give it. I’ll give all of it.”
She no longer cared how long she could live. At this point, all she wanted was to win this round of the game.
Just what kind of short circuit had happened in her brain back then for her to climb aboard this thief ship that Bai Yanzhou was on?!
Regret was meaningless now. He Ran watched helplessly as the numbers on the system panel, the digits representing her remaining lifespan, plunged at an absurd speed until they finally hit zero.
And at that very instant, a tremendous surge of foreign thoughts flooded into her mind. The space around her twisted in abnormal, dreamlike ways. She could not tell whether the bizarre distortions were an illusion created by the shock to her brain or if they were actually happening.
The nearby chairs, the framed decorations on the wall, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, everything warped, reshaping in kaleidoscopic colors that filled the entire classroom.
Her vision was pulled by an overwhelming force, carried across cities and ocean currents, arriving at a vast land buried beneath blinding white snow. Mountain ranges stretched endlessly and the shadows they cast resembled dormant beasts crouched in wait.
Above the heavens, churning black clouds blotted out the brilliant sea of stars and the air rumbled with an ancient roar born from primordial collisions.
Then, she saw it.
In the howling frost bitten storm, a gargantuan humanoid figure, so immense it defied imagination, walked slowly in the sky. Its posture shifted with the rolling clouds, endless in variation.
It lowered its head and on that devil like face, the eyes shimmered with an eerie glow as they cast a vicious gaze toward her, locking with her own across an unfathomable distance.
Ye Jinran had no idea what exactly He Ran was seeing but judging from her spectacular changes of expression and from the way her body suddenly went limp as she collapsed onto her knees, it must have been quite an extraordinary sight.
The Main God sometimes acted with no sense of proportion. Ye Jinran had experienced this firsthand. He shook his head sympathetically.
When He Ran snapped out of that detached mental state, it was as if she had become a different person. She spun around and threw herself toward the various strange machines that had suddenly appeared in the classroom.
Like a madwoman possessed, she began frantically pressing the glowing buttons of different colors, inputting the complicated stream of information she had just received.
To use a common phrase to describe her current condition, it was “as if she were possessed by a ghost.” Ye Jinran glanced at the devices the Main God had transferred into the classroom.
They were fundamentally not of human technological origin and he had no idea which planet they had been brought from. Under normal circumstances, human players would not be capable of using them at all.
Ye Jinran had long held a certain suspicion. Perhaps the players participating in this Infinite Game were not limited to humans alone.
Those beings chosen as toys by the Main God might include not only humans from Earth but also other intelligent species that had developed civilizations. Somewhere out in the distant universe, similar events might be happening over and over again.
His system shop certainly did not contain these particular items. Even if they had been placed on the shelves, human players would not be able to use them, nor would they be willing to buy them.
After working feverishly for more than ten minutes, He Ran finally completed her calculations and collapsed weakly onto the ground.
“I… even if we’re outsiders… even if there are always people telling us to respect the fate of others…”
Exerting every bit of strength she had left, she used her pale hands to prop herself up against the nearby desk and slowly pulled herself to her feet.
“I still don’t want to let so many people die. If I can save one, then I’ll save one…”
He Ran lifted her head and looked at the black haired young man who had been silently standing there the entire time. She forced a smile, one that was barely better than crying.
The moment the surrounding instruments completed their purpose, they vanished without a trace. In her arms, she held a thick stack of white papers, printed with the results she had just obtained.
Her laughter burst out in uneven waves, almost doubling her over and a faint sheen of tears glistened at the corners of her eyes. “If my little brother hears about this, he’ll definitely complain. He’d say, ‘Why bother caring about a bunch of game NPCs? Isn’t taking care of yourself already hard enough?’”
Ye Jinran remained expressionless. Even with his limited ability to empathize, as someone who was also human, there was no way he could look at He Ran, trembling but still forcing herself to stand after everything she had just witnessed and still feel amused or entertained.
“Thank you, Black. I’ll excuse myself first, I need to bring these to my teammates.” He Ran headed toward the classroom door and just before stepping out, she glanced down at the report in her hands. “It really is soon… I didn’t expect it to be tomorrow…”
She hurried off, not daring to waste even a single second more.
The already empty classroom became even quieter. Ye Jinran sat there, long without speaking and did not get up to leave.
The ice storm would reach Country A tomorrow afternoon. Humanity did not have much time left.
He could easily remain detached. Whether the players won or lost this game would not affect his survival. The people living inside the dungeon had nothing to do with him. The next time he entered, everything would reset to the beginning.
Yet, a sudden wave of sorrow, like the lament of one rabbit watching another die, rose in his chest.
Ye Jinran wandered through countless dungeons and wasn’t he, too, just another piece of this game, another actor placed upon the stage by the Main God?
From the very first day he came into contact with the Main God, he understood how effortlessly he could be crushed. Everything he had done since then was simply an attempt to preserve his own life and on that foundation, try to live a little better.
One day, the giant sword hanging above his head would inevitably fall.
Players, at least, could receive aid from him but when he was the one forced into a dead end by the Main God… who would help him?
The Main God let him manage the system shop, creating a false sense of safety, all while waiting for the day to deliver a fatal blow. When that day arrived, Ye Jinran knew he would have no power to resist. Humans were far too fragile.
All he could do was place his last hope in the thing humans called, perhaps foolishly, courage.
Ye Jinran opened the map interface. He saw that He Ran had stopped moving somewhere, likely sharing her newly calculated results with her classmates. Meanwhile, Bai Yanzhou had already left the campus and was heading toward the outskirts.
That area was Amanda’s hiding place. She seemed entirely unaware of the danger approaching her… or perhaps she was confident she wouldn’t be detected. The glowing point labeled “Amanda” had not moved.
Whether it was Amanda getting into trouble or Bai Yanzhou’s plan running into obstacles and failing, neither outcome was something Ye Jinran wished to see right now. Without the slightest hesitation, he used several speed boosting items in quick succession and immediately set off toward their direction.
Out on the plains, residential houses were sparse and scattered. The roads were open, clear and almost unnaturally quiet, with not a single pedestrian in sight. The sun beat down relentlessly, scorching the earth so fiercely that cracking an egg on the asphalt might very well cook it through. At this hour, no one would willingly step outside, unless they had no other choice.
Amanda had no choice at all. This area, with its lack of people, was far more suitable for hiding than the bustling downtown or the chaotic, crime ridden slums.
After the wanted order was issued, every major checkpoint on the city’s transportation routes had been taken over and tightly guarded by police. She had no way to escape the city and could only look for a temporary hiding place nearby.
Using the last of her remaining points, she purchased disguise tools, altering her facial features and even her height. Judging purely by her appearance, she looked as if she had transformed into someone of an entirely different ethnicity.
Upon entering this neighborhood, she rented a room under the guise of a budget traveler. Because she stuffed a generous amount of money into the landlord’s hand, he didn’t bother with thorough identity checks, allowing her to slip by unnoticed.
The one known as ‘I Am Not the Medicine God’ is dead.
And yes, she truly had died by Amanda’s own hand. The moment Amanda saw her drink the poisoned liquid, she knew the other woman had agreed to her plan. Even so, a sense of uncertainty continued gnawing at Amanda, she had no idea when that player would use “Self Revival” and return to the game.
The most likely scenario was that the medicine God would simply abandon this round of the game altogether, wait until the dungeon was cleared and then use the revival opportunity. That way, she could return to reality completely unharmed.
Before entering Riding the Wind, Amanda had never considered dragging innocent people into the personal feud between herself and Bai Yanzhou yet those connected to her had come rushing after her one by one like moths plunging into a flame.
First two beloved students, then friends of those students… She didn’t want any of them to get hurt, so she could only protect them in her own way.
She would pretend to be an enemy, follow the plot laid out by the dungeon and then personally send them into the grave. At the very least, that would prevent Bai Yanzhou from placing them on his kill list.
But was this decision truly the right one…? Amanda had never doubted that shopkeeper but she had begun doubting whether she herself could keep walking down this chosen path.
She was holding a heavy plastic shopping bag filled with supplies she had just bought from a nearby supermarket. Her mind drifted for a moment and one side of the bag slipped from her hand, sending several cans of fruit tumbling to the ground.
“Miss, do you need me to pick those up for you?”
Amanda ignored the scattered food at her feet. She lifted her head in disbelief and saw the silver haired man walking toward her.
Bai Yanzhou’s expression was as relaxed as if he had simply run into a familiar neighbor on the street. His smile was perfectly measured. He curled a finger and the cans lying on the ground leapt into his palm on their own, after which he flicked his wrist and tossed them neatly back into her plastic bag.
Amanda fought hard to suppress the instinct to bolt. Forcing herself to remain calm, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“I came to visit an old friend. It seems you’ve run into quite a bit of trouble but I happen to need your help. Don’t worry, this won’t interfere with your current goals.”
Bai Yanzhou lifted a hand and gently patted her shoulder.
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
A mysterious coffee offering may increase translator happiness by 37%. Probably.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
ChaptersChapter 1 · Blood Moon Town: ShhhChapter 2 · The Mist of Nanjin Village (1)Chapter 3 · The Mist of Nanjin Village (2)Chapter 4 · The Mist of Nanjin Village (3)Chapter 5 · The Mist of Nanjin Village (4)Chapter 6 · The Mist of Nanjin Village (7)Chapter 7 · The Mist of Nanjin Village (6)Chapter 8 · The mist over Nanjin Village (7)Chapter 9 · The Mystery of Nanjin Village (The End)Chapter 10 · Real WorldChapter 11 · Riding The Wind (1)Chapter 12 · Riding The Wind (2)Chapter 13 · Riding The Wind (3)Chapter 14 · Riding The Wind (4)Chapter 15 · Riding The Wind (5)Chapter 16 · Riding The Wind (6)Chapter 17 · Riding The Wind (7)Chapter 18 · Riding The Wind (8)Chapter 19 · Riding The Wind (9)Chapter 20 · Riding The Wind (10)Chapter 21 Part 1 · Riding The Wind (11)Chapter 21 Part 2 · Riding The Wind (11)Chapter 22 · Real World (1)Chapter 23 · Real World (2)Chapter 24 · Golden Sands Fade Away (1)Chapter 25 · Golden Sands Fade Away (2)Chapter 26 · Golden Sands Fade Away (3)Chapter 27 · Golden Sands Fade Away (4)Chapter 28 · Golden Sands Fade Away (5)Chapter 29 · Golden Sands Fade Away (6)Chapter 30 · Golden Sands Fade Away (7)Chapter 31 · Golden Sands Fade Away (8)Chapter 32 · Golden Sands Fade Away (9)Chapter 33 · Golden Sands Fade Away (10)Chapter 34 · Golden Sands Fade Away (11)Chapter 35 · Golden Sands Fade Away (12)Chapter 36 · Golden Sands Fade Away (13)Chapter 37 · Golden Sands Fade Away (14)Chapter 38 · Golden Sands Fade Away (15)Chapter 39 · Golden Sands Fade Away (16)Chapter 40 · Golden Sands Fade Away (17)Chapter 41 · Golden Sands Fade Away (18)Chapter 42 · Golden Sands Fade Away (19)Chapter 43 · Golden Sands Fade Away (20)Chapter 44 · Golden Sands Fade Away (21)Chapter 45 · Golden Sands Fade Away (22)Chapter 46 · Golden Sands Fade Away (23)Chapter 47 · Golden Sands Fade Away (24)Chapter 48 · Golden Sands Fade Away (25) The EndChapter 49 · Main God’s DomainChapter 50 · Anomaly Investigation Bureau (1)Chapter 51 · Anomaly Investigation Bureau (2)Chapter 52 · Item FactoryChapter 53 · Defrosted Friendship (1)Chapter 54 · Defrosted Friendship (2)Chapter 55 · Defrosted Friendship (3)Chapter 56 · Defrosted Friendship (4)Chapter 57 · Defrosted Friendship (5)Chapter 58 · Defrosted Friendship (6)Chapter 59 · Defrosted Friendship (7)Chapter 60 · Defrosted Friendship (8)Chapter 61 · Defrosted Friendship (9)Chapter 62 · Defrosted Friendship (10)Chapter 63 · Defrosted Friendship (11)Chapter 64 · Defrosted Friendship (12)Chapter 65 · Defrosted Friendship (13)Chapter 66 · Defrosted Friendship (14)Chapter 67 · Defrosted Friendship (15)Chapter 68 · Defrosted Friendship (16)Chapter 69 · Defrosted Friendship (End)Chapter 70 · The Real WorldChapter 71 · Matching TimeChapter 72 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (1)Chapter 73 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (2)Chapter 74 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (3)Chapter 75 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (4)Chapter 76 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (5)Chapter 77 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (6)Chapter 78 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (7)Chapter 79 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (8)Chapter 80 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (9)Chapter 81 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (10)Chapter 82 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (11)Chapter 83 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (12)Chapter 84 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (13)Chapter 85 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (14)Chapter 86 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (15)Chapter 87 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (16)Chapter 88 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (17)Chapter 89 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (18)Chapter 90 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (19)Chapter 91 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (20)Chapter 92 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (21)Chapter 93 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (22)Chapter 94 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (23)Chapter 95 · The Meaning of Endless Abundance (Complete)Chapter 96 · The Main God Invites You for TeaChapter 97 · The Player ForumChapter 98 · Training GroundChapter 99 · Eternal Night – The Stone-Striker (1)Chapter 100 · Eternal Night – The Stone-Striker (2)Chapter 101 · Eternal Night – The Stone-Striker (3)Chapter 102 · Eternal Night · The One Who Strikes the Stone (Finale)