The pure white gate of light appeared as it always had, arriving right on schedule at the end of the mission. One by one, the notorious troublemakers stepped forward and entered the luminous gateway.
Their destination lay at the far end of the gate, while “Home” and the “Greenhouse” existed on the opposite side. They were separated by a layer of the earth’s crust, destined to operate independently forever, one as an underground world, the other aboveground. Lin Huai had no way of knowing what this “civilized world,” born from the aftermath of a “nuclear winter,” would eventually become after many years had passed.
He could foresee that the “Greenhouse” would inevitably march toward destruction amid its madness but whether the reborn “Home” would move toward a future with any real guarantees remained an unanswered question.
“Rebirth…”
He mulled over those two words, then suddenly laughed. “Come to think of it, I suppose I count as reborn too.”
This body, along with the fragments of memory it carried, did not belong to his original self at all. The memories that the original him once possessed were now nowhere to be found and yet, the memories that had been awakened back then, while standing before a newspaper, were like a mosquito trapped inside a net: appearing and disappearing without warning, buzzing incessantly as they hovered over his guarded heart.
‘That place must be the world behind the “door.” That feeling of absolute certainty when inspiration was triggered… it really does prove that those memories came from my soul itself,’ he thought. ‘And that cold voice that reached an agreement with me, there’s no mistake about it. That was the system.’
Why had he insisted on entering the “door” in the first place? What had he gained on the other side of it? What exactly were those multicolored bubbles? And in the end, what kind of gamble had he made with the system?
A dull ache throbbed at his forehead. Walking ahead of him, The fat man was chatting with Lu Xiaotian. “…No idea what kind of score that old demon hag of a system is going to give me this time after we enter our personal spaces…”
“After advancing to the intermediate arena, the game uses a defense based evaluation system,” Zhao Jingtian said as he stepped into the gate of light. He turned around and looked at Lin Huai behind him. “Remember my name. We’ll meet again.”
With that, his long ponytail vanished into the light.
One by one, the players disappeared into the gate. Outside it, only Lin Huai and Chu Tianshu were left standing. Lin Huai looked at Chu Tianshu. “You’re not leaving?”
“There are still some things I need to take care of.”
“Oh.”
Lin Huai walked past him and stepped into the gate. Once he felt the solid sensation of being supported beneath him, he realized he was sitting in a room that resembled an interrogation chamber.
The four walls of the room were painted white. Directly in front of him was a pane of one way glass. From his side, all he could see beyond it was a deep, unfathomable darkness.
He recalled Zhao Jingtian’s explanation of the defense process: the format of the defense would vary depending on the examiner’s personality but regardless of how the format changed, the examiner would ultimately ask the player several questions related to the game.
And those questions were closely tied to the player’s performance during the game.
“So what kind of questions might they ask me?” Lin Huai had wondered at the time.
“Well, that…”
Zhao Jingtian had stalled. Beside them, Chu Tianshu was leisurely writing equations with a pen as he answered slowly,
“Question one: why are you so flashy? Question two: are you happy? Question three ”
Before Chu Tianshu could finish, Lin Huai had already pressed his head down onto the table.
Lin Huai waited in the interrogation room for a long time but even after he had collapsed into a boneless puddle resembling a melted cat cake, no examiner appeared on the other side of the glass.
‘Could it be because Lu Xiaotian talks too much? Or because Zhao Jingtian’s protagonist halo is too dazzling, so I’ve already been expelled from this novel because of him…’ Lying face down on the table, he let his thoughts wander.
He was so bored he felt like prying out his own eyeballs to use as marbles. After countless successful attempts at restraining his playful impulses, a faint light finally flickered on in the dark room next door.
He saw a shadow appear on the other side of the glass. Because of the obstruction, he could only make out the figure’s shape and outline, judging that the person looked no older than thirty.
“Tsk, you’re finally here. You’re really punctual… though I have to ask, who exactly are you?” Lin Huai said bluntly. “I don’t remember that puppet being this tall…”
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the shadow said. “I am your examiner.”
The shadow’s voice was neither old nor cold. If anything, it sounded young and gentle.
And yet, Lin Huai had a vague feeling… that this voice was familiar.
“The first question,” the shadow said. “You are a very special kind of player. When everyone else chose to swallow their grievances, you chose a completely different path. Why?”
Lin Huai raised his head and looked toward him. The shadow remained unmoving.
“Or let me put it another way,” the shadow continued. “Do you believe yourself to be on the side of justice?”
Lin Huai smiled.
“If I say yes, you’ll say that I slaughtered the broadcast hall, killed countless people and locked the Greenhouse residents underground to raise them like poison insects, an unmistakable villain. If I say no, you’ll still find every possible reason to excuse me.” He said, “I didn’t think about anything that complicated at all. I did all of this simply because… you wanted to watch a play.”
“Every beautiful stage play is built upon fierce conflict. In a play, there are righteous figures and villains, protagonists and supporting roles. Mm… this is the conclusion I’ve drawn after being addicted to TV dramas for a while now.” Lin Huai blinked. He interlaced his fingers, propped up his chin and looked toward the shadow. “But I don’t want to be righteous and I don’t want to be a villain either.”
“I only want to be a clown who stirs everything into chaos, happy and mad. To scatter roses at the audience, to smash the sanctimonious protagonist over the head with a prop gun and when everything is over, to carry the lost little girl back to her home. The protagonist follows morality, the villain follows the script but only the clown who does as he pleases is the freest and the happiest.” He spread his hands. “Are you satisfied with this answer?”
The shadow replied politely, “I didn’t expect you to be so poetic.”
“The second question,” the shadow continued. “Do you think you brought them happiness? From nuclear winter to a civilized world, after you left, are you satisfied with the outcome you personally created?”
“Of course I am, because I gained happiness…”
“The third question…”
One operational question after another was posed to Lin Huai, even including the calculation method of the point deduction system. By the time the questioning finally reached its end, Lin Huai had slumped forward onto the table. He stared at the ceiling and let out a sigh. “…How many more boring questions are there? I want to go back and watch TV…”
“This is the last one. Please bear with it a little longer. Now, let us move on to the final question,” the shadow said gently. “In front of the wall of newspapers, what did you remember?”
Zzz
Crackle!
A long, sustained electric current roared through the room, accompanied by harsh static. The light cover on the ceiling began to shake, flickering on and off again and again.
In that instant, all of Lin Huai’s clothes were dyed a deep crimson. The frosted glass began to move and in the next moment, it pressed close to Lin Huai’s body.
The black shadow on the glass stretched and widened, until it filled the entire pane, completely turning it back into its original, pitch black color.
“So it turns out… you remembered… the wager…” The jet black window gazed at Lin Huai, who stood as if facing a formidable enemy and spoke. “Lin Huai.”
“Or should I call you by your true name? Huai Xu.”
“Fulfill… our… wager… or… become… our…”
“Part.”
The darkness coiled around Lin Huai’s hands, climbing upward along his red stained clothes, as if trying to drag him into that shadow as well yet just as he was about to be swallowed,
He let out a laugh involuntarily.
“Haha… hahahaha…”
Bright red blood streamed from the corners of his eyes. Wherever the blood flowed, the darkness dissolved away. Within that pitch black void, he looked at his own blood. With just a single glance, it was as if he saw countless densely packed, chaotic numbers glowing with an eerie white light.
Lin Huai realized that he was standing inside a white personal space. Before him, the lottery wheel was still turning slowly.
As though everything he had seen in the interrogation room had been nothing more than a dream.
“This is…”
He rose from the sofa and cautiously surveyed his surroundings but when he looked behind him, he discovered that the black door had appeared once more within the wall!
The door was still wrapped in countless chains and among them, one massive padlock stood out in particular. It stood there silently yet without even looking closely, one could feel the cold, peering presence emanating from within.
…However, what caught his attention most was that the thickest of the chains had already snapped, hanging broken on either side of the door.
He stared at the door for a long time, then said to the system, “Bring up the character panel.”
Name: Lin Huai (temporary)
Gender: Appears to be unable to get pregnant
Age: 20
Alignment Evaluation: Pleasure
Lin Huai: “……”
Current Identity: Intermediate Arena Player
Experience Points: 0/10000
Distance to Next Level: 10000
Current Number of Cleared Instances: 4
Instance 4 (Promotion Instance): Civilized World, Rating SSS
Honorary Title Obtained: “Pleasure Clown.” Would you like to view the title description and its skills now?
“Yes.” Lin Huai replied without even lifting his eyelids.
NCP support group ߹𖥦߹
Hello! This is Cresvynia ✨ I decided to pick up this novel because I genuinely enjoyed reading it and couldn’t resist continuing the story. I’ll be translating from Chapter 111 onward for now, and if time allows later, I may go back and cover earlier chapters too. Thank you so much for reading, and if you spot any mistakes along the way, feel free to let me know. I hope you enjoy the journey!
Chatper before 111 are available on Knoxt, kindly do check it out there, I would possibly translate it and tag them here later…
✦ ✧ ✦
Cresvynia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
The translator humbly requests tribute in coffee form. (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ ☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
Next →
ChaptersChapter 111 · Although the author really didn’t want to writeChapter 112 · An explanation of the main storylineChapter 113 · Lin Huai’s QuestionChapter 114 · Hello classmateChapter 115 · Let me introduce the protagonist’s family backgroundChapter 116 · The innocent and naive Lin XiaohuaiChapter 117 · The Trisolarans ArriveChapter 118 · He Isn’t Fighting AloneChapter 119 · Why Here?Chapter 120 · A World Where Everyone Is Sculpted in ClayChapter 121 · How Could It Be YouChapter 122 · I want to sell my carChapter 123 · The Mysterious Transfer StudentsChapter 124 · Gu BeichenChapter 125 · The Male Lead of This StoryChapter 126 · A Voice Never Heard BeforeChapter 127 · You’re Tomie, aren’t you?Chapter 128 · I’ll give youChapter 129 · I just want to be with youChapter 130 · The Principal’s OfficeChapter 131 · Chu: I Disbanded Your Hate GroupsChapter 132 · Speak ProperlyChapter 133 · A Trisolaran Enters the Grand View GardenChapter 134 · Ji FengjianChapter 135 · About Me and YouChapter 136 · Kayako Likes ItChapter 137 · YouChapter 138 · I’ll Beat MyselfChapter 139 · I Want to See MyselfChapter 140 · The Trisolarans’ First Experience of Love and SexChapter 141 · The Trisolarans Try Romance Once MoreChapter 142 · The Trisolarans Try Romance for the Third TimeChapter 143 · It’s All This Buff’s FaultChapter 144 · The Way You Straight Men TalkChapter 145 · Why are you taking it so seriously?Chapter 146 · Chu Tianshu Shows Off His MusclesChapter 147 · Enter the DreamChapter 148 · Leave a little secretChapter 149 · Shadow StreamerChapter 150 · Don’t Look at MeChapter 151 · The Trisolarans betrayed StalinChapter 152 · Then I WillChapter 153 · The Trisolarans rewrite the Book of Life and DeathChapter 154 · What Career Could Be More Important Than Your Wife?Chapter 155 · Aren’t We Already Together?Chapter 156 · MVP of the Entire FieldChapter 157 · Meeting the FamilyChapter 158 · A Phone Call Across Time and SpaceChapter 159 · Lu Jin, You’re So MiserableChapter 160 · The Lands Of DaughtersChapter 161 · The So Called Pregnancy StreamChapter 162 · The Street Where Only the Two of Us ExistChapter 163 · No bare faceChapter 164 · Question 1: Do you have hair loss?Chapter 165 · LaxativesChapter 166 · Where Exactly Do You Exist?Chapter 167 · Seven ZeroChapter 168 · The issue of 0 and 1Chapter 169 · Wind ChimeChapter 170 · Visa and Wind ChimesChapter 171 · Continue to persecute Lu JinChapter 172 · Examiner: I’ve fallen in love with himChapter 173 · Lin Huai intimidates scalpersChapter 174 · Night of EvilChapter 175 · Congratulations to the Male Guests on Successfully Finding Their PartnersChapter 176 · Before ThisChapter 177 · The gong says he is terrifiedChapter 178 · The Tasker CampChapter 179 · I’m So ScaredChapter 180 · The Final Transitional ChapterChapter 181 · Four Beauties Among the FlowersChapter 182 · Plum FragranceChapter 183 · Dry Weather and Flammable ThingsChapter 184 · The Heartless Sword ManualChapter 185 · Only MeChapter 186 · The North PoleChapter 187 · Let Brother Lin Learn to Meow Like a CatChapter 188 · Good Night