Honorary Title: Pleasure Clown
Current Development Level: 0 (*)
Description: Some say we are righteous, others say we are villains, ordinary clowns bring joy to the audience but we only need to please ourselves and overturn the entire stage.
Currently Unlocked Basic Abilities:
One: Role Playing (*)
“A good actor must learn how to immerse themselves; those who love quarrels should do the same.”
Ability Description: Allows imitation of people the user has previously encountered. The more the user knows about the target, the higher the degree of imitation. The base effective duration of the ability is thirty minutes; if the target being imitated is powerful, the duration is reduced.
P.S. Scope of imitation: appearance, thought patterns, skills.
Two: Chain Explosion (*)
“When an actor can’t remember their lines, they say ‘1, 2, 3.’ A clown, when left with nothing to say, will say ‘3, 2, 1.’”
Ability Description: Every “dart” you throw can become a…. It may explode as a….. it may explode like a water balloon or it may explode like a piece of chewed bubble gum… the content of the explosion is random. Of course, through sufficient contact, you may also cause any inanimate object to become a….
P.S. Even through negative distance contact, humans will not become…
Three: Super Enhanced Physical Techniques (*)
“As a clown, one must not only deliver outstanding performances on stage but also be able to make a swift escape when surrounded by the audience.”
Ability Description: Your physical abilities will be strengthened, especially speed and flexibility. For every person who is chasing you down, the bonuses granted by this skill will increase by 10%, capped at a maximum increase of 100%.
P.S. There is a special speed bonus when facing mission identities such as reporters.
Four: Dream Theft (*)
“Some say that controlling dreams is Freddy’s specialty, let’s quietly steal it instead…”
Ability Description: You may steal the dream of a sleeping person and infiltrate it, becoming a part of the dream. If you yourself are within the dream, your soul will possess a body there.
P.S. Don’t steal spring dreams.
“This description is really cheeky…” Lin Huai’s eyelid twitched. “Becoming part of a dream… a three person dream is fine, as long as I’m not the one on the bottom. A two person dream, though… but how am I supposed to know whether that person isn’t having a spring dream?”
…At present, of course, there was no way for him to know that in the next instance, this skill would thoroughly screw him over.
That was a matter for later. For now, in his eyes, the four skills of “Pleasure Clown” truly lived up to the name, mischievous and delightful indeed…
However, what truly caught his attention was that “*” symbol.
According to the explanation attached to the “*” these four skills were the basic abilities of “Pleasure Clown.” As the title’s development level increased, all four skills would undergo evolution (Lin Huai thought that if a detection ability for spring dreams appeared, that would be even better). However, the system did not provide any method for increasing the title’s development level.
“I’ll ask Chu Tianshu after we get out. He looks like someone with a very high title development level,” he thought.
He closed the title information interface and sat alone on the sofa, hugging his knees, gazing up at the vast white ceiling.
Only when he was alone did he finally have the space to properly think about his own situation.
In the past, he had always felt that he was a vengeful ghost trying to blend into human society. In his fragmented memories, there was only the blood soaked Wen County and that dried up well from which he finally awakened in modern society after sleeping for a hundred years.
His body had been excavated by a history professor, while his ghost followed along the entire way. After terrorizing the history professor for a month, he found a perfectly suitable body. Later, because of that body, he received the black invitation letter and was dragged into this game.
But now, he felt that all of this… was far too coincidental.
Why was his body unearthed precisely this year? The crow had entered the “door” one year ago. Calculated carefully, that was exactly the same day he awakened in that well in Wen County.
As for possession, he should have had many choices but why was it that this body, one that had died from jumping off a building, bound to the game, perfectly aligned with his aesthetic tastes, to the point that he couldn’t help but seamlessly merge into it? And the name “Lin Huai”… the character huai carried a heavy, ghostly aura and was rarely used in human names. So why was he called Lin Huai?
And children with both parents alive were far from rare. So why was it that this body’s parents had divorced during his childhood and then conveniently paid no attention to the child afterward? Ever since he entered this body, its parents existed only as two names on WeChat, one labeled “Dad,” the other “Mom.”
Leaving aside the fact that they only transferred living expenses to Lin Huai on the first of each month and had no other communication at all, even those blunt, perfunctory labels alone made one unable to help but wonder whether their existence was merely symbolic or perhaps… whether these two people…
Really existed at all?
Thinking even further, did “Lin Huai” truly exist at S University in the past? In Lu Jin’s dormitory, were there really four people living there all along? He still remembered clearly that the jump from the building had happened the day before registration. On the first day of the semester, when he walked into the dormitory for the first time and proactively spoke to Lu Jin, the startled expression on his face…
That startled expression, was it because a usually solitary roommate was suddenly acting uncharacteristically friendly…
Or was it because,
This person was never supposed to exist in his dormitory in the first place?
And then, at the moment when “Lin Huai” spoke to him…
His memory underwent some kind of alteration and thus the “Lin Huai” who kept to himself, rarely stayed in the dormitory and even needed someone to temporarily help him make his bed and fold his blankets, came into existence.
Or perhaps, no matter which dormitory he entered, no matter whether the person sitting inside was Lu Jin or Zhang Jin…
As long as there was an empty bed in that dormitory, “Lin Huai” would, without warning and without a sound, integrate himself into their lives.
Just like those classmates from the same department who had always believed that “Lin Huai” was taciturn and solitary, only becoming lively after his appearance.
And after entering the game, all the subtle abnormalities that had begun to manifest within him only deepened his confusion.
The puppets called him “Father.” The memories born from inspiration, of himself wagering with colorful bubbles. The violent sense of fragmentation that nearly tore his brain apart afterward. That howl and… the examiner.
Everyone else’s examiner should have been Freddy but his examiner had been a shadow.
A shadow… a darkness that blocked the entire pane of glass, silently watching him.
That shadow told him to remember the wager and wanted him to become a part of itself.
In the final fragment of that memory, it was his blood that dispersed the shadow yet when he slit his palm within the system space, he did not see, as he had at the moment when he was enveloped by darkness, those densely packed golden numbers flowing within his blood.
And there was another matter that involuntarily drew his attention,
The fat man had said that the system was an old demon hag!
…No matter how he thought about it, the system voice he heard had always been that of a cold, indifferent male. There was absolutely no way it could be described as an old demon hag!
However, if not for this coincidence, he would never have learned of this discrepancy. After all, who would ever exchange information in an infinite survival game about whether each other’s system prompt voices were male or female?
If even the system voice issuing commands within the game could not be trusted, then walking straight toward death was only natural.
Because… It was entirely possible that the system issued death missions to him alone.
Even though, up until now, the system had shown no signs of actively harming Lin Huai. On the contrary, in certain details, Lin Huai even felt that the system treated him with a faint sense of familiarity and special consideration.
But that did not mean he could afford to stop preparing for the worst.
There was also that door, the one he had glimpsed in a fleeting instant the first time he entered the system space. Back then, it had been wrapped in layers upon layers of chains, secured by a massive lock and this time, when he returned to the system space, the thickest of those chains had already snapped.
He could not help but begin to speculate and suspect that the breaking of this chain was inseparably connected to the awakening of his memories.
And he had a premonition… that when his memories fully awakened, the chains on that door would completely break and at present, he absolutely did not want to see what lay behind that “door.”
All signs indicated that he truly was the crow that had entered the “door” or rather, that he had once been that “crow.” Otherwise, he could not explain his own existence, nor the many strange phenomena that revolved around him.
Yet the “crow” was human, while “Lin Huai” was a vengeful ghost… but what about himself?
What exactly was he?
“…For a vengeful ghost to be frightened by himself, how ridiculous,” Lin Huai said as he sat on the sofa, pressing a hand to his forehead with a bitter smile. “But if that’s the case, it’s a little embarrassing to keep calling myself a vengeful ghost…”
The question he had always refused to acknowledge and subtly avoided thinking about, was finally laid bare before him.
If his identity was fabricated, his memories were false and everything was manufactured,
Then what, exactly, was he now?
What three things were needed to form a human being? Memory, body, interpersonal relationships?
A body of unknown origin, a memory riddled with holes and now even the composition of his interpersonal relationships had fallen within the scope of his doubts.
A special system whose allegiance was unclear, the relentlessly pressing “door,” the “black shadow” in the monitoring room, the “bubbles” and “male voice” with whom he had made a wager, Freddy who seemed to face him with goodwill and the “howl” within his body that seemed to be attempting to tear him apart…
Were all of his memories fabricated? But then what about Wen County… could there still be secrets hidden there?
“What am I, really…”
Just before being transmitted out of the system space, Lin Huai looked at his own body and murmured.
All of a sudden, he felt an urgent need for sugar, to raise his blood sugar, to make himself feel warm.
When he opened his eyes again, Lin Huai had already returned to the bathroom.
He stood there, quietly,
for a long time.
“Hey, Lin Huai, are you coming out or not!” Lu Jin shouted while pounding on the door outside. “How long have you been squatting in there! I’m about to burst!”
Just as he was about to pry the door open, Lin Huai finally stepped out of the bathroom. His face was deathly pale, cold and gloomy, as he brushed past Lu Jin. Despite his bladder screaming in protest, when Lu Jin caught sight of Lin Huai’s profile, he could not help but freeze for a moment.
“His complexion looks awful…” he thought.
Lin Huai walked out of the dormitory. He passed through the corridors he knew so well, down the stairs and onto the sports field. On the field, Shao Wei was playing soccer.
Under the shade of the trees stood Lin Dangdang and her roommates, cheering. Lin Huai stood by the edge of the field, watching quietly for a long time.
Then he went to the library. Inside, Tan Xiruo was studying diligently.
Qin Jiang was buying milk tea at Fenghua Yuan, Chen Shu was reposting the latest haunted house competition on Moments, Cheng Yu’an was chatting with Zhou Ming in the group chat… everyone had their own affairs and their own destinations.
And he sat alone on the steps in front of the library, watching his shadow gradually stretch longer and longer under the setting sun. For reasons he could not explain, he felt an intense sense of drifting and loneliness.
Until a patch of shadow fell over his head.
He looked up and saw an umbrella.
And beneath the umbrella,
a familiar face.
For some reason, at that moment, he suddenly felt like crying.
✦ ✧ ✦
Cresvynia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
Every small bit of support means something to the person behind the translation.
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
← PreviousNext →
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