“I’ve already had a proper talk with him too.”
Qiu Ran: “…Then Ji Fengjian?”
“In the middle of talking.” Chu Tianshu flashed a bright, cheerful smile.
Qiu Ran: …
She averted her eyes, unwilling to witness such a disturbingly “enthusiastic” scene any further. Lin Huai picked up a pair of tweezers and pulled the rag out of Ji Fengjian’s mouth. He patted the red haired boy’s head and said kindly:
“Now then, you…”
Ji Fengjian immediately roared, “You’ve humiliated my dignity! I will never submit!”
“Negotiation unsuccessful.” Lin Huai stuffed the rag back into his mouth. “We’ll continue talking later.”
Qiu Ran: …
“Actually, I could go find them and tell them about this win win method,” she said hesitantly. “That way we could, ”
“No need.”
Lin Huai stood up from the chair. “I’m not very familiar with Ye Xiangxiang. She can do whatever she wants but as for Zhang Mingge…”
“There’s still a score between us that needs settling.”
“Ah!” Qiu Ran stood up. “Where are you going?”
“Rather than waiting passively for others to find me, making a grand announcement of my identity suits my personal style much better.” Lin Huai rested one hand on the doorframe. “Miss, farewell.”
Qiu Ran turned toward Chu Tianshu, who merely shrugged. “I’ll go help him adjust the equipment and clear things up.”
The two of them left the laboratory one after the other.
For a moment, the laboratory was left with only Qiu Ran… and Ji Fengjian, still tied up.
She turned her head. The two of them stared at each other.
Ji Fengjian: “Mmph mmph mmph!”
He struggled desperately, clearly begging Qiu Ran to release him. After a moment of thought, she used the tweezers to remove the rag from his mouth.
“This should make you feel a bit better,” she said comfortingly. “As for the rope… let’s wait until they come back before untying you.”
Ji Fengjian: …
“I hate women the most!!” he suddenly burst out in an enraged howl.
After enduring five full minutes of his furious ranting, Qiu Ran stared thoughtfully at the rag in her hand. After a brief consideration, she decided to act with a bit of humanitarian spirit.
She moved her stool farther away and put on a pair of earplugs.
Meanwhile, Ye Xiangxiang and Zhang Mingge finally ran into each other somewhere on campus.
“Have you found Lin Huai?”
The fact that Zhang Mingge asked this question made it clear that the two of them already knew the identity of “Tomie.” Ye Xiangxiang idly played with her phone as she replied:
“He’s probably hiding in some corner of the school.”
“Look, ” she turned the screen toward him. “He’s really half the school’s hottest topic right now.”
Zhang Mingge glanced at the active, constantly refreshing black group chat on the screen and frowned slightly. Ye Xiangxiang raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t look very happy.”
“To be honest, I do have quite a few personal grudges with him,” Zhang Mingge said coolly. “But at the same time, I’m only chasing him because he’s my mission target. Nothing more.”
“That expression of yours doesn’t look like ‘nothing more’ at all. Tsk…” Ye Xiangxiang chuckled at his obvious contradiction. “As for me, I don’t have any personal grudges with him, I’m just after the mission rewards. Though Gu Beichen has probably already been taken out by him, right? He really does seem like a ruthless character. How did you two meet?”
“In a previous instance.” Zhang Mingge didn’t seem keen to elaborate. “He’s not an easy person to deal with. Don’t think you’ll be able to handle him easily…”
“That’s what makes it interesting.” Ye Xiangxiang laughed lightly. “I like challenging targets and I like men with personality. If it weren’t absolutely necessary to eliminate him, I’d honestly be quite interested in taking one of his ‘clones’ with me…”
As they spoke, they walked down a long corridor. Beside it lay an abandoned school square and at the far end of the square stood a stage.
Most of the students had already left the campus. Only a handful remained, gathered in small groups across the square, seemingly preparing for the upcoming school festival.
They were measuring the space, discussing plans but no matter the topic, everything eventually circled back to the same person.
“He really is popular here,” Ye Xiangxiang said, pointing with her fingernail toward the gossiping students. “Look, those who admire him, ”
She gestured toward a group of girls.
“Those who envy him, ”
She pointed at several boys.
“And those who dislike him yet can’t help but pay attention to him, wanting to know more about him, ” she added, her tone amused. “They’re all here.”
“That’s just the effect of the Tomie buff,” Zhang Mingge said coldly. “If it were any other player, they’d receive the same level of attention, ”
Ye Xiangxiang laughed again.
“That’s not necessarily true.” She flicked her fingernails lightly. “First, we can’t deny the attention this buff brings him. Second, you also can’t deny that he himself is quite special, very charming and lastly… you have to admit that even without this buff, every school would still have its own ‘Tomie.’”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do they pay attention to ‘Tomie’? Because of curiosity? Because of her beauty?” Ye Xiangxiang shook her finger. “Yes and no. They pay attention to her because their lives are simply too monotonous. Monotony needs something to spice it up and the existence of ‘Tomie’ is a kind of ‘legend’, something that brings enough entertainment and excitement into their lives.”
“They revolve around ‘Tomie’ as a center, spinning off countless rumors, both true and false. They fabricate all kinds of sensational, eye catching romantic stories, turning her from a person into a legend. They shape her into a goddess, then into a demon and in the process, they vent all the desires they dare not speak aloud. They project their fantasies onto ‘Tomie,’ rationalize and amplify their emotions through gossip and hearsay,” Ye Xiangxiang continued.
“Every school has a figure like this, a legendary person who carries all these stories. She is the most eye catching one, the one everyone approaches and speculates about with complicated feelings. Without ‘Tomie,’ there would be ‘Qiongjiang,’ ‘Changjiang,’ or something else entirely. As long as human desire never ceases, as long as attention still exists, the concept of ‘Tomie’ will never truly disappear.”
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
“Nothing much. Just a passing thought.” Ye Xiangxiang smiled brightly. “It’s not just the system’s buff that makes him ‘Tomie.’ It’s all these people, those who are curious about him, those who talk about him, that make him who he is.”
“Of course, that’s just looking at it from a sociological perspective. The task given to us by the examiner is far less complicated.” She clapped her hands lightly. “We just need to kill him to get the reward. Why not?”
Just as her words fell, the school’s broadcast system suddenly crackled to life.
“Hello, hello?”
A familiar voice echoed through the speakers. Zhang Mingge’s expression sharpened instantly.
“He’s in the broadcasting room!”
At the same time, a boy who had just finished cleaning the entire classroom, his back aching and his body sore, stopped at the doorway.
“It’s Lin…”
He looked up at the speaker with longing in his eyes.
“Sorry to take up a bit of public resources,” the voice came through lazily over the broadcast, “but to prevent innocent people from being harmed and to prevent my name from being misused… I figured I should come here and introduce myself.”
“I am Tomie, from Class 2 A, seated in the second to last row by the window. Anyone who wants to kill me is welcome to try. Anyone who wants to confess to me may line up as well. PS: If you’re not holding at least one million in your hands, I won’t be accepting.”
“And then, since I have to participate in this so called ‘Miss Liangchuan’ contest… I suppose I’ll reluctantly clarify a few recent rumors about me. Please listen carefully and spread them around with the same enthusiasm you use for spreading my scandals.”
“First, yes, I am this beautiful and yes, I am very popular. Being overly popular is not my fault. I’m helpless in the face of so many people who enjoy discussing me. Please continue your private discussions but do not interfere with my personal life, especially you stalker fans secretly taking photos of me. Kindly get lost.”
“Second, cross dressing looks great and I look great in it too but if anyone dares to use my photos for certain things in private… I’ll smash your head in. Third, I earn my money through labor, relying on a combination of intelligence, courage and physical ability, so…. ”
“He didn’t seduce me. I’m the one pursuing him.”
Another voice suddenly cut in.
“To all the strangers out there, thank you for taking photos of us and helping us ship us together. I’ve already collected the photos.”
Then, the transmission cut off.
Zhang Mingge: …
“That’s utterly arrogant…” He adjusted his glasses and turned to Ye Xiangxiang. “Let’s go, ”
But Ye Xiangxiang let out a soft laugh.
“So cool.” She flicked her bright red fingernails. “I like him.”
At the same time, a bucket at the stairwell entrance suddenly fell to the ground with a loud clang.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…” The boy sitting in the front row had a twisted expression. “You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Lin Huai’s calm, unbothered tone, completely unaffected by the rumors and Chu Tianshu’s declaration of “pursuit” seemed to have dealt him a heavy blow. His face contorted as he bit down hard on his lip.
Blood began to seep out.
A wind swept through the campus. At the same time, Liangchuan High School, once bathed in the glow of the setting sun, reverted once more into stark black and white.
Inside the laboratory, Qiu Ran lowered her head and, as expected, found that both her body and the surrounding environment had transformed once again into a two dimensional world of black and white line art.
“This is…”
“Ah, hello there, dear task takers. Good afternoon…”
A weary yet faintly excited voice echoed above them.
Everyone looked up.
As expected, they saw that familiar face, the examiner known as “Run San.”
Compared to the previous day, Run San looked even more exhausted. The owner of that enormous face had deep, dark circles under his eyes, his entire appearance resembling someone drained by years of relentless deadlines. The bloodshot veins in his large eyes had grown even more pronounced than before yet the faint tremor in the hand gripping his pen revealed an unmistakable excitement.
“Thank you all so very much for your hard work, ah choo!” A gust of wind carrying droplets of rain swept through and Ji Fengjian reacted quickly, grabbing onto the water pipe for support. “Just now, I handed in all the drafts completed so far to my childhood friend for review. Although it’s quite difficult to transform a horror manga into a passionate shounen battle story, it still received her approval. Up to this point, I’m extremely grateful. However, she did offer a few minor suggestions…”
“…First,” he continued, “she thinks that the transfer students who’ve appeared so far all possess highly appealing and distinctive abilities. The scenes of you all using your powers while rushing to the school were particularly impressive. It only becomes slightly jarring when Chu Tianyu and the Unlawful Master arrive successfully and one can’t help but exclaim, ‘Wait, why is there a car here?!’ Still, considering this is my first serialized work, small mistakes like this are understandable but please don’t let it happen again. Otherwise, such a character would become a flaw in the story and she might feel it’s better to write them out sooner rather than later…”
As he spoke, the manga artist’s pitch black pupils shifted toward Chu Tianshu’s direction. In the broadcasting room, Chu Tianshu, currently being beaten up, raised a hand. “Got it.”
He more or less understood the implication and warning behind those words: this kind of deus ex machina could happen once and only once. If he tried again to arbitrarily alter the “narration” of the manga, the artist wouldn’t hesitate to deal with him directly.
“Well, it makes sense. After all, manga artists generally don’t like editors meddling with their work, let alone someone else producing secondary OOC fan creations…” Chu Tianshu scratched his head awkwardly.
“The second suggestion,” Run San went on, “was about our popular character Gu Beichen. It’s quite surprising that such a dark character could gain fans… Her comment was that eliminating such a decisive and ruthless character so simply is truly a waste! No matter what, he should first be given a tragic backstory, something about a miserable childhood and only after that should he learn emotions and then die tragically…”
“The third suggestion is to add romance into the story. However, she also said, ‘A shut in like you, who has never understood romance in your entire life, probably can’t write love stories well, right?!’ She suggested that I should construct a romantic couple the same way one would build a pair of close friends… At the same time, she also praised that damn senior’s drawing skills… Damn it, why is he better than me again?!”
“…That’s all of her feedback for now.” The man in the sky rubbed his reddened nose, clearly not yet recovered from his cold. “Even so, she still went to see that senior today… Damn it… Next, I’ll give my own evaluation of you players, as well as a few expectations going forward.”
“And finally, since ‘Tomie’ has already revealed their identity voluntarily,” the man sniffed, “in order to further motivate you all to complete the task, I’ll go ahead and reveal the rewards in advance…”
Almost the instant the manga artist finished speaking, the black and white world changed once more.
“The mission rewards have been revealed.”
“Please complete your studies while dismantling Tomie’s influence within the school and eliminate Tomie!”
“Note: Chinese college students transmigrators, American middle aged retired CIA agents and ordinary Japanese high school students are among the most deceptively powerful transmigration groups in the world. Chinese college students possess mastery over metallurgy and chemical engineering, American middle aged men possess the strongest combat skills and Japanese high school students have countless superpowers. While eliminating Tomie, do not forget to attend school diligently every day!”
“Main quest ‘Family Planning’ rewards: Each completion of the main quest ‘Eliminate Tomie’ grants 10,000 game points and one C grade side plot reward. Completing the main quest ‘Completely Eliminate Tomie’ grants 50,000 game points and one S grade side plot reward. Achieving the ‘First Kill of Tomie’ grants 20,000 game points and one B grade side plot reward. When multiple players complete the task, rewards will be divided equally. The player who lands the final blow will receive the greatest share.”
“Side quest ‘The Bewitching Beauty of Tomie’ rewards: Completing the side quest ‘Rescue students bewitched by Tomie’ grants 1,000 game points per person per completion. For every ten people rescued, one E grade side plot reward is granted.”
“S side plot rewards…!”
In the laboratory, Qiu Ran and Ji Fengjian exchanged a glance, both unable to suppress their astonishment at the sheer generosity of these side plot rewards.
At this point, it became necessary to explain the game’s reward and punishment system.
Unlike Lin Huai, who never concerned himself with points or rewards, the vast majority of players lived in constant scarcity. The currency they possessed came in two forms: tradable game points issued by the system and non transferable side plot rewards.
After receiving the black invitation and entering the game’s beginner stage, players who gained the game’s recognition became qualified participants. They would then earn points based on their performance evaluations, gain access to lottery draws upon achieving S rank or higher ratings and, before entering the next game, be allowed to purchase items from a temporary shop using their accumulated points.
Once players advanced past the intermediate stage, more features of the game would gradually unlock. For instance, they could spend points on roulette draws. The quality of rewards ranged from “Thank You for Participating,” to white, green, purple, orange, silver and gold tiers, these being items or abilities used to combat enemies. Conversely, harmful ghost type items ranged from white, red, to black tiers. There was no guarantee for a single draw; only after eleven consecutive draws would a player be guaranteed at least a purple tier item or above, or, conversely, a red tier or lower item.
Before reaching the advanced stage, where player trading systems and constantly refreshing shops for targeted purchases became available, players could not directly buy desired items using points alone. However, there existed one type of reward, introduced from the intermediate stage onward, that could break this limitation.
That was the side plot reward.
Side plot rewards were graded from highest to lowest as SSS, SS, S, A, B, C, D and E. Rewards below S grade could be combined in sufficient quantities to form higher grade rewards, for example, one hundred E grade rewards could be exchanged for one D grade reward. Through side plot rewards, players could purchase special items or skills from the side plot shop, participate in higher tier lottery draws with improved guarantees, or even summon items and abilities tailored to their specific needs.
Of course, players could also gain power through NPC gifts, examiner rewards, or title abilities. However, such opportunities were exceedingly rare. Only the most fortunate or exceptionally unique players could obtain such blessings.
As a result, most players’ abilities were derived from exchanging side plot rewards or points. They understood all too well the immense value of these rewards and could not help but feel their eyes burn with desire.
“To think that ‘Completely Eliminating Tomie’ grants an S grade reward…” Ye Xiangxiang’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “An S grade reward that cannot be synthesized from lower tier rewards… this is truly…”
“Still, such a system is quite reasonable,” Zhang Mingge adjusted his glasses. “Otherwise, one could simply farm Tomie repeatedly, accumulate enough C grade rewards and exchange them for something far greater but even obtaining a C grade side plot reward just by killing Tomie once… that’s already incredibly generous.”
✦ ✧ ✦
Cresvynia
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
A little coffee for the person who made these words happen? (｡•́‿•̀｡)
☕ 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