Chapter 61 Dwarf Hut (VIII)
The muddy road covered with snow was a bit slippery, and Feng Zhibei almost fell several times on the road.
Finally, the kind-hearted Yan Chuxue couldn't bear it anymore, reached out her hand expressionlessly, and took his hand and walked forward.
The temperature outside was colder than inside. Even though Feng Zhibei was wrapped in a blanket, he was still shivering.
The two of them are now dressed very advanced, one wearing red cotton pants and the other wearing a thick quilt.
In short, it doesn't look normal.
Feng Zhibei took out a lighter with trembling hands, and then with great difficulty picked up a thick, long and strong branch from the roadside and lit it.
A faint blue flame lit up, illuminating a small area in front and dispelling the surrounding cold.
Feng Zhibei handed the wooden stick to Yan Chuxue. Just as he recovered a little, he saw several pairs of eyes staring at him under the bushes.
Feng Zhibei: "..."
Those eyes were bloodshot, as if attracted by the light, and their gazes flickered between the two people and a wooden stick.
Yan Chuxue also noticed the strangeness around him. He glanced at his feet and said apologetically, "...it seems like I accidentally stepped on their home."
Feng Zhibei looked down as he spoke, and there was nothing but snow under his feet.
Just when he was wondering, Yan Chuxue swept away the snow with her feet, revealing a layer of ice underneath.
Beneath the translucent ice was a surging current, and several pale, swollen faces were pressed tightly against the ice. There were empty spaces where the eyes should be, with a few bluish blood vessels exposed, swaying with the current.
They had unknowingly walked onto a frozen river.
Feng Zhibei looked at the things under his feet, then looked at Yan Chuxue, "Luckily you weren't really just wearing a skirt, otherwise it would be a bit creepy."
...It's terrifying for both sides.
The thing under the ice opened and closed its mouth, as if it was saying something.
Their mouths were surprisingly empty. Not only were there no teeth, but there was no tongue either. Only black gums were exposed.
Feng Zhibei was silent, and asked Yan Chuxue: "...My dear Princess, did you know that there is such a thing in your country?"
Yan Chuxue frowned, "This is not my kingdom, it's the territory of the dwarves."
Hearing this, Feng Zhibei became alert.
He had never heard anything about the main storyline from other NPCs before, but he didn't expect to hear it from Yan Chuxue.
"Dwarves? Aren't dwarves your responsibility?"
Yan Chuxue shook her head with a look of disgust, "Dwarves are dwarves, what does it have to do with me?"
Feng Zhibei was led forward by him, stepping on the thick ice.
What is the relationship between the dwarf, the princess and the witch?
And that weird little paper village...
Yan Chuxue and Feng Zhibei walked forward for a while and suddenly stopped.
In front of me was an overly huge tree that completely blocked the road ahead. Under the tree was a huge pit. The soil around it was still fresh, and there seemed to be something bright in the nearby soil.
Feng Zhibei wrapped the quilt tightly and walked forward.
He always felt that it was getting colder and colder here, and it was abnormally cold.
He exhaled a puff of white air and rubbed his hands. A layer of frost formed on his eyelashes, which made his eyes feel a little uncomfortable.
This pit looks familiar...
Feng Zhibei stepped forward and motioned Yan Chuxue to move the torch forward, so that she could see the things on the ground clearly.
Those were palm-sized mushrooms.
He suddenly realized that this was where they buried the body of NPC Xiaojie.
Feng Zhibei picked up the golden mushroom through the quilt and observed it carefully.
The cap of the mushroom is not complete, and the broken part looks like it was bitten by something. The mycelium at the bottom is milky white, and the long filaments sway in the wind.
Yan Chuxue looked at the mushroom in his hand and asked, "Is this edible?"
Feng Zhibei looked at him as if he were a retard... No, he was actually half a retard now.
He remembered that it was because this was an empty lot with nothing in it that the players chose to bury the bodies here.
So the mushrooms could only have appeared after the corpse was buried. Maybe they were brought by the NPC after he resurrected, or maybe... they grew after the corpse was buried.
If the body is buried, it is very likely that it will grow on the body.
Thinking of the black mud that the corpse turned into, Feng Zhibei frowned.
Using corpses as nutrients was similar to using Yan Chuxue's body as nutrients in the game copy, which made him feel a little disgusted.
Feng Zhibei originally wanted to throw the mushrooms away, but then he remembered that NPC Xiaojie came here to look for the golden Ganoderma lucidum.
He couldn't tell the difference between mushrooms and Ganoderma lucidum, but this mushroom was golden. What if it was the golden Ganoderma lucidum that the villagers were looking for?
He put the mushroom into his backpack without batting an eyelid, even though it might have grown from a corpse.
The two continued forward.
The forest on a snowy night has a unique feeling, quiet and dangerous.
With the torch as the center, the dark blue flame illuminated a bright area, barely dispelling the cold and terrifying atmosphere, but the further inward one went, the more obvious the coldness became.
Feng Zhibei was feeling a little sleepy from the cold. His physical condition was not good to begin with, and he was often compared with He Yu in the laboratory.
But Yan Chuxue beside him seemed not to feel any cold at all, except that her ears and nose tip were a little red from the cold, and her overly pale face made her look like a snow ghost.
The hand holding the torch was bony and purple, looking like a corpse's hand.
Feng Zhibei let out another breath.
The temperature here is obviously abnormal. If the temperature in the forest is like this every night, then the death of the NPC would be explained.
But something must have happened before the NPC died, which made her expression look so terrified.
Feng Zhibei thought of the water ghost under the ice.
If the physics here followed the flow of time, it is very likely that the river had not frozen that night. Considering that the NPC Xiaojie had indeed been alienated that night, it is not impossible that a conflict arose after encountering those water ghosts.
"Where are we going now?"
Yan Chuxue asked Feng Zhibei, there were also ice beads on his eyelashes and eyebrows, and every time he blinked, some tiny ice fragments would fall off, but he seemed unaffected.
Feng Zhibei was stumped by his question.
It was too cold in the forest and he definitely wouldn't be able to stand staying here all night.
But we have to explore, there must be some clues to the main storyline in the forest.
Feng Zhibei shook off the ice from his hair and turned to ask Yan Chuxue, "Why did you go to the dwarfs' place?"
Yan Chuxue: "Because I'm looking for my prince."
Feng Zhibei opened his mouth and felt speechless: "..."
He looked up and down at the man next to him. He was much taller than him, with broad shoulders and a thin but not frail body.
It's a bit too scary to hear someone like this say "looking for a prince".
Feng Zhibei didn't know for a moment whether this copy was Yan Chuxue's punishment copy or his punishment copy.
He thought for a few seconds before asking again, "Why did you come here to look for a prince? Don't you have one in your own country?"
Yan Chuxue lowered her head and began to think again.
The snow seemed to be lighter, and the wind was not as biting as at the beginning. Feng Zhibei's quilt was a little wet from the snow, and it made her feel even more uncomfortable when it seeped through her body.
He was just about to ask Yan Chuxue to go back to the cabin together when he heard the other party's uncertain voice.
"It's not that I don't have one. It's that...someone said that my destined prince is here, so I came to find him."
Feng Zhibei paused when he extended his hand.
Due to his own attributes, he is very sensitive to such prophetic statements, although it is possible that this is just nonsense made up by the debuggers.
However, those guys should not dare to talk nonsense about Yan Chuxue. Even though Yan Chuxue is now a prisoner, he is still one of the creators of the wilderness.
He stood where he was, suppressing the inexplicable unhappiness that was rising in his heart, and connecting all the clues in his mind.
The princess came to find her destined prince, but because of the curse, she fell into a coma and appeared in the house of a dwarf whom the princess hated.
Feng Zhibei whispered: "...How could these brainless people come up with such a story?"
It doesn't seem like a story that group of people could come up with.
Yan Chuxue suddenly reached out and touched Feng Zhibei's earlobe.
“?!”
Feng Zhibei dodged backward and glared at Yan Chuxue.
His earlobes were very sensitive, and when the other person's cold fingers touched them, his body trembled uncontrollably.
Yan Chuxue lowered her eyes and spoke slowly: "Go back, aren't you very cold? Why do you keep going?"
Feng Zhibei carefully lifted her long hair to the side of her ears to cover her red ears, "...Let's go, go back first."
On the way back, neither of them spoke a word, and the atmosphere was a little subtle and strange for a while.
But this strange atmosphere was soon broken.
"……What's this?"
Feng Zhibei raised his foot.
He seemed to have stepped on something sticky, and the feeling on the soles of his feet made him feel uneasy.
Yan Chuxue pointed the torch in her hand downwards, and the flames illuminated the area beneath their feet.
The white silk threads are densely packed together, wriggling towards a certain direction.
It looked like a bunch of maggots.
Feng Zhibei's face turned pale when he thought about how he had just stepped on this thing, and he felt unwell all over.
"...What is this?"
Yan Chuxue was also stunned, "...I don't know."
These maggot-like creatures twisted and moved to the other side of the forest. Feng Zhibei looked up and saw darkness.
He calculated the time and realized that it would still be a while before sunrise, so he turned to Yan Chuxue and asked, "Let's go take a look?"
But to his surprise, Yan Chuxue refused this time.
"...You're so cold, why are you going?"
Feng Zhibei was stunned for a moment, feeling confused.
"Don't you hate witches? Why do you care about me so much?"
Yan Chuxue then shut her mouth. Although there was no expression on her face, there was obvious displeasure in her eyes.
Feng Zhibei wrapped himself tightly in the quilt, carefully avoiding the things under his feet, and walked deeper into the forest while pushing aside the branches above his head.
Yan Chuxue said nothing and followed him closely with a torch in hand.
The trees here were obviously much more lush than the side they had walked on before. The branches and leaves overlapped, almost covering the entire dark sky.
The further they went, the dimmer the light became. Even the blue light from the wooden stick was not enough. Feng Zhibei could only endure the cold and take out the lighter from his pocket.
"Snack."
The lighter produces a small flame, which cannot illuminate a larger area, but at least provides warmth and can dispel some of the cold.
Yan Chuxue suddenly asked: "Where did this thing come from?"
Feng Zhibei listened to his incoherent words and took a few seconds to realize that he was asking about the lighter.
"This thing looks familiar."
Yan Chuxue added another sentence.
Feng Zhibei thought, isn’t this nonsense? Of course it looks familiar to me since I took it from you.
But the mentally retarded version of Yan Chuxue in the current instance didn't remember giving him the lighter. He thought for a moment before cautiously answering, "An old friend gave it to me."
Yan Chuxue didn't say anything else, but just followed him in silence.
Feng Zhibei observed the movements of the things under his feet. Some of them suddenly disappeared at a certain point, while others kept winding and twisting.
He took a few steps and finally found out where the missing things had gone.
A thin white line was wriggling into the soil, and many mud clumps were drilled around it, just like a crab on the beach moving the soil out from the ground to dig a nest for itself.
But it was obvious that this thing was not building a nest for itself.
There's something underground.
Feng Zhibei turned his gaze away and asked Yan Chuxue, "You really haven't seen this kind of thing before?"
"Why would I lie to you?"
Yan Chuxue was a little impatient, staring at the twisting silk thread under her feet, "I was just about to ask you, didn't you say it was just a walk?"
Feng Zhibei argued: "This is also part of the walk."
He is redefining walking.
At this time, Yan Chuxue also realized that he could not reason with the cunning witch in front of him, so he shut his mouth and just followed her silently.
The thread extended deep into the forest and finally stopped under a tree.
Feng Zhibei asked Yan Chuxue to move forward, raised the torch and looked at the tree.
It was an oak tree with a strange shape, different from all the trees in the forest. There were clusters of tree balls spaced on the branches, and small white balls hanging on them.
He looked at it for a long time before he remembered what it was.
Mistletoe, mistletoe with ginkgo nuts.
Feng Zhibei instantly remembered the classic legend.
Two people who kiss under the mistletoe will be together forever.
He looked strange.
What made him feel even more outrageous was that the tree in front of him was an oak tree.
Some religions consider the mistletoe growing on oak trees to be very sacred, symbolizing the connection between sex and the soul, so kissing under such a tree is more ritualistic.
...Could it really be prepared for the princess and the prince?
Feng Zhibei glanced at Yan Chuxue, then at the mistletoe on the tree.
This matter is really ridiculous.
But this at least shows that this copy was not made by a group of brainless debuggers. They have never been exposed to the culture of the human world and could not think of this point.
He looked at the white silk thread that kept twisting towards the roots of the oak tree and was confused for a moment.
I don't know when the snow stopped, and the sky after the snow was very clear. Although there was no moon, I could see a few twinkling stars embedded in the dark sky.
The temperature seemed to be gradually rising. Feng Zhibei knew that the night was about to pass and they had to return to the cabin before dawn.
Although there is no such clear rule, Yan Chuxue is in a corpse-like state during the day, and no one knows what will happen.
If he didn't get back before daylight, he wouldn't have the strength to drag such a big person over.
Feng Zhibei pulled Yan Chuxue's sleeve and said, "Let's go back."
Yan Chuxue turned her red eyes towards him, "Why do you want to go back? There are still things that are not finished."
Feng Zhibei: "?"
He was a little puzzled. "I'm done shopping, so let's go back. What else is going on?"
Yan Chuxue looked up at the mistletoe in front of her and pointed to the ginkgo nuts on top. "We have to kiss under the mistletoe."
Feng Zhibei was shocked.
"...I know, but...no, what does this have to do with me?"
"Why is it okay? People under the mistletoe are supposed to kiss, right?"
Yan Chuxue strangely insisted on this point, "No matter what, we have to kiss before we leave, otherwise there will be a punishment."
Feng Zhibei's mood could no longer be expressed with shock; he felt a chill.
"Aren't you looking for your prince? What does it have to do with me? Why are you kissing me?"
Yan Chuxue's eyes were filled with some indescribable emotion. He stretched out his hand and was about to touch Feng Zhibei's face.
At this moment, the sky suddenly turned purple, followed by a cloud of rising mist.
The temperature rose rapidly and the cold air around dissipated immediately.
The purple color on the horizon quickly disappeared, replaced by the warm red before the sun fully rose.
It's almost dawn.
Yan Chuxue paused as she stretched out her hand, and the torch in her hand fell to the ground.
His expression gradually became stiff, his eyes became dull, he turned around mechanically, and walked slowly towards the hut step by step.
Feng Zhibei breathed a sigh of relief and followed him.
He didn't see that the torch that fell to the ground ignited the pile of white wire, and the blue flames enveloped the entire oak tree, burning in the sunrise.
-
After Yan Chuxue lay in the coffin, the sun just rose from the horizon.
The roses in the coffin were even more wilted than they had been at night, their rotten petals hanging lifelessly beside the coffin.
A lump of black mud was still stuck to the floor, and everything was the same as before I left.
Yan Chuxue's eyelids slowly closed, and she clasped her hands together in front of her chest, returning to her corpse-like state.
Feng Zhibei spread the messy quilt on the floor, sat on it, and opened the game panel.
The shoreline plot accounts for 35% and the main plot accounts for 50%, which is not much, but at least it shows that this night trip to the forest was not in vain.
Feng Zhibei held his chin, his eyelids drooping.
He hadn't closed his eyes since entering this dungeon. The rising sun shone warmly on his back, and sleepiness and fatigue finally came.
He bit his tongue and forced himself to wake up.
All he had to do was find the way to the backend. Once he did, he could put the logout chip into the system and take back all the permissions.
Ji Ling should have realized this, as he hasn't shown up until now, and he can't find the passage to the backstage.
Feng Zhibei moved his stiff wrist.
This copy is obviously much more complete than the previous copy, and the story contains richer content.
Feng Zhibei searched his brain for memories of Yan Chuxue. He wondered if she knew about the mistletoe legend from the beginning. If it was a memory that was assigned to him by the replica, then it would be fine. But if not...
He stretched his sore neck.
Feng Zhibei had a bold guess.
He didn't know much about game planning. He only knew that Yan Chuxue was responsible for some copy designs, but he didn't know which ones.
He learned this after he recovered his memory in the human world and bravely entered the laboratory.
Moreover, among all the laboratories, only he and Yan Chuxue had lived in the human world for a long time and understood human culture.
Thinking of this, Feng Zhibei scratched her long hair in annoyance.
...This copy may have been designed by Yan Chuxue.
The author has something to say:
Thank you everyone, take a break!!
I just realized that I forgot to change the previous subtitle. I am so angry! I changed it secretly.
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