Chapter 113 How fast must the old campus fly to leap over death and separation...?
The protagonist of the first unit has become Xia Caizhe. Xue Chao glanced at the sunny and cheerful little boy. Both are "sunny and cheerful", but Xia Caizhe is different from Jiang Ming. One pretends to be perfect, while the other is cheerful because he has been crazy.
But he's much easier to deal with than Jiang Ming.
Moreover, the real Xia Caizhe never had the chance to participate in the instance. Rather than a simulation of the player, it's more accurate to say that this is a character who is neither pretentious nor crazy.
He easily subdued the energetic boy, carefully collected the "Ace of Diamonds" playing card, and searched for her shadow in other people's stories, like playing hide-and-seek.
Xue Chao was taken aback when he carried the boy through the window.
hide and seek?
Was that... an angel?
It really isn't good-looking.
She went to heaven. What, is heaven really that bad?
Not so good. I've seen them; angels are all ugly, covered in eyes. Heaven only exists in fiction; once it becomes real in your eyes, it's no different from hell.
Xue Chao's eyes widened; he knew who the woman in Xia Caizhe's film was!
In the pink room reflected in the wardrobe mirror, a little girl with a doll-like head hugs a strange doll, her plastic eyes staring at him, devoid of any substance.
Did you guys put together the Barbie doll?
Xue Chao solved the Joker problem using the same method as before, asking, "Your name is 'Xiao Hua'? What's your full name?"
“It’s Xiaohua,” the little girl said. “Her full name is Baibai.”
"...Why is she called 'Little Flower'?" What's the connection?
"Because everyone else has a nickname, but I don't, the teacher said she would give me one. I have the most little red flowers, so I'm called 'Little Flower'!"
She proudly took out a stamp book from the headless doll's body. It was already full of stamps, but one page had a different flower design. According to her, the teacher had stamped it crookedly, and she thought it didn't look good, so she begged the teacher to stamp it again.
She's such a child. Pink room, lace dress, dolls, nicknames that everyone else has and she wants too, pretty little flower stamps—she loves beautiful things, loves the praise and attention of others. She has a bit of the "Sheng Hong" vibe, but she's more pure. Children don't have the cumbersome purity that adults possess.
Xue Chao put on a backless dress again, took her hand, and since Jiang Ming wasn't really the main character of the first unit, the change to Xia Caizhe was already an adjustment, so the resistance to the plot deviation wasn't as great this time.
After leaving Xia Caizhe's family, without Jiang Ming interfering, he found a paper butterfly in Xia Caizhe's pocket.
There's no need to wait for the sick little girl in the third unit to give it to you; this is what Jiang Ming hid in the first unit.
"What's this?"
"Butterfly."
"Why did you give me this?" The butterfly is beautiful, and she likes it, but at this point, it's not because it "has wings" that she likes it.
So liking "flying" things is something that happened when he grew up. Xue Chao no longer needed the excuse he had prepared, so he simply used a line from her future words to brush her off: "Because it looks like my eyes."
It's narcissistic for a stranger to say that, but a child will only observe his eyes carefully and exclaim in surprise, "Really! But your eyes are even brighter! This is just made of paper, it can't fly, you're a living, flying butterfly! I'll remember that!"
Xue Chao smiled and handed over the paper butterfly.
Taking the two children into the broadcasting room, back to the real world, and watching Xia Caizhe's film roll deviate significantly, Xue Chao sighed that children are still easy to fool.
The same goes for Pu Fengchun's film. After the art building of the training institution was raised infinitely, there was no space for other NPCs to appear. Xue Chao followed the plot while looking for people in his spare time.
He learned from his experience, but since he wasn't in the dance class and all the participants in the piano competition were invisible, he looked for the registration form, but couldn't find it. Finally, he found it in the calligraphy class that Pu Fengchun hadn't been able to attend, and he also had a class in the morning.
This time, the girl was writing the tip of a pen. While the other students were practicing calligraphy, she looked out the window while the teacher was instructing others. She was looking at the sky, or perhaps at the birds flying by.
She looked somewhat sickly, as if she had put away her naivety as a get-out-of-jail-free card and had begun to quietly observe the world, her temperament somewhat resembling that of Pu Fengchun.
As soon as the bell rang and the other students left, she slowly turned around and caught sight of him: "...Butterfly?"
This time, he gave her the sheet music with the butterfly mark.
After the two rolls of film shifted, Xue Chao discovered that one of the rolls was highly entangled with Fang Tailai's roll.
Not only because the characters' causal relationships are very deep, but also because the two units are merged, the other being Sheng Hong Film Roll.
At the time, he was looking for clues about the fifth protagonist, Sheng Hong's main storyline. He only glanced at it briefly from the camera angle and completely missed the part before the alienation.
The storyline of Sheng Hong is earlier in the series; he enters Sheng Hong film reel first, and the highlight is the play "Wan Ren Mi" (a popular Chinese drama).
He wasn't involved, so there was no need for him to push. He wandered around backstage for a while, and when he returned to the audience, it was already the end of the play.
Bai Bai was asked by a friend to join the cast to make up the numbers. In the play, he plays a deaf tower spirit who always seems to have some worries on his mind.
At the end of the play, the princess and prince have defeated the evil sorcerer, but in his dying moments, the sorcerer makes a desperate sacrifice, dispelling the magical fog that envelops the kingdom and plunges everyone into a deep sleep.
The princess heard that there was a guardian spirit in the deep sea tower, so she and the prince went there to ask for a way to break the curse.
The elf could not hear the princess's pleas, but she heard the princess's anguish as she knelt beneath the tower day and night. Moved by her plight, she shed her own blood, which fell into the sea—the spell to awaken the slumbering one.
Having successfully awakened the kingdom, the two expressed their gratitude, but the tower was deserted. A passing pod of whales remarked, "The elves have sunk to the bottom of the sea."
They hurriedly asked, "Is she dead?" The whale replied, "She's just asleep. She'll always bless you."
It's supposed to be a happy ending, but Xue Chao thinks it's an open ending. Whether the elf is asleep or dead is still unknown. The actor himself, however, has a unique perspective: "Any of these is better than being trapped in the tower forever guarding the sea... Are you coming to see the show?"
She wore an elf headgear, making it impossible to discern what kind of head it was, but she made a wing gesture—"butterfly"—like their secret code.
"Looking for you."
"Is there anything I can help you with? But I'm afraid I'm not available today; I'm having a team-building activity with my roommates."
Team building activity: summoning the Ouija board?
Xue Chao pondered Bai Bai's current image. She still had many friends, but they were all old friends, and she hardly made any new friends anymore.
She was as easy to talk to as ever with new friends, but she deliberately avoided them.
She looked too thin and frail, too light and airy, not like the free bird she had hoped for, but rather like a feather falling from a great height.
She also resembles "Fang Tailai"... In that sense, the Deng Dayun film portrays her as a helpful and friendly person, which is also somewhat similar to "Xia Caizhe".
He understood why she was the torso; her development likely possessed traits of all the main characters…including the ailing “Xue Chao.”
He turned on the tap, letting the flowers flow backwards and cover the ceiling. Butterflies flew in, but they weren't too interested in the fragrance and turned back to fly away. Xue Chao was quick to close the doors and windows and knocked the butterflies down with a pencil.
The butterfly landed in his hand and turned into a small gift box. Inside was a specimen of the butterfly, with a lipstick mark on it.
...The two units merged into one, and a morpho butterfly has already appeared, so the other one revealed its true form and came to see what was going on.
If the fourth unit is activated alone, this morpho butterfly will be in the form of a specimen, a way for "Sheng Hong" to please him when she confesses her love.
Bai Bai leaned closer to look, and he gave her the butterfly again.
He didn't want to think about anything else, focusing solely on "hide-and-seek." She was easy to find, but when he returned to Fang Tailai's film reel, he got stuck.
Most of the boarding students go home for the weekend, and the few "left-behind children" were quickly identified. He even searched the boys' dormitory and rudely lifted the long hair of a few female ghosts to investigate, but still couldn't find them.
It can't be outside the dormitory building; the plot is inside the dormitory building... Could it be among those people from before?
A flash of inspiration: she was the first victim of the organ trafficking scandal!
She may no longer be the "original part".
Returning to the door, the four girls around the square table all looked at him, and his gaze locked onto one of them.
He didn't actually know which one it was, but the girl with the crystal ball head stared at him the longest, only screaming half a second later.
She might be looking into his eyes.
This time, he didn't go back to find Fang Tailai; he followed her all the way.
"...Are you a ghost? Come and take me away?" The pieced-together Bai Bai turned around, her clenched hands trembling slightly, with a strange sense of acceptance.
Xue Chao forcefully pried her hands open and snatched a talisman. The talisman was upside down. Although he didn't understand these things, it was the opposite of "exorcising ghosts," so wasn't it "summoning souls"?
"It was your idea to use the Ouija board. What do you want to summon? And what do you want it to do for you?"
She started coughing, and her illness seemed to worsen, but because of the new "equipment," she looked healthier than ever before.
She even had the mood to tell a hellish joke: "Please ask a ghost to give me euthanasia?"
Xue Chao, drawing on his own experience, advised, "Ghosts hurt a lot when they kill." The ghost had attacked several times, and if he hadn't been too weak from the pain, he would have bitten off its neck to vent his anger.
...Oh, not beheading, but heart.
He wouldn't tell her, so he assumed she didn't believe him and took her hostage, saying, "Let's go, you'll see if you try."
in vain:"……?"
Xue Chao dragged her on a fantastical journey of being chased six floors by a knife-wielding man, complete with experiences such as being hugged by a long-haired female ghost, and having human heads hidden in a washing machine and a school desk.
After receiving the book, Xue Chao tore off the sticker that had been given to him and stuck it on her crystal ball head. From other angles, the butterfly's wings changed size, like a butterfly in a funhouse mirror.
She turned her head slightly, revealing herself.
Five rolls of film broke through the weed-like obstacles, only to be blocked by the last remaining roll of film, Xue Chao's film, which was closest to the heart.
He is almost at His heart.
He thought the last checkpoint would be the hardest to find, but it turned out he didn't have to look for it at all.
The photos were taken in his hospital room, where a headless girl was leaning against his bed, holding a headless doll dressed the same as him.
“Butterfly.” Her no-longer-existing head “looked” at his eyes and called out softly, “I told you, I could recognize you at a glance.”
*
Fang Tailai fell silent. Deng Dayun thought something had happened, so he climbed out of the closet and dragged Fang Tailai out. Thank goodness, he was just unconscious.
But a moment later, Fang Tailai started convulsing involuntarily, as if having a nightmare. Cold sweat covered her forehead, which frightened Deng Dayun so much that he wondered whether he should perform CPR or pour a bucket of cold water on her head (that's how it's portrayed on TV, and even the most badly beaten prisoners can wake up like that). Fang Tailai suddenly opened her eyes, and Deng Dayun saw that her pupils visibly contracted, as if she had been greatly frightened.
"...Oh no, he's been discovered!" Fang Tailai grabbed him and tried to get up, but he collapsed back down as soon as he lifted his head. "I can't do it, I can't run there, you wait on the ground!"
With his last hope about to be extinguished, Deng Dayun was shocked and his whole body turned gloomy, exuding an aura of despair: "He's going to die... and he wants me to be buried with him in the imperial mausoleum?"
In Fang Tailai's eyes, he already had two heads and four mouths, spread across his dark, wall-like face, all opening and whispering. She closed her eyes in anguish: "...It's because he might die that I asked you to wait. His head is still there!"
This was also the first time she had met Xue Chao in person; she had only heard his voice online before.
Whether it's social anxiety or laziness, C-ge never participates in offline activities, whether she was unknown before or has gained some fame now. She has nowhere to pursue him, so she can only regretfully vent online.
However, the online world and reality should not be confused. My decision to help him was based on my judgment after getting to know him personally.
Even if she approves of him, it's impossible for her to believe "he will definitely succeed" just because she's his fan... She has witnessed a lot of death, and she herself has "died" many times (her doll), and her real self has also almost died many times.
The game taught her one thing: "Everyone can die."
She had to prepare for the worst. She recalled the narrow world surrounded by black film, just her and him, his calm gaze as he looked at her, and the shock he felt as he plunged his hand into his own neck without hesitation.
She knew he didn't recognize her. He probably had never seen her private messages and didn't know she was such a loyal fan. Even if he had, without her voice as a reference, he wouldn't have been able to recognize her.
If it were any other player with whom he had no grudges, he wouldn't mind squeezing out as much value as possible with his last bit of life.
He could be described as "unconcerned with details" in this regard, which was also her assessment upon meeting him in person.
So if he failed, she sincerely suggested that Deng Dayun try again. The boss had already broken free of his cocoon and no longer needed a new butterfly. Anyway, he would die if he did nothing, so maybe he could really get Xue Chao's head.
Deng Dayun understood and became wary of her offer: "And what about you?"
"Don't worry about me." Fang Tailai had already closed his eyes, as if he had fainted again. Deng Dayun knew that this meant he refused to tell her anything. He pursed his lips and walked away gloomily.
If you're not a pushover... players always have their own methods; they don't need to worry about others, they have to fight for their own survival.
This thought gave him strength. He struggled to pry open the exit of the ruins and return to the ground. It was a "door" that they had left with props when they came down. The corpses that had risen from the dead in the morgue were pressed under the rubble, struggling like meat in a clam shell. A hand was still grabbing his ankle.
However, Deng Dayun had no time to pay attention. A small tornado swept across the ruins, revealing a lung with a long snout, howling. It was something that had broken off from under the wings and entered the eye of the storm, like the soul of a tornado. Only when he got closer did he realize that all the small storms created by the wings contained an organ.
An invisible wave of wind swept across the sky, raising dust and casting a huge shadow overhead, obscuring the sun.
The last glimmer of hope that had guided him was shattered. Despairing, he knelt on the ground, becoming one with the surrounding rubble, and raised his head to look up at his fate.
The wildly dancing giant morpho butterfly suddenly stopped, folded its wings inward, then unfolded them again, balancing in the air and hovering.
The film loops were still circling, but several had already veered off course.
Its tiny body, nestled between its enormous wings, drooped its limbs like a lifeless doll. Suddenly, the doll raised its hand and swiftly and accurately inserted it into the cavity, moving in and out between two rolls of film.
Her arm was twisted to its limit, straight up and down, extending two-thirds of the way in, but like a mosquito that can never reach a person's back to suck blood, she couldn't reach it out.
The film was disturbed by Him, falling to the left and right, and its position shifted. He withdrew his hand, his wings flapped slowly, then tightened instantly, and with a flick of his wrist, like a narrow, long drill, he "plop" pierced into the heart of the torso.
A roll of film was nailed out of its body by the wings, and a person fell out of thin air and became entangled by the film. The boss's other wing wrapped around him and brought him to its own body.
The hideous organs under their wings also arched towards him, like a group of monsters smelling the flesh of Tang Sanzang.
Deng Dayun's eyes widened—it really was Xue Chao!
However, the next second, he felt something was strange. The butterfly wings were clearly gripping Xue Chao and pulling him in, but then they were completely tense and uncontrollably trying to move away, as if they were repelling each other, and all the film rings were rustling.
But then, the pale blue butterfly wings covered the edges with white feathers, flowing backwards to the body, and finally stopping around the body, leaving only a sliver of dreamy blue light.
He resembled a four-winged angel, but was surrounded by dense black film. Even if he was an angel, he was a fallen angel—when did game bosses start having a second phase?!
The repulsion disappeared, and Xue Chao let out a muffled groan, almost crushed by Him. Strange cries came from under His wings, releasing His rage.
He held the worm in his hand and watched it struggle in agony, just as He had tormented Him near His heart!
Deng Dayun was also looking out. A section of the film that had been nailed to the ground was wrapped around Xue Chao's body. The part of the boss's torso that was broken open almost overlapped with the heart—Xue Chao was found on the film that was closest to the heart. He was unable to use it to jump to the monster's heart and kill it... Fate.
He stood there, feeling that he would either be swept away in one wave or face retribution later. Running away was pointless, so he might as well see who would accompany him on his journey to the underworld.
Moreover, he had a dark thought: he knew this shouldn't be happening, the host had helped him... but if the boss retaliated by breaking his head, and the head just happened to fall down, maybe he would still have a chance to survive.
He also went to see Xue Chao struggling, and was surprised to find that Xue Chao was not struggling at all. He was too calm, or perhaps he had no choice but to accept his fate like him.
But would he? Deng Dayun couldn't imagine him resigned to his fate.
Xue Chao himself was laughing, with a roguish provocation, as if he was fearless even when facing death: "I've almost finished running a marathon inside your body, and you still haven't flown out of here?"
They were trapped on land, He was trapped in the sky. With such big wings, what did He ultimately fly over?
He ignored the roars from beneath the monster's wings, its several pairs of eyes glaring fiercely as it looked down at the shattered world around it: "You can't even fly away from this dream; you can only wait for it to shatter on its own and be buried under the crystal-clear soil. Butterfly... Angel... It's a mercy that you don't have a head; others' eyes will take your place as punishment. You don't need to see your own powerlessness."
He laughed again as he said this: "So, thank you for killing me. I'm free before you... uh!"
He probably wanted to snap his head off, but he had anticipated this and, when caught, hid his entire body inside His wings, wrapping the tips of His wings with film. He couldn't operate precisely, so He could only crush Him with brute force.
The monster, which resembled both an angel and a butterfly, stopped again, and the organs beneath its wings fell silent.
The next second, its wings flapped forcefully again, creating several small tornadoes—it suddenly lifted Xue Chao above its head and exerted force at the same time!
Deng Dayun actually understood the boss's intention: He wanted to crush him and scatter the powder on his head... The shimmering butterfly, his last hope!
Doesn't He not need a morpho butterfly, just because He doesn't have a head?!
With his hope taken away, all his worries and fears turned into a reckless rage, and he subconsciously activated his superpower—to stop Him!
[Superpower "Mind Control" in use]
His superpowers couldn't control the boss, but the scattered tornadoes rebounded instantly, hitting the boss's wings and causing it to pause for a moment.
He heard a familiar howling sound from one of the storms... That's right, it was full of organs that had fallen off wings, and the owners of those organs were not monsters, but rather pitiful ordinary people who had been drugged with spiked wine. His mental strength was not necessarily weaker than theirs!
But that moment of pride quickly vanished; what good was it? He lowered his head in despair.
Fang Tailai, who witnessed this scene through Xue Chao's film camera, turned his head away helplessly, opened the player panel, and applied for settlement in the "Main Quest (Settlement Delayed)" option.
[Player requests settlement...]
[Customs clearance indicators are being rechecked...]
Main quest completed.
[Ranking of customs clearance times...]
Fang Tailai's other half of consciousness saw something and was suddenly jolted awake, postponing the customs clearance and settlement for the second time.
The butterfly remained motionless; instead, the shadows cast by countless film rolls swirled chaotically, like a swarm of tiny particles undergoing Brownian motion.
Deng Dayun looked up again and saw Xue Chao lying on the monster's cavity, his body barely able to support his waist, his upper and lower body folded and hanging down, swaying precariously in the storm.
He did indeed fall, but quickly caught his head on His back, placing his own head on His cavity, embedding it deeply into a bit of flesh. From a distance, it was almost impossible to tell whose head it was!
The roll of film wrapped around him broke off; it was very long and hung straight down, falling right in front of Deng Dayun.
Deng Dayun saw the bloody teeth marks at the broken point... his mind was in a mess as he thought, "Xue Chao bit it off?"
Why isn't the monster moving...? No, it's struggling.
It was as if He was being gripped tightly by layers of out-of-control film rings, unable to move. The five main film reels lost their only restraint, and like a whip being swung around, they were pulled off their original orbits by a huge margin. The planetary rings became speeding meteors, all shooting towards the monster's heart.
“Your heart is your weakness.” Xue Chao slowly released his grip on her chest, his expression blank. “But here… your head is the real body.”
Previously, after finding her, he stuffed all the morpho butterflies from the five main characters' stories into Bai Bai's head.
The butterfly only draws the protagonist into the dream, so she becomes the protagonist of five stories. In this world that has not collapsed, besides him, who else has a head, and who is the protagonist?
There's no need to worry about Deng Dayun and Fang Tailai, because the film reel was created by Him, it's a part of Him, and the film tube... must lead to the heart of the protagonist.
Xue Chao plummeted to the ground, and in the instant of his descent, he reached into the wound and yanked the five rolls of film embedded in his heart out from the other end, pulling them down with him from the sky—a single, penetrating blow.
He raised his non-existent head and wailed silently.
[Congratulations on defeating the hidden boss! The dungeon will close soon!]
All the monster's ferocious actions vanished instantly, and its pure white feathers began to cover its wings again, both sides, burying its organs and letting them rest in peace.
The film rings fell apart, and He became truly holy, but unlike an angel, He reminded Xue Chao of the swans she had mentioned.
Immediately afterwards, the white wings also disintegrated, and a rain of feathers fell from the sky, like her own funeral.
The liquid that landed on him was warm, with the warmth of a living person.
As he fell, he reached out and grabbed a feather, which transformed into a Polaroid photograph in his palm.
It's a photo of "Xue Chao" and "Bai Bai".
Two quiet people stood side by side by the window, looking up at the sky with a relaxed smile.
Turning it over, I saw two lines of text. One line was in his handwriting, written by "Xue Chao," and the other was written in plain white. The content of both lines was the same: the visitor's wish for a return visit.
How fast must one fly to leap over death and separation?
Just before it hit the ground, its head transformed into a morpho butterfly, flapped once, and shattered into a ghostly blue flash along with its body.
[Congratulations! Your room has reached number one on the real-time recommendation list!!!]
(Sprinkling flowers!) (Sprinkling flowers!) (Sprinkling flowers!)
[The instance is now closed]
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