CH 67.1

Bai Lixin “It must be related to the curse.”

Li Cancan: “But what is the content of the curse? Do you have a clue, God Xin?”

Bai Lixin: “Not yet, but if there is, we’ll find it. What do you think is the use of the food?”

Xia Chi: “Uh, eating too much will kill them?”

“No way.” Liang Xi felt speechless for a moment as he looked at Xia Chi, “If they really want the players to die, they can just come up and kill them directly, why bother with all this effort?”

“You have a point,” Xia Chi nodded seriously, “then what is its use? From what those skeleton mages said, it seems like the undead and the humans have some kind of friendship agreement, they shouldn’t hurt us in principle.”

Bai Lixin: “I heard a story once. There was a fairy in the sky who came down to bathe one day but was seen by a passing mortal, a cowherd. He was so enchanted by the fairy’s beauty that he stole her feathered garment so that she could not return to the divine world. He pretended to be a good man passing, gave the fairy his clothes, took her into his home and cooked her a fine meal.”

“The fairy thanked the mortal, but politely declined his kind offer. She said that she was a celestial being and once she ate mortal food, her body would become heavy and she would not be able to fly to heaven even if she got her feathered garment back.”

“But what she didn’t know was that the cowherd immediately changed tactics and tricked the fairy into eating food so that she would completely remain into the mortal world forever. When the fairy saw that she had no hope of ascending to heaven, and that the cowherd was gentle and considerate to her, she accepted the cowherd’s advances. Two years later, the fairy gave birth to a daughter. The fairy got up in the night one day and found the cowherd trying to burn something. On taking a closer look, it turned out to be her feathered garment.”

“The cowherd finally revealed everything. He figured that since the fairy had already given birth to his child, she would remain his wife. However, he never expected that the fairy was so proud and intolerant of deception and betrayal. In a fit if rage, she cut down the cowherd with her sword, put her feathered garment over her daughter, and then ended her life.”

By the time Bai Lixin finished telling this story, he noticed the three people looking at him with a very inexplicable expressions.

“What’s wrong?” He touched his face, it was clean, and there was nothing on it, “Is there something on my face?”

Xia Chi rubbed the corners of his twitching eyes “Uh, nothing. In the first half, I thought I was listening to the story of the Seven Fairies, but the second half really made a U-turn. Perhaps I was too young and I nolonger remember it properly.”

Li Cancan nodded vigorously and even gave a thumbs up to Bai Lixin “Good adaptation! I like the ending, the cowherd used unorthodox tactics to begin with, how could a decent man steal a girl’s feathered garment. He’s simply a bully and scoundrel. I pity the fairy.”

Bai Lixin blinked, “Did I talk so much that you missed the point in it?”

He didn’t tell them that it wasn’t just a story, but a true story that had once happened in one of the worlds.

Xia Chi “Uh, what’s the point?”

Bai Lixin “The point is that the fairy ate human food and became mortal.”

Li Cancan looked at Bai Lixin hesitantly, “You mean, there’s a good chance that they will also become one of the undead after eating this food?”

The three shivered at the thought of those bodies that were nothing but white skeletons.

Liang Xi slapped his thigh, “I remember now!”

Three pairs of eyes made a turn and landed on Liang Xi’s face.

Liang Xi rubbed his thighs shyly, “So, wasn’t the task to collect the secret treasures of the four races? At that time, they found the secret treasure of the Undead race, and they thought it would be a tough battle to get it, but the King of the Undead happily gifted them the secret treasure and even sent them off with a blessing.”

“As they were leaving the place, the King even said some polite words.”

Bai Lixin: “What words?”

Liang Xi: “I can’t remember every word, but the general idea was that you were a gift from heaven and that the Undead would treat them as kindly as they had been treated by their own kind; they were welcome to come to the world of the Undead again; and that fate would soon bring them together again or something.”

“I was watching the live stream back then and thought that although the Undead NPCs were a bit scary, their hospitality was not bad. You can’t judge a person by their looks either. Some fierce animals are actually very docile.”

He paused, a hesitant expression on his face “But, looking back at the Undead King’s words at that time, they were a bit meaningful.”

The more Li Cancan thought about it, the more she felt that Bai Lixin was right “They weren’t treating them as fellow clansmen, but turning them into complete clansmen?”

S419M’s voice rang out in Bai Lixin’s mind: [ Lord host, I have found out the origin of the undead race. They are a race transformed after the death of the human body. Theoretically speaking, the Undead are not considered to be living beings in the true sense, but walk this continent after death.]

“The Undead are transformed after death, so if one is transformed into an Undead, it means that they have died.” Bai Lixin’s eyes moved down and landed on Liang Xi’s palm that was clenched white, “Assume that Zhou Guang was the same as those players now, assume that eating an excessive amount of food from the undead means being struck by a curse, and assume that the curse is transforming into an undead.”

“If all three of these assumptions hold true, then the deaths of Zhou Guang and the other players were already written from the first day they entered the copy.”

“No matter how hard they tried back there,” Liang Xi’s voice took on an angry tone, “it was all in vain! The Undead King knew they couldn’t leave this place and knew they would join the Undead sooner or later, that’s why he gladly gave them the secret treasure.”

“In the end, Zhou Guang and the others would just bring the secret treasure back again!”

Li Cancan and Xia Chi’s faces also turned ugly.

With just a little imagination, they could empathise with the despair of that reversal.

The players thought that they would be able to leave the copy soon, and that victory was just around the corner, when they were suddenly transformed into undead.

Once turned into undead, they are pronounced dead.

And once all the players died, the system would, by default, concluded that the copy hasn’t been cleared, thus closing it.

It was a bit like Sophia’s inner world in [The Blood Clan] copy, but not exactly the same.

At least the players were still alive in the inner world. They only entered an interdimensional space and just had to leave there.

But being converted into an undead meant being truly dead.

The Undead were immortal and undying, so if Zhou Guang and the others became Undead, where would they be? Would they be right next to them, or somewhere else?

Bai Lixin “I contacted Lin Jue, the vice president of the Sand Sea Guild before I entered the copy.”

Looking at the three people’s astonished eyes, Bai Lixin explained, “I added him as a friend when we were at the Red Apple House.”

Bai Lixin rested his cheek on one hand, his eyes lazily falling on the red apples on the coffee table that hadn’t been eaten, “He has access to some statistics of special copies, so I asked him to check the frequency and survival rate of this copy.”

His other idle hand gently tapped on the table, “This copy has been opened five times in the last 15 days.”

“From the information Lin Jue gave me, the survival rate of this copy used to be very high. At first, it was in the form of a trial copy. Later on, the difficulty kept increasing somehow, and the survival rate became lower and lower. From half a month ago, the survival rate of this copy has become 0.”

Liang Xi’s face changed, “Didn’t they say that the copies are all reset at the end of the day?”

Because the system might self destruct, Bai Lixin didn’t explain anything more, but simply said “I guess it’s a bug.”

“Didn’t you hear the system say that the mission time for this copy has changed from 4 days and 4 nights to 7 days and 7 nights.”

“What I mean by all this is that Zhou Guang’s group was not the only victim. The Undead have thousands of soldiers but how come the later players didn’t get a single clue from the former players who turned into undead?”

Li Cancan: “Could it be that all the players who turned into undead were locked up?”

Liang Xi: “Or maybe they have lost their memories? So it’s not that they didn’t warn the new players, but they simply forgot.”

Xia Chi stood up abruptly, “So, it’s very likely that Zhou Guang and the others are now living as undead. Either they’ve been locked up, or they’ve completely lost their memory? Whichever it is, it’s tragic. Brother, shall we be able to save them this time?”

Bai Lixin’s hand that had been tapping on the table stopped abruptly, his arm reaching for the pearl necklace around his neck and caressed it.

When the Mermaid’s Heart reaches its highest level, it could even bring the dead back to life.

He wondered if this included bringing the undead back to life.

He opened the prop’s description. The prop was still at lv1 and he needed to upgrade the proficiency of the prop.

There was no telling if anyone would get hurt in the practice match tomorrow morning.

He played with the pure black pearl with in his hand, and it was as if there was a force guiding him all from the black pearl.

He didn’t enter this copy randomly, but he still saw Dijia.

He had obtained two props in the [ Deep Sea Mermaid] copy. One had served a purpose in the Red Apple House and one was about to play a vital role in this copy.

All the copies were interlocking.

Bai Lixin peeked out of the window, the moon was in full bloom and the sky was a vast black.

He stood up and walked over to the window.

“A guess without factual basis is only a guess,” Bai Lixin said as he took a black cloak he had prepared in advance from his backpack, “I intend to go out and have a look.”

“But we’ll need to leave two people behind as cover.”

Liang Xi was the first to speak, “I’ll go with you. I’ve seen this copy and know a few places.”

Xia Chi and Li Cancan had to choose to stay behind. Liang Xi was a little shorter than Bai Lixin, and he took another cloak out of his backpack. He handed it to Liang Xi, and the two disappeared down the corridor.

They passed the dining room on their way. The smell of meat reached Liang Xi’s nostrils, but he didn’t have the slightest appetite this time. The thought of the malice hidden under the food made him feel sick and uncomfortable.

Even from a long distance away, he could still hear the beastly and greedy gnawing of the players.

If he didn’t know that there were players inside, he would think that there was a pack of hungry dogs pouncing on the food.

Liang Xi: “Boss, let me take you to the place where Zhou Guang and the others found the secret treasure.”

“Don’t call me ‘boss,” Bai Lixin said with some amusement, “just call me by my name.”

Liang Xi “Okay, God Xin.”

Bai Lixin: “……”

Liang Xi was obviously familiar with this place either and the two made there way around for a while. They walked for a little over half an hour before they arrived at the corridor.

It was a half exposed corridor with a wall on the side and a row of huge stone pillars on the other side. The moonlight spilled through and the shadows of the pillars and the two men were stretched out as they walked.

Suddenly, Liang Xi tugged at Bai Lixin’s cuff.

Bai Lixin looked sideways and saw Liang Xi gesturing towards the wall.

The shadows that tilted forward should have been two, but they were now three.

Something had followed them without his notice.

As they walked, their shadows would have a bumpy up and down movement as they walked, but the dark shadow behind them was smoothly floating behind them completely without bumps at all.

Wasn’t this a Magic Continent? Why is there a ghost?

Liang Xi wanted to scream out and run for his life, but in the end, he relied on his perseverance to hold on.

Suddenly, he got a notification from for a private chat.

Liang Xi opened ot and saw a message from Bai Lixin.

Bai Lixin: [Its been following us for a while, just keep going, it’s nothing malicious.]

Liang Xi breathed a long sigh of relief. So God Xin had noticed this ghost shadow a long time ago.

He paused and replied: [ What is that thing? Can I look back?]

The corners of Bai Lixin’s mouth hidden in his hood had a trace of a smile: [It’s best not to, I’m afraid it’s shy.]

Liang Xi: “……”

I don’t think it’s possible to be shy!

But since God Xin had said so, Liang Xi’s heart gradually sank back in place.

As the two of them walked forward, the sudden sound of metal thumping on the ground rang out.

Liang Xi’s heart, which had just been pushed down, went up again.

There was an unidentifiable shadow behind them and approaching guards in front of them.

Too stimulating!

Seeing the guards getting closer and closer to them, Bai Lixin “exposed” his index finger with the ring and whispered: “Don’t panic, keep your head up and keep walking normally, These cloaks have a confusion buff.”

These cloaks were special clothing props that Bai Lixin bought from the mall. They can confuse the NPCs for a short time into seeing them as familiar but unable to remember.

The NPC would feel that they were familiar, but they wouldn’t be able to remember why.

But the confusion buff was short-lived. The effect would disappear the moment kept the eyes meet. So they had to keep their heads down so as not to reveal themselves.

Sure enough, the guards only gave Bai Lixin and Liang Xi a glance before quickly turning their heads away and continuing to move forward on patrol.

The journey to find the secret treasure was as difficult as learning scriptures.

Relying on the fragments he had seen from Zhou Guang’s live broadcast, Liang Xi finally found an opening that extended downwards.

It was a four-sided entrance with several steps that went all the way down into the darkness.

Liang Xi pointed to this underground passage. “This is it, this is where Zhou Guang and the others found the secret treasure. Their mission was quite tight as they only had four days and four nights. They started collecting early as they also had to visit the other three races.”

However, Bai Lixin’s gaze fell on the written symbols next to the entrance.

A line of letters was written on the stone platform above the entrance and they translated to, “The Forbidden Area.”

Dijia’s words came back to mind.

——“The ring will give you access to any place, except the forbidden area.”

Ugh, was it appropriate to break the rule just after being warned?

The moonlight spilled down and the three shadows shifted in the moonlight.

Although he knew that curiosity killed the cat, Liang Xi couldn’t help but glance back, trying to see what that dark shadow really was.

And it was at that moment that he hated himself for not heeding the warning!

A sudden suction force came out from beneath the stairs. The suction was strong and fast, and Liang Xi was pulled straight down before he could react.

Bai Lixin was still hesitating on going down the stairs when the force came over. He could have dodged it, but why would he do that?

He wanted to go in and take a look, and was only hesitant due to Dijia’s warning.