Chapter 261: I'll Save You If I Feel Like It

Chapter 261: I'll Save You If I Feel Like It

Night time, in the outskirts of Huacheng where the Amber Mansion resides.

The fiddling of an Erhu (二胡) could be heard from the piano room on the top floor; its melodies melancholic yet passionate. Even just by listening could one produce vivid imagery in their mind, envisioning a lonely boat in the midst of a stormy sea.

And the person playing the Erhu was none other than Jiangli.

After playing the [Flight of the Bumblebee], she put down the Erhu and breathed a sigh of relief.

Getting started with the Erhu was no big deal for her since she had played the violin for about eight years ever since she was a child.

Although she had only started practicing for about ten hours, she was able to play some difficult tunes.

One might ask – why not play the violin instead? She wasn’t sure why either.

Perhaps it was because she saw Lu Yibei mastering an instrument in just three days, so subconsciously, she wanted to compete.

The door to the piano room creaked open, and Hua walked in with a silver tray in her hands, bringing Jiangli a bowl of steaming hot ramen.

“Mistress, I made the instant noodles according to how you instructed me to. Please give it a taste.”

“Thank you,” Jiangli responded as she nodded. She brought the bowl close to her and sipped the soup. Then, she slurped up noodles with a pair of chopsticks. Upon swallowing, she frowned slightly and shook her head.

“Mistress, does it... not taste good?”

“It’s... a little off.”

“That’s weird! I made the noodles exactly as how you asked me to!”

Jiangli cupped the warm bowl in her hands and looked at her maid, sighing as she comforted, “Hua, I don’t think it has anything to do with you. There must be some extra steps that I might have missed Yibei doing while she was making the noodles.”

“I see,” Hua sighed, defeated. Then, she rolled her eyes and huffed, “Mistress, is it true that Yibei is the child of your saviour?”

Because if that were the case, wouldn’t that bastard be my future uncle?! She thought inwardly. Mistress is practicing the Erhu just for him! Plus, I used to treat him like shit! With how petty he is, he would most definitely hold a grudge against me!

Deep in thought, Hua felt that her pleasant days would soon become gloomy and depressing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

However, there was nothing she can do. Why did Mistress have to fancy him?!

“Mistress, an update – I went down Peony Street the other day to investigate past Operators who were named ‘Lu’, and sure enough, there was one Operator who shared the same surname,” Hua updated.

“Is that so?” Jiangli’s eyes trembled slightly, but she decided to remain calm. “Do we know their name?”

“Unfortunately not,” Hua shook her head. “All I could find was their surname – all other files and records have been deleted. They might’ve retired or died in the line of duty.”

After members of the Night Division retire or die, their files and records would be erased. The only place where backup records are kept is Shengjing City’s Night Division.

“I see,” Jiangli’s eyes flashed with a hint of disappointment, patting Hua’s shoulder gently. “No matter – all I’ve done before this is wait, so I don’t mind waiting a little longer.”

Since Yibei was able to make instant noodles that taste exactly the same as her saviour, even if she wasn’t related to him, she most definitely knows something, and there would be plenty of time to scourge information out of the Witch in the future.

“Hua, why don’t you rest for the night? I’d like to continue practicing.”

“Okay. You should rest early too, Mistress. Don’t stay up too late!” Hua said, dusting off her clothing as she bowed in front of Jiangli before retiring for the night.

Listening to her waning footsteps, Jiangli waited until Hua got far enough before taking the Erhu into her hands. She turned over the sheets of music in front of her, and was prepared to play the [Croatian Rhapsody]. However, her phone buzzed twice in front of her.

She frowned. Picking up the phone, it displayed a text from Vaccaria, including a deleted text that she missed.

[VACARRIA has deleted their message.]

[VACCARIA: Yoooo you there?]

Why did she have to text me now... she frowned, tapping on her phone.

[Genius Mahjong Girl: What’s up? ????]

[VACCARIA: To be honest, I’ve been hiding this for quite a while now, I...]

...? What the-? Why is she being so weird all of a sudden?

[Genius Mahjong Girl: Get straight to the point, please. ????]

[VACCARIA: You know, I never had many friends, but you... you treat me the best.]

Jiangli scratched her head, trying to recall what monstrosity she could have possibly done to cause Yibei to talk like this. If anything, she realized that she never did anything particularly good to Yibei.

[Genius Mahjong Girl: It’s late. Did you get in your feelings after turning some sad music on?]

[VACCARIA: No! Listen... I’m heading over to a very dangerous place right now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to say this to you in the future, so...]

Jiangli felt that something was wrong.

[Genius Mahjong Girl: So... what does that have to do with anything you’re saying right now?]

[VACCARIA: I’m feeling emotional, okay?!?!]

Are boys, uh, girls like these nowadays? She frowned as she typed out several paragraphs of text, but wound up deleting all of them.

She wasn’t sure how to give an appropriate reply that won’t hurt Yibei’s pure and naïve heart.

Vaguely, she could see a hazy figure larger than the tallest building in Huacheng, hidden beyond the clouds and the mist as it waded through them. Looking closer, a pair of wings made of billowing smoke fluttered behind it.

As the wings flapped, brief , incomprehensible changes were billowing within the clouds, like arms, claws, and tentacle-like limbs with grotesque proportions, or slits that opened and closed like maws.

Suddenly, the figure seemed to notice the Witch, and a gap opened at the end of all its illusory, twisted limbs. Through the gap, green eyes emerged as they filled up the sky in dense numbers, casting their infinitely malicious gaze onto her.

She once saw similar figures shuttling through the city in her own dreamscape where she met the girl – they lurked far away beyond the horizon where they left no impression on her other than their blurred outline.

Soon, the figure was above her head, unleashing an unbridled amount of maddening fear towards her.

Immediately, the feeling of suffocation overcame her, and she found herself in a claustrophobic space that was flooded with smog. Waves of intense stimulation burst through the smoke, like there were a pair of invisible hands holding an iron rake plowing through her trachea.

All she could hear was the chaotic sounds of a city – they were distant, and they gradually became sharper and more intense.

Just as she felt that she was at her breaking point where the noise was about to penetrate into her brain, she gritted her teeth and began reciting an age-old incantation familiar to her body in an attempt to fight the foreign power.

Having come into contact the Serpent, she understood that you can only fight fire with fire, and fight urban legend with urban legend.

“There is a mountain and a woman, and behold, a drought...”

“Swim to the north and climb the mountains – look to the South and behold! A graceful river in beautiful waters...”

“Like fog, like stars – they are her children, and the lips that blow out the light in the dark...”

In a daze, she felt something stirring in her body, like bright fire, like an incomplete Sun, spreading a terrifying heat around her body.

The mini-Sun was turbulent under the pressure of the smog, causing countless gaps to appear in its formation, as if it might collapse at any moment.

Immediately, a scarlet-coloured light emerged from the center of the Sun – the power of the Witch’s Egg manifested.

Under the two forces, the smog began to recede, and the clouds dissipated...

However, it didn’t seem like it was actually being chased away. It seemed like the clouds were either running out of energy, or losing interest in its target.

She found herself staring at the statue again, and it took her a while to bring herself back to reality. After a while, she noticed Skin and Sack backing themselves up into the far corner behind her in the jeep.

Judging from them cowering, if it weren’t for the fact that there were three rows of seats in this car, they would’ve barricaded themselves in the trunk.

Seeing the Witch come back to reality, Skin trembled, “Are... you okay?”

“Why? What’s wrong?” the Witch tilted her head in confusion.

Sack trembled, causing large clumps of maggots to fall off from its sack, pointing underneath Yibei’s seat.

Looking down, she realized that when she was fighting against the suffocating pressure of the statue in her head, she began leaking large amounts of Disaster Liquid.

“...Ah.”

Even though I was fighting for my life, I can’t let them think I’m weak!

“It is just Disaster Liquid,” she responded, waving her hand as if it was no big deal. “I release this once every few days, so there is nothing to worry about.”

Okay, maybe I lied – it isn’t just once every few days; it’s every day!

Thinking about it, she rummaged through her guitar bag for an empty bottle and stored the Disaster that leaked out.

Skin and Sack had accidentally absorbed some of the highly-pure Disaster from proximity alone, and almost got high on it. Seeing the Witch collect it with her bare hands, their cores almost collapsed from the fear resonating in their body.

Disaster Liquid? Releasing this once every few days? Is the same liquid that you could only get less than 100g of after milking a Witch dry of it? What the hell is she?!

Just as Skin and Sack were in shock, the Witch calmly took out her phone and sent a calm text over to Jiangli.

[VACCARIA: HELP ME! I’M GOING TO FUCKING DIE! HELP! HELP! HELP!]

Ah, shit, this might seem too cowardly.

[You have deleted this message.]

[VACCARIA: Yoooo you there?]

...

After a while, Yibei’s face darkened when she read Jiangli’s reply, and she was so upset that she almost threw her phone out the window.

What the fuck do you mean by ‘if I feel like it’?! Do you not care about me anymore?!

Is it my fault for having certain expectations on her? She’s probably hoping that I die after learning that I am an urban legend myself...

TRANSLATOR NOTES:

Note 1 – Leek: Leeks are said to be ‘hard-to-kill’, growing back after you chop them off – this is used to describe investors who are preyed on in the stock market (i.e., chopped off like a leek), but later, more naïve investors would come into the market, repeating the process. In this context, it is used as a metaphor on how Tang Han might have exploited people who are considered ‘lower’ to him, or how dominant, powerful people abuse informational asymmetry. It’s a bit contradictory from the initial explanation, but I’m not sure what else could be used to describe Tang Han lol. Decided to leave the original ‘leek’ translation in rather than replace it with something else since I think imagining him as a literal leek is just funnier in my head.

P.S.: I’m sort of worried about the future of the site – over the last few days, only 3 other stories got updated, and admittedly, the Discord is somewhat dead with some messages/requests getting ignored, which makes me think that the site traffic isn’t doing all that hot. I was pretty new to uploading novels so I pretty much just dove into any site that would accept translations without doing further research (my bad on that part). If this site implodes, rest assured I kept all the previous chapters in my Word files, and maybe I’ll pop up in a more reputable TL site ^.^ -slicedbread.

I hope you enjoy today’s chapter! Seems like Witchbei has found herself in hot waters again with something powerful and eldritch...

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