CH 39

As soon as the car stopped, Gu Xizhou saw Si Yu standing on the second floor of the villa. 

Si Yu told Gu Xizhou the password of the electronic lock at the door and ordered: “Come up yourself.”

“Oh.” Gu Xizhou didn’t hesitate and directly entered the password of Si Yu’s house. He walked upstairs, and asked out of curiosity: “Why are you the only one at home every time I come over? Where are your parents?”

“…” Si Yu glanced at him lightly, his tone flat. “Dead.”

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Si Yu said gently, waving his hand. “Have you eaten breakfast? I asked the “aunt” to make two sets of breakfast.”

Gu Xizhou immediately said: “Not yet, I’m starving!”

His puppy son had milk, whereas he had nothing.

During the meal, Si Yu also told him things like ‘don’t leave his line of sight after entering the mission world, don’t randomly aggravate NPCs, stay calm before the rules have been figured out, don’t randomly trust others’ etcetera. 

Gu Xizhou nodded his head. “Relax, I promise to do what you say.”

Si Yu expressed doubts about this, but still chose to believe Gu Xizhou in the end. They ate for a while longer, then looked at the newspapers for a while, before Si Yu finally told Gu Xizhou: “One more minute.”

The two held hands for a while, and Gu Xizhou felt a wind blowing around him. Then, his surrounding environment changed. 

His body was a bit cold. Gu Xizhou subconsciously covered the place where the rain was falling on with a hand. Wind blew at them from all four directions, and the sky was current dripping with a light rain. The muddy ground was covered with footprints, and there were a few old people in the field. When they saw the two of them, the old people waved their hands and smiled. 

“Aiya, you guys are finally here.”

Gu Xizhou froze. He didn’t forget Si Yu’s words. He didn’t immediately respond to the NPC’s questions and instead chose to shut his mouth, letting his gaze fall on Si Yu instead.

In this world, Si Yu’s appearance was a little different from his real one, but he could still vaguely see the outline of the original man. A pretty face was still a pretty face, and would always be a pretty face. 

Si Yu’s face was slightly turned to the side, revealing an angular jawline, and he gestured to Gu Xizhou to stay silent.

“Wuwuwu…wuwuwu…”

Gu Xizhou listened carefully, and found that someone around seemed to be crying.

They had barely walked a few steps before they saw a girl sitting at the edge of the field and crying. She looked quite young, and upon seeing this unfamiliar environment, she seemed to have become emotionally broken and cried very quietly, choking on her tears. 

She cried for a long time, then finally noticed the voices of other people. She looked up and saw Gu Xizhou and Si Yu. Her crying face looked like pear blossoms in the rain, and she hurriedly backed away in fear. “You, who are you? Where… where am I?”

Gu Xizhou stilled for a moment, and looked at Si Yu, evidently confused. Then, he heard Si Yu say in a cold voice: “Hm, what are you pretending for? In my mission world, it’s impossible for there to be newcomers.”

“What, what are you saying?” The girl asked with a blank expression, and her voice was soft, with a faint hint of pitifulness. 

The girl was actually quite tall, about 1.7 metres, and her face was very beautiful. When she cried, she looked incredibly pitiful. After she heard Si Yu’s indifferent words, she showed an overwhelmed expression and continued to cry.

Seeing the girl like this, Si Yu waved his hand, seemingly unwilling to say more. At this moment, there were voices in front of them, and two men walked towards them. After they met the trio, they shook hands, and introduced themselves.

“Liu Kai, the tenth time.”

“Wen Wen, the twelfth time.”

Gu Xizhou heard their introduction and knew that the numbers behind their names represented the number of times they had been through the mission worlds. There was a bit of surprise in his heart–it appeared that the two men before them were veterans. Then, Gu Xizhou heard Si Yu say in a calm voice next to him: “Si Yaoxing, the eighteenth time. This is my companion.”

Xe Wlhtbe mbeiv tfjg atf rtjgq lctjif bo ygfjat ogbw atbrf akb qfbqif joafg atfs tfjgv Vl Te’r kbgvr. Pa kjr mifjgis atflg olgra alwf wffalcu rbwfbcf ktb tjv regnlnfv flutaffc wlrrlbc kbgivr, jcv atfc atflg ujhfr ofii bc Xe Wlhtbe ja atf rjwf alwf. 

Lf kjnfv tlr tjcv, xcbklcu atja atf akb kfgf wlrecvfgrajcvlcu, jcv lwwfvljafis rjlv: “Xe Ejc, atf obegat alwf.”

The two men heaved a sigh of relief after hearing those words. The girl who had been crying at the side hurriedly wiped her tears away after hearing Si Yu’s words, and then a very rough male voice asked: “You? The eighteenth time? Fuck…”

Gu Xizhou heard the ‘girl’s’ voice, and subconsciously looked at the skirt that the ‘girl’ was wearing on her lower body. This voice wasn’t something a girl would own. 

The ‘girl’ looked back and squinted at him, grinning. “Why, brother, have you never seen a boss pretending to be a girl?”

Gu Xizhou retracted his gaze and said: “Yes, I’ve never seen it before.”

On the other side, Si Yu saw them talking, and eyed the person who had pretended to be a girl. He ignored his exclamation from just now, and instead sneered coldly: “Not pretending anymore?”

“Not pretending, not pretending!” The man in the dress with light makeup on his face held a h and out. “Boss, I’m called Fu Yiran, this is my twelfth world.”

Si Yu looked at Fu Yiran coldly, then ignored him.

As they continued to walk on the road, Gu Xizhou looked back at Fu Yiran, and asked a little curiously: “What happened to your voice just now?”

Fu Yiran glanced at Gu Xizhou, and said lightly: “Used a voice distorter.”

Then, Fu Yiran gave Gu Xizhou a glance. Gu Xizhou noticed Fu Yiran’s subtle look and was a little surprised, but slowed down a bit, wanting to hear what Fu Yiran had to say. 

“What?” Gu Xizhou asked him lightly. Due to the dripping rain, his hair was wet, and the black strands of hair stuck to the sides of his neck, making him look a little pale.

Fu Yiran glanced at him and said: “This man who brought you in has experienced 18 mission worlds. Be careful that you don’t get tricked by him.”

Gu Xizhou heard Fu Yiran’s warnings and was a little surprised. He didn’t think that this boss in female’s clothing was actually quite nice. 

“Oh, you can rest assured, he isn’t capable of tricking me.” Gu Xizhou smiled. 

Fu Yiran was obviously disdainful of Gu Xizhou’s remarks, and his words were clear: “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you. These big bosses bringing you newcomers to a difficult world would simply be to use you as a tool.”

After speaking to Fu Yiran, Gu Xizhou saw Si Yu standing in front, frowning at him and shouting: “Hurry up, what are you doing dragging your feet at the back?”

Gu Xizhou: “Coming.”

When he returned, Si Yu whispered: “What did he tell you?”

Gu Xizhou: “Oh, to be careful of you.”

Si Yu: “It should be me who is careful of  you.”

Gu Xizhou was shut up by those words and seriously suspected that Si Yu still doubted whether he was a ghost or a human!

…

They followed the muddy path. Gu Xizhou heard them briefly discussing the mission worlds that they had previously been through, and the strange unpredictable rules. The more he listened to their words and the mission worlds that they had survived, the more uncomfortable he felt.

As they walked and talked, he found out that Fu Yiran was actually a drag queen in real life, and they started to discuss their real identities. Fu Yiran said that he became a drag queen to earn a living, but Gu Xizhou suspected that it was simply because he loved it as a hobby.

About half an hour later, they finally reached the end of the road. A small village stood in front of them, and an old man was waiting at the gate of the village. 

“It’s you? The village chief told me to pick you up here.” The old man carried a long pole on his back, and a bucket full of water hung on either end. After seeing Gu Xizhou and the rest, he smiled and said: “Let’s go, the sky is getting dark. Let’s go to where you’ll be resting.”

“The village chief asked us to come, is there a reason for that?” Si Yu asked. 

The old man didn’t reply, and simply lifted the pole on his back higher and walked, leading them straight to where they would be staying for the night. Si Yu and Gu Xizhou followed behind him. 

One of the players, Liu Kai, lowered his voice and said: “Look at those two buckets.”

Hearing Liu Kai’s words, they hurriedly looked at the buckets hanging on either end of the pole that the old man was carrying. A human’s face was floating on the water, and the face even had a pair of blood red eyes. Those eyes moved, and its line of sight landed on them.

“Fuck.”

Because of the light reflecting off the water, Gu Xizhou squinted his eyes slightly and looked at those two human faces. The two pairs of blood red eyes kept staring at them, and the two human faces showed a strange smile.

Liu Kai lowered his voice and asked the others: “Did you see it?”

“Yes.”

“Saw it.”

Several people quietly whispered their replies to Liu Kai, and then they didn’t say anything after that. Compared to the people in the previous worlds Gu Xizhou had been in, this group was very calm.

They followed the old man into a two-storey hut, and before they even entered, they heard someone talking quietly in the room. 

“Fuck, what kind of joke is this? We  need to stay one night before we can meet the key NPCs? Fuck, only ghosts know what will happen tonight!” A strong male voice couldn’t resist complaining.

Fu Yiran pushed the door open, and they entered one after another. The people inside looked indifferent, with no expression on their faces. Gu Xizhou noticed that everyone was in a stable mood. Unlike the worlds he had experienced before, these people were all veterans. No one threw a tantrum about wanting to go home. 

The people inside introduced themselves. Three people were on their eleventh round, and one was on his tenth round. The mission worlds that everyone had been through were about the same. The highest was Si Yu at eighteen times, and the lowest was Gu Xizhou at four times. 

Gu Xizhou could clearly feel the attitude of everyone towards Si Yu. It was a love-hate relationship–with Si Yu here, this person that had survived 18 worlds, it meant that this mission world would be harder than they imagined. However, Si Yu was also the one they would be relying on…

He saw the group’s eager expressions towards Si Yu, and thought that it was quite funny.

One of the men with a bad temper complained quietly: “This time, there are nine people. The difficulty must be high.”

Si Yu heard this and nodded faintly, as if he wasn’t quite willing to talk to others. He asked the three other individuals: “Are there any clues yet?”

One of the girls shook her head. “No, we can only meet the village chief that the old man spoke of tomorrow. Now, the sky is almost dark, and we don’t dare to go out.”

Si Yu nodded, and his gaze landed on the living room of the house. Then, a woman with a big belly knocked on the door and walked in. “Aiya, asking you to come to the village to help out these few days, we’ve really troubled you! The food is all in the backyard, so eat a bit and go to bed early, there are a lot of things to do tomorrow!”

The woman said with a smile.

“What do we have to do tomorrow?” Fu Yiran asked tentatively, refusing to give up.

There was a smile on the woman’s face, but it was as if she didn’t hear Fu Yiran’s question. She showed them a silly smile, and asked them to go to the backyard for dinner. 

The food was just the usual farmhouse food, but the taste was not bad. Gu Xizhou ate a little bit. 

“Let’s divide up the rooms.” Si Yu said lightly. “If you want to stay together, say it in advance.”

As soon as Si Yu’s words fell, several people immediately expressed their opinions. It turned out that everyone except Fu Yiran had come in a team of two, and there were many empty rooms in the house.

Fu Yiran had a rough male voice paired with the short skirt that made one turn dizzy. Several of the men present looked at him quite frequently, but because it was too sudden, and he had originally come here alone, no one offered to share a room with him.

“That… can I share a room with you?” Fu Yiran asked Gu Xizhou and Si Yu a bit awkwardly. “If I have to be alone… I’ll be afraid.”

After he finished speaking, Si Yu looked at him coldly and said nothing, but Gu Xizhou saw Fu Yiran’s pitiful appearance and nodded slightly.  “Okay.”

“Thank you.” Fu Yiran heard Gu Xizhou agree and was filled with joy. He directly ignored the cold Si Yu next to them. 

When it was time to sleep at night, Fu Yiran rushed into Gu Xizhou and Si Yu’s room, as if afraid that they would leave him behind. 

After arriving in the room, Gu Xizhou simply lay in bed after washing up and prepared to sleep. Si Yu also laid in bed. Fu Yiran, who took a long time to wash up, saw that the two of them had already each occupied a bed and lowered his head. He said in a wronged voice: “Can you two sleep in one bed? I…I…”

Gu Xizhou: “?”

Si Yu: “?”

Fu Yiran said in an aggrieved voice: “Although I am a man, I have a woman’s heart, my pure and clean body, wuwuwu…”

“Of course, if  you are willing to sleep in a bed with me, and take responsibility, then… then that’s okay.” Fu Yiran pointed at his finger.

Gu Xizhou: “…”

Si Yu turned to look at Gu Xizhou: Look at you, what the fuck did you promise to do?!

Gu Xizhou: How was I to know he would pull this kind of thing?!

Si Yu: You come over.

Gu Xizhou: No, I can’t…

After a brief conversation through nothing but their gazes, Gu Xizhou succumbed and pitifully squeezed into Si Yu’s bed. 

Si Yu didn’t sleep immediately. He stared at Gu Xizhou for a while, then finally turned around, putting his back to Gu Xizhou. “Sleep.”

“Okay.”

In the middle  of the night, Gu Xizhou was gently awakened by someone. He opened his eyes blearily and stared at Fu Yiran with some suspicion. “What is it?”

“Look at the window…” Fu Yiran said in a small voice as he clutched Gu Xizhou’s hand.

Gu Xizhou looked at the window. The window was covered by several sheets of newspapers, and the silhouettes of a few figures could be seen dimly. Just when he wanted to go check out the situation, someone suddenly grabbed him.

“Sleep.”

It was Si Yu’s voice. At the same time, Si Yu turned to look at Fu Yiran. “You too.”

Fu Yiran shrugged indifferently. “Okay, what the big boss says must be right.”

soya:

Liu Kai: 10th time.

Wen Wen: 12th time. 

Gu Xizhou: Wow… they’re big veterans…

Si Yu: 18th time.

Gu Xizhou: ?! (I didn’t realise the big thigh I was hugging was that big…