CH 33

(Part 2 – The Real Plague)

Edited by Silver Wind 

According to what was taken in the photo, there was a large sea of hope flowers behind the Cathedral which was the source of the floral scent that hung around the city.

In any case, the sea of hope flowers had to be resolved first before they could do anything else.

Wu Jia brought up a question: “What are we going to do if we’re wrong?”

What if they failed to resolve the plague, and worse still, provoke the BOSS behind the scenes because they burned down the entire sea of hope flowers? 

Shen Dongqing pondered about it deeply for a moment before he said: “If that’s the case, we’ll apologise to the priest.”

Wu Jia: “?”

Zhou Wenyan smiled slightly: “Yes, I believe the priest will accept our apology.”

And if he refused to accept their apology, they could only resort to some drastic measures.

As they were talking, they reached the Cathedral.

Luckily, the door that Shen Dongqing had kicked open previously had not been repaired and it hung on its hinges, crooked, and it only took a little strength to push it open.

In the silence, the creaking of the door sounded throughout the Cathedral. 

There was no one on the premises and the deified statue stood there on its lonesome.

Zhou Wenyan instructed, “Find the other exit.”

Wu Jia walked around to check for any hidden doors. However, as he was moving past the deified statue, he felt that there was a cold gaze coming from above and it made him feel like he had fallen into an icehouse.

While he managed to stop his head from raising by virtue of the fact that he had experienced numerous instances where ghosts and monsters had jumped out to scare people in the game, he still whispered to Shen Dongqing: “Look up, is there anything there?” 

Shen Dongqing raised his head to look over and suddenly saw a pair of eyes that were protruding out from the deified statue.

“It’s watching you,” Shen Dongqing said.

Sweat was about to start dripping down Wu Jia’s face. “Wh-What is looking at me?”

“The statue ah, it seems to be alive.” Shen Dongqing accepted the setting at once and he even greeted the deified statue. “Aren’t you going to say hello to it?” 

Wu Jia laughed dryly, “No thanks.”

However, with his interruption, the chill he felt all over his body receded.

Fearing that something unexpected would happen, Wu Jia started searching for the exit in the hurry. To his surprise, he managed to find the door behind the statue after he inspected the entire place once.

Wu Jia pushed at the door. 

And the door opened with surprising ease.

“I don’t know if we’ll end up meeting the priest.” Wu Jia was worried.

He had always thought that the priest was weird.

Zhou Wenyan walked through the door first as he tossed out a sentence, “It’ll be good if we meet him.” 

And that was enough to settle the worry that Wu Jia had with regards to the priest.

When they stepped out of the dark door, they smelled the dense and thick floral scent, and it was to the extent where it was starting to stink.

With a sweeping glance, it was obvious that it was a flower field. Clusters upon clusters of hope flowers swayed with the breeze, and had it not been for the floral scent, it would have been a unique scenery. 

Cr atfs jqqgbjmtfv atf rfj bo tbqf oibkfgr, Vtfc Gbcudlcu ofia tlr mtffxr rajgalcu ab lamt.

Qtja tf abemtfv ktfc tf gjlrfv tlr tjcv kjr cba rxlc yea ktlrxfgr lcrafjv. Jijrqlcu tlr batfg mtffx klat tlr batfg tjcv, tf mjwf ab gfjilrf atja atfs kfgf qgfrfca bc ybat rlvfr bo tlr ojmf, jcv tlr jkjgfcfrr bo atfw wjvf atfw aklamt abufatfg.

Zhou Wenyan was the same.

It seemed like the longer they stayed in Plague City, the more animalistic they would become. 

However, this also meant that the plague was becoming increasingly severe.

Zhou Wenyan gazed at the sea of hope flowers. “Burn it.”

Wu Jia queried, “What are we using to burn it?”

Zhou Wenyan: “Use your brain.” 

Wu Jia had yet to figure out what he meant when Shen Dongqing spoke: “Of course it’s using fire.” After he finished saying that, he gave Wu Jia a strange look as if he was trying to ask how he failed to answer such a simple question?

Wu Jia, who had been disdained by several people: ……

Of course, he knew that he had to use fire but with such a large sea of flowers, it was impossible to make all of it burn up without using some sort of fuel.

Zhou Wenyan: “Take out your talismans.” 

It was then that Wu Jia reacted.

Because he had some kleptomaniac tendencies, he would frequently exchange his points for a lot of spells no matter what kind of functions they had. Now that he was pulling them out by the stack, he could not differentiate which ones were used for starting fires and he could only try them out one by one.

Before Wu Jia could yield any results from his testing, a person suddenly popped out from the corner and scared him.

Sunglasses Man had been hiding in a corner from beginning to end, watching the trio work. Since it was a three against one, he did not dare to act lightly. 

His inaction only lasted up until he saw that they were going to burn the sea of hope flowers, and he suppressed the urge to stop them.

Sunglasses Man examined the three players present.

All three players were at different stages of their metamorphosis. According to what the priest said, their bestial appearance was related to a player’s ability; players who were powerful would become larger beasts while weaker players would become smaller animals.

If he had to pick persimmons, he naturally had to pick the softest. 

After Sunglasses Man hesitated for a long while, he rushed at Shen Dongqing and strangled his throat. With a loud yell, he said: “If you don’t stop now, I’ll kill him!”

The other two stopped moving.

However, the strangest part of it all was  that they were not panicked or afraid and they were looking at him calmly instead. Especially the man with deer eyes because he seemed to have a glint of sympathy in his eyes.

What was happening? 

Fortunately, the man with the cat ears spoke: “Wait, don’t do anything first.”

That seemed more logical.

Sunglasses Man tried to assure them, “Hurry up and leave this place, or else…”

Zhou Wenyan asked with much interest, “Or else what will happen?” 

Sunglasses Man issued a grim threat, “You will all die.”

Zhou Wenyan shook his head, “That’s nothing new.”

Sunglasses Man: “What?”

The man with the sunglasses felt his rabbit-eared captive shift a little before he grabbed his arm. 

Sneering, he said, “Don’t move, I don’t want to be forced into killing someone…”

Before he could finish his words, he saw a little white rabbit haul him up and throw him over his shoulder, directly slamming the big and tall man with sunglasses into the ground.

Shen Dongqing gave Sunglasses Man a small smile, baring his sharp little tiger tooth.

Wu Jia could not help but close his eyes. 

A wave of violent pain swept over him. A vague thought entered his mind, Were the words “don’t do anything first” not directed at him in actuality?

“That was my first time being a hostage, how did I perform?” Shen Dongqing returned to Zhou Wenyan’s side and his distinctive eyes stared at him intensely as if he was asking for praise.

Patting his head, Zhou Wenyan complimented him, “You did well.”

Shen Dongqing was still distressed in spite of that, “But I still don’t know how to be afraid.” 

Zhou Wenyan: “Hm, it’s okay, I’ll make him demonstrate it.”

Sunglasses Man, who was now being treated as a prop for demonstration, felt a terrible aura approaching. He struggled to his feet but before he could leave the ground, he was shoved back down by a foot.

Stepping on the Sunglasses Man’s shoulder, Zhou Wenyan pointed at him, “This is what fear looks like.”

Shen Dongqing squinted his eyes and commented with some distaste, “How ugly.” 

The sunglasses that he was wearing had fallen off earlier on and it exposed an ordinary and unsurprising countenance. Now that the sweat and mud on his face had blended together with the fear that was distorting his features, he looked quite comical.

Shen Dongqing thought about it before he decided to give up on learning it, considering how he would never allow himself to show such a strange expression.

Zhou Wenyan: “Since you can’t learn anything from him, let’s just get rid of him.”

Hearing his words, Sunglasses Man shuddered, “Don’t, please don’t, the game forced me to do this! I didn’t want to do this!” 

There were a total of ten players in the game.

Before they entered Plague City, the loudspeaker on the bus had announced the task he had in the game.

While the other players heard【 You can only leave Plague City by destroying the plague 】, what Sunglasses Man had heard was【 Become the Priest’s Helper and infect everyone with the Plague 】. 

Compared to eliminating the plague, it was obviously easier to infect everyone with the plague.

The reason why Sunglasses Man wanted to become the leader of the team was because it made it more convenient and faster to make the other players contract the plague that way.

Initially, he had already succeeded for the most part.

All the players had already been exposed to the hope flowers, and all that was required was for some time to pass so that the effects of the floral fragrance – which was to transform everyone into animals – could take hold. 

If the sea of hope flowers were ruined by fire, his entire mission would be considered a failure and he had no choice but to jump out to stop them.

Of course, he was but a mantis trying to obstruct a chariot.

Zhou Wenyan: “It’s such a pity…”

Sunglasses Man: “What’s a pity?” 

Zhou Wenyan’s mouth hooked upwards and he revealed a mocking smile, “If you could clear the copy and leave after infecting everyone with the plague, why would Lu Xiaozhen still be here?”

It was obvious that Lu Xiaozhen had received the same mission that the Sunglasses Man had in the previous batch of players.

She killed all the players, leaving only herself but she could not leave Plague City even then. She was forever trapped in this place.

Having understood what he meant, Sunglasses Man’s eyes widened and he seemed to want to say something. 

But it was already too late, before he could utter his last words, he fell to the ground softly.

A drop of blood fell from Zhou Wenyan’s fingertips and he casually wiped the blood on Sunglasses Man’s body.

From the very beginning, he had never shown any mercy to those who challenged his bottom line.

On Wu Jia’s end, he finally found one that could be used.

He clamped the talisman between his fingers and flung it hard. The yellow talisman flew into the flower field, exploding into a fireball. With the fireball being the point of origin, it turned all of the hope flowers into a sea of fire.

Thus, the floral fragrance was superseded by a more pungent, smoky smell.

Zhou Wenyan grabbed onto Shen Dongqing’s wrist and said in the passing, “Run.” 

The talismans produced by the system could be considered as quality goods because the raging fire engulfed the entire field in a short period of time as if it wanted to devour everything.

As soon as they ran out of the scope that was considered the Cathedral, they saw thick smoke that accompanied the flames, and how everything ignited right before their eyes.

There was not a single hope flower left.

Zhou Wenyan halted in his steps. 

Behind him, the inferno charged towards the horizon and it illuminated everything underneath the skies.

Underneath the firelight, Zhou Wenyan looked back and his amber eyes had a fire kindling within it, which  reflected Shen Dongqing’s figure.

Shen Dongqing looked straight at him as well.

Zhou Wenyan felt like some kind of feeling was flourishing within him. “You…” 

Alas, Shen Dongqing spoke faster than him: “Your ears are gone. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t get to touch it more.”

Zhou Wenyan could only give him a helpless smile.

After he was being disrupted like this, the atmosphere to say something was completely ruined.

But he was also used to it. 

“Cough cough…”

Wu Jia was covering his nose and mouth, and his eyes felt terribly hot after being exposed to the smoke and fumes. Thus, he did not see that the pair were looking at each other as he said: “Is this considered as solving it?”

Zhou Wenyan turned his head to look over his shoulder, “Not yet.”

The fragrance of the flowers dispersed.

All the facades that the animals had were torn off and they returned to their original appearance.

They were all corpses. They laid with their backs on the ground and their four limbs were sprawled about. The decaying meat on their bodies were falling apart and it exposed their ghastly white bones.

In the absence of the floral fragrance, the Plague City was abruptly filled with a rotting malodour. 

This was the real Plague City.

The preached new life was just an illusion.

The plague still existed; the zombies had merely changed their masks and they hid behind them religiously.

“What the fuck…” Wu Jia blurted out. 

Shen Dongqing was quite grateful as he said: “Thankfully, I didn’t touch those things.”

Wu Jia suddenly thought of a point and he said: “Aren’t the hope flowers gone? Why are there still zombies?”

Zhou Wenyan raised his eyes, “The hope flowers might be gone, but the cause of the plague still exists.”

The fire was extinguished very quickly.

It seemed like it had never existed as it only left behind a land full of ashes.

With all that had occurred, night had already arrived. The moonlight fell in cool tones, showing how the three of them were of faint, pale complexion and it seemed to reveal a certain rigidity behind the shade.