Chapter 41

41 DIGGING HIS OWN GRAVE

Talking about death was always very painful. Living beings who used to be able to walk, talk, and smile suddenly met their end, and they would no longer be able to give color to a person’s life. Witnessing such a thing must be traumatizing, and the colorful life of the person left behind suddenly became colorless.

Bai Chen did not even have a relationship with Bai Chen in this world, and the mother of Bai Chen in this world was not his mother. No, the woman wasn’t his mother because he didn’t even know her appearance. Did she also have a pair of blue eyes? How about her hair? Bai Chen didn’t know anything about the woman, and that was enough to prove that they didn’t have any kind of connection.

However, Bai Chen had met his end before he transmigrated into this world, and he had experienced a feeling of longing in his heart after he separated from his family in his previous life.

He was the one who had left everyone, and he didn’t know what feelings were in those people’s hearts after he left them. He couldn’t imagine the feeling, but even if he was the one who left, he still felt a bit empty and lonely.

That was why he could understand how the real Bai Chen felt, and that was why he didn’t protest against the system after it gave him a warning. It was understandable if the real Bai Chen of this world didn’t want to return to a place where his mother left him forever.

“His Highness will not eat here.”

A voice suddenly broke the silence when Bai Chen was still deep in thought, and when he turned his head to the side, he could see his servant was the one who spoke sternly.

He remembered how Ma Qiao was acting strangely when they had just started walking towards this garden, but when he questioned the servant, the servant simply said that it was nothing.

Now the male servant didn’t seem surprised by where Zhu Ge had taken him, and Bai Chen knew that Ma Qiao had guessed the destination.

.....

‘Ma Qiao must have known about my mother’s death, but he still let Zhu Ge bring me here. Does he hate Zhu Ge so much that he wants to make Zhu Ge look bad in front of me? But why? Was it just because of what happened when I passed out a few days ago?’ Bai Chen wasn’t the smartest person, but he tried to analyze the situation while glancing at the two men.

It was only yesterday that he started his new life in this world, and he kept telling himself not to trust anyone even if that person said they were close to him for so long. Therefore, he could not trust Zhu Ge and Ma Qiao even if they acted harmless in front of him.

‘In a world where people look at me strangely, how can I trust anyone here?’ Bai Chen thought as his memories flew back to when he had just entered the Zuigao Hall earlier today.

He wondered if the real Bai Chen in this world usually received such treatment as well. And he also wondered about the feelings in Bai Chen’s heart when he received such treatment.

He couldn’t see it from Bai Chen’s point of view, but the unpleasant treatment was nothing new to him. Rejection, refusal, and ridicule. The three of them were nothing new.

“Why can’t His Highness eat here?” With a frown on his forehead, Zhu Ge asked the servant for an explanation. “I’ve checked this place, and it’s clean. A place like this is good for him to eat.”

Bai Chen glanced at the crow-haired man. He could see that Zhu Ge’s main concern was the cleanliness of the place, and perhaps the man still remembered how he acted like a clean freak when he refused to drink water from the river the day before.

Glimpsing around him, he could see that the place was indeed clean, and he would have no trouble eating at a place like this. On the other hand, he would be like on a picnic if he ate here. Unfortunately, he couldn’t directly side with Zhu Ge to eat at this place.

“You don’t know what happened in this place a long time ago, do you? You don’t know anything about His Highness, and that’s why you can be so careless,” Ma Qiao argued. “Don’t you know that you will only hurt His Highness if you force him to eat here?”

Perhaps Ma Qiao had forgotten the moment when he had to kneel in front of Zhu Ge, and now he was boldly scolding the man when the man didn’t even know about Bai Chen’s past.

For some reason, Bai Chen felt that it was unfair to Zhu Ge. It was true that the wound caused by a sword could eventually be healed but the hurt resulting from vicious remarks could never be undone[1], but he thought that a person needed to experience pain once in a while if they wanted to get stronger.

“It’s okay. I’m going to eat here today.”

{HOST, IF YOU CONTINUE TO BREAK THE RULES, THE SYSTEM WILL-}

“Digging into the past isn’t like digging the ground to find the gold mines. I won’t gain anything of value by excavating into the past, and the only thing I’ll get is a mountain of pain. A mountain of gold will make me rich, but a mountain of pain won’t even let me buy a car. Instead of digging, I’ll choose to bury it all. Can you understand?”

Zhu Ge didn’t know what to say, Ma Qiao was speechless, and even the system couldn’t reply anymore.

Bai Chen was quite smart this time. It seemed that he was only throwing the last question to Zhu Ge and Ma Qiao, but in truth, he was also asking the question to the system that kept threatening him about breaking the rules. Two people and one system fell silent at his wise words, and it felt like his head was growing bigger like a balloon floating in the air.

‘Do I look cool now? Even cooler than when I gave a speech at the Zuigao Hall?’ He inwardly praised himself when he saw the reactions of the two people.

However, the next thing he heard from Zhu Ge was surprising, “What you just said sounds cool, but what does ‘car’ mean?”

The man in red finished voicing his question, and at that moment, a transparent red screen flashed before Bai Chen’s blue eyes again.

{DOUBLE OOC ALERT! DOUBLE OOC ALERT!

-50 POINTS FOR THE HOST

CURRENT POINTS: 50}

“...” Now, it was Bai Chen who was speechless. He had worked hard to earn more than a hundred points, but things went back to square one when he only had a few points in his inventory now. He felt his hard work was in vain.

‘You said that character development is good, and you didn’t even deduct my points when I suddenly volunteered for the Beast Hunting Event. But, you didn’t even let me make Bai Chen stronger by forgetting the past?’ Bai Chen weakly asked the system for an explanation.

{IT’S NOT LIKE THAT, HOST. YOU DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTER WELL, AND THE SYSTEM DID NOT DEDUCT YOUR POINTS FOR THAT. THE SYSTEM DEDUCTED THE POINTS BECAUSE YOU USED WORDS THAT PEOPLE CAN’T UNDERSTAND HERE. THAT’S WHY YOU WERE DETECTED AS OUT OF CHARACTER}

“...” Bai Chen fell silent again, but then his memories flew to the time he made a speech that he thought was extraordinary. It was indeed extraordinary that the people of this world seemed to fail to understand the meaning.

His speech could have become a famous quote if he had been in his previous life, but the people here couldn’t even understand the words ‘car,’ and that was why Zhu Ge had questioned him confusedly.

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‘It turned out that Zhu Ge and Ma Qiao were not speechless because of my excellent speech, but they were silent because they did not understand what I was saying. Why did I use the word ‘car’ instead of ‘carriage’? I really want to dig my own grave now,’ Bai Chen cried inwardly as he suddenly brought his body to a crouch and used his finger to draw a few random circles on the ground.

“Aiyah! What are you doing, Your Highness!” Ma Qiao screamed in panic as he tried to pull his master up. “If you want to eat here, then I will go to the kitchen to bring the meal here. Please don’t cry, okay?”

Bai Chen was already standing straight, and even if he wasn’t actually crying, Ma Qiao still used his palm to wipe the non-existent tears off his cheeks. He could hear someone laughing, and when he looked to the side, he could see that it was Zhu Ge who was laughing at him.

—

Footnote:

[1] The wound caused by a sword could eventually be healed but the hurt resulting from vicious remarks could never be undone: a Chinese proverb means “The wound heals, the scar remains.”