CH 116

Chapter 116: The Dream of the Holy Nun (VI)

Out of habit, Qi Leren went to Chen Baiqi to buy some information about the Holy City. Unfortunately, Chen Baiqi didn’t have any details on it, only an old map of the Holy City from decades ago that she made Qi Leren pay for. Chen Baiqi reserved the task information of “The Dream of the Holy Nun” from him, to be sold to her when he finished his task.

Qi Leren also asked her if she had any interest in this task. Although the number for the task was already full, if Chen Baiqi was willing to join, he could consider persuading Dr. Lu to stay safe in the clinic.

Chen Baiqi gave him an inscrutable look: “I’ve been able to  live in this world for eight years by holding a principle.”

“What principle?” Qi Leren asked.

“Never die easily unless you have to,” Chen Baiqi said.

“……”

“This kind of task involving the demon invasion from more than 20 years ago is either epic difficulty or a chain task that will go through eighty-one difficulties before finally becoming epic difficulty. Anyway, it won’t be easy. I wouldn’t be surprised to see demons all over the city as soon as you enter the Holy City. Please Qi Leren, don’t let me sweep your grave again,” Chen Baiqi patted Qi Leren on the shoulder and said with a smile.

“Hey, don’t give me a flag,” Qi Leren said depressedly.

“You’d better hold Su He’s thighs. He may have items that force him out of the task. He would never let himself die from not being able to stand the difficulty. After all, there’s still a long way to go. It’s a pity that you are a little poor, otherwise I could sell you some high-quality items. Right now I can only sell you cheap little miniature bombs, I really can’t make a lot of money.” Although Qi Leren had earned a lot of survival days, he was still a poor wretch in Chen Baiqi’s view. She couldn’t extort money before he was fattened.

Qi Leren, after paying for the task’s necessities, went home depressed.

The mandatory task for the first month had arrived. In the first month, Qi Leren performed two tasks, namely, Witchcraft Sacrifice and Castle Cry; one was a main world task and the other was a copy world task. During the tasks’ execution, the players’ remaining survival days would not be consumed, but they were still counted as survival time spent by players.

Every mandatory task could be postponed for one week. If a player failed to start after the deadline, he would be forced into the task world. If a player performed a task that lasted for two months, he must complete a mandatory task within one week after the task was finished, and then complete another mandatory task within one week.

Players in the Nightmare World hated the “monthly exam”, because there was almost no task reward (unless the degree of completion was extremely high), and the difficulty was also raised every month. By the third year, those players who were not qualified and neglected to improve themselves began to fall off one after another and were eliminated by the cruel monthly exam without the chance of a make up exam.

Qi Leren wasn’t worried about his own strength. Ning Zhou said that his skill cards and his own strength were enough to cope with the compulsory tasks of the first three years, but he was often flustered because he frequently met tasks with unusual difficulty.

Dr. Lu, however, looked frightened, fearing that he couldn’t pass the first monthly exam, and came to Qi Leren’s home to start the task together. Although most of the first compulsory tasks were single-person tasks and starting together didn’t mean they would be in a task together, it made Dr. Lu feel a little safer.

But…

“You, you, you, you, hello*!” After seeing Ning Zhou standing by the window, Dr. Lu suddenly remembered that Su He had talked about a friend in Qi Leren’s home last time.

*{E/N: Dr. Lu is trying to cover up his shock by making “you” (你) into “hello” (你好)}

At the moment when Qi Leren opened the door, he wanted to throw the door in Dr. Lu’s face. However, if you thought about it carefully, Ning Zhou and Dr. Lu would meet each other sooner or later. Seeing him early was the same as later since he had to introduce people to Ning Zhou.

“Dr. Lu, this is Ning Zhou, who will participate in the ‘Dream of the Holy Nun’ task. Ning Zhou, this is Dr. Lu, whose full name is Lu Cangshu, he’s my friend from the same Novice Village who’s a healer,” Qi Leren briefly introduced the two men.

Stopped on the sofa, the big black bird cawed angrily, forcing Qi Leren to introduce it to Dr. Lu to get it to stop.

Dr. Lu looked at the person from head to toe with his mouth open, pulled Qi Leren’s ear to him, and asked, “Your goddess?”

Can you not be so quick with this? Qi Leren vomited in his mind and nodded honestly.

So Dr. Lu sat down with a strange smile, looked hard at Ning Zhou, and looked hard at Qi Leren, as if he knew everything. Qi Leren felt that he couldn’t explain clearly even if he had one hundred mouths.

Poor Ning Zhou didn’t know why he was being scrutinized. He was completely out of the situation and was not used to getting along with strangers. He sat for a while and then went upstairs.

When Ning Zhou left, Dr. Lu tried to suppress the excitement of getting gossip, and forced him to align himself with Qi Leren seriously, saying, “I don’t discriminate against homosexuals. Really, I’ve seen many as a doctor. Several little gays came to the anorectal department every day to ask my brother for a finger examination. His technique isn’t bad. It takes 30 seconds to milk a prostate…”

“…You’ve misunderstood, we’re not that kind of relationship.”

Dr. Lu had a look of “Excuse me, you are living together”.

“Ning Zhou just came to help me train. The training menu I gave you last time was set by him,” Qi Leren explained.

“I see…” Dr. Lu suddenly realized, then looked at him askance, and asked, “Do you think I’ll believe this nonsense? Didn’t your relationship die as soon as the mission was over? Why is it that now he cordially trains and practices with you? A while ago, you suddenly disappeared. I couldn’t find you all over the world. I really wondered if you’d given up and chased your goddess. Now that you’ve finally caught this goddess, you actually say that you have a pure straight man friendship, hehe.”

Qi Leren was speechless.

Although it was normal for two men to live together, Qi Leren believed that Ning Zhou didn’t think much about it at all, but it was unconvincing in front of Dr. Lu who knew the previous episode… After all, more than half a month ago, they’d fallen in love at first sight and went through fire and water, dying to live… and then died when it was all laid bare. As a result, it took less than half a month for them to live under the same roof. This development didn’t seem quite right…

However, Qi Leren couldn’t explain the Slaughter Secret Society undercover task to Dr. Lu - although he feels that after the explanation, Dr. Lu would only be more convinced that they weren’t innocent, and even Qi Leren himself began to wonder if there is something really wrong between him and Ning Zhou.

Qi Leren asked himself, if he had met Ning Zhou as a woman at a different time and place, would he fall in love with her? The answer was: he would. As a woman, Ning Zhou perfectly met all his expectations for the other half. Whenever and wherever he met her, he would definitely fall in love with her.

But if he met Ning Zhou, who was a male, would he still fall in love with him?

Qi Leren thought that the answer was probably no.

He may worship him, yearn for him, want to be friends with him, and even go through life and death for him, but he wouldn’t fall in love with him, because he wouldn’t consider the possibility of exceeding the limit of friends at all, and Ning Zhou would only be more stubborn than him. Even if they went through hardships and died together, they may have a deeper friendship and even affection than love, but that would never turn into love.

Feelings were so simple and complicated, neither one was deeper than the other, but only a small error would completely change them.

“Although there was something wrong at the beginning, the misunderstanding has been solved now. I think we’ll become good friends, very good friends,” Qi Leren said, speaking slowly. Maybe he was a little confused, but he still said so, inexplicably determined.

Dr. Lu looked at him carefully for a long time with disbelief: “…Oh.”

“Time is almost up, let’s start the mandatory task.” Qi Leren cast aside his distractions and concentrated on dealing with the present difficulties.

He opened the system’s menu bar and selected the mandatory task for this month. Qi Leren and Dr. Lu disappeared from the room one after another.

The eagle, who stopped on the sofa, patted its wings and flew up the stairs to return to its master. Ning Zhou, who stood on the stairs, stretched out his arm to let it land. The eagle that understood speech affectionately rubbed the side of Ning Zhou’s face and felt it’s master’s mood. It was very clever at times.

The two people in the living room had disappeared. Ning Zhou wanted to go downstairs to help them prepare but instead heard Qi Leren and Dr. Lu talking about him, so he had stopped on the stairs.

Friends…

This should be the most appropriate distance.