Chapter 13: 13

Song of Despair (13)

It was a small oval pendant that seemed to be made of silver. In addition to the brownish-yellow color formed by the neglect of maintenance, there were many black and red marks that were difficult to erase. It looked like old blood that could not be washed clean. The thin chain was also cut off by external force, and now it can’t be connected.

[Item Name: Broken Silver Pendant]

[Grade: Unknown]

[Activation Type: None]

[Cooldown: None]

[Attack power: unknown]

[Effect: Unknown]

[Equipment Level: 1]

[Item introduction: a broken silver pendant. If you take it to the market to exchange for food, perhaps you’ll be driven away after being beaten up by the boss.]

“This is…” Wen Zheliu looked at it carefully, and then looking at the properties of the item, He Qin recalled: “I found it in the grass beside the road.”

A light flashed in Wen Zheliu’s mind. He suddenly remembered something and said: “By the way, I remembered! Before you were pressed to the ground by that eyeless monster, I stabbed it in the forearm with a knife and seemed to have cut off something metallic!”

He Qin took the pendant from his hand and turned it a few times around his fingers, “So, this thing was originally hanging on that monster…”

He took a few glances, and suddenly stretched out the thumb of his other hand to buckle the pendant. He heard a “click”, and the pendant was actually opened.

“Huh?” Wen Zheliu was amazed and hurriedly leaned in to take a closer look. Although this pendant was small, it had a hidden mystery, “This is… a picture frame pendant?”

He Qin remained silent, his gaze fixed on the yellowish old photos inside. This seemed to be a portrait of a girl. Due to the long exposure, this photo has faded to white, and only a thin layer of brittle yellow remains at the edge. Nonetheless, Wen Zheliu can tell that the girl in the photo has fair skin and light blond curly hair.

Looking at it again at this time, its properties have changed again.

[Item Name: Broken Silver Photo-framed Pendant]

[Grade: Unknown]

[Activation Type: None]

[Cooldown: None]

[Attack: Unknown]

[Effect: Unknown]

[Equipment Level: 1]

[Item introduction: a broken silver picture frame pendant; time has passed and the beauty in the picture is no longer clear. Take it to the market to exchange for food, and perhaps the boss will be interested in asking you the story behind it.]

“…What the hell! It’s impossible to buy food in the market, isn’t it?” Wen Zheliu suppressed the desire to complain and looked at the translucent handwriting that appeared in the air with disgust.

“Anyway, this is really a vintage antique.” He Qin got up and went to the tray sent by Du Zijun to find the gauze and sterilized alcohol, “If we wipe it, we might be able to see the owner’s name.”

Wen Zheliu was injured before, so He Qin did not let him do it. Instead, he sat on the side himself, wiping the blood stains on it with gauze dipped in alcohol. After wiping for a long time, he could vaguely see a string of letters on the polished shell.

“Hill…” He Qin narrowed his eyes and recognized a word, “Hill, the surname of the pendant’s owner.”

“Could it be Marianne’s pendant?” Wen Zheliu guessed, “Or is it her family’s pendant? In short, the girl in the photo is blonde, and the hostess of this cottage is also blonde. There must be some relation between the two.”

He Qin handed him the pendant: “You put it away first; we’ll go down and ask later; I’ll give you some medicine now.”

“Oh.” Wen Zheliu held the pendant and lay on the bed according to the words. Since the Uncanny Valley has prohibited minors from entering the game—a restriction that has been rendered obsolete by the intervention of the saint nun—the degree of realism has also strived to the extreme. The scene of players exploding into white light when they die, like in the game Survival World, will not appear. The tragic situation that Wen Zheliu and the others saw before will be a common sight in their future gaming lives.

In this case, the player’s synchronization rate in the Uncanny Valley will also be adjusted to 100%. Therefore, the pain that Wen Zheliu and He Qin felt when they were injured and the great pain suffered by Lu Hai and Lin Fangfei before they died are no different from the real world, which is more surreal and inescapable for the players.

He Qin put Wen Zheliu’s coat aside and carefully lifted his shirt. Wen Zheliu has slender limbs, fair skin, and a handsome side profile, with a sense of beauty between a teenager and a young man. But now, a large purple-red bruise has appeared on his back, blinding He Qin’s eyes.

“Bear with it for a while.” He Qin looked at the effect of the wound medicine. He first covered it in the palm of his hand and pressed the pungent, wet medicine in a circular motion with his strong thumb. Wen Zheliu gritted his teeth. He Qin’s palm was extremely hot, and the moment he touched the bruises on his skin, he almost subconsciously bounced his upper body.

“Does it hurt?” Sweat began to appear on Wen Zheliu’s forehead, and a layer of fine sweat also gradually appeared on his back. He Qin kept his voice low and hazy, comforting him with a tone of coaxing a child, “It’ll be fine soon, good boy.”

Wen Zheliu breathed a sigh of relief. Although it was uncomfortable, his stamina and health were indeed rising at a rapid rate. He thought about it and asked, “Brother, your dog tag…”

“I want to ask, why does the Saint Nun want your dog tag?” He Qin replied, “Turn over and be careful.”

“Is it okay to say this in the Uncanny Valley?”

“It’s alright,” He Qin said lightly. “From the moment she pulled you here and tried to deceive you, you have been under her surveillance. It doesn’t matter what we say.”

“You know about this?” Wen Zheliu was a little surprised.

He Qin smiled: “Of course I know, and I also know that you are very smart and have tricked her once.”

“What’s the use of countering her once? In the end, I was still thrown here.” Wen Zheliu felt a little depressed, “I don’t know what’s going on in the outside world…”

He Qin pondered for a moment: “At first, she held me hostage just to use me as a bargaining chip to negotiate with N-Star in order to buy time to fully take over the Uncanny Valley. But now she wants my dog tags, and I’m afraid it’s for my authority in the City of Nova.”

“Authority.” Wen Zheliu murmured and repeated.

“Come, turn this way.” He Qin said, “Yes, my authority. The dog tag is a very useful key item; it contains all my personal information, like a token or an ancient military amulet. So, the moment you arrive in this world with it, I can sense you and come to you through it.”

“My uncle He Huaizhou is both the chief designer of Nova City in the 24th century and the general manager of the Uncanny Valley. Everything about Nova City—its concept, structure, rules, etc.—was proposed by our ancestors two centuries ago and has been continuously improved in the following two centuries. By the time of my uncle’s takeover, the centralized management model no longer fit Nova City’s existing model. If you compare it to a door, it used to be only Adelaide and my uncle that could open it, but now…”

“You can open it too?” Wen Zheliu deduced.

“Thirteen directors, including me, can open it, and the dog tag is my door key.” He Qin smiled slightly and said, “The thirteen of us are jokingly called the “House of Lords1” by the company.”

Wen Zheliu was stunned, trying his best to search for this concept in his mind: “What an old system of address.”

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“The opposite of this is the board of directors of the House of Commons2,” He Qin said lightly. “Of course, I’ll tell you in detail another day. The authority of the House of Lords is exactly what the Saint Nun needs now. Twelve seconds after I was held hostage in the Uncanny Valley by her, the Skynet system of Nova City discovered my abnormal state. At that time, it should be around 8:20 p.m. on July 29.”

“Eight o’clock in the afternoon, until the early morning of the same day… So, it wasn’t you who called me at that time?” Wen Zheliu was shocked: “She not only impersonated you but also, in just five short hours, completely and utterly expelled all administrators and took over the entire Uncanny Valley!”

“Precisely.” He Qin took advantage of his attention being drawn to the conversation and slowly increased the strength of his hand, saying, “She pretended to be me, just to lure you and take away the dog tag from your hand. The Uncanny Valley is still under the supervision of Nova City. It is almost impossible to break into the protective net of Nova City from the outside and take control of the Uncanny Valley. Even the Trojan Plan developed by N-Star itself could not do it, but the Saint Nun chose to break through from the inside …..”

“The difficulty is greatly reduced.”

“That’s right,” He Qin smiled bitterly, “Your brother just became her key.”

“Up to now, we still don’t know what she wants or what her ultimate goal is.” He Qin said, “But according to my guess, ‘players can return to the real world after clearing the game’ is already the biggest result that N-Star can strive for. The best psychological experts, negotiators, and top programmers in the industry sent out by N-Star have all been defeated in front of her long ago.”

“Why?” Wen Zheliu was very puzzled, “N-star Company is her creator. With what you know about her, isn’t it enough to decide the winner or loser of the negotiation?”

“Because she is a growing, intelligent being, baby.” He Qin continued, “She learns from failure and success. As long as the first person underestimated her intelligence and lost under her hand, this white paper can immediately be marked, completing the leap from 0 to 1.”

Wen Zheliu immediately thought of something: “If you say that, me and her…”

“The victory you got can never be replicated a second time with her.” He Qin whispered, “Next time, she will know more; her grasp of personality will be even better, and it will be even more difficult to overcome.”

Wen Zheliu frowned, his thoughts unknown.

After He Qin finished pressing, Wen Zheliu’s stamina was close to full. He Qin fixed his shirt and helped him sit up again. When Wen Zheliu got up, his body was stiff, so he couldn’t help but take a hand to support himself, but he accidentally pressed on the root of the other party’s thigh.

“Ah, right…”

He was suddenly stunned.

He Qin’s face also showed an unnatural red. He saw Wen Zheliu pull his hand back like an electric shock, and after a moment of silence, he said, “Let’s go down to eat.”

The two then walked out of the door one after the other and went downstairs to eat at the long table.

Wen Zheliu appeared calm, but in reality, he was panicking. He kept thinking about it, and he forgot a lot of what He Qin had just told him.

What’s the matter? Could it be that He Qin is also gay?

He Qin jokingly referred to him as his baby and treated him like a younger brother. Wen Zheliu thought that this kind of favorability seemed too baffling. This man was like a lazy wild leopard who did things his own way. His fangs and claws can kill anyone, but he only showed him kindness and protection. This kind of special treatment made Wen Zheliu always feel an unparalleled sense of security, so when the question “Why He Qin is so good to him” arose, he timidly quelled it.

So… is he gay?

No, no, in fact, it may be a normal reaction for straight men. Aren’t men this kind of creature? They can get hard when using the toilet, walking, riding in a car, and seeing Hello Kitty 300th anniversary doll figures on the road. But there’s also a type of straight man who chooses to scold the beautiful girl when they see one and yell, “Fuck you, get out of the way, you’re blocking my view of Gundam3“…

His thoughts flew farther and farther, and the little Wen Zheliu fluttered his wings and wandered back and forth between the cosmic stars and the doll Gundam, trying his best to figure out whether He Qin was a straight man.

“What are you thinking about?” He Qin gently rubbed his ears and said, “Watch the road; be careful of falling down.”

After a pause, he added, “Your brother is a straight man; don’t think too much.”

Snapped! With an arrow piercing his heart, The little Wen Zheliu fell from the cosmic stars into the lustrous and icy Gunpla in the mountains and disappeared suddenly.

“…Oh.” Wen Zheliu lowered his head. A huge sense of loss enveloped his whole body; his sky was covered with dark clouds, and the little sun no longer shone, “…Okay, I understand.”

“You…” He Qin looked at him as if he knew something in that instant, but seeing the long table close at hand, he turned to say, “Let’s talk after dinner.”

.

At the table, Marianne prepared a large portion of hot mashed potatoes and white bread with vegetable soup for each of them. The warmth of the candlelight and the steaming heat of the food greatly reduced everyone’s anxiety. Marianne sat on the main seat. Her thin face showed a rare, relaxed smile. She was about to speak when a male player named Bai Hao, who was too hungry, shouted excitedly, “I’m digging in!” He then scooped mashed potatoes with a spoon.

Marianne was startled immediately. He Qin’s eyes flashed sharply. A stone popped up quickly and hit Bai Hao on the wrist. He immediately “Ouch-ed”, and the spoon suddenly dropped off and hit the plate.

“I’m sorry,” He Qin smiled at Marianne and said, “My companion is just too hungry; no offense intended; please pray first.”

Bai Hao quietly moved his wrists under the dining table and glared indignantly at He Qin, but he did not dare to say anything more because of the threat of his great strength. Marianne smiled and stretched out her hands to both sides of the dining table. The rest of the players were still clueless. He Qin ordered in a low voice, “Hold hands and bow your head.”

They held each other’s hands in confusion. Circling around the table, they bowed their heads and heard Marianne muttering: “The poor shall be fed and satiated, the rich shall be plentiful, and those who seek the Lord shall praise him; their hearts shall have eternal life…”

Wen Zheliu spoke to He Qin: Is this the Christian prayer before meals?

He Qin nodded and returned: an ancient custom that ceased to be popular more than a hundred years ago.

After the pre-dinner prayer, there were occasional whispers, more often the sound of chewing food and drinking soup. Wen Zheliu thought about it, but still came close to He Qin’s ear and asked, “Where did you get the stone?”

He Qin smiled slightly with a rare childishness. Wen Zheliu’s heart was pounding: “It’s shaken off your clothes.”

After dinner, Marianne announced the tasks and rewards on the table.

She said, “The torches are kept in the storage room. It only takes two people to watch the night every night. After tonight, I have a few candleheads here. Anyone who wants to use them can use them.”

Mu Tuo frowned and didn’t speak.

Wen Zheliu suddenly interjected: “Miss Marianne, we didn’t know your full name yet. Is it convenient to tell us?”

Marianne glanced at him inexplicably and replied, “Marrianne…Marrianne Hill.”

After Marianne finished speaking, she said good night to everyone, took the candlestick, and went upstairs to rest. Since the only NPC present left, everyone didn’t have to worry about the participation value and waited until her footsteps disappeared before the door closed with a sound. After the movement, Wen Zheliu opened his mouth and said, “Then next, let us allocate the night patrol tasks… and then share the information that everyone has gathered.”

The author has something to say:

He Qin: I solemnly declare that although I’m gay, flirtatious, and talk a lot, I know that I’m a straight man.

 

1

The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function.

2

The House of Commons is the democratically elected house of the UK Parliament, responsible for making laws and checking the work of Government.

3

Pretty sure this is a reference from somewhere.

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