Chapter 35: Fairy-Tale Kingdom (2)
“You died?” A faint trace of surprise appeared in ERROR’s eyes.
No matter how low Su Qiong’s level was, he was still a Circle Lord recognized by the system. He even possessed the ability to contend with other Circle Lords. How could he die so easily?
Could the “thing” upstairs possess power capable of opposing a Circle Lord?
A raised his head and glanced upward.
“Su Qiong, how did you die?”
Su Qiong seemed to have been frightened by whatever was upstairs. He hugged himself tightly and began recounting the events with a trembling voice.
He had activated his ability, and the deduction began.
Su Qiong followed the stairs to the floor above.
At first, nothing seemed unusual. The stairwell was so silent that even the breeze caused by the movement of air produced an echo.
Even within the deduction, Su Qiong remained cautious and made no sound.
But as he continued climbing, the staircase seemed to stretch endlessly before him, as though he would never reach the top.
After climbing for two full minutes, the distance had not shortened at all.
Su Qiong took out his wand, hooked its bandages around the railing of the corridor above, and forcibly pulled himself upward, landing steadily on the top step.
The corridor on the upper floor was extremely long, with different rooms on both sides. From the outside, every door looked identical.
The deduction perfectly simulated reality and even included the system’s special prompts for white-name NPCs.
[System: You have arrived at the Fairy-Tale Kingdom’s Unsmiling Attic. This place gathers the saddest characters in the fairy-tale world—those least capable of smiling. You may open any door and ask them for a key to the corridor.]
[Hint: Only after obtaining the keys held by every Unsmiling One can you open the aerial corridor connecting the Twin Castles. The Fairy-Tale Princess is waiting for you in her chambers. Apart from the aerial corridor, there is no other way to enter the second castle.]
[Hint: There is more than one way to obtain a key. Players, please cherish your lives.]
After hearing the prompts, Su Qiong knew the next stage would not be easy.
The system only reminded players to “cherish their lives” when the situation was exceptionally dangerous.
Su Qiong looked down the long, winding corridor but could not see its end. Within the visible area alone, there were at least twenty rooms.
Combined with the rooms on the opposite side, that meant there were at least forty Unsmiling characters here.
Su Qiong thought that since he was using Order Deduction, he would not truly die or suffer any actual injuries.
To gather more information, he pushed open one of the doors.
The room beyond was gloomy and dim.
A huge cauldron stood in the center. No one knew what was cooking inside, but waves of foul odor drifted from it.
An extremely old woman stood hunched beside the cauldron. Deep grooves like tree bark covered her face. She gripped a ladle in both hands and stirred the pot forcefully.
Hearing the door open, she scooped up a ladleful of soup and looked at Su Qiong.
“Would you like to drink my soup?”
The soup in her ladle was still bubbling. Inside floated a long, narrow solid resembling a human finger, already boiled soft.
“No! I don’t want any!” Su Qiong immediately refused.
The old woman’s expression darkened at once, and her voice turned sinister.
“My mixed stew is the most delicious soup in the world, yet you refuse to drink it? I’ll boil you in the pot and use you as the soup base!”
The ladle in her hand transformed into a hook and dragged Su Qiong toward the cauldron.
Su Qiong reacted quickly and fought back with his wand. Unfortunately, the old woman was far stronger than him and easily boiled him in the soup.
Although Su Qiong could not feel pain within the deduction, being submerged in a boiling, sticky, foul-smelling liquid made him extremely uncomfortable.
After hearing his account, the two men beside him looked thoughtful.
“It seems the NPCs upstairs can’t be dealt with casually.”
“If we don’t deal with them, we can’t obtain the keys. Without the keys, we can’t meet the Circle Lord in the other castle.”
“This is troublesome.” ERROR vigorously ruffled Su Qiong’s lamb-soft curls. “There are too many NPCs. Our time is limited. We can’t possibly deal with all of them within seven days.”
“Mm.” Still traumatized, Su Qiong said softly, “I don’t want to be boiled again.”
“What do we do now?” A asked them. “Go upstairs?”
“We go,” ERROR answered in an uncompromising tone.
Even though they knew danger awaited them, they had already come this far and had to investigate the situation upstairs.
Otherwise, the other companions would have cleared the way for them in vain, and their choice on the first night would be wasted.
He could imagine that after entering Circle Two, the other players had probably started with the easiest mountain region.
If their group gained nothing today and had to explore an easier region tomorrow, they would fall an entire day behind the other players, wasting the advantage they had gained by entering the instance first.
“Yes, we have to go upstairs.” Although Su Qiong was afraid, he agreed with ERROR.
A had no objections. “Let’s go.”
The three of them climbed the stairs.
Just as in the deduction, no matter how long they climbed, they could not reach the top.
With the experience from his deduction, Su Qiong secured his bandages to the corridor railing and pulled them up one by one.
The layout upstairs matched the deduction: a long, winding corridor lined with identical doors.
Su Qiong stopped beside one of them and whispered, “I entered this room earlier and died almost immediately.”
“You obtained too few clues. We don’t know how to deal with the soup woman, so we’ll avoid this door for now.”
“Mm-hm!” Su Qiong nodded rapidly.
He absolutely did not want to be boiled a second time.
ERROR and A walked ahead, carefully surveying their surroundings, but found nothing unusual.
Every door looked exactly the same, and no sound could be heard from outside.
“If we could see what’s inside, dealing with them would be much easier.”
Unfortunately, none of the three had obtained an ability that allowed them to see through walls.
There was no need to mention ERROR. Every time he cleared an instance, he was fortunate if the system merely deducted points. Even after losing half his points, he had cleared the first Circle, dealt with several high-level NPCs, and fought his way back up the player rankings.
But he possessed no abilities, and every item reward he obtained had been given to his companions.
A was not restricted by the system. Relying on his ability to slaughter an entire battlefield alone, he had returned to the top ranks and obtained items, abilities, and skill weapons from the system.
“I have an item we can use.” A took a weapon from his inventory and explained expressionlessly, “Mr. S’s Controller. Pressing it will destroy the entire Circle, or allow me to perish together with the Circle Lord.”
ERROR showed a subtle look of distaste. “You should put that away.”
The controller was indeed powerful, but they neither wanted to destroy the entire Circle nor planned to die together with the Fairy-Tale Princess.
The Fairy-Tale Princess was Level 296 and a red-name Circle Lord, but for some reason, the players were not afraid of her.
It was not merely because the princess was adorable.
The main reason was that with such a high level, if she had truly wanted to annihilate the players, she could have done so in the beginner zone.
Compared with NPCs who wanted their lives, the princess seemed more like a mischievous little girl.
“I have a second item.” Under ERROR’s gaze—which clearly said, Why do you have so many items?—A casually took out another. “A Blank Card. You know how it works.”
Although the Blank Card was a single-use item, it could revive one player inside the Circles, where resurrection mechanisms did not exist.
Using it merely to peek behind a door would be an enormous waste.
“Let’s think of another method.” ERROR looked around at the tightly shut doors, privately wondering whether the occupants would notice if they drilled holes through them.
“If we only want a rough idea of what’s inside, I have a way.” Su Qiong lightly shook his wand.
“What way?”
Su Qiong did not answer. He untied the bandage hanging beneath his wand, spread it into a long strip, and slipped it through the gap beneath the door.
“Su Qiong?”
The two experts beside him both looked puzzled, unable to understand what he was doing.
Back in the beginner zone, when Su Qiong guided A, every room could be entered by breaking down the door, so he had never used the bandages’ scouting function.
As for ERROR, he had shoved Su Qiong into a coffin the moment he left his instance. When would he have had time to study marshmallow Su Qiong?
“My bandages can roughly sense the surrounding environment through auras. As long as air can pass through a place, they can squeeze inside.” Su Qiong silently extended the bandage through the gap.
Although he could not see clearly, he could gain a rough understanding of the room.
Behind the first door was a fierce-looking hunter. The walls were covered with the hearts of his prey. He appeared extremely difficult to deal with.
The second room was filled with blooming roses, creating a dreamlike scene.
However, the roses were rooted in the body of a beautiful woman. She endured tremendous pain and sobbed continuously.
“I think her task should be relatively simple. We only need to cut away the roses, right?”
A did not immediately express an opinion. “Check a few more rooms.”
“The NPCs are powerful. A mistaken judgment could be disastrous.” ERROR agreed with A. “Let’s inspect several more and choose the one we’re most confident about.”
“All right.”
Su Qiong investigated three additional rooms.
In the fifth one, a gloomy musician sat before a piano, pressing the keys without producing any sound.
He sat there alone and weathered, as though he had lost all hope.
Su Qiong guessed why the musician could not smile and turned to ask ERROR and A for their opinions.
After quickly reaching an agreement, he carefully pushed open the heavy door.
Creak—
The room was so quiet that the sound of the opening door was especially piercing.
The abrupt noise startled Su Qiong. He instinctively looked toward the piano, afraid he had alerted and angered the NPC.
The musician remained seated without any change, as though he could not hear.
“Perhaps he truly can’t hear,” A said.
“When facing an uncertain hypothesis, you only need to do this…”
ERROR strode toward the musician, raised both hands, and clapped loudly beside his ears.
The musician sat motionlessly without any reaction.
With a rigorous and serious attitude, ERROR clapped twice more.
The musician still did not move. His unfocused eyes stared fixedly into the distance.
“He can neither hear nor see,” ERROR concluded.
“Ah.” Su Qiong let out a brief sound.
The musician was merely a game NPC, yet Su Qiong felt strong empathy and sincerely pitied him.
The musician always sat in front of the piano, so he must have loved it deeply.
But now, unable to see or hear, he could no longer play his beloved instrument. No wonder his vacant eyes held such intense sorrow.
“He can’t see or hear. How are we supposed to make him smile?”
Telling jokes and making funny faces obviously would not work.
Once again, the players clearly recognized that the simpler the bastard IF system made a task sound, the more difficult it was to complete.
“We’re probably expected to infer his wish from clues in the room,” A said.
“Clues in the room…” Su Qiong examined it again.
This room was simpler than the previous ones. Apart from the piano and bench, there was nothing else.
The musician’s wish was not difficult to deduce.
“Is someone there?” The plot point triggered, and the musician spoke.
His voice was filled with melancholy, without the slightest trace of happiness.
If the maximum Joy value was one hundred, his current value was probably around negative twenty.
“Yes,” Su Qiong answered.
When the musician did not react, Su Qiong repeated himself at an extremely loud volume.
“I’m here!”
“Su Qiong.” ERROR covered his ears and reminded him helplessly, “He can’t hear you.”
“Ah.” Su Qiong covered his mouth, feeling slightly embarrassed. “I forgot.”
Unable to hear Su Qiong’s reply, the musician remained uncertain whether anyone was present.
ERROR observed the situation and confirmed that the musician would not suddenly go berserk before reaching out and tapping his shoulder.
“There really is someone.” The musician asked, “Can you help me fulfill my wish?”
ERROR turned around and saw Su Qiong’s sparkling eyes.
He tapped the musician’s shoulder twice to represent a two-character affirmative response.
The musician tremblingly took out a sheet of music and held it toward the direction from which the taps had come.
ERROR did not ask any questions. The musician could not hear them anyway.
He accepted the score. A and Su Qiong immediately leaned closer and saw that the writing was chaotic, with many notes overlapping and difficult to distinguish.
“I am the greatest musician in the Fairy-Tale Kingdom,” the musician said. “I once performed with the birds and harmonized with streams, offering the most beautiful music in the world to the people.”
“The world envied my talent. They imprisoned me in the Unsmiling Attic and took away the things most important to me. I lost my eyes and ears and fell into a world without music. Every day is filled with agony.”
“I wrote this score when I had only recently entered the attic and had not yet become so miserable. My greatest wish is to hear it performed.”
After the musician stated his dream, a musical staff and scoring indicator appeared before them, resembling a karaoke scoring system.
A small line of text appeared in its upper-right corner.
[Completion: 0%]
[Friendly Reminder: A completion score of at least 95% is required to earn the musician’s smile.]
Su Qiong looked down at the piano, then at the score, and finally at the zero-percent completion indicator.
This was the first time in his NPC life that he had ever seen a piano. How could he possibly achieve even five percent completion?
Besides, with such a chaotic and nearly illegible score, even the finest pianist would struggle to reach such a high level of accuracy.
“Can either of you play the piano?” Su Qiong asked.
“Yes,” A answered concisely.
“I can,” ERROR said lazily.
A question mark slowly appeared in Su Qiong’s mind.
So among the four people in the room, he was the only one who could not play the piano.
A was a soldier, while ERROR was a programmer. Neither profession had anything to do with refined art. How could both of them play?
Seeing his confusion, ERROR smiled and explained, “I was mainly responsible for game design. To create a good game, naturally I needed experience in many different fields.”
“I received disguise training from childhood,” A explained. “When necessary, I had to impersonate many different roles, so I learned their relevant skills.”
Fine.
Su Qiong understood.
He was the only useless one in the world.
“Then can you perform this score?”
“This…”
“It would be difficult.”
If the system had provided a normal score, achieving at least ninety-five percent completion would not be a major issue for someone who knew how to play.
But only about five percent of this score could be distinguished, and they still had to consider the possibility that the blind musician had written some notes in the wrong places.
Even if Chopin returned from the dead or Mozart manifested as a spirit, perfectly performing it would be difficult.
“Do you remember the contents of the score?” A asked the musician.
The musician could not hear the question, so ERROR wrote it one character at a time on his shoulder.
After ERROR finished, the musician regretfully shook his head.
“I have been imprisoned here for far too long. The music in my heart has already grown indistinct.”
A’s expression turned cold.
Even the composer had forgotten the score. How could anyone reproduce it?
“However,” the musician continued, “as long as I can see my original manuscript, I’ll remember the music.”
“So the main task isn’t to perform the score. It’s to restore his eyesight.”
“How can we restore his eyesight? Would taking him out of the Unsmiling Attic help?” The moment Su Qiong asked, the “kind” system immediately answered.
[System: NPCs may not leave the Unsmiling Attic. Even if a method is found to take them outside, what was stolen from them will not be returned.]
“Oh. Useless.”
After considering for a moment, ERROR slowly said, “His original sight was taken from him.”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“We don’t need to take him out. As long as he obtains sight, we can complete the task.” ERROR continued, “IF follows the law of conservation. Nothing disappears without reason. There must be a way to reclaim it.”
“Forgive me for saying this, but the Unsmiling Attic imprisons so many high-level NPCs. Taking it back with only the few of us may be somewhat difficult.”
ERROR had considered that as well.
The situation fell into another deadlock.
Su Qiong held his face and thought seriously for a long time. His eyes suddenly lit up again.
“Does he have to recover his original sight in order to see?”
“Not necessarily.”
“There probably isn’t an immune-rejection mechanism in the game.”
“Then!” Su Qiong excitedly announced, “I have spare sight and hearing!”
After the sacrifice, Su Qiong had obtained a complete body, naturally including eyes, ears, and a mouth.
Before that, he had farmed experience from Obey Me and Win to exchange for a complete sensory system. Those organs had not disappeared afterward and remained stored in his personal space.
Thinking of Obey Me and Win, Su Qiong silently lit a candle for him.
Obey Me and Win, who was working hard to clear an instance somewhere: Why are you lighting a candle? I’m not dead!
The system had informed Su Qiong that he could recycle objects he no longer needed.
But he had chosen not to recycle them and had kept the exchanged sensory organs, despite not knowing what use they might have.
Now, he had finally found their proper purpose.
Since they had been exchanged through an NPC bracelet, they should also work on another NPC, right?
Su Qiong approached the musician and circled him, searching until he found his NPC bracelet.
He took the musician’s hand and helped him open the interface, only to discover that the musician possessed several hundred times more KPI than he did.
Su Qiong felt bitterly jealous.
Despite being a Circle Lord, he was extremely poor and had to work miserably for the system to maintain his own Circle.
According to IF’s settings, players could add one another as friends and transfer points.
NPC bracelets followed the same mechanism and should also allow the transfer of items and KPI. However, most NPCs in the game had relationships based on subordination or opposition and rarely used those functions.
Through the bracelet, Su Qiong transferred the sensory system to the musician and selected “Use Immediately.”
The transfer succeeded.
Astonishingly, focus appeared within the musician’s eyes.
“My eyes? I can see!” The musician was overjoyed, and his Joy instantly reached one hundred percent.
According to the rules of the Unsmiling Attic, as long as an NPC smiled, they could obtain the key even without completing the main task.
The moment the musician smiled, the first key appeared in Su Qiong’s palm.
The system notified them that the room’s task had been completed and that they could leave.
Yet Su Qiong did not immediately exit.
He saw the musician pick up the score and reverently caress the notes he had written.
“As expected, it’s the finest composition—a melody from my heart.” He looked toward the players. “Would you like to hear it?”
The fairy-tale palace consisted of two castles. To reach the other, equally enormous castle, they had to collect all forty keys from the Unsmiling Attic.
They had little time remaining to explore the castle. Tomorrow, they had to challenge another region, making every moment extremely valuable.
But Su Qiong approached the pianist, looked at the lengthy score, and earnestly said, “Yes. I’d like to hear your music.”
ERROR and A stared at him for a moment but raised no objections.
It was exactly what Su Qiong would do. If he had heartlessly walked away, that would have surprised them.
The piano composition was extremely long, yet to Su Qiong, it seemed to end almost immediately.
He clapped hard. “It sounds wonderful!”
“Thank you for your praise. I will create even more beautiful music. When we meet again, I’ll let you hear the most exquisite melody beneath the heavens.”
“All right. I’m looking forward to it.”
Su Qiong left the musician’s room and stood outside, looking left and right as he hesitated over which direction to choose.
They had already inspected several rooms on the left.
The rooms on the right belonged to a completely unfamiliar and unknown area.
While Su Qiong hesitated, he heard someone call his name.
“Su Qiong!”
Yu Qimiao and Shi Yuntian had finished dealing with their NPCs and come to the top floor to reunite with them, only to be blocked by the endless staircase.
Hearing Yu Qimiao’s voice, Su Qiong hurried over and laboriously pulled them upward. He then introduced the situation on the top floor and showed them the key he had obtained.
“I see. I understand now.” After climbing up, Yu Qimiao first asked what Su Qiong wanted to do.
“I want to visit that room next.” Su Qiong pointed toward the room filled with roses.
The woman being used as nourishment by the roses had been crying continuously and appeared to be suffering terribly.
“All right.”
No one objected.
Shi Yuntian gripped his heavy blade and said proudly, “My weapon is extremely useful. At worst, I’ll cut everything down with one strike.”
Although the Fairy-Tale Kingdom was an individual-mode instance, they had already developed excellent teamwork and clearly understood their roles within the group.
“Su Qiong, open the door.”
Su Qiong grasped the handle and turned it slightly to the left.
The instant a narrow gap opened, powerful vines shot from inside and lashed directly toward him.
Su Qiong reacted quickly and retreated two steps.
A immediately stepped in front of him and restrained the vines with his silver whip, allowing Shi Yuntian to sever them with one strike.
After one vine was cut, the roses became furious. More vines squeezed through the door and attacked them.
While resisting the vines, A activated his bracelet’s scanning function.
As expected, the roses were NPCs with levels of their own—and their level was not low.
Even after they severed the attacking vines, countless more swayed like tentacles.
The woman released an even more miserable scream. More roses sprouted from her body, and her face grew paler.
“As long as we sever the roses at the roots and rescue her, we should obtain the key, right?”
The moment Shi Yuntian finished speaking, the woman’s sobs became even more anguished than when the vines had grown.
“Don’t hurt them! Don’t hurt my children!”
“Children?” The players froze.
Because Shi Yuntian became distracted, a rose vine wrapped around his wrist.
Only then did they see that what the vines used to attack them were not branches or leaves, but pairs of infant hands!
The small green hands possessed nails and fingers. They tightly grasped Shi Yuntian’s arm, like newborn babies desperately clutching at the world.
Shi Yuntian hesitated, uncertain whether he should cut them.
A moved swiftly and severed the vine.
“Wake up. That isn’t a real child.”
Hearing those words, the woman suddenly became agitated.
“It is my child! They are all my children! My most precious treasures!”
At the words “most precious,” Yu Qimiao took out the Equivalent Exchange Bag and asked politely, “May I make a trade with you?”
Half a minute later, the transaction succeeded, and the rose vines temporarily withdrew.
Everyone looked toward Yu Qimiao with the same thought:
Blackhearted capitalist!
“Let’s enter the room first,” Yu Qimiao leisurely reminded them.
The roses had been injured and shrank back into the woman’s body, greedily drawing nourishment from her.
Only after approaching did the players discover that the centers of the roses had no stamens. Instead, each blossom held the face of an infant between its petals, smacking its lips.
“My children are adorable, aren’t they?” The woman was barely breathing but still struggled to speak. “Unfortunately, I cannot remain with them for much longer. Once I die, I don’t know what will happen to them.”
“What is your wish?”
“I hope someone will care for my children and raise them until they grow up.”
The woman’s wish was not complicated, but raising children was no simple task.
Furthermore, these “children” needed to drink blood and gnaw on bones. Anyone could guess that raising them would be extremely dangerous.
Su Qiong looked at the woman, then at her “children.”
“Your children…” Su Qiong originally wanted to ask, Why did your children become monsters? But fearing he would anger her, he changed his wording. “They depend on you deeply. May I hear their story?”
“All right.” The woman struggled to raise a hand and stroked a rosebud.
The thorns pierced several wounds into her fingers, but she seemed unable to feel the pain.
The woman began recalling her story with the children, and a hint of maternal tenderness appeared on her face.
“I was a gardener’s daughter and grew up surrounded by flowers. My father told me that flowers were living things and that we had to care for them properly.”
“Later, every member of my family died, leaving only me and those flowers.”
“At first, I cared for them diligently. I watered and fertilized them every day, and they grew increasingly beautiful.”
“Not long afterward, I met the man I loved. I devoted all my attention to him and gradually lost the desire to care for the flowers. Without nourishment, the flowers began to wither. But I believed the flower of my love had bloomed, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.”
At this point, everyone could not resist commenting.
“Romance-brained?”
“Definitely romance-brained.”
“But I never imagined that the flower of love was false and fragile. The man deceived me. He clearly had a marriage agreement, yet he accepted my love and even made me pregnant with his child. I searched for him and desperately begged him to remain with me, but he cruelly rejected me.”
“I was devastated. In my pain, I dug the child out of my body and buried it in the flower field.”
Su Qiong: “…”
He was merely a piece of code born several days ago and did not understand the human world very well.
Only now did Su Qiong finally realize how terrifying a romance-addled mind could be.
“My flowers came back to life. They absorbed my child’s resentment and decided to take revenge on the man, tying him up and tormenting him until he was covered in wounds.”
“Good!”
“So this is actually a satisfying revenge story?”
The woman’s continuation quickly informed them that they had thought too soon.
“I should have hated that man. I should have taken revenge on him. But when I saw him suffering, my heart hurt so terribly.”
“So I cut apart the vines restraining him, released him, and told him to leave quickly.”
“Before leaving, he viciously cursed me, calling me a monster who practiced witchcraft. He spread the rumor everywhere, causing everyone to isolate me. No one dared come near me.”
By this point, the players had complicated feelings.
The woman was undoubtedly pitiful, yet they found it impossible to sympathize with her.
“What happened afterward?”
Su Qiong looked toward the flowers growing from her body. He desperately wanted to ask why the “children” had grown from her flesh.
“To prove I wasn’t a monster, I dug out all the flowers and burned them before everyone’s eyes. The spectators soon dispersed, leaving only me and the flowers reduced to ash.”
“For some unknown reason, I fell asleep and had a very long dream. In it, I saw my dead child. He cried and demanded to know why I had cut off his hands and burned him. He had only wanted to protect his mother.”
Even now, the woman remembered the child’s cries.
“I want to protect Mommy.”
“I’ll use all my strength to protect Mommy.”
“Why is Mommy hurting me?”
“It hurts so much, Mommy. Mommy, Mommy…”
When the woman awakened, countless voices continued calling her “Mommy,” making her head feel as though it would split apart.
She clutched her head in agony and, as though possessed, grabbed the burned remains of the roses and stuffed them into her mouth.
She swallowed them together with the soil.
Several days later, she felt new life descend into her womb.
A few days after that, a tender shoot grew from her navel and quickly formed a flower bud.
When the bud bloomed, an infant’s face appeared inside, crying and calling her “Mommy.”
“He is my child. I must protect him with my life and devote everything I have to him.” The woman stared at the flower buds and murmured absentmindedly.
“What do we do?”
“This situation is complicated. Simply cutting away the roses won’t make her smile.”
“We have to find a way for them to reconcile. But how?”
Normally, to reconcile two people, one should identify the source of their conflict.
And the greatest conflict between the woman and her “child” was—
“That scumbag!” several players shouted in unison.
