Author: 木尺素 / Mu Chisu

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 117

The color of an opaque object is determined by the light it reflects, while the color of a transparent object is determined by the colored light that passes through it.

The reason blue glass appears blue is, simply put, because it absorbs all other colors of light, or “eats” them.

Yellow fire cannot pass through blue glass, so from the outside, one would only see a dark shadow, which does not constitute the “light of fire” as prohibited. Thus, the problem is easily solved.

After frantically recalling the optics knowledge he had learned before and thinking carefully, He Xiaowei finally figured it out.

However, he quickly thought of a problem and hurriedly asked, “Qian’er, just one question. The last sentence—”

“I still feel something is not right! When we entered the room, everything outside looked normal! Logically, looking from the inside of the room through the blue transparent glass, the houses and fields in the village should also appear black!”

“You’re right, so at that time, the window was still in its normal transparent state. It was when we left the inn that I noticed the glass of the window had turned blue. Not only did it turn blue, but one of the eyeballs of the statue at the entrance of the inn also turned blue,” Zhou Qian said. “Anyway, it’s always good to have some salt ready. After all, it’s the most common and easiest to obtain. Of course, from a more cautious perspective, we should also prepare more minerals that can produce different colors of flame when burned. After all, the color of the glass might change again.

“In fact, I had the little dragon search for this. On Shan Ge’s side, I’ll check his status. If he can still temporarily leave the Rib of God and move within a certain range, he can also help find materials for burning.”

“I got it! I’ll pay more attention too! That… um!”

He Xiaowei glanced back and forth between Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou, then stood up and walked away. “I’ll go ask about my master’s situation!”

As soon as He Xiaowei left, Zhou Qian turned back to Bai Zhou and nudged him with his elbow. “Zhou Ge, any thoughts?”

Bai Zhou said, “Many myths feature the ‘Trinity’ or ‘Three as a Group’ phenomenon. The number three is widely used in various legends and scriptures.”

“The Tao Te Ching* mentions, ‘Dao gives birth to one, one gives birth to three, three gives birth to all things. Even from ancient times to present day, there have been three divisions concerning man, ghosts, and gods, or the legends of heaven, hell, and earth.”

*A Chinese classic text and foundational work of Taoism traditionally credited to the sage Laozi. It is central to both philosophical and religious conceptions of Taoism and has had great influence beyond Taoism as such on Chinese philosophy and religious practice throughout history.

“Furthermore, Christianity has the Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father; Hinduism has Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva; ancient Egypt had Osiris, Horus, and Isis; Greek mythology frequently features the Three Fates, the Three Graces, the Three Furies…”

As Bai Zhou spoke, he noticed Zhou Qian looking at him with a smile.

“What?” he asked.

Zhou Qian smiled and said, “Zhou Ge reads a lot of books, huh.”

Bai Zhou stared into his eyes, and the corners of his mouth slightly curled up. “Not as diverse as your reading.”

“Are you implying I have a bad taste in novels?”

“No. It’s a good hobby.”

Zhou Qian was amused by Bai Zhou’s response, then thought for a moment and added, “The number ‘3’ is indeed interesting. Following this angle, blue is actually one of the three primary colors. Also, when I first came here, I saw the eyeball color of the west-facing statue head was red.”

The strange statue made of three heads near the entrance of the village and the inn were facing different directions.

When the players first logged into the instance and before entering the inn, Zhou Qian had specifically observed that the west-facing head’s eyes were red.

He initially thought the material of the eyeball was special, able to be reddened by the setting sun. Later, when he left the inn, he saw the eyeball turn blue, realizing things weren’t as simple as he initially thought.

As for the other two heads on the statue, their eyes didn’t have any special color and matched the grayscale of the statue itself.

Zhou Qian continued, “The three primary colors are red, blue, and yellow. I have seen the statue’s west-facing eyeball display red and blue. So, we could infer from this—”

“Perhaps the eyeball will also turn yellow. Maybe the glass on the second floor of the inn could also turn yellow…”

“When that happens, adding salt to the fire won’t work anymore. So, we do need to find other burning materials. Haa—”

“The night gameplay of this instance wouldn’t be about us watching the window and guarding the fire all night, adding objects to produce different colored flames, would it? That would be really boring.”

Bai Zhou reminded him, “Besides colors, there might also be metaphors related to the number ‘3’.”

“Right… The combination of humans, ghosts, and gods is quite clear in this instance, with humans and ghosts already present but no information about gods yet. Also, how did the glass change color?”

Zhou Qian raised an eyebrow and continued, “No one has come to change the glass, so if we don’t consider magic for the moment, it means there might be an issue with time and space.”

Bai Zhou nodded. “Exactly. Past, present, and future. This is also a classic combination of three elements.”

Zhou Qian smiled. “Now it’s getting interesting.”

As they talked, the sky turned a deeper shade of red, edging closer to dusk.

Many torches were lit in the square, as if trying to extend the daylight.

During his conversation with He Xiaowei and Bai Zhou, Zhou Qian was also paying attention to the situation around them—

The strong man named Awei who first threw the handkerchief was from the south side, and He Xiaowei was the second person to throw a handkerchief. However, he didn’t throw it back to the south side out of revenge but to the east side instead.

This move was quite smart, serving as a way to test where the people from the east side would throw the handkerchief next.

He Xiaowei specifically chose a frail-looking little girl who appeared to be only eight years old, thinking she would have the least physical strength and be the slowest.

Unexpectedly, the little girl moved as swiftly as the wind, more agile than ordinary people. Without the little dragon’s help, He Xiaowei would have continued to lose.

Thanks to the little dragon’s assistance, the little girl ultimately lost this round of the game. Afterward, she slowed down, as if hesitating about who to throw the handkerchief to.

During Zhou Qian’s conversation, she slowly walked back to the east side, seemingly to consult with someone managing her family about something, and then slowly walked towards the north side again.

The choice of the little girl was undoubtedly interesting—

It meant that their side would also deal with the north side.

In this way, the Sun Family and Moon Family represented in the east and south were targeting the Cloud Family in the north.

What about the Star Family in the west? Would it also be hostile to the Cloud Family?

It shouldn’t.

After all, the vigil needed 32 people, but the Cloud Family only had 8 people. Including the player count, it would only total 16. The people from the north side weren’t enough to make up the number of people in the vigil. Since the people from the two southeastern families had already formed a conspiracy, the 16 people from the Star Family would probably choose to cooperate with the Cloud Family.

Just as he thought of this, Zhou Qian saw a person with a star adorning the hem of his skirt in the periphery run over and go to the ear of a man from the Cloud Family diagonally across from him and say something.

The face of this male villager from the Cloud Family instantly became somewhat grave.

Then he looked at the crowd and said, ”The situation isn’t good. This little girl is an expert that the Sun Family has secretly trained this year. None of us are her match.”

“Everyone, listen to my advice. In a moment, no matter who is thrown a handkerchief, just give up. No need to chase her. Just conserve your stamina. If we lose this round, we’ll just deduct two points. We can still win it back again in the next round! So, it’s more important for us to save our stamina and fight to win the next round so that we can still have another draw!”

The information related to this little girl with extremely fast body skills was provided by someone from the Star Family in the west.

With this, the relationship between the four great families was considered completely clear to Zhou Qian.

—The two families, the Star in the west and the Cloud in the north, were in the same wave and were considered to be the Star-Cloud Alliance; the Moon in the south and the Sun family in the east could be the Sun-Moon Alliance.

After seeing that Star Family person leave, Zhou Qian retracted his line of sight and saw that the incredibly fast little girl had officially arrived at the north side and was located right behind Yun Xiangrong, who was across from him.

Immediately afterward, the two people’s gazes collided.

However, the little girl’s gaze quickly shifted away. She didn’t look at Zhou Qian anymore, but rather looked towards the others.

This move of hers, however, backfired and seemed deliberate.

It seemed that after secret training, her footwork was indeed formidable, but her shrewdness was a bit worse.

“Zhou Ge—” Zhou Qian raised half of his eyebrows upward and smiled. “It seems like she’s going to charge at me. That shouldn’t be the case. I’ve been through two very difficult trials, and my agility has clearly improved a lot.”

“I’ve already let the little dragon go to find something. It’s a bit exhausted in the past few waves, so it’s not good to call it back. In this way, I…”

“I’ll give you something.”

Bai Zhou tapped his finger on the system panel and said to Zhou Qian, “Alright, take a look at your traveling bag.”

Bai Zhou traded something directly to Zhou Qian through the teammate system.

As such, Zhou Qian tapped on the traveling bag system and saw that there was one more very interesting prop.

[Item: Never Drunk Butterfly Wings]

[Function: Sprinkle pollen on the tracked person. No matter where he goes to the ends of the earth, you will be able to grow butterfly wings, and when you want to see him, flash your wings and instantly fly to his side]

[Remarks: One-time prop. Please cherish them; in-game only. Cannot be used for different instances]

[Grade: S, extremely rare]

Glancing up at the little girl not far away, Zhou Qian took that prop out from his traveling bag.

It was a translucent glass bottle filled with pollen.

He just needed to dump out the pollen and sprinkle it on someone, then keep the bottle. When he wanted to see that person, all he had to do was break the glass bottle, and he would transform into a butterfly for an instant transfer.

Zhou Qian had just unscrewed the cap of the bottle to take a glance at the pollen inside when he realized that Bai Zhou had spread his palm towards him.

Zhou Qian immediately understood what he meant—the speed of that little girl opposite him had clearly accelerated. It seemed that she would soon be running behind everyone on the north side, leaving only afterimages, aiming to make them realize a little later who exactly she had thrown her handkerchief to. Zhou Qian would most likely not be able to sprinkle the pollen. If the pollen fell to the ground, the prop would be wasted.

Raising his gaze to Bai Zhou, Zhou Qian’s eyes narrowed a little. “I’ll do it myself.”

Vaguely sensing something, Bai Zhou was just about to open his mouth when Zhou Qian had already unscrewed the cap of the bottle and then poured all the pollen inside onto Bai Zhou.

“Zhou Qian?”

“Such a good prop, of course it can only be used on you. Does it have an enhanced version? If there is, I should have used it seven years ago.”

Zhou Qian smiled a little, and then looked at the field—

At this moment, that little girl’s figure had indeed completely turned into an afterimage. She swept past behind everyone like the wind. No matter how vicious their eyes were, the Cloud Family couldn’t identify where she left the handkerchief, and no one even knew whether or not she was still in the north side.

He Xiaowei’s cleverness was in testing out whether the people in the east side would also want to attack the north side; but the youngest and skinniest girl he had chosen also had the most powerful footwork.

At this moment, he had returned to Zhou Qian’s side, and couldn’t help but say, “Crap, how did she—”

Zhou Qian was calm and relaxed, patting He Xiaowei’s shoulder. “This incident teaches you one thing: don’t be sexist.”

He Xiaowei: “Injustice! I didn’t! I-I-That was at most age discrimination.”

Zhou Qian laughed, looking very relaxed, completely unaware that the gamblers watching were already anxious.

[What is Qian Ge up to? That pollen …… doesn’t seem necessary! That’s an extremely rare prop, ah!”]

[I’m so worried. That little girl is too powerful. Our Qian Ge is very strong, but he also has a weakness. He really can’t beat the little girl in terms of speed.]

[I told you he’s in love. We can’t see him in Blue Harbor City. But he must be in love.]

[Love… It really misleads people! Qian Ge is still too young.]

[It’s true that young people are easily overwhelmed by love!]

[Wait, is Qian Ge trying to delay the time?]

[That’s unscientific. The game hasn’t even started yet. It’s not worth it to use up so much mana now, is it?]

At this moment, within the game.

At the moment when everyone didn’t react, Bai Zhou whispered rather seriously in Zhou Qian’s ear, “She’ll be behind you in a second. At her speed, it will only take a mere 3 seconds for her to return to her position in the east.”

“Very good.” Zhou Qian slowly finished these two words, timing them just right.

The moment the words fell, he unleashed his skill with the Rib of God in his hand—

The wind stopped blowing, the white clouds stopped flowing, and the setting sun no longer gradually disappeared…

because time had been frozen.

Zhou Qian stood up and turned back. Just as Bai Zhou had said, the little girl who was incredibly fast had appeared behind him.

Time completely stood still, and unlike Zhou Qian, she was not able to stand outside of time, so she had no knowledge of what was going on around her and just stood frozen in mid-air, as if she had been turned into a stone statue.

The game would continue until midnight, which was still five hours away.

However, due to the unity of the various families and the preparations made, these 5 hours were completely insufficient to completely distance the scores of the 64 people. Ties would exist in large numbers, and many people would have the same score.

In this case, how would the 32 people with the lowest scores be selected?

Zhou Qian guessed that, at the end of the day, it could only be calculated by the total family score.

The family shared the honor, so it would be calculated by adding up the scores of the south-east and north-west. On the losing side, the entire family would be asked to keep the vigil together.

This was why there would only be 8 of the Cloud Family left to compete. It would also further explain why the various circles would be so united.

“Hmm… This handkerchief is really something. It’s got very intricate charms drawn on it and it’s encrusted with gold thread. For this village that doesn’t look wealthy, it should only have one, right?”

Zhou Qian walked in front of the little girl and didn’t care if she could hear it or not, quickly jerking the handkerchief away from her hand.

“I don’t want to waste five hours of my time on this boring game. After all, there are many other preparations I need to make before midnight. Otherwise, ushering ‘Samhain’ straight into the night would be tantamount to death.”

“Besides, I’ve gathered enough information about this ‘Drop the Handkerchief’.”

“So little girl, this game of you chasing me ends here.”

When time resumed its flow, Zhou Qian had already sat back down and was talking and laughing with Bai Zhou.

In the place behind him, the little girl was stunned for a moment before suddenly crying out in shock—her handkerchief was gone!

This meant that she had lost!

She lost by two points, and she could still regain it… But the handkerchief was gone, so the game couldn’t continue!

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