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Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Chp6. part1
This didn’t sound quite right.
However, Pei Han’s expression was natural, not at all like he’d said Anything strange. He didn’t look at Ning Ge again, staring at the wrinkles in the sheets, seemingly lost in thought.
Ning Ge sat up straight, adjusted her skirt, and asked him seriously, “What are you doing? Math problems?”
“There are too many people, math problems are hard to control,” Pei Han said. “When it’s too easy or too difficult, it’s easier to let your mind wander. I wonder if there’s any paper and pen here.”
The receptionist certainly had some.
As soon as this “break” ended, Ning Ge went downstairs and brought back a stack of paper and a box of pens.
“We’ve already found a way to complete this task,” Pei Han told everyone. “It has absolutely nothing to do with the posters on the wall. The key to passing is—poetry.”
Everyone: Huh???
Pei Han’s words were absurd, yet his attitude was utterly believable, his tone firm, “As long as everyone can recite as many poems as possible within twenty minutes, they’ll pass.”
Ning Ge silently watched him earnestly try to convince people.
Owen looked incredulous. “Are you joking, poems? Poems??”
“Yes,” Pei Han reassured him, “Let’s try it, one round.”
Since six rounds had already passed, one more round wouldn’t hurt. Owen took the paper and pen.
The sales clerk girl was very serious, taking a pen and asking, “Are poems from any dynasty okay? Even if I write the same ones as someone else?”
Pei Han patiently answered, “Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, all kinds of poems and songs are fine. If you can’t remember the whole poem, just write one or two lines. If you can’t remember the whole line, half a line or a few words are fine too. Making mistakes is okay, just write as many as possible. If you run out of paper, just ask me.”
Everyone took their paper and pens and went back to their rooms.
The young man with the green hair lagged behind, a little embarrassed. “I’m not very well-educated, so how about something like ‘Hoeing the fields under the midday sun’?”
Ning Ge heard Pei Han casually reply, “Anything is fine. ‘The world is in chaos,’ ‘Four horses gallop across the Taihang Mountains,’ write whatever you want.”
Ning Ge: “…”
Is the “gan1” in your “gange” pronounced with the fourth tone?
While Pei Han was busy answering questions, Ning Ge slipped through the hole in the wall to find Owen.
She asked Owen, “You said Pei Han is an Alpha, what exactly does Alpha mean?”
Owen’s eyes showed a hint of surprise. “You don’t know? You’re actually a complete newbie who doesn’t know anything?”
“That’s a stereotype. A newbie isn’t necessarily a noob,” Ning Ge retorted. “So what is Alpha?”
Owen looked her up and down with interest again before saying, “In this game, besides ordinary players, there are three special types: Alpha, Beta, and Lambda.”
Lambda. That word sounds familiar.
Ning Ge’s bracelet had received “Lambda-exclusive test data.”
The fact that the survival rate in this world was too low, requiring testing, and that failure meant elimination, was mentioned in this exclusive data.
It seemed the bracelet’s owner, the girl who collapsed in the convenience store, was a Lambda.
Owen continued, “Beta and Lambda are mysterious, we’ve never seen them. But everyone knows Alpha—the most outstanding veteran players selected based on the number of dungeon clears.”
Owen glanced at Pei Han, then smiled at Ning Ge, “Pei Han is an Alpha, and an Alpha among Alphas, with countless clears, revered by thousands. Going into a dungeon with him is like going to a temple and burning incense in gratitude…”
He and Pei Han were buddies, so of course, he was exaggerating his achievements.
Ning Ge ignored this and asked, “What exactly do these Alphas you mentioned do?”
“Oh, they’re players, but not quite the same as regular players. They’re among the first to test new dungeons and also check old ones.”
Owen paused. “But their most frequent job is catching bugs in dungeons. If they find one, the reward is quite high.”
Ning Ge’s heart skipped a beat.
This NPC, who suddenly went astray and awakened, wasn’t she just a bug in the dungeon?
Owen continued, “You have no idea how many points Pei Han has earned by catching bugs. It’s terrifying. He’s the nemesis of bugs, the king of dungeon testing—in short, the Bug King.”
Ning Ge subconsciously glanced back at Pei Han through the hole in the wall.
Pei Han, unaware that Owen had assigned him to the Arthropoda phylum, was calmly telling the green hair that if he couldn’t really write that many poems. He could manage with idioms and proverbs, making his lie sound like the truth.
As if sensing her gaze, he glanced in their direction, but this time he was busy. He didn’t argue with her, quickly lowering his eyes to continue talking to the green hair guy.
So she was an insect, and he was the one who caught insects.
She had to stay far away from this dangerous man.
The most important thing right now was to get these players out safely, save this world, and then everyone would part ways, never to meet again.
The seventh round of “rest” time began.
The key was to control the thoughts in her mind.
Ning Ge spread out paper on the table, intending to spend twenty minutes writing poems and songs like everyone else.
Ning Ge picked up a pen, “If you don’t overthink, nothing will happen.”
Pei Han smiled slightly, “The mind is when the previous thought doesn’t arise, and Buddha is when the next thought doesn’t cease. We are just mortals with thoughts arising and ceasing.”
There was only one chair, so he moved a bedside table over, placed it across the table, curled up his long legs, and sat down next to Ning Ge to write.
He wasn’t writing poetry, he was scribbling shapes, numbers, and markings.
Every now and then, he would pause to think, adding a few strokes or crossing something out. While thinking, he would unconsciously twirl the pen in his hand.
Ning Ge noticed that this man would constantly twirl anything he held in his hand, whether it was a pen or an axe.
Chatting was dangerous, it could easily lead one’s thoughts astray. However, Ning Ge couldn’t help but ask, “What are you drawing?”
“Oh, just doodles.”
He grabbed the paper and crumpled it into a ball in his hand.
Ning Ge thought, “I was just asking a random question, why the defensiveness?”
She wondered what important thing he was drawing.
Pei Han looked up at Ning Ge, twirling his pen twice. “You’re always so tense, aren’t you uncomfortable?”
Ning Ge was puzzled. “I’m not tense.”
“You’re just like what my elementary school teacher taught us,” Pei Han said, “Sitting like a bell, standing like a pine tree, back ramrod straight, face expressionless, even the way you hold your pen could be a poster.”
Ning Ge understood.
Perhaps because she was an NPC, her expressions were few, making her seem less lively than they were.
—Actually, regardless of her outward appearance, she was internally ranting and raving.
“I’m not,” Ning Ge said, lowering her head to continue writing. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pei Han adjust the bracelet on his wrist, slightly raising his arm.
The two were very close, Ning Ge immediately saw him switch the bracelet to the anchor-point scanning interface, pointing the camera on the bracelet’s side at Ning Ge.
He subtly tapped the camera icon.
Ning Ge’s scalp tingled.
Why did he suddenly use her as an anchor point for scanning?
The bracelet screen captured Ning Ge’s face, a bright line sweeping down from top to bottom, displaying a message:
[Not an anchor point, please keep trying.]
Footnote:
- In Mandarin Chinese, when the syllable “gan”is pronounced with the fourth tone(falling tone), it is written as gàn(in Pinyin). Depending on the character used, it has several common meanings: 干 (gàn):To do, to work, or to act. It is frequently used in colloquial phrases like gànmá (干嘛 – “What are you doing?”). ↩︎
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