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Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Chp8. part1
Pinch. Play.
The little boxes finally disappeared, revealing these two mysterious words.
“Pinch. Play” was a poor, chosen one. For some reason, among its similar-looking brothers and sisters, it was the only one favoured and failed the test.
The bracelet vibrated: [Congratulations, dear, the warm-up task has been successfully completed!]
Pei Han then looked up at Ning Ge.
Ning Ge tried her best to put on the coldest and most serious expression she had ever had, but her face was burning hot, and she just wanted to die.
This was too damn embarrassing.
Being able to fill in the comparison, but not feeling it felt weird.
Owen remarked, “Filling out these boxes feels like I’ve learned a lot more.”
He teased Pei Han, “Pei Han, you guys aren’t very good, you’re filling them out way too slowly.”
Pei Han, while collecting everyone’s scripts, said, “You think everyone’s as lewd and violent as you?”
Owen didn’t seem to care, turning to Ning Ge with a smile, “Look at all his fancy moves, but he’s just a perpetual virgin.”
“You’re not a virgin, so be it.” Pei Han reached for the script in Owen’s hand.
Owen held onto the script, tilting his head to scrutinise him.
“Why are you so nervous? I saw you almost sweating while you were filling in the blanks. Anyway, the random player elimination system won’t randomly select you.”
“None of your business.” Pei Han’s fingers tightened, snatching the script from his hand.
Owen’s words were highly problematic. Ning Ge immediately asked him, “Why didn’t the random death happen to him?”
“Oh, the probability of random death is different for everyone,” Owen said. “Those with dungeon experience have a much lower probability. The more times you’ve done it, the lower the probability becomes.”
“Do you know the odds of winning the lottery? It’s one in fourteen million. And for an Alpha like Pei Han, his probability coefficient is one in a hundred million.”
Owen smiled. “If it’s just you and him, and one of you is randomly selected to die, his probability is one in half multiplied by one in a hundred million. According to the rules, all the remaining probabilities fall on you.”
Ning Ge was silent for a moment. In other words, in missions with random executions, aren’t newbies just cannon fodder?
All the newbies present turned pale.
Owen reached out and touched Ning Ge’s bracelet, bringing up an interface. “Look, here you can see how many dungeons you’ve completed and your level.”
Ning Ge’s screen displayed a large “0” with four smaller words above it—”New Player.”
The bracelet’s owner was a lambda, who had never completed a single dungeon run. It was unclear why.
“Truly a newbie,” Owen laughed. “But don’t worry, Pei Han definitely won’t let you… uh… let you all die.”
The sales clerk mustered her courage and encouraged everyone, “It’s okay, look, we’ve successfully completed another mission, haven’t we? Not a single person died.”
“That’s right,” Ning Ge replied.
This mission was exceptionally simple, requiring little effort.
However, Ning Ge knew in her heart that this was just a small mission. What awaited them ahead wouldn’t be easier than the “rest” mission from this morning, it would definitely be much more troublesome.
Director Wu took the script Pei Han had given him, flipped through it, and was very satisfied. “Not bad, everything’s filled in. I’ll be right back.” He got up and went into a nearby corridor.
As soon as he left, the bald man rushed over, muttering, “Have you finished rehearsing? The judges are waiting.”
What did that mean?
Granny-Grey hair cautiously asked him, “The judges are waiting? What do they want us to perform?”
The bald man was a little impatient. “If you’re coming to our theater to perform a new play, shouldn’t you do a rehearsal first, so the judges can see it?”
Granny-grey hair was startled. “What new play?”
“The script from earlier, ‘Sculpting the Heart,'” the bald man said. “Didn’t you all read it? Just do it according to that.”
He looked at everyone in bewilderment. “Really? Have you all forgotten? Is there even a theatre troupe like yours? Come on, write down the outline for me first.”
The bracelet vibrated.
[Dear, do you remember the script we just looked at?
Task: Write a script outline.
Instructions: Twenty-minute time limit. Note that it must include five key plot points.
Failure penalty: One actor will be randomly selected and eliminated.]
Everyone looked at each other blankly.
They had flipped through the script, but all they remembered was a bunch of vulgar and obscene words, nothing else.
They were all busy filling in the boxes, who had the time to pay attention to the plot?
It was as if they hadn’t read it at all.
It was like a test where a bus asks how many people get on and off at each stop, and then suddenly asks how many stops it has stopped at—a bit mean.
Granny-grey hair immediately chased after Director Wu, who had disappeared, probably to retrieve the script he had handed in.
However, he returned empty-handed. There was no one in the corridor, Director Wu was nowhere to be found.
“You guys hurry up! Hand it over when you’re done.”
The bald man handed them some paper and a pen, then went into an office next door. A sign reading “Theater Manager” hung prominently on the door.
“How much can you remember?” Pei Han asked everyone.
Granny-grey hair immediately said, “I remember, the main characters are named Shi Yinnian and Wei Ersheng!”
Everyone: “…”
Pei Han thought for a moment, “I remember there was a line of small pencil writing in the upper right corner of the cover: Wife-chasing-after-crematorium.’
The sales clerk quickly said, “I know the ‘Wife-chasing-after-crematorium1‘ trope: first, torture the woman, then torture the man. When I love you, you ignore me, when I don’t love you anymore, you’ll regret it.”
Pei Han assigned tasks, “Okay. Let’s go through the plot we can remember first. If we can’t, we’ll make it up. Write down everything we can think of, there’s no punishment for mistakes anyway.”
His tone was calm and composed, as if there was nothing to panic about.
Owen laughed, “That’s right, maybe we’ll get lucky and stumble upon one.” Pei Han had already started writing. ‘Ours was the first one. I remember the beginning was the female lead in the bedroom…’
His calm voice gradually calmed everyone down, and they began racking their brains to come up with a plot.
Ning Ge whispered to him, ‘I’ll be right back.’
Although Pei Han didn’t know what she was going to do, he nodded.
Ning Ge left the group of people surrounding the outline.
This mission couldn’t afford any deaths.
With only two death slots left to reach the 50% player survival rate, Ning Ge couldn’t afford the loss. Besides, she herself was a novice player with a high probability of being randomly selected for execution.
After walking a short distance, Ning Ge quietly removed the bracelet from her wrist and knocked on the bald man’s office door.
A voice came from inside, ‘Come in.’
Ning Ge pushed open the door and entered.
The bald man was sitting listlessly at his desk. He paused when he saw her enter.
‘Who are you? Who are you looking for?”
Footnotes:
- “Wife-chasing after Crematorium” (追妻火葬场, zhuī qī huǒzàngchǎng) is a popular slang term and story trope. It describes a specific cycle of karma in a relationship. The term comes from the internet catchphrase: “Being arrogant for a moment is great, but chasing your wife back is a crematorium”.
The word “crematorium” (火葬场) is used metaphorically to describe the intense pain, suffering, and “hellish” difficulty the male lead must endure to earn her forgiveness. It signifies that his journey to win her back will be as agonizing as being “burned alive” by his own regret. ↩︎
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