Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Chp35. part2
Owen casually fiddled with the joystick. “I had a note on my phone back then. Every day, I’d write down the good things I encountered—a strangely shaped flower, the meow of a kitten. I tried my best to convince myself that if I’d died yesterday, I wouldn’t have experienced this today.”
Ning Ge was completely taken aback.
He seemed like such a cheerful person.
Even in the dungeon, at the brink of life and death, when everyone else was terrified, he was always happy, patiently explaining the rules to newbies, cracking jokes from time to time, as if he were glowing.
The person who seemed to glow was actually sinking deep at the bottom of the sea.
“Then I was inexplicably dragged into this game,” Owen said. “My brother dragged me through dungeon after dungeon, day after day.”
He chuckled. “At first, I didn’t really care about living or dying. But my brother dragged me along so seriously, as if my survival was incredibly important to him.”
Owen smiled. “The System was constantly trying to kill me, but gradually, I found myself less eager to die.”
“I suddenly felt…” He tilted his head, thinking for a moment. “…a real sense of existence.”
He smiled at Ning Ge and entered the game, adding, “Living under constant threat of death is actually quite fun.”
“He’s crazy. Don’t listen to his nonsense,” Pei Han said, arriving and handing Ning Ge a scalding hot cup of coffee.
“Yeah, I’m crazy. Taking medication,” Owen said with a dismissive smile.
The mug was warm in her hands, and the coffee was rich and fragrant.
Curled up on the sofa with her coffee, it felt like visiting a friend for a casual chat. Everything in the dungeon seemed to vanish.
Pei Han settled on the armrest beside her, his arm resting behind her as they watched Owen play the game.
Ning Ge took only two sips of coffee before setting it down and standing up.
“Not good?” Pei Han asked.
“No, I still want to sleep,” Ning Ge explained. “If I drink too much coffee, I won’t be able to sleep.”
Owen was puzzled. “Still want to sleep? Didn’t we just get ten hours of sleep in the dungeon?”
Ning Ge replied solemnly, “Sometimes it’s not about how long you sleep. Even though I slept for ten hours, I was woken up in the middle of the night. It still feels like I haven’t had enough.”
Owen was speechless, utterly impressed.
Pei Han stood up. “The bedroom is just inside. I’ve already changed the sheets. Go ahead and sleep. Don’t worry, the bedroom door has a deadbolt.”
“No, I’ll just go back to my Rest Pod,” Ning Ge refused, walking toward the suite’s entrance.
Pei Han didn’t insist and followed her. “Then I’ll walk you downstairs.”
It was only a few floors, but Pei Han insisted on accompanying her all the way to the station’s lounge.
Ning Ge chose the bottom pod in a vertical row of Rest Pods and opened it with her bracelet before climbing inside.
Pei Han showed no sign of leaving. He stood outside the pod’s door, hands in his pockets, and peered inside curiously.
Ning Ge sat inside the pod, feeling a little awkward, like an animal in a small cage being observed.
“You’ve never stayed in a Rest Pod before, have you?” she asked.
“I’ve never stayed here before,” Pei Han said. “At first, I’d leave immediately after finishing a dungeon, not wanting to linger here for even a second. But I gradually got used to it. Sometimes, when I didn’t want the hassle of going out, I’d use my dungeon Experience Points to book a room upstairs.”
Ning Ge offered a polite, perfunctory invitation, “Would you like to come in and take a look?”
“May I?”
Pei Han didn’t stand on ceremony and actually stepped inside.
Only then did Ning Ge realize how big he was.
The Rest Pod was low and narrow. With such a large big crammed inside, he couldn’t sit upright and had to lean at an angle, his long legs taking up all the space and pushing Ning Ge into a corner.
Yet he didn’t seem to mind the cramped space, finding it rather amusing.
He curiously poked around, fiddling with things and flipping through the wall-mounted display. In no time, he had it teleported in a box of tissues and a complete set of mystery novels.
“Not bad,” he declared.
He pressed random buttons and suddenly switched on the reading lamp embedded in the ceiling.
The light, set to its brightest setting, shone directly into Ning Ge’s face, making her squint.
Ning Ge immediately scrambled over, hands and feet working in unison, reaching for the lamp head.
She nearly crashed into him again.
This time, Pei Han was prepared. Knowing her underdeveloped cerebellum and unreliable motor skills, he was ready and swiftly caught her head in his hand.
The Rest Pod was too narrow for him to retreat. Supporting her head, he remained close, not pulling away.
He was so near that the light cast two crescent shadows beneath his eyelashes. Ning Ge looked up at him, a peculiar thought filling her mind.
She tried to release some Thought Silk.
Of course, it didn’t work. This was outside the dungeon, Thought Silk didn’t exist here.
It was a shame she’d missed the chance to use Thought Silk to control Pei Han during the countdown as she rushed to scan the Anchor Point.
Just like the Queen controlling Mosh, being able to freely manipulate Pei Han with Thought Silk—making him spin in circles or dance on command—would have been endlessly entertaining.
Pei Han was clearly thinking about something else entirely, completely unaware of her mischievous thoughts.
After gazing at her for a moment, he suddenly lowered his head and kissed the fringe of her hair.
A faint stubble was already growing on his chin, brushing against the bridge of her nose.
His hand slid down from her hair to grip the back of her head, and his lips followed, trailing across her nose.
He tilted his head slightly and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
They had kissed before, and quite thoroughly at that, but this fleeting touch was enough to snap Ning Ge out of her thoughts about Thought Silk.
Her heart began to pound wildly for no reason.
“Pei Han?”
Someone spoke from outside.
When Pei Han entered the Rest Pod, he had left the door open, likely fearing Ning Ge would be unwilling to be confined alone with him in such a small, enclosed space.
The open door allowed anyone passing by to see the two of them inside.
Pei Han froze for a moment before releasing Ning Ge.
Ning Ge was certain she hadn’t misread him. He narrowed his eyes, his gaze filled with the same wild intensity he’d shown that day in the puppet parts warehouse.
The man outside, however, showed no fear of Pei Han’s expression. Instead, he casually rested his hand on the open pod door and asked, “Pei Han, what kind of kinky games are you playing in the Rest Pod?”
Pei Han gritted his teeth and growled, “What I do has nothing to do with you, the eternal second-place finisher!”
Ning Ge froze when the man spoke, turning to look out the cabin door.
When Pei Han turned around, he moved aside, perfectly framing the man’s face in the doorway.
Ning Ge couldn’t move a muscle.
This was clearly her brother.
He wore a light-colored casual suit with the buttons open, his elbows resting on the cabin door frame, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. His eyes glinted with amusement as he gazed at the two of them pressed together in the cramped Rest Pod.
Ning Ge stared at him, too stunned to speak.
This isn’t right, she thought.
Very not right.
From Pei Han’s tone, it seemed he was the second-ranked Alpha on the Alpha Monthly Rankings, the one named “L.” And judging by their interaction, he and Pei Han knew each other.
Not just knew each other—they were clearly close.
Yet last time at Nianxin Inn, Pei Han and Owen had met her brother without any special reaction.
Didn’t they find it strange that her brother resembled L so closely, or that L resembled her brother?
Pei Han turned and noticed Ning Ge’s expression.
“Scared?” he asked, stroking her hair. “Don’t worry. His name is Lu Juan, he’s an Alpha, not that NPC at the Nianxin Inn front desk.”
