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Ch90.1 - Brain Invasion
Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-CherryApple, Proofreader-adjective
After the bayonet-wielding tin soldiers had combed through the maze and reached the center, they turned back and returned to their positions.
Li Yinhang did not dare to stray too far away from Nan Zhou after the encounter with the tin soldiers.
She followed Nan Zhou’s example and rummaged through the bookcases while keeping track of Nan Zhou’s figure in her periphery.
When the pace of the search had slowed down considerably and without the fear of running into the patrolling soldiers, Lin Yinhang had considerably calmed down and her mind was much clearer.
She absentmindedly took another book out of the shelf and silently said to Nan Zhou standing a bit further away, “Am I overthinking?”
Nan Zhou, “You figured it out?”
Li Yinhang, “……”
She exhaled deeply.
She finally realized that the game’s given time limit was simply not enough for one to diligently flip through every single book to find the chess pieces’ souls.
Even if she limited the search to the given conditions, she would still be unable to find them.
However, even after thinking in various directions, Li Yinhang could not figure out what method the two bigshots had come up with in order to clear this level.
——If you can’t figure it out, then don’t abuse yourself anymore.
Following Nan Zhou’s example, she took down a storybook with a binding similar to her own. After flipping through it a few times, she furrowed her eyebrows, perplexed.
Nan Zhou, noticing her actions, asked, “What did you find?”
Li Yinhang looked over the words line by line in her hand. After a long time, she honestly admitted, “I don’t understand.”
She turned over the pages, her mind wandering elsewhere.
Naturally, she had also pondered the question Nan Zhou had considered, “Who in the world is forcing us to play in these instances……. Aliens? Creatures from other dimensions?”
Her heart felt like it was squeezed and her face went pale as numerous possibilities flew in her head, and her wild imagination sent shivers down her spine.
In fact, as early as the beginning of the disappearances, Li Yinhang had always suspected that some kind of power beyond their comprehension was manipulating their world.
This world was far more than what humans could perceive. Humans were, after all, limited by their consciousness.
Whatever power was lurking behind this game, could not only design such a complex and advanced playing field, but could also drive them towards making a wish, and even sift through the age group when selecting players……
The unknown power that forces them to play the game, what exactly did it want from them?
If what happened to them was just momentary enjoyment of higher dimensional beings, then what exactly was the struggle for life in pain and sacrifice?
Before Li Yinhang’s balance of thoughts tilted towards hopelessness, Nan Zhou reached out to her from across the bookshelf, “Other than this, what else did you find?”
Li Yinhang patted her face twice to bring herself back to reality, and gave the book in her hand to Nan Zhou, and focused on reporting her finding to him, “There is also-”
Before she could say anything, Nan Zhou flipped open the storybook of the nameless man she handed over, opened a random chapter, and ripped off a page.
Li Yinhang, “…”
Immediately afterward, Nan Zhou’s brows furrowed deeply, as if his nerves were stabbed, and his footing became unsteady.
Li Yinhang’s heart tightened, “Are you okay?”
Nan Zhou slowly exhaled, “… It’s all right.”
He pulled himself together and held up his own book for inspection.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Li Yinhang walked over to Nan Zhou’s side and tried to support him by his arm. She finally understood why Nan Zhou’s SAN value was judged by the system to be [Garbled].
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When being gazed at by the tin soldier, violating the taboo, and having her memory jerked away, Li Yinhang only felt an indescribable weird feeling in her brain.
It didn’t affect her actions, and there was no pain or discomfort.
On the contrary, the stimulation Nan Zhou felt was obviously comparable to someone directly pricking his nerve with a capillary needle.
Because of this, it was difficult for the system to determine whether his SAN value was high or low.
So it gave a [Garbled] code and let him figure it out himself.
Just as Nan Zhou broke the rules and tore off a page from the book, a tin soldier who had returned from his patrol and stood silently at his position suddenly moved.
It stumbled forward a few steps, as if it had come to life from whatever spell was controlling it and gained a moment of freedom.
The soles of its shoes knocked against the ground with a loud tap.
This was particularly jarring in the silent library, where only the sound of falling chess pieces was heard.
It was as clear as the sound of pages being torn from the depths of the library again.
Jiang Fang, who was watching the chess game, raised his head.
The one-legged tin soldier raised its bayonet and musket and looked around in confusion, making it seem like it had come back to life.
And the dull, black eyes that looked like they were painted on its skull had a little glimmer of life in them
After turning around aimlessly, it locked eyes with Jiang Fang.
Jiang Fang read a hint of confusion and panic in its eyes.
With the dull humanoid face of the puppet, the uncanny valley effect was particularly conspicuous.
But this plea for help was left unanswered.
Inside the maze, the pages torn off by Nan Zhou disintegrated in his hands like sand.
At the same time, from the point where the page was ripped off, new pages filled with the same archaic text grew.
It was exactly the same as the original one.
And outside the bookshelf, the one-legged tin soldier who had acquired a moment of clarity also lost the light in its eyes.
It took a step back and returned to its original position.
Jiang Fang lowered his eyes and continued to watch the game of chess, as if in deep thought.
His eyes were calm and focused as if the one-legged tin soldier plea for help just now wasn’t worth a second glance.
He didn’t care if there were other players’ souls hidden in the tin soldiers.
He only cared about the little bit of information that Nan Zhou had delivered.
……
Nan Zhou finally eased from the unsettling feeling of having his memory stripped from him, his legs were still feeling a little soft, and he had to lean on the bookshelf to barely stand.
The first thing he saw was Li Yinhang’s slightly trembling hands holding a corner of his clothes.
When Li Yinhang found Nan Zhou could respond, she looked towards the exit nervously and whispered, “You quickly go in.”
Nan Zhou, “…?”
Li Yinhang said anxiously, “I heard the tin soldiers moving again. You’re not feeling well. Come into my warehouse and I’ll take you and hide-”
Nan Zhou leaned against the bookshelf, one hand on his forehead, massaging it lightly, “…… Do you still hear them moving?”
After experiencing that chase, Li Yinhang was really paranoid about the sound of the tin soldiers’ leather shoes.
It was only after Nan Zhou had pointed it out for her that she came to the realization that the sound of the leather shoes was only heard once and never again.
After realizing that she had overreacted, she rubbed the tip of her nose, a little embarrassed. She let go of the hand that was holding the corner of Nan Zhou’s coat, and obediently stood aside.
Nan Zhou took a few deep breaths to clear up his head and opened his own book.
Sure enough, one more year.
However, Nan Zhou’s experiments did not stop.
He released his hand and let the newly recovered book fall on the ground with a heavy thump.
There was a loud snapping noise.
… Nothing happened.
The sound of a single book falling on the floor did not reach the condition of breaking the second prohibition of “disturbing the game”.
Li Yinhang was breathing a sigh of relief when he saw Nan Zhou grab the edge of a shelf and said to her indifferently, “Cover your ears.”
Although she did not know why, Li Yinhang obediently plugged her ears.
The next moment, she got to know why.
——Nan Zhou lifted a corner of the oak bookshelf, which she couldn’t even guess the weight of, and toppled it over with one hand——
The entire row of books from above fell to the ground with a loud rumble that sounded like a landslide.
This time, the tin soldiers didn’t move.
However the hands of the dry corpse holding the chess pieces trembled slightly.
Jiang Fang first heard the sound of falling books coming from the depths of the maze, and then noticed this little change in the movements of the corpse, and it became clear in his mind.
Nan Zhou was testing where the trigger point for the so-called “disturbance of the game” of Prohibition 2 was.
——The hearing of the mummy was obviously bad.
Just now, neither the sound of a group of people talking while standing beside it, nor the loud knocks of the tin soldiers’ leather shoes pounding on the floor during the patrolling period, or even the sound of a chase happening in the maze disturbed it.
It always stared at the board like a clay doll, thinking, and it took a whole minute to move a single piece.
Only the clamorous sounds of an entire shelf of books falling down could touch its nerves.
The thought of a certain cat doing experiments and jumping up and down inside the maze to wreak havoc brought a light smile to the corners of Jiang Fang’s mouth.
……
Inside the maze of bookshelves.
Li Yinhang covered her ears and stood in the middle of a mess, looking a bit silly.
She asked, “…… Teacher Nan, what are you doing?”
After Nan Zhou’s dizziness eased, he knelt on one knee beside the empty bookshelf, and opened his book again.
In the table of contents, “Chapter Two” had been added.
In other words, unless it was the sound of something as loud as an entire bookshelf falling down, it wouldn’t be counted as a violation of the second prohibition.
A loud noise was counted as one foul.
Nan Zhou wiped the cold sweat dripping down the tip of his nose, “You continue to look for clues, don’t worry about me.”
Li Yinhang, “But you ……”
Nan Zhou, “You do what you have to do and I’ll do mine.”
Li Yinhang, “Your body ……”
Nan Zhou stared at her and said coldly, “Anyone can die in the game anytime. You can’t always rely on me.”
He picked up his book containing his memories from the first years in his life, tore off a page, and held on to it tightly in the palm of his hand.
Li Yinhang, “…..”
——There was not a single sense of self preservation! It couldn’t even be called a controlled test!
It should be called jumping back and forth across the edge of life and death.
This time the stimulus for Nan Zhou was obviously heavier.
He clearly felt that something came back to his mind, but like a whisper of a thought that vanished in a second, it was gone. He stayed still for a long time but it was soon forced out of his mind by an unknown force like a water pump.
He clenched his teeth in dizziness as his legs went soft.
——One, two, three……
When he reached the count of five, the page that he tore off disappeared from his palm.
It was back on a new page in the book, placed exactly where he had torn it off from.
His body fell to one side, pale face with white lips slightly open, and gasped.
After taking a few deep breaths, Nan Zhou still failed to remember, and this made him more aggressive. He once again began to tear off all the pages from the first two chapters.
Li Yinhang, “…”
——Is this forced induced vomiting for the storybook?
She even imagined the picture of Nan Zhou taking a small stick and stabbing the storybook’s little tongue one at a time.
… It made her feel less nervous…
The impact on Nan Zhou was not minor.
He flopped down directly on the ground, biting a pair of white lips.
Li Yinhang didn’t know what she could do.
Nan Zhou looked to be very uncomfortable and in pain, after enduring for quite a while, he buried his face on folded arms over his knees and made a small sound, “Um”.
Hearing Nan Zhou’s fatigued voice, Li Yinhang’s heart became even softer.
Seeing him repeatedly testing regardless of his torment, Li Yinhang’s heart ached, and she understood what he was trying to do.
She squatted beside Nan Zhou and hugged her book to her chest tightly, “Tell me what you want to verify. I’ll tear mine.”
Nan Zhou raised his head, his eyes were surrounded with a thin red tint.
His eyes and tone were still cold and light, “My control over my senses are better than yours, and also the tracking of time is more accurate.”
Li Yinhang, “Wouldn’t tearing from someone else’s book and measuring the time it takes for it to return to normal work?”
Nan Zhou, “I also want to assess the impact it will have on the body.”
With that, he opened the book in his hand again.