70 - Cars and Pedestrians

Translated by rabbitrisu

In order to escape the twentieth nightmare world, the trainers who constantly failed to pass the task were called rats, while hose who didn’t dare to face the twentieth nightmare world and also stole other trainers’ ghost tools were called snakes by Su Zimo.

Because this trainer called A-Liu had a ghost tool that was about to exceed its recovery limit and was about to backlash, Su Zimo felt that the holder was probably a rat… or a snake.

“A deal?”

After Su Zimo proposed the transaction, he saw the face of the trainer who may be a rat or a snake finally show a surprised expression.

“Yes. In fact, I’m also a businessman, but the only things I can trade with you at the moment are these dim sum.” Su Zimo suddenly remembered, An Yu Yi Yu may have the ability to open the shop within the nightmare world, but he hadn’t had time to try it, and he hadn’t brought any of the shop’s products with him.

Taking into account that An Yu Yi Yu was located in the real world in Jiangdu and his income hadn’t been much, Su Zimo felt that doing business in the nightmare world was a better choice. After all, there were always trainers there.

“I’ve only heard of ‘Raise the coffin, make a fortune.’” A-Liu obviously felt that his experience in the nightmare world was enough to judge if he was truly a businessman.

“Then starting today, you’ve met Ayuyuyu.” Su Zimo held the food box with both hands, then raised his eyebrows and asked, “Do you want to make a deal?”

“‘Raise a coffin, make a fortune’ needs souls and nightmare points to get rich. What do you want?” A-Liu asked again.

“I like bartering things.” Su Zimo began to make up settings for the shop he was preparing to open in the nightmare world. “I’ll trade for ghost tools. After all, these snacks in the food box are very precious to me.”

In truth, Su Zimo didn’t want to use Elder Fang’s dim sum for the transaction, and he didn’t believe that the other party would actually use ghost tools for dim sum. He just needed to establish his identity and spread the concept of ‘ghost tools’ to trainers.

He never understood why the ghost umbrella was very aware of the existence of ghost tools even though trainers had no idea about them? There were even trainers like Zhu Zhu who didn’t know the real purpose of their ghost tools.

“Ghost tools?”

Sure enough, A-Liu quickly fixed on that point of Su Zimo’s words, then asked, “What’s a ghost tool?”

“Don’t you know anything?” Su Zimo deliberately showed a surprised expression. “Isn’t your eye a good ghost tool? It’s just that the side effects are equally powerful.

“This thing is called a ghost tool?” A-Liu subconsciously covered his eyes behind the sunglasses.

Even Old Yan, who didn’t feel much at first, gradually came up to him after hearing what Su Zimo said. As a member of Dawn Organization, Old Yan even wanted to take out his signal-less cell phone to secretly take a picture of Su Zimo.

But before Old Yan could open the camera app, Zhang Xiaoqing appeared before him with a white skirt, bloody blindfold, and her head tilted at a ninety degree angle, quickly causing Old Yan to put the phone away.

“Yes. The ‘Ghost Eye of the Berserker’ have a deterrent effect on certain malicious spirits.” Su Zimo stroked Peng Peng’s soft hair and answered with a smile.

“So what about this one?” A-Liu took out a dagger that Su Zimo had seen many times before from behind his waist.

“The ‘Nightmare Brand Standard Dagger’ isn’t bad for fighting, but it’s a bit useless when dealing with ghosts.” Su Zimo only glanced at the familiar dagger. He could recall the string of meaningless text boxes.

“You’re… an appraiser?!” An An, the girl on the side, suddenly showed a surprised expression. “An appraiser who appraises equipment?”

“?” Su Zimo was stunned from An An’s words, then felt that she was correct. Wearing this pair of weird glasses, he was indeed an appraiser. Although he didn’t know why he couldn’t appraise the umbrella where the ghost umbrella resided, they were enough to appraise most ghost tools.

With that said, he could indeed be regarded as a qualified appraiser.

“Lovely lady, if you want to sell goods, you naturally need to have a deep understanding of the goods.” Su Zimo smiled at An An, then turned to look at A-Liu and Old Yan. “Do you know why these things are called ghost tools?”

“As the name suggests, they contain ghost essence.” Su Zimo didn’t wait for A-Liu and the other to answer. He pointer to the standard dagger in A-Liu’s hand. “For example: this kind of weak ghost tool may only be contaminated with a small amount of ghost essence. Some more powerful ghost tools may hold more ghost essense.”

“Then this eye…”

“In that eye, there is an entire ghost.” Su Zimo’s eyes were half-squinted behind the glasses. Under the dim street lamp, they held a mysterious light. “Although I don’t know how many times you’ve used its power, it’s been awakened by you.”

“Nonsense. Do you know how much it cost me to get this eye? How could this kind of thing be a consumable? This is obviously the power that allows me to live in the nightmare world!” A-Liu desperately shook his head, obviously hoping that what Su Zimo said wasn’t true.

“Unfortunately, before you clear your task, that eye may become more terrifying than the nightmare itself.” Su Zimo faced his potential future customer, and very politely used his words to avoid directly saying that the ghost eye would kill him.

“I… I have a friend in the real world. He has a very important thing that needs to be identified. It may be a ghost tool. How can we find you, appraiser!” Ling-jie walked up from behind them in a professional suit, looking at Su Zimo anxiously.

……

Originally, Su Zimo wanted to tell them about Ayuyuyu, but since he didn’t know why he had received the appraiser’s role, he paused. In the end, he didn’t give them An Yu Yi Yu’s address, but still gave them a charming smile. “If we’re destined, we will meet.”

At that time, Su Zimo was a little envious of the snake’s ‘Li Gui Shroud.’ Although he would never enjoy the feeling of wearing a second-hand shroud, he really needed something that could change his appearance… or at least a prop that could hide his appearance.

Did he need to prepare a mask?

“What happened to your friend?” Old Yan said something that made Su Zimo a little concerned. “It seems that some strange things have appeared in the real world recently.”

Some strange things have also appeared in the real world?

“Let’s talk about it later.” Without a response from the appraiser, Ling-jie had no intention of revealing too much information about herself.

Su Zimo took a sip of the mango tea specially prepared by Ghost Umbrella. As it’s sweetness entered his throat, he changed the subject and said, “You don’t seem to want to trade. Moreover, appraisal of ghost tools in this shop requires an appraisal fee, and only trading is accepted. So if you don’t want to patronize my business, it’s better to clear this world as soon as possible. It’s better to leave early, lest your nights be long and filled with dark dreams.”

At the end, Su Zimo looked pointedly at A-Liu.

Old Yan and the others seemed to understand Su Zimo’s glance instantly, and they couldn’t help but back away from A-Liu. They already knew that A-Liu may have a… malicious spirit about to revive.

“I won’t cause trouble for you.” A-Liu shrugged. An indifferent smile appeared on his white face beneath his sunglasses. Then he walked over to Su Zimo’s chair by himself and took off his backpack. He poured out some common biscuits.

“Actually, you can try to see what the twentieth nightmare world is like.” Seeing those trainers walking towards another figure, Su Zimo put a relatively small bottle from his backpack on the ground next to A-Liu. It contained some fruit tea that Ghost Umbrella prepared.

“……” A-Liu looked up at Su Zimo for a while, but since he was wearing sunglasses, his eyes couldn’t be seen. “Are you guys always watching, omniscient and omnipotent?”

“I don’t know much about other existences, but as far as I’m concerned, I only know a little bit about mice.” Su Zimo put on the appearance that he knew everything, but in the end he was just making conversation to get words from A-Liu’s mouth.

“Hahaha. I don’t like the term mouse, but there really isn’t a better name than that.” A-Liu paused for a while. “Is it true that the ghost in this eye will run out?”

“What do you think?”

“There’s no way to restrain it?”

Su Zimo shook his head. His business field wasn’t related to that.

“Well, I won’t die this time, right?” A-Liu unceremoniously twisted the bottle and took a sip. “My eye is different from the other ghost tools you mentioned. I can’t just throw it aside and not use it. I’m going to die anyway, it’s the same as anywhere.”

A-Liu pushed away the sunglasses as he spoke. The bloodshot ghost eye made a shocking contrast to the other half of his face.

Su Zimo couldn’t imagine how he brought that face back into the real world!

“How many times are you missing?” Su Zimo gracefully placed the small amount of snacks into the food box.

“Hahaha, guess?” A-Liu finished a whole biscuit, poured the drink into his mouth, then patted his butt and left.

Su Zimo knew that those trainers who had gone through the nightmare world and ‘killed’ themselves so many times would have some psychological obstacles, so he didn’t plan to play an intimate role with them.

It’s impossible for those who haven’t experienced it to empathise.

On the other side, Old Yan and the others found two dusty workers on the side of the road. They were dressed in grey uniforms and helmets. They looked like they had just started work.

“Excuse me, what is your identity?”

Old Yan asked a normal question, but received no answer.

“Excuse me, where are you going?” Ling-jie off to the side looked at the countdown on the inner side of her right arm, then stepped up to ask, “Where does this road lead?”

[Us?] This time, the two workers reacted with dazed expressions. [We just left the night shift and are about to head back to sleep. Sorry, we’re so tired. We want to go to sleep.]

“Isn’t it tiring to walk back?” A-Liu’s voice came from the side. “If I’m tired, even if I want to save money and won’t take a taxi, I would still be able to afford a bus ride, right?”

[Yeah. We’re so tired, we can’t walk anymore.] The two workers didn’t answer directly, but continued to walk forward with their tired legs.

“A-Liu?” Old Yan looked at A-Liu, who was some distance away from them, as if he wanted to ask something.

“Have you not understood yet?” A-Liu leaned on a tree not too far away, looking back at the figures who were still walking forward. “Everyone on this road is walking. That’s a strange thing in itself. They shouldn’t be walking here at all.”

“Then, where should they be?” An An asked uncertainly.

“They should be in a car.” A-Liu said, and laughed crazily. “Hahahaha, they should be in a car! Hahahaha, they should be in a car!”

Su Zimo, who was sitting there, packed up his things and asked the ghost umbrella to take the trapped Peng Peng and Zhang Xiaoqing back together, and put the umbrella into his backpack before rising from his seat. Regardless of whether he was an appraiser or a businessman, these trainers had already been clarified about his identity, and there was no need for two shop assistants to deliberately help out.

“Sure enough, he’s a veteran trainer.” Su Zimo murmured while looking at the crazy A-Liu over there.

When he first saw the late student and the tour guide searching for tourists, Su Zimo came up with an answer similar to A-Liu’s.

Those figures who were walking along the highway were supposed to be in cars, but they forgot about it for some reason and kept walking along the road. Only when asked by a trainer would they remember a little information.

“There are at least two cars.” Su Zimo looked at the figures and analyzed to himself. “One is a touring bus…”

There were at least fifty or sixty people walking down the road, maybe more. Even a fifty-seat touring bus may not be able to fit everyone, not to mention the late student and the two workers who obviously weren’t tourists.

“There’s also a bus.” When Su Zimo deduced the answer, he felt a sudden chill behind him.

Roads, touring buses, bus shuttles, nightmare world, ‘people’ wandering in hesitation…

With all those factors combined, Su Zimo suddenly had a very bad premonition.

Translator’s Notes:

Our boy is a simple appraiser now. Ayuyuyu is a mere pawn shop.\n