Chapter 41

This was medieval European architecture. Vines of briar and rose climbed the drab walls, blooming with tender, vibrant flowers. Low eaves formed the streets, and at the end of the road stood a towering Catholic church.

Xie De had gotten separated from them again. He was currently inside that church, feeling like life had no meaning.

They had already entered the movie Hu Wei had drawn, arriving at the so-called second dream level. Their current memories shouldn’t have been affected too much yet.

This place was much warmer and more peaceful than the other movies, with not a trace of anything eerie to be seen. It’s just that right now he couldn’t determine which movie this actually was.

Outside was just a muddy road, with horse-drawn carriages traveling on it. It was simply as if he had time-traveled. So where was everyone else?

There was no one in the church, and no one came to receive him either. He casually wandered around and found a long poem carved onto a relatively secluded wall.

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

……”

—Excerpt from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18

Although he didn’t know what kind of spirit it represented, it was obviously a love poem.

Xie De stared at it for a moment.

“Gibberish, don’t you think this movie might be Romeo and Juliet? It fits the romance genre.”

Gibberish slowly spun and spun. Affected by the dream state, Gibberish coming online was lagging terribly. It couldn’t even form a coherent sentence after half a day.

“Could bzz… could, could be bzz… be right…”

“Forget it, you better stop talking, you’re lagging so much you sound like electronic music.”

A ‘server busy’ icon on the phone was still spinning, “…You wait bzz… wait for me to recover bzz… recover…”

Gibberish had crashed yet again.

Xie De tapped his phone and found there was absolutely no reaction. He wanted to complain, but didn’t even know where to start.

He shoved his phone into his pocket. It was a good thing this place wasn’t scary, and he hadn’t encountered anyone, let alone any ghosts. Otherwise, with the other big shots not around and Gibberish crashing, being all by himself, he felt he might as well find a place to hide first. If he couldn’t hide, he might as well just die.

However, having said that, Xie De still walked out of the church, observing this medieval European town.

Fortunately, all the residents acted as if they didn’t see him. He seemed to be made of air. No one cast a single glance his way, just going about their own business.

But all the residents were grey and dusty, he couldn’t make out anything at all. Even worse, the language the residents used here was a type of English with an accent, leaving Xie De completely dumbfounded. He wasn’t a simultaneous interpreter, he couldn’t understand a word!

Before he could completely give up hope, a luxurious carriage passed by, pasting a notice on a conspicuous part of the town.

Although it was still in English, he could at least translate a little bit through guessing. Xie De stood behind the residents who were gathered around watching the excitement, trying hard to read the writing on it.

Some kind of party? Held at the Montague mansion?

Montague? Wait, Xie De suddenly remembered, wasn’t this Romeo’s family? He had guessed right, he had indeed entered the movie Romeo and Juliet!

Wei Yanchi was so smart, he should have guessed it before him. Maybe he was already at the place where the party was being held.

Just as Xie De turned around, his line of sight suddenly met a very quiet presence. That presence spoke very calmly.

“Hello, you must be the 39 Wei Yanchi mentioned.”

This was a very faint and pale person, although it was a bit strange to describe someone like that.

His hair and eyebrows were both a very light brownish-yellow. His whole person also had a very ordinary skin tone, with slightly upturned lips that made him always look like he was smiling, but looking closely, one would find his expression to be extremely indifferent.

Xie De had a feeling that if this man hadn’t made a sound, he would never have noticed him.

A wave of vigilance rose. When had this man stood behind him?

“Who are you?” His voice was unavoidably cold.

“My name is Hu Songlin. I’m a veteran player who entered this scenario, an old friend of Wei Yanchi’s. I’ve heard him mention you.”

Hu Songlin shrugged indifferently, saying words lacking any sincerity.

“You can come with me, I will take you to find him.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Whatever, don’t believe me then.”

Uh…

This pale man was a bit strange, but thinking that a protagonist’s friend would be like this, it seemed very normal, right?

As the protagonist of a world, how could he have ordinary friends?

So, Xie De thought for a while—actually he didn’t think much at all—and with a clear and foolish mindset, planned to trust Hu Songlin’s words.

The tall silver-haired man even curled the corners of his mouth in a good mood. His green eyes, full of unclear meaning, sized him up and down before spitting out a single sound.

“Okay.”

A flash of surprise crossed Hu Songlin’s calm eyes, but his entire emotional state was too bland, so this hint of surprise could be ignored.

He walked forward, with Xie De following closely behind. Before they had taken ten steps, Gibberish finally managed to come online. The ‘server busy’ label on the phone switched to a cute emoticon.

“(づ￣³￣)づ╭❤～ Host! I’m back! I’m full of energy and tricks again. Hahaha…”

“Mm…”

Before Xie De could continue, Gibberish let out a familiar, sharp shriek.

“What is that thing in front of you?! Why are you with Villain Number Two?!”

“Ah?”

Gibberish seriously flipped through its data.

“Hu Songlin is not from the laboratory; he is from another mysterious organization, the Club. According to the current timeline, he shouldn’t be coming out this early! But it’s very possible that because we hid the villain, we disrupted the timeline, which is why this guy appeared early.”

Xie De immediately wanted to stop a bit. He didn’t want to follow him anymore.

“Is he… dangerous?”

“How should I put it? I searched the script and found that Hu Songlin’s superpower is his absolute luck. Even if you were to shoot at him right now, you might miss for all sorts of reasons. At the same time, he could just stand completely still and still clear this scenario.”

“…Heaven is truly unfair.”

Gibberish nodded.

“That’s exactly right, but when God opens a door for him, He closes a window. Although he possesses absolute luck, he also has a drawback, which is a very low presence. Not only is his presence in a crowd very low, but his presence in memories is also very low. This results in the fact that no matter what he wears or what he does, everyone completely fails to remember him the second time they meet. Even if they stay together the whole time, they will subconsciously ignore him.”

No wonder he was so vigilant just now but hadn’t felt someone standing behind him at all.

Xie De felt completely speechless. For a socially anxious person like him, how the hell was that a drawback? This guy in front of him had scored all the good stuff. A bad mood named jealousy burned in Xie the Salted Fish’s heart.

“Wait a minute, let me ask, how is he Villain Number Two?”

Gibberish scratched its head.

“Uh, probably because he felt bored. He possesses absolute luck and his presence is absolutely low, which led to basically nothing ever happening in his life. Then he got very bored, then he turned psychotic, he went crazy, and started wreaking havoc on people everywhere.”

Xie De understood.

“If you don’t perish in silence, you turn psychotic in silence? Holy crap, now I want to punch him a couple of times. Is he really Wei Yanchi’s friend?”

“No, as you know, he turned psychotic in silence. Because the protagonist is one of the very few people who would notice him, he treated the protagonist as his archenemy, just like those common villains in shounen manga, and specifically hunts down and kills the people around the protagonist. Yue Xiamo is killed by him.”

“…F*ck, so now he’s hunting me? Can I strike first and put two bullets in him?”

Gibberish started screaming again.

“Hold steady first, I’m trying to figure out where the hell this guy is taking you!”

“Ghost knows.”

Xie De, expressionless, stared dead at Hu Songlin.

“Gibberish, I feel like I’m suddenly annoyed by the sight of him.”

A terrifying killing intent surged like the tide. Hu Songlin looked back in novelty, and immediately met a pair of eyes as cold as a deep, icy pool. Perhaps it was a psychological effect, but even the surrounding air felt piercingly cold.