Chapter 55
Survival Games (Arc 5.2)
Jing Yang used the system to retrieve information about Easy n.o.bility. This person"s real name was Yu Jian, and he had been a student at the same university as Ding Nuoyang and Zhao Chao.
This person had been secretly in love with Zhao Chao since college, but he had always not dared to confess to Zhao Chao, only daring to be like a voyeur, often secretly stalking and paying attention to him.
Zhao Chao didn"t even know that this person existed, because Yu Jian really was too mediocre, he couldn"t even be considered average. No matter whether it was within a crowd or a brief encounter on the road, he would never make other people take another look at him, and even if they saw him they wouldn"t be able to remember this kind of person.
In college Yu Jian was always unsociable and had no friends, so no one knew that he liked Zhao Chao. Zhao Chao was an athletic and handsome man, so a lot of people at school knew him, and everyone also knew that he liked Ding Nuoyang and was pursuing him.
Yu Jian was very jealous in his heart of Ding Nuoyang, jealous that he had such an outstanding appearance, jealous that he had a good family, jealous that he was liked by Zhao Chao and so many people. If he had the same things as Ding Nuoyang, he would also be pursued by others, he would also be able to live in the sunlight, rather than just hiding in a corner to peek at them.
Every time he looked in a mirror, he would be incomparably disgusted by his own face. He knew that even if he went to confess to Zhao Chao, with such a face, he would definitely never succeed. He wanted to change his own appearance, but this country prohibited cosmetic surgery, unless an appropriate department gave him an evaluation of face damage. Plus the cost of cosmetic surgery was extremely high, and he would never even be able to afford it.
He would often stalk Zhao Chao and pretend to pa.s.s by him accidentally. When Zhao Chao was chatting with his friends in the school cafeteria, he would go sit in a corner and eavesdrop. He knew that Zhao Chao was playing some game, and was very happy, because he also liked to play games. They actually had the same hobbies, could this be considered some sort of fate?
He went and bought that game, and when he lay down in a gaming cabin he had borrowed, his mood became unstoppably excited. He thought about what kind of coincidental encounter he should make in order to let Zhao Chao notice him. First of all, he definitely had to have a handsome face, one that would let Zhao Chao see himself and never be able to forget it. When he thought of this, Ding Nuoyang"s exquisite face appeared in his mind.
He considered how to design his own appearance in the game, but only high-level members could set their own appearance and image. Ordinary players could only follow the system in setting their character based on their real appearance. There would be a certain level of beautification, but it would still not be much different from the player"s true appearance.
Looking at the cost of becoming a high-level member, even if he took out all of his current savings, he would still be a long way off. So he desperately worked hard to save money, he obviously knew that after his parents gave him money for him to pay his tuition they would only have enough to feed themselves, but he still found all kinds of reasons to ask his family for more money.
He finally met Zhao Chao in the game, with a face three or four points similar to Ding Nuoyang, and even designed to be even more perfect than Ding Nuoyang"s, and successfully attracted Zhao Chao"s attention. Zhao Chao would often mention his matters in the game with his friends, and after he overheard them, he would construct all sorts of coincidences in the game and then logically became friends with Zhao Chao.
After graduating from college, Zhao Chao became a professional gamer. This made Yu Jian very excited, because later on they would have even more time to interact in the game. When he began to take the game as a reality, enjoyed his ambiguous relationship with Zhao Chao, and enjoyed being pursued by other people, Zhao Chao suddenly announced that the male G.o.d he had been pursuing for many years had finally agreed to go out with him. Zhao Chao even brought him into the game and introduced him to all of the team members.
The Easy n.o.bility in the game and the Yu Jian in reality were two completely different people. In reality, Yu Jian was the model image of a sloppy homeboy. In the game world, Easy n.o.bility was an aloof beauty pursued by countless people, unattainable like a mountain flower, and only in front of Dark Flame would he show his warmth.
Ding Nuoyang suddenly entered the game world and stepped in between him and Zhao Chao, which made him very angry. But in the game world, he could crush Ding Nuoyang in all aspects, no matter how outstanding Ding Nuoyang was in reality, in here, he could take good care of him however he wanted.
He personally watched Ding Nuoyang be torn apart by monsters, feeling incomparably carefree in his heart. From then on, Ding Nuoyang would not only never appear in the game, but even in reality, he would also cease to exist.
Everyone in their team very smoothly entered the top 100 ranks, thanks to the high-level equipment Ding Nuoyang had paid for. When Yu Jian had helped the team members refine weapons, he had privately taken away quite a few things, and adding on the things that he had made Ding Nuoyang buy, he traded them all in the game shop for cash, and his savings could be said to be increasing rapidly.
The country"s best technical personnel used much effort to rescue a part of the players later on, and in the end only a small number of people died because rescue came too late. Ding Nuoyang was one of them.
After Yu Jian returned to reality, he deliberately destroyed his face, and then with his savings over the years, as well as the money he had gotten from his teammates and Ding Nuoyang in the game, he got a facelift, with a face six to seven points similar to how he looked in the game. And he even specifically changed his name to YuJian.
Previously he had always found all sorts of reasons to refuse to meet up with his teammates, but after his surgery, he finally appeared at the team party. As soon as he appeared, he immediately stunned everyone, and even though his appearance was not completely the same as in the game, but this level had already surpa.s.sed how they had envisioned him.
Zhao Chao had originally been immersed in sorrow over Ding Nuoyang"s death, but once he saw Yu Jian after his facelift, what sadness and sorrow were all thrown to the back of his mind. The two people in reality also quickly came together, and the teammates were even envious of Zhao Chao, saying that no matter whether it was in the game or in reality, he could embrace such a beauty.
~
Jing Yang opened his eyes and looked out the window, only to find that it had already turned dark. The game time was also comparable to the time in the real world. He raised his hand, extended his fingers and moved them slightly. It really felt quite real, all of the feelings that they would have in reality were also contained here, including wanting to sleep when tired, needing to pee, and so on.
For Jing Yang, in the game world revenge was simply too easy. After all, killing people in the game was not illegal, he could even go kill all of his teammates right now. Plus this is the world of the strong, and collecting a group of little brothers to follow his orders would also not be some difficult matter.
But directly killing them would really be too cheap for them, and he had never liked to avenge himself by murdering people, since that didn"t give him any pleasure. He had always felt that death was not punishment, since once someone dies, they are released, and only when they live longer would the pain last longer.
Compared to physical torture, he prefers to torment these people"s minds and hearts. Only watching them be hit, that slowly collapsing appearance, would make him feel the feeling of revenge.
Jing Yang believed that when these teammates saw the true appearance of Easy n.o.bility and thought back to when they used to pursue him, their expressions would definitely be very enjoyable.
Then this time, just let him come to act as the savior, come to save the lives of those trapped in this game. But vengeance will be reported, resentment will be returned, he could save the innocent, but those people, he would definitely not let them live well.
~
After dawn, Jing Yang heard a knock on the door. He went over to open the door, where he saw Dark Flame standing there. Jing Yang asked, "Is there something?”
"We are going to the mall, you also come ba, see if there is anything you want to buy." Dark Flame said.
This meant that they wanted to let him go be an ATM again. Jing Yang would definitely not continue to give them another penny, but he really needed to buy some things, so he would just go together with them.
Ever since they got Ding Nuoyang this sponsor, this team would always come to the highest level commercial street.
They were just like upstarts, suddenly becoming very rich made them unable to resist wanting to buy down everything they had previously only been able to look at but had no money to buy. No matter whether or not they were useful, they would first just buy it. In the envious eyes of others, they were particularly proud, with an appearance of casual extravagance, as if the person paying the money was themselves.
Jing Yang chose some things that he needed to use, and then followed the team to shop, boredly looking at those goods.
Easy n.o.bility looked at Dark Flame walking beside Jing Yang, filled with so much hatred his teeth started itching. Before Ding Nuoyang had come to the game, the person walking beside Dark Flame had always been him. He picked out several goods with sky-high prices in a row, thinking, when I empty out all of your money, I will get rid of you, and make you disappear forever from between Dark Flame and me.
When they came outside the billing shop, everyone just stood at the door motionlessly, righteously waiting for Jing Yang to go in to pay while they stood outside casually chatting.
Jing Yang went in to pay for the things he had to buy and only went out after confirming that he had received the goods. As soon as they saw him come out, everyone else immediately opened their goods reception page to see the things that they had bought.
They looked at the empty page with nothing on it and thought there was some delay, but after they waited a while, there was still nothing.
Dark Flame found that his own and everyone else"s pages were all empty, and prepared to go inside to ask what the matter was. Before he went in he first turned to ask Jing Yang, "You"re sure you paid the money, right?”
Jing Yang expressionlessly said, "I only paid for my own money, for the things that you all want to buy, please pay for yourself from now on.”
Everyone was stunned and looked at Jing Yang in shock. When Dark Flame came back to his senses, he asked, "Nuoyang, what"s wrong with you?”
"Nothing, I just think that the money that I have already paid is more than enough, completely beyond what I was supposed to pay for this team. So in the future I will not be paying a penny.”
Easy n.o.bility sarcastically said, "In this team, only you are the one completely being protected, and besides having some money, you have no other use. If you are not willing to pay for the team, why should we let you join us, and why would we want to protect you.”
Everyone else also nodded in agreement.
"Ha." Jing Yang scoffed coldly. "The money that I have already helped you pay is completely enough to hire a bodyguard team here. Do you think that I only have your team to choose from? I just have to give a price now, and immediately there will be other teams lined up to let me join, and their att.i.tude would definitely be hundreds of times better than yours.”
Everyone"s expressions immediately changed, because they knew that Jing Yang was saying the truth. In the past when their equipment had been emptied, rich people would be welcomed wherever they went. It was just that Ding Nuoyang had never resisted before, so they also didn"t think of this matter, and now that Jing Yang had directly pointed it out, they also had no way to refute his words.
In fact, Ding Nuoyang himself had also never thought of this point, for one because he did not understand enough about this game world, and second because it was his first time encountering such a situation. It was very likely that he may even lose his life here, so his normally very clever and calm mind would also inevitably become muddled because of the urgent situation. Thinking that life was most important, he could also just endure everything else.
"Forget it, forget it." Dark Flame stood out to calm the situation, and said to the other team members, "There"s still some time until the next task layer opens anyway, so next time we can just come back to buy the goods again. Let"s just go back today, I will talk him out of it.”
They had all chosen items but didn"t pay the money, so everyone was fined a certain amount of money, and because the items they had chosen were very expensive, the amount fined was also quite high. On the way back, the team members" faces were all not great.
Using the transmission array to go back to the residence, Jing Yang went straight back to his room. Dark Flame looked at the players, and then followed Jing Yang upstairs. "What"s wrong with you today? Everyone is a team, and if we have an internal contradiction at this time, we may all be trapped in this game. Why do you still care so much about money at this time? Being able to leave the game alive is most important, otherwise no matter how much money you have, you wouldn"t be alive to spend it. After all, you have money, so if you give the team some more, it also wouldn"t matter too much.”
"Since you"re so generous, why don"t you just help them pay yourself? Being so generous with other people"s money, you really have nerve. Sure enough, birds of feather flock together, people are just like their friends, people like you are just like those teammates of yours, selfish, hypocritical, and greedy." When Jing Yang finished, he forcefully closed the door.
"I…" Dark Flame wanted to explain to him, but was almost hit in the face by the door. After standing outside for a bit, he could only touch his nose and go downstairs.
~
Almost everything in the game was based on reality as the standard, and all of the abilities would require you to slowly learn them in the game. If you learned it well then your ability would be higher, if you didn"t learn well your ability would be lower.
Jing Yang took out the items that he had just bought and started to learn refining. The refining process was quite difficult, it was not like you could just take out the materials and design and then the finished product would automatically be made. Every weapon required the alchemist to personally know the methods for refining it, and then build it himself. If you didn"t know the method for refining something, you would definitely not be able to make it, and even if you did know the method, there would be a high chance of failure during the refining process.
Jing Yang originally could directly just use the system to enhance his refining ability, but if his refining level suddenly rose so high, it would be very likely for him to arouse the suspicion of the technical staff back in the real world.
When he was in the mall, he had spent quite a bit of money to buy all of the refining books at once, so he took them out and started refining some simple weapons based on what they said. It seemed like he was refining while learning, but in fact he was just using his system to control it. This way, even if it was found that he was especially good at refining, they would only feel that he was some sort of genius who could succeed once he read it once, and they would not go think about some other problems.
Translator Notes:
[1] too mediocre – 其貌不扬, idiom, means nothing special to look at, unprepossessing
[2] unsociable – 独来独往, idiom, means he comes and goes alone, keeps to himself
[3] face damage – basically the government would only allow for cosmetic surgery if his face was proven to be damaged
[4] a mountain flower – 高岭之花, this is just the literal translation but basically means like a flower on a tall mountain, is very rare and far away and unattainable, something that can only be aspired to but out of reach
[5] Yu Jian – same pinyin but different character: 于简 with the same 简 as in Easy n.o.bility vs the original 于健
[6] they are released – 一了百了, means like once the main problem is solved all troubles are solved, death ends all of someone"s troubles
[7] being generous with other people"s money – 慷他人之慨, basically means when you"re spending other people"s money you pretend to be generous
[8] birds of feather flock together – 物以类聚, basically just the idiom, like draws like, similar things come together
Random Notes:
A little over 1 hour: 10:15 am – 11:30 am, for 4.2k characters to 3.1k words. For some reason this felt like it was way longer than yesterday, probably bc I was translating while in cla.s.s so I felt it took forever. Doesn’t the protag feel so annoying in every arc?