Chapter 52 - Devil Exchange
Translator: Yuzu
“Xiaoxiao, are you going to eat?” The girl with braids pushed Luo Xiaoxiao with her left hand. She had her head down and played with her phone in her right hand, looking like she was probably chatting with someone else.
Luo Xiaoxiao’s expression is a bit dull, and her eyes are a bit empty. She sat dumbly in the chair and stayed in the same position for almost half an hour. Usually, she would get up early in the morning to clean up because of her love of beauty.
However, surprisingly, she did not wear any makeup or even lipstick. Her hair was also a mess, which made her look as if she was ten years older.
The moment the girl pushed her, she was so shocked that she stood up from her chair. Her movements were so fierce that she startled the girl who pushed her.
“I’m going, Xiaoxiao. Are you okay? What’s wrong with you today? You look like you’re in a state of shock.” The girl said, intending to touch Luo Xiaoxiao’s shoulder. The latter’s pupils contracted sharply, and she subconsciously covered her face with her hand as if she didn’t want to be seen like this at all.
The girl frowned as she saw this, her face turned to the side, looking a little ugly for a moment, and her eyebrows furrowed.
Luo Xiaoxiao just reacted as if there was something dirty on her phone. Thinking of this, her face became a bit ugly as well. She curled her lips and snorted with discontent and angrily said, “If you don’t want to go, then don’t go. What kind of att.i.tude is that? You’re sick!”
After that, she turned around without looking at Luo Xiaoxiao’s face, which was actually pale to the point of exhaustion. She rushed towards the door, her small leather shoes making an unpleasant sound as they stepped on the floor. When she reached the door, she even intentionally pushed the door hard to make a loud noise.
Only Luo Xiaoxiao remained in place.
Luo Xiaoxiao moved her lips; her entire face was bloodless, and her lips were pale. She stiffly turned her head and looked in the direction the girl left with her hands shaking a bit. Her legs went limp, and she fell right to her knees as if she was a lost soul.
After leaving, the more the girl thought about it, the angrier she became. Her eyebrows furrowed together, the fingers of her right hand tightly squeezed the phone, and her expression was somewhat twisted.
She admits that she was usually relatively close to Luo Xiaoxiao, living in the same dorm room and often going to dinner together. But in reality, she also had to admit that she envied Luo Xiaoxiao and was intensely jealous of her at the same time.
Luo Xiaoxiao was the flower of their department. She was good looking, her grades were among the best, and her family was also very good. Many people were chasing after her, not only in their own department but also in other departments. Even in other schools, people were showing her affection.
The girl kicked her toes, and the more she thought about it, the more it was unpleasant, and the more the sour taste simply couldn’t stop coming out.
To tell the truth, it was evident that she was not bad looking and was otherwise considered a standout as well. Still, when she walked with Luo Xiaoxiao, anyone would only notice Luo Xiaoxiao and not herself because Luo Xiaoxiao had a unique temperament that was eye-catching as she walked.
This made her prideful and compet.i.tive heart secretly dissatisfied. She felt that Luo Xiaoxiao was just a flower vase, which was not as good as herself.
It was unclear if she was so engrossed in her thoughts that she kept her head down and focused on curling her toes, but she didn’t even notice that she was coming up against a tall boy. The two of them b.u.mped right into each other.
“Cla.s.smate, are you okay?” The boy stopped soon after the collision and pulled the girl, asking softly in a very concerned voice.
The girl was stunned as if she didn’t expect the other to be such a gentleman. Her cheeks were a little red; she fidgeted and stammered, “No, it’s fine.”
With hard features, this guy was handsome, the kind of looks that ordinary girls liked the most. He was not greasy, but very fresh and dressed simply, with a plain white t-shirt and sneakers.
w.a.n.g Yeze’s mouth slyly turned upward. He smiled and stepped forward to help the person up. His two eyes were like a swirling vortex capable of sucking the person in.
He grabbed the girl’s hand so that the latter was forced to look at him and then stared intently into her eyes with his own.
The latter’s expression slowly diminished at speed visible to the naked eye, and the light that used to shine in her eyes began to disappear. Her eyes became hollow, and her entire body became stuck like a program that had been disconnected. Her whole body paused in place, like a soulless person.
w.a.n.g Yeze saw the situation and hooked the corners of his mouth. His voice was obviously plain but compelling as he stared at the girl closely and hypnotized, “Next, you must do as I say.”
The girl paused, her arms and legs were stiff, and she nodded dumbly, like a puppet.
w.a.n.g Yeze’s heart was tingling with joy at the sight of this. He was somewhat proud of himself, not expecting that this golden finger the system had prepared for him was quite useful.
Although the number of times he could use it wasn’t much, it was better than nothing at all.
Thinking of this, w.a.n.g Yeze curled his lips and could not help but start calling out to the system in his heart, with a bit of pride, ‘Hey, system, are you there?’
No one picked up the conversation.
w.a.n.g Yeze wasn’t annoyed this time because the system had been offline several times recently. Still, each time it was harmless, so he didn’t take it seriously.
But he forgot that his only connection to this world and the original world was through the system. If the system wasn’t online five out of ten times, the situation was already so serious that his personal safety, all his guarantees, had been reduced to nothing.
Perhaps there would be no way to escape at any time when the crisis came.
Xiao Chen paused in his dorm room, and, not knowing what came to mind, he opened the school’s posting as if he had a sense of some sort.
As he had expected, the hot posts on the school’s posting bar were related to the two recent murders.
Xiao Chen held up his gla.s.ses; the bridge of his nose was very straight. He slid his hand over the screen of his phone in a somewhat contemplative manner, turning the pages of the posts and slowly moving them down.
Suddenly, his hand faltered, and his attention was drawn to a post that had been published long ago but was coming up on top of the highlights.
The post’s name is: Let’s Talk About That Wishing Tree at School, You Don’t Have to Look to Know, You’ll Be Surprised.
1L: International practice, the first floor is the landlord, and the second floor talks about the matter.
2L: As you should know, the history of our school is not too long, not even ten years. And the land of our school is also different from other schools. It’s not some kind of longevity mountain or a ma.s.s grave. This place was formerly a relatively high-cla.s.s hospital.
This hospital went bankrupt due to a raging fire back then. It is said that quite a few people died because of the fire, I’m not sure about the specifics, but the number was definitely not less than three digits. The hospital was also burdened with a huge amount of compensation.
Oh, and someone might have to ask at this point what this has to do with the Wishing Tree.
Do you know how long the Wishing Tree has been living? The landlord has a friend in this area who has observed this tree, from the tree trunk, branches, bark, and so on, to a.n.a.lyze and concluded that this tree is probably a hundred years old.
Speaking of which, still don’t get it?
The fire back then, not to mention the people, the plants, and everything else couldn’t have survived! But this Wishing Tree had actually survived to this day?
OK, at this time, some people may say that the greenery in the school is transplanted from another place, and this Wishing Tree might be too.
The landlord doesn’t have much to say about this, so let’s go straight to the picture.
【Photo】
3L: And the magical thing about the Wishing Tree is much more than just that it survived the fire.
The Wishing Tree is very robust, entirely as big as any other tree. Still, the strange thing is that all year round, his branches and leaves are yellow, like a frozen season, and won’t grow at all.
This is one of the strange points.
I’m sure you’ve heard many school legends about the Wishing Tree, such as stories about people worshipping the tree in the middle of the night and about old women turning into young girls.
While all of this is yet to be proven, these campus rumors actually cast a mysterious light on the Wishing Tree.
We also call it the Wishing Tree because of the unknown grade year that started hanging red strips of cloth with wishes written on them on the tree trunk. Slowly, more and more people did so, turning the tree into a school landmark.
Xiao Chen clicked on the picture, his throat moved. His nerves were stimulated, and his eyes were a bit moist.
This picture was an old photo taken with a mobile phone. It could be seen that this photo was already several years old, and the side was even a little yellowish.
The content of the picture is also very simple.
A window, a tree, and you can still see the incredibly large telephone pole in the distance. And the angle of the photo is a little strange, the photographer was inside the house, not outside, and there’s a sense of confined beauty to it.
However, it is unknown if the photo has been smashed or not, but it is all wrinkled. It can be seen that the later keeper had restored it to make the picture as flat as possible.
Xiao Chen didn’t know what he had thought of, but he suddenly raised the phone to the wall, maintaining a position to look at the picture.
Xiao Chen’s eyes were fiery and a bit stiff. He backed up, his fingers crossing the screen of the phone, and his arms shook. He hurriedly withdrew the phone and exhaled a breath.
The angle of this photo……
Has he ever been to this place?
Thinking of this, Xiao Chen felt a stabbing pain in his head, and whatever thought that had originally emerged was interrupted by this pain. He had to hold his hand on his temple position and gasp.
The boy looked out of the window. He poked his finger at the gla.s.s, blinked in boredom, and didn’t know what to think. His small head turned to look at the teenager sitting on the sofa, quietly reading a book. The teenager was wearing a hospital gown, and the wide collar exposed his collarbone. The teenager’s frame was very slender and gave people a sense of sickly beauty.
Perhaps the boy’s gaze was too direct, but the teenager put down the book he was holding, locked eyes with him, beckoned, and said softly, “Come, sit next to me.”
It was also because the teenager looked so soft and weak, making the wound on his right hand that was bandaged very obvious and hard to ignore. There was still blood on the gauze, and you could tell that a finger was missing from that area of the wound.
The boy rushed over obediently and climbed slowly onto the couch. He stomped his short legs and wiggled his little feet. Suddenly, he pointed out the window and said innocently, “Why don’t you ever go out?”
Every time he comes inside to play with him.
The youth didn’t get angry at his innocent words, but his eyes became a little darker, and he didn’t know what to think about. After the boy stared at his face for almost two minutes, the youth couldn’t help but laugh and said, “Do you know about the Ivory Tower?”
The boy shook his head honestly.
The young man continued, “The Ivory Tower speaks of a dream realm beyond the real world, away from life.” He paused, the corners of his eyes rising, “This room is my Ivory Tower.”
The boy, with a muddled face, thought for a moment and said, “It’s like Rapunzel, right?”
Rapunzel, a girl who was locked up in a tower by a witch, and enjoyed her solitude. She fell in love with a prince and was left alone in the wilderness by the witch.
The young man smiled again at the words and just touched the boy’s head.
Wrong, it was only half right.
Everyone says that the Ivory Tower is good. It was only simple and pure, but how can anyone in this world keep living in the Ivory Tower, where he is locked up and deprived of the freedom that everyone else should enjoy.
Because he is sick.
He likes to hurt himself when he gets ill, and even the doctors wonder if he has a violent personality.
He is locked in this room. Even though nothing is missing from this room, there is no life at all, and all he can see of the world is the view through the gla.s.s. Like a frog in a well, he has no idea of the size of the world.
No one speaks to him. Even the doctors and nurses who change his medication subconsciously avoid him and talking to him. Otherwise, their words are filled with caution.
The young man’s expression became dark, but the next moment the boy grabbed the wounded hand, and he looked down at the boy. The boy’s small face crumpled into a ball. Somewhat distressed, he blew air on his hand at the wound and said, “I’ll blow on it, and it won’t hurt.”
The youth moved his mouth at the news, his expression stunned for a moment. He even allowed the boy to grab his hand and play with it at will.
Suddenly, as the teenager stared at the boy’s round, puffy face and looked at his serious expression with hidden distress, he couldn’t help but laugh.
So then what happened?
Later on, the story is that the prince who lived in the ivory tower met the little boy who accidentally entered the ivory tower. From then on, the world, which is only black and white, became more and more colorful for him.
He is convinced that the prince and the boy will always be together.
Rapunzel has also gone through many hardships to live with her beloved prince, have children, and live happily ever after.