Chapter 75: Chapter 75 – The Tour Around The Television Drama Location
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
The same drama series was perceived in different ways by different people: some saw the hope of love that existed at the far corners of the earth, while some saw the opportunities that came along with it.
w.a.n.g Jun did not take notice of the opportunities that emerged, but others managed to exploit them, providing him with a chance to redeem himself – a chance to be a guide.
“This should be the place that you described,” said w.a.n.g Jun. He was leading a group of blue-eyed, sharp-nosed foreigners and they had arrived at an unnamed mountain close to the Beimang Mountain. He said, “This is the only vantage point that allows you to see Taibai Plains. You’re fortunate to have found me, not many people know where Taibai Plains is located.”
The past few days saw many strange investigation and expedition teams arriving at the Beimang Mountain, which spanned hundreds of li within Luoyang City.
In the past, the Beimang Mountain had been a favored tomb ground of emperors and government officials. Poems often referenced to the Beimang Mountain as an ancient mountain for burial with a long history, such as one with the line “Follow the waters of the Eastern Luo River, and will you find another tomb on Beimang Mountain”.
The Beimang Mountain is a branch of the Qin Mountains and a spur of Mount Xiao, spanning an extremely large area. Ever since the start of the 21st century, the tombs which stood at the top of the mountains became a major historical and cultural site protected at the national level.
Many academics believe that there are many more ancient tombs hidden within the Beimang Mountain. However, due to the pa.s.sage of time, the changes in terrain and the creation of new tombs, many of the ancient tombs would have been damaged and turned into ruins, hidden between the rocks. There was also no reliable equipment available to detect them, and even if there were, it would be hard to excavate them without affecting the existing tombs…
Nonetheless, it was not uncommon for archaeological teams to head to the Beimang Mountain, though not in as large numbers as in recent days. It was an even rarer sight to see foreign archaeological expedition teams to go there.
w.a.n.g Jun was a local escort – that is, a local tour guide – who brought tourists around the famous sights of Luoyang City and was naturally very familiar with the surroundings of Luoyang City. His job as a local guide allowed him to be discovered by the foreign expedition team standing behind him.
Finding a local guide was naturally the easiest and most convenient way to travel in a foreign country. Moreover, there was a translator amongst the group of foreigners and so they would not be afraid of being cheated by an unscrupulous guide.
But w.a.n.g Jun did not understand why the group of foreigners wanted to come to such a place. It was not that he had not led expedition teams on tours before, and there were also occasional learning journeys where professors brought their students to learn about and discover the tombs of Beimang Mountain. However, the tours he had led in the past were all headed for areas near Beimang Mountain, and not to an unnamed mountain on the external face of the mountain.
What made w.a.n.g Jun even more surprised was that more people started turning up after he brought the group of foreigners there!
And it was not just one other group, but many other groups of people!
“Brother w.a.n.g, you’re here too?” asked another local guide who knew w.a.n.g Jun. He seemed to be equally surprised about the peculiar requests of the tourists. He went closer to w.a.n.g Jun and asked, “Your group also wanted to come here?”
“Yeah,” replied w.a.n.g Jun as he stomped his feet lightly. Bewildered, he asked, “There’s barely any trees or scenery to see here… are they here to search for treasures?”
“Or perhaps there’s a big tomb below?” said the other guide as he used his right hand to mimic the action of a shovel. He said, “But even foreigners have been attracted to come here… perhaps it is the tomb of some emperor!”
“That can’t be, stop guessing blindly,” remarked w.a.n.g Jun.
A young female local guide who brought a group of locals walked over at this moment. She waved her mobile phone in front of them and said, “It’s pop-culture tourism.”
“Pop-culture tourism?” asked w.a.n.g Jun and the other guide in confusion. “What does that mean?”
They looked at the scene on the female guide’s mobile phone and it looked extremely similar to where they were. But there were some slight differences –at the bottom of the unnamed mountain in the video was a dense forest, but right there and then the mountain was bare, due to land degradation.
“It just means that they are here to visit and take pictures of scenes that have appeared in movies and television shows,” said the female guide as she pointed at the group of people taking photos all around the mountain. She continued, “It is uncommon here in Xuan Nation, but it is a very popular form of tourism in Fan Ying Nation. There are even tour groups that set out to visit places that appeared in various anime series.”
Anime?
Pop-culture tourism?
“So…” said w.a.n.g Jun, who somewhat understood what the female guide had mentioned. He pointed at the expedition groups which included people of all ages from young to old, of both genders and of various skin colors and continued uncertainly, “They are actually all…”
“2D degenerates?”
It was such a profound way to describe them that the female guide could not help but ask, “Do you not surf the web these days? Search for it yourself, the drama series is t.i.tled ‘Over My Dead Body’.”
w.a.n.g Jun scratched his head as he quickly took out his smartphone to search for the drama series. It was not that he did not surf the web, but he usually only read online novels like the Rebel Trump of the City and rarely watched videos – watching videos wasted too much data and he often could not find any wifi to connect to when he was out.
Hmm… Over My Dead Body is a drama series with four new episodes each day.
The speed of update is similar to locally-made poor quality war spy movies…
After watching for a short while, w.a.n.g Jun eventually summarized the series in a few words:
Ordinary people, immortals, monsters, love, cultivation, history…
There were too many concepts for w.a.n.g Jun to understand.
At this moment, the girl who translated for the group of foreigners walked over and said to w.a.n.g Jun, “Tour Guide w.a.n.g, we would like to head to Taibai Plains.”
“Taibai Plains?” asked w.a.n.g Jun. He said, “We would need to head down the mountain and ride a car to reach Taibai Plains. Although we can see it from here and the straight-line distance is short, there is no direct route through the dense forests. It would take one to two hours to get there by going around the forests.”
“That would not be a problem,” said the girl.
However, when w.a.n.g Jun led the group of foreigners down the mountain, the other groups also followed suit. In fact, all of them were on their cars and headed towards Taibai Plains!
Taibai Plains was actually an ancient name. It was part of the Beimang Mountain and apart from a very small number of locals, not many people remembered its name. w.a.n.g Jun only knew about the place because he had heard about it from his grandfather.
However, when he directed the driver onto a road near Taibai Plains, they were stopped by the traffic police. The road was entirely blocked by a few police vehicles.
Fulfilling his duty as a tour guide, w.a.n.g Jun went down the car and asked loudly, “Can we pa.s.s?”
“No, you can’t pa.s.s!” said the policeman. He said, “A criminal suspect escaped in front and we need to close the entire section of the road. You have to go back and use another road to cross.”
“Capturing a criminal?” said a baffled w.a.n.g Jun. He went back onto the car and explained the situation to the translator.
The female translator then turned around and explained the situation to the foreigners. One of them who appeared to be in the fifties or sixties said something, and the female translator said to w.a.n.g Jun, “Are there any other roads into Taibai Plains?”
w.a.n.g Jun replied, “If they blocked all the paths in front, then there is no other way in. Even if we cut through the mountains, there is an area with degraded land where no trees grow and we would easily be spotted by people.”
“We have no other choice… but to turn back and leave.”
…
…
On the mountain not far away from w.a.n.g Jun, Lidan whose eye circles were so dark they could be national treasures, took a glance at the vehicles in the distance that were stopped by the traffic police. He asked, “Those people… their noses are sharp… Are we not detaining them?”
“There’s no need to do that. Most of the people who come here are true academics and researchers. It’s very unlikely for them to be Pract.i.tioners,” said a man clad in the black vest in front of Lidan. He continued, “The most important thing now is to find the Elf of Taibai Plains… Deputy Team Leader Li, sorry to have to trouble you to stay here for the next few days.”
“No worries, it’s my duty to serve the country,” said Li Dan as he waved his hand.
“Although the intelligence reports have not been cross-checked, but in theory, it is true that the Elf of Taibai Plains should be more easily attracted by an Awakened person,” said the man clad in the black vest. He continued, “Nonetheless, you would only need to stay here for a few days. If there is still no evidence of the Elf, I don’t think the superiors would want to waste more time here…”
Li Dan laughed and continued walking around the mountain with the rest of the people. Nonetheless, he still felt a sense of… aching in his heart.
Indeed, he was part of the pop-culture tourism.
And it was a place that appeared in a drama series at that.
Or rather, he was trying to seek a sense of reality from a fictional story.
The Mountain Spirit and Earth Elf which appeared in “Over My Dead Body” were suggested to be immortal in the drama series. Even if Reiki was suppressed, they would merely be forced to remain in deep sleep, until Reiki was rejuvenated again.
And it was now the age of Reiki rejuvenation.
Once all the criteria were met, it was not unexpected for people to wonder if the earth elves would reappear once again in the current day and age.
If that was just an idea of the 2D degenerates who had Awakened, the government would just have sent a group of people to investigate in the mountains.
However, once the nation believed that the entire setting was real… it became a secret exercise.
When Over My Dead Body was uploaded, all Awakeners in the area around Tianjing City, including Lidan, were transferred out to take part in the exercise. Yu Kuangtu, Lidan’s superior, was not part of the exercise as he was the person-in-charge of Lianjiang City and had to rush back to organize the entire situation.
The one and only aim of the exercise was none other than to find the Earth Elf that appeared in “Over My Dead Body”.
When Lidan first heard about the absurd exercise, the first question he had was if his superiors were foolish and mindless.
How could they believe the contents of such a drama series that had no published director, actors or production company?
But he soon understood.
Firstly, the videos were uploaded by “Neisser Ren”, who had already uploaded two previous videos which seemed to be true. The nation would rather believe the events that occurred in the series to be true and leave no chances.
Secondly, Lidan knew Yu Kuangtu’s teacher, who was called Ren.
When he came across the Ren family in the drama series, Lidan immediately thought about Ren.
Ren appeared to be the founder and creator of the Pract.i.tioner system of Xuan Nation, and was also an important person in the Reiki research center. If he supported the ideas presented in the drama series, the higher-ups of the nation would likely believe that Over My Dead Body was a true story.
If Ren was a descendant of the Ren family, it was probable that he could even revive the astounding abilities of the Ren Pract.i.tioners then.
Those abilities were absolutely terrifying even to Lidan. If those abilities could be proven to exist, it would set a clear direction for researchers of the Reiki research center, even if there was no discovered way to learn those abilities at present!
As such, the best method to prove the existence of such abilities was to find the Earth Elf.
Not only would they be able to find an intelligent being that was similar to humans and capable of communication, they would, more importantly, be able to confirm the existence of the Ren family during the Period of the Three Kingdoms, since the elves had extraordinarily good memory and would definitely remember their encounters and ‘spiritual exchanges’ with the Ren family!
Furthermore, as more episodes of Over My Dead Body were uploaded, even Lidan started to think that the drama series was far from fiction. Ghost Troops, Hungry Ghost Demons, Demon Humans… Those enemies were the result of the rejuvenation of Reiki then, and they have also started showing up in Xuan Nation today, in the faces of the members of the Countermeasure Division.
Lidan had personally encountered Ghost Troops and Hungry Ghost Demons before, and they matched almost perfectly with the detailed descriptions of the monsters in the drama series. They could even be subdued in the same way as described in the series!
It was beneficial to simply watch the drama series to learn how to fight the monsters!
In addition, the drama series even explained the formation of the different monsters. The Ren family in the series seemed to be weak as they worked alone but they were unstoppable. On the other hand, if Xuan Nation were to activate their weapons, they would be able to destroy all the monsters that emerged very easily!
When Lidan could fall asleep, he would rewatch the episodes of “Over My Dead Body”. He often exclaimed to himself:
“Neisser Ren… What exactly are you trying to do…”
…
…
d.a.m.n it.
On the screen, a scene of the fat main character becoming slimmer and rising to the sky as a handsome young man was shown. It was accompanied by a mission failure message: “You have been healed.”
Rensuo looked at the shattered game controller in front of him as he was lost in thought.