Chapter Ch122.1 - Montespan
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
There was a “pft” sound.
In the Crosson Show live broadcast studio, Ying Xiangxiang almost spat out her tea. For a moment, the scrolling comments became as excited as if at a carnival––“My G.o.d, the Scarf CP is locked in!”, “I want to be the queen, and you’re only giving me a mistress position??! WTF!”, “Wu Jin, charge! The first beauty of France, charge!”, “Brother Wei, amazing! Sending brother Wei a Large Treasure Sword!”
The scrolling comments were interspersed with a series of question marks from Hyacinth Show’s straight male audience, “What scarf?”
“This contestant Wei Shi’s ways are so wild, and there isn’t much information on him… Oh, it’s here, he appeared on screen for the first time because he paired with the popular trainee Wu Jin in the tarot card instance, but they didn’t exchange more than two sentences. Later, because of the grudge from the Crosson Show forcing the ‘Scarf CP’ to team up for the team activity, he ordered his Quetzalcoatlus to forcibly s.n.a.t.c.h away Wu Jin when he was a potential candidate for the championship of the dinosaur era elimination match, and Wu Jin and Contestant Wei fought to the death, coming in 5th and 6th place––you can even form CPs from this??”
On the stage, Blood Pigeon picked up the microphone and commented as usual, “A very interesting strategy. The clues for the purple cards are scattered and varied. Compared with ‘solving the problem’ step by step, the quickest way to pa.s.s the instance is to hold the ‘think tank’ contestant and trade for results.”
“Of course, all of this is based on Wei Shi’s excellent strength––”
The scene flashed back to when Wei Shi opened up his parachute, then cleared out the Grand Trianon within two hours. The teams that eventually stayed in the Grand Trianon were all in relationships of subservience and agreement with Wei Shi’s team.
Wei Shi basically controlled the movement of all the blue and purple cards in the entire palace, and ‘violently took over’ the Louis XIV clue card right away.
When this ‘hidden beauty’ A-level trainee Wei Shi suddenly appeared, at the start, most players hadn’t paid him much attention, and the public’s impression of him had still been stuck on ‘attractive face’, ‘formed a CP’, and ‘raised dinosaurs’. At this time, however, most trainees were undoubtedly scared.
On the screen, Wu Jin was forced to follow Wei Shi.
Vera’s expression was worried, and her eyes seemed ready to say so at any second, “Little Witch, your mama won’t allow you to make such a sacrifice for the sake of an instance!”
Chu Chu was smiling broadly from beside them, “You two, our King Louis XIV is very merciful. Unlocking the first mistress Madame de Montespan isn’t difficult, and Contestant Little Witch doesn’t even need to contribute a beautiful body to the King! As long as you sell your brain, you can…”
Vera’s inner heart was going crazy. What this spicy chicken King obviously wanted was Little Witch’s beautiful bodyk2026;
She spoke coldly, “Every card in the Palace of Versailles is independent of each other. I don’t think we need to get involved with the King for our task.”
Wei Shi was indifferent to it all.
Chu Chu urgently tried to rectify the situation, “90% of the information from the perfume racks is in our hands. We won’t call it ‘getting involved’; I prefer to refer to it as more of a transaction. You are the buyer, and we are selling information about Madame de Montespan.”
The door to the King’s study slammed open, revealing two Louis XIV biographies on the table.
“Relax.” Chu Chu handed them pieces of parchment. “It’s just a very simple open book exam. The question is written on the paper. Depending on how much you can work out, we’ll trade the equivalent amount of information on Montespan with you.”
The parchment was painted with a few crooked rectangles and scattered year dates.
“……” Not only Vera, but even Wu Jin could feel their brains stall.
Wei Shi glanced at Chu Chu, “You copied out the question?”
Chu Chu immediately put on a fawning att.i.tude, “Although there’s a small difference, it basically retains the charm of the original question. It’s these numbers, a few rectangles, the difference isn’t much! It’s not that different at all!” She then gave a small wave of her hand, “Start solving the problem, everyone.”
To one side of the long table, Vera thought it over and felt that something was off, “Should we run?”
Wu Jin was also reluctant, “All the clues to the Madame de Montespan are here. To leave Grand Trianon is to give up the card. It’s fine, let’s do the deal.”
Vera looked at the distorted geometry on the parchment again, “What exactly is this?”
Wu Jin glanced at the card in the big boss’s hand and then spoke quietly, “That’s the clue to the Louis XIV card.”
Vera was surprised.
“They haven’t solved the card yet.” Wu Jin said, “The character cards we’ve obtained from the pa.s.sword boxes all at least have the name, birth and death years, and it shouldn’t only show the portrait of Louis XIV. Most likely, the purple card in their hand is just a card for an instance that hasn’t been cleared. The clue on the card is this geometry. They occupied the Trianon Palace in order to hold players hostage and have them solve the puzzle for them.”
A long time later, Vera moved her lips lightly, “Using the book for a blue card task to trade for a purple card clue… they’re definitely getting the better part of the deal.”
Wu Jin spread his hands, “We have no choice.”
With the onset of night, the candles lit up in the Trianon Palace. Paper and pen came together, making light swishing noises, and there was a small crack in the door from which the late autumn night wind drifted in.
Wu Jin had already flipped through most of the biography. On the parchment he left notes beside some of the densely packed years and places. Beside him, an administrative map of France from the 17th century was spread out, and several battles were marked out with disorderly lines.
Vera leaned against the soft lounge chair in the farthest part of the room, her head covered with a biography book. With Wu Jin keeping watch, she’d fallen asleep and become unaware of her surroundings a long time ago.
The big boss had gone out once in the meantime, and came back inside with a rush of cold air when he returned.
Wu Jin straightened his back with a whoosh, his mind clearly not on the data at all. The man walked slowly along the long table, like an examiner during an open book exam.
Wei Shi stood beside Wu Jin.
The automatic camera to the side quickly came over to catch a few shots, and the youth scribbled on the parchment bitterly while the evil examiner gave off pressure from behind, causing Wu Jin’s ears to turn red with anger.
The camera finished filming, and clicked off, turning off its lights to save power.
Chu Chu was still strolling around outside, and Vera was sleeping sweetly. The top of Wu Jin’s head warmed as a rough, large hand stroked his soft curls––
Wu Jin raised his head cleverly.
Wei Shi stooped down, his lips and tongue meeting Wu Jin’s and delving straight in.
The youth immediately shrank back, out of fear that Vera would wake up.
The sky and earth were spinning by the time the kiss was over. The man molded the soft-as-a-marshmallow Wu Jin back into a human shape and licked at the youth’s teeth.
“You played the piano well.” Wei Shi commented in a low voice.
Wu Jin’s heart filled with pride, and he then thought of something and used an equally low voice to grumble, “I want to see the original card.”
The man simply pulled it out, and Wu Jin was finally able to re-copy the arrangement of rectangular shapes. He then made a gesture to the big boss, effectively saying ‘the rest has nothing to do with you’.
Wei Shi expressionlessly moved to another chair and sat down next to Wu Jin, but his long legs were impolite, insisting on squeezing in against Wu Jin’s feet on the opposite stool.
The tip of the pen scratched against the parchment. Wu Jin had no inspiration regarding the row of rectangles and could only turn back to look up the dates, “1672, the Franco-Dutch War. 1685, the Edict of Fontainebleau, 1688, the Grand Alliance War. 1701, the Spanish Succession War… All these years cover Louis XIV’s achievements. If we take time as the coordinate axis, and rectangles as major events, the gaps don’t match up with the years.”
Inspiration dried up, and his two feet stepped unconsciously on the big boss’s legs, “I can’t think of anything…”
Wei Shi expressed, “Then step a few more times.”
Wu Jin stiffened. He was about to silently take back his legs but was pressed down by Wei Shi.
The man’s pure black pupils flickered beneath the candlelight, like a quietly stirring cl.u.s.ter of flames. The heated pheromones made it so that Wu Jin was instantly lost and unable to find north, “Lean over, sleep for a while.”
Wu Jin quietly mouthed the words: Ve-ra!
Wei Shi: “What’s there to be afraid of? It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.”
Wu Jin was dizzy and his head heated up, losing his sense of thought as he leaned over happily, “Then, call me when Vera wakes up…”