Translated by rabbitrisu
Wu Qing was stunned for a few seconds before saying:
Even if what you said is true, we still don’t know where the last supernatural event is. I walked around the entire school and nothing strange happened!”
Su Zimo glanced at Wu Qing out of the corner of his eye, thinking that he had reacted too quickly, then thought of the most important thing.
Su Zimo smiled and tilted his head. “How about you buy this pointer and I’ll tell you an important clue?”
Jiang Wei calculated the price of the items he bought before and found that although they were numerous, their total cost was still low. He nodded and took ‘The Unstoppable Pointer’ from Su Zimo.
A contract paper had already appeared on the counter behind Su Zimo. In fact, it had appeared shortly after Jiang Wei decided to buy the bottle of exorcism water, but Su Zimo kept pressing forward for convenience. They hadn’t completed a 40 yuan transaction.
Su Zimo also wanted to know if multiple starred ghost tools could be purchased at once.
But even if such actions weren’t allowed… Su Zimo thought for a while and felt that nothing would appear in the store to stop him. Su Zimo thought of the immature, child-like mechanical voice he heard when he first arrived in An Yu Yi Yu.
Su Zimo had never heard the voice again after he renamed ‘Ayuyuyu.’
Wu Qing didn’t seem to realize that Jiang Wei was the one paying, so he asked sharply: “We bought the pointer, now will you tell us what the clue is now?”
After looking at the various products that had been sold immediately after they were stocked, Su Zimo nodded in satisfaction, then picked up the last pack of cigarettes from the shelf.
[Description: After lighting a cigarette, the white smoke may take you to a mysterious place.]
Su Zimo placed the cigarettes directly into Jiang Wei’s hand. “Just light the cigarettes and the place where the white smoke drifts may be the place you want to go.”
…For example, the playground.
Su Zimo said to himself.
Actually, when Wu Qing said that they couldn’t find where the seventh supernatural event was, Su Zimo guessed that there may be some misleading content in this nightmare world’s tasks.
He thought of the burnt ghost in the lecture hall saying he could smell burnt plastic, and the ghost on the third floor with the graffiti who kept saying the sky is blue…
In Su Zimo’s opinion, those were definitely not irrelevant clues. They may even be hints related to their deaths — the cause of death or something that left a deep impression on them during their lives.
It’s what they saw, heard, smelled…
Su Zimo hadn’t personally met the protagonists of the other supernatural events, but the teaching buildings throughout the university were very small. There was no blue sky to be seen from inside, and most of the view of the outdoors would be obscured by buildings.
The blue sky that left an impression on the ghost on the third floor must be the last sight he saw before his death.
If they could see the sky like that and could smell the odor of burnt plastic… Su Zimo felt that a place that could meet those conditions would most likely be where the trainers first entered the nightmare world, the school playground!
Perhaps from the start, the trainers had stood at the place where the seventh supernatural event was.
However, a guess was only a guess, and Su Zimo should also give the trainers enough evidence that they would be sure to find the location of the last ghost.
He definitely didn’t mean to sell all of the ‘unmarketable’ products individually so the trainers would have to run around in circles before buying the pack of cigarettes.
It definitely wasn’t intentional.
The smile on Su Zimo’s face was childish.
Wu Qing: “Why didn’t you sell this pack of cigarettes to us earlier? Why lead us around such a big circle?!”
Wu Qing’s mood was even worse.
The smile on Su Zimo’s face was still sincere.
“……”
Everyone, including Jiang Wei, clearly saw Su Zimo’s profiteer nature at that moment. But the price of the goods in the store was extremely low, so even if they were lead in circles to buy things, the total price wasn’t even enough to buy a bottle of water. That small amount of money wasn’t even a loss to Lin Xiao as a student, and it was a bit boring to think about.
But after thinking about it that way, it still made them feel panicked.
Su Zimo didn’t care about the view of the trainers. He just lead Jiang Wei to the contract on the counter and spoke with a polite smile. “How things develop from now on has nothing to do with me. Please be more careful during your upcoming tasks.”
Jiang Wei glanced at Su Zimo. “Have you forgotten something?”
What he mentioned was naturally Su Zimo’s earlier promise that as long as Jiang Wei was willing to lend Wu Qing and the others money, he would recommend a prop that Jiang Wei desperately needed.
Su Zimo nodded lightly and turned to look at Wu Qing. “In the real world, it’s already 2 o’clock in the morning. Personally, I think you should either finish the fight quickly or find a safe place to rest for a while.”
Wu Qing glanced around. “Speaking of safe places, we may not find a safer place than this store in the nightmare world. I think the name ‘refuge’ is more suitable than ‘safe in a corner’ for your shop.
Su Zimo smiled and said nothing.
“However, I still won’t stay. If Mr. Jiang and Miss Lin want to stay in your shop to rest, I have no opinion.” Wu Qing looked at Jiang Wei and Lin Xiao standing beside him. “Since you don’t want to wear the slave medallion and you’ve found a refuge, you should just stay here and not hold me back.”
Wu Qing’s attitude at that moment was very strange.
He was obviously aggressive at the first second, but seemed more approachable in the next. If it weren’t for the words Wu Qing once said, if it weren’t for his identity and the three slaves following him, his tone and expression would really make people believe that he was a veteran trainer who guided newcomers.
However, Wu Qing’s attitude at that moment didn’t change what Lin Xiao and the others thought of him. On the contrary, it made them think that he was a snake with multiple personalities.
Jiang Wei frowned. “You mean you’ll let us stay in a safe place while you solve the last supernatural event alone?”
People like Jiang Wei who have experienced the world can also be surprised by the contrast.
“Don’t think too much. I just think that compared to people like you, I still prefer to capture idiots who don’t know anything.” Wu Qing turned and walked toward the door. “I just got a personal task of solving more supernatural events in a short period of time with a proportional increase in nightmare points, so I don’t need trash like you to interfere.”
Personal task?
This was the first time Su Zimo heard those words from a trainer.
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Jiang Wei also repeated the words in surprise. “Personal task?”
Wu Qing raised his left arm. “I’ve heard that after some trainers enter the nightmare world, in addition to clearing tasks that everyone has, there will also be personal tasks that can only be seen by the trainer themself. There will be good rewards for clearing those tasks.”
“To be honest, this is also the first time I’ve encountered a personal task.” Wu Qing sneered. “Compared to you all, the rewards for this task are more generous. No wonder others say that newcomers have better luck than other trainers.”
Wu Qing’s words reminded Su Zimo of something he had struggled with.
The task requirements will appear on a trainer’s left arm, while the countdown and nightmare points will appear on their right arm.
Everyone has the same task to clear, and the countdown was also the same. But since everyone has exactly the same information, why could they only see the words on their own arms?
Is it just for good looks and beauty?
Or just to protect everyone’s privacy about their nightmare points?
Su Zimo had thought about that question before and felt that the simple reason of ‘good looks and beauty’ made sense to a certain extent. But after learning about ‘personal tasks’ from Wu Qing, Su Zimo suddenly realized that there seemed to be some hidden power preventing trainers from discovering that the bloody engravings on other people’s arms don’t match their own!
Wu Qing hadn’t encountered any trainer who could hinder him in that nightmare world, so he didn’t care about advertising his personal task.
But what if it was a different nightmare world? What if, in a more dangerous nightmare world, a ‘personal task’ to kill other trainers appeared on a certain trainer’s left arm?
Thinking that the bloody letters on everyone’s left arms were only visible to themselves, Su Zimo, who had considered many possibilities at that moment, couldn’t help but feel a chill run down his back.
If there was something in the world that wanted trainers to kill each other, all it had to do was make use of the so-called ‘personal tasks’ that appear on each trainer’s left arm!
“Personal task…” Lin Xiao, who was standing in the corner of the shop, had a surprised expression on her face after hearing what Wu Qing said.
“Miss Lin, have you heard of personal tasks?” Jiang Wei asked, then felt that he had asked the wrong question. “No. Miss Lin, you’re a newcomer like me. So… Could it be that Miss Lin has a personal task on her left arm?”
“Yes?” Lin Xiao looked at Jiang Wei in surprise. “Uncle, have you also received a personal task?”
Also…
Su Zimo returned to the counter, sipping the drink Ghost Umbrella prepared for him, and stared at them for a while.
“Yes.” Jiang Wei nodded without concealing anything. “After listening to Wu Qing’s introduction about trainers, I found there was an extra task on my arm that no one else had.”
“Uncle, what’s your personal task?” Lin Xiao asked while fidgeting her fingers with worry.
“It’s just a small task.” Jiang Wei said bluntly. “The task requires me to help other trainers as much as possible. The more help other trainers get from me, the more points I get.” <sup>1</sup>
As soon as Jiang Wei’s voice stopped, Su Zimo remembered that when the trainers first entered An Yu Yi Yu, Jiang Wei bought over 100 yuan of ghost tools from the shop, and then generously gave a standard dagger and a sleeping pill that could help when avoiding ghosts to Lin Xiao, who was also a newcomer.
At that time, Su Zimo only felt that Jiang Wei was righteous.
But now it seems that although Jiang Wei did have a sense of justice, it was the personal task he received that actually prompted him to do so!
The low-star ghost tools sold in Su Zimo’s shop weren’t very powerful, so they wouldn’t help Wu Zimo and the others. Under the circumstances, Jiang Wei gave the ghost tool to Lin Xiao, who had nothing to rely on, in order to make the most of his benefits.
Such personal tasks were beneficial to the trainers themselves and others, and there was no way that it couldn’t feel like a care package for the newcomers.
“So what about you?” Jiang Wei looked at Lin Xiao again. “What personal task did you receive?”
Su Zimo turned his attention to Lin Xiao.
Lin Xiao seemed to be hiding something that she wanted to say, but couldn’t. It made Su Zimo feel curious.
Footnotes
<ol>Here the raws say sth along the lines of ‘the more trainers I help, the more trainers I get’. I’m assuming there’s a typo and author meant to put nightmare points.</ol>