BXBX NOVEL Ch103.2 - The Cycle of Karma, What Goes Around Comes Around (17.2)
Chapter Ch103.2 - The Cycle of Karma, What Goes Around Comes Around (17.2)
translator: baumkuchen (unedited)
But before Chi Xiaochi could react in any way, in a flash, “Guan Qiaoqiao”’s face was covered by a dog expression sticker.
“Don’t touch laozi!.jpg”
Chi Xiaochi, “......” The corner of his mouth involuntarily twitched upwards.
With the buffer of the sticker making it so Chi Xiaochi was unable to see that indescribable face, Chi Xiaochi quickly got back into the mood, turning his expression of shock and terror into a disbelieving smile.
“......Qiaoqiao? Is it you?”
The room having turned dark once more, he quickly grabbed “Guan Qiaoqiao”’s sleeve. A tear hung precariously by his eyelashes, on the verge of falling.
“Qiaoqiao?” Ponytail lady exclaimed, “Qiaoqiao’s here?”
She was so afraid that she wanted nothing more than to run for the door and escape, but she still needed to pretend to look happy, so a trace of tears crept into her voice. Upon hearing movement from ahead of him, Freckles, who had been halfway over to Chi Xiaochi, let out a curse and loudly retreated back to the corner he had come from, his reaction incredibly honest.
At the same time, in the same room and at same level as them, Pigtail guy let out a twisted smile, clutching a dagger with a broken blade in his hands.
The blade of the dagger had been snapped off from the middle. The remaining half of the steel blade was engraved with countless mottled patterns of an incantation, faintly gleaming, seeming sly in a way that was hard to describe in words.
......The opportunity had arisen.
The opportunity for him to live, had come.
Pigtail guy had stolen it from a ghost-catching Taoist priest in his sixth task world.
This broken blade had the same effect as a blessed peach wood nail. It could trap a ghost’s soul inside a body, and mortally harm her spiritual manifestation.
If “Guan Qiaoqiao” had used the death-snatching method, as long as she were to sense something was wrong, she would have been able to escape from this body at any moment. If that had been the case, he would never have dared to use this life-saving tool.
However, what she had used was the troublesome life-snatching method.
Thus, as long as they sealed her into this body, making it impossible for her to return to the photographs, then she would no longer be able to make trouble.
Pigtail guy had observed that she was obsessed with acting. Making his move while a scene was in progress was the best chance he could think of.
In the dark, with no need to see her face, it was really the best......
With the broken blade hidden in his sleeve, and his heart filled with delight, he stumbled closer to Guan Qiaoqiao.
So when the light in the room suddenly lit up, he was given a fright, and instantly shoved the cold tip back up his sleeve. Following that, he felt a surge of intense hatred and anger.
——Who had fucking turned on the light?
When he turned and saw something, it was as if a basin of cold water was poured over the flames of his anger, immediately dousing it and leaving only a bone-chilling cold.
“Guan Qiaoqiao”, like in the script, had already disappeared with the turning on of the light.
But what he saw, was a hundred times more terrifying than any bloody, twisted thing.
That photograph, 《Young Maiden’s Prayers》, had at some unknown time been hung up on the wall near the door of the room, currently directly facing Pigtail guy.
The young lady in the photograph had a dignified appearance, classic dress, and her lips were painted red, as if stained by blood. She stared toweringly down, yet silently at Pigtail guy. As she stared and stared, her head fell off, revealing, inside, squirming, writhing, string-like red worms.
Pigtail guy was stunned for a moment, before letting out a shrill scream. He turned, and rammed into the glass window, jumping out into the curtain of rain.
Everyone else only saw the suddenly-appearing photograph. The only one who could see its change, Chi Xiaochi, had his entire view of it blocked by a cat sticker of “I want this one! Buy me this one.jpg”.
......Sorry, it was the sticker that blinded both my eyes.
However, Pigtail guy’s scream and subsequent jumping out of the window, was already enough to allow him to imagine what kind of terrible scene was in the photograph.
He rushed to the side of the bed, twisted the bolt holding the window closed, pushed away the fragments of the glass window pane that were already on the verge of falling, leaned out, and looked down.
The look on Chi Xiaochi’s face twisted.
Ponytail lady then too rushed to the window, forcefully pushing him aside.
Chi Xiaochi shouted, “Don’t look!”
But it was already too late.
Ponytail lady looked down and gaped. Then, she turned and vomited.
......It was as if all the earthworms in a ten li radius had all come to cluster beneath this window. Swarms of earthworms twisted and writhed, each segment of their fat bodies contracting one after another, forming a dark-red, moving sea.
Pigtail guy had fallen into this sea of earthworms, leaving him utterly unharmed, but when he saw where he was, he almost instantly broke.
He crawled up from the ground and rushed, crazed, out of the sea of worms. Every time his foot landed, he could hear a loud squelch, as countless earthworms were squashed beneath his feet.
He flailed his arms around wildly. “Get away from me! Get away from me!””
Pigtail guy pulled at his clothes, shaking off the earthworms that had crawled inside.
But his mental state had already completely shattered.
He cried out, “They’re drilling into my ears! They’re drilling into my brain!”
He was talking about the earthworms.
In his point of view, those dark red, squirming, squishy things, were slowly burrowing into every pore of his body, entering his bones, his flesh, like they’d found a place to nest for the winter, their bodies writhing as they drilled into his.
He screamed and beat at himself, even though there were only a few earthworms on his body now.
Chi Xiaochi called out to him, “Come back! Quickly come back!”
——This scene, the direction he was heading, why did it seem so familiar?
The rain, the crazed male lead running out into the night......
Pigtail guy was deaf to Chi Xiaochi’s calls as he ran, his hair a mess, towards the swimming pool.
Chi Xiaochi’s eyes widened. He turned and rushed out of the room, running towards the stairs.
Upon hearing the scream from inside the room, Gan Yu, who had been waiting outside the entire time, pushed open the door. Seeing Chi Xiaochi rushing out, with fast reflexes, he grabbed his wrist.
Chi Xiaochi tried to struggle out of his grip. “Something’s happened!”
But Gan Yu’s reaction was quicker than his. Hearing this, he stalled him, then he himself rushed down the stairs.
“I’ll go with you.”
Rushing out of the ancient castle manor, Chi Xiaochi saw an utterly horrifying scene.
——The cameramen chased Pigtail guy who was hurtling through the night and the rain. It seemed like they had taken his craziness as a part of the act.
The cold camera, the cold rain, the crazed person, and the cold filming crew.
All these combined to form an absurd, horrifying picture.
The director seemed to really love this sudden brilliant plot.
“Very good, very good, don’t stop!”
“Cameras! Follow him, don’t lose him!”
......The NPCs saw everything that was happening as a performance, even hooting and applauding, while Chi Xiaochi’s shouts were drowned out by the rain, barely audible.
And the end result was, Pigtail guy, running wild in a panic, climbed up onto the ten metre high diving board, and without hesitation, jumped.
The director raised a hand in exhilaration and shouted, “Cut!”
......It all really did “cut”.
Pigtail guy fell headfirst into the swimming pool. The shallow pool of collected rainwater covering the base of the swimming pool rippled with threads of red and white filth. Only his body still twitched sporadically.
By the time Chi Xiaochi rushed over to the side of the pool, Pigtail guy’s corpse had already been censored with a mosaic by 061.
Even so, Gan Yu, still uneasy, placed his body before Chi XIaochi, trying to put a clear barrier between him and the mosaic. “Don’t look.”
When Ponytail lady, who had hurried after them, saw Pigtail guy’s corpse, she clutched at her hair and let out a heartrending yet silent howl, her mouth stretched open so wide you could almost see straight down the bright red cavity of her throat.
She fell into a sitting position by the side of the pool, the craziness in her expression slowly being replaced by a steely coldness.
No one had asked her about the relationship between her and Pigtail guy. Those who were able to form into a team, excluding special circumstances, if they weren’t kin, they were closer than kin.
She spoke to herself, “He’s dead. He died according to the plot.”
She then said, “It was that bitch who killed him.”
Observing her reaction, in a flash, Chi Xiaochi’s eyebrows twitched. He’d completely figured out the mechanism of this world.
Seeing Ponytail lady’s eyes fill with red, the intent to kill rising within her, with a swift kick, Chi Xiaochi kicked her straight into the swimming pool.
She wasn’t knocked out, starting to stagger to her feet. Seeing this, Gan Yu, who’d followed them over, sighed slightly, then jumped into the swimming pool and neatly chopped her in the back of her neck, knocking her out.
Pulling the soggy Ponytail lady out of the pool, Chi Xiaochi excused himself from his actions. “Wasn’t me, was my foot.”
Xi Lou, “......” Are you really happy acting playful at this kind of time?
When Gan Yu looked at Chi Xiaochi’s face, he instantly had a rough guess as to what he was thinking about. As he took off his clothes, to try and keep him from getting soaked by the rain, he asked, “Why?”
“There’s only one ghost in this castle.” Chi Xiaochi simplified his theory, saying, “The standard she uses to choose who to kill, is the ‘malice’ in the target’s heart.”
The author has something to say:
President Chi: Wasn’t me, was my foot~
Lou-ge: What Xiaochi says is right.