A Slight Smile is Very Charming

Part 14: Torturous Quest

When it comes to gossip, StormGoddessNiNi’s typing speed increases twofold; another message arrives right away: “They’re both in City B. It’s such a coincidence. Wei Wei, are you also there?”

Wei Wei: “Mm, I’m studying in City B.”

It’s not really much of a coincidence. The server they’re on is called, “Imperial Storm,” and it’s normal for people from City B to all be on it. Speaking of which, maybe the Great Master and YuGong and the others are also from City B……

Wei Wei falls into a daze.

StormGoddessNiNi: “I’m in City T, 555 (boohoohoo), otherwise I would meet up with you guys. Oh right, I have a photo of RealWater and LittleRainYaoYao together. RealWater is actually quite handsome. I have their photo. Wei Wei, do you want to see it?”

Wei Wei: “>o<, not interested”

Wei Wei is not the least bit curious in what RealWaterIsScentless looks like, otherwise, she would’ve asked for a photo a month or two ago before they “divorced.” Another pair from the guild exchanged photos at the time, but they immediately separated after seeing how each other really looked like. That was also when RealWater suggested trading photos; Wei Wei was caught by surprise and replied uneasily: “I don’t have a digital camera, so I don’t have any digital photos.” Although it was true, it clearly sounded like a fake excuse to turn him down.

Wei Wei feels that regardless of what excuse is used, it doesn’t matter, as long as he understands that she has no interest in trading photos. They are only acquaintances on the internet; they don’t know who they really are in real person, so they should be cautious of exchanging photos. Furthermore, exchanging photos when they are a “married couple” in the game suggests a possible love relationship in real life, and Wei Wei doesn’t like this feeling at all.

But RealWaterIsScentless obviously didn’t think the same. Thinking back now, that was when RealWater’s attitude changed.

StormGoddessNiNi continues to persuade her: “You really don’t want to see it?”

Wei Wei: “No >o<”

StormGoddessNiNi feels dejected: “There’s gossip but you’re not interested. Wei Wei, you’re too not cute. Oh right, you’ve met ASmileNaiHe, haven’t you? Is he handsome, is he handsome?”

Wei Wei is stunned in front of her computer. She quickly replies with “no, I haven’t,” but she can’t help but wonder if Great Master NaiHe asks to trade photos, would she be willing to?

It seems like……

She would.

What if NaiHe asks to meet her?

It seems like…….she also would.

Ah~~

Wei Wei is shocked from her “willingness” for both scenarios, but when she considers NaiHe’s personality, she doubts that he would ask, therefore, these two scenarios will never happen. After realizing this, she feels a bit sad.

She is able to forget anyone she has met in rivers and lakes, but as for NaiHe……

Wei Wei refuses to think further.

*** *** ***

Wei Wei didn’t tell NaiHe about the bribery; it’s such a small matter that it’s not worth mentioning, therefore, there’s no need to worry the Great Master.

A day later, Wei Wei and NaiHe are announced winners of the video contest. They receive the rewards right away; due to the two times experience increase reward, Wei Wei immediately gets bumped up a level.

Wei Wei is elated. After all, it’s not easy for someone at her level to get bumped up to the next; her last level up has already been from two weeks ago. Of course, she also receives the rainbow-colored outfit as part of the reward. She puts it on right away; it sure is very pretty, dazzling, exquisite, and shining with brilliance. It can even change colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and indigo; all seven colors of the rainbow. Wei Wei tries out the colors.

YuGong says to NaiHe: “Put it on for us to see.”

Wei Wei nods her head and sends two drooling smileys with heart-shaped eyes.

Although NaiHe doesn’t like these complicated and exquisite clothing, seeing how much they anticipate it, he clicks to change his avatar’s wardrobe. The pure white robed musician changes into a dandy purple clothed nobleman. Under their requests, he changes the color one by one, but stops after six of them.

MonkeyWine says: “Six? There’s one color missing.”

MoZhaHim shouts: “Green, it’s green!”

NaiHe ignores them, keeping his thoughts to himself. He instantly changes his wardrobe back to being the white robed musician.

YuGong and MoZhaHim “hehehehe” laugh wickedly at the same time.

Wei Wei suddenly realizes what they’re laughing at. Green……

The Great Master’s hair accessory is a white jade hairpin, but the rainbow outfit comes with a hat instead, so when it’s green……

It’s a green hat (made a cuckold)……

>o<

MoZhaHim says purposely: “Third brother, what’s wrong? Why are you not wearing the couple outfit with third sister-in-law? Is it because……”

NaiHe says: “We’re an old married couple. We don’t need to mind so much about these things.”

Wei Wei is dumbstruck.

Oh Great Master, if you don’t want to wear it, just don’t wear it then. Why come up with an excuse and even saying that we’re an old married couple……

In the next few days, Wei Wei continues to wear the rainbow-colored outfit; not that she likes it a lot, it’s just that she doesn’t want to let it go to waste after spending so much effort on the video and winning it. It’s actually quite a hassle to wear it because the outfit has no attributes; it doesn’t boost your defense or attacks. She’ll be beaten to death if she wears it while fighting monsters. Therefore, she always has to change her wardrobe before battles.

However, one time, after Wei Wei forgets to change her wardrobe, she is killed by a low level boss with one strike. Wei Wei gets upset and from then on, she tosses the outfit into the trunk and never wears it again.

Interestingly, although Wei Wei only wore the outfit for two to three days, she bumped into LittleRainYaoYao a few times. She usually doesn’t bump into her for at least ten days to half a month, but when she bumped into her for the third time, Wei Wei felt a bit awkward. Wei Wei hopes that she doesn’t think that she was showing off on purpose…….

Anyway, she can think however she wants. Whatever!

>o<

*** *** ***

The couple PK competition is also announced at the same time as the winner of the video contest. After a month of waiting, the rules and schedule for the PK competition are finally here. Wei Wei reads them and feels that they’re reasonable.

The PK competition is to commence on Friday of next week, and it will last for a month. The first half of the month will be local servers’ competitions starting with points accumulation battles; the top sixteen of each server will compete for top spot, and then the top couple of each server will compete against each other for the finals.

Wei Wei takes note of the final competition, which is on June 14th at 8pm. Her level 6 exam (College English Test) is in the afternoon on June 21st, which means that even if they make it to the finals, she will still have a week left to concentrate on studying English.

Very good. It’s perfect.

Wei Wei nods in satisfaction and starts to plan her time for playing and studying next month. NaiHe is rather relaxed about it; after he and Wei Wei goes to the NPC to sign up, he says to her: “If there’s a competition, just let me know the day before.”

Wei Wei, his follower, nods immediately: “Mm, no problem.”

Compared to NaiHe’s serene attitude, MonkeyWine and YuGong are much more excited about it; they keep asking them to PK with them before the competition, saying that this will help them practice.

MonkeyWine says: “Come, pretend that we’re your opponents. Let’s pretend this is a PK competition.”

NaiHe says: “Our opponents are couples. Which of you is the husband, and which of you is the wife?”

MonkeyWine replies: “Of course I’m the husband.”

YuGong jumps up immediately: “No, I’m the husband.”

MonkeyWing: “I’m taller than you.”

YuGong: “I’m heavier than you.”

………

……

The two of them argues childishly for a moment, and then ends up PKing each other when they can’t settle it……

Wei Wei looks at NaiHe in admiration. Great Master, oh, Great Master, you defeat others without even needing to shed blood.

Anyway, since YuGong and MonkeyWine can’t decide who’s husband and who’s wife, they didn’t get any practice. Their main activity before going to the competitions is to go fight bosses.

Wei Wei and NaiHe continue to leave the team every now and then to do couple quests. They’re almost done with the advanced level couple quests; only the last one is not complete, which is the legendary and most torturous out of all torturous quests, “The Return of the Condor Heroes.”

How torturous is the quest? It’s so torturous that since the creation of the game, no one has ever successfully completed it. Wei Wei and NaiHe begin working on it and realize that it is indeed torturous; every stage of the quest is difficult and tedious.

Take fighting monsters as an example. In the quest, there is a monster that shamelessly voids all non-attack type spells; whenever its blood level drops to a certain threshold, it will always perform a Miracle Cure and replenish all of its health. It also prevents profile lookup, so players cannot see how much health it has……NaiHe finally kills it after estimating its health and frequency of performing Miracle Cure.

As a result, Wei Wei worships the Great Master even more. She also tried estimating the monster’s health, but wasn’t able to estimate it so quickly. He’s so quick that he’s not even human, not human at all.

Besides the traditional fighting monsters and collecting ingredients parts in “The Return of the Condor Heroes” quest, it also torturously sets a time limit on players to complete riddles, mazes, and etcetera. There’s even a game of chess……Although players can choose to play either Xianqi (Chinese Chess) or Go and only need to make a few moves, there are definitely players who don’t know how to play either of them…….

Like Wei Wei ==

Thank goodness for Great Master NaiHe who knows everything.

They pass each stage successfully, but when they get to the very last stage, Wei Wei finally sees what is more tortuous than torturous.

After talking to the NPC of the last stage, the system bot suddenly sends Wei Wei to a mysterious place that is not on the map; NaiHe must find her within the next 16 hours. If he doesn’t find her, the quest is deemed incomplete.

Wei Wei now understands why the quest is called “The Return of the Condor Heroes”; it is a complete mock of Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nu’s storyline of being separated for 16 years.

With that said, could this pitch black place that she is in right now the same as the place in the novel? Could this be the bottom of the cliff? Wouldn’t this mean that NaiHe would need to jump off the cliff to find her?

>o<

Thankfully, the system is not so crazy as to shut off their chat windows. They are still able to contact each other.

NaiHe: “What is the surrounding like?”

Wei Wei: “It’s very, very, very dark……”

Wei Wei is embarrassed of her description, but NaiHe is quite calm about it: “You can’t see anything?”

Wei Wei: “Nope.”

NaiHe: “Any noises?”

Wei Wei pays close attention for a minute: “I think there’s water.”

NaiHe: “Mm, I know where it is.”

They didn’t talk after that. Wei Wei can’t simply just sit and wait for NaiHe to find her, so she starts searching around in the dark to see if there’s any information that she can give to NaiHe. She also goes online to search, but as mentioned before, since no one has ever passed the quest, there are no guides available. As for the official site, their description of the final stage is only in one line — “couples must rely on their telepathy to pass the stage.”

This is truly insane – –

Ten minutes pass and Wei Wei receives a new message; she thought that it was NaiHe, but when she opened it, it was from Guild Master, BattleTheWorld.

BattleTheWorld: “Reed, why did your party steal the boss fight of someone in our guild?”

The guild that Wei Wei belongs to is called, Sound of Blue Ocean Tides Pavilion, which is one of the top four guilds on the local server. The creator is a female player named UnawakenedButterflyDreams. Wei Wei knew ButterflyDream when she first started playing, so she joined the guild when it was first established; she is also considered one of the senior leaders of the guild, even though she has never really taken any authoritative positions.

UnawakenedButterflyDreams switched jobs two months ago, so she got busy and transferred her Guild Master position to her husband, BattleTheWorld. Wei Wei doesn’t know BattleTheWorld well, but RealWaterIsScentless is rather close with him.

Wei Wei is a bit puzzled from receiving the message.

“What boss fight?? I’ve been in a couple’s quest all this time.”

BattleTheWorld: “YuGongClimbsAMountain and MonkeyWine, aren’t they from your party?”