Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Ning Wang asked, “Want to go take a look?”

Laziness seeped through Ning Shuo’s every bone. “You go. I’m going to rest for a bit.”

“Should I carry you there, or are you going yourself?” Ning Wang countered.

Ning Shuo: “…”

He looked up at the sky and sighed deeply. “So what if I’m feeling indulgent after a good meal? I just want to lie down!”

“Get up. Go walk off your dinner.”

“…”

“Don’t play dead.”

“I have already departed for the land of dreams.”

“Then I’ll just carry you to the venue.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Ning Wang was a man of his word. He immediately swept Ning Shuo up into a princess carry.

It was the first time Ning Shuo had ever been carried like this. His first reaction was: “Keep it steady. I’m a bit dizzy.”

Ning Wang: “…”

He silently adjusted his movements to be smoother.

Ning Shuo had thought Ning Wang was just teasing him, right up until the moment Ning Wang carried him out the door and onto the street. Numerous Players along the way stopped to stare.

Ning Shuo buried his face in his hands, thinking that since he’d committed to being stubborn, he absolutely couldn’t back down now.

Because of this, he didn’t see the mirth dancing in Ning Wang’s eyes.

While Ning Wang didn’t fully understand his future self, he understood enough based on his own personality.

For instance, neither of them ever took back their word once it was out there.

Ning Wang truly carried Ning Shuo all the way to Paradise. As he set Ning Shuo down, he put on a look of concern. “Not dizzy, are you?”

Ning Shuo forced himself to remain calm. “I’m fine.”

“Shall we do it again next time?”

“No need.” Noticing the gazes of the people around them, Ning Shuo added, “I wouldn’t want to tire out my little brother.”

Ning Wang smiled. “How could serving my brother be considered tiring?”

Ning Shuo hadn’t planned on continuing the conversation, but two girls nearby suddenly let out muffled squeals. “Look! Isn’t that Ning Banxian? I heard them talking-is that his younger brother?”

“Isn’t that the NPC from the Li Kingdom Cold Case?! The Forum has been arguing about him for thousands of posts without reaching a conclusion. But remember what Ning Banxian said at the beginning about the past and the future?”

“It’s Narcissus!! They’re so ship-worthy!!!”

“And the brother carried him here!! What is this? Pseudo-Incest!?”

“The brother is definitely the top!!!”

Ning Shuo shot them a subtle glance.

How were people bored enough to ship characters even in a horror game?

The girls’ breath hitched when they noticed Ning Shuo’s glance.

They moved a bit further away, and Ning Shuo thought they had stopped.

Little did he know they had just moved to a spot where they thought he couldn’t hear them, their voices sounding even more excited. “Did you catch that?! That look!! So alpha!!!!”

“The Half-Immortal is definitely the top!!!!”

Ning Shuo: “…”

He had underestimated them.

If Ning Shuo could hear them, Ning Wang naturally could too.

However, Ning Wang hadn’t read those kinds of novels, so what they were saying sounded like gibberish to him.

Seeing that Ning Wang didn’t seem like he was going to ask, Ning Shuo didn’t intend to bring it up either-

“Brother, what are ‘Narcissus’ and ‘pseudo-Incest’?”

Ning Shuo smiled. “They’re saying you’re as beautiful as a flower, and your bones are so strong you’ll never need a doctor.”

Ning Wang returned the smile. “I may be uninformed, but I’m not stupid.”

Ning Shuo shrugged and gave Ning Wang a brief, nonchalant explanation.

Ning Wang’s expression suddenly became profound. “Brother, your profession is truly complex. You have to know so many things.”

“Isn’t my profession your profession?”

Ning Shuo hummed a little tune about how their jobs were the same, when he suddenly heard Ning Wang say in a casual tone, “Though, after that explanation, I suddenly feel like it’s quite normal for someone like me to fall in love with myself.”
Ning Shuo said, “For someone as narcissistic as Xie Ning, it would be abnormal if he didn’t fall in love with himself.”

Ning Wang chuckled. “That’s true.”

After entering Paradise, a Virtual Screen popped up in front of them.

[Please establish your Player identity to receive your Pass.]

This stage was purely a test of how well a Player knew themselves-after all, there was no role easier to play than oneself.

Even if one didn’t know themselves well, it didn’t really matter. For the NPCs, as long as the performance was skin-deep, there was no need to act from the heart.

In a large-scale event like this, almost no one would be penalized for being OOC-

With a flourish, Ning Shuo wrote: [Ning Shuo, God.]

Ning Wang fell silent.

The Gatekeeper Doll looked a bit speechless as well. Only after Ning Shuo finished teasing the others did he add a prefix to the blank space before ‘God’: [Chūnibyō God.]

Successfully obtaining the Pass from the doll, Ning Shuo stepped into Paradise. He took a deep breath and announced loudly, “My fellow partners, let us revel together in the Clown’s favorite Paradise and play to our hearts’ content!”

Ning Wang stared, dumbfounded, and instinctively moved away.

He took back what he just said.

He might have liked Xie Ning or Ning Wang, but Ning Shuo had changed too much; he needed more time to process this.

Such a grand declaration attracted many Players, and naturally, many NPCs as well.

A Monkey NPC asked a Bear Doll, “Is that a colleague? Why does he look even more hyped than us?”

“Want to check it out?”

“Let’s go.”

Seeing more and more people gathering, Ning Shuo continued, “Next, your King shall lead you on a tour of the entire Paradise!”

Some Players recognized him. “Isn’t that Ning Banxian? What kind of nonsense is he up to now?”

“I heard the Secret Mission was brought in by a Player. Could it be him?”

“How is that possible? When has a Secret Mission ever not been handled with the utmost caution and care? Would he be this high-profile?”

“But he’s always been a high-profile person.”

“Not sure. Let’s keep watching.”

The NPCs didn’t know who the Secret Mission carrier was, so they began speculating upon seeing Ning Shuo’s behavior. “Didn’t the Secret Missions usually go to High-level Players in the past?”

“Not necessarily. Weren’t there a few times they gave them to outstanding Rookies?”

“I’ve seen his livestream. His Word Spirit is sometimes quite eerie. 013 said he even crushed two Scripts. It’s possible the Secret Mission really was given to him this time.”

“He’s being so flashy; isn’t he afraid of dying early?”

“Who cares? Whether he has the Secret Mission or not has nothing to do with us, right?”

“A Secret Mission only gets interesting toward the end! Those Players usually hide away in the later stages. If there’s a Secret Mission, they’ll be forced to come out and take risks. It’s so much fun watching them scurry around like rats.”

In short, the Players and NPCs reached a strange consensus-

Try to keep Ning Shuo alive until the end.

Thus, at one of the entrances to the “Clown’s favorite Paradise,” a peculiar scene unfolded.

Ning Shuo stood at the very front, brimming with fighting spirit.

Not far from him was Ning Wang, who understood his intentions but still deliberately kept his distance. Behind them followed two columns.

One column was filled with NPCs in bizarre costumes.

The other column consisted of Players in relatively normal clothing.

From time to time, a Player would be so frightened by a nearby NPC that they would bolt from the line, but many veteran Players who had been in the System for a long time knew the NPCs wouldn’t do anything yet and remained indifferent.

Ning Wang glanced at another Player who was running away in terror and asked, “Are you planning to use this to find the Player with the Secret Mission?”

“More than that,” Ning Shuo replied, his posture flamboyant and his face beaming. “Tell me, with so many NPCs being played for fools, the System must be furious, right?”