Chapter 191
Chapter 191
Jian Fan reached straight ahead.
But halfway there, he suddenly stopped. He turned to Qin Nan and said, “Get me the flower trowel from the greenhouse.”
Qin Nan was a little confused, but he did as he was told.
Qin Weiyi watched Jian Fan’s actions, and his eyes lit up. “The soil!”
Jian Fan didn’t answer. After taking the flower trowel Qin Nan handed over, however, he really did dig it into the dirt. He scooped up a trowelful of soil, then held it near his nose and sniffed it.
At last, he gave everyone the answer. “No smell.”
Hearing that, Qin Weiyi casually grabbed a tool from the side, thrust it into the sea of flowers inside the greenhouse, and took a sniff. Then he called out to Jian Fan outside in delight, “It has a smell. A very strong earthy smell.”
Lin Junruo looked at Qin Weiyi, then at Jian Fan, utterly bewildered.
The flowers and plants inside the greenhouse had no smell, but the soil did. Outside the greenhouse, the flowers and plants had a smell, but the soil did not. And according to Jian Fan and Qin Weiyi’s earlier deductions, they already knew there was nothing wrong with the greenhouse, while the area outside was an illusion. The scent of the flowers and plants was very likely the culprit behind the illusion, which meant the soil…
The answer was obvious.
“The antidote is the soil?” Lin Junruo blurted out.
The moment her words fell, Qin Weiyi was already holding that pile of soil and stepping out of the greenhouse.
And the instant he walked out, the environment they were in began to change, starting from beneath his feet.
Qin Weiyi wasn’t the only one who could see it. Everyone saw the transformation. For a moment, they all held their breath, their gazes slowly stretching farther as the surroundings changed bit by bit.
After who knew how long, everything they had originally seen before them vanished completely.
What stood before their eyes was still a courtyard, but it was now an abandoned garden overgrown with weeds and covered in dust.
“This…” Yellow Hair stared at everything in front of him and thought of the abandoned dorm building from before. They had only just gone through an Escape Room; this one shouldn’t have the same theme. So what was all this supposed to mean?
Jian Fan calmly looked at the scene before him.
Once everything had settled, he said, “Let’s go.”
Jian Fan was the first to walk forward, and the others followed one after another.
Unable to hold back his curiosity, Yellow Hair asked, “What are we doing next? What exactly does this illusion mean?”
Jian Fan walked at the very front, with no interest in clearing up Yellow Hair’s confusion. Yellow Hair knew Jian Fan’s temperament and hadn’t expected the Big Shot to explain things for them at a time like this, so he simply looked toward Qin Weiyi instead.
Qin Weiyi met Yellow Hair’s gaze. Before he could speak, he saw Lu Jing turn his head as well, staring at him with burning eyes. Lin Junruo had also turned around, looking exactly like she was waiting for him to provide an answer.
Qin Weiyi laughed in exasperation.
So they didn’t dare ask Jian Fan to talk, and now they were making him do all the explaining?
Did they think he was easy to bully?
That was what he thought, but after glancing at Lu Jing, Qin Weiyi ultimately held back and patiently explained it to everyone. Who told him he wasn’t as strong as Jian Fan, and wasn’t as cold either?
“We have too little information right now, so we still can’t determine what the situation in front of us actually is. We know nothing about what’s going on here, other than the fact that it’s a romance card-drawing game,” Qin Weiyi said, shaking his head. Then he continued, “Right now, we should be heading to the villa area. There should be some background information inside that we’ll need. After we understand the background, we can deduce what this world is, and what we need to do to leave.”
There wasn’t much useful information.
That said, even if Jian Fan had been the one to answer, the answer would probably have been the same-at most, a little more concise.
Lu Jing didn’t mind. After Qin Weiyi finished answering, he asked another question. “Why would soil be the antidote?”
Qin Weiyi glanced at Lu Jing. Figuring out that there was something wrong with the soil had already been easy enough, so Qin Weiyi gave a brief explanation of his reasoning. “The hallucinations were probably caused by scent. The fragrance of flowers and the smell of plants mixed together. Beyond that, everything has some kind of smell. If it didn’t affect the efficacy of the drug, they could simply send the smells into the illusion as well, making it more realistic and making people even more likely to suspect there was a problem with the greenhouse. The soil was left behind. Most likely, it’s because when the smell of soil mixes with those fragrances, it breaks the illusion. That’s why the soil smell was left in the greenhouse.”
And once they carried the soil outside, its scent slowly dispersed those toxic smells.
However, probably because he had taken out too little, the illusion was breaking rather slowly.
Qin Weiyi reflected on it inwardly. He should have grabbed more just now. At least it would have saved them some time.
“What connection could an illusion possibly have with a dating game?” Qin Nan voiced his doubt. As he spoke, his gaze landed on Lin Junruo.
Lin Junruo was the only one among them who knew anything about those kinds of games.
Lin Junruo looked helpless. “I don’t know either. The gacha games I play, even the main storylines, are all about romance. Melodrama, you know? The kind of thing young girls like to read these days. Illusions and whatnot-that would be more like mystery, wouldn’t it? If we’re talking mystery…”
Lin Junruo paused, then continued, “There was a lawyer-themed one before. I guess that could barely count as mystery? But even then, it was just investigating cases, at most looking for clues and talking to people. Nothing this supernatural.”
Hearing this, Jian Fan said, “No one ever said a romance gacha game couldn’t have a mystery-horror setting.”
Lin Junruo went, “Ah.”
Qin Nan was already looking at Jian Fan. “So you’re saying everything we’re experiencing right now is the background story of this romance gacha game? That’s not impossible. Ghosts and monsters can fall in love too, and it’s not like mystery death games have a rule against romance.”
At that point, Qin Nan clicked his tongue. “If people are falling in love in this kind of setting, wouldn’t there have to be twist after twist after twist?”
Jian Fan suddenly stopped walking.
He turned around and looked at Qin Nan with a completely serious expression. “Shut your mouth.”
Qin Nan: “???”
Qin Weiyi also quietly added from behind him, “Jinx.”
Qin Nan: “???”
Yellow Hair caught on as well. He reached out, patted Qin Nan on the shoulder, and said meaningfully, “For the sake of saving us all a little effort, Qin Nan, you should just keep your mouth shut.”
Qin Nan: “…”
“I was just saying it casually. Is all this really necessary?” Qin Nan was rather speechless.
What, if he said this world was simple, would the world actually become simple? If he said there were a lot of twists, would the difficulty of this world increase?
“It’s not that I want to say it, but that mouth of yours is kind of accurate,” Yellow Hair sighed. After saying that, he spat and quickly added, “That mouth of yours isn’t accurate at all.”
Qin Nan: “…”
Whatever makes you guys happy.