Chapter 260

Chapter 260

“The Little Princess just died like that?” Lin Junruo was stunned.

Mu Xin found it hard to believe as well.

“The way the story was going, I thought the Prince would end up desperately trying to win her back or something,” Mu Xin said.

Lin Junruo nodded.

But the story had just told them otherwise. No, the Little Princess really was dead.

This was…

“We have three torn pages now. Based on what we’ve seen, the Little Princess and the Prince were enemies. The Prince captured the Little Princess and imprisoned her in an ornate birdcage. In the end, the Little Princess died inside it?” Qin Nan briefly summarized the story.

Then he voiced the question puzzling him. “So… did the Prince love the Little Princess?”

He had read his fair share of twisted romance novels. Sometimes the male lead loved the female lead but chose to express it by tormenting her. Even then, he never actually tortured her to death. In this story, however, the Little Princess was well and truly dead.

That did not fit the usual trajectory of such novels.

“I don’t think the Prince loved the Little Princess,” Yellow Hair said.

He scratched his signature head of hair and continued, “Think about what the Prince said to the Little Princess: ‘You must submit to me.’ If he loved her, he probably wouldn’t have put it that way, right? Besides, the Little Princess said the Prince would ultimately be nothing but a failure. That sounds more like they were enemies.”

Qin Weiyi was also turning the contents of the three torn pages over in his mind. He did not have much of an opinion about the story itself, but one detail had caught his attention.

Except…

Qin Weiyi opened his mouth, but not a sound came out. In the end, he could only close it again in silence.

He was starting to resent this ball.

Making him mute was bad enough, but why couldn’t they at least give him a pen and some paper?

They really had… completely blocked every possible way for him to share information.

While Qin Weiyi was growing increasingly frustrated, Jian Fan spoke.

What he said, however, seemed to have nothing to do with the story.

“Begonia,” Jian Fan said.

Qin Nan looked at him. “Hm? What about Begonia?”

“Don’t you think Begonia has appeared too many times?” Jian Fan asked.

Lu Jing thought back over the pages. “Has it?”

“Yes,” Jian Fan replied firmly.

At that, Qin Nan carefully reviewed the contents in his head and soon noticed what was wrong.

“Jian Fan is right. Begonia has appeared far too often,” Qin Nan said. Jian Fan was not fond of long-winded explanations, but Qin Nan had no such reservations. He continued, “There are twelve Players in total. If every one of us succeeds, we should receive twelve torn pages, which means the story we piece together will obviously be very short. Yet this short story spends so much time on seemingly unimportant descriptions… Something’s not right. If the story were thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of words long, these few descriptions really wouldn’t matter. But this fairy tale is only a few hundred words long. In that case, the begonia blossoms…”

“The Prince and the Little Princess are both major characters, but the begonia blossoms also appear frequently later on and receive plenty of description. If they were a person, they’d count as an important supporting character, at the very least,” Yellow Hair ventured.

“But what could be wrong with the begonia blossoms?” Lin Junruo asked.

“There’s also the cage,” Mu Xin added.

“Let’s keep looking,” Jian Fan said. He could not make sense of it yet either. They still did not have enough information.
Three fragments were still far from enough to reveal the answer.

That meant their top priority was to complete as many tasks as possible. As for their current situation…

“We’ve completed three tasks so far. Qin Nan’s, Lu Jing’s, and Mu Xin’s tasks have already been triggered, while the rest of ours…” Yang Zhen swept her gaze around the group, looking somewhat irritated.

Zhou Jingying spoke up as well. “Things aren’t too bad yet. We’ve already completed three tasks, and I think there’s a good chance we can finish Mu Xin’s. That leaves Qin Nan’s task. The task itself should be easy enough; our main concern is how much completing it will hurt Jian Fan. Lu Jing’s task is more troublesome. Besides those, Lin Junruo’s, Yang Zhen’s, and Qin Weiyi’s tasks still haven’t been triggered.”

“What do we do next?” Yang Zhen asked, glancing at the time as she spoke.

While they had been busy, more than half an hour had slipped by. It was already almost ten.

The ball would end before midnight, which meant they only had two hours left.

Once that deadline passed, they would no longer be able to receive any tasks.

Yang Zhen wasn’t the only one watching the clock.

Qin Nan also checked the time.

The sight of it gave Qin Nan more to think about than the others. Jian Fan had said that this world had a time limit, and if they failed to leave before midnight, then they would…

At first, Qin Nan had thought Jian Fan was exaggerating. Now, however, he was beginning to believe him.

Because something had occurred to him.

If they weren’t going to die after midnight, why did all the tasks have to be completed before then? Why couldn’t they continue after midnight?

As long as they were alive, they should still be able to receive tasks. And if they couldn’t, then what would be the point of remaining here?

There was no answer.

Which inevitably made Qin Nan think of death.

Jian Fan’s speculation made sense.

Still, there was no need to bring it up right now.

“Let’s keep splitting up and working together,” Qin Nan suggested.

Everyone nodded.

There were no special assignments to make at the moment, so they divided into groups and spread out to search for clues, hoping to complete a few more tasks.

This time, the nine of them split into four teams.

Qin Nan and Jian Fan naturally stayed together. Qin Weiyi and Lu Jing also remained together, with Zhou Jingying joining them. Mu Xin paired up with Lin Junruo. The two of them would search nearby for clues first. When the time came, Lin Junruo would go keep watch over Shi Chen, while Mu Xin would work on the Flower Prince’s task. That left Yellow Hair and Yang Zhen as the final team.

The four teams quickly set to work.

Meanwhile…

What about Fang Kang?

Fang Kang had finally found the Golden Ball.

His eyes lit up at the sight of it again, but he quickly began scanning his surroundings with great care. Only after making sure there were no unexpected dangers did he cautiously swim toward the Golden Ball.

He moved with exceptional care, terrified that something else might go wrong.

Fortunately, this time Fang Kang managed to clamp his teeth around the Golden Ball.

With the Golden Ball finally in his possession, Fang Kang let out a tremendous sigh of relief.

But his work wasn’t over yet.

He quickly held his breath again and began swimming toward the surface.

Now that he had found the Golden Ball, an extremely difficult challenge still lay ahead of him: climbing out of the fish tank.

That would be no easy task either.