Chapter 275
Chapter 275
“We’re really back?” Lu Jing still found it hard to believe.
Xia Zeqin climbed to his feet, his face expressionless. This time, instead of leaving immediately, he looked at Jian Fan. “I underestimated you.”
Jian Fan raised his eyes to meet Xia Zeqin’s gaze.
He let out a soft laugh. “And I overestimated you.”
Xia Zeqin laughed as well. “Then we’ll see who has the last laugh.” With that, Xia Zeqin walked away.
Qin Nan had also gotten to his feet by then. He went over to Jian Fan and asked curiously, “Jian Fan, what exactly happened? Why was there suddenly an explosion on the Prince’s side? What happened over there?”
At that, Jian Fan looked at Qin Nan, then at everyone else.
They were all staring eagerly at him, waiting for him to clear up their confusion.
Jian Fan: “…”
Jian Fan did not particularly feel like explaining, but faced with everyone’s burning thirst for knowledge, he eventually deigned to speak, albeit only two simple words.
“The sacrifice.”
“The sacrifice?” Qin Nan was baffled.
By now, none of them were unfamiliar with the concept. The fairy tale had been about a sacrifice, after all. But what did that have to do with them successfully clearing the stage?
Qin Weiyi was the first to realize what had happened.
“You made a wish to the begonia blossoms?” Qin Weiyi asked.
Jian Fan paused. “You could put it that way.”
“A wish? What wish? Come on, can you two stop talking in riddles?” Yellow Hair complained.
Mu Xin was equally confused. “But if you made a wish to the begonia blossoms… None of us died, which means the sacrifice failed. So how could you make a wish?”
Hearing that, Qin Nan finally understood.
“I get it.”
“What?” Mu Xin asked. Jian Fan also turned to Qin Nan, curious to see whether he had grasped the key point.
Qin Nan looked at Mu Xin. “Have you ever heard of a failed sacrifice backfiring on the people being used as offerings? Of course it would backfire on the person who arranged the sacrifice.”
Mu Xin: “?”
That made so much sense she could not refute it.
If the sacrifice failed and triggered a backlash, the Prince would naturally be the first to suffer.
But what did the wish have to do with it?
Mu Xin and the others looked at Jian Fan again.
With a calm expression, Jian Fan said, “I made a wish to the begonia blossoms. I wished for evil to be repaid in kind.”
Everyone: “???”
Even while making a wish, his moral standards had been that lofty?
“There were two crucial pieces of information in the story we pieced together from the fragments. First, the birdcage, which was the environment we were trapped in. Second, the means of breaking free: the begonia blossoms,” Jian Fan explained.
“In the story, the power of the begonia blossoms was absolute. She could disregard every rule. When the Prince made a wish to her, he succeeded. And we were inside that story too,” Jian Fan continued.
Yang Zhen did not quite understand. “I think I understand what you mean, but even after the Prince obtained power, he was eventually overthrown. If you made a wish to the begonia blossoms, it should only have gotten us out of danger temporarily.”
The power of the begonia blossoms did not last forever.
Besides, that merely explained how they had resisted the Prince. What did it have to do with clearing the stage?
Jian Fan paused.
“The way to clear the stage was to leave the birdcage alive and be reborn,” Jian Fan said.
This time, everyone truly fell silent.
So Jian Fan had simply taken advantage of the begonia blossoms’ role in the story, attacking the Prince on two fronts through the failed sacrifice and his wish.
The sacrifice failed, and the backlash struck the Prince. The wish succeeded, and the Prince suffered retribution.
That was only the first step. Whether the Prince could make a comeback was never the key. What mattered was what Jian Fan had done during the time those two measures bought him.
What truly cleared the world was Jian Fan opening the door of the birdcage and stepping outside.
The final step seemed incredibly simple, but all the difficulty had been concentrated in everything leading up to it. If Jian Fan hadn’t realized what was going on, the group sacrifice might have succeeded, killing every last one of them.
Even if the Prince’s sacrifice failed, if they hadn’t reacted in time, he could have made a comeback and put them through the whole ordeal again.
Of course, the most important thing in this world was cooperation.
Even if someone was lucky enough to draw a fragment containing crucial information, they would still need to piece several fragments together. In this world, going it alone meant losing.
“Seriously…” Qin Weiyi scoffed. “The Realm of Death really knows how to come up with this stuff.”
Jian Fan paused.
Then he looked at Qin Weiyi and extended an invitation. “Want to talk?”
Qin Weiyi climbed to his feet. “We really should.”
Jian Fan nodded, then glanced at Qin Nan. “Let’s find a room.”
Jian Fan stepped forward first, and Qin Nan immediately followed. Qin Weiyi pulled Lu Jing along with him, while Mu Xin naturally had no intention of missing out and grabbed Lin Junruo before she left.
When Yellow Hair saw them, he shamelessly tagged along as well.
Jian Fan selected a room first.
The others then chose to enter. Once Jian Fan approved them, they all vanished from the spot.
Only four people remained in the Realm of Death:
Fang Kang, Zhou Jingying, Yang Zhen, and Shi Chen.
“Are they excluding us?” Yang Zhen asked in disbelief.
Fang Kang scoffed. He had no interest in cooperating with anyone. Although he was somewhat curious, he still put on a disdainful expression and turned to leave.
Yang Zhen looked at Shi Chen. “What could they possibly be discussing that we aren’t allowed to hear?”
Shi Chen was speechless.
“They were together to begin with,” Shi Chen said.
Yang Zhen grew annoyed. “But didn’t we work pretty well together in this world too?”
Shi Chen fell silent again.
Someone who had been carried to victory through two consecutive worlds had no right to speak.
“This is ridiculous!” Yang Zhen fumed. Then she snapped, “If they’re wary of me, fine! I don’t care. I’m a lone wolf anyway.”
With that, Yang Zhen angrily selected a room and left. Shi Chen did the same.
As for Zhou Jingying…
She stood there and thought for a moment before heading toward Jian Fan’s room.
Jian Fan had only invited Qin Weiyi, but hadn’t everyone else gone in too? Sure, he hadn’t invited her, but who cared about saving face in the Realm of Death?
With a perfectly composed expression, Zhou Jingying sent a request to enter Jian Fan’s room.
Jian Fan and the others entered the room.
“Let’s talk about the Points,” Jian Fan said bluntly once everyone was present.
The mere mention of Points gave Qin Weiyi a headache. Still, when he remembered that everyone had cleared this world, he smiled. “How many do you have now?”
Jian Fan raised a hand and rubbed between his brows. “Seven thousand four hundred and sixty.”
A single world had earned him sixteen hundred Points.
His plan to keep his head down and slowly scrape by had been completely ruined.
Qin Weiyi laughed. “Six thousand eight hundred and twenty. Congratulations. You’ve taken first place.”
Jian Fan was speechless.
“Mine stayed exactly the same. I broke even?” Lu Jing wasn’t sure whether he should be relieved or worried.
“What about everyone else?” Qin Weiyi asked.
Qin Nan said, “Five thousand two hundred.”
Mu Xin said, “Seven thousand one hundred and fifty. I think I’m getting a headache.”
She used to want to save up Points. Now, having too many felt like a death sentence.
Lin Junruo said, “Five thousand nine hundred and fifty. I’m starting to panic too.”
With her limited abilities, could she really survive?
Yellow Hair heard their totals, cleared his throat, and answered, “Four thousand seven hundred.”
As soon as he said that, everyone looked at him with envy.
Who would have thought that he, the one with the fewest Points, would end up being the most enviable of them all?