Chapter 201
Chapter 201
The Proprietress looked at the two of them holding hands, her lips parting and closing as if she wanted to say something but held back.
There was something she wasn’t sure she ought to say.
After two seconds of silence, the Proprietress finally spoke tentatively.
“You… are you sure that’s the simple question you want to ask?”
Jiang Li, who had been drinking her beverage nearby, froze when she heard that.
Had the three of them overlooked something?
Jiang Li gently set down her glass, her expression turning serious.
She thought back carefully.
Before entering the game, every piece of chocolate had been required to be “eaten by a child,” or the game wouldn’t begin.
That meant the chocolate the Proprietress was hinting at now was obviously not something brought in from outside.
It should be… chocolate that had appeared within the Fairy Tale World.
But had chocolate ever appeared in this Fairy Tale World?
Jiang Li fell into thought.
She raised her head and glanced at the Proprietress by the kitchen door.
The Proprietress was staring at Zhao Qingqing, scooping up a small handful of sunflower seeds and cracking them leisurely.
“Have you made up your minds? You want to ask where you can get chocolate? If you’re sure, come with me to the counter and sign for it.”
The Proprietress took the lead and walked behind the counter.
Xu Haoran and Zhao Qingqing exchanged a look, not daring to answer right away.
If they said now, “Yeah, that’s our question,” wouldn’t they look… really stupid?
“Can’t think of it? How about you two crack some sunflower seeds? They’ve got black technology added to them. Good for the brain.”
The Proprietress gave them another hint and stuffed two or three sunflower seeds into their hands.
“Oh, and don’t throw the shells around. I usually dump them all at the tavern entrance,” the Proprietress said as she cracked another seed.
The moment he heard that, Xu Haoran froze.
The tavern entrance…
When Xu Haoran turned toward the door, a figure had already flashed past him and crouched there.
Jiang Li crouched by the entrance, pinched up a small bit of black mud, brought it to her nose, and gave it a light sniff.
The black mud smelled faintly sweet, carrying a subtle fragrance.
It didn’t smell like soil.
She rubbed it between her fingertips next. The texture was fine and soft, completely different from the grit of dirt.
A guess surfaced in Jiang Li’s mind.
She took a cleaner bit from the lower layer, placed it on the tip of her tongue, and tasted it.
Slightly sweet, slightly bitter. It was chocolate powder.
The soil here wasn’t soil at all, but edible chocolate powder. That fit perfectly with a Fairy Tale World shaped by a child’s imagination.
Jiang Li’s eyes lit up.
She had almost forgotten-this game was meant for children, so many things would naturally be made according to a child’s wishes.
In that case, the wooden materials of the log cabin tavern might not actually be wood either. They could be cookies, something edible too.
Jiang Li thought that if Red Infant weren’t asleep, he might very well gnaw the whole tavern down.
She pulled herself out of her thoughts and wiped the chocolate powder from her tongue.
Then she lifted her face and held up the clump of black mud, giving Xu Haoran and Zhao Qingqing a slight nod from where she crouched.
The two of them immediately understood.
Xu Haoran quickly changed his answer to the Proprietress. “N-No, that’s not our question. We’ll think a little more.”
Meanwhile, Zhao Qingqing hurried to the tavern entrance, grabbed a handful of the black-mud-like substance, and was about to stuff it into her mouth.
“Wait.” Jiang Li stopped her. “Don’t eat it yet.”
Jiang Li grabbed her wrist.
The chocolate issue was solved.
But deep down, Jiang Li had the vague feeling that things… weren’t supposed to develop this way.
Zhao Qingqing shouldn’t be the one to eat the chocolate powder.
Because in the prophesied scene, Zhao Qingqing was killed in the bushes.
Not falling asleep after eating chocolate as the Rabbit.
Jiang Li frowned.
The current course of events didn’t line up with the future scene at all.
Was it possible that Zhao Qingqing’s plan-“retreat to advance, sacrifice herself, then wait to be revived”-simply wasn’t the best solution, and so it hadn’t been chosen?
Originally, the outcome had been that everyone would die, and Zhao Qingqing alone could live.
But Zhao Qingqing had come up with a way for everyone else to live while she died temporarily in their place.
If even one death still didn’t count as “the best solution,” then the only conclusion Jiang Li could draw was that there should exist a way to resolve this where no one had to die at all.
But what exactly were they supposed to do to make sure nobody died…
After thinking for a few seconds, Jiang Li stood up and looked toward the Proprietress.
“I want to use my chance to ask a question,” Jiang Li said firmly.
The Proprietress nodded. “Sure. Come over here. Think of your question, then sign here.”
The Proprietress opened the ledger in her hands and turned it so it faced Jiang Li.
“Name?”
“Jiang Li.”
Hearing her answer, the Proprietress’s expression shifted slightly.
“You’re a Chosen One?”
“Yes.”
The Proprietress suddenly snatched the ledger from Jiang Li’s hands and quickly flipped to the rules on the last page.
“First: Chosen Ones get priority when asking questions. Second: Chosen Ones may only ask yes-or-no questions. Otherwise, the question is invalid.”
The Proprietress raised a hand, pointed at the fine print on the last page of the question ledger, and read it out word by word.
Jiang Li froze for a moment, then swallowed the question that had already risen to her lips.
What she asked had to be a yes-or-no question.
That meant the Proprietress’s answer could only be “yes” or “no,” “correct” or “incorrect,” “there is” or “there isn’t,” and so on.
This was a rule specifically designed to restrict the Chosen One.
Jiang Li held the pen and thought it over for three seconds.
Then she swiftly signed her full name on a blank page of the ledger and asked the Proprietress her question.
“If I replace my companion and become the Rabbit Hunter, is it possible to keep everyone alive?”
Jiang Li set down the pen and looked steadily at the Proprietress.
By asking this question, she could obtain two layers of information.
The first was whether there was some way for her and Zhao Qingqing to switch places: whether Zhao Qingqing could return to normal while Jiang Li became the murderous Rabbit instead.
The reason she asked this was because, in the prophetic scene, everyone except Jiang Li had appeared with human faces, including Zhao Qingqing.
Jiang Li reasonably suspected that the version of herself who never appeared was the true killer in every scene.
Second, Jiang Li also wanted to know the second layer of information: whether there was a way for everyone to survive.
This information determined whether Zhao Qingqing needed to eat the chocolate.
It also determined whether Zhao Qingqing had to be sacrificed, or whether she still had a chance to live.
Jiang Li’s guess was that there should be some kind of item that only she could use.
So if Jiang Li became the “killer,” she would have a way to do both: keep everyone alive without killing them, and survive herself as well.
Faced with Jiang Li’s question, the Proprietress cracked two more sunflower seeds, supplemented her brainpower a little, and said, “Yes.”
After getting a positive answer, Jiang Li finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Her analysis had been correct.
Jiang Li glanced at the time on the wall clock, then quickly headed to the door and took Ms. Rabbit’s hand.
With Ms. Rabbit beside her, Jiang Li stopped in front of Xu Haoran.
The girl and the Rabbit both gave Xu Haoran a slight nod, signaling that he could now ask the second question.
Xu Haoran’s heart was pounding wildly, and he was a little nervous.
He had to follow Jiang Li’s lead and ask a useful question. He absolutely could not drag everyone down.
Xu Haoran let out a breath and signed his name in the ledger as well.
He lifted his eyes and looked at the Proprietress. “The detailed and specific method to keep everyone alive is-”
“Hey, hey, hey, stop right there.” The Proprietress cut him off. “You can do that? Kid, with a question like that, I’d be betraying the organization on the spot. What, are you determined to finish me off today?”
“Pick another one! If you don’t, I’m declaring the question invalid.” The Proprietress gave Xu Haoran a second chance.
After weighing it over again and again, Xu Haoran changed his question.
“What is the method for letting the Chosen One replace their companion and become a Rabbit?”
The Proprietress slapped the table and exclaimed excitedly, “Now that’s the right person to ask!”
She immediately pulled out the black landline she had hidden away and dialed an internal number.
“Hello? Ah, Doctor, hello, hello~~ So here’s the thing…”
The Proprietress glanced at Jiang Li and lowered her voice.
“I’ve managed to persuade the Chosen One to defect, yes, yes. She says she wants to kill people, join us, and replace her companion as the Rabbit Hunter.
Yes, yes, that’s right. I had to talk myself hoarse to convince her. So when can you send someone over to take care of it?
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay, got it, got it.
Doctor, this counts as a major achievement on my part, right? So about that chain-store business…
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, all right, all right!”
The Proprietress hung up and made an OK sign at Xu Haoran.
“Done.”