Two Paths

 

Compared to the corridor space on the second floor, the area on the third floor was very large; it seemed that only from here could one see how big the ancient castle was.

The window was locked. Guan Ling pushed hard, but the window didn’t budge. He shook his head and let Cao Qian take a turn; she also couldn’t open it.

“My basic skills seem to be ineffective against this window,” Cao Qian aknowledged. “Or perhaps this isn’t a window at all.”

Xing Ye thought for a moment and said, “I find it strange that the throne is placed above the graveyard. Normally, after passing the final level, that person should return to the real world. It wouldn’t make sense for them to win and then become the leader of a group of deceased consciousness, right?”

Guan Ling and Cao Qian thought for a long time but couldn’t figure out the reason.

“Since this is not the real world, then time and space have no meaning; everything is false, merely symbolic. So, is the sunlight outside real?” Xing Ye looked at the sunlight streaming into the castle through the window. An hour ago, the sunlight looked like this, and an hour later, it hadn’t even changed in angle.

“Xing Ye,” Lu Mingze suddenly said, “why don’t you try taking me up?”

Taking his advice, Xing Ye placed the mirror in the sunlight. Normally, sunlight would be reflected by the mirror, but at this moment, the light penetrated the mirror and did not reflect.

Instead, it was the oil lamp on the corridor of the second floor that would not extinguish that reflected the light.

“So this isn’t the real throne,” Cao Qian said. “The third floor and above can’t be considered the graveyard.”

“The third floor and the attic are probably the buffer zone between the graveyard and the game world. If we want to get out, we must go through here.” Xing Ye furrowed his brow; if the window was fake, then how would they get out?

Behind the door, his brother Xing Shuo once said that the power of the Repainting Brush was far from as simple as what Xing Ye was currently using. In the spiritual or illusory world, the Repainting Brush would indeed have powers akin to a magic brush.

Xing Ye decisively chose to use the Repainting Brush, directly drawing a door on the floor-to-ceiling window behind the throne; it was the door to his family villa. This door was somewhat large, but fortunately, the wall was big enough, and Xing Ye successfully drew it.

It was just relatively time-consuming since the door was quite big.

While drawing the door, Xing Ye discovered another ability of the Repainting Brush.

He had some drawing skills, but they were limited to engineering applications. It would be quite difficult to completely reproduce an object. Moreover, he had never used the Repainting Brush to draw anything other than QR codes and had consistently overlooked the system's description of the Repainting Brush.

When he first saw the Repainting Brush skill, the system prompted him like this—he could redraw things he had seen before and give the original item half of its effects.

Simply put, as long as he had seen and remembered it, he could draw it; drawing skills were not a condition for using the Repainting Brush.

Sure enough, while drawing, Xing Ye discovered that some details he couldn’t draw using his techniques could automatically be drawn by the Repainting Brush as long as he remembered them.

However, the finished product of the door was only half the size of the original. Fortunately, the door he chose was relatively large, so even though it was only half, he could still bend down and squeeze through.

The door opened onto the window, and the angle of light shining on the throne remained unchanged.

“Boss! Are you a magic brush?” Guan Ling exclaimed joyfully upon seeing the door, nearly jumping to hug Xing Ye and kiss him.

“Don’t rush to go out yet,” Xing Ye advised. “We still don’t know what it’s like outside.”

After saying this, he gently pushed open the door, only to see darkness outside. Several vines of the climbing ivy rushed in. Surprisingly, these vines did not damage any items on the third floor but instead lunged directly at Xing Ye and the others.

The throne was touchable, and the climbing ivy could be touched too, yet both could coexist without interfering with each other.

“What’s going on?” Guan Ling asked while dodging the vines.

Xing Ye replied, “It’s because the vines and the throne both exist in reality but are not in the same reality, so they can’t interfere with each other. My door has become a passage connecting the two realities, allowing the vines to come in and attack us but unable to harm the throne.”

“What the hell!” Guan Ling completely didn’t understand.

Cao Qian translated it in her own way: “It’s like assuming there are parallel spaces; the throne is in another parallel space. We can see it but cannot harm it. The vines are currently in the same reality as us, so they can attack us. This is a multi-dimensional reality issue… Just consider the throne as a projection.”

Compared to the locked window, Cao Qian preferred this direct confrontation with the vines. She grabbed a few of them and tied them together, then directly threw them out of the window.

Seeing Xing Ye focused on what he was drawing, she told Guan Ling, “Use absolute defence to buy time for Xing Ye to draw. We mustn’t let the vines attack the monsters in the attic.”

Guan Ling nodded repeatedly, discarding the “Tranquility” QR code and using his initial skill to block the door. The vines continued to attack the absolute defence but couldn’t enter.

Xing Ye focused on his drawing, and Cao Qian checked the room and the stairs to the attic, only breathing a sigh of relief after confirming no vines had gotten in.

After three minutes, the moment absolute defence vanished, Cao Qian, at Xing Ye's signal, pulled Guan Ling and jumped into the vines, with Xing Ye closely following.

As soon as Cao Qian jumped out the door, she felt her foot step on something. Looking down, she saw a wooden staircase that was almost identical to that of the ancient castle, only narrower. The original staircase could accommodate two people, but now it only allowed one person to pass at a time.

The vines rushed up, and as Xing Ye stepped onto the staircase, he turned back to draw a large X. The door he had just drawn disappeared, leaving only the castle's original barrier, which the vines couldn’t break through.

Outside the castle was pitch black, and nothing could be seen. Xing Ye casually drew an oil lamp, holding it up in his palm.

In the faint firelight, they saw countless vines rapidly growing beneath them, seemingly trying to impede their movements.

Xing Ye pressed against the castle wall and continuously drew a staircase leading to the sky. He didn’t use “Kua Fu Chasing the Sun,” as this world originally had no concept of time; Kua Fu Chasing the Sun wouldn’t necessarily stop time, and it wasn’t the critical moment yet.

Sharpening the knife does not delay the work of cutting wood (NT: idiom suggesting that focusing on preparation rather than rushing into a task can lead to higher quality outcomes). He conveniently drew “Fist of Glory” for Cao Qian and Guan Ling, along with four “Surgeon’s Scalpels,” to assist them in battle and block the advancing vines.

Xing Ye really wanted to use a fire circle, but the staircase beneath them was also wooden, and using a fire circle would only lead to their demise.

“Boss, we can’t stop the vines! They’ve gone up!” While Xing Ye was focused on drawing, he heard Guan Ling shout at him.

Looking down, he saw that the vines had increased in number. Even with Cao Qian’s immense strength, they couldn’t stop so many vines, and both of them were already entangled by them.

At this rate, even if Xing Ye could open the passage in time, Guan Ling and Cao Qian would still be trapped inside.

The bullets of the Hundred Percent Hit Gun had all been exhausted, and the four scalpels had fallen as well. Cao Qian was holding onto Guan Ling’s clothes with one hand and clutching the staircase with the other, refusing to let the vines pull them down.

What other tricks could he use? Things he had seen...

Xing Ye’s brain worked quickly, past experiences flashing through his mind like a revolving lantern. Suddenly, he thought of a weapon and quickly sketched it in the air. This was a weapon that Randy had used against robots in front of the illegal mining site, with immense power to eliminate opponents in one strike.

Moreover, the design of this sword was simple, and he could outline it in just a few strokes. Xing Ye effortlessly drew one. Cao Qian's hands were occupied, so Guan Ling grabbed the blade with his hand, getting cut in the process.

He didn’t cry out in pain and quickly used his other hand to pick up the sword, wildly slashing at the vines that were constantly attacking him and Cao Qian.

Unlike Randy’s move that destroyed all the robots with one strike, this sword’s power was only half that of the original, so Guan Ling only managed to sever half of the vines.

But that was enough. With the pressure halved, Cao Qian quickly broke free, jumping up the stairs with Guan Ling and running swiftly toward Xing Ye.

At this point, the staircase that Xing Ye had drawn had reached the top of the attic. As he stepped onto the attic, he heard the monster inside the walls roar loudly, seemingly furious about their actions.

Cao Qian and Guan Ling also climbed up in succession. As they ascended, Xing Ye drew an X on the staircase; the staircase vanished, and the vines, losing their climbing support, began to fall.

However, the three of them were quite cramped at the top of the attic. Guan Ling was clinging to the pointed structure with both hands and feet, but he was still slipping down.

“Where’s the exit?” Cao Qian asked.

Xing Ye raised the oil lamp, prompting Cao Qian to look up at the sky.

In the sky of the ancient castle, two paths appeared: one was black and white, and the other was pure black.

“There are two paths?” Cao Qian frowned and said, “Which one do we take? Is it the black and white one? Our system space is just black and white.”

Xing Ye replied, “We could choose the system space, but if we do, our game will only reach the superficial ending.”

In the spiritual world, they only knew that Xiao Hei had committed suicide by jumping off a building, and they followed suit. In fact, that was just the superficial ending of the game; leaving like this would only earn them 100 points and no books.

With just 100 points, Xing Ye wouldn’t be able to enter the advanced world, and he only had four books, still one book short of clearing the final level.

Cao Qian understood Xing Ye’s meaning and knew he wanted to find the true ending in the spiritual world.

“You all decide: return to the system space or enter the spiritual world,” Xing Ye suggested.

Guan Ling shouted from above, “Does that even need to be said? Of course, we’re entering the spiritual world! We’ve made it through eighty challenges; do you think we’re just going to back down at the last step? Going back to the system space now would be a losing deal. Besides, I think the items given by the system for clearing the true ending are more useful than the QR codes I’ve drawn. I definitely want to draw the good items in the spiritual world!”

Most importantly, if the three of them did not all choose to return to the spiritual world, then the person who entered the system space would count as achieving a superficial victory, while those entering the spiritual world would be considered failures.

Cao Qian also supported Xing Ye’s decision. Seeing that the other two had no objections, Xing Ye casually drew a ladder leading to the sky.

Cao Qian supported the ladder from below while Xing Ye and Guan Ling climbed up.

After they both made it, Cao Qian took a deep breath, slightly crouched down, and jumped upward with all her might. Midway, her toes lightly tapped the ladder for leverage, and she leaped into the black passage.

After entering the passage, the three felt their bodies disassemble and then reassemble, and when they opened their eyes again, they found themselves back in the president's office.

They arrived just in time to see the scene of Xing Ye before he jumped down from upstairs, as Ren Tingman, transformed into a lizard person, squeezed into the office and roared at Xing Ye: “Get back to work!”

Xing Ye: “…”

If he had known he would have to deal with her, he wouldn’t have been so carefree when jumping off the building earlier.

 

Translator : DarNan