The results come out! Nai He might be wishing for new friends. Wei Wei explores more of the game. And trouble comes … …

Lots of notes this time.

[1] B City is what authors use for Beijing as the convention for Chinese authors is to not use actual location names. Beijing is the capital of China and so the server is also the “Capital”.

[2] 555: in Chinese is wu-wu-wu or woo-woo-woo. Shorthand for crying.

[3]Green hat: it implies that the significant other of the person is cheating on them. So if Nai He was wearing the green hat, it would be said that Wei Wei was putting a green hat on him by cheating on him.

[4] The Condor Heroes and the Return of the Condor Heroes are two books by Jin Yong in his trilogy where the last book is Dragon Sword and Heavenly Sabre. In what could be argued as the most taboo and cla.s.sic love occurred in the Return of the Condor Heroes between Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nv. First, Xiao Long Nv was older than Yang Guo who called her “aunt” (gugu) which made it a inter-generational romance . Then there was the fact that Xiao Long Nv was also Yang Guo’s teacher in martial arts. Their relationship received opposition from all sides and eventually, Xiao Long Nv was poisoned and decided to kill herself by jumping off a cliff. When doing so, she made Yang Guo to promise to not seek her for sixteen years in hopes he would accept her death during this time. It was a happy ending as Yang Guo threw himself off the cliff and managed to find his gugu at the bottom, still alive. One of the most “epic” love stories in Chinese wuxia.

[5] 戰天下: meaning 戰(fight) 天下 (the whole world, all under the sky).

[6] 碧海潮聲閣: 碧 (green/jade)海潮 (tides)聲 (sound)閣 (pavilion). Green tidal sounds pavilion. Many sects in wuxia were called閣 or 宮 (palace) or 廟 (temple) such as Shaolin temple.

[7] 蝶夢未醒: 蝶 (b.u.t.terfly)夢(dreams)未(not)醒(awake).

Chapter Fourteen The Quest

Onto gossip, Lei Shen Ni Ni’s typing speed seemed to increase: “They are both in B City, it’s such a coincidence. Wei Wei, are you in B City too?”

Wei Wei: “En, studying in B City.”

It wasn’t actually a coincidence. This server was called “The Capital of Strife” and so for people in B City to use this server was just natural [1]. Thinking about it that way, Da Shen and the others were probably also at B City.

Wei Wei started to wander off in her thoughts.

Lei Shen Ni Ni: “I’m in T City, 555 [2]. Otherwise I’ll come find you guys. Oh, I have Zhen Shui and Xiao Yu Yao Yao’s couple pictures. He’s pretty handsome. You wanna take a look?”

Wei Wei: “>o

Wei Wei had no real interest in what Zhen Shui Wu Xiang looked like in real life. Otherwise, in the months before the “divorce”, she could have seen what he looked like. At that time, a couple in the sect had exchanged real photos. The result was that both sides couldn’t accept each other’s appearance. All that bravery and feelings had died a fiery death under the sun. It was at that time Zhen Shui had wanted to exchange pictures. Wei Wei had been somewhat shocked and used the reason “Don’t have a digital camera, so no photo” to not send a photo. It had been true, but it sounded like a very fake excuse to refuse the request.

In Wei Wei’s mind, the kind of reason didn’t matter. The important part was showing that she didn’t have any intention of sharing photos. They were just internet acquaintances, didn’t know each other’s faces or their intentions. It was safer not to share pictures. Also, using “marriage” as the premise to share pictures, it had certain implications and Wei Wei did not like those implications.

But Zhen Shui Wu Xiang apparently didn’t think that way. Thinking back, it had been from that time that his att.i.tude had changed.

Lei Shen Ni Ni stubbornly asked again: “Sure you don’t want to see?”

Wei Wei: “Nope, >o<>

Lei Shen Ni Ni was dejected: “Have gossip but can’t talk about it. Wei Wei, you aren’t cute at all. Have you met Yi Xiao Nai He? Is he handsome?”

The question startled Wei Wei on the other side of the computer. She careless replied “Haven’t met him”, but in her head she started thinking. If Nai He Da Shen wanted to exchange photos, would she be willing?

Almost … …

Yes.

If Nai He wanted to meet up?

Almost like … … yes.

Ah~~~

Wei Wei frightened herself with the two “yes” and thought that, with Nai He’s personality, he wouldn’t ever make this kind of request. So these two possibilities would never happen. Though Wei Wei started to feel regretful now she thought more about it.

With everyone else she could leave behind in the jianghu, but with Nai He .. …

Wei Wei suddenly didn’t want to think further.

The bribe incident Wei Wei didn’t tell Nai He. It was a minor thing, nothing to discuss.

The next day, Wei Wei and Nai He fulfilling all expectations, winning first place in the contest, and received a whole heap of prizes. Including, of course, the vaunted set of clothing for couples.

Wei Wei immediately changed into it once she got it. It was very beautiful, refined and cla.s.sical. The colors could change into the colors of the rainbow. She had great fun cycling through the choices.

Yu Gong said to Nai He: “You change into it too.”

Wei Wei nodded on the side, and sent an emoticon with hearts for eyes.

Nai He didn’t really prefer this type of grand and complicated clothing but seeing that they were all so eager clicked and changed. The white robes of the musician changed into purple n.o.blewear. Under the requests of everybody, he also changed the colors to see the effects, but he only changed it with six colors.

Hou Zi Jiu said: “Six colors, its missing one.”

Mo Zha Ta yelled; “Green, green!”

Nai He didn’t pay any attention and seemed to run out of patience. The clothing changed and returned to their normal white.

Yu Gong and Mo Zha Ta simultaneously started “hehehehe” laughing wickedly.

Wei Wei watched them laugh and suddenly realized. Green … …

Da Shen usually only had a white jade hairpin as decoration in his hair but the hair ornament from the seven-colored clothes was a hat. Changing the color to green would have been a… …

Green hat … …[3]

>o

Mo Zha Ta purposefully said: “Laosan has problems. Why won’t he try to matchsansao’s clothing, unless … …”

Nai He said: “We are an established couple now and very secure. We don’t care for these superficial things.”

Wei Wei jiong.

Da Shen, if you don’t want to wear it, then don’t. Don’t try to find excuses, and use “established couple” … …

In the following days, Wei Wei kept on wearing the seven-colored clothes. It wasn’t because she like it, but she felt since they spent so much effort to win it, not wearing it would be a waste. In fact, wearing it was pretty annoying, since the clothing had no attributes whatsoever. It didn’t add defense or attack strength so wearing it to fight monsters was akin to suicide. Each time she went to fight monsters, she had to change clothes.

One time, Wei Wei didn’t have time to change and was killed in one blow by a little boss. Wei Wei became very dejected and after that threw the clothes to the corner of her inventory and never wore it again.

There were still incidents during the days Wei Wei was wearing the cloths. There were a number of times she met Xiao Yu Yao Yao during those days. Before, they wouldn’t meet once every ten days or half a month. The number of meetings rose dramatically and Wei Wei started to feel awkward. She embarra.s.sedly thought, hopefully they wouldn’t think she was showing off … …

But, let them think what they want, Wei Wei didn’t care!

>o

After the winners of the video contest came out, the rules of the Couples PK Tournament also were published.

The PK Tournament officially started next Friday at eight at night. The entire tournament would take a month. The first half was round-robin tournaments within each server. After that, the top sixteen from each server would go into elimination and ranking rounds. At the end, there would be another elimination round and the finals.

Wei Wei noticed the time of the finals – June 13th at 8 at night.

The Level 6 tests were June 20th in the afternoon, which meant that if they managed to reach the finals, there was still another week left for her to review English after the tournament was over.

Very good, perfect.

Wei Wei nodded satisfactorily to herself and started to finely distribute the time available next month between studying and gaming. Nai He seemed much more indifferent about it. When they went to the NPC to sign up, he said to Wei Wei: “If there is a match, just give me a notice the day before.”

Wei Wei was already accustomed to the way Da Shen did things, so nodded and confirmed: “En, no problem.”

In comparison to Nai He’s indifferent att.i.tude, Hou Zi Jiu and the others were much more enthusiastic. Before the matches, they kept on wanting to PK for practice.

Hou Zi Jiu said: “Come one, pretend we are your opponents. Let’s have a mock PK match.”

Nai He said: “Our opponents are husband and wife, which of you is the husband and which one’s the wife?”

Hou Zi Jiu said: “Of course I am the husband.”

Yu Gong erupted: “I’m the husband.”

Hou Zi Jiu: “I’m taller than you.”

Yu Gong: “I’m heavier than you.”

… …

… …

The two of them immaturely argued for a while but couldn’t decide. The mock fight turned into an actual PK match between the two of them.

Wei Wei watched them speechlessly for a while, then looked admiringly at Nai He. Da Shen, he could kill without blood.

In the end, due to the fact Yu Gong and Hou Zi Jiu couldn’t decide who was the husband and who was the wife, the practice evaporated into thin air. Before the start of the matches, the group still were fighting bosses like usual.

Wei Wei and Nai He still left occasionally to perform Couple quests. They had almost completely all of the high-level quests. There was only one remaining, the rumoured to be very difficult and very s.a.d.i.s.tic “Condor Lovers”.

This quest was so difficult, that even though the game had been open for so long, n.o.body had completed it. Wei Wei and Nai He proceeded along, and found that it did very much live up to its reputation. Each segment and little side-quest was both difficult and complicated.

Take for example the need to kill monsters. In the quest, there were also monsters. But these weren’t normal. These were monsters who were cheaters to the point of being invincible to all other skills other than direct attacks. And then after the health decreased below a certain level, he would reincarnate and be back at full health. None of the detection or a.n.a.lyzing abilities worked, so it was impossible to know how much health the monster actually had… … at the end, it was Nai He who managed to calculate his health and the level where he would revive himself.

As a result, Wei Wei’s admiration of Da Shen went up another level. She had been trying to calculate the monster’s health too, but she couldn’t do it that quickly. It was simply not human.

Other than that, “Condor Lovers” had different mini-quests other than traditional challenges such as fighting monsters and gathering materials. There were also complicated timed search quests, riddles and mazes. There were also coming up with matching phrases and playing board games … … even if the board game only required a few steps and you could pick betweenweiqi and Chinese chess, there could be players that didn’t know both kinds … …

Too s.a.d.i.s.tic!

Thankfully there was the multi-purpose Da Shen.

The two of them managed to successfully pa.s.s through almost everything smoothly, but when they reached the last part, Wei Wei finally saw that there was no such thing as the worst possible evil, there was only ever even more evil.

In the last part, after talking to the NPC, Wei Wei was unpreparedly transported into a secret place that wasn’t on any of the maps. Then Nai He must in sixteen hours find her. If he couldn’t, than it meant failure of the whole quest.

Wei Wei finally understood why this quest was called “Condor Lovers.” This was mimicking the separation of Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nv for sixteen years. [4]

Thinking about it that way, is this totally dark place that she was in similar to the one from “Return of the Condor Heroes”, under a cliff? So if Nai He wanted to find her, did he have to also jump off?

>o

Luckily, the system wasn’t s.a.d.i.s.tic enough to shut off the messaging system so they could still communicate.

Nai He: “What’s the surroundings like?”

Wei Wei: “The surroundings are just very dark and very black and very dark … …”

The more Wei Wei described, the more embarra.s.sed she felt. Nai He was much more confident: “You can’t see anything?”

Wei Wei: “Yup.”

Nai He: “Any sounds?”

Wei Wei focused and listened for a while: “Seems like there’s water.”

Nai He: “En, I know.”

After that, there were more words. Naturally, Wei Wei wasn’t the type to wait for Nai He to find her and slowly explored on her own in the darkness to find any useful information to tell Nai He. During the time, she also went only to search for more information, but just like what had been said before, because n.o.body had finished the quest, there were no guides for players. And the official description of the last part of the quest from the game-maker only had one line – “You must rely on the connection between lovers to pa.s.s.”

Screw it – –

After ten minutes, a message started flashing. Wei Wei thought it was Nai He, and opened it. It was actually the leader of her sect, Zhan Tian Xia, who sent it.[5]

Zhan Tian Xia: “Lu Wei, why is your team stealing our sect team’s boss?”

Wei Wei’s sect was called Bi Hai Chao Sheng Ge. [6] It was one of the four major sects in the server. The founder had been a female player called Die Meng Wei Xing. [7]

Die Meng Wei Xing had changed jobs two months ago and become very busy. As a result, she had given the position of sect leader to her husband, Zhan Tian Xia. This Zhan Tian Xia Wei Wei wasn’t very familiar with but Zhen Shui Wu Xiang and he were very familiar.

At this time,Wei Wei receiving this kind of message, she found it very strange.

“What stealing boss? I’ve been doing quests the whole time.”

Zhan Tian Xia: “Yu Gong Pa Shan, Hou Zi Jiu, aren’t they part of your team?”