EIC 37

Chapter 37: Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake <1>*

What the boss had said made Luo Jian a little excited, so he quickly entered into the right state and began to discuss with the seniors in front of him. Within the premises of the boss’s bar, no one reported their real names. Therefore, this senior had always called himself the "Appraiser". The weapons of Appraiser are very magical and really mystical. It is actually a camera! 

"There are many players struggling to survive in the secret chambers. So, of course, there are many kinds of weapons, such as Luo Jian's knife, which belongs to the conventional melee weapon, or, like Thirteen’s crossbow, which belongs to the conventional long-range weapon. Similarly, there are also magic weapons in the magic category. For magic weapons, it can be divided into two kinds of close combat long-range weapons."

Boss began to introduce to Luo Jian. He pointed to the Appraiser and said: "This weapon belongs to the 'special' category and is also known as a weapon that is not a weapon. Players who hold these weapons are generally not good fighters and rely on their companions, but they are far ahead of others in some aspects. The secret rooms will not give players useless weapons, and Appraiser is definitely one of the few outstanding people.” 

After the uncle boss's introduction, Appraiser squeezed over here and shook hands with Luo Jian. When the middle-aged man opened his mouth and his voice sounded warm and pleasant, to Luo Jian’s surprise. He only heard him say, "Boss had previously mentioned you. What can I do for you?"

Without any delay, Luo Jian took out the English notebook he had obtained from the secret chamber and straightforwardly said, "I want you to help me identify this."

Appraiser, as his name implies, specializes in identifying objects for others. Of course, his services are not free of charge, but he provides a special free service for newbies like Luo Jian. 

There are not only a few players that are struggling in the secret chambers, but the numbers are not a lot. In every city, there would be a scanty few, and the maximum number would not be more than over a dozen. No one knows how the secret chamber selects new players. But once any player dies, the secret chamber will soon top up the numbers with newbies. This allowed the number of players to be kept at a stable amount. 

Appraiser appeared slightly interested in the notebook that Luo Jian took out. He swung it up and flipped it over. It seemed that he was estimating the value. After a while, it appeared that he saw something that was a famed object. He slightly smiled and uttered, "This is a good thing."

"What is this? Are you able to understand what is written inside? " Luo Jian is unable to hold himself back. 

"I am not able to understand it." Appraiser shook his head.

This time, Luo Jian could not comprehend what he had said and replied: "Since you are not able to understand it, how could you know that it’s a good thing?” 

"I don't need to understand what is contained." 

Appraiser continued, "I just need to understand how it can be used.” 

Seeing that Luo Jian was nevertheless not able to understand, Appraiser did not speak as well. He took out his weapon, a camera that appeared old, black and small in size. It wasn’t known if Luo Jian had been deluded. He blinked. It seemed that Appraiser's fingers that were wrapped around the camera had been winded with many small transparent silk threads. These threads were wrapped around the camera along with his fingers. But when Luo Jian blinked, he focused his sight and found that the threads had disappeared again. 

Luo Jian doesn't believe that what he saw was wrong, but with regards to his secret, it is not appropriate to question him in his face. Therefore, he shook his head and decided not to get to the bottom of the issue. As usual, Appraiser raised his camera, placed the English notebook in the centre of the table and took a picture of it.

The camera sounded with a click. It appeared that nothing happened. Luo Jian stared at Appraiser for a long moment. He is stunned in confusion. He could only stare at Appraiser expectantly. Appraiser was not immune to Luo Jian’s big, blinking eyes. He faked a cough twice and explained: "My weapon……I name it as ‘The Shadow of the Truth’. It can disperse all illusions and fakery and bring about the truth. Try to give your notebook a flip now.” 

Luo Jian doubted what he said, but he took the notebook on the desk and flipped it. To his surprise, the notebook that was originally filled with densely written English words had only had the first two pages written now. The first line on the first page remains to be a sentence found in the old Bible, which is "Resentment kills a fool and envy slays the simple.” 

Besides this single line of English, the rest of the following words are all written in Chinese. They are identical the words that were printed on the piece of paper found in the chamber. The contents are as follows: 

[Single Player Secret Chamber Opening Prop]

[Time: 3 hours]

[Background: Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake]

[Three designated rewards will be obtained once the player successfully escapes:]

[First reward, the basic sabre technique of a disguiser; Second reward, the basic mental technique of a disguiser; Third reward, the cross piece of a disguiser]

[Warning: Players who have experienced the secret chamber for less than three times are allowed to enter the secret chamber, but the difficulty coefficient might be too high for new players. If the player does not have absolute confidence in yourself, please act with caution when opening this prop.]

[Opening method of this prop: Blood contract]

"Single-player secret chamber opening prop…...?" Luo Jian roughly understood the contents of the notebook. He raised his head to gaze at the boss and asked: "What is a single-player secret chamber opening prop?"

"This is a good thing…..." Boss seemed to be making fun of him. He glanced at Luo Jian with a dirty smirk and said: "Single-player secret chamber opening prop means opening a new secret chamber in a single mode. In this secret chamber, in addition to the secret chamber that you must experience every ten days, you may also get an extra prop to open a secret chamber when you are engaged in a secret chamber. This sort of object will allow you to enter a three-hour secret chamber space. Generally speaking, in such an extra secret chamber, as long as you successfully escape, you would be able to obtain fairly rich rewards. These rewards are far richer than rewards obtained in a general secret chamber. However, generous rewards provided are directly proportional to the danger level in the chamber.” 

"That is to say, even if I form a team with someone, once I use this prop, I have to enter the secret chamber alone to solve the problems?" Luo Jian patted the notebook on his hands and questioned, "What if I didn’t manage to escape?”

"I would have to congratulate you, then. Your team would be disbanded." Boss appeared to be in a joyous spirit. He replied to Luo Jian: "You'd better attempt this prop. Only players who have gone through three secret chambers or lesser can use it. If you do not use it now, you can't use it after you have gone through the third secret chamber a few days later.” 

"I also think you should attempt it. I haven't been that lucky to get such props before." Appraiser also suggested that Luo Jian should try. The man had a gentle smile: "But with my timid character, I won't use it even if I obtained it.” 

Glancing at the notebook in his hand, Luo Jian felt a little bit moved, but he still had something to scruple about. He decided to consider it for the time being. After all, there are six days left till the next secret room, and he still has enough time to prepare. So, he bid farewell to Boss and Appraiser and returned home alone. 

After returning home, Luo Jian turned on the computer and went to the Internet for a while. He flipped open the notebook again and glanced at the beautiful ink-pen written words. After that, he began to search for the 11 words of " Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake" (1) on Baidu (2), but the search results of Mother Baidu shows……some inexplicable and explicable pictures and some inexplicable and explicable music. The only meaning behind the sentence is: There are flowers in the mirror, and the moon is in the water. Originally, it refers to the flexible and unpredictable artistic conception in a poem. Later, the idiom’s meaning changed to refer to an illusory scene. 

An illusory scene……? 

Luo Jian sighed, stood up and left the area where the computer desk is placed. He dug out his battle suit, and repeatedly checked his weapons. Once he confirmed that there were no problems with either, he bit his fingers and a small cut formed. Droplets of blood flowed out, and then Luo Jian calmly wiped the blood on the notebook.

A red light seemingly flashed, and a sentence quickly appeared on the notebook:

[The single-player secret chamber has been opened successfully. Preparing to transmit player now. Please breathe steadily and sleep calmly.]

When Luo Jian saw this, he laid down on the bed hugging the sheepskin notebook and closed his eyes. 

Luo Jian fell into deep sleep unknowingly. He probably felt that he was in that dream again. He saw the same person whose appearance he cannot decipher. Under the blood-red sunset, that person muttered something that Luo Jian couldn't understand. But this time, the dream seemed to be much clearer. At least, Luo Jian found that he retained his appearance when he was a child in the dream. The man who had a blurry appearance held little Luo Jian’s hand. His lips hooked up, akin to the shape of a curvature. He seemed to be smiling. 

The dream soon ended, and Luo Jian woke up.

The moment he just woke up, it seemed that he was in a trance for a moment. He hesitated slightly and climbed up from his feet speedily. He glanced around his surroundings, but cannot help but be extremely shocked.

This is a classroom.

In the olden-style classroom, the desks and chairs are all made of dirt yellow colour wood that was known to be firm. Luo Jian remembered that when he was a child, he used a similar type of desks and chairs when he was attending classes. When he was a child, he liked to a penknife, crayons, or other similar things to damage or write something on the tables. At that time, the chair he was sitting on seemed to lack a chair leg. It was always wobbly when he sat on it. Since the chair had probably been used over a long time, the nails on the chair had stuck up without anyone noticing. It had ripped apart someone’s trousers and caused everyone in the class to loudly laugh. 

However, Luo Jian’s beautiful childhood memory in his heart was completely subverted by the present situation and destroyed beyond recognition by it.

Because in this classroom, in every seat placement, on every chair, there is a corpse that is beyond recognition. All that is left on the corpse are white bones. 

What's more frightening is that when he woke up moments ago, he found that he was also sitting in one of the chairs, just like those bone racks. It appeared like he became part of them. 

Luo Jian's felt his heart tremble. He looked up at the teaching podium. A mere sight of it caused him to be drained of colour. There was a corpse hanging on the ceiling of the podium. The corpse was hung around its neck and connected to above the podium. Moreover, the cause of death of this particular corpse could be clearly deciphered because there was an iron-made teacher’s pointer pierced in the corpse’s head. 

Luo Jian took a deep breath. There was a smell of rust in the air. He took a moment to calm down and carefully observed the surrounding environment again. This is a classroom that is completely sealed. The windows of the classroom were sealed with wooden boards. The front door of the classroom made of a type of dark redwood that Luo Jian is familiar with. It is a door that is not compatible with this secret chamber. This implies that the door has been set as ‘an object that cannot be destroyed in any way’. When such a door appears in a secret chamber, generally, if it is not an exit, it would be the entrance to hell.

The back door of the classroom is completely sealed with bricks and painted with a brand-new coat of white paint. 

It seemed that this classroom secret chamber is incomparable with the ghost ship secret chamber that he previously experienced, but he could not underestimate this chamber as well.

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*Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake(idiom): an unrealistic view of something; a rose-tinted view 

(1) Originally, it was four words due to the 4 Chinese characters of the title of the secret chamber. I changed it here to fit the context. 

(2) A popular search engine in China. 

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Fleur's Corner:

I have reached out to Taida for taking over EIC a few weeks ago and decided to upload the chapter today.

I would like to thank Taida for her hard work so far in translating EIC. Taida has done an extremely incredible job in translating EIC and I really admire Taida for that. I don't think I'd be able to match up to Taida's standard, but I will try my best in translating. 

EIC has honestly been one of my favourite Chinese novels thus far, so I decided to give it a go translating it. If you spot any grammatical errors, please feel free to point it out. Most importantly, I usually re-read to edit my translations, so please do not publish my translation elsewhere as well (of course, do not republish my translation for obvious reasons as well). 

Regarding translation style: My translation style is simple and literal, and I try to stick as much as to what I interpreted as much as possible.  Also, I like to provide translator notes for my translations when I deem necessary for readers to understand or learn more about the context of the story. I hope everyone reading EIC would understand that there would be changes in translation style and it would be inevitable. 

For now, the update frequency of EIC would be set at once a week, till further notice. I will increase or decrease the frequency when I'm free or busy. The next update would be set at 25/4. 

Also, I'm looking for an editor for EIC. Please contact me at ASK on my Tumblr, for those who are interested.

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