Please Stop Pretending To Be a Cute Newcomer!

【 Congratulations to God for clearing the level, another perfect evaluation, throwing flowers¹ 】

【 I’m curious what Beauty said about cleaning up the battle situation, does he mean it literally? 】

【 From the experience of the last copy, it should be that he’s referring to the NPCs 】

【 No one is discussing the story line? I think the main line of this dungeon is very thought-provoking. On the surface, it’s about a "mask", but it actually means the relationship between humans and animals. If human beings really no longer stood at the top of the food chain, I would guess that it would be like what the players in the dungeon encountered, being captured and killed at will 】

【Then I would definitely be the first to be eaten _(:3"∠_² 】

【 Where are you getting such a deep meaning? Nature is essentially the strong preying on the weak. The NPCs are strong, so they can keep the humans in captivity, and God and Beauty are strong, so there is nothing wrong with them subduing the NPCs 】

【 I don’t agree. Some things can be completely replaced by humans, such as fur, and they don’t have to be taken from animals, right? There are also those who hunt and kill protected animals privately in order to earn money, and those who take bile from live bears³. Many of these practices are cruel, I think people and animals can choose a more harmonious way of getting along]

【? As long as you eat meat, it is impossible to have a harmonious relationship! It can only look good on the surface; to put it bluntly, it is hypocrisy 】

【 Everyone, don't fight⁴, is it that you don’t want to watch the game or that you don’t want to eat the sugar?! 】

【 Once they’re done I want to watch Meiren and God go to the mountains and play with the water! 】

【 Oh my God, my God⁵, what is Beauty doing, hahahahaha I'm going to die of laughter 】

【 Hahahaha where’s my head gone, where’s my head gone, hahahaha 】

【 That family’s little sister is trying to hook you in! I’ll show her the way, can she get on the road⁶ [dog head] 】

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The old castle was still the same as it was before, and there were traces of a mess left in the hall from the chaos.

Shen Qingcheng squatted beside the pillar by the door, holding a small wooden stick and poking and prodding, muttering, "Little fox⁷, big bear, little bird~"

"Little bird? Little old man⁸?" He burst out laughing, "Forget it, let’s stay with little bird."

In front of him, a few people were tied up with iron chains, on a pillar so wide that two people would have to hug to reach fully around it.

These people were sitting on the icy slate-like ground, their upper bodies completely restrained by iron chains, only their legs free.

It was Ying Ying, the little girl in a colorful dress, Hu Lili, the beautiful woman in a red dress, and the big bear-like man with wild hair.

Shen Qingcheng was poking at Ying Ying, the little girl, who was glaring angrily at him.

After leaving the cave, Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi had returned to the castle.

The little girl, the woman, and Da Xiong hadn’t left the castle hall. As soon as they saw them, the little girl screamed, "You actually let my 'clothes' get away, you deserve to die! You deserve to die!"

In the minds of the NPCs, Lu Qi had cleared the customs and the other players had left the dungeon because Lu Qi let the players go.

Well, it wasn’t wrong to understand it that way.

The little girl clamored for Da Xiong to catch them, but Hu Lili was smart.

She knew that people who had the ability to let people escape weren’t easy to deal with, so she didn't plan to confront them head-on at first, quietly wanting to escape in the chaos.

In the end, this was the result.

The NPCs, whose output⁹ depended solely on the faceless ghost, weren’t a match for Lu Qi at all, but because of the copy system, the items from the mall couldn't hurt them, so Lu Qi could only temporarily control them.

Now Lu Qi had gone to find the last NPC, and Shen Qingcheng was left to guard them.

Shen Qingcheng poked the little girl's face with a stick, "Will you take it off, huh? Will you take it off?"

The little girl screamed, "I won’t take it off! I won’t take it off!" She kicked at him, hard.

Shen Qingcheng dodged, then got up and looked down at the little girl’s dirty, wrinkled skirt, shook his head and sighed, "Do you know why I like you the most among the animals?"

Then he answered himself, smiling and using a sing-song tone, "Because your skin is the best looking!"

The little girl who felt some deja vu suddenly remembered the words she herself had said the day before yesterday, and when she thought about how miserable her situation was now, she immediately began fake crying, "You’re bullying a child! You’re bullying a child!"

Shen Qingcheng listened to her cries with a smile, when suddenly he felt his ankle being rubbed.

He looked down. A slender leg stretched out from under a red skirt, tentatively nudging closer to his feet.

He looked at the woman and asked seriously, "Is your fur red? Is it thick and warm? Is there enough to make a scarf?"

Hu Lili: "..." The woman pulled her legs back with a stiff expression.

Alas, when would Lu Qi come back? He was done teasing Ying Ying and Hu Lili, and at a glance it was clear Da Xiong would be boring to mess with. How miserable.

Shen Qingcheng poked the little girl again and again, his eyes locked on the small building in the depths of the castle grounds. Suddenly, another person appeared in his sight.

The man was tall, wearing a black coat, and he seemed to be carrying something.

It was Lu Qi.

He threw away his stick and went up to him, but after a quick look he was attracted by what Lu Qi had brought, "Hey, what a fat rabbit!"

The rabbit was being held by both ears, and emitted a threatening hiss when it heard the words.

Shen Qingcheng raised his eyebrows, "Is this the fourth NPC?"

Lu Qi said, "En," and quickly found a rope to bind the rabbit's hind legs to the post with.

Shen Qingcheng: "He wasn’t wearing a skin?"

"He was wearing one." After tying the rabbit up, Lu Qi took out a small sword from his pockets. "I found this in the building."

There were strange symbols carved on both sides of the small sword--it was the one that Shen Qingcheng had personally carved.

Lu Qi had seen its effect before and knew that it could cut through the skin of NPCs, so he had cleanly skinned Tu Zhibai¹⁰ before coming over.

Shen Qingcheng was very happy to see the small wooden sword. Although it wasn't made of peach wood, it was his first creation after his death.

He said, "Perfect, I was just worrying about how to take their clothes off."

He moved towards the small sword as he spoke, but Lu Qi flinched. As the other man watched, puzzled, he walked to the pillar, and said, "I'll do it."

All right, you can do it if you want, it's all the same anyway.

After a few puffs and screams, the two women and one man tied to the post turned back into a bear, a fox, and a flapping bird, and engaged in mutual affection¹¹ with that rabbit, who had closed his eyes tightly and was in a depressive state¹².

The funniest thing was the big bird with its colorful feathers. It was tied by iron chains, but kept trying to fly away. The chains were so tight that it looked like a kite, with only its feet tied.

Shen Qingcheng had tried to shorten the chain earlier, and the more the line was drawn in, the more the big bird thrashed. He had had a great time playing until the bird was exhausted.

He asked Lu Qi, "Should we go now?"

Lu Qi: "Is there anything else you want to do?"

Shen Qingcheng thought for a while, then shook his head, "Nah, let’s just take these animals away when the time comes." The servants who were no longer under Tu Zhibai’s control were nothing to worry about, and would soon turn back to rabbit fur.

Lu Qi nodded.

Shen Qingcheng: "Aren't you curious why I want to bring them?"

Lu Qi: "Naturally, I will find out when the time comes."

Made sense.

The two threw down the animals that had been tied to the door and went back upstairs to pack their luggage.

There was the same amount of luggage as they had come with, just enough to fill a suitcase.

Before going out, Shen Qingcheng caught a glimpse of the oil painting on the wall, stopped, put down his luggage, and walked to the oil painting.

The painted forest was full of life, and the doe was soft and harmless. Suddenly, he stretched out and peeled off the outermost layer of the painting.

There was another painting underneath!

This painting was exactly the same as the outer layer, except that there was an extra fence around the forest.

Shen Qingcheng was stunned, and dragged his luggage with him as he went to find Lu Qi.

The painting in Lu Qi's room was of a rabbit. He took off the outer layer. Like in his room, the painted scene hidden underneath was also surrounded by a fence.

Then the bird in Xiao Liu's room, the bear in Wei Tian's room, and the fox in a certain player's room--

The two went around and looked at the paintings in all the rooms, and without any deviation, they saw the fence around the outside.

Shen Qingcheng: "So that’s how it is."

Lu Qi was deep in thought.

It turned out that these paintings had all been altered.

It looked like a natural scenery, but it was actually artificially created. If the clue of these paintings had not been hidden, He Wei and Gao Shulin wouldn’t have been misled by the branch story line.

On the way out of the castle, Shen Qingcheng realized, "I haven't completed my mission yet, can I go down the mountain?"

Lu Qi: "You can, take them with you."

Shen Qingcheng frowned at the chain tied to his suitcase, and let out a light snort.

The two followed the road that Shen Qingcheng had entered the copy that day using to the fork at the edge of the forest. The other side of the intersection led to the foot of the mountain.

It was noon, and the clouds in the sky had been blown away by the wind, allowing a little golden light to shine through.

The scattered houses at the foot of the mountain were concealed by the verdant bamboo forest, wisps of cooking smoke wafted out from the bamboo forest and revealing their locations.

Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi brought their luggage and a few animals with them. It took a lot of effort to drag oil bottles¹³ to the bottom of the mountain, so they decided to find a family to rest with first.

People who lived in the mountains were either enthusiastic or guarded.

In order to avoid being turned away, Lu Qi first led the animals to the depths of the bamboo forest, and when he came back, he had an extra badger.

As the old saying went, it was impossible to find fault with someone who was bearing gifts, plus no one would hit a smiling face. Their situation should be just about the same.

Shen Qingcheng volunteered to knock on the door.

The house was made of wood and thatch, and the person who opened the door was an elderly man wearing a navy blue turban.

The old man had age spots on his face. After Shen Qingcheng explained his intentions, he stared at the two of them with cloudy eyes for a while, and then he slowly stepped aside and let them in.

"Old man¹⁴, what's your name?" Shen Qingcheng asked politely after sitting down.

The old man slowly turned his head to look at him, then slowly turned back.

Shen Qingcheng was not discouraged, "Old man, do you live alone?"

The old man slowly turned his head to look at him, and then slowly turned back.

Shen Qingcheng was a little embarrassed, "We just came down from the castle on the mountain, do you know the situation of the castle?"

He was ready for the old man to slowly turn his head to look at him, and then slowly turn back, but he hadn’t expected the old man to slowly open his mouth after turning his head this time, his voice trembling.

"Up the mountain, you can't go, you can't go."

He said it twice, shaking his head slowly.

Shen Qingcheng asked, "Why can't I go?"

"There is something that eats people on the mountain, and you can't go there," the old man said. "Last year--no, it seems like it was the year before last, or the year before the year before last?"

He wondered for a while, as if caught in his own thoughts, "That old castle was abandoned for decades. More than ten years ago, a young man's family moved to the mountain. He was a painter, and we advised him not to go, that there were people-eating monsters on the mountain, and he didn’t listen."

Shen Qingcheng: "What happened after?"

The old man continued to recall, "Later, another couple and a girl who took care of her parents never came back out of that house."

Shen Qingcheng: "Why is that house abandoned?"

"Why is it abandoned? Let me think about it, let me think about it…"

The old man rubbed his forehead and thought about it for ten minutes.

"That house was originally built by a big boss who was in the business of furs and farming. Later, the big boss died in his room, so the house became deserted and no one lived there."

Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi looked at each other: farming and fur.

It seems that a few animals that became spirits had appeared at that time, and the death of the big boss should also have been related to them.

They sat in the room for a while. Not long after that, a young man in a hood came back in, the youngest son of the old man.

The young man, A-Bu, was probably in his early 20s, and he was very wary of them at first.

When he found out that the two had just come down from the ancient castle on the mountain, A-Bu changed his indifferent attitude and became enthusiastic, chasing after the talkative Shen Qingcheng to ask questions.

No wonder the old man's reaction to the castle was so great; it turned out that there was a curious son in his family.

Shen Qingcheng put on the airs of a master and said with a smile: "Lu Qi and I are specialized monster hunters, and we have already dealt with the spirits that had caused chaos in the castle."

Seeing that A-Bu seemed very interested, "If you are curious, you go up there on a sunny day to have a look. The traces shouldn’t disappear. Don't worry, there will be no danger."

It was true that there wouldn’t be any danger, since the spirits had all been packed away, but what about the previous few sentences?

Facing the young man's expectant eyes, Lu Qi silently turned around and went out the door.

A-Bu: "He--"

Shen Qingcheng pulled him back, "It's okay, he just went out to get some air. I need your help now, are you okay with assisting?"

A-Bu seemed to believe his reasoning and did not ask any further questions, but said, "Actually, a few years ago, the police also received reports and went to the mountain to check, but like those people, they failed to come out of the castle. After that, no one dared to go there."

He didn't say much more, and quickly changed the subject by asking, "What do you want me to do?"

Shen Qingcheng: "I saw that your family has a rooster, I need some chicken blood."

A-Bu nodded, "That’s fine." He had seen the badger in the kitchen, and he couldn't take the guests' things without any recompense.

Shen Qingcheng was immediately satisfied, and patted the young man on the shoulder, "In order to thank you for your generosity, I’ve decided to add a dish for lunch. Stir-fried rabbit meat, a great tonic!"

TLN:

¹ Way to congratulate someone for an achievement (撒花花).

² Kaomoji depicting someone lying down.

³ Bear bile is used in traditional Chinese medicine, leading to bears (most commonly Asiatic black bears) being inhumanely kept in cages and milked for their bile (produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder).

⁴ Can also translate to “don’t be noisy” (别吵).

⁵ Lit. “my old swan” (我的老天鹅), which is a homophone for “my god”. This specific phrasing is based on a Taiwanese accent, and was popularized by Jolin Tsai.

⁶ Lit. “I’ll lead you, can you get on the road” (引你啊，能不能上道点). I think OP is basically saying “I’ll show you the door”?

⁷ Lit. “little bat raccoon” (小蝠狸), which I think is a typo of “little fox” (小狐狸).

⁸ “Little bird” (小鸟额) and “little old [man]” (小老儿) sound kind of similar. He’s riffing as he decides on a nickname for her.

⁹ Damage output.

¹⁰ I guess that’s the rabbit’s name (涂之白)? It’s a homophone of “rabbit white”. Kind of weird that we never heard it at any point earlier…

¹¹ Means to love and support each other (through any situation) (相亲相爱).

¹² Lit. “autistic” (自闭). It’s a meme that comes from a popular “I’m autistic” reaction picture, used to describe the mood of not wanting to talk anymore after being faced with something that doesn’t go your way. I think (I hope) that this is less offensive in Chinese.

¹³ See Chapter 16.

¹⁴ Infinitely less rude in Chinese, 老人家 is a respectful way to address elders.

Hu Lili rolled a Nat 1 for seduction lmao.