The Reason

Translator: Cinder Translations

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"Something did happened," Jiang Cheng answered without hesitation.

A vague, lewd smile spread across the Fatty's face as he stretched his neck, licked his lips, and squinted his eyes, pretending to ask, "What did you two do?"

"She asked me about that newspaper," Jiang Cheng replied, "After realizing she wasn't good enough for me, she flipped out and tried to take the newspaper back."

The Fatty paused for a moment. After a while, he blinked and asked softly, "And then?"

Jiang Cheng glanced at the Fatty. He didn't speak immediately, but his gaze conveyed a lot of information.

The Fatty's throat tightened, and he suddenly had a bad premonition.

"I told her you took the newspaper," Jiang Cheng leaned back in his chair. After a few seconds, he looked at the Fatty and continued, "As for the rest, you remember to make up the details. Next time you see her, don't let anything slip."

"Doctor," the Fatty's skin twitched, "Don't you think that maybe the reason you're an orphan has something to do with you as well?"

Their conversation seemed to end abruptly and wasn't very pleasant, which Jiang Cheng could tell from the Fatty's behavior later on.

After breakfast, Jiang Cheng sat at his desk and began working. He pulled out the medical records of some follow-up patients and called their relatives to inquire about their recovery.

But every time the phone connected, either the sound of "ping pong" from the upstairs repair work or the crazed chopping of vegetables in the kitchen could be heard.

Those who knew would recognize it as the Fatty cleaning fish, while others might think someone was dismembering a body.

With no other choice, Jiang Cheng had to invite the Fatty over for a talk.

The time was set for the afternoon.

Lunch quickly arrived, and Jiang Cheng planned to make an effort to be nice during the lunch break to try to reconcile with the Fatty.

He decided to compliment the Fatty's cooking skills.

However, as soon as the dishes were served, Jiang Cheng lost his appetite.

The Fatty had divided each dish equally between them.

For example, with the spicy chicken dish, Jiang Cheng's plate was filled with only peppers, while the Fatty's plate was piled high with chicken.

The sweet and sour fish was the same; the fish head was his, and the body of the fish went to the Fatty.

After Jiang Cheng had a few bites, he couldn't resist reaching for a piece of meat from the Fatty's plate. To his surprise, the Fatty silently moved the meat into his own bowl and began mixing it as he ate.

Jiang Cheng stared at the bright red rice in the Fatty's bowl, and couldn't help but smack his lips.

"Fatty," Jiang Cheng asked in a very friendly tone, "I remember you worked as a kitchen assistant at the Yellow Crane Tower Hotel. Your cooking is quite good. If you kept it up, you might even become the head chef!"

"You're mistaken, doctor," the Fatty didn't even lift his head. "I worked as a cleaner at Yellow Crane Tower, mainly scrubbing toilets."

After a long while...

"I'm done eating," the Fatty stood up, while collecting his plates and utensils, he said, "I still have to wash the dishes. Doctor, you can eat slowly."

The Fatty took his bowl and returned to the kitchen. A few seconds later, the sound of running water and the clinking of dishes could be heard.

Jiang Cheng lowered his head and looked at the half-finished sweet and sour fish left on the plate.

After lunch, Jiang Cheng went upstairs for a short nap, as he had just come out of a nightmare the previous night, and the exhaustion wasn't something that could be recovered from in a single night.

Through three nightmare tasks, he had gradually figured out some of the taboos or rules within them.

First, each door led to a completely different world, but in a certain sense, that world really existed. It was like a fragment plucked from a distant stretch of history by the hand of a god.

No matter what they did, they couldn't change the outcome of the story, only the process.

That's all.

Second, nightmares were like an amplified selection mechanism with their own rewards and punishments.

The punishments were self-explanatory, as the ghosts made that clear.

What Jiang Cheng was more concerned about was the so-called reward.

At this point, he had already understood that if the last person survived, after all the teammates had died, they would receive a blank piece of paper.

It was said that this paper could protect one from the ghosts' attacks.

Of course, it wasn't permanent—just one use. After it was used, the blank paper would disappear.

This was something Yu Wen, whom he had saved in the previous round, told him. She had survived the ghost's attack thanks to the blank paper.

Thinking of this, Jiang Cheng squinted, and once again, Chen Xiaomeng's figure appeared in his mind.

In the Qian family's abandoned building, Chen Xiaomeng was able to escape from the ghosts while locked in a wardrobe. This couldn't just be explained by luck.

She must have had a piece of that paper too.

But it had likely been used up during the ghost's attack.

This explained why, when searching her body later, he only found clues in the form of a group photo, but not the life-saving blank paper.

From his first encounter with her, Jiang Cheng had seen that Chen Xiaomeng was experienced in betraying her teammates. If he hadn't intervened in time, she would have succeeded again.

She was far stronger than Yu Wen and must have had one of those papers as well.

Jiang Cheng's decision to go down solo this time was with the intention of obtaining such a piece of paper, but unexpectedly, a woman named Li Lu had beaten him to it.

He wasn't arrogant enough to think he could eliminate all his teammates, but he had ways of finding useful items from them.

Chen Xiaomeng was the best example.

Unfortunately, he had been a step too slow. Otherwise, that piece of blank paper would have been his.

Third, Jiang Cheng still hadn't figured out the relationship between the newspaper and the blank paper, but he could tell that the priority of the newspaper was lower than that of the blank paper.

After all, the latter could save a life.

But to say that the blank paper was superior to the newspaper wouldn't be entirely true, as they served different purposes.

The blank paper was for life-saving, while the newspaper contained clues related to the task.

For example, if a normal person were to enter a nightmare and had to choose between the two, it was better to choose the clue-laden newspaper as it offered a greater chance of survival.

Because relying purely on deduction to survive wasn't easy, and even if they had a chance to save themselves, once it was used up, they would still die.

And it would be more painful than before.

To put it in an inappropriate analogy, it would be like a prisoner blindfolded, kneeling in front of a firing squad. The shooter pulls the trigger, and the gun misfires.

Then they just reload and shoot again.

The result is the same: the prisoner still dies, but the experience is more terrifying before the end. Thinking about it, having the blank paper might be worse than not having it at all.

But for high-level players like Li Lu and Chen Xiaomeng, the situation was entirely different.

(End of the Chapter)

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Translated 4 Series, 1.5K+ Chapters and 1.78M+ Words.