SWBG - Chapter 23

[Mr. X to Mr. W: The Roman numeral in my corridor is "II". My companions are Mr. G (male, first time meeting, most likely surnamed Gao, his nickname might be referencing us), Mr. S (male, acquainted with Mr. G), and Da Zhou (male, not acquainted with Mr. G or Mr. S).

I am currently relatively safe.

A wooden chest was found in a room in the corridor. Before we could find the key, it was forcibly broken open by my companion Mr. G using an item.

Some clues found inside the room are recorded below:

"'Mixing swamp water with black rose juice can cause severe damage to human eyes. Some patients might even go blind directly. If not washed promptly, it can also leave permanent sequelae—even seeing a faint light can feel like a stabbing pain.

Mr. Alvin and the others shouldn't have used such methods on patients, even though these patients were indeed very dangerous, and their families never visited the sanatorium.

I deeply regret Mr. Alvin's tragic end, but I must say, it was a just and reasonable revenge.'"

Miss Nightingale, a famous reporter from the Forest Daily, interviewed a lady who once worked at the 'Rosemary' Sanatorium. This lady was unwilling to reveal her name.

Mr. Alvin's family denied the above statements, calling them terrible slander from envious individuals.

All participants with me are wearing white doctor uniforms. I also found a hospital staff ID badge in my pocket, but the information on it is contaminated with bloodstains and currently unreadable.

The natives wandering this building are likely the mental patients from the 'Rosemary' Sanatorium. Their eyes have probably been harmed by swamp water and black rose juice.]

The text message's content had a matter-of-fact calmness to it.

According to the game rules, text messages sent by any participant are publicly displayed to all other participants in the instance, even if they are in the same corridor as the sender.

Gao Bu Yi, whose physique matched his surname (Gao meaning tall), looked at Xia Xiao Yun's description of him in the text and felt compelled to speak up: "Besides the guess about the surname, my strong build, NBA-worthy height, and handsome face are also worth mentioning! Of course, your understanding might be lacking in some areas, so I need to add something—as a highly sought-after handsome guy, I currently do not have a girlfriend."

Gao Bu Yi said it jokingly, but Xia Xiao Yun explained very seriously: "Judging by the door-breaking situation, the participants' first round is about to end. We must hurry to avoid wasting this communication opportunity."

Shang Min'e looked expressionlessly at his friend who insisted on playing the game with him, scratched his unruly hair, and felt that entering the instance without a hat was a mistake—if he couldn't fix his hairstyle, at least he could hide his face a bit in front of strangers.

He looked at Xia Xiao Yun with a curious expression: "You dare pass notes right in front of us, and in such detail? Aren't you afraid of getting beaten up?"

Xia Xiao Yun's expression remained as calm as ever: "Fully exchanging information benefits participants in different corridors. You don't seem like the type to use violence against the weak." As if remembering something, a trace of mockery flashed in her eyes. "And I am somewhat familiar with the appearance of such assailants."

Shang Min'e strongly suspected that she had been cut down by some murderer and entered [Happy Board Games] that way.

Gao Bu Yi suggested to her: "Next time, just summarize the stuff from those reports. Copying word for word is such a waste of time."

Xia Xiao Yun shook her head slightly: "Ms. Y is very smart. If there are clues in this report that I missed, she might be able to supplement them."

Although they had only spent a very short time together, both Shang Min'e and Gao Bu Yi realized that Xia Xiao Yun was quite intelligent. They didn't expect that among her roommates, there was another one following the same (intellectual) path.

Shang Min'e was speechless: "Sending two intellect-types to play the same instance together, don't you think that's wasteful?"

Gao Bu Yi: "S, you should learn from them. Stop always jumping around fighting, use your brain more. If you were more careful in the last instance, you wouldn't have almost stumbled."

Shang Min'e looked at Gao Bu Yi, suspecting that he had been specifically instructed by Mu You Tang before setting off to not miss any opportunity to criticize and educate him, even at critical moments in the instance:

"You often don't use your brain either."

Gao Bu Yi nodded, calm and unapologetic. "It's exactly because I knew I had no chance that I decided to pin all my hopes on you."

Shang Min'e stared at his friend's sincere face and suddenly found a suitable reason for why he never grew tall—turns out he was carrying extra burdens on his shoulders that didn't belong to him ╮(╯╰)╭.

"Bang—"

The sound of the door being hit grew louder and more urgent. Gao Shuai saw that the previously closed elevator doors had been forced open with a crack of the thickness of a wrist. With a bitter face, he pleaded: "Brothers, sisters, can we please just go into the room first and then talk?"

Gao Shuai wanted to go ahead, but he absolutely did not dare enter the second room alone. After all, in this corridor, he hadn't contributed at all, neither in tactical planning nor in DPS output.

Shang Min'e pushed the door open indifferently, glanced around, found no issues, and signaled to the others: "You guys go in first. I'll try to see if I can exchange a few moves with the patient. Last instance, I spent days without finding a chance to strike, almost bored me to death."

Gao Bu Yi seemed accustomed to Shang Min'e's temperament and had no intention of stopping his friend's craziness. He led the other two companions into the second room in the corridor first, leaving the door slightly ajar.

The tense atmosphere didn't stop Gao and Shang from chatting. Xia Xiao Yun suddenly understood why [Happy Board Games] didn't separate these two.

—Because each of them had enough combat strength to hold their own. If separated, their overall strength would actually increase due to being able to gather information from two corridors simultaneously.

At that moment, Xia Xiao Yun received multiple text messages in succession. The first was from Gu Jing Sheng, recording the clues found in her corridor and the method to solve the fourth-order magic square password. The second was from a place they completely did not understand and had never expected.

[Li Chong to He Qing Hua:

Sister Qing Qing, I can't take it anymore! This reception hall only has me, there's nothing else! The doors around won't open, and the cabinets are all locked!

What should I do now? I don't want to die in this “punishment” instance!]

Xia Xiao Yun looked at the latest text, her gaze sharpening slightly. Based on the contents of the previous messages, all participants were struggling in different corridors — but one lone participant seemed to be in what appeared to be the reception hall.

And what exactly does so-called "punishment instances" refer to...

Xia Xiao Yun couldn't immerse herself in thought for too long—Gao Bu Yi was staring at her hesitantly, his face full of unspoken words.

"I was also thinking about the reception hall, but I don't have many clues yet."

"What does that 'fourth-order magic square' the other person from your room mentioned actually mean?"

Xia Xiao Yun and Gao Bu Yi, who thought they were on the same wavelength but actually completely failed to connect: "..."

Zhou Shuai, who witnessed everything, sincerely missed his two roommates who were separated from him in the instance.

Xia Xiao Yun paused, then explained: "A fourth-order magic square means..."

Gao Bu Yi quickly interrupted her: "Alright, alright, as long as you're sure you understand, that's fine. Telling me is useless. If I could figure this stuff out, I wouldn't have failed so often in school."

"..."

Xia Xiao Yun wasn't particularly fond of small talk. Now she suspected that, due to long disuse, she had forgotten the correct way to communicate with others ==.

[He Qing Hua to Li Chong:

Don't panic. If it's not dangerous there, first carefully look around for any clues. Whatever you do, don't panic.

I'm on the fourth floor. As soon as I get a chance, I'll immediately go down to the hall to find you.

Punishment instances aren't that scary. Persevere, and everything will definitely be fine.]

Zhou Shuai muttered quietly: "Speaking such comforting words, she must be his real sister, right?"

Gao Bu Yi smiled, sticking a toothpick in his mouth: "[Happy Board Games] has all kinds of rooms. There are ones like ours, ones like your Ms. X's... That kid surnamed Li has pretty good luck... As long as you don't encounter the kind of room that makes you regret being able to revive after death, you're considered lucky."

As if realizing the first round was about to end, more people rushed to exchange information at the last moment—

Brother Fang to Huo Wen:

Send out all the clues you found in the first room, and any information related to the password.

[Ding Fa to Le Jiang:

Sister Le, Xiao Chen and I are both on the first floor, and there's also someone called Mo Tang Tang nearby.

That guy surnamed Fang, Huo Wen told me to tell you that they only found some useless diaries and a card that says "1, 2, 5 Mendeleev" here. Not sure if it's a clue. The second room has a four-digit number password, and it doesn't match at all.]

After about five seconds, a new text message was sent again to everyone's phones—

[Mr. W to Mr. X:

Ding Fa, Xiao Chen, Huo Wen, and Mo Tang Tang, based on the clues you provided, the number password is 8852.]

Wei Jia Shi used the rule that texts sent by players in the same room are public to announce the message to other players.

At this moment, Ding, Chen, Huo, and Mo—frightened out of their wits by the sound of the door being rammed—had already retreated back into the first room.

Chen Zai grabbed his phone, face excited: "The password is here! We can get out now!"

Ding Fa gritted his teeth: "If we go out now, what if we run right into the monster?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Zai's face instantly changed.

Mo Tang Tang shrank back fearfully: "I just got here, I'm just a newbie. You can't make me do these things!"

Ding Fa said with a dark expression to Huo Wen: "You're the one who asked for the clue to be sent, and the text message was for you. You should be the one to open the door."

Huo Wen almost couldn't stop herself from screaming: "If you had just gone out to open the door earlier, by now you'd already—"

BANG!

The sound of the elevator doors being smashed shut the four of them up instantly.

CLANG! CLATTER—

Heavy footsteps and the screeching sound of metal scraping against the ground grew gradually closer, finally stopping right outside the door where the four were.

Huo Wen's breathing almost completely stopped. Her face was deathly pale, her hands and feet trembling uncontrollably. Her heart was filled with extreme regret and anguish—

If only they had directly opened the second door earlier,

If these cowardly people hadn't tried to push the blame onto each other,

If she had possessed more powerful tools,

If she hadn't gotten separated from the other two...

Translator's Note

Gao Bu Yi =  高帅 (Gao Shuai) 

• The author called him “Gao Shuai” to make fun of the comment that he made to Xia Xiao Yun that he was handsome.

• Shuai means handsome, basically “Gao Handsome”

姐 (Jie) = Older Sister

• I used Sister Qing Qing and Sister Le in this chapter’s translation, please let me know if you would rather keep it as Qing Qing-jie/Le-jie.

A familiar face we’re seeing again after the last instance. Things are getting more interesting as we learn about this world together. I will update 2 chapters again tomorrow to make up for missing the uploads this past month.