My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 95
by Little PandaThe Mysterious Expert
Startled by the sudden, violent knocking on the door, Liang Ke instinctively jumped. Only when Qi Sheng’s voice followed did her racing heart slowly settle.
Cautiously touching the soft bed beneath her, Liang Ke glanced at Liang Xiu, who was still sound asleep in the next bed, and quietly got up. Slipping on a jacket, she went to open the door for Qi Sheng. Meeting his anxious face, she softly reassured him, “It’s nothing, don’t worry. I just stretched when I woke up and accidentally pulled on a wound.”
“Then—then how did you sleep?” Qi Sheng carefully examined Liang Ke’s still somewhat pale face, unable to put his mind at ease.
“Hmm? Ah! I slept quite well~ It feels like I haven’t had such a peaceful sleep in a long time~” At this, Liang Ke let out a gentle sigh. “Before, when we were locked up in the Fan family’s dungeon, every day I had to worry about them coming to torture us. Once they left, I’d have to worry about my drug addiction1 flaring up. If I finally managed to fall asleep, the withdrawal would torture me awake. And after surviving the withdrawal, I never knew when I’d pass out again…”
With every word Liang Ke spoke, Qi Sheng’s heart ached a little more. By the end, when her eyes grew red and she could no longer speak, Qi Sheng moved his hands, wanting to pull his physically frail yet fiercely strong-willed goddess into his arms to comfort her. Just then, the goddess suddenly raised a hand and roughly wiped the corners of her eyes, asking fiercely, “Have the Fan family all been captured?! This mother2 wants to let them taste the torment of drug withdrawal too!”
“…” Qi Sheng stared blankly at Liang Ke for a long moment. Seeing her looking so spirited, he finally smiled and said, “Yeah, they’ve all been captured. We specially kept those Fan family brutes3 who tortured you alive, just waiting for you to get your revenge~”
As expected of his goddess. Even after suffering such cruel torture, she bounced back so quickly~ And he admired her vindictive nature. It was the apocalypse; they didn’t need too many hypocritical holy mothers4!
As the two spoke, Liang Xiu woke up on the other bed. She rubbed her eyes and sat up in a daze. Looking around, her eyes suddenly went wide. Upon seeing Liang Ke and Qi Sheng talking at the door, she let out a long breath.
“Jie… we—we finally…” Finally escaped that hell!
Hearing her sister’s words and seeing her on the verge of tears, Liang Ke, who had finally managed to suppress her own heartache, felt like crying again. She sniffled, wanting to comfort her sister, but when she opened her mouth, no words came out. Honestly, she was still a bit dazed even now, half-suspecting that their escape from hell was just another beautiful dream.
Seeing his goddess like this, Qi Sheng naturally felt his heart wrench. Not wanting the two sisters to remain immersed in this sorrowful atmosphere, he hastily and stiffly changed the subject. “Xiuxiu, you’re awake~ How did you sleep? Are you getting used to it? If there’s anything you don’t like, tell Ge!”
Qi Sheng’s words smoothly shattered the somewhat melancholic atmosphere. Liang Xiu understood his good intentions, knowing he didn’t want her to remain trapped in her past terrors. She cooperatively nodded, forcing a smile. “I slept very well, thank you, Sheng-ge. I really like this room. I’ve never had such a good sleep. In the past, I’d always jolt awake halfway through, but this time I slept until I woke up naturally… Wait! Jie! I—I actually didn’t get tortured awake by withdrawal in the middle of my sleep?”
At Liang Xiu’s realization, Liang Ke also caught on. They had really slept too deeply this time! As their drug addiction had worsened, the flare-ups had become increasingly frequent, leaving them practically without a single good night’s sleep. Every time they fell asleep, they were bound to be tortured awake by the withdrawal. But this time… they had actually slept—how long had they slept? Liang Ke subconsciously turned her head to look at the window, but because the curtains were drawn, she couldn’t see outside. She could only ask, “Sheng-ge, what time is it?”
“It’s already past six. It’ll be time for dinner soon.”
“We—we actually slept from morning all the way to evening?” Liang Ke couldn’t quite believe it.
“We slept for so long and our drug addiction didn’t flare up at all?” Liang Xiu was equally shocked.
“Uh… is it a bad thing that the addiction didn’t flare up?” Having witnessed the agonizing state of others suffering from withdrawal, Qi Sheng absolutely didn’t want the two sisters to go through it!
“It’s a good thing! A very good thing. But… I just feel like something isn’t right…” Liang Ke muttered softly, then suddenly jerked her head up to look at Qi Sheng, asking excitedly, “Sheng-ge, after you rescued us, what—what else happened?”
“Wait! Didn’t you escape from the Fan family yourselves? And Xiao Ke, have you forgotten? If you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known about the Fan family dungeon at all, nor would I have known that Fan Juntian’s poison smoke was addictive!”
At this point, all three of them were completely baffled. Liang Ke finally remembered—when she woke up this morning and realized she was no longer in that terrifying dungeon, her entire mind had been in a daze. Seeing Qi Sheng right beside her, she had instinctively assumed he was the one who had rescued them. But at the time, her sister hadn’t seemed to have recovered at all; she hadn’t said a word and couldn’t take anything in. Coupled with her own groggy state, she had simply answered whatever Qi Sheng asked.
As she spoke, she had grown increasingly agitated, eventually spilling all the evil deeds the Fan family had committed. She had merely assumed that Qi Sheng had accidentally stumbled into the dungeon, hurriedly saved them, and rushed to escape the Fan family without daring to investigate further. She hadn’t even realized—if Qi Sheng had really been able to accurately pinpoint and rescue them from among so many cells, how could he know absolutely nothing about the dungeon?
So then…
“How did we end up in your office?” The two sisters stared at Qi Sheng in unison.
“How should I know?!” Qi Sheng wanted to know the answer even more than they did. Just what kind of mysterious expert was so formidable? Over the course of a single night, they had killed the old man of the Fan family, burned their poisonous grass and flowers, and rescued Liang Ke and her sister from the dungeon.
Connecting it to the series of events that befell the Fan family last night, Qi Sheng’s intuition told him that the expert who saved Liang Ke and her sister had done it all! But… who exactly was it? To actually infiltrate the Fan family silently, accomplish so much, rescue the sisters, and then deposit them in his office without making a sound! At the thought, Qi Sheng couldn’t help but feel a chill crawl up his spine. Fortunately, the expert wasn’t an enemy of his. Otherwise…
Qi Sheng simply didn’t dare to imagine it. If one day he were silently assassinated in his sleep, how terrifying would that be!
While Qi Sheng was feeling lingering fear and wariness, the stomach of the goddess beside him let out a small protest. Looking up and seeing her slightly reddened face, Qi Sheng immediately cast aside his desire to investigate the mysterious person behind the Fan family incident. All he wanted was to quickly take his goddess and her sister out for a good meal. The Fan family’s torture had left her so emaciated and frail she hardly looked human anymore; he absolutely had to help his goddess nourish her body back to health.
After thoroughly enjoying a long-lost, light yet exquisite dinner, Liang Ke and her sister were ushered back to their room by Qi Sheng to get some proper rest. Having been locked in that dark, damp dungeon for so long, their bodies were still extremely weak; they would need plenty of recuperation in the days to come. At the same time, they still had a ticking time bomb5 inside them! Would the two sisters be able to sleep peacefully again tonight?
The sisters looked at each other, both seeing the helplessness and worry in the other’s eyes.
A night passed, and Liang Ke once again slept until she woke up naturally. Stretching out of habit, she inevitably pulled at her wounds again. “Sss—” Liang Ke let out a low hiss of pain, then suddenly froze.
In the past, she wouldn’t have even noticed such faint pangs of pain. Compared to the pain from these wounds, her real torment had come from that terrifying drug addiction! In fact, during a withdrawal flare-up, she had even wished her wounds would hurt more, just to distract her from the agony of the addiction. But now…
“Jie… last night, our addiction didn’t flare up again…”
As Liang Ke sat there stunned, Liang Xiu’s somewhat excited voice rang out beside her. She was so thrilled that there was even a hint of a sob in her voice. No matter how cruelly she had been tortured in the dungeon, she had never cried, but now, simply because her addiction hadn’t flared up for a whole day, tears of overwhelming emotion were already spilling from her eyes.
“Jie, do you think our drug addiction has already been cured?!” Liang Xiu looked at Liang Ke, her eyes brimming with anticipation.
“It’s uncertain. We still need to wait a couple of days and see…” Meeting her sister’s sparkling eyes, even though Liang Ke knew it was impossible to kick a drug addiction so easily, she couldn’t bear to shatter her hopes.
And so, another day passed, and the addiction didn’t flare up. Then another day passed, and it still hadn’t flared up. Even Qi Sheng, who had been anxiously avoiding the topic of addiction around the sisters, couldn’t resist asking about it. Over these past two days, one of the addicted espers receiving treatment in their Administrative Building had been unable to bear the torture of the withdrawal any longer; finding a quiet moment alone, he had committed suicide. Yet the goddess he cared about most had made it through these two days completely fine, as if nothing had happened. Sometimes at night, when he couldn’t put his mind at ease, he would take a stroll past their door. But for two nights straight, all he heard was the very peaceful sound of breathing from inside.
Watching another batch of espers collectively suffer through withdrawal flare-ups that morning, Qi Sheng felt utterly helpless and finally asked the sisters about their condition.
“Xiao Ke, Xiuxiu, has your addiction really not flared up these past two days? Did—did you manage to research some kind of medicine to suppress the addiction, Xiao Ke? If—if you have any left, could you let the other addicted survivors use it? You don’t know this, but over the last two days, an esper committed suicide. He was a precious earth-system esper who could have provided the base with more unpolluted soil, but just because of the Fan family’s selfishness, he… he…”
At this, Qi Sheng recalled the tragic state of that esper and couldn’t bring himself to continue.
“Suicide?” Liang Ke was initially startled, but quickly fell silent. In those dark, sunless days, it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been tortured by the withdrawal to the point of wanting to commit suicide too. But they’d had no tools, and at the time, they were so weak they hadn’t even had the strength to kill themselves. When it became unbearably painful, her sister could only sneak out the poison pills hidden in her spatial inventory, taking one each to suppress their addiction.
Wait! Those poison pills!
Liang Ke looked nervously at Liang Xiu and asked excitedly, “Xiuxiu, how many of those poison pills are left?”
“Ah? Not many left…” Whenever their addiction flared up, they would take a pill. They had been taking them continuously for who knew how many days, so naturally there couldn’t be many left. However… “Jie, those are poison pills, not antidote pills. Why would you think they could help us detoxify?”
“I don’t think they can detoxify us, but… Xiuxiu, have you forgotten? When I was manufacturing those poison pills for the Fan family, the further along I got, the less poisonous grass I mixed into the dosage, while increasing the amount of herbs that were beneficial to the body. So… could it be that by taking pills with a gradually decreasing poison dosage, we slowly kicked the addiction?”
“I think that’s exactly it!” Before Liang Xiu could answer, Qi Sheng clapped his hands in praise. “As expected of Xiao Ke. Even when forced to make harmful poison pills, your heart was completely focused on how to suppress the poison dosage~”
“Right, right, right! When the Fan family locked Jiejie in the dungeon, part of the reason was to force her to manufacture drugs, but another part was because they discovered she was tampering with the poison pills! Maybe, taking these gradually weakened poison pills over a long period really can help those addicts break free from their drug addiction!” Liang Xiu was also highly thrilled. Having been tortured by the withdrawal herself, she naturally hoped the other poisoned victims could escape hell together with them.
“But there aren’t many poison pills left. Besides, Sheng-ge, didn’t you say the Fan family’s poisonous grass and flowers were all burned down?”
“It’s fine. The Fan family still has a patch of poisonous grass and flowers left that hasn’t been destroyed yet. Seeing those addicted survivors suffering so much, I wanted to save it, cough, cough…” Meeting Liang Ke’s disapproving gaze, he scratched his head and explained, “I know it’s not right. Overcoming an addiction is supposed to rely on willpower. But… Fan Juntian’s poison smoke is just too overbearing! Besides, didn’t you two secretly take the poison pills as well…”
“Alright… I know, the withdrawal from Fan Juntian’s poison smoke is indeed unbearable. I need the Fan family’s laboratory now, and I also need their poisonous grass and flowers. Find me another batch of medicinal herbs according to my requirements. I’m going to manufacture another batch of poison pills, gradually reducing the poison dosage, and give them to the addicted survivors to take. We’ll help them break their reliance on the poison pills bit by bit… I just hope this will be successful.”
The author has something to say:
Hahaha, seeing a little cutie6 using game NPCs as target practice, I just want to say, you’re ruthless!
I used to play Old Scrolls V7, and to test out skills, I would occasionally use civilians as test subjects, but… I would never lay a hand on female NPCs, especially pretty female NPCs~~~ That is my bottom line!
PS: The initial game models for Old Scrolls V didn’t fit my aesthetic, so I installed mods.
PPS: The skills I tested were all lethal skills, not those indecent hehehe8 skills…
Footnotes
- A specific debuff (dú yǐn) caused by inhaling Fan Juntian's poison smoke, requiring continuous dosing to stave off lethal withdrawal symptoms.
- An arrogant female self-referential term (lǎoniáng) used to assert dominance; literally 'this mother.'
- A harsh insult (chùsheng) comparing enemies to livestock or animals, emphasizing their brutal, inhuman nature.
- A Chinese term (shèngmǔ) meaning 'holy mother' or 'Saint Mary.' In webnovel/gaming contexts, it refers to someone who is overly compassionate, saintly, or morally pure to a fault — often used mockingly to describe someone who refuses to kill or harm others even when pragmatically necessary.
- A metaphor (dìngshí zhàdàn) describing an impending disaster or looming threat that is guaranteed to explode or cause severe damage if not defused in time.
- An affectionate term (xiǎo kě'ài) used by the author to address readers in notes.
- A well-known Chinese gaming slang term (Lǎo gǔn wǔ) for the video game 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.'
- Internet slang (hēihēihēi) used in gaming contexts to imply lewd, romantic, or not-safe-for-work content.
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