Volume 2: The Days of Playing with Monkeys in the Village
Tsundere?
Sister Lou, you can’t be like this!
Lou Jingmo sat down beside her and asked, “Are you alright?”
Shen Maomao, clutching her chest and still shaken, said, “His hand was so cold…” Cold to a degree that seemed impossible for a normal person.
Wei Yu walked in from the doorway, while Wang Xiaoming consciously remained where he was.
Wei Yu said, “When I went downstairs, that child was staring intently at your room door. I think you might be in danger.”
Lou Jingmo nodded gravely, “Thank you, I know.”
“How did he get into your room?” Wei Yu asked.
Shen Maomao said with certainty, “It must have been in the middle of last night! Someone entered our room, but later he clearly closed the door and left… There were no more footsteps in the room after that…”
Lou Jingmo: “He might have just returned silently.” And then lay under their bed until late into the night, not knowing why he didn’t make a move.
Wei Yu said worriedly, “Why don’t you come and stay with me?”
At these words, even Lou Jingmo was taken aback for a moment.
Accustomed to the deception and scheming in the game, she was experiencing such obvious goodwill for the first time. She glanced at this woman and asked, “Aren’t you afraid of getting involved?”
“I am,” the woman answered frankly, “That’s why if the three of us are together, we can look out for each other.”
Shen Maomao, who was terribly frightened, was the most touched: “Would that be convenient?!”
Lou Jingmo reverted to her expressionless face: “It’s not convenient.”
Wei Yu: “?”
Shen Maomao: “??”
Lou Jingmo said coldly, “I don’t want to have to expend effort protecting you in a critical moment.” The implication was for her not to meddle in their affairs.
Wei Yu frowned and said nothing more, turning to walk out.
Wang Xiaoming at the door drawled, “Treating kindness like a donkey’s liver and lungs~” (An idiom meaning to repay kindness with ingratitude)
The wooden door closed with a “bang,” and Shen Maomao, looking at Lou Jingmo’s face, timidly called out to her: “Sister Lou?”
Lou Jingmo curled her lips, her smile cold and particularly heartless: “Don’t forget what I told you, there are no good people in this game, including me.”
Shen Maomao: “Are you afraid of getting her involved?”
Lou Jingmo was stunned for a moment, unable to maintain her standard villain boss smile.
Shen Maomao tilted her head to look at her, her little mouth chattering away: “Sister Lou, this approach of yours isn’t good, you’re seriously offending people like this, can’t you just express your true thoughts? Were you actually a tsundere all along? Tsundere personalities aren’t well-liked in reality! If you’re good to others, you must tell them! Otherwise, how will they know you mean well?! Sister Lou, this won’t do!”
Unable to bear it any longer, Lou Jingmo slapped her on the forehead: “You talk too much nonsense.”
Shen Maomao covered her face and giggled: “Hehe, my goddess’s personality is so cute.”
Lou Jingmo said coldly: “You’re overthinking it, I just don’t want to carry another oil bottle (burden).”
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Shen Maomao, looking at the rare embarrassment on her face, asked with a smile: “Then why are you blushing?”
Lou Jingmo: “…” Are you asking for a beating?
Shen Maomao giggled foolishly.
Her certainty was based not on idol filters or her so-called intuition that “she’s a good person.”
She only knew that if Lou Jingmo was truly as cold as she claimed, there would have been no need to wake her up in the previous game, nor to contract her for a useless second life.
Why didn’t she treat her like Yun Shengjin treated those newcomers after waking her up? Because she disdained surviving by such methods, which is why she had always looked down on Yun Shengjin’s group, coldly observing their deaths.
Why didn’t she choose Golden Retriever, who had inherent advantages as a male and was more likely to survive the game? Because at that time when she encountered danger, she had to use the contract item to save her…
Lou Jingmo said she wasn’t a good person, but she certainly wasn’t a bad person either.
Her goddess was indeed versatile, capable of being aloof enough to outwit ghosts and monsters, yet down-to-earth enough to cook a meal?
Lou Jingmo looked at her deeply: “Stop imagining things, I’m not as good as you think.” She just… while being cold, perhaps still preserved a bit of kindness in her heart, not the “doing good for others without saying it” personality that Shen Maomao described.
Shen Maomao just treated it as her tsundere acting up again, saying contradictory things: “Right, right, right, you’re not good at all.” Very perfunctory.
After this futile conversation, Lou Jingmo simply stopped explaining.
She would understand eventually that in this game, kindness was the least necessary thing.
Auntie Zhang ended up killing her old hen and stewed a large pot of delicious chicken soup, even specially bringing a bowl to Shen Maomao.
It must be said, it was truly fragrant.
In the NPCs’ perception, this group of people must have paid generously, so everyone’s attitude was very friendly, almost wanting to worship them.
After eating and drinking their fill, the two took their cameras and pretended to go out.
After all, their identities were photographers who came to the village to take pictures, so they couldn’t let their basic personas collapse.
Wei Yu and Wang Xiaoming were both absent, probably out looking for clues as well.
Shen Maomao followed behind Lou Jingmo, sighing worriedly.
Alas—
She felt like a concerned old father, very worried about his daughter’s social situation. She was afraid she wouldn’t speak properly and offend others, yet also felt that her current state was quite good; wanting her to change, yet not wanting to make her uncomfortable…
Alas—
Lou Jingmo, taking photos along the way: “???” Why did Shen Maomao’s gaze make her want to hit someone?
This small village was picturesque, truly a nice place for photography. The gentle breeze carried pure white willow catkins, like a heavy snow in the warm spring of March.
On the way, they encountered a group of four, three men and one woman. The girl called Wu Menghan wasn’t in the group. Ye Tingnan, the leader of the four, greeted them openly: “Hello.”
Shen Maomao spoke on behalf of Lou Jingmo: “Did you sleep well last night?”
Ye Tingnan said: “Quite well.”
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Shen Maomao felt unbalanced inside and complained to Lou Jingmo: “I really am an unlucky girl, so were we the only ones who had bad luck last night?”
Lou Jingmo pondered: “Come to think of it, my luck only started to worsen after meeting you.”
Shen Maomao: “??” She was just saying that casually!
Shao Mei spoke up mockingly: “What? Did you see a ghost?”
Shen Maomao responded with a polite smile: “No, we didn’t.”
Shao Mei rolled her eyes and turned to the three boys, saying: “I told you, how unrealistic is this so-called horror game? Dying if you can’t clear it within seven days? Please, these people should study some science. They probably haven’t even been to college and are out here scamming people.”
Shen Maomao made a face at her back.
Lou Jingmo raised her camera and took a photo of the group of four.
With a click, it immediately attracted their attention.
Shao Mei frowned and asked: “What are you doing?”
Lou Jingmo casually examined the photo she just took: “Cameras can capture ghost images. I’m checking if there’s anything on you guys.”
The boy named Shan Xiao’s face changed: “Re… really?”
Shao Mei glanced at him sideways: “Why are you such a coward?” After criticizing her teammate, she turned like a lit firecracker, angrily confronting Lou Jingmo: “Who allowed you to photograph us? Do you understand what image rights are? You’d better delete that photo right away!”
Shen Maomao, Lou Jingmo’s number one lackey, certainly couldn’t watch her goddess being bullied like this!
Just as Shao Mei’s finger was about to poke Lou Jingmo’s shoulder, Shen Maomao stepped forward, relying on her good physical skills to push her away, sending her tumbling.
Shao Mei screamed twice, incredulously saying: “You actually dared to push me?!”
Shen Maomao thought she was seriously ill: “So what if I pushed you? I even dare to hit you. I might not dare to hit ghosts, but why wouldn’t I dare to hit you? Why are you hiding? You’re so tough, come fight me. Why are you hiding behind men? Are these three grown men planning to get involved in women’s hair-pulling?”
Shao Mei, who had become a bit cowardly, had her thoughts exposed, and her face turned ugly. The three men also looked embarrassed.
Shao Mei glanced at Ye Tingnan, hoping he would speak up for her, but Ye Tingnan seemed not to have received her message and awkwardly rubbed his nose tip.
In the end, it was another boy called Wang Sheng who spoke up: “Shao Mei didn’t mean anything by it…”
Shen Maomao crossed her arms and shook her leg: “I don’t mean anything either, just advising her to learn how to behave properly sooner, otherwise she’ll get beaten up one day.”
Shao Mei: “You!”
Wang Sheng saw that Shao Mei couldn’t out-talk Shen Maomao, so he stopped her from speaking: “Let it go when you can. There’s no need to keep harping on it, right?”
Shen Maomao thought to herself that she was in a hurry to escape, why would she bother holding onto this young lady? It was clearly a case of the one who started it being in the wrong.
Before she could open her mouth again to unleash some earth-shattering curses to teach these young people how to behave, Xiaolou suddenly exclaimed in surprise, “Eh?”
Was there really something?
“What’s wrong?!” Shen Maomao immediately abandoned these weaklings with almost zero combat power and ran to Lou Jingmo’s side to look at her camera. “Did you find something?!”
The three boys looked tense, involuntarily taking half a step forward. Even Shao Mei, who was previously indifferent, couldn’t help but shift her gaze over.
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Lou Jingmo handed her the camera, pointing to a spot: “This photo, look there.”
The photo wasn’t of the group of four, but one of the many landscape shots she had taken along the way. Lou Jingmo was pointing at a bush by the roadside. Shen Maomao zoomed in on the photo, focusing on that area, and couldn’t help but blurt out a curse.
Behind the green leaves, a small face was faintly visible, with corners of its mouth turned up, quietly looking at the camera.
“There’s more,” Lou Jingmo said. “Look at the bottom left corner of the next photo.”
Shen Maomao followed her instructions and switched to the next photo. The second photo was taken about dozens of steps away from the first one. She zoomed in on the bottom left corner and indeed found the same face in the bushes.
The next photo, the one after that, and the one after that…
Sometimes it was in the bushes, sometimes behind trees, sometimes two hands and a pair of eyes peeking out from the top of someone’s wall…
The more Shen Maomao looked, the worse her expression became.
The group of four was completely panicked.
“What exactly is going on?” Ye Tingnan stepped forward, restraining his desire to take a look.
Shao Mei peeked out from behind Wang Sheng, saying with a lack of confidence: “Don’t try to scare us with your tricks!”