Chapter 5: Don’t just look for a substitute as you wish when buying

Just after dawn, Feng Yao peeked her eyes open under the covers.

There were only two beds in the bedroom Since they were relatively small, she and Zhang Lu slept in one bed, while Peng Xuan slept alone on the other bed. She laid flat on the bed, carefully looking at Zhang Lu’s delicate and gorgeous face in the dim light from the corner of her eye.

She wasn’t awake.

Zhang Lu was still asleep, the excessive shock seemed to make the girl, who grew up with her, toss and turn most of the night, and only with the help of drugs did she fall into a deep sleep.

She was not going to wake up. Because, Feng Yao thought, she was such a vain, idiotic, arrogant, and domineering woman who didn’t grow a brain on account of her beauty.

Stupid.

Feng Yao is an ordinary senior high school student with ordinary looks, ordinary family background, ordinary physical qualities, making her the backdrop of the majority of youth campus movies. She is the type of girl who can be seen everywhere around everyone. She wears black-rimmed glasses and a blue and white school uniform. Her only entertainment is reading novels on a mobile phone that is worth less than a thousand yuan, and she can only use it to look at novels. The games that take up only a little bit of her phone memory make her phone, that maxes out her phone plan, crash.

Her place is in a big city, from financial centers to alley ways, the economic levels drop gradually. When she took the bus home from her school, she would pass by the busiest streets on her way. Looking at the displays of fireworks and lanterns in the night sky, she sometimes imagines herself carrying the last purse from Chanel, wantonly buying limited edition cosmetics under the grateful eyes of the ladies behind the counter, something like red koi color, and Kuala Lumpur eye shadow… …Instead of now, wearing a poor uniform, riding poor public transportation, listening to mom and dad at home quarreling about the price of vegetables that rose a small amount. And herself, who can only sit at her desk, with a boutique eyebrow pencil on hand bought with a few days worth of breakfast money, secretly placed in between the crevices of books and examination papers, looking after it.

Feng Yao likes to read novels, and especially likes to read the system novels. The ordinary, unexceptional heroine always gets a system, and then becomes a superb beauty passing through various worlds. She doesn’t have to do anything to make all the male protagonists see her as the only irreplaceable treasure, and then stand on top of the world.

Other girls like to read these novels maybe because of the beautiful romantic fantasy. However, Feng Yao only thinks that they are tacky.

She’s not like other girls.

Her favorite plot to read are of those girls in the novel who are far better than the heroine in the past, everyone rebelled and betrayed because the heroine’s golden finger was destroyed by all. With the help of the heroine’s men, the girls were shattered of all their pride and talent and could only kneel at heroine’s feet, praying for mercy, and even dying.

She imagined she was the heroine, and that all those who had treated her with contempt would be destroyed by her. The girls would be on their knees, no longer able to look at her with condescending eyes. Their faces would be blurred but each and every one of them would shed tears.

The faces of the girls gradually materialized into ordinary life day-after-day, as a result, it had white, soft hands, bright eyes, and bright red lips. And so, the fantasy that transformed, was the childhood “friend” she grew up with, Zhang Lu.

Zhang Lu and Her grew up together, the two families used to be quite well-off. The difference was that Zhang Lu’s family was lucky at the time when the government demolished a building and relocated them. With the compensation for building a subway, they got three houses, a lot of money, and the gap between the two quickly got bigger.

Strangers would think that Zhang Lu and Feng Yao were inseparable friends. Zhang Lu is beautiful and outstanding but is only close with the ordinary and quiet Feng Yao. In talent competitions, she always teamed up with Feng Yao, she won an award for being good at piano but gave the sole medal to Feng Yao who played the harmonica out-of-tune. Zhang Lu had outstanding grades and had many people ask to borrow her notes, but her notes were always with her or with Feng Yao. Even when she went to the cafeteria, Zhang Lu always ordered the same dishes as Feng Yao.

But Feng Yao never considered it friendship.

How could an arrogant girl of the heavens be friends with the ordinary and plain her? If it were her, she would never do that. She felt bored and disgusted just by seeing those girls who were as ordinary as herself, but giggled all day without realizing it.

There is only one truth- Zhang Lu only used her as a prop. Without the bleakness of green leaves, how could the grandeur of a fresh flower be noticed?

But in reality, flowers will always be flowers, and green leaves will also only be green leaves. She cannot compare to Zhang Lu, and can only linger in her shadow, with envy, with rage, but not able to do anything.

The flower looks upon the green leaves as a friend, she carries the green leaves, from the dark soil to the vase, to enjoy the most beautiful sunshine. But the green leaves can only hate the flower out of jealousy for blocking its own brilliance.

Until…

She received a black invitation letter, inviting her to watch a play at the Midnight Theater.

The day before, she was looking forward to mentioning to the most beautiful boy in the class, Ye Xian, that she likes watching plays. She said this on purpose because Zhang Lu happened to mention, “Ye Xian is really good-looking.”

She was happy to go on a date.

But she didn’t expect it to be hopeless.

By virtue of reading many infinite flow novels, Feng Yao finished a level without mishap. Fleeing from the theater, she hesitantly went back to school in a state of shock, and sat alone in a chair trembling. Suddenly, her shoulder shook and she laughed.

She really was extraordinary, extraordinary! So what if Zhang Lu was surrounded by everyone? Has she ever taken part in such a game? Has she ever gone on such an adventure? She…

She, Feng Yao, was the special one!

Thus, after receiving the third mandatory letter, Feng Yao walked into the villa with great anticipation despite her fear. After seeing Zhang Lu and her heavy makeup, and finding out she had also participated in a game before, Feng Yao’s confidence, that she had managed to build up with great difficulty, had once again shattered.

“Yao Yao, how come you’re here, too?” Zhang Lu looked at her in surprise, apart from surprise in her eyes there was also subconscious contempt, “It’s very dangerous here, it’s hard to survive, I don’t think you will…”

Won’t what? People like me, are they not qualified to participate in the game just like you? Feng Yao’s face was motionless, “Ah… you’re also here huh.”

“Last game, I almost died, fortunately I had a big shot look after me.” Zhang Lu said, “unfortunately, the big shots didn’t leave their contact information. And you? You participated in two games, there’s a big shot(¹) to take care of you, right? Do you have contact information?”

Thinking of Zhang Lu’s words, Feng Yao who had been hesitant, smiled coldly all of a sudden and got out of the bed.

Why? Do you always have to be in the limelight in my life? She thought bitterly, if you want to blame someone, blame yourself for showing up!

In the outside world, she couldn’t deal with Zhang Lu, she had no choice but to allow that many flowers to grow around her. But In the game it was different!

How many novels has Zhang Lu read? Does Zhang Lu have the willpower to kill decisively? Zhang Lu knows…

When someone dies here, they completely and utterly disappear. If someone wants her to die…

She doesn’t even need to get her hands dirty.

Feng yao tiptoed to the other side of the bed and gently put her hand under Zhang Lu’s pillow.

Her fingers touched something cold, it was Zhang Lu’s phone.

The game doesn’t allow participants to kill each other, but there are appropriate means that are possible. Slowly pulling the phone out, Feng Yao thought, and it’s not that I’m trying to kill…

I just want to make an attempt.

All of the second category safety items is simply not enough for everyone to live safely after 7 days. While, despite the confusion, category three items hide opportunities and risks—- there are times when experienced people are able to get, inside of the game, items that can be taken out of the game. These items can bring huge benefits in subsequent games. For example, the Lucky Bag, which is difficult to distinguish between misfortune and fortune, can perhaps contain useful items. Because of that, Feng Yao thought about buying the Lucky Bag from the beginning.

But buying it yourself was nevertheless too risky. Long before Lin Huai bought the pajamas yesterday, Feng Yao was secretly attempting it. She added the Lucky Bag to her shopping cart and searched for Zhang Lu’s cell number from her contacts, trying to change the recipient to Zhang Lu for the first round of attempts.

Best case scenario, the Lucky bag has effective items, even though the items are with Zhang Lu, she herself can also sustain a little loss. Second best case scenario, the lucky bag doesn’t have effective items, she herself spent 500, and only needs to worry about where to spend the last 498 yuan. Worst, demonic items come out of the Lucky Bag, but the recipient… isn’t her after all is said and done.

However, when she placed an order, the system gave the message, “Please do not use your own cell phone, fill in another recipient.”

Seems like this method won’t work, I have to use another way, Feng Yao thought, she also didn’t believe her own luck, in a case where there was another solution, she could give up buying the Lucky Bag.

At last, she had found another way.