CH 73.2

In the live broadcast room.

[I don’t get it. The plot’s development has overturned my earlier deductions .]

[So in the magic world, the body and the soul can be separated? The hideous monsters in the cave are these night elves, who appear to have their own filters and highlights?]

[I am at loss for words. I used to feel that NPCs were terrifying and I talked to them in order to get clues and the plot. However, these night elves don’t look malicious and appear to be quite normal.]

[Maybe it’s because of the perspective? We see NPCs and simply ignore them. We are wary of them, and the other side as well. But have you noticed that God Xin speaks to the NPCs in a serious and patient tone, as if he considers them to be complete individuals?]

[I have a shocking discovery. God Xin took out Zhou Guang’s sketch, and the Elf King said he knew him. I’m just asking, but don’t you guys think it’s subversive? I’ve always assumed that the copy resets before each opening, that the plot starts from zero, and that the NPCs return to the beginning of the plot. But the king claimed to know him. What does that imply? Does it mean that they have their own memories]

[Could it be that these copies are really more than just copies?]

[Fuck, I’m getting goose bumps. If they are not simply copies, what are they? The copies we entered are actually real worlds? What world is so sick? Aren’t the people who live there miserable?]

[I don’t know about that, but there is something fishy about the copies.]

[I can assure you that God Xin was right before; these are not just copies. The last copy I had was ……]

[??? What happened to the last copy? Brother, don’t talk halfway.]

[Nothing, the last copy was… fine; everything was fine in the last copy.]

[Fuck, why were you whetting people’s appetites?]

[I thought you had found something amazing.]

[…… No, I didn’t.]

—————-

Bai Lixin felt a furry touch caressing his cheek.

He slowly opened his eyes to find that the warm sunlight streamed in through the window.

It was already dawn.

The pillow was a little moist. Bai Lixin touched the corners of his eyes to find them moist too.

He shifted his gaze slightly and met a pair of deep golden eyes.

Bai Lixin couldn’t help but reach out and caress Dijia’s soft fur as he looked at him intently. “Why are you staring at me like that?” He paused for a moment, then added, “Master?”

Dijia, who had grown accustomed to Bai Lixin’s caresses, shivered and took two steps back. He struggled out of bed and climbed the nearby rattan sofa.

“Aren’t we going to the dark magic swamp? Why are you still sleeping?”

Bai Lixin sat up and rubbed his temples. He gazed at the sun, lost in thought.

Because of his physique, he could go several days and nights without rest.

How did he fall asleep?

He remembered talking with the Elf King yesterday until it was time for him to give a speech and a toast to his people.

The elven king was summoned, and he also followed and drank some fruit wine.

Then came the all-night revelry. He wanted to find a quiet place to study magic but he fell asleep immediately after finding the room, and then he had that dream.

The girl with long, flowing hair in the dream should be the forest princess he saw during the day. Did she give him that dream?

Or did he inadvertently enter the sleeping forest princess’s dream?

The dream also explained why the forest princess was sleeping. It was to alleviate the pain of the night elves’ disease. The forest princess used her body to absorb the majority of the disease’s toxin, falling asleep as a result.

To awaken the Forest Princess, he had to detoxify the night elves’ disease, and the root cause of her poisoning being the night elves’ disease.

Bai Lixin remembered the prophecy that Dijia had told him.

—— “The bottom of the cauldron”.

The benevolent forest princess could not bear the suffering of her followers and chose to use her own body to expel the toxin.

The steady stream of toxins will be gone as long as these diseased night elves are gone. He wouldn’t have to do anything because the forest’s powerful self-healing ability would automatically detoxify the forest princess.

But at what cost the annihilation of all the diseased night elves.

Was this the prophecy’s so-called “bottom of the barrel”?

But what would be the point of the Forest Princess’s sacrifice if this was done?

Bai Lixin walked to the window and let out a long sigh.

Sometimes, ordinary people are not the only ones who make stupid decisions. Benevolent gods would also act irrationally.

When the forest princess decided to absorb the toxin, she knew the effort would be insignificant, but she did it anyway.

The Elf King trapped his people in an endless loop of a happy dream, knowing it was a helpless delay, but he did it anyway.

Later, he noticed that the forest princess had fallen into a deep sleep, and even though he couldn’t protect himself and didn’t know what was causing it, he persisted in his efforts to save her.

They were carefully guarding each other, and gentleness was the best explanation for their foolish behavior.

There must be another way besides the “bottom of the barrel”. Who can that until the last minute, right?

Bai Lixin simply cleaned up and carried Dijia to the hall.

The elf king was clearly in a bad mood. The lively carnival last night had ended; there were no signs of the burning bonfire, and everything was as if a yellow dream.

The few remaining night elves were obviously much more spirited than the sluggish Elf King.

He sat atop his high throne, bracing his spirit to keep his eyelids open, “You four, escort this magician, Bai Lixin, to the Dark Magic Swamp. He is going inside to find a way to awaken the Forest Princess. Put your lives on the line to ensure his safety.”

The four night elves were slightly surprised for a few seconds and all respectfully responded.

The Elf King sighed and yawned: “The other warriors will go on as usual. They should go to their respective forest locations to protect our community. Do not disturb the other other elves as they have fallen asleep. I need to rest. When you’re ready, take off. Obey magician Bai Lixin along the way, I look forward to your return.”

There was another round of kneeling and worship. The Elf King slumped his shoulders and slowly left the Hall.

When the other night Elves saw the back of the Elf King leaving, they began to leave as well.

Only Bai Lixin and the four other night elves remained in the hall.

Bai Lixin was quite familiar with these four night elves. Among them was the leader, who was accompanied by the three archers he had fought that day.

The leader elf looked at the corridor where the elf king had disappeared to and he frowned.

“The elf king is worried about the forest princess; he seems to be getting weaker and weaker lately,” he said, his eyes filled with worry.

After murmuring this sentence, the leader elf looked at Bai Lixin: “Respected magician,your flawless beauty has left me speechless once again, may I ask when we depart?”

Bai Lixin’s brows twitched involuntarily. He was always astounded by the other party’s theatrical speeches, no matter how many times he heard them.

“The sooner the better. I heard from the elf king that you once entered the black magic swamp, do you remember what you encountered? Are there any precautions to follow?”

The leader elf and the other three night elves looked at each other, and looked at Bai Lixin with apologetic eyes, “We’re sorry, but we can’t offer you any advice. The truth is that one of our squads was patrolling the forest when it became disoriented. We were in a fog and could only see a large swampy area in the distance.”

“We walked into the fog during the day, but by the time we regained consciousness, it was already dark. So we’re not sure whether we entered the black magic swamp or not.”

“After that, we returned to look for the Black Magic Swamp, but we couldn’t find it.”

Bai Lixin didn’t gain anything useful but he wasn’t disappointed, he just said, “Mmm, then let’s go now.”

——————————–

The group walked for two hours.The night elves preferred to move through the trees. Initially, the elf leader decided that they would walk to care for Bai Lixin, but they soon discovered that the latter could move quickly and skillfully through the forest.

Therefore, they began to move through the trees. The night elves were also known as forest elves, so the entire forest was their home.

They were very familiar with this forest so it was strange that they couldn’t locate the fog.

Two hours later, the group jumped on a massive tree trunk and sat down to rest.

Bai Lixin looked down at the tree trunk covered with intertwined branches. The grass obscured by what little was left of the foliage.

“What happened before you were caught in that fog?”

Was the fog appearing at random, or did it follow a pattern? It’s just that these elves were unaware.

The elf leader pondered. “Nothing unusual happened; it was just a routine patrol.”

“Boss,” another elf tugged the bow slung on his back, “I remember that we encountered a boa at that time.”

The elf leader thought seriously, “It appears that something along those lines existed. The boa attacked one of our teammates, and we saved him. It seems that we angered the boa and it began to attack us. We dodged it by running through the forest for a while and by the time we realized what was happening, we were already in a fog.”

“Right, I remember that we were worried that the boa was still chasing after us so we didn’t dare leave.”

“Another reason was that we had lived in the forest for so long but had never visited that location. So we stayed to avoid the boa, and also to explore the place.”

The elves exchanged glances, and the leader said, “We walked in the fog for a while, and by the time we came to our senses and walked out, it was dark. That’s it.”

Bai Lixin pondered for a moment, “Where does this boa stay in the forest?”

The leader: “Ah, follow me, I know where its nest is. But if you want to say, ‘Find the boa to find the fog,’ forget it; we’ve searched the area near its nest and came up empty.”

Bai Lixin: “Then have you tried letting the boa chase you again?”

The elves exchanged glances and shook their heads, “We didn’t, that boa. It’s quite scary. The diameter of its bodies is as thick as the trunk of a hundred-year-old tree. One mouth can swallow us all so we do not dare to provoke them.”

Bai Lixin did not say anything else, but his eyes twinkled and he calmly said, “Come on, lead the way, take me to the vicinity of the boa.”