DS – Chapter 210 – White Sky's Corner

Chapter 210 – Gearwheel

His consciousness felt like it was floating in water. It swayed, at a loss, and he didn’t know where he was.

His surroundings were completely dark and bottomless. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make out anything. However, unlike before, the darkness this time did not make him scared but rather reassured.

It was as if he was in his mother’s warm amniotic fluid.

Xu RenDong tried to reach out his hand but he couldn’t feel the existence of his arm. It was also difficult to concentrate and his consciousness couldn’t help but slacken. He felt as though if he doesn’t work hard to stay awake, he would fall asleep in the next second.

Although he didn’t feel tired at all, his consciousness oscillated repeatedly between lethargy and waking.

Does he want to wake up? Or should he just sleep like this?

RenDong thought about it as if in a trance. The strings of reason cannot be connected and he is like a child holding candy, not knowing whether to eat the left hand or the right one.

Suddenly, something in the darkness caught his attention.

Huh, what is it?

RenDong was unconsciously attracted to that thing. When he tried to get closer, the spot of light suddenly expanded. Immediately afterwards, a warm and dazzling light enveloped his whole body.

“…!”

As if falling from a height, Xu RenDong was shocked and opened his eyes suddenly.

The slack pupils cannot focus and his eyesight was blurred. Nothing could be seen clearly.

He rubbed his eyes but his vision was still blurry. He could vaguely see a warm yellow object emitting a soft light in front of him.

RenDong subconsciously stretched out his hand towards that thing. His fingertips touched a slender and hard texture which was somewhat familiar.

The moisture in his eyes gradually dissipated. RenDong held the thing, brought it closer and finally saw clearly that it was a brass key. The shape is simple and unadorned. It’s just that there are three words engraved on the key handle.

“Xu RenDong”.

…is this my key?

How come I also have a key?

Wait, the key has appeared, does it mean that the level has been cleared?!

RenDong felt refreshed suddenly and sat up abruptly. When he got up, there was a light “click” sound under his body which made him suddenly startled.

Looking around, the horror in his heart deepened.

This was a strange and dark space. Countless circular gears meshed with each other, hanging quietly in the air. There are both big and small gears. The big ones are more than ten meters in diameter and the small ones are only a few centimeters. They are all connected to each other at various angles, filling the entire space.

The number of gears is huge and it is impossible to see to the end when you look around. Beyond the gears was endless darkness. That kind of darkness has no sense of boundaries, like the end of the vast universe, so deep that it can contain everything.

However, the strange thing is that there are… people embedded in the middle of some gears.

Yes they were undoubtedly human beings with their eyes closed and wearing calm expressions, as if sleeping peacefully. Those people lay in the deep dents in the middle of the gears. Some gears were obviously vertical but they still fit tightly with the gears, as if attracted by some invisible magnetic force.

The angle of each gear is different and some people happen to be still in an inverted state. However, those people who stood on their heads didn’t appear to be flushed and their brains didn’t appear congested. And so RenDong couldn’t tell whether it was a living person or a corpse… or was it a prop?

The surroundings were so quiet that there was hardly any sound. RenDong turned his gaze back from the far distance to the area close to him, only to realize that he was also on a huge circular gear. There was also a deep indentation where he sat, just the right size for him to lie down on his own.

It appears that before he woke up, he too lay quietly in gear like everyone else.

…But why was he the only one awake?

Is it because of the appearance of the key?

Also, that “click” sound when he woke up…

RenDong thought about it… the sound was very crisp, like the sound of metal. Could it be that……

He stood up holding the key. The moment he got up, there were several “click click” sounds arond him. At the same time, the gears under him slowly turned.

RenDong lowered his head, stood still and the gears under his feet also stood still.

When he took a step forward, the huge gear also started to rotate, making a crisp “click” sound again.

If you distinguish carefully, the sound seems to be concentrated behind you. RenDong turned around and found that there was another huge gear closely fitting with his gear. When this gear rotates, it drives the one on his side to rotate together.

And inside the gears, there is also a person lying.

A person he knew very well.

“Lian Qiao?!”

RenDong was shocked and moved towards Lian Qiao.

As soon as reached out, his body moved, and the whole world seemed to come alive. The clicking sounds were endless and not only Lian Qiao’s gear was activated but other gears around him also started to rotate.

The teeth of Lian Qiao’s gear are as small as his own and the two gears are closely connected. The angle of rotation is exactly the same.

RenDong ran to Lian Qiao’s side, knelt down on one knee and reached out to hug Lian Qiao.

Contrary to what he imagined, Lian Qiao was not pressed into the notch of the gear by some strange force. He easily picked up Lian Qiao from it and gently shook Lian Qiao’s body.

“Lian Qiao? Can you hear me? Wake up, wake up!”

Lian Qiao’s eyes were still tightly closed but the eyeballs under the eyelids trembled slightly, as if he were struggling to wake up.

The surrounding gears were still turning slowly. This time, even though RenDong held Lian Qiao in place and didn’t move around, the gears started turning spontaneously.

The step he stepped over the gears in order to reach Lian Qiao’s side seemed to be the first driving force of the entire universe. Time began to flow again and the world woke up from the darkness and silence.

But RenDong didn’t notice this at all, just calling Lian Qiao over and over again.

“Uh……”

After an unknown amount of time, Lian Qiao struggled to wake up. He opened his eyes, his eyes misty and foggy. The out-of-focus pupils were slack and unable to focus. His eyes were erratic, as if he had awakened from a thousand-year-old dream and he was in a trance, not knowing what day and night it is.

Seeing that Lian Qiao finally woke up, RenDong finally let go of his anxious heart and embraced him forcefully. His voice trembled.

“You’re awake… that’s great… you’re awake…”

Although he also didn’t know where he was, at least RenDong knew that he was no longer alone.

No matter what awaits him on the road ahead, he is no longer alone. Lian Qiao is still by his side and is still his support.

“Ren… Dong?” Lian Qiao’s voice was a little hoarse. He raised his hand in confusion, and touched RenDong’s waist, as if confirming whether the person in front of him was real or an illusion.

The familiar body temperature was transmitted from the fingertips. Lian Qiao stretched out his hands and put his arms around RenDong’s waist. That warm and familiar feeling made him want to cry.

The two embraced each other speechlessly. The reunion after the catastrophe was so sweet that they quietly tasted the unspeakable happiness and felt each other’s existence.

After an unknown amount of time, both of them gradually calmed down.

Lian Qiao leaned his head on RenDong’s shoulder, rolled his eyes to look around and asked curiously, “What is this place?”

“I don’t know.” RenDong’s ran his fingers through Lian Qiao’s hair, stroking him fondly, “I just woke up here.”

The strength of his fingers was just right and Lian Qiao was so happy that he squinted his eyes in comfort.

Lian Qiao is like a little milk dog with two small paws around RenDong’s waist. His head is deeply buried in RenDong’s neck. While enjoying the extremely gentle caress, he hummed contentedly in his throat.

The two of them were speechless for some time. Then they calmed down and began to think about the situation in front of them.

“Is this the end?” Lian Qiao tilted his head and looked around, “I didn’t see an exit but there are a lot of gears… This scene is so familiar, it’s like your ‘Butterfly’ instance and has a steampunk flavor. But why gears?”

RenDong pointed at the ground. Lian Qiao looked in the direction of his fingers and saw that the two huge gears under his feet were tightly attached to each other and pulled each other. Those were the two gears that carried him and RenDong respectively.

“Perhaps this is a metaphor for our connected destiny.” RenDong said.

Lian Qiao smiled: “Yes. Our destiny is connected.” Then he interlocked their fingers.

Since Lian Qiao woke up, the surrounding gears began to rotate spontaneously and finally stabilized to a fixed frequency. The whole space is like the inside of a giant machine but they don’t know what the purpose of the machine was.

Thousands of gears are turning on their own and there is still bottomless darkness beyond the gears. The two observed it and found that their two gears were not only closely connected but were independent of the other gears.

There were other gears that were also connected, but not all of them were. Nevertheless, there seemed to be some kind of force between the gears that are close to each other. Even if they weren’t connected, they could still influence each other to a certain extent.

“How about we wake up the others?” Lian Qiao pointed. The one closest to them was seven or eight cogs away. Although these seven or eight gears are not tightly fitted, the middle distance is not large and can be jumped over.

RenDong narrowed his eyes. Because of the limited angle, he couldn’t see the person’s face clearly. Then he said casually: “Okay, let’s go and have a look.”

The two held hands and jumped cautiously between the gears. It’s not that they were afraid of falling into the darkness because, after all, the gears in this space are very dense. Even if they stumble and fall, they will just fall onto the next gear. They can still climb back after taking a detour, but it will just take some more time that’s all.

Soon they got to the gear and after seeing the person’s face clearly, both of them were taken aback.

“Auntie Long-Hair?” Lian Qiao blurted out, “Didn’t she die long ago? She’s here too?”

RenDong frowned but said nothing. Lian Qiao resentfully said: “This can’t be a morgue, right…”

RenDong bent down and reached out to check her breath. Lian Qiao subconsciously protected him: “Hey, don’t move, let me go. What if she’s just pretending to be dead…”

RenDong smiled: “It’s okay. I’m still alive.” As he spoke, he pushed Auntie Long-Hair.

However, she never woke up. After a while, RenDong gave up. He stood up and shook his head, “No, I can’t wake her up.”

Lian Qiao stared at Auntie Long-Hair curiously. Suddenly his heart moved. He turned his head and asked, “I asked you why you were so hostile to her. You said you were harmed by her before, something about her throwing sulfuric acid or something…”

“No. I lied to you.” RenDong said.

Just as Lian Qiao was about to breathe a sigh of relief, RenDong said lightly: “It was you whom she threw sulfuric acid on. In the previous reincarnation.”

Lian Qiao: “…All right. Then leave her alone.”

“En.”

Lian Qiao said to ignore her and took two steps away but found that his anger was not assuaged. So he went back and stepped on Auntie Long-Hair’s face.

RenDong: “…what are you doing?”

Lian Qiao: “Testing whether she is pretending to be asleep or is really unconscious. Well, it seems she is really unconscious. Let’s go.”

RenDong: “…”

The two passed Aunt Long-Hair and walked towards another gear with a person. When they got closer this time, they found that the one lying among the gears was actually the Monk.

The two were overjoyed and tried to wake the Monk up. But this time, like Auntie Long-hair, the Monk kept his eyes closed and seemed to be in a deep sleep.. His breathing was even, his chest rose and fell slowly, and he was undoubtedly alive. But no matter how hard they shake him, they couldn’t wake him up.

“No way. Isn’t his gear spinning?” Lian Qiao looked at the gears under him. This gear is a circle smaller than the two of them but its rotation speed is about the same as theirs. In contrast, the gear that Auntie Long-Hair was in just now was smaller and the speed was slower.

“At least he’s still alive.” RenDong sighed, “It seems that the players in this instance are scattered on the gears everywhere. The question is how to wake them up?”

Lian Qiao asked, “How did you wake up?”

RenDong: “I saw a light in front of me so I reached out to grab it… That’s right!” He belatedly took out the brass key, “I forgot to tell you, I got this!”

Lian Qiao’s eyes widened when he saw the words “Xu RenDong” on the key.

“How do you have a key?!”

“I don’t know. When I opened my eyes, I saw this thing dangling in front of my eyes.”

“Then… Do you have a headache?”

“?”

“Try to think about me, hug me, kiss me and see if you have a headache?”

“???”

Although RenDong didn’t know why, he still did as he was told. He tilted her head and thought about Lian Qiao, stretched out his arms to hug him, closed his eyes and kissed him.

Then he said, “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Lian Qiao put his arms around him, sucked his lips knowingly and said in a dazed way, “Let’s kiss for a bit more.”

RenDong: “…”

Although those people on the ground are still alive, there is always a weird feeling of making out in a morgue.

Stimulating.

***

T/N:

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