Grand View Garden Survival Rules [Infinite] - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Organizing a Poetry Club

Those seated looked left and right; not a single one of them knew how to compose poetry. Their eyes were as clear as if they had been soaked in a stream—give their heads a shake, and all you’d hear was the sloshing of water inside.

Huainan Yue wasn’t worried about this. Instead, she was pondering something else.

The identity of the NPC.

The NPC was likely not Yingchun, but rather that “competitive in everything” ghost mentioned in Yingchun’s diary. Whenever the system made an announcement, it always blurred her name, making it impossible to hear clearly.

But it was hard to say for sure. Although the electronic voice hadn’t notified them of completing the main task “Find the Vanished Yingchun,” they hadn’t actually searched for her; the NPC just popped up on her own every time. If the NPC was Yingchun, the act of blurring the name during announcements would also make sense.

She couldn’t think for long. The NPC unhurriedly tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smiled at the group. Her pupils were as black as obsidian; being stared at by her always sent a shiver down one’s spine.

“This morning, I saw two pots of white begonias being carried in,” she said softly. “Placed in the hall, they look so cool and refreshing—truly delightful. Why don’t we set the topic as ‘Ode to the White Begonia,’ with the required rhymes being men, pen, hun, hen, hun?”

…This topic and the rhyme constraints were identical to the original text of Dream of the Red Chamber.

This poetry club segment differed from the riddle-guessing segment the two boys had encountered earlier. In the latter, only the act of guessing riddles was the same as the original work, while the riddles and methods varied. In the former, the topic and rhyme scheme were exactly the same as the original text.

Furthermore, Yingchun participated in the riddle-guessing in the original book, but in the poetry club, she was only responsible for setting the rhymes. The riddle segment required following Yingchun’s behavioral logic—specifically, guessing wrong—to complete the task. But in this poetry club segment, if they wanted to mimic Yingchun’s logic, they couldn’t just set the rhymes again.

Thus, the solution to this round wasn’t mimicking Yingchun’s logic, but rather recreating the entire scene of the poetry club at that time—playing along with the NPC once more.

Just as she was about to start writing, she saw the boy who had mentioned reading Dream of the Red Chamber creep up to her side. He whispered, “Hey, I happen to have memorized all the begonia poems from the book. Should we write them according to the original text, or make up our own?”

“You remember the poems?” Huainan Yue was a bit shocked.

Good heavens, this small team was full of hidden talents.

Since the topic and rhymes were restored, it was best to restore the poems as well.

So, the boy first transcribed five poems from memory and passed them to the other four. Everyone then copied them onto their own paper.

The moment everyone finished copying, the electronic voice rang in Huainan Yue’s ear.

“Congratulations, task completed.”

“Reward obtained: Favor of ***”

“Points +30. Your current points: 135”

The NPC smiled at everyone and vanished on the spot.

“This task seemed a bit easy,” another boy muttered softly beside them.

“Easy? You try memorizing these poems!” The boy who had written them out snapped back.

The other boy wanted to say something more, but Huainan Yue, who was flipping through the poems, spoke up.

“It wasn’t easy,” she looked up. “If we didn’t happen to have someone who could recite them from memory, I suspect the NPC would have attacked us the moment we set pen to paper—just like the monsters attacked us during the string games.”

Everyone was suddenly struck with lingering fear.

After a moment of silence, Rabbit was the first to speak: “So, what do we do next?”

Huainan Yue didn’t speak, but the electronic voice answered for her.

“Side task triggered: Within one hour *****”

“Success reward: None”

“Failure penalty: Yingchun’s Disgust”

“Task points: 100 total, distributed by contribution”

Everyone: ???

Wait, it’s one thing for the title to be blurred, but why is the dungeon’s Big Boss involved now?

Xue Xi was the first to shout: “Wait, what kind of broken system is this? It can’t even state the task clearly? How are we supposed to do it?”

Rabbit added: “Is it a system glitch? Will it broadcast again?”

“It won’t,” Huainan Yue said calmly.

She uncrossed her arms, straightened up, and suddenly walked outside.

“Wait, what does the Boss mean?” The boy who previously said the task was easy was now a bit cowardly, asking Xue Xi in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” Xue Xi shook her head, then brightened up again. “But Sister Yue definitely has a solution. Come on, let’s follow her.”

In one of the rooms in the west wing, which served as a study, books were piled up like mountains. Huainan Yue stepped inside, and the other four followed closely behind.

Xue Xi wanted to ask Huainan Yue what to do next but didn’t quite dare. She followed Huainan Yue from left to right, watching as she suddenly reached out and pulled a book from a shelf.

Several traditional characters were written on the cover. Xue Xi could roughly read them—it was Taishang Ganying Pian.

Huainan Yue unhurriedly flipped through the book, scanning it from beginning to end. She said nonchalantly, “A good book indeed.”

Saying this, she tossed the book to Xue Xi: “You read it too.”

Xue Xi was a bit dazed, but being obedient was always a virtue of a qualified “carried” teammate. So, without a word, she took the book and flipped through it. The others followed suit, passing it around one by one.

Immediately after, Xue Xi heard the magpie-like electronic voice.

“Congratulations, task completed.”

“Points +5. Current points: 25”

Everyone: ???

That easy? It really pays to cling to the Boss’s leg.

At this moment, Huainan Yue’s points reached 215.

This round was actually easy to deduce. In the diary, the first event was the string game, the second was guessing riddles, the third was the poetry club, and the fourth was this:

“Today I read the Taishang Ganying Pian again; it is truly wonderful.”

Read the Taishang Ganying Pian.

However… after that, the entries in the diary stopped recording events.

“Woke up with a headache this morning. I feel as if something is about to burst out of my heart, yet I am too lazy to call a doctor. Siqi said it is likely just fatigue from recent days.”

“I look at myself in the mirror and only feel that I am becoming less and less like myself.”

“I saw her. She is different from me; she is bright and strives to be first in everything. In my opinion, this is not good—it is so exhausting.”

“I have to go.”

“I have to go. I don’t want to go. If only I were her, I could be bold enough to fight for it.”

“Forget it. It is fate.”

“Is it truly fate? I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t believe it.”

It talked about Yingchun seeing a girl whose personality was different from her own.

Huainan Yue leaned against the doorframe in deep thought. Looking up, she saw eight eyes staring intensely at her, glowing like thousand-watt lightbulbs.

Huainan Yue: …

“What do we do next?” Xue Xi asked eagerly.

Huainan Yue: “Wait until 8:00 PM.”

“8:00? That’s a long time away.”

“In the meantime, wander around and see if there’s any other work.”

Side tasks didn’t just include activities from the diary like “string games” and “riddles.” There were also some slightly bizarre tasks completely unrelated to the main plot, such as “Withstand Xiu Ju’s screaming for ten minutes.” The points weren’t as high as the former, but the difficulty wasn’t as high either.

But even the smallest bit of meat is still food.

Huainan Yue intended to test her luck. She took Xue Xi and Rabbit to wander around the courtyard, trying to hoard more points. However, after two hours of wandering, they didn’t encounter a single side task.

Huainan Yue: …

It was likely her “African Chieftain” constitution at work. In the real world, she always relied on pity pulls for gacha games. Lucky draws were never her thing. The biggest prize she had ever won in the first half of her life was a five-dollar scratch-off, which she only got after stubbornly spending five hundred dollars to buy them.

Encountering “Xiu Ju’s screaming” earlier was probably due to either Rabbit or Xue Xi’s “European King” constitution manifesting, offsetting her own bad luck.

Believing that “if I’m suffering, I shouldn’t drag these girls down with me,” Huainan Yue firmly refused the two “little tails'” tearful cries of “fighting to the death alongside her” and set off on her own.

She darted from the west wing to the east wing, thinking she might run into other NPCs. Instead, she looked up and saw a person crouching on the ceiling beam—

With massive pupils and a pale white face, it was that nameless NPC.

Huainan Yue: …

She didn’t know whether to call this good luck or bad luck. On one hand, the scene was truly eerie; the NPC looked like she could jump down and kill at any moment. On the other hand, there seemed to be points to be earned here.

Then, Huainan Yue watched as the NPC’s neck twisted 360 degrees. Veins popped out, finally adding some color to her grayish-white face.

She crawled on all fours to a spot directly above Huainan Yue’s head. Her neck twisted another 360 degrees, like a towel being wrung several times, and then her head dangled down long.

Her head hung down until it was only dozens of centimeters from Huainan Yue, yet her voice remained sweet and dainty.

“Play chess with me,” she said.

Huainan Yue: …

Huainan Yue said calmly: “There’s really no need for such a grand ceremony.”

The NPC pulled her head back, spun it around twice, and returned to a normal appearance. “I was afraid that if I wasn’t a bit scary, you wouldn’t listen to me.”

Huainan Yue: …Even if you’re scary, I might not listen.

The NPC stared with wide eyes; her pupils were so large there was almost no white visible. Holding the beam, she propped herself up and stared intensely at Huainan Yue. After a long while, she began to giggle. “After all, you’ve always been very brave—you even dared to lay hands on Sister Xiu Ju.”

Huainan Yue: “You flatter me.”

“But I like people who are brave.”

“I am honored by your affection.”

As Huainan Yue spoke, she directly leaped up from the table, her speed as fast as a hawk. Before the NPC could even react, Huainan Yue had also latched onto the beam, crouching side-by-side with her.

“Weren’t we going to play chess?” Huainan Yue asked. “Since you won’t come down, I’ll come up.”

The NPC froze for a moment, then stared at her without moving, her grin widening further.

“You are too brave,” she said. “Now, I like you even more.”

As soon as the words fell, the electronic voice rang out. It was flat and monotone, yet Huainan Yue somehow sensed a trace of distortion within it.

“Triggered side task: Play chess with ***”

The electronic voice seemed to pause for a second, then continued as if nothing happened:

“Completion reward: None”

“Failure penalty: Death”

“Task points: 0”

Huainan Yue: Wait, what?

No points, and if she fails, she just dies? Is this broken system targeting her on purpose???