Grand View Garden Survival Rules [Infinite] - Chapter 7

When no outsiders were present, the dungeon might as well have said to her directly: “I want you to die.”

Huainan Yue blinked, then suddenly lunged forward along the roof beam, moving a bit closer to the NPC. She stared intently into the NPC’s eyes and asked softly, “Do you think I should lose or win?”

The NPC’s pupils contracted, and the black ink slowly bled out, crowding out all the white of her eyes. Huainan Yue didn’t retreat an inch. She continued, “If I displease you, I die, right?”

The task this time was “Play chess with ***,” not “Win this game of chess.” Therefore, whether to lose or win required careful consideration. She needed to test the NPC’s intentions first.

NPCs were closely linked to the system yet distinct from it. The system set the rules and issued tasks; if players violated those rules or failed tasks, they suffered. The NPC, however, was the one who brought those tasks to the player. An NPC couldn’t kill a player directly, but… they only had to lead the player into making one small mistake, didn’t they?

The NPC’s malice was, as always, undisguised. Her mouth stretched wider and wider as she spoke: “You should win.”

Huainan Yue raised an eyebrow. “I think you’re lying to me.”

“I like you so much, how could I lie to you?” The NPC’s mouth was so large it looked like it could swallow a person. “You truly should win.”

Huainan Yue nodded. “Then it shall be as you wish. However… ” she paused, “I don’t know how to play Go. If I want to win, I’m afraid it will be quite difficult.”

The NPC licked her lips and said slowly, “No matter. We shall play first and see.” After a pause, she added, “I go first.”

In ancient Go, the one holding the white pieces moves first. As she spoke, a board appeared between them, standing steadily upon the roof beam, along with two bowls of chess pieces. The NPC grabbed a handful of white pieces and was about to place one when her wrist was suddenly seized by Huainan Yue.

Huainan Yue lifted her gaze, her words sounding quite nonchalant: “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” The NPC lowered her eyes and smiled. “I am Yingchun. Can’t you tell?”

Huainan Yue gave an “Oh.” There was no electronic notification that the main task “Find the Vanished Yingchun” was completed.

Three possibilities:

1. She is not Yingchun.

2. She is Yingchun, but the system only triggers the completion after the full 48 hours.

3. She is Yingchun, but her current actions don’t count as “finding” her; or the Yingchun across from her doesn’t count as the “vanished” one because she has been out in the open.

She released the NPC’s hand. “Yingchun” began to place pieces on the board, and Huainan Yue followed suit. After a few rounds, Huainan Yue reached a conclusion—the NPC was letting her win.

Huainan Yue wasn’t ignorant of Go; on the contrary, she was an amateur 7th dan in the real world. Years of training were enough for her to see through “Yingchun’s” motives. “Yingchun” was deliberately throwing the game to let her win.

But what if… she suddenly increased her own skill? Would “Yingchun” continue to yield, or would her competitive spirit be provoked? Huainan Yue’s eyes flickered, and her moves suddenly became organized and strategic.

“Yingchun” clearly noticed this and began to press her hard.

The game lasted a full hour. Huainan Yue heard the clock outside strike five. “Yingchun” pressed her lips tight, her grin vanished, veins popped on her wrists, and sweat beaded on her forehead. She looked quite distressed—she was about to lose, even though she was now giving it her all.

Huainan Yue changed her posture. She sat up, her right hand tapping “thump, thump” on the board. She took a slow breath and asked casually, “Why stop playing? You’ve been staring at it for ten minutes without moving.”

At those words, “Yingchun” snapped her eyes wide and stared deathly at the person in front of her. She moved her arm stiffly to place a piece, her joints making “creak-clack” sounds as if they might fall apart the next second.

“If you play there, I’m going to win.” Huainan Yue leaned back down, hugging the beam, looking somewhat bored. “Yingchun’s” lips moved, but in the end, she said nothing.

“Then I’ll…” Huainan Yue picked up a piece and placed it in one of the squares. Then she looked up and gave a soft laugh. “I won,” she said.

“Yingchun’s” expression was bizarre—one side of her mouth curled up while the other pulled down, as if she were simultaneously happy and unhappy. She stared with eyes devoid of light, showing no emotion a human would have.

“Why must you win against me?” she said, syllable by syllable. “You won, and I am very angry.”

“Why?” Huainan Yue asked.

“No… one… has ever won against me…” Yingchun’s head snapped up. “I am the best at chess! You shouldn’t win against me!”

As soon as the words fell, the electronic voice followed: “Regrettably, task fail—”

Exploding alongside the electronic voice was Huainan Yue’s still-calm tone: “You are not Yingchun.”

“Fail— fail— fail—” The electronic voice glitched and stalled.

“Yingchun’s” eyes bulged as if they were about to fall out. “What are you saying!” she roared. “I am Yingchun!”

“You’re not.” Huainan Yue’s voice was flat. “Yingchun never competes. If she lost a game of chess she was proud of, she would only say, ‘Forget it, I lost,’ instead of ‘I shouldn’t lose.'”

True, the NPC initially wanted her to win and deliberately yielded. But once she showed her real strength, the NPC’s competitiveness was triggered, and she began to press forward, eventually fighting with everything she had—yet she still couldn’t beat Huainan Yue.

Yielding at first to let her win was the NPC’s strategy; the outcome was a result she orchestrated. But losing after fighting with her full strength meant the situation had escaped her control. At that point, winning or losing became a matter of inferior skill. The NPC couldn’t accept it.

Huainan Yue climbed down from the beam and stood on the floor. She looked up, her voice cold but clear: “You play at guessing riddles and you set the rhymes, but in the end, you are not her. You cannot manage to remain detached from everything; you cannot say those words: ‘Forget it.'”

“You cannot become her, and you cannot replace her. Where have you hidden her?”

While playing chess, Huainan Yue had been wondering where Yingchun actually was. They had turned the courtyard upside down, and Yingchun was still nowhere to be found. Either she was Yingchun herself, as the NPC claimed, or… Yingchun was hidden by her. Hidden in a place they could never see. Or perhaps the NPC they saw under the cinnamon tree in the other world while playing string games was Yingchun.

So, if the side task of playing chess failed… it didn’t matter. As long as she triggered the main task, by logic, it would interrupt the side task’s judgment. The priority of a main task is always higher than a side task.

She took the gamble. And she won.

The girl’s face began to twist, gradually becoming inhuman. Her pupils grew larger, slowly spreading to fill her entire eye sockets. Through her thin, grayish skin, an unsettled blackness could be seen beneath. She opened her mouth and sighed, “You really are very clever.”

Huainan Yue remained where she was, not stepping back. She reached out her hand, her gaze still cold but appearing calm and sincere. “Come down,” she said. “Take me to see the real Yingchun.”

The electronic voice rang in her ear:

“Reward ‘Favor of ***’ has been consumed.”

“Main Task triggered.”

A door appeared out of thin air. Huainan Yue had seen it twice before and was very familiar with its patterns. The NPC slid down from the beam and stood before Huainan Yue, then hugged her knees and slowly crouched down. Her head was buried in her knees, and her shoulders began to heave in sobs—it was unclear if she was crying.

Huainan Yue frowned imperceptibly. She lifted her foot to walk toward the door but eventually sighed and crouched down beside her. She lightly touched the top of the NPC’s head.

“Don’t cry,” Huainan Yue said. “I won’t hurt her. I just want to see her.”

The NPC looked up at her, her grayish face covered in tear tracks, the corners of her eyes forced into a bit of redness. Huainan Yue suddenly thought of the name that was hidden every time the system announced something. All the NPCs here had names, except this one before her.

Looking at the NPC’s reddened eyes, she continued to ask softly: “Perhaps, you would be willing to tell me your name?”

The NPC’s sobbing stopped. She froze for a long time. Huainan Yue stared at her without blinking, and after a while, reached out to wipe away her tears.

She heard the NPC whisper: “I have no name.”

Huainan Yue rubbed the top of the NPC’s head again, her tone flat but gentle. “Then you can pick one for yourself,” she said. “And when I come back, you tell me.”

Huainan Yue stood up and walked toward the wooden door. Passing through the white light, the scenery before her eyes changed drastically. In the lingering peripheral vision, the NPC was still crouching with her knees hugged, head raised, staring blankly at her. Her pupils were still huge, her face still grayish, and the red still lingered in her eyes. Everything seemed the same, except… she was no longer crying.

Before her was the original courtyard, but all the NPCs were gone. Except for the person sitting in the center.

In the place where the large stone had been, there was now a swing surrounded by dense flowers. A young girl wearing a red wedding dress sat on the swing. The flowers were high, and orioles and butterflies wandered among them. Half of her face was exposed to the sunlight, while the other half was hidden in the flower shadows.

She held something in both hands, her fingers fluttering. Moving closer, Huainan Yue saw she was using a floral needle to string jasmine flowers.

In the original book, while the sisters gathered in groups of two or three to fish or watch gulls, Yingchun sat alone in the flower shadows using a floral needle to string jasmine. So gentle. So peaceful. Time back then seemed exceptionally long. Whether a small bug would suddenly jump out from the shadows to bite someone was something only she would know.

But happy and quiet days always pass in the blink of an eye. What was she thinking when she wore that wedding dress to get married? Was she imagining a life of mutual respect and growing old with her husband, or was she reminiscing about her time in Grand View Garden? Or perhaps she thought of nothing at all, just as her character had always been—not caring about anything.

The sisters were each peerless in talent and stunning in beauty; obscured among them, she appeared too ordinary. But she was never disappointed or embarrassed because of it. Her catchphrase was “Forget it,” and whenever something happened, she would just smile and let it go.

The wedding dress was very red—so red it looked black. A cloud overhead suddenly dropped a light rain, dampening the dress slightly. The train of the dress on the ground bled out a small patch of color, staining the rainwater bright red—that dress was clearly soaked in blood.

She had been beaten to death by her husband’s family.

She returned home in a blood-red wedding dress, but didn’t know where to go. Her biological father and stepmother might not have been ignorant of the Sun family’s character, yet they still sent her into that fire pit for five thousand taels of silver.

For the first time, she felt she was not resigned to her fate. She never competed, never hurt anyone, and never lost her temper. If this was the fate written for everyone at birth, she could only believe it.

But she didn’t believe it. Every day she asked herself: Is this my fate? As she asked, a second personality emerged. The second personality dared to fight, loved to play and laugh loudly, dared to love and hate, and was petty about every detail. She pushed her out to deal with the world and its troubles, while sealing herself away in this utopia.

Finally, she didn’t have to deal with the bullying of wicked servants, perform talents she wasn’t good at, or listen to her stepmother list her shameful past to make her stand up for herself. Instead, she could sit quietly by the flower shadows, propping up her head to watch the birds and butterflies, stringing countless jasmine flowers without a single worry in her heart.

Huainan Yue walked up to her and reached out her hand. After a brief pause, she placed it on her shoulder. At the moment she touched the clothes, the electronic voice returned:

“Congratulations, Yingchun has been found. Main Task complete.”

“Points +960. Your total points: 1175”