In the magnificent banquet hall, there was a dead silence. The glow emitted by the clear wine spilling liquid made people feel dizzy.
The steward Yu Xiu's emerald-green, lustrous eyes reflected the faces of the players sitting at the huge long table with a red velvet tablecloth, their expressions varied: some were scared, some indifferent, some excited...
Yes, excited.
Jiang Yan sharply noticed the excited gleam flashing in Tao Shi's eyes, who was following the flow with a default expression.
This child...
Jiang Yan didn’t know why a strange sense of pleasure surged in his heart, but he was now very curious about why Tao Shi entered the game.
"Jian" – a terrifying game where life is exchanged for wishes to the god.
Except for the recent incident where the main system malfunctioned, starting with Jiang Yan, players who hadn’t signed contracts were dragged into the game. Every previous player who entered the game had a reason strong enough to make them throw away their life.
It could be for themselves, or for something else.
According to what he learned from the conversation, Tao Shi’s family condition was much better than they had imagined!
After all, to be able to afford to hire someone like Jian Hou, a second-generation rich piano teacher with absurdly high fees, Tao Shi's family condition was definitely better than both his and Jian Hou's.
Children born into such families see money as just a number.
In this world, ninety-nine percent of things can be solved with money, and the remaining one percent is controlled by power.
However, when the number of money stacks up to a certain height, it can naturally be exchanged for power.
What kind of wish would a child, raised in a family with loving parents and surrounded by wealth and power, have to make him enter this game?
The steward, looking at Jiang Yan, glanced at Yu Jia, who silently lowered his hand. His gaze then landed on Tao Shi, and he said:
"Do you want to go first, child?"
Tao Shi pretended to be troubled: "If there's someone else, I don't mind being the first."
Yu Xiu’s lips curled slightly: "Please remember the punishment for liars."
"Clearly remembered," Tao Shi replied.
"Where did you go after the wedding banquet yesterday?" Yu Xiu asked.
"Back to my room," Tao Shi answered, "and then I slept."
"Did you hear any strange noises?"
"Some thumping sounds. Now that I think about it, it should have been the sound of body parts falling. Apart from that, nothing else."
"After hearing the noise, did you go out to check?"
"Of course not..." Tao Shi's words stopped halfway, and he froze.
"Did you go out to check?" the steward repeated.
Tao Shi didn’t answer, and a long silence followed.
At this moment, Jiang Yan, who was rubbing his head like petting a cat, looked up with some suspicion. He saw that Tao Shi was staring blankly at the goblet filled with crimson wine in front of him.
"What's wrong..."
Before Jiang Yan could finish his sentence, he noticed that, besides himself and the giant steward holding him, everyone at the long table had the same expression.
Each of their eyes was dark and unfocused, as if they had seen something terrifying, or were frozen in place by an image deep in their souls.
Ding!
The divine system has updated the soul marks of the [followers]:
[Shock]
[Anger]
[Terror]
[Confusion]
--
Jiang Yan furrowed his brows in confusion.
At that moment, he was certain that something was happening at the table, yet he was being shielded from it.
“What’s wrong with them?”
Jiang Yan tugged at the steward’s chest, asking timidly in a tone that a little prince would have, “What’s going on with them?”
The giant’s long, broad hand rubbed his head, and he answered, “They’re recalling what they did last night.”
Jiang Yan was confused: “But why am I…”
“Because Your Highness doesn’t need to,” the steward interrupted his words with a smile.
The next moment, Jiang Yan’s chin was lifted, and he was forced to meet the deep, emerald-green eyes full of laughter.
“Yan Yan shouldn’t have forgotten, right? Everything that happened last night, it should have been a dream with the fragrance of roses, don’t you think?”
Jiang Yan froze.
The image of the giant king’s bedroom, where the bed was covered in rose petals, appeared again in his mind…
“Get off!”
Jiang Yan tried to break free from the steward’s grip, but instead, he received a forceful kiss full of laughter.
Fortunately, the other person had no intention of doing anything more impolite or outrageous. He simply rubbed Jiang Yan’s messy hair and said:
“That moth, it came from an evil but supreme god in this world.”
A god?
Jiang Yan, who had been struggling, stopped moving instantly.
At that moment, the steward’s hand, which in this instance was called the "curse of the evil god," began to slowly crawl up along his waist.
The steward continued speaking: “The original intention behind creating this moth was actually for His wife.”
“It’s said that His wife, like you, was a beautiful and kind-hearted elf. It’s just unfortunate that the wife not able to bear life, but that didn’t stop them from loving each other.”
“If the wife is a man, then it certainly wouldn’t be possible.”
However...
Jiang Yan raised his head again and looked at the steward Yu Xiu, raising his brows slightly.
If the mysterious evil god in this instance was still Yu Xiu... does that mean Yu Xiu really wanted a child?
Or is this just a basic setting of the instance?
Speaking of which, he had never discussed this topic with Yu Xiu before.
After all, two men getting married meant it was assumed they wouldn’t have children. He couldn’t have children, and neither could Yu Xiu.
So... does this guy, for a moment, actually want a child?
“I hate children,” Jiang Yan answered coldly. “All they do is cry and eat. Too troublesome.”
The steward paused slightly before continuing to smile and say, “Yes, yes! The god also thought that his wife might not like ordinary offspring, so he created that moth. To ensure the offspring could reproduce on their own, he optimized the moth’s breeding method, but…”
“The breeding method was a bit too fast. It’s clear that the moth cannot be considered a normal offspring.”
Saying this, the steward suddenly looked at Jiang Yan and said, “Your Highness.”
Jiang Yan: “Hmm?”
The steward said: “If... I’m saying, if you were the god’s wife, would you like that cute little moth offspring?”
Jiang Yan: “I would kill it directly.”
The steward: “...But it has two cute little heads and lets out adorable human-like crying sounds.”
Jiang Yan coldly replied: “No, you misunderstand. I mean, I would directly kill my husband if he tried to treat that thing as our child.”
The steward: "..."
For a moment, Jiang Yan began to doubt whether this guy truly had independent consciousness in the game, or if he had autonomous behavioral and thinking abilities.
He looked at the steward, whose eyes began to seem somewhat guilty and unfocused, and said: "But, I won’t have children. After all, my husband has already passed away."
"Yes!" The steward regained his normal expression, chuckling lightly as he once again reached under Jiang Yan's long robe, leaning close to his ear and saying, "But very soon, you will reassemble his body, and very soon he will return to your side."
As soon as the giant finished speaking, the players, who had been in a daze, suddenly began to move.
Some were slumped in their chairs, gasping for air, some were smashing plates, others were wildly spilling drinks, some fell from their chairs... It was as if they had collectively had a strange dream, and now had just woken up from it.
“What... happened?” Jiang Yan blinked in confusion and asked.
Tao Shi finished the red wine in his glass, took a few deep breaths, and looked at Jiang Yan, saying, “Memory…”
Jiang Yan tilted his head in confusion.
Jian Hou seemed to have just regained his senses and still looked somewhat disoriented. He said, “My memory from last night... has been tampered with.”
Jiang Yan’s pupils contracted.
What?!
“It’s not tampered with, it’s recalled,” the steward explained, while enjoying the feeling of the little prince’s smooth skin in his arms. “Everyone just recalled what they did last night.”
Yu Jia, holding a wine glass and propping his head up, suddenly chuckled softly: “So, this is how you play, huh?”
“Because of a bug in the main system, the plot couldn’t continue, so the system forcibly implanted memories into the players’ minds to push the plot forward? Ha.”
Saying this, Yu Jia lifted his head and fixed his gaze on the steward Yu Xiu, who was sitting in the [Jesus] position, and said, “The main god has already…”
“Ding—ding—ding—”
Yu Jia’s words were abruptly cut off by a sudden, loud crash.
"Beep—"
【Main System: Player Yu Jia, warning issued once!】
“Beep—Beep—Beep—”
The entire banquet hall was surrounded by an eerie red light. The mechanical voice of the main system’s announcement, combined with the piercing blare of the alarm, echoed through the ornate, gold-embellished murals of the circular dome.
"Beep—"
【Main System: Player Yu Jia, warning issued once!】
“Damn it!” Yu Jia cursed loudly, draining the wine in his cup in one gulp. In the end, he didn’t continue speaking.
The eerie red light and alarm sound disappeared together, and the banquet hall fell silent once again.
[What… just happened?]
[What’s wrong with the main system? It’s been acting really weird lately.]
[First, the main system suddenly glitches… and now Yu Jia said that players had memories forcibly implanted to advance the plot…]
[Could it be mind control? Some dungeons have settings where players are subjected to mental control. It’s not exactly uncommon.]
[Impossible! Mind control doesn’t work on high-level players. Or rather, it doesn’t work on players with strong mental resistance—like Jiang Yan. There’s no way someone could directly hard-control top-tier players like Yu Jia for so long.]
[Yeah… Yu Jia wouldn’t mistake mind control for memory implantation.]
【So, what kind of memories were implanted into them?】
[So… what exactly happened to the main system? Yu Jia seemed like he was about to ask about the "Main God," right? What’s going on with the Main God??]
[How would I know! Could the Main God actually malfunction? That’s impossible, isn’t it?!]
[Wait, so… could Jiang Yan really be a bug??]
[Think about it… if Jiang Yan is a bug destroying the game, and the “Best Actor” behind Yu Jia wants to kill Jiang Yan, doesn’t that explanation make sense??]
【What the hell? How could Jiang Yan be a BUG? It’s obvious the Main God is giving him special privileges, okay?? Besides, how could anything happen to the Main God? Come on!】
[Uh… hard to say! I’ve heard some rumors lately about Jiang Yan and the Main God. It seems like he…]
【He seems like what??】
【Is he really the Main God’s illegitimate child?】
[Ridiculous!! The Main God is just a string of data, not some physical deity! Where would an illegitimate child come from??]
[What’s going on with Jiang Yan?]
[Hey, don’t leave us hanging! What happened to Jiang Yan?!]