Chapter Ch212.1 - Home Court

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

The air was stained with the smell of damp soil after the rain.

As Wu Jin put away the mirror shard, a small, neglected detail flashed through his mind.

In the dimly lit bathroom, during the first time he’d subdued the female lead of <Red Dancing Shoes> in the stall, the female ghost Karen, the outline of the ghost’s face in the dim light had seemed ‘stitched together’, like two types of similar skin colors had been put together.

If that was the case…

Wu Jin was almost startled by his own thoughts.

This idea was too bold, he had to quickly stop his brain!

After the first round of rain, Wu Jin followed behind the big boss and quickly came to the training building for <Snow White>.

It was the same as in Wu Jin’s imagination. At this time, almost all the players treated the 60 into 12 as a divided battlefield. When the team members from <Red Dancing Shoes> appeared in the <Snow White> training area, the crowd was stunned and then quickly shifted their attention away.

The style of this building was similar to Wu Jin’s dormitory. Each mirror in the corridor was inlaid with magnificent frames, appearing as though they’d just been taken out of the Queen’s luxurious palace.

However, many of the mirrors held traces of human destruction.

The team members of <Snow White> weren’t very friendly to Wu Jin, and when Wu Jin asked about the mirrors, their replies were very indifferent. They were always on guard against Wu Jin out of fear that he would sneak into the group and ‘kill to change skins’.

As the two of them strolled through the dormitory area, Wu Jin finally confirmed a guess.

A row of mirrors in the dormitory corridor had been smashed to pieces. The ceiling height was normal, and there was no loft partition at the top for the female ghost, but the corridor was particularly ‘narrow’.

“There’s a compartment behind the mirror. In <Snow White>, the ghost girl walks through the mirrors.” Wu Jin whispered to the big boss, “Our ghost girl kills by dropping down from above, while here, the Queen breaks through the mirror from the inside and kills the trainees who are standing outside the mirror.”

Wu Jin felt that this group’s elimination method was much more romantic than falling down from the sky!

The curse of the red dancing shoes had been passed down to Karen from the Queen, but the details weren’t yet clear. If he could exchange scripts with this group of trainees––

At the corner of the corridor, there were sporadic trainees who passed by. But they quickly sped up their pace and left after seeing two unfamiliar faces.

Wu Jin frowned slightly.

<Snow White> trainees were more vigilant than the ones in <Red Dancing Shoes>. There were many possible causes, such as the female ghost’s cruel killing method, having more high ranked trainees, and the lack of pacifying organizers like Yu Chu.

In any case.

The cost for making a move in other people’s territory was too high. Wu Jin quickly made a choice and whispered to the big boss, “We’ll go and find a Crosson Show player. We’ll reveal our identity and exchange scripts.”

Straightforward and cost-effective.

Wu Jin thought about it more, “Should you do it or should I?”

Wei Shi made a sound of acknowledgement, “Is there a difference.”

“……” Wu Jin: There really didn’t seem to be a difference! After all, the Scarf team was like Jingyi and usually existed as a fixed combat unit…

The two of them walked around the floor.

When they passed a corner of the dormitory area, Wu Jin’s eyes suddenly shone.

A trainee sitting in the dorm room practically had his identity written on his face.

The talent show for the seventh elimination match was very realistic. Not only had it brought back ancient recording and editing techniques from the 21st and 22nd centuries, it had also perfectly restored the real life environment for these untrained idol trainees. There were all kinds of masks in the bedroom, training clothes, fashion clothing, and skin care products.

This trainee was sitting in the dorm room chair with a mask on his face.

Wu Jin thought about it until his head was about to split and couldn’t figure out why some people would even put a mask over a mask.

Wu Jin knocked on the door politely, “Brother Thin!”

Inside, Thin Fire was stunned for a moment, then immediately relaxed. This A-level trainee’s observation ability wasn’t inferior to Caesar’s, and he was able to recognize him at a glance in the same way, “Little Witch, why did you two come?”

As he spoke, he carefully shifted his right hand that had been working on the mask, sliding it towards his waist to grasp the hilt of a knife.

Wu Jin explained quickly, “Oh, Brother Think, I intend no hostility here! Love and peace, love and peace, I just want to ask you for an exchange…”

Thin Fire made an ‘oh’ sound. His left hand slapped the essence onto the back of his right hand, and then he used his left hand to catch the handle of the blade––

Wu Jin had no choice but to throw over his own script, “Brother Thin, don’t, don’t, don’t, if you have something to say, let’s talk properly! Let’s trade scripts and have a look!”

Thin Fire’s actions finally stopped.

In the next ten seconds, the Silver Thread Roll trainee showed a high level of proficiency, exhibiting a professionalism that was as familiar as his techniques. Thin Fire quickly wiped his damp hands on his training clothing, then flipped through from the first page, quickly checking the script over for inflammable and explosive materials in an instant. Then, he dodged behind a bunker and faced Wu Jin and Wei Shi who were standing at the door.

“Inspection.” Thin Fire’s words were brief and concise.

Half a minute later, Thin Fire threw out his own script.

“Alright, if there’s nothing else then leave. It hasn’t been easy for your Brother Thin. It’s already been a few days since the game started, and I’ve never gone this long without washing my face in my life…”

Wu Jin happily accepted the script and left, closing the door behind him for Thin Fire.

“Brother Thin,” Wu Jin poked his head back in through the door, “How many people have you guys had eliminated?”

Thin Fire: “0 to 9 people!”

“……” Wu Jin: Excuse me!

In the corridor, Wu Jin quickly flipped through the script.

“… Once upon a time, the King married the most beautiful girl at the ball. Her beauty was unparalleled, and people were willing to pay any price to dance with her…”

“There’s no detailed description about the Queen’s origins.” Wu Jin frowned slightly, “Thin Fire’s script only covers the part until the Queen gives Snow White the poisoned apple, but there isn’t much information about the Queen herself.”

Beauty, dancing.

Wu Jin exhaled. He couldn’t find any further clues and closed the script.

Of course the Queen was beautiful. Otherwise, how could she pass her good genes to Snow White?

“To the Nightingale group.” Wu Jin finally said, “The Queen passed the curse to Karen with the red dancing shoes. The Queen restrains Karen. Considering closed-loop fairness––”

“The female ghost in <The Nightingale and The Rose> must be associated with Karen and the Queen simultaneously.”

Wu Jin stilled abruptly.

Wilde’s ‘The Nightingale and The Rose’ flashed through his mind. Unlike Andersen and Grimm’s fairy tales, the Nightingale and the Rose only had one version, and there was no room for adjustment to the plot.

If the program had made any adaptations, then it could only be before the start of the story, or after the end––

There was a beautiful girl who was keen about dancing in ‘The Nightingale and The Rose.’

A young student wanted to dance with the girl, and the girl said that as long as he brought her a rose, he could dance with her.

However, there were no red roses in the garden. Out of love for the student, the nightingale pierced its chest with thorns, dyed the petals of a rose with blood, and gave birth to the rose’s fragrance through its song. The student who’d obtained the red rose asked the girl to dance with her, but the girl had promised to dance with a noble and rejected the student. In a fit of rage, the student threw away the red rose onto the street, where it was crushed by carriage wheels.

This was very much like Wilde.

Wu Jin sighed emotionally. The nightingale in the fairy tale was Wilde himself, and the works created with his heart and blood had been abandoned offhandedly. However, times had changed, and his wishes could be considered to have been fulfilled in the end.

Wei Shi was calm, “The two of them were having a romance. How was it related to the nightingale?”

Wu Jin: “!!!” This was art, art! The nightingale died for the most beautiful love in the world! The fairy tale used irony to express the sharp contrast between the nightingale’s ‘sincerity’ and the girl’s ‘vanity’, and the ‘impetuousness’ of the student… Forget it, you’ve never taken the college entrance examination and wouldn’t understand…

The two of them soon headed for the dormitory building for <The Nightingale and The Rose>.

In Wu Jin’s mind, roses, balls, and dancing shoes were flying around everywhere. It was as though they were going to connect into a line, but the line was still a thousand miles away.

“Vanity.” Wu Jin suddenly murmured, “The three stories, the <Red Dancing Shoes>, <Snow White>, and <The Nightingale and The Rose> are all about vanity.”

Upstairs, in the dormitory.

Thin Fire watched as they finally left, then quickly closed the window. Who had he offended?! Why had the two of them blocked the door and come to find him in order to exchange scripts?! It could be understood if it was Contestant Wu, since he relied on reasoning and wisdom to debut! But why was Contestant Wei behind him? And Contestant Wei’s expression, it was like he was taking some hamster or rabbit or other such small animal out for a walk after the rain. It didn’t look like he was participating in a competition at all!