Chapter 74: Nightmare App

    The jade doll’s glare intensified, and Jin Jiuchi was unable to hold back a chuckle.

    Why was it so damn fun to tease him? With a single poke or prod, he would snap and bite back with twice the ferocity, without knowing that it did not inflict any harm on Jin Jiuchi whatsoever. On the contrary, it got him all more... excited instead. Like they were on a game of chase to see who would be able to obtain the upper hand over whom.

    If this was truly a game, Jin Jiuchi would not be bored playing with him until the end of the time.

    He took a step forward, then another and another, until he stood right in front of Shen Nianzu with his shadow engulfing the jade doll’s entire body.

    And all the while, Shen Nianzu stayed rooted in place, even though Jin Jiuchi could clearly see the tension rising on his body and hear his heartbeat that pounded like a drum.

    He stared down at the jade doll’s pale purple eyes, framed by strands of pure white lashes that fluttered with every blink he took. How beautiful... he did not even know how to describe Shen Nianzu’s expressive eyes aside from that word, and it irked him because that one word was just not enough – even a hundred or a thousand words of praise would barely be enough.

    "W–What’s on your mind?" Shen Nianzu asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

    "I am thinking..." Jin Jiuchi extended a hand toward Shen Nianzu’s face. The tip of his fingers brushed against Shen Nianzu’s delicate lashes with a touch as fleeting as the caress of the wind, causing the jade doll’s breath to hitch on his throat. "Nian’er’s eyes are so beautiful that I want to make them mine... but I can’t... because I know that they can only remain beautiful if they belong to you."

    It took Shen Nianzu one full second to comprehend the full meaning behind Jin Jiuchi’s sentence, and he instantly took a step back with muted horror. "You... You want to gouge out my eyeballs?!"

    Unable to help it, Jin Jiuchi burst out into a feat of hearty laughter. "Pfft... ahahaha!!"

    "You— speak properly!" Shen Nianzu growled and grabbed him by the collar, more of shame than fear because for a split second there, he had really thought that Jin Jiuchi was going to kiss him. Now that he had broken away from the spellbinding trance of Jin Jiuchi’s intense gaze, he came to realize how impossible it was for someone like Jin Jiuchi to know what it meant to desire someone. This man was childish, insane, and lacked serious common sense. It was more reasonable for him to want to gouge out Shen Nianzu’s eyeballs than to kiss him!

    "N–No..." Jin Jiuchi choked out amidst the laughter bubbling out of his throat. He grasped the jade doll’s wrist gently and huffed in protest, "Did you even hear what I said, Nian’er? Don’t worry, I will not do anything to harm you. I will be content with only looking..." he suddenly trailed off and tilted his head in thought. "Will I? How about touching once in a while?"

    Shen Nianzu let go of him harshly and stomped away. He had told himself again and again not to be swayed by Jin Jiuchi’s words or action, and thus all the blame lay on him for misinterpreting the man’s gesture!

    "Nian’er, wait for me!" Jin Jiuchi hurried to chase after the fuming jade doll with his long legs.

    Shen Nianzu stopped in front of a huge door on the second floor. He pushed it open, revealing a massive bedroom that was elegantly furnished. A floor-to-ceiling window was built on one side of the wall to display the vast expanse of forest outside, and next to it was a king sized bed covered in a fluffy beige colored mattress.

    Jin Jiuchi took a deep whiff of the jade doll’s unique scent that permeated the entire room, and just like the car, he knew at once that this was Shen Nianzu’s bedroom.

    "Wait a—" Shen Nianzu had not even finished his sentence yet when Jin Jiuchi rushed ahead and plopped himself down onto the bed head-first, his limbs spread out like a starfish. He was utterly caught off guard, especially when Jin Jiuchi groaned in bliss and said with his voice muffled,

    "Nian’er, I want to be here forever..."

    Learning from his previous error, Shen Nianzu’s expression hardly changed as he said coldly, "Rejected."

    "Why?!!"

    He ignored the silly husky’s anguished wails and walked toward the long mahogany table to pull open the bottommost drawer, revealing four other new phones which he had prepared in case of emergency. He chose one with the latest model and turned it on. Seeing that it was still working fine, he walked over to the bed and kicked Jin Jiuchi on the ass. "Get up."

    "Nooo..." Jin Jiuchi was adamant on becoming one with the bed.

    Shen Nianzu rolled his eyes and said, "Do you still want to know your skill card or not?"

    "Skill card...!" Jin Jiuchi sat up with a whoosh and stared at the jade doll with sparkling eyes. "Nian’er, I want to know my skill card!"

    Shen Nianzu held the phone high and raised a haughty brow, "What do you say when you want to ask someone for a favor?"

    Jin Jiuchi replied with nary a hesitation, "Please~" He even widened his eyes and blinked rapidly a few times for good measure.

    ’Shameless,’ Shen Nianzu cursed inwardly. But he was also kinda cute like this, so...

    He cleared his throat and sat down beside Jin Jiuchi, handing the phone over to him. "This phone is now yours. The battery is full and the SIM card is inside. You can directly use it. I will give you the charger later."

    "Wow..." Jin Jiuchi gazed at the foreign item in his hands with an expression full of wonder. "Nian’er is the best! He is the kindest, the bestest, the prettie—mmph!"

    "Shut up," Shen Nianzu shot him a murderous glare as he covered Jin Jiuchi’s mouth with a hand. "Or else I will take the phone back."

    Jin Jiuchi quickly nodded and gave an ’OK’ gesture.

    Shen Nianzu let him go with a harrumph. How much of a simpleton was he to be so happy with a mere phone? Exactly what kind of horrible treatment had he received in the asylum? The uncomfortable feeling spread again in his chest, and he shook his head to shelve the thoughts for the time being.

    Seeing that Jin Jiuchi truly seemed as if he had no idea how to use the phone, Shen Nianzu’s hard features finally softened a bit and he stretched a hand out, "Give me the phone. I will show you."

    He taught Jin Jiuchi to differentiate between the power and volume buttons, how to set up a password, then introduced him to some apps like contacts, message, camera, gallery and basic settings to change the phone’s interface to his preference. "Understand?"

    Jin Jiuchi felt like he was lost somewhere in the middle, but he still gave the jade doll a thumbs up. Either way, it was not like he would use the phone other than to contact Nian’er...

    "Okay, let’s move to the Nightmare App." Shen Nianzu swiped on the screen and in front of Jin Jiuchi’s eyes, a pitch black thumbnail started to materialize out of nowhere.

    "Oh oh oh!" Jin Jiuchi’s eyes lit up in fascination. So this was the app Xinxin was talking about, the place where he could buy props like Angry Chicken. He could not wait to own his own props just like them!

    "Before we start," Shen Nianzu said, and Jin Jiuchi lifted his head to see that the jade doll had a somber look on his face. "Let me tell you that this App will only be visible to players alone. If you show this to non-players, they will not be able to see anything. We will not be able to disclose anything about the Cycle to them either. It’s like a greater force is preventing us from speaking about it. That’s why, we can only gather and talk among ourselves in the app forum."

    Jin Jiuchi gulped, feeling as if he was being a part of a super cool spy organization. "Okay, Nian’er."

    Shen Nianzu stared at him for one long moment to make sure that he truly understood. Or else this silly husky might even go into a national TV channel again and try to share his experience to the whole world. Only after that did he nod and click on the app.

    The screen instantly turned dark, and from within the boundless darkness, a string of words that looked as if they had been scrawled with blood appeared. Small at first, then it became bigger and bigger until it dominated the whole screen.

    ’Welcome to the Nightmare Cycle, the chosen one.’

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    A/N: Shout out to ArcaneMag, Nyublia, Yumi_Lynh and others for giving WBNC 149GTs on May! Thank you so much everyone QAQ please continue to support the book too this month! ^^

    As this book is entering winwin for the first time, I will really appreciate it if you can purchase privilege even if it’s the first tier (1 coin), pelase help the book to reach 1k unlocks until the end of June!