A Slight Smile is Very Charming Vol Chapter 12

More talents of Nai He Da Shen are revealed!

I tried to paste this directly from word rather than notepad so there are italics. Hopefully, nothing went missing in the process. When I tried with previous chapters, my headnotes went missing most of the time.

Nina, your question gets answered in this chapter!

[1] Shidi (younger “brother”) versus shimei (younger “sister). Basically accusing her of pretending to be female while really a male.

[2]振聋发聩: is an idiom which is to shock those who are confused or apathetic. The literal meaning is to cause the deaf to hear.

Chapter Twelve White Robes, Red Shadow

Yu Gong came up after a while and weakly said: “I’m injured.”

Mo Zha Ta mocked him: “Just falling down on your a.s.s a bit is also called an injury.”

Yu Gong’s embarra.s.sment turned to rage: “Internal! What I meant was internal injury.”

Wei Wei: “>o<, so="" you="" guys="" live="">

Even before, Wei Wei had perceived from their conversations that they knew each other in real life. All four of them seemed to be in year four in university because they mentioned once that they were graduating and need to find internships. But Wei Wei was never nosy about the real lives of other people outside the game and hadn’t asked before. This time her questions came out surprisingly natural.

Hou Zi Jiu replied: “We’re in one dorm.”

As expected!

Wei Wei unconsciously turned to look at Nai He. Then Da Shen was the same as her, an university student? Why did she feel that it was a bit unbelievable,Da Shen should be … …

>_

Couldn’t think of anything … …

Yu Gong said: “Sansao, Nai He usually never returns to the dorms at night. You should control him better.”

Mo Zha Ta: “He doesn’t return during the day either!”

Wei Wei jiong.

Nai He said: “Whenever the dorm doesn’t have half a month unwashed socks that you guys left around, I’ll return immediately.”

Mo Zha Ta promptly said: “Just keep living outside in that case.”

Wei Wei sweated. She had heard that before male students would acc.u.mulate tens of pairs of socks before washing them together. She hadn’t realized that these people did it too. She suddenly remembered that Yu Gong had mentioned blacking out somebody’s computer and asked suspiciously: “You guys are studying Computer Science?”

“Correct!”

What a coincidence = =

Wei Wei said: “… … me too.”

“. . . . . .”

“It’s actually a little shimei!”

Yu Gong Pa Shan: “It’s over. It’s nine to one in the CompSci department. Littleshimei is so strong and bold, unless she is really a little shidi?”[1]

Wei Wei: “>o<>

Wei Wei was a bit embarra.s.sed by their word: “Really that bold and strong? The opening lines I just said… …”

Actually managed to shock Yu Gong to an internal injury.

Yu Gong said: “It’s okay, it’s okay, that result even the deaf could hear.” [2]

Even the deaf could hear … …

Wei Wei thought she was getting internal injuries herself. Using “the deaf could hear” this way, if Yu Gong’s previous Chinese teachers knew, they might actually cry.

Hou Zi Jiu made a suggestion. “It’s good, but that “leave behind the men” should be changed. There’s four males here, who knows which one you want to kidnap. The audience might get confused.”

Nai He said: “There won’t be any misunderstandings, it doesn’t have to be changed.”

Hou Zi Jiu: “? ? ?”

Nai He said: “You guys have nothing of value.”

And therefore … …

A PK started noisily again. This time it was three-on-one.

Wei Wei looked speechlessly at the sky. She hadn’t even started the kidnapping, the “victims” had already started to having internal conflicts.

In the end, under Yu Gong’s weakness due to his injury, after many hilarious situations, the video finally was preliminarily completely after two days.

The story after the kidnapping was still written by Wei Wei. To lengthen the time, Wei Wei added in as many contrived and melodramatic situations as possible, using material from TV dramas.

The basic plot was as below:

The white-clothed musician was kidnapped back to the bandit’s village (the game had landscapes of robber’s towns and nests.) The female bandit fell in love with his refinement and elegance and tried all possible ways to make him happy. The musician was unmoved and never spoke, just stayed at the lotus pond behind the mountain playing his instrument.

The female bandit decided in the end to release him but still couldn’t leave him so she followed behind him and saved him when the musician met a monster. In the moment before the musician was killed, the female bandit managed to save him. The musician was moved and decided to accept the bandit. So the female bandit started to prepare for her wedding. Right before the wedding night, soldiers (Yu Gong and the others went into the nest and announced they were going to mentor newbies. A large crowd came and became free background actors). The soldiers attacked the mountain village and the bandits (the pitiful NPC’s who were only level 20) were drunk and defenseless and therefore were slaughtered. The female bandit was strong and couldn’t be taken down by the soldiers who diverted the attacks onto the musician. The bandit tried to defend the musician but the he took out his jianfrom his instrument and, without any hesitation, thrusted it into the heart of the bandit.

Originally, the musician was actually an imperial official. Because the bandits had the advantage of the landscape, they were not able to be eradicated. He came to be a double agent.

The end therefore was the most melodramatic part of it all.

After the female bandit died, the musician finally realized he had already fallen in love with her. So the musician decided to take her corpse and leap off the peak of Sunset Mountains.

… …

Okay, Wei Wei admitted, this was just her satire >o

Wei Wei thought that her plot would have been rejected by everybody. Unexpectedly, everybody thought it was pretty good. After deeply examining it, Nai He Da Shen’s reason that it was good was – he didn’t have many lines.

Yu Gong and the other’s thought it was good because – they hadn’t thought they would be in the further scenes, and as important characters. Bursting with joy!

Wei Wei was even more speechless. Of course this crowd of CompSci student had no art cells.

But a few days late, when Nai He finished editing the video and sent it over, Wei Wei regretfully took back the label of “no art cells”.

The one with no artistic sense was her, Yu Gong, and the others. Definitely not including Da Shen!

Da Shen Da Shen, he could accomplish anything!

The day she received the video, Wei Wei had a night cla.s.s. After she returned to her dorm, Nai He had already gone offline and left her one sentence.

“Have something so off early, video’s in your inbox.”

Wei Wei frantically opened her inbox.

The video’s editing process included editing the scenes, the music, the words, the photoshop etc. At the beginning, Wei Wei thought she learn and do it herself, because she was only in year two and definitely had more time than those who were graduating this year. However, Nai He said he would do it. Out of her unconditional confidence in Da Shen, she had no problems with that.

After downloading ten minutes of the video, Wei Wei couldn’t resist opening it already. After watching for a few seconds, jus the header was enough to amaze her.

It was too exquisite.

In reality, it was still very simple, just a black background with red words. But she didn’t know where Nai He had found such an appropriate font, the strokes was both full of weight yet exuded a sense of freedom. The strokes were written on screen one by one. A glow effect followed and a layer of light floated off the characters. Simple but elegant. It was very eye-catching.

Wei Wei repeated the beginning several times before reluctantly moving forward to watch the rest.

Da Shen definitely put his heart in. The cuts, the words, the music. All of it was perfect, especially the background music. What surprised Wei Wei was that it didn’t use any of the popular music like the other videos in the contests but it used mostly folk music. The beginning of the kidnapping used cheerful flutes. After that was the guzheng which was appropriate for the musician.

En, this type of sparkling sound should be the guzheng. Wei Wei had no musical sense. Before, in high school, she used her music appreciation periods to furtively write homework. This was the first time she was focusing on music.

There was nothing that was out of place for her to report back. Wei Wei decided to just watch and appreciate.

Even though the ending was a tragedy, but it started as a satire. Through the process, there was a lot of fun and that came out in the video. Wei Wei maintained a very cheerful mood throughout the video. But the moment the musician unsheathed his sword, the guzheng music arose in a murderous peak, and as the jian unhesitantly entered the female bandit’s heart, the music abruptly stopped.

Wei Wei’s heart jumped a beat.

Before Wei Wei could recover, the scene suddenly changed.

Originally, the scenes after should have been the musician leaping down the cliff at Sunset mountains with the corpse. However the scene playing was the musician and the captain of the troops that attacked the mountain (played by Yu Gong) in front of a grave, standing silently.

The soldier said: “You didn’t have to kill her.”

The musician was silent for a long while before saying: “Rather than letting her live and hate me, better to have her die.”

Wei Wei stared.

She finally realized, from the start of this line, the musician in the video wasn’t the one from the story.

He had turned into a mysterious and strange person.

The musician retreated to a small shack at the bottom of the mountain. Wei Wei recognized it was a minor location in the game. n.o.body actually lived underneath the Sunset Mountains. Beside the shack were bamboo woods where the musician stayed day after day with his guqin. Otherwise he would walk up to the top of Sunset Mountains, standing there to look at the sunset.

The captain of the soldiers appeared once again.

“You did a great deed. t.i.tles and riches are within your reach. Why are you hiding in this middle-of-nowhere?”

The musician didn’t answer, only played the qin, which his immortal-level tiger cheerfully ran around him.

The bamboo woods suddenly rippled and broke and the scenery changed to the lotus pond. It seemed to be a memory of the musician, carrying a sepia tone. The musician was handling his qin, while the bandit sat by his side. There was no music in the background and everything was silent except some birdsong. After, Wei Wei heard her own voice.

A few days ago, Nai He had asked her to record some lines that he said he might need to use. What was recorded was what the female bandit said before releasing the musician. Wei Wei hastily recorded in embarra.s.sment and sent it off. She didn’t think it actually would be used.

The voice seemed to have been treated, it sounded very vague and distant, like coming from the air itself.

“My grandfather was a bandit, my father was also a bandit, so from when I was born, I was a bandit. Other than being a bandit, I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know how to do anything else. There’s also this whole village of people depending on me.”

“You hate me so much but I have never killed anybody. I’m not the worst, but still bad.”

“I want to be like the other girls too. Raise some chickens and ducks, work during the day and sleep at night. Some quiet and peaceful days, but that’s just a dream. It won’t ever happen.”

“Go, I’m letting you go.”

The view returned back to the captain angrily asking: “You have such a good future, why are you wasting it in this wilderness.”

After was a clear and distant voice: “This is my dream too.”

The entire video was done using words on the screen, but only the last few words where done with actual voices. The voices suddenly appeared and disappeared just as quickly. The guzheng music started, mourning, before disappearing.

The last scene was the female bandit in red and the musician in white beside the lotus pond. The musician playing his qin and the bandit practicing with her blade. The two were vibrantly colored and full of life. After, the scene started to fade to black and white.

Stop.

The scene stilled with the musician still clothed in white.

The red robes of the female bandit had turned stark white.

Wei Wei’s heart shook and her eyes turned wet.