The Peach Blossoms Begin To Dance Chapter 5

[Personal] Jia Ren Pian Pian: You actually know how many materials I'm missing?

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[Personal] Leng Yue: Look closely at the marketplace

After I bought up the materials that he placed online, I confirmed that he indeed did have another account on a separate server, and was actually pretty good at the game – although he couldn't see my equipment, he could actually tell what kinds of materials I needed just from my character page.

It wasn't uncommon for people to have accounts on other servers, because lots of people liked to jump servers. Heavenly Peach Garden wasn't a very popular server, in fact it was more like an old server for elderly people to gather, so it was easier to get to the top. But what I didn't understand was why he chose not to buy an account but instead chose to spend a thousand yuan on this small fry account…

After I finished crafting my legendary equipment, my power level was raised to 32k. It was the same as Leng Yue's.

He really could walk the talk after all.

In the afternoon at 3pm, I near the Silver Priestess Lake gathering daffodils, and suddenly I caught of Cabbage Ba Ba carrying a basket whilst holding a small, fat duck.

“Pian Pian, why're you strolling here alone?”

“This is an ancient-style game, not a horror one, it's not like I can't go out and stroll by myself.”

“Hahaha Pian Pian you're too cute!” As she said this, she made the small fat duck walk around in a few circles. “What're you planning to do now?”

“I'm just upping my life skills I guess. I think I'll go to the battle zone. You wanna join me?”

“Sure sure sure!” As she said this, the fat duck being carried also let out a few quacks in agreement. They were surprisingly quite harmonious.

It had already been the 5th week since she'd first started playing, yet the former user had unexpectedly not bought any battle gems. These battle gems could be used to upgrade equipment, in order to raise the character's attack and defense by quite a bit. It was pretty obvious that Jia Ren Pian Pian had just been a casual player, completely abandoning any thought of fighting battles. So it wasn't surprising that Wan Wan Jiang's. .h.i.ts had done so much damage. Actually, I suspected that the former user hadn't even had any clue about what battle gems ever were, otherwise she wouldn't have been beaten up so badly by Wan Wan Jiang even after topping up cash. Ah, it really hadn't been worth it.

The battle zone's name was G.o.d VS Devil Battleground, and it was the most popular daily PVP zone on the game. For solo players, they would be automatically grouped together by the system and placed into a map, with 50 players in every map. They would then be split into G.o.ds and Devils, with each camp having 25 people, and through killing people from the opposite camp and taking control of key target locations on the map, you could earn points. After 10 minutes, the camp with the higher number of points would win.

The first time I tried playing in this battle zone, I wasn't very familiar with the character, so I spent alot of time dodging left and right while fleeing, terrified, choosing not to face opponents head-on without practicing. On my third try, I'd pretty much mastered the Priestess's skills, so I started to attack. In order to let support cla.s.ses like healers have a better gaming experience, in the battle zone, healers could max health regeneration was lowered, while their attacking abilities were increased. Furthermore, since I was an experienced player, I was able to kill off a few experts, take control of some key targets, and managed to get third place.

Before the battle zone was opened, there was a short period where we could message each other. After playing in the battle zone four more times, I encountered two of the fan club members. While everyone stood at the default point and waited for the battle zone to open, they were the only ones standing in front to make themselves known.

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Garden – Refreshing Sweetheart: I see it, haha

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Garden – Little White Ning: I also see it, haha

After the battle zone opened, I could confirm that the ‘it' they'd been referring to, was actually me. The two of them were coincidentally in the same camp, and searched through the whole map to find me, wanting to attack me, but they were unsuccessful. Moments later, a system notice was seen in the middle of the screen: Jia Ren Pian Pian gets first blood!

After killing Refreshing Sweetheart, she quickly revived herself, and again she and Little White Ning tried to kill me. Not even half a minute later, there was another notice: Jia Ren Pian Pian has gotten a double kill!

Jia Ren Pian Pian has gotten a triple kill!

This time, both of them had died together. Their power levels were pretty similar to mine, but after a night of adjusting my character stats, this account's actual power was vastly beyond theirs. Adding on the fact that I'd been in this map over 5 thousand times, if not 10 thousand, and was extremely familiar with it, beating them was essentially a piece of cake.

Of course, they didn't give up, and came at me again.

I still remembered the scene of Refreshing Sweetheart taking advantage of my low health to surprise attack me on Ghost Refining Mountain the other day, so I was less harsh on Little White Ning, instead choosing to focus on beating up Refreshing Sweetheart. When Little White Ning attacked me, I simply dodged her attack. After Refreshing Sweetheart had been killed by me 2 more times, she unexpectedly just laid on the ground, unmoving. Of course, I didn't just stand there to wait for her and instead moved on to kill other people.

Immediately after the battle ended, Refreshing Sweetheart left. Little White Ning stayed to continue playing, but every time she saw me she would leave a wide berth between us.

After leaving the battle zone, I looked at the world chat, but it was unexpectedly silent.

Hm? How odd. Considering their personalities, I expected them to try and vent online.

Cabbage Ba Ba was extremely excited, and she even went into personal chat with me, directly sending a voice message over. “Pian Pian, you're really amazing! It really feels safe playing with you, your healing always comes whenever I need it, and it doesn't even stop you from killing other people! Bao Bao and Tai Tai both say that you're not good at manoeuvring, but I think they're just jealous.”

Her voice was soft and tender, making her sound like an innocent porcelain doll. Of course, these were the type of adorable little sisters that I liked, because they really made you want to protect them and become strong for them.

After we played for a while in the battle zone, there were already people expressing their unhappiness.

[Camp] Server #16 – Golden Crow Hooting Land – Gangster Bunny: That Jia Ren Pian Pian is a little bit too good with her knife ah. She's only at 30k power but she can get 12 kills, it's impossible to beat her.

[Camp] Server #11 – Drifting Flowers Moon Palace – Yi Chuan Han Xing [Copycat]: Yeah, she's like a crazy a** demon man, I've been killed by her twice. What kind of situation is this? A healer acting like an offensive player.

I watched silently, not saying a word.

Actually, I had another account called Knife-Tail Dog.

[Camp] Server #7 – Summit of the North – Sunflower Seed: This little brother from server 11, you'd better be careful using that name. The Demon G.o.d might come down on you with Devil Edge Annihilation.

Devil Edge Annihilation was the ultimate skill of people in the Demon job, and it's offensive power was actually insane. The only drawback was that it was extremely slow, and it was easy to waste it, unlike the ultimate skill for Ghost Refiners that was accurate, quick, and devastating. But for some reason, when the Demon G.o.d used Devil Edge Annihilation, he had a 95% hit rate. Just thinking of it made me have bad flashbacks.

[Camp] Server #11 – Drifting Flowers Moon Palace – Yi Chuan Han Xing [Copycat]: What's his power at right now? Has he surpa.s.sed G.o.ddess Pian?

[Camp] Server #7 – The Summit of the North – Sunflower Seed: Nope, not yet, but there's no meaning even if he does. After all, Feng Wu Pian Ran has already sold her account off. After the PVP compet.i.tion he's mostly lent his account to other people, and it's been a while since we last saw him. I'm guessing it won't be long before he stops playing as well.

[Camp] Server #11 – Drifting Flowers Moon Palace – Yi Chuan Han Xing [Copycat]: Seriously? In the past my male G.o.d pretty much never got someone else to help him grind, he's literally the best player in the whole world ah…

Their conversation made me get lost in my own thoughts for a long time, thinking of the past. But thinking of everything I'd lost – not only the reputation and honor of my team, but also a whole bunch of friends – I stopped. Never mind, there was no use thinking about it.

Because they'd finally figured out that I was actually pretty good, the next round I was ruthlessly targeted by the opposing camp, and was even killed once. But after the system announced that my killing spree had come to an end, I somehow felt less burdened. The killing spree belonged to Jia Ren Pian Pian, so who cares. If it had been Feng Wu Pian Ran's, the news would have spread to at least 10 different groups of players.

Still, no matter what, be it Jia Ren Pian Pian or Feng Wu Pian Ran, after being killed I was free of fear! If I still wanted to be a woman, then I had to go back and trash them!

After being revived fully, I dodged about in the crowd, managing to s.n.a.t.c.h up 3 kills before the ma.s.ses once again descended on me. As my health bar slowly depleted, the whole screen flashed red and there was even the sound of a person about to die.

Just as I planned on healing myself, I was suddenly hit by two buffs: Silenced, speed slowed by 70%.

Sh*t… I was gonna die again.

As I made prepared to be killed, a flash of silver light suddenly came towards me. A burst of green numbers appeared around me, and in only two seconds, I was back to full health.

The whole battleground was lit up by rays of red light from the sun that illuminated the blood-red sky and shined through the layers of rusty-red clouds. In this land of dark, b.l.o.o.d.y red, a male Priest brushed past me. He wore a set of ancient clothing, headgear and a cat mask, and he had the special effect for cloud footsteps [T/N meaning he leaves behind clouds when he walks], making him seem like a fairy that had entered the devil world.

His actions were very quick, and his username slowly disappeared from the screen as I busily dodged from my opponents. After escaping from the battle, I typed out a few words in the camp chat. “Healing was really refreshing! Thanks to the healer just now!”

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Yu Wu Nian: No need to thank ?

There was unexpectedly a smiley face.

Glancing at the username…Surprisingly, it was the number 2 player.

Hm… Why was it so strange? Wasn't he in the same guild as the number 1? Hadn't the number 1 personally kicked me out? Although they weren't married, but their usernames were couple names, and all of their actions were generally tied to each other. So why would he bother to heal me?

Ah, whatever, he'd probably just anyhow healed me. He probably wasn't even aware of who Jia Ren Pian Pian was.

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Yu Wu Nian: You must be really happy today – you've been in the battlezone for the whole day.

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Jia Ren Pian Pian: Are you talking to me?

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Yu Wu Nian: Yup, I am. Jia Ren Pian Pian.

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Jia Ren Pian Pian: Yeah, I don't really have a choice. I have to solo PK someone today, and I have to deal with my equip so I don't die too terribly…

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Yu Wu Nian: Your manoeuvring is really good. Before I never noticed that we had such a great little sister in our server, your dodging skills and positioning actually reminds me a bit of Feng Wu Pian Ran. No wonder you had the guts to PK against Wan Wan.

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Jia Ren Pian Pian: !

At that time, I'd been happy, but also scared and worried about my ident.i.ty being revealed, but he continued.

[Camp] Server #2 – Heavenly Peach Blossoms – Yu Wu Nian: Ah, don't misunderstand. I didn't mean that. The feeling you give me is very gentle.

…I didn't really blame him. He often played in the battle zone, so it wasn't surprising that he'd probably gotten traumatised by my main account.

After finishing this round, I went to queue yet again. I thought I'd gotten past those little b*stards who kept targeting me, but suddenly as I ran towards the centre of the map, I was trapped by a restraining skill, and my health started dropping quickly. The moment I realised that it was a Demoness's skill, I immediately turned my character around, and of course, I caught sight of some particular usernames: Mu Shang's Pampered Wan Wan Jiang, Refreshing Sweetheart.

No wonder Refreshing Sweetheart had just laid on the ground just now. So she'd actually gotten the mistress to back her up.

Actually I'd already swept the battlezone till I'd gotten bored, so seeing them try and battle me like this was also pretty good. I really liked this kind of challenging play style, and I could feel my heart pumping furiously. Straightening up, I pulled the keyboard closer to me and escaped from the bind, opening up my shield. In a flash, I dodged, turning behind me to throw out a stun, and then flashed over another two steps to run away and eat medicine to heal myself, as well as quickly go towards an area with more of the people from my camp.

The mistress didn't give up, and after being stunned for three seconds, she continued to chase after me.

Following that, the two of us proceeded to play a game of cat and mouse. The moment she came over to me, I would hide in the middle of a crowd and attack. The moment I left the crowd, no matter how I tried to avoid her, she would always catch up to me, and I would go back to the crowd to attack again.

Finally, after a few minutes, I realised that she'd stopped attacking me, so I went through a deserted alley to get to one of the key target locations and started fighting against an opposing player that wanted to steal the target. Just as I was about to kill him, my health started depleting like mad again. Turning around, I saw that the mistress had somehow gotten behind me.

Actually going across thousands of miles of map just to find me and beat me up without even killing anyone of her own…I guessed that this lady's star sign was most likely Scorpio.

Giving up on the opponent that I'd gotten to the brink of death, I hurriedly healed myself while sprinting towards the large square. After nearly being killed 10 times, the system notice informed me that I'd been awarded the achievement of “Wretched Development” – with my health at less than 30%, I'd been running for over 5 minutes without dying.

Since I'd constantly been on the receiving end of her attacks, my health was unable to go over 30%. After chasing me across half of the entire map, the mistress finally caught up to me. My health bar was pretty much empty, and I couldn't even catch the slightest glimpse of red.

Just as she was going to deliver the killing blow, she was suddenly hit by my stun.

A whole group of people from my camp came over on a killing spree, and in a matter of seconds she'd been killed.

Moreover, a system notice actually appeared:

Jia Ren Pian Pian has consecutively killed Mu Shang's Pampered Wan Wan Jiang 3 times! What a rush!

It wasn't me blowing my own trumpet. After all, the famous nickname of Knife Tail Dog hadn't gotten its reputation for nothing.

The system notice disappeared from the middle of the screen. Because 3 seconds later, the battle ended. Looking at the results page, both of us hadn't even entered the top 10. So just what exactly had she been aiming for…

“Sh*t, Pian Pian, you actually managed to kill Wan Wan Jiang just now! You're really too strong ah! Her power is so much higher than yours, yet you still managed to kill her! There's no way you can lose tonight!” Again, Cabbage Ba Ba was so amazed that she sent me a voice message. “Do you still want to play?”

“Nah, I'll rest for a bit.” If the mistress kept on coming over to try and kill me, sweeping the battle zone also wouldn't be effective, so I decided to just stop.

“Sure! I'll just play for 2 more rounds then!”

Twenty minutes later, Cabbage Ba Ba sent me yet another voice message. “Pian Pian, Pian Pian, just now I saw Expert Mu and Wan Wan Jiang in the battle zone, but Mu Shang was away from his computer. It's really strange, normally he really likes to kill people, so it's really rare for him to be away.”

Since he'd been away from his own account, then it was likely that he'd entered Wan Wan Jiang's. Ugh, I guess I would be fighting against Mu Shang and not Wan Wan Jiang.

[World] Refreshing Sweetheart: People who photoshop their own images are really so f*cking disgusting!

[World] Zao Zao Zi: What happened what happened can the cla.s.s rep explain for us

[World] My Charm is My Eyes: What's going on, face filled with confusion over here… Why's Sister Refreshing Sweetheart so angry?

[World] Number 18 Dog: Eating popcorn!

[World] Refreshing Sweetheart: Photoshop b*tch do you even know how to f*cking play in battle zones? Your reputation's already so bad do you have nothing to lose? Go back and continue photoshopping your extremely fake, extremely false images and don't come out to dirty other people's eyes! Fck!

[World] Little White Ning: What else? Somebody went on the battle zone to purposely lure Wan Wan into the crowd, and then used underhanded methods to kill her. Wan Wan's really too pitiful, even when she wants to properly battle she's still attacked like this.

As I carefully read through their feedback for me, I couldn't help but disagree. How can I put it? It's like, although I'd never posted my own photos, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with people who liked face-tuning their own photos to put them online. People always talked about being real, and not being fake, but if you really wanted to be real so much then wasn't it better to just take an MRI. Does anyone ever want to look at real photos? No, what we want to see are beautiful photos! These days, for those girls who chose to post photos of their natural face, as long as it wasn't up to standard, then I would just scroll past it. After all, as an artist, my pursuit of beauty was truly endless and all-encompa.s.sing.

[World] Lei Lei Lei Lei Lei: Isn't this the way you're meant to play in battle zones? If you don't dodge how're you supposed to kill people and rank high lmao

[World] Zao Zao Zi: Keh, this method of playing is actually quite disgusting. I've met these kinds of demonic players before. The moment I attack they'll run, and the moment I stop they'll start attacking. Too despicable.

[World] Lei Lei Lei Lei Lei: That's why I keep saying you women are really too delicate. This is how you're meant to play mmporgs. The moment something goes wrong you get angry, be careful otherwise you're going to get wrinkles.

[World] Refreshing Sweetheart: Sh*t, it's really too despicable, too disgusting! Photoshop b*tch you really don't care about your reputation!

I glanced at the time. Ah, it was unexpectedly already nearing 6pm. There were still 2 hours in between my fight with Wan Wan, so I decided to go downstairs to eat something and relax.

It had really been too long since I last stepped foot outside. Recently I'd been playing games happily, and it seemed like I'd gotten food delivered almost everyday. But since I'd been immersed in the wonderful world of Peach Blossoms, it was like I'd been living in a dream world.

This land of Peach Blossoms had been really restless, and I'd been the only one peacefully fishing away.

My name is Hao Pian Pian, female, 22 years old. I'm a third year student, currently deferring school. I like to think that I'm bubbly and cute, and I guess undeniably quite funny.

Just from the way my mum had named me, you could tell them she'd held high hopes for my gift of making people laugh. When I was young, she would constantly tell me, eldest, your old man and I gave you this name because we hope that no matter what kind of obstacles you meet in life, you'll be able to carry on with skin as thick as leather, and a heart that's beautiful and good, like a lucky b.u.t.terfly dancing around. My dad would often give her a thumbs up and say, ‘that's right!' [1]

My mom had a particular quirk, that is, no matter what kind of situation she was in, she would never speak standard Mandarin, to the point that my dad started speaking a mix of Shanghai and Chongqing [2] dialect, and when other people heard it they generally felt extremely uncomfortable, like a bunch of ants were running across their bodies. Afterwards, when my mum pa.s.sed away, my dad would often gaze at her photograph while giving me lessons on political thought.

There were two phrases that could specially be used to describe me nowadays: Don't chase after a cornered enemy, and be vigilant, even in peacetime.

In the evening, at 7.45pm, just after I'd finished dinner and reached home, I received a message from Leng Yue.

[Personal] Leng Yue: Hurry up and check out Wan Wan Jiang's stats

Unsuspectingly, I opened up Wan Wan Jiang's character page only to see a brand new set of blue characters indicating that she'd upgraded something, and my heart stopped. Her new power had been raised to 44k, and all of her skills, gems and extra upgrade points had been completely redone to match her character. This had most likely been done by Mu Shang or some other expert. But no matter who had done it, this 44k power wasn't just some empty number – no, this time, it was backed up by real strength.

[Personal] Jia Ren Pian Pian: Sh*t, now I need to raise my power again.

[Personal] Leng Yue: There's only 15 minutes before the battle starts, no use raising your power.

[Personal] Jia Ren Pian Pian: The difference is too big, what if I lose?

[Personal] Leng Yue: If you lose then you lose. According to the bet, if you lose then you'll only have to get rid of this account, so all you have to do is switch to a better account. Anyway, it's also pretty good since this account isn't that great.

[Personal] Jia Ren Pian Pian: No way, that would be too embarra.s.sing, after all I'm the one who even suggested this whole thing in the first place.

[Personal] Leng Yue: Who cares? Even if you lose face it's not like you'll be ruining your own reputation. Once you switch accounts just don't mention it and you'll have the opportunity to get revenge. I'll help.

Seeing these words, I couldn't help but feel warm inside. It was only after some time that I noticed that the corners of my mouth had curved up. What Cold Moon, this guy was clearly a Warm Moon ah. [T/N Leng Yue means cold moon]

But since he'd said that it actually wouldn't be me ruining my own reputation, I couldn't help but think that I would be representing one of my little fans to battle, and so all the more I didn't want to just give up.

Ah, there's no need to think about it anymore! Let's just go for it!

Me: I should really continue translating.

Also Me: Eh maybe later.

Are you guys happy… Finished almost the whole thing in one day… Still, thanks for waiting! I update every week, but I guess y'all will never know which day I'll update. I myself have no idea.

Also, are y'all fine with me censoring the swear words, or should I just not? Never know what kind of kids are online these days…

Notice: Because the latter chapters are gonna get pretty word heavy (it takes me 3 hours to translate and kind of edit 5k+ words… 9k words will just drain me), I might be splitting certain chapters into 2 parts. I think as I get used to translating gamer terms it should get better, but for now I go onto baidu like… 3 times for every page and then I go on wikipedia because I still have no idea what the english term is… I only play MOBAs often and the last time I played a game like the one in here was like…2 years ago? So my memory is pretty rusty.

Definitions:

在外啷个绍皮，内心都嘿巴适，像小福蝶一样翩翩起舞。我爸往往会对她伸个大拇指说，结棍。Basically, a big pain in the a.s.s but alot of these words were in dialect (sichuan and shanghai, so I'm guessing her mom is from sichuan and her dad is from shanghai) [reminder: MC herself is from shanghai] Chongqing is a city that used to be part of Sichuan but is now one of the four provincial-level munic.i.p.alities (beijing, shanghai, tianjin). They're known for a dialect that is literally impossible to understand unless you're familiar with it. Generally the whole of Sichuan speaks…slightly strangely. I only know Mandarin and a bit of Hokkien and Cantonese, which sound very different from Mandarin. Shanghai also has a specific dialect that is very difficult to understand if you only know Mandarin.

A general gist of Wtf what english words did I use:

Jobs：

鬼练：Ghost Refiner

魔道：Demon Job

Servers：

#2 – 天地桃源：Heavenly Peach Garden

#7 – 北界之巅：Summit of The North

#11 – 花落月宫：Drifting Flowers Moon Palace

#16 – 金乌啼霜：Golden Crow Hooting Land