Chapter 39: Setting Thirty-Nine

Setting Thirty-Nine: Fairy Tale (Part 7)

The click of the lock made his heart skip. The door closed, sealing the attic into a confined space, compressing the already strange and precarious tension between them.

He quickly spoke: “No, no—I’d be delighted. It’s an honor.”

Holy crap, why did it feel like she’d shut the door to create a murder scene!?

His words made the black-haired girl pause. She turned, her hands clasped behind her back against the wooden door, and gave a sweet, pleased smile.

“Wonderful.” Her pale face flushed pink, as radiant as a rose. “You belong to me now.”

Shan Ziwei gave a dry, hollow laugh. He figured agreeing didn’t matter—in fact, it gave him an excuse to get her to pick up the spindle. But that sense of losing control lingered, a deep unease he couldn’t shake.

He swallowed and asked again: “Good girl, will you pick up the spindle for me now?”

“Alright.”

This time she agreed readily. She stepped forward, bent down, and reached for the spindle. He seized the moment—the instant her slender fingers touched its surface, he activated the mass-sleep.

Green brambles began to spread wildly, perfectly recreating the fairy tale scene. The princess bent down and never rose again. She collapsed softly, her black silk hair pooling around her like the wings of a dying butterfly. Looking at her peaceful, sleeping face, his taut nerves finally eased.

Like this, she looked like nothing more than a pitiful, delicate girl—why had she brought him so much pressure?

He wiped the blood from his fingertips—he’d been so tense he’d cut himself on the thorns. Regardless, Princess Rose’s part was done. Now it was just a matter of a prince coming to kiss her awake.

Next, should he go to Donkeyskin or Snow White? He glanced at his aged, wrinkled hands under the disguise—he was still in the old woman’s form, perfect for selling a poisoned apple to Snow White in the dwarfs’ cottage.

The problem: how to get a poisoned apple?

As a 21st-century tech geek, he knew a few toxic substances—cyanide, arsenic—but that was science, not magic! Anyone who ate those would just drop dead, not achieve that dreamy, fake-death effect of getting it stuck in their throat.

So… did he have to use another Joker?

His fingers had just brushed the Joker in his pocket when he stopped himself—think: was this really an unsolvable situation requiring a Joker?

No. It shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t get into the habit of using Jokers at the first sign of trouble. Alarm bells rang in his mind. Using a Joker was like robbing Peter to pay Paul. From past experience, he could already imagine: if he used a Joker to gain alchemy or poison-making skills, the system would give him a new setting linked to another fairy tale, maybe even another princess—there were plenty of fairy tales with both witches and potions, like The Little Mermaid…

He immediately felt sick. He remembered Siren, the “lover” guard from his first proper Chessboard—that guy was obsessed with The Little Mermaid, and his true form was unknown and extremely dangerous. Though that Chessboard was over, he had a terrible feeling he’d meet Siren again. If the Little Mermaid got involved here, that bad feeling would come true.

Whether he was scaring himself or not, he didn’t want to use another Joker. He released his fingers, about to pull his hand out of his pocket—when he touched cold metal.

Bluebeard’s key.

A light bulb went off in his head. He’d only thought of using the key to find people—why not use it to find objects?

He drew the key, stood up, and walked to the bramble-covered door.

“I want to go to where the poisoned apple is.”

In his expectant gaze, the door creaked open, revealing the colorful liquid film, destination unknown.

He quickly snapped off a bramble branch, closed his eyes for invisibility, and stepped into the unknown.

The moment he passed through the door, his foot sank into soft mud, half-submerged, sticky and unpleasant. Before he could recoil, someone spoke to him.

—Yes, someone, speaking to him, invisible.

“Don’t use the mass-sleep.”

He nearly activated the skill out of shock. He froze, his brain like an overloaded CPU—that voice, those words, that speaker…!

The other seemed to chuckle softly: “Yes, it’s exactly who you think. Don’t open your eyes. You can’t see me, and I can’t see you—you know why.”

Yes, he knew. No one in the world knew better than him.

“The poisoned apple is with me. Remember what I’m about to say.”

Without pausing, the other continued. Shan Ziwei barely dared to breathe, listening to every word as if they were being branded into his mind.

“I’ve placed the poisoned apple across from you. When I say ‘go,’ you can open your eyes, take the apple, and go see Snow White as she is now.” The other spoke slowly, as if hammering each syllable into his skull. “After the princess bites the apple, take it and go to the Möbius House at sun-hour.”

“—Then you’ll know what to do.”

Before he could digest it all, the other gave the order: “Go.”

His eyelids trembled violently. Should he trust this—or not? Was it a trap? Was the speaker really… “him”?

“It’s me.”

As if reading his mind, the other replied. Hearing the emphasis in that voice, he finally made up his mind and opened his eyes. Before him was an ordinary forest cottage—it seemed to have just rained; the ground around the entrance was wet and muddy, and he stood right in it. He couldn’t help scanning the area, though he knew he wouldn’t see the speaker, he couldn’t stop searching.

Inside, the cottage was bare except for a single table. There was no sign of the other. His eyes fell on the center of the table: a single apple, glaringly red—the poisoned apple.

He walked over and picked it up. Having decided to trust, he’d follow the instructions to the end. Holding the still-warm key, he took one last look at the empty cottage, then opened the door.

“I want to go to where Snow White is.”

The door slid open silently. He closed his eyes, stepped through the film, and left that bizarre cabin behind.

Arriving at his new destination, he followed his usual routine: scouting by sound. It wasn’t quiet—nature’s ambient noise filled the air: wind, birdsong, insects buzzing—mixed with a rhythmic scraping, like a sharp tool carving into stone or wood. He listened intently but couldn’t identify the source. Finally, he steeled himself and opened his eyes.

He figured: if there were danger, the other would have warned him. So he opened them with confidence. And indeed, it was safe—he stood before a duplex cottage. Through the left window, he could see a pair of pale hands wielding a small knife, carving something into a cylindrical piece of wood.

He knew those hands. Shifting slightly for a better angle, he glimpsed Snow White’s beautiful face. Since their last meeting, she’d grown a little older, her features even more refined. She was completely focused on the wood, carving with practiced ease—as if she’d done it thousands of times.

As the rhythmic scraping continued, Shan Ziwei nervously adjusted his hood, clutched the gleaming red apple, and crept toward the window.

“Beautiful gir—”

His voice caught mid-sentence. He stood frozen as if struck by lightning, staring at the room behind the princess.

Dolls. Wooden dolls everywhere. They had bone-white hair, empty black eyes, stiff bodies in blue dresses—painfully familiar.

His mind filled with a barrage of “WTF”: Snow White, you too?! Is this obsession contagious?! Is this some princess course I didn’t know about—who the hell would believe that?!

His inner self had overturned enough tables to build a skyscraper. It took him a while to calm down—but before he could, the princess had already turned at the sound. She looked mildly annoyed at the interruption, her delicate brows drawing together—but when she saw him, she narrowed her eyes, and the frown smoothed away.

“Are you looking for me?”

He forced his gaze away from the room full of dolls. Clearing his throat, he found his voice again.

“Dear girl, would you like to buy an apple? I’ll give you one to eat—I’m sure you’ll love it.”

Her gaze fell on the apple in his hand. Her expression was odd—like looking at a beautiful flower growing on a corpse—hard to tell whether she liked it or despised it more.

“You want me to eat this apple?”

Her voice was still hoarse, but smoother now, like a flute—captivating and ethereal. He nodded involuntarily. He watched her slowly lift her head, her indescribable gaze crawling from his hand to his face, making him shiver.

She looked at him, her blood-red lips curving slowly.

“Alright.”

She agreed so easily it was almost unbelievable. He watched her reach through the window and take the poisoned apple from his hand.

The next moment, the red apple split in two. Before his stunned eyes, she put away the knife and offered one half back to him.

“Let’s share it.”

He stared at the poisoned apple before him, caught off guard. Snow White, like Rose, was sharp as a cat—her eyes narrowed, quickly catching his hesitation.

“Don’t want to share?” She leaned forward, nearly face-to-face, her black hair cascading like a waterfall, enclosing them both. “Or is there something wrong with this apple?”

“…No.”

He stepped back, out of her range, the half-apple already in his hand. They were playing a dangerous, unspoken game—like Russian roulette, where one of them would die.

She smiled sweetly at him, raising the other half like a toast: “Come, let’s eat it together.”

She held the red apple to her lips but didn’t bite—watching him, silently urging him into the death game. He didn’t hesitate. He raised the apple and bit into it, chewing and swallowing.

Seeing him unharmed, her eyes widened—more disappointed and angry than surprised. She opened her red lips and bit into her half.

“Thump.”

The bitten apple fell to the ground. He picked it up, looking down at the black-haired girl, collapsed as if asleep. He let out a slow breath.

Whew—thankfully he remembered that the poison was in the apple’s skin, not the flesh.

Princesses these days were so aggressive—both Rose and Snow White had left him shaken. Truly, they were a trinity. Next up, Donkeyskin…

But according to what he’d learned, he should now take the poisoned apple to the Möbius House at sun-hour.

He glanced at the apple in his hand—and was surprised to see that the cut and bitten halves had magically healed, smooth and plump, showing no sign of damage.

His heart began to pound. He realized what was happening. Hurrying to the cottage door, he thrust the key into the lock.

“I want to go to the Möbius House at sun-hour!”

The door opened, spilling the colorful light of the liquid film. He swallowed—he knew what he was about to face. It was beyond the imagination of ordinary people.

Eyes wide open, he plunged into the film.

In an instant, he went from the bright outdoors to a dim interior. It was the same forest cottage, the ground wet and muddy—he stood in the mud, staring at the empty table in the center of the room, where a red apple had once sat. The very apple now in his hand.

As he thought this, he walked to the table and placed the poisoned apple back in its original spot.

The moment he set it down, he heard a squelch—like someone stepping in the mud.

Slowly, he turned. On the rain-soaked ground before the door, where there was no one, a fresh footprint had appeared out of thin air.

In that moment, no words were needed—no one had to tell him what to do. Before he knew it, he was speaking:

“Don’t use the mass-sleep.”