Chapter 141: It Isn't Easy to Kill Three Birds With One Stone
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
The atmosphere seemed to freeze with silence once she stated that question.
"Well, that is…" the head steward swallowed his saliva nervously. He didn’t know why she would suddenly ask about that mirror. "A gentleman who had been recently knighted presented that mirror to the king… It is worth quite a bit but you can take it if you want. Just let the prince go!"
Lin Sanjiu stared motionlessly at the mirror for a few seconds before she let out a long sigh.
"Does that gentleman have a blue beard?" Her tone revealed that she really hoped that it was just a fluke and that the head steward would shake his head.
Unfortunately, a hint of surprise fleeted across the man’s face as he wondered why she asked him the question if she already knew the answer. After that, he nodded and said something but Lin Sanjiu couldn’t hear his words. This illogical matter had overwhelmed all her thinking capacity. From the previous conversation, the person from the circus who was about to make a deal with the Old Man Fairy was definitely Bluebeard. At the same time, he was also the person who presented the mirror. [If there was so, how could he exist in the past and the future?]
Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth but words failed her. The head steward glued his eyes on her. Lin Sanjiu only remembered that she was strangling someone when she felt the movement of a throat under her hands. She quickly released the prince and leaped aside.
When Prince Cedric could breathe properly again, his face turned as red as a tomato while he curled his body and coughed violent for some time. Although Lin Sanjiu was still a little bothered by her thoughts, she moved quickly. The moment the saber fell to the ground with a heavy crash, the head steward who was about to shout for backup was struck by a black shadow. He was flung to the wall and fainted after he hit the back of his head against a candle holder.
Prince Cedric glared at Lin Sanjiu with a mix of fear and fury as he watched her pulling back her mouthpart weapon. When he saw what was in her hand, his face turned pale and he froze for a few seconds. He suddenly grabbed his own throat and laughed ruthlessly, "You witch! You demon! Even if you kill me today, you can’t save your compatriot…"
Lin Sanjiu was just about to walk out when she stopped. "What do you mean?" She threw a sideway glance at the prince.
"The dinner that was sent to Cinderella has been poisoned," the man’s arrogant tone remained unchanged despite being in a dangerous position. "She is probably dead by now!"
[Damn it!]
Even if it had been some time since Prince Cedric uttered those words, Lin Sanjiu could still hear it echoing through her mind. She cursed inwardly as she thrust forward, running as fast as she could. She could only hear the rushing wind filling her ears as she sprinted through the corridors and towards Cinderella’s room.
She probably knocked down more than a dozen female attendants as she ran. She couldn’t care less about the noisy commotion she had stirred up behind her. She came to Cinderella’s door and kicked down the door. At the same moment, she saw that Cinderella was about to place a spoon of salad into her mouth.
"Don’t eat—"
Before Lin Sanjiu could spit out her full warning, she felt herself lose balance and she fell into… a patch of flower field. Her confusion only lasted half a second this round; Lin Sanjiu rolled to her side and stood up quickly.
The sun hung in the azure sky as the flower field basked in the glorious sunshine. There was a scent of fresh grass all around. Lin Sanjiu had a feeling that she was back at the start, the place where she first met Red Riding Hood. She saw the same forest, the flower field and the clouds in the far distance. The only thing that was different was the stone tablet before her.
Her heart suddenly pounded rapidly and adrenaline coursed through her body. Lin Sanjiu bit hard on her lips. She surveyed her surroundings and slowly walked to the stone tablet. She read the words on the newly added stone tablet:
"No. 72 Pocket Dimension Quest:
"The main character of the three stories are now in grave danger. You can only execute one action within this pocket dimension to save the lives of these three characters.
"To better specify the definition of this "one action", you will be given five execution points. If the action you plan to take exceeds five points, it exceeds the definition of "one action", therefore you wouldn’t be able to execute it.
"If you do not execute that one action within 30 minutes, you will automatically fail the quest. The countdown started the moment you saw this stone tablet.
"PS: Trust me, you definitely want to keep them alive. You can only cross this stone tablet if you save all three main characters."
The stone tablet ended with that ambiguous sentence. Lin Sanjiu was slightly perplexed by this until she spotted the small words on top of the stone tablet and instantly understood what the line "cross the stone tablet" meant.
[Boundary Line]
This stone tablet is a boundary line between this pocket dimension and the beautiful Garden of Eden.
Lin Sanjiu couldn’t resist tilting her head to look at the scenery behind the stone tablet—well, she was still in the same flower field. Lin Sanjiu saw an unusually tall daisy among a bunch of daisies nearby which grew past the boundary but still appeared normal. She took a significant effort to curb the impulse to just walk over the stone tablet. She sat down and just stared at a patch of grass not far away. Her brows slowly furrowed together.
Apparently, she was the 72nd person to enter this particular pocket dimension. [The quests were probably different for every single person who entered, thus the numbering…] Lin Sanjiu didn’t care if the previous people who had entered this pocket dimension were now dead or still alive. She was engrossed in her thoughts as she sat and forced herself to remember every single detail since she stepped into this pocket dimension.
Lin Sanjiu actually had a hunch about the matter regarding saving the main characters much earlier. Since she was sent away at the very critical moment when the characters were in danger, it was just logically… But, she did not expect that there would be such a restriction.
[What is the one thing I can do to save all three people? No. What if it’s something like a domino effect. If one thing happens, it will set off a chain of events that would alter the future...] Just when Lin Sanjiu thought that she saw the crux of the issue, she remembered how there were two Bluebeards existing at the same time in Cinderella’s palace and was stuck again.
When Lin Sanjiu thought about the fact that she already spent five minutes of her 30-minute limit, she started feeling impatient. She took a pebble on the ground and tried to throw it far away from her. Unexpected, the pebble was stuck to her hand. When she looked down at the pebble, a line of words appeared on it: "Throw a pebble, 5 execution points. Proceed?"
Lin Sanjiu was aghast as she quickly yelled, "No. Don’t proceed! Cancel! I don’t want to do that!" The pebble fell off her hand and into the grass.
[That was close.] Lin Sanjiu wiped the cold sweat off her forehead. She stood up slowly and carefully. After that, she cautiously took one step forward. [If taking one step costs execution points, I might as well give up on this.]
Luckily, no words appeared anywhere. "So, if I don’t interact with anything or anyone in the pocket dimension, I can go wherever I want?" With some confidence in her inference, she walked forward a few more steps. Sure enough, nothing happened.
[If I can go wherever I want, this should be much easier.] In the meantime, Lin Sanjiu did not know what to do so she decided to check out her surroundings. She wanted to know which story she was in right now, at least.
As a growth-type, she could sense that her body was gradually growing stronger. Running at full speed, Lin Sanjiu took less than a minute to reach a very small provincial town. The most conspicuous landmark in the town was a building with a weather vane. The brightly colored rooster at the top of the building was pointing west, wavering every now and then with the wind.
This wasn’t Cinderella’s town…
Lin Sanjiu walked and observed her surroundings while she carefully avoided touching anything. This wasn’t that easy as she seemed invisible to all the people around. They treated her like air and constantly headed in her direction. Two kids ran towards her as they teased each other, Lin Sanjiu barely dodged them but they didn’t seem to notice anything, instead they shouted, "I heard those people are all very beautiful!" Then, they ran away.
Lin Sanjiu watched them for a few seconds and suddenly had an idea. She chased after them. Perhaps it was luck, or already pre-arranged by the pocket dimension, but she spotted Emma. This Emma, with her beautiful sharp chin, was around nineteen years old, so Lin Sanjiu almost didn’t recognize her.
"Please accept me. I can learn really fast." Instead of the mature, elegant, streetwise eyes that Lin Sanjiu knew, Emma’s bright eyes were now filled with fear. "If I don’t have this job, my daughter and I won’t survive…"
A dance troupe heading to the palace for a performance had stopped for a day in this little town and was staying in the building with the weather vane, ready to set off the next day. When this news erupted in the little town, Emma quickly approached them to seek an opportunity. The leader of the dance troupe was a very picky middle-aged lady. She circled Emma and examined her carefully. She didn’t see anything which displeased her so she asked, "What about your daughter?"
Lin Sanjiu was standing in the middle of the room, but neither women gave her even a glance.
"I could get my aunt to take care of her." Emma lowered her head as if to hide her conflicted expression, "If I send her the money I earn, my aunt would definitely take good care of her…" Lin Sanjiu crossed her arms as she listened to their conversation but was suddenly struck by a thought. If she stopped Emma from joining the dance troupe now, she would have to live with her daughter and wouldn’t become an erotic dancer. Therefore, she would stay with her granddaughter Red Riding Hood in the future. If they were staying together, they wouldn’t meet any werewolves, which meant Red Riding Hood would survive.
Without Emma, the hunters wouldn’t surround the cottage. The werewolf wouldn’t have the chance to hide among the hunters, wouldn’t be able to ambush the prince, and Cinderella would be saved!
Her rush of excitement suddenly faded because she really couldn’t think how stopping Emma would help Lila. Lila would still die. With this slight delay, the leader of the troupe had already agreed for Emma to join them. Emma beamed as she left the building. Lin Sanjiu sighed quietly and hurried behind her, squeezing out of the door with her.
Lin Sanjiu was like a ghost now and that was fairly inconvenient. She couldn’t even touch the door as she was afraid that doing anything would use up those five execution points. Because she had to avoid touching the door, her view was blocked when she squeezed through the gap between the door, despite her superhuman reflexes. Without any time to dodge, a little figure knocked onto her calf. Lin Sanjiu quickly steadied herself and saw the words on a brick. "Knock down young Bluebeard, five execution points. Proceed?"