[System Notification: Player Yuan Guang has equipped the identity of "Monster Book: The Painter Who Hates Himself"]
Mist spread from beneath Yuan Guang's feet as he ran. He was roaring and crying, and the utility knife in his hand transformed into a pixelated brush, slashing fiercely toward the people who were currently falling.
[System Notification: Player Yuan Guang has used the identity skill (Layer Rendering)]
"Live!!!"
"Only by living will there be hope!!"
The mist swept through the entire area like an explosion. A gray, pixelated layer caught everyone beneath them at a speed invisible to the naked eye. All the dazed fallers tumbled and bounced on this strange, cotton-like layer before landing steadily.
No one was injured.
Realizing this, Yuan Guang sat slumped on the ground in a daze. The next second, he lowered his head and rushed forward, grabbing one person by the collar and punching him squarely in the face without hesitation.
He wept as he beat this surviving NPC, roaring: "Why do you want to die? Ah!"
"If you die, you'll have nothing left!"
Yuan Guang's face was covered in tears as he choked out: "You die, but we are still alive. We will be so, so sad."
"Because you won't be here anymore…"
Year after year, they offered sacrifices to those who had died, but Yuan Guang had never despaired. He knew that everyone remaining was working hard to persist, persisting until the day they could no longer hold on, and then they would apologetically say to him, Xiao Yuan, I can't hold on any longer.
They weren't truly seeking death; they just couldn't hold on anymore and needed to rest. They died in hope.
[Xiao Yuan, I'll rest for a bit. When you guys win, then you can bring me back to life!]
[Hey, I'm not doing so well either. So tired. You guys go on ahead; remember to get a Resurrection Armor for me when the time comes!]
[President Yuan, I'm leaving the rest to you!]
Uncle Wang knelt before him and slowly raised his head, a smile appearing on his tear-stained face. He patted Yuan Guang's shoulder: "Why does it feel like you're about to cry? What's there to cry about? Don't cry."
"I'm just going to our cemetery building to rest for a while. I know that with Xiao Yuan here, one day—"
"Everyone will come out of the cemetery."
"Those of us who got tired halfway are just temporarily depositing our deaths there. We'll sleep for a bit, and then the next day, when the sun rises, and the sunlight bathes our Xiao area, we old fogies will wake up!"
Every time someone died in the game and was led to jump from the edge of a building in reality, they would turn their heads to look at Yuan Guang standing in the distance. There were no tears, no crying, and no despair on their faces. They waved at Yuan Guang with a smile full of trust:
"See you later, Xiao Yuan."
[We believe in Xiao Yuan; there will be a day when he leads us to victory.]
[It's been hard on Xiao Yuan. Please look after our deaths for the time being.]
People continued to jump from the buildings. Yuan Guang looked up, running forward with Shi Qian in slow motion, gritting his teeth as he swung the brush, his hot tears flowing wildly.
"You're not allowed to die!!!" he roared with a hoarse, trembling voice. "You're not allowed to die in this kind of despair!!"
"Hold on!!"
Everything before his eyes began to blur.
Yuan Guang still remembered when they first participated in the league. Back then, everyone was still there, crowding around the system panel's registration interface, racking their brains to think of a name for the guild's team.
Someone jokingly said, "Since our guild is so unlucky, why don't we just call it a cemetery?"
After gaining everyone's boisterous and unanimous approval, someone else asked what kind of cemetery it should be called.
Uncle Wang scratched his head and turned to look at him: "Xiao Yuan, what do you think of 'Sunshine Cemetery'?"
"…That's too tacky, Uncle." Before Yuan Guang could answer, someone else had already spoken up to complain.
"Sunshine does seem a bit tacky, and not quite… fashionable enough, right?" Uncle Wang pondered for a second or two and asked seriously, "Shouldn't a team name be a bit sharper…"
Uncle Wang looked at Yuan Guang: "Xiao Yuan, do you know what the most aggressive form of light is, compared to sunshine?"
Yuan Guang was stunned: "…Laser?"
"Laser Cemetery is also a bit weird…" Uncle Wang fell into a whirlpool of thought.
Someone nearby suggested: "What's the English word for laser?"
Yuan Guang slowly recalled and said the word: "Laser."
"La—sai—er?" Uncle Wang repeated Yuan Guang's words slowly with an accent. He laughed loudly, "This is good! This name is fancy! Let's go with this!"
(T/N:??? See translator's note at the bottom.)
Yuan Guang ran through the night where people were falling. Layers spread out one after another above his head. He gritted his teeth to hold up the weight of all the people falling onto the layers, his neck veins bulging with the effort, but he did not retreat even an inch.
His gaze fixed on a certain point in the air, and the voice he screamed was heart-wrenching, as if his chest and soul were speaking simultaneously from Yuan Guang's thin body:
"Laser is the most aggressive form of light!"
"As long as we are alive, as long as we exist, we will never lose to the sunshine!!!"
—————————————————
The Spectating Pool.
The members of Russell Cemetery stared fixedly at the large screen showing Yuan Guang, whose face was a mix of sweat and tears. They knew that Yuan Guang's words just now were shouted for them to hear.
They slowly stood up. Someone took a deep breath, grabbed a megaphone, and screamed at Yuan Guang on the screen:
"Russell Cemetery, victory is certain!"
"Russell Cemetery, number one!"
"President, keep going!"
"We believe in the President!!"
"We will work hard to hold on until the very last second!!"
They roared until the muscles on their faces trembled, as if hoping their voices could pierce through the barrier of the screen to reach Yuan Guang's side and help him hold up those heavy layers.
"I've truly seen everything: a tactician who shouts encouragement to members who can't hear him at all in the game." Sitting to the side, Charles propped up his chin, observing everything with interest. "But it's also my first time seeing members in the spectating pool cheering for teammates who can't hear them at all."
"Russell Cemetery, what a miraculous guild."
Wang Shun looked at the scene of all the members opposite him standing up to cheer for Yuan Guang with mixed emotions. He then glanced at the report data on the system panel, feeling an indescribable sensation in his heart.
…The rate of increase for Russell's betting pool support was still falling.
The audience was realistic. Being at a disadvantage was being at a disadvantage; it wouldn't change just because of how many people were struggling for it. The audience never sympathized with the weak.
But… Wang Shun looked again at those members of Russell Cemetery who were shouting with all their might.
They weren't struggling to gain the sympathy of others.
Even if reality was collapsing, even if the game was not in their favor, their struggle within the predicament was not to please others or to become stars; they were just ordinary people trying their best to survive.
—They struggled and lived painfully for themselves, and for those "people" who had entrusted their hope to them and lived in the cemetery.
Shi Qian stepped forward, using her shoulder to help Yuan Guang support the layer. Yuan Guang's legs buckled, nearly kneeling on the ground, but he was held up by Shi Qian, who was also gritting her teeth to support the layer. He stumbled as he climbed onto the layer, helping the fallen people up one by one and hugging them tightly.
"It will get better."
"Everything will pass."
"One day…" Yuan Guang's face was covered in mud, and his hands were full of cuts. He held the young man who had jumped after seeing the moon, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. "Even if we temporarily live in a cemetery, one day, we will live to see the sunshine shine in."
The person leaned against Yuan Guang's shoulder and slowly, dazedly returned the hug, tears flowing unconsciously: "Really?"
Yuan Guang closed his eyes and hugged the person tightly: "Really."
"My friends and I believe in this prophecy."
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(T/N: Alright, so this chapter has given me a major translation headache regarding 拉塞尔 (Lā sài ěr).
I use multiple translators to translate these chapters, and every one I've used translates "拉塞尔" as "Russell," so I have always said the guild's name is 'Russell Cemetery '. It seems like this is the standard phonetic spelling for the name Russell in Chinese. However, now I'm thinking it was actually supposed to be "Laser."
Here's the thing, though, that the author herself mentioned in a very early chapter: she isn't a native Mandarin speaker, and mapping English sounds to Chinese characters is already a bit tricky considering you have to find character names that match English syllables. Hard "L" and "R" sounds often get swapped or blended into a mixed R/L sound in a lot of Asian languages (this happens in Korean too), so the characters used for "Russell" are obviously a pretty close phonetic match for "Laser" too. And if you say "Russell" with the blended R/L sound, it is pretty close to 'Laser'.
I'm torn on whether the author was trying to spell the English pronunciation of "Laser" and just ended up with the "Russell" characters by mistake, or if it's some kind of intentional wordplay where she used Russell because "Laser" may sound like "Russell" when said with the character's heavy accent. Since we're all used to Russell Cemetery with my specific translation (and because that's what it consistently translates to), I'm going to keep it as Russell for the sake of consistency. And I'm not going to check what the other translators of this story used because I don't want to piggyback off of their work. Just wanted to let you in on the translation crisis I'm having! I'm guessing it's meant to be Laser, but idk. It's the Pig Grass all over again!! And if you didn't start my translation of this story from the beginning, you will have no idea how much I crashed out over trying to figure out what Pig Grass is.)