Life Going Wild With Plug-ins

[Extra] 57 - Ye Lan x Ye Xiao - «Daytime Sleep» 04


The Nightrunner training didn’t give people the chance to rest and recuperate. Even though the injuries from the lashing had not fully healed, Gui Mao was forced to rush him out of bed. Bing Xu obediently sat up on his bunk, Gui Mao pulled out a black outfit from a pile out of someone's cupboard, dressed him, and half-knelt on the ground as he put his boots on.

Bing Xu was unable to take his eyes off of him, bowing his head to look down at him and swallowing.

“Can you stand up?” Gui Mao stood up as he finished putting on his boots, and asked as he grabbed his hand.

Hearing this, Bing Xu got down on the ground. Seeing his expression was the same as usual, Gui Mao let go of his hand and retreated a few steps: “Can you move? Does it hurt?”

Bing Xu shook his head.

Gui Mao patted him on the shoulder: “I was just asking, I couldn’t do anything even if it did hurt, just hold on.”

He turned around and took Bing Xu to the training grounds, and on the way met a few colleagues who, upon seeing that fool had undergone what could be called a transformation and was now looking radiant, teased them one after the other: “Yo, it’s like he turned into a different person, I couldn’t tell you were such a good caretaker.”

“Of course.” Gui Mao proudly hooked his arm around Bing Xu’s shoulders, feeling somewhat smug.

His colleagues once again heckled: “Gui Mao is truly a perfect wife and loving mother.”

Gui Mao laughed: “It’s really no different from raising a son.”


This was the advantage of being foolish, when people spoke, he could always pick out the half he liked to hear. Afterwards, Ye Xiao would remember the part about the “perfect wife”, and wouldn’t be able to laugh no matter what.


Before it began, nobody knew what the task would be that day, so there no way of giving out warnings. Just before Gui Mao pushed Bing Xu inside, he could only leave him with a sentence: “Find a way to survive, I’ll be waiting for you outside.”

Bing Xu stood inside the dark room, blankly staring at Gui Mao as the stone door closed and blocked off all trace of sound.

When Gui Mao took a few steps away, it seemed as though he could hear the sounds of someone scratching at the stone door.

He understood in his heart, if not today maybe tomorrow, and if he survived this year he might not necessarily survive next year, either way, sooner or later Bing Xu would die at the Nightrunner. However, life and death were all normal, he could pity Bing Xu, but was there anyone who would pity him?


Today’s test was fighting a bear.

Straightforward, rough and forceful combat had never been Gui Mao’s speciality. Bears and tigers all possessed rough skin and thick flesh, so the short blades of Gui Mao’s light and delicate concealed weapons basically didn’t do anything, even if he used poison, the amount of poor-quality poison that was enough to kill a person did nothing against a black bear. The first time he faced this test, he really suffered a lot. Later, he gradually figured out an easy and roguish play. First, he would hide while shooting at the bear’s eyes, blinding it, while filling its weak organs with concealed weapons from time to time, then, he would wait until the black bear madly knocked itself against the walls until it had almost no strength left from crazily tossing about, finally coming out and ending it with a knife.

Talking about blinding its eyes was easy, but there was no light inside that dark room, so it required extremely good night vision and accuracy. Gui Mao was the only person in his cycle that could play this kind of move out.

Despite it being easy, it was also the most time consuming. The dark room was narrow, and evading that wild beast was no easy task. Therefore, Gui Mao had never been able to take first place for this trial.

In order to deal with the boring time of hiding, Gui Mao had made a small gadget by concealing durable steel wire inside a few daggers. By inserting the steel wire into the wall and locking it into place, he was even able to hang from a corner of the roof and take a nap.

As usual, Gui Mao blinded the black bear, the poor-quality poison in his concealed weapons was naturally better than nothing, and had no qualms about the sounds of those ear-splitting roars as he hung from the corner of the roof and narrowed his eyes. When he woke up, he could hear someone pounding at the stone door.

The black bear was lying on the ground, gasping for breath, and Gui Mao stepped forward with a knife, but the black bear struggled to stand up and madly flailed about again. This was repeated about a dozen times, and he stabbed at it countless times, it was only after he inserted his dagger into its heart that it died.

Gui Mao kicked its corpse to verify it, and whistled the secret signal. The trial was declared concluded, and the stone door mechanism made a clicking and snapping sound.

Almost at the same time, the door was smacked open. Fortunately, it was heavy and slow, so Gui Mao was barely spared from getting hit. As soon as a small crack had opened, someone squeezed inside and dragged him out.

The sunlight outside was really dazzling, and Gui Mao was forced to shut his eyes tight, but it still wasn’t enough, so he raised his hand and also covered his eyes with it. After all, his eyesight was his number one method of survival, so he absolutely didn’t dare be careless.

“Gui Mao…..” That person next to him saw he didn’t move and became panicked, feeling around his body to check for injuries.

“Bing Xu?” Gui Mao recognised his voice.

Bing Xu hurriedly nodded, not knowing Gui Mao couldn’t see.

Not only had he survived, he had also surprisingly been so much faster than him. Gui Mao felt a little apprehensive, he was in awe of him, but he was also a little unwilling.

Waiting until he had almost adapted, Gui Mao slowly opened his eyes, finding Bing Xu’s eager expression right in front of him. He couldn’t help but finding it funny: “I wasn’t worried about you at all, you’re an idiot for worrying about me.”

He spoke as he looked him up and down, seeing that the clothes on Bing Xu’s body were still intact, and that apart from a few wrinkles, there was no trace of him having been attacked by a wild beast, so he had unexpectedly avoided it entirely. Gui Mao clicked his tongue in wonder: “Such a difficult test, and you beat it so easily…..” He was just about to tease him, but he stopped in the middle of his words.

Bing Xu’s clothes were intact, but actually his two exposed hands were badly mangled to the point where he almost couldn’t make out their shape.

Gui Mao’s first thought was he had torn them on the stone door, but when he carefully thought about it again, he remembered something and couldn’t help but become shaken: “Today….. you….. didn’t bring weapons? Did you kill that bear with your bare hands?”

Bing Xu didn’t think that anything was wrong, so he simply nodded.

Gui Mao was struck dumb, and he felt shame in his heart as he remorsefully said: “I actually forgot such an important thing….. it was my carelessness.”

He didn’t wait for him to answer, hastily but carefully holding both his hands and returning to the rest area. He used fresh water to wash the wounds, but they had become encrusted with bits of stone and fur, some of which were deeply embedded in the flesh, so he had no choice but to firmly pull them out.

Gui Mao trembled in fear as he looked at him and asked: “Does it hurt?”

Bing Xu didn’t react, and his breathing never fluctuated, it was as if he couldn’t feel it.

Gui Mao had an ominous premonition, so he used his hand to feel at his waist and back. When he withdrew his hand, sure enough, it was sticky and covered in blood.

He was unable to tell the difference with the black, tight-fitting clothes, but inside, the wounds had all become split open again.

“Were you really unaware?” Gui Mao was a little angry, he was hurt like this, but one would be unable to tell from his outward appearance. He could only secretly decide to grab him every day in the future and strip him bare to inspect him from head to toe, only then would he be able to feel at ease.

Gui Mao bandaged him again, stuffing him back inside the quilts. He washed his hands in the basin filled with bloody water and asked: “Bing Xu, what kind of weapon did you use before?”

Bing Xu thought about it for a moment, and answered: “I don’t remember.”

Gui Mao: “……”

Without another way, he went to the cupboard and rummaged around inside. But there were a lot of weapons from their deceased colleagues mixed in together, and he was unable to make out which had been his. Gui Mao picked out a few to ask him about, but he had no impressions about any of them.

Gui Mao worriedly held up his chin as he looked at him, quickly going through a few things in his mind: Preparing poisons required brains, which Bing Xu inevitably didn’t have; Concealed weapons relied too much on accuracy, and Bing Xu couldn’t even steadily pick food up with chopsticks; The technique required to use a sword was too difficult, so it was also unsuitable; A broadsword wastes too much strength, so it’s inappropriate for Bing Xu…..

He thought better of it again, Bing Xu could easily avoid the attacks of a ferocious beast, so his speed was certainly very fast, he could also tear apart a bear with his bare hands, so the strength in his hands, wrists and fingers was certainly not small. Combining this two things together resulted in a very terrifying explosion of power.

Gui Mao had an idea, patting him on the head and cheerfully saying: “I’ve got it.”


He went through Bing Xu’s prize tokens and counted them, there was twenty altogether. He took everything and handed it over, exchanging them for a pair of finger blades.

The blades were usually hidden, making them seem like an ordinary pair of leather gloves1 . Gui Mao carefully put them over Bing Xu’s still-not-recovered hands, and taught him how to release and retract the sharp blades. Although the blades were small, they were incomparably sharp, light and quick, faster than any longsword, and were the most suited to be used by a shadow guard for assassinations.

In order to help him train on using them, Gui Mao picked a pile of wild fruits and gave it to him. A few tries later, Bing Xu could already skilfully take out the blades to peel the fruit and then retract them to hand it to him.

Gui Mao’s teeth were sore from eating.

But what could he do? If he didn’t eat the fruit, Bing Xu would be unwilling to peel it.

Bing Xu had been taken care of by him for many days, so now that he had the chance to help Gui Mao do something, he was naturally extremely happy.

Gui Mao was in a panic, but when he looked at his earnest face, he had no choice but to weep as he ate: I’ll admit it, it’s good that you’re happy.


“I really can’t eat any more, spare me.” Gui Mao persevered but was soon defeated.

Hearing this, Bing Xu nodded and stopped peeling. Tugging at his cuffs, he carefully wiped the fruit juice from the sharp blades, laughing foolishly as he did so.

“What are you laughing about? Do you like it that much?” Gui Mao could rarely see his feelings on his face, so he sighed and said, “You can really laugh.”

“I like.” Bing Xu calmly looked at him, his pitch-black pupils shining brightly, and stumbled as he repeated, “Gui Mao, I like.”

Gui Mao was stunned for a moment, but returned to his senses and coughed awkwardly: “You shouldn’t leave out words when you speak, it’s very easy for people to misunderstand.”

Bing Xu looked at him blankly.

Gui Mao ruffled his hair and laughed: “You’re a fool who doesn’t remember things, I’m afraid that in two years you won’t recognise anyone. How could you know what ‘liking’ is.”

 

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1 Lmao so the author often used the word “刃 (edge of a blade)” to refer to Ye Lan’s fingers, but also proceeded to describe his heart-gouging actions as being done with his “徒手 (empty/bare hands)” so I could never figure out if the 刃 was meant as a metaphor for his hands being deadly weapons or if he literally had knives on his fingers. Now we know he does literally have knives on his fingers, mystery solved! Top.