Ghost Knight King's Dungeon Project

Chapter 34 [Mo An]

A dull and tiring sleepiness mingled with the helplessness of the cold.

"Brother? Brother!" someone called softly, "Xia Mo'an! Brother!"

He opened his eyes and was greeted by the unfamiliar and cramped ceiling of the rented room. He turned his head slightly and saw a pretty girl with features similar to his own standing in the doorway, knocking on the door.

Her slightly pale face was covered with large dark circles under her eyes, and her expression was full of haggardness, like a bird whose courage had been broken by the frequent gunfire.

"Ugh! I've been calling you for ten minutes!" The girl, wearing blue bunny pajamas and fluffy slippers, shouted angrily.

“Oh…yes, yes, private masai, oh josama (すみません, お嬢様)…” He casually agreed with his awkward, anime-like speech, struggling to get out of bed.

In fact, he rarely watches anime and has little interest in those handsome men and beautiful women in anime. He also doesn't know what the anime references that his friends in the university's computer association often use mean.

Xia Mo'an preferred games, especially Dark Souls. It was a weary, indifferent, gloomy, and rough world, like a tough and ancient rock, yet filled with an inextinguishable fire and sunlight.

But my younger sister likes anime. She laughs when she watches Gintama and Lonely Rock, and recently she's been watching Party Guy Zhuge Kongming, which also makes her laugh.

Since dropping out of school, my sister's smiles have been rare. Perhaps her clumsy anime-style verbal tics can make her smile more.

This trick worked again. His sister giggled at his awkward anime-style verbal tics. "Get up, bro!" she tugged at his arm. "Didn't you tell me to wake you up at seven in the morning?"

"Yes, yes, yes..." Xia Mo'an agreed, picked up the phone which was charging at 93%, glanced at the screen full of messages, clicked to clear all messages, and unplugged the worn-out, yellowed charging cable.

He could actually set his own phone alarm, but he wanted to find some simple little tasks for his sister so that she could have a sense of "real life"—this is what the outpatient doctor and psychologist told Xia Moan.

In addition, by entrusting her with the responsibility of being the morning alarm clock, she will take the initiative to go to bed early and get up early, and take her medicine with peace of mind in order to complete this small task, so she will not stay up all night crying.

The rental apartment is small, with two bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom. The living room serves as the dining room, living room, simple kitchen, and temporary storage area for luggage.

The rental room was small, with small windows and poor lighting; the sunlight that did come in was also small and scattered. Xia Mo'an had originally wanted to rent a room with large windows and plenty of sunlight—because the doctor said sunlight was good for her sister.

However, after three years of part-time tutoring and frugal living during his university years, he only managed to save 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, which was not enough to rent a house of this size for long-term purposes.

"Breakfast is ready." He was sitting by the window in the living room, boiling a bag of milk in a small electric hot pot, putting the leftover cold steamed buns from last night into the microwave, calling to his sister, filling her bowl with cereal, and placing it in front of the small spotlight in the living room.

Xia Qingnan, the younger sister, sat on the sofa and gently tapped her bowl. The small patch of sunlight that Xia Mo'an had carefully calculated was shining on her arm and gradually illuminating her pale face as time went by—in autumn, the patch of sunlight could last for the entire breakfast time starting at seven o'clock.

He excels at these calculations and plans, even for just a single spot of light. Perhaps it's some kind of talent, though he only uses it to play simulation games like Oxygen Not Included that require periodic calculations and planning.

She was finally able to get up and eat breakfast. This was a good sign. Normally, she would cry all night long, cry herself to sleep until she fainted in the early morning, and then sleep until five o'clock the next afternoon. When she woke up, she would stare blankly at the sunset through the window.

Xia Mo'an felt that his decision to move out of the university dormitory to live with Nan Nan was not in vain. Nan Nan needed someone to be with her. Being alone in such an environment, her sleep schedule was disrupted, her days and nights were reversed, and she was also under a lot of pressure.

He changed his sister's SIM card, and now his parents can no longer frantically call and curse Nan Nan for being useless.

"A planet that rotates day and night, everywhere obscuring the silhouettes of others..." His phone rang. The ringtone was the theme song from "Star Journey," one of the few anime he had actually watched. He loved it, but unfortunately, like his life, it remained unfinished.

He glanced at the contact's name and hung up.

"Whose call was that?" Nan Nan asked while scooping up some milk.

Her hands no longer tremble and she can hold the spoon steadily now.

This was a huge improvement. Before, she endured pressure at high school, and at home she was scolded and beaten every day because of her grades, her hands trembling so much she couldn't hold a pen. After coming here, when Xia Mo'an taught her how to play games, her fingers trembled as she pressed the keyboard. It was as if she was afraid of being severely punished if she lost the game.

"My roommate told me to go to class at ten in the morning," Xia Mo'an lied casually. He glanced at his phone screen again; it was still early.

"I'm going downstairs to buy a drink. What do you want to drink today?" Xia Mo'an asked. "Fruit yogurt? Nutritional drink?"

"coffee."

"No, it has caffeine, I won't be able to sleep tonight," Xia Mo'an rejected. "Let's choose something else."

"Yogurt, made with yellow peaches."

"Row."

Xia Mo'an put on his coat, grabbed his phone, and hurried downstairs. However, halfway down the stairs, his phone rang again in the hallway.

He glanced at the contact's name, hovered his finger over the red "Hang Up" button for a few seconds, and finally pressed the green "Answer" button.

“Hello,” he said calmly.

"Xia Qingnan took a car to your place, right?" The familiar angry voice of a middle-aged man came from the other end of the line.

The man in my memory seemed to be angry every second, for all sorts of inexplicable reasons—his handwriting in his homework was bad, he fell and scraped his knee on the way home, he didn't finish his homework at the end of summer vacation, his exam ranking went up but his total score went down, he forgot to throw away the cup of yogurt he finished eating. He could be angry for a whole day for many absurd reasons. Things that were really no big deal seemed to be his whole world.

“Yes, I’m settled. Don’t worry,” Xia Mo’an replied.

"Who told you to settle her in! Get her back here! She's in her final year of high school! She's taking the college entrance exam next year, what kind of behavior is this, dropping out of school!" the middle-aged man on the phone yelled. "Mind your own studies! You finally got into a bottom-tier 211 university, don't waste the opportunity! Study hard, if you waste four years of college, what will you do in society!"

Xia Mo'an wanted to laugh, but a helpless exhaustion overwhelmed him. The four dry words, "Study hard," seemed to be the only thing his father ever said about his future, repeating them from childhood.

Repeating a sentence three times will make it important, repeating it ten times will start to bore you, repeating it fifty times will make you feel anxious, and repeating it a hundred times will make you want to laugh.

After repeating this thousands of times, I felt nothing anymore.

All that remained was a cold, numb feeling.

“Nan Nan needs to rest. Let her rest here with me for a while,” he replied.

"She's just faking it! She's been spoiled rotten! Why are you bothering with her?" the middle-aged man roared angrily.

“I’m a better brother than you are a father,” Xia Mo’an said honestly. “Let me take care of her for a while. The doctor said it’s because of too much stress, and there are family issues too. We’ll wait until she’s better…”

“Tell me the location, I’ll drive there now,” his father interrupted him.

“If you come over, I’ll also apply for a leave of absence and take Nan Nan to work and rent a place somewhere else for a while,” Xia Mo’an said gently into the phone.

"You should just go to university!" the voice roared on the phone.

“Then don’t come over, don’t make things worse,” Xia Mo’an replied. “Nan’an has been crying all night… It’s already a miracle that she’s still alive.”

"You're spending our money! I'm cutting off your allowance!" the voice roared over the phone. "We've raised you with so much hardship, and this is how you repay us?"

“The money for rent was saved from my part-time jobs during college,” Xia Mo’an replied. “If you cut off my allowance, I’ll drop out of school and work. I have hands and feet, and I can support myself. There’s nothing shameful about doing anything.”

"Stop talking, let me answer the phone." The mother's voice came from the other end of the line, along with the sound of them scrambling for the phone.

It sounded like Dad had dropped the phone, but the phone was still in decent condition, and the call was continuing. Mom picked up the phone.

"Will Nan Nan still faint now?" the mother asked softly.

"It's unlikely," Xia Mo'an replied.

"Have you taken your medicine?"

“Triserine hydrochloride. As prescribed,” he replied.

"Are you able to take care of her normally? Mom thinks that you are busy with your university life and wants Nannan to rest at home for a while."

“She can’t be at home, over there…” Xia Mo’an hesitated for a moment, “The family pressure is too great, and acquaintances come to visit from time to time, as well as high school classmates and teachers, and the environment is not good for her mental health—I’m fine here.”

“I’ll transfer some money to you later, so you can take better care of her and make sure she has a good place to eat and stay,” the mother said. “You won’t have to use your own savings to buy medicine for Nan Nan.”

"It's nothing," Xia Mo'an replied.

"You still spoil them both!" The father's resentful roar echoed on the other end of the phone.

"Remember to check your WeChat messages, An'an," her mother said softly before hanging up the phone.

Xia Mo'an opened the WeChat account she had ignored when she woke up that morning. Amidst her father's long-winded rant, there were two unreceived transfer records from her mother.

We don't need to spend your money anymore... He tapped lightly on the lower half of the keyboard on his phone, typing in and then slowly deleting.

It's alright now, I'll receive it later. He clicked send.

"Keep it; you need money for everything in your lives." The mother replied instantly.

He hesitated for a moment, then stopped typing and just sighed.

The owner of the neighborhood convenience store lay behind the counter smoking, the air thick with smoke. Xia Mo'an coughed, picked up a can of peach yogurt from the shelf, and then grabbed a can of cola for himself. Looking at the alcohol on the next shelf, his hand holding the cola hesitated for a moment.

"I'm not under pressure, I'm in good shape, I need to stay alert," he told himself.

Although he was somewhat anxious, the pressure was trying to crush him, but in this tiny alliance of brother and sister, even if only one person was uneasy, it was enough—a full fifty percent.

One of the two people has to be able to maintain emotional stability and a positive outlook, right? If both of them are pessimistic and depressed, they probably would have already joined hands and found a good burial site to jump together.

He scanned the QR code to pay for the peach yogurt and cola, then returned to his rented room.

It's still morning, and Xia Qingnan's condition is relatively stable. However, she's more prone to emotional breakdowns in the evening and at night.

He gently placed the peach yogurt on the living room table, popped open the can of cola, and gulped down two mouthfuls of carbonated water.

Xia Qingnan sat at the table, lost in thought. She wasn't looking at her phone or playing on the computer; she was just... spacing out.

Like a sickly fledgling whose gallbladder has been ruptured by the sound of gunfire.

It's almost eight o'clock now, and the sunlight that had been streaming in through the small window has moved away, leaving only shadows on her face.

Sometimes she would space out for a long time, then lift her shadowed face and ask Xia Mo'an—

"Brother, why do people live?" she asked earnestly. "If being born is painful, and the future only brings more pain, then why..."

"Do you watch anime?" Xia Mo'an asked.

"What?" The younger sister looked up.

"Anime. Aren't you watching any anime today?" he asked.

"I've finished watching all the ones I like." "Let's find a few more that you'll enjoy... Are there any anime conventions recently? I'll go with you?" He shamelessly leaned closer, trying to cheer his sister up.

"I don't want to go," the younger sister shook her head.

"...Want to play games?" Xia Mo'an asked. "I have games on my computer, I can play whatever I want with my Steam account... Don't mess with that red Ford Mustang icon, I have privacy too—wait, I'll delete that car first—"

He moved his laptop over, logged into his account, and then realized that his computer was full of hardcore gadgets.

Turing Complete, Shenzhen IO, Oxygen Not Included, Dwarf Fortress, Factorio… Initially, it all started because his father would fly into a rage every time he saw him playing games in high school. So he picked games that looked like they involved studying, so he could lie and say he was preparing for the high school computer science Olympiad programming competition when his parents asked. But over time, he unknowingly grew to like these difficult and tedious games.

However, the younger sister was clearly not interested in these things.

"Give this a try." He finally pulled out a game from his Steam library that didn't look like engineering software—Dark Souls.

He bought it after starting university and completed the game five times, collecting everything. He vaguely remembered seeing somewhere that Dark Souls supposedly cured his depression.

"It's too hard, I can't beat it," the younger sister replied. "It's no use. No matter what I do, I can't beat it, it's all useless."

"What are the consequences if we can't win?" Xia Mo'an asked.

"All the money will be lost, and I'll have to go through a lot of trouble again."

"and then?"

"..."

“You can earn money again if you lose it all, you can run a lot of roads if you need to, and you can try again if you fail.” Xia Mo’an held her sister’s hand and placed her hand on the mouse. “There are many things that can defeat you, but nothing can destroy you—unless you give up trying.”

"Give it a try. If you don't know how, you can look up a guide." He put on his clothes, stood up, and grabbed his backpack. "I have to get ready for class now. Want to go out for lunch together?"

"Not really."

"I'll get some takeout from the cafeteria. What would you like to eat?"

"There's nothing I want to eat."

"Then I'll buy what I like to eat." He went out the door and headed towards the university.

The morning classes actually didn't start until 10 a.m. He came to the shadow of the computer science building, picked up a water bottle from the stairwell on the first floor, and carried it with difficulty to the door of the computer association activity room on the third floor.

The college building has many computer rooms and laboratories, which are usually locked and only opened during teaching and club activities. Therefore, the water carriers and cleaners are not responsible for this building, and the purified water for this building is carried by the teachers and students themselves.

Xia Mo'an is the head of the activities department. Every time he goes upstairs, he has a habit of carrying a bottle of purified water up with him—after all, everyone else seems to think that the purified water will fly to the third floor by itself.

The association students on the road shouted "Brother Anzi", "Brother Xia", and "Good morning, Minister Xia", but unfortunately the water cooler seemed to be invisible, and no one came over to help carry it.

While responding to the greetings from others, Xia Mo'an carried the water bottle to the door of the activity room on the third floor, where a hand finally helped him grab the water bottle.

He looked up at the president of the Computer Association.

“Senior Liang.” He nodded.

"Let me do it, Mo An," the president said. "It's been a year, you've worked hard."

“I just applied yesterday, do you already know I’m going to withdraw?” Xia Mo’an raised an eyebrow.

"I came to the activity room today to say goodbye. They said you checked out of the dorm a few days ago, and your belongings are all gone." The president gently lifted the water bottle and moved it to the water dispenser in the activity room. "Life must be pretty busy, right? Do you have to work part-time?"

"Yes." Xia Mo'an took out a folder from his bag. "These are the activity records that I left here before. They were left behind during the handover last night."

"Let's all have lunch together, Mo An." President Liang took the folder. "We've worked together for a year now, and you've consistently done an excellent job. If there's an opportunity, you might be the next president of the Accounting Association..."

"No, no, I have something to do at noon," Xia Mo'an said dryly, waving his hands repeatedly. "No thanks, everyone."

"Let's all thank Mo An again for his contributions to the association this year!" President Liang called out. Everyone in the activity room stood up and applauded.

Some people were shouting "Minister Xia," and others were shouting "Brother Anzi."

Amid applause, Xia Mo'an fled the Computer Association building as if running away.

"The equivalent circuit model of an r-type transformer is shown in the figure. The impedance and admittance are respectively..." The old professor read from the PPT on the podium.

"I'll have to work part-time next," Xia Mo thought anxiously. The rented apartment was in a rather remote location, and the rent was two thousand a month, which would last for a while.

The lighting in the rented room is too dim. The doctor said that a dim environment is not good for recovery; perhaps we should replace the light bulb?
"One of you hasn't even opened your textbook." The old professor's voice rang out from the side, and Xia Mo'an shuddered.

"Young man, could you answer this? What is the impedance of the equivalent model?" The old professor patted him on the shoulder. "And what is the voltage vector at this point?"

He stared blankly at the classroom in front of him.

My roommate sitting next to me wrote a series of complex electric vectors on a piece of white paper and carefully pushed it towards me with his elbow, but the old professor reached out and pressed it down.

"Sit down," the old professor said. "Pay attention to the lesson."

Noon arrived quickly. Carrying a steaming plastic lunchbox and several boxes of hot meat dishes, he hurriedly squeezed through the crowd in the cafeteria and rushed back to his rented room.

"Nan Nan?" He flung open the door to the rented room, behind which was a wall.

A high wall cast from ghost bronze, stretching upwards, downwards, leftwards, and rightwards, with no end in any direction.

"Nan Nan!" he cried out in alarm, raising his fist and slamming it hard against the wall of Nether Bronze. The wall cracked, and he rushed into the room. From the center of the dimly lit room came the sound of breaking glass and screams.

Sizzle—The thin girl sat curled up in the dark center of the room, hugging her knees tightly, curled into a small ball, buried her face between her knees, and sobbed.

Black armor, a tattered blood-red cloak, hammers, spears, and dull crystals scattered on the ground.

"Brother...am I a burden to you..." A muffled voice echoed from inside the helmet, "I can't do anything right..."

A hissing sound—like rusted copper rubbing against each other.

“My father has lung adenocarcinoma. It’s all my fault. I made him angry…”

"I need to go home and check on things..."

"Xia Mo'an, could you please come here for a moment..."

"Please prepare yourself mentally..." *Sizzle!*
"Your parents and sister..." *sizzle*
"Driving while fatigued..." *sizzle!*
"Something happened..." *Sizzle!*
"Some unexpected things happened..." *Sizzle!*
"Samael!" Two hands grabbed his shoulder armor and shook him violently.

[Disordered state of consciousness detected]

Hundreds of dark blue warning pop-ups occupied the helmet's UI window, and between the pop-ups was a familiar face.

“Ah. Yes.” He raised his hand, trying to push Talia’s gauntlets off his shoulder, but failed.

His gauntlets trembled slightly, and the bronze joints tapped against each other with a soft tinkling sound.

"Are you alright?" Talia gripped his shoulders tightly.

The wheels clattered slightly, echoing the rhythmic sound of horses' hooves. The two were still swaying in the long-distance carriage, the windows revealing the hills, slopes, and plains of the Erdrik Empire, with birds chirping in the verdant shade of the trees. From the front of the carriage came the driver's casual singing of an imperial folk song, like some kind of in-car music provided by the driver.

Talia wasn't wearing a helmet, her steel-gray eyes looking at him with concern. Her wanted poster was issued by the Adventurers' Alliance and the Demon Lords; few within the Empire knew of it. Besides, it was safe inside the carriage.

"What just happened to me?" He tried to clear the alarm pop-up in the helmet's UI.

"At first it seemed like she was asleep, her head resting on my shoulder, then there was struggling, screaming, calling someone's name," Talia whispered in reply, "Nannan."

“My sister,” Samael replied.

“She…” Talia hesitated.

“Gone,” Samael said. “Like my parents.”

"then you……"

“I don’t know how it all happened.” He slowly covered his face with the bronze gauntlets. “I said I died from overwork while playing games, but actually I was just… sitting in front of the computer in a daze, not knowing how much time had passed, maybe three days, maybe five days, I don’t know.”

"All I know is that when I regained my sight, there was a thin, haggard girl with dark circles under her eyes hugging her knees, burying her face between them and sobbing... I..." He stopped talking.

He slowly leaned back against the back of the carriage seat, while the coachman continued to sing imperial folk songs to the rhythmic clatter of the horses' hooves:

"Old leaves fall in autumn, and new buds grow in summer!"

"Gods, oh gods, why do you ignore the sorrow of the old leaves?"

Talia reached out her hand, grabbed his shoulder, and hugged his cold body tightly in front of her.

His helmet was pressed against her collarbone, and Talia's jawline pressed tightly against the side of his helmet.

“I’m not your sister,” she whispered, “but you can rely on me sometimes.”

Xia Mo'an didn't struggle, but he didn't hug her back either. He simply felt her arms tightly encircling his cold body, the force so great that it warmed the surface of the bronze.

“Thank you, Talia,” he said softly.

"You're not calling me an ally anymore?" Talia teased.

"Is it necessary to hold such a grudge?" Samael asked.

“No, but I’d like to.” She pressed her cheek against the forehead of the Nether Bronze Helmet.

　The author has always believed that a character's words and actions are shaped by their upbringing, environment, and the others they encounter, essentially combining these three elements. In other words, the characters are the collective entity of the story.

　　Therefore, the description of "people" is often the most interesting part of a novel.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)