Forces of Temptation

Nan Zhou quickly noticed Jiang Fang's earlobes that were almost on fire and his teeth clenched.

He guessed: "Is the alcohol gone?"

Jiang Fang coughed lightly: "...Well, it's over."

Nan Zhou: "Oh."

Nan Zhou: "Then do you still want to eat?"

Jiang Fang quickly sorted out his embarrassment and restored his appearance.

The wet eyes faded away, the messy hair returned to its original position, and he regained his gentlemanly, sober, and rational appearance.

Nan Zhou watched his every move curiously.

When he lowered his hand, he called him: "Brother Fang."

Jiang Fang responded decently: "Yes."

Nan Zhou's lips were moistened a little, and they were still glowing faintly, which made people unable to help but focus their eyes there.

Nan Zhou: "I've been thinking about it before, what exactly do you want when you form a team with me?"

Nan Zhou said sincerely: "Now I understand. It turned out that it was me you wanted."

Jiang Fang couldn't help himself, and coughed violently: "..."

He couldn't help but wanted to continue to gag Nan Zhou's mouth.

Fortunately, compared to before, the current thoughts are only a slight gaffe and can be controlled.

Jiang Fang straightened his collar: "Those words I just said..."

Nan Zhou: "Huh?"

Jiang Fang turned his face away slightly: "You don't want to..."

Don't take it seriously.

Don't take it as a promise.

That's not love that should be spoken.

Thousands of negative words hang on the tip of his tongue.

And Nan Zhou's calm and cold gaze was falling on his face, impartial, focused and serious.

"...don't forget."

Jiang Fang fixed his eyes on Nan Zhou, making sure that he pronounced his words clearly, and forced himself not to go back on his words, "Remember it clearly."

Nan Zhou: "Yes. I will."

Nan Zhou thought for a while, then asked back: "So, in the future, you won't say such things to me, will you?"

Jiang Fang: "..."

Nan Zhou expressed himself frankly: "I really like to hear what you said."

Jiang Fang pursed his lips, and his smile unconsciously brought a little nervousness and rare youthfulness.

He recalled and reviewed the feeling that his consciousness and muscles were dominated by his true heart just now.

Only in this way can he break through the invisible obstacles and barriers.

"It's hard," he said, "...but I'll study hard."

Nan Zhou groaned, and raised the hand that was still tightly bound with Jiang Fang's choker: "Then do you want to untie this?"

Jiang Fang: "..."

He held his forehead helplessly and laughed muffled.

Oops.

Out of control in just 10 minutes, the hole he dug for himself may take a lifetime to fill.

If he was in a casino, he would have lost everything by now, falling into the abyss of gambling, and he would never recover.

Jiang Fang, who was used to shrewdness, calculation, and balance, let the wildfire get on his body in a daze, and his heart and eyes were full of fire and light.

In the light stood a man named Nanzhou.

Fire is also him.

Jiang Fang asked for his opinion: "Do you want to untie it?"

Nan Zhou looked at the restraint bracelet with the shimmering leather, and asked Jiang Fang: "Will you feel at ease by binding me like this?"

Jiang Fang was almost ashamed of his stupid words: "Maybe..."

Before he could finish speaking, Nan Zhou's fingertips clung to the thin calluses on Jiang Fang's palm, and slipped into his fingertips one by one.

Five fingers clasped.

The subtle friction makes the tingling sensation clearly and clearly conveyed all the way from the fingertips to the heart.

Nanzhou pulled him like this, and walked side by side with him through black vines, bushes and trees.

Nan Zhou spoke softly to him: "Actually, you can't tie me with iron chains."

"If you want to tie me up, just call me by my name."

"My name is Nanzhou. You knew it a long time ago. Didn't you?"

"If you're worried that something will take me away, don't worry, I'll always be back. Run back soon."

When Nan Zhou said these words, he was natural and calm.

He didn't regard this as some great love words or oath, but simply stating the facts.

He didn't know why Jiang Fang felt so uneasy.

Maybe this is human beings.

Anyway, what Nanzhou wanted was not to be alone, and he had already been satisfied when he met Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang.

"I believe."

When Nan Zhou heard Jiang Fang's voice, it seemed that there was a lot of tenderness and sadness that he still couldn't understand.

"This time, I won't back down."

After embarking on the journey again, the footsteps of the two became much lighter.

Nan Zhou silently recalled Jiang Fang's words.

In fact, it is not a warm and nasty word.

The feeling of hunger was still there, but Nan Zhou felt as if he was bumping against something inside his body, making his bones feel light, as if he was about to fly to the sky.

Nan Zhou experienced this special and wonderful feeling for the first time.

The change in mood greatly shortened their journey, and easily made up for the wasted 10 minutes.

They successfully walked to the edge of the dark forest, and saw the jagged light shining through under the cover of the dense tree canopy.

Unexpectedly, before they had time to get out of the forest, they heard two footsteps coming in a hurry.

Jiang Fang pressed Nan Zhou's shoulder, and Nan Zhou grabbed the clothes on his chest.

The two hid behind a tree.

The two brothers and sisters in ragged clothes did not notice the two in the forest.

The younger sister thoughtlessly wanted to flee to the forest, but she fell and fell to the ground just after taking two steps.

From her tattered clothes, a few pieces of gold fell out, and under the refraction of the sun, Nan Zhou's eyes were dazzled.

Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang looked at each other.

On this world line, the corpse of the witch is probably boiling in a pot right now.

At this time, the two brothers and sisters are not the decent and elegant little masters of the candy house, nor are they the two little wolves who are so hungry that they go crazy, but just the two most ordinary peasant children who escaped death.

The elder brother picked up the younger sister from the jagged rocks.

"Don't go from here!" he said. "We came from the woods. We can't go back from here."

The younger sister bravely wiped the blood oozing from her knees: "Then where are we...going?"

They stuck to the edge of the woods and ran all the way to Daze.

Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang deliberately distanced themselves from them and followed closely behind.

The first two times, when Nan Zhou and the others went to Daze, there was a mottled bird on a tree branch.

Besides, in the direction of Daze, they found nothing of value.

Nanzhou and the others tried to talk to that bird.

But it turned a deaf ear to their approach, and only cared for its own feathers.

Just like a most common beautiful bird.

The brothers and sisters are similar to what they have seen and heard.

They failed to find a boat to cross the swamp, or a fisherman to help them.

Standing at the edge of the rotting swamp, the only living thing in sight was the bird.

The younger sister burst into tears.

The elder brother was in a state of confusion, so he could only pray to the bird perched on the tree: "Please, please take us across the river."

Nan Zhou had a premonition.

This time the plot will be different.

Sure enough, the little bird jumped forward twice.

She opened her goose-yellow beak, and a girlish voice came out: "Are you going to cross the river?"

... It's a fairytale.

The little bird lowered its black bean-like eyes: "Is this what you wish for?"

The younger sister was overjoyed, and with a crying voice, she answered first: "Yes!! We want to go home! We want Dad!"

The little bird stood quietly on the branch, looking at the two brothers and sisters: "Your wish always has a price."

This sentence made Nan Zhou frowned.

Yes.

From the very beginning, the brothers and sisters who were NPCs did not tell them what tasks they were going to accomplish.

It looks like part of the quest, asking them to go out on a quest to find the quest itself.

At first, Nan Zhou thought that they needed to find the door.

Now, Xiaoniao's words reminded him.

In every timeline they walked through, the brother and sister had different wishes and paid different prices.

In the candy house, brother and sister team up to lie and try to eat them.

The price is to sacrifice their original goodness and innocence.

In the cabin, the two brothers and sisters were extremely hungry, and their only wish was to stop being tortured by hunger.

The price was the life of the father.

Now, in front of Dasawa, the two of them want to go home and meet Dad.

As the layers of time continue to change, their wishes are constantly changing.

What does this seemingly random change mean?

So, what price did they pay to get home?

The two brothers and sisters, who were determined to go home, obviously couldn't understand the deep meaning behind Xiaoniao's words.

The elder brother grabbed the younger sister's hand and said loudly, "We can give you whatever you want, as long as you bring us back to Dad."

The little bird's black peas looked at them: "Is there any reward you can give me?"

The younger sister hurriedly took out a witch's silver bracelet from her bosom, and held it in front of the little bird.

Bird raised his voice, "I hate these! I don't want these!"

It walked to the branch, pondered for a moment, and proposed an exchange: "All you have to do is promise me that you will give me half a piece of bread when you get home. I am collecting bread."

The elder brother frowned, and asked what Nan Zhou wanted to ask: "But, there is a candy house nearby. Why don't you go there to find bread."

With a gentle voice, the little bird spit out a sentence that made people's hair stand on end after careful consideration.

"That's not bread at all."

The brother and sister at this moment could not understand the meaning behind this sentence, so they agreed.

After getting the promise, the bird stretched out its wings.

Its small wings normally retracted to the sides of its body just opened, and it was able to block out the sky and the sun.

The feathers like variegated woolen, and the wings more than ten meters long, fluttered layer upon layer, like a large piece of poor-quality flying carpet.

The two brothers and sisters thanked each other, and each took a wing with great joy.

On the wings, the elder brother held the younger sister's hand firmly.

They rushed to their own home, and happily rushed to the blood feast of patricide.

The big-winged bird soared into the sky, and flew away across the fetid swamp.

A feather fell from its wing.

The feather fluttered and landed on the mud not far from the shore of the swamp.

Probably because it was full of dirty water and heavy mud, the pattern and outline of the doorknob gradually emerged on the surface of the feathers.

—it formed a door that opened in the muck.

It's just that the effective time of this door is too short.

When Feather was about to sink to the bottom without a sound, a hand reached out and decisively pressed down on the doorknob.

The moment you open this door, things change from time to time.

When they opened their eyes again, they were already in the center of the forest again.

This time it's a fork in the road.

The way to the cabin was opened again.

And the sound of human footsteps came from the distance again.

It was a sad-faced woodcutter who was carrying two brothers and sisters on his back, and was about to take them to the forest and abandon them.

The two brothers and sisters have already experienced abandonment once, and it seems that they already know the fate that is about to befall them.

The elder brother firmly grasped the hand of the weeping younger sister, and put his other hand into the rucksack, trying to crush the bread he brought, so that the fine crumbs fell on the road, so as to form a road home.

Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang dodge and hide in the jungle.

Looking at the depressing backs of the father, son, and daughter, as well as the bread crumbs that fell behind them and attracted the birds to peck at them, Nan Zhou knew that the brothers and sisters were about to meet their final fate.

But Jiang Fang raised his eyebrows with interest.

... In the story of "Candy House", the confrontation between the two children and the witch should obviously be the highlight.

They've jumped to a fourth timeline, but they've never been able to see the witch, only the boiled bones of the witch.

The main characters they meet are the siblings and their father.

Is this a coincidence, or something else?

Hunger eroded silently again, raging like a tide, biting their empty stomachs.

Nan Zhou was not in a hurry to eat.

He said softly: "I seem to understand why we are so hungry in this copy."

Jiang Fang turned around: "Isn't it because of the influence of the two siblings?"

Nan Zhou shook his head thoughtfully, and asked Jiang Fang, "Have you heard another fairy tale about hunger?"

"I haven't read virtual stories for a long time. I've almost forgotten what I've heard before." Jiang Fang shrugged, "Except for your story."

Nan Zhou was curious: "Why?"

"Because I know those are all fake." Jiang Fang said, "But sometimes, I wish you were real."

For Jiang Fang in the past, this was already a rare whimsy in his rational world.

Nan Zhou thought about it and thought it was a good word, so he gently squeezed his hand to express his happiness.

He took Jiang Fang's hand, put on the attitude of Mr. Nan, and asked classmate Jiang seriously: "Then do you know Inger's story?"