loading . . . Escape from Rose Island **Title:** Escape from Rose Island (逃离玫瑰岛)
**Author:** Mu Su Li (木苏里)
**Raws**
**Summary:** Welcome to Rose Island.
Here, faith runs rampant, and bewilderment amok.
It seems unwise to be alone; more often than not, those without divine protection end up dead.
Before stepping foot inside, please select the deity you would like to worship.
**CP:** Mi Xiaobai (弥笑白) (gong) x Yu Qing (虞青) (shou)
**One-line hook:** There was someone else inside his body
**Central concept:** Redemption
* * *
**Chapter 1: Painted Skin**
_When I do count the clock that tells the time,_
_And see the brave day sunk in hideous night._
—Shakespeare, Sonnet 12
***
This island city always seemed to be raining.
The train crossed through the city, a trail of neon streaking around clustered buildings of varying heights and fading into the hazy distance outside the window.
It was currently nine at night.
Typically, this small noodle bar would have closed for the day half an hour ago.
The owner of the restaurant was a half-blind old woman whose hearing was going too.
She rested on a lounge chair behind the sales counter, a threadbare blanket draped over her, listening to a traditional opera vinyl record that she’d gotten from the flea market. After yawning three times in a row, she finally couldn’t help but call, “Walnut. Walnut!”
Walnut—a youth she had taken in—was like a grandson to her. He had just turned sixteen.
Only his cooking skills were decent; he wasn’t good at much else. Thankfully, that was enough to help her keep this old, rundown noodle bar in business.
“What time is it, Walnut?” she asked loudly. “It still isn’t time to close yet?”
Walnut stood by the counter, hugging the handle of a beat-up vacuum, staring nervously at the corner of the restaurant.
That was where the only customer in the entire store was sitting.
A long moment later, he forced himself to reply: “Yeah… Not yet.”
“Then why do I feel so sleepy?” the old woman mumbled to herself.
_How could you not be? Usually, you’d be deep in dreamland by now,_ Walnut responded silently.
But he didn’t dare move, nor did he dare draw any more attention to himself.
Not because that customer looked particularly scary or intimidating.
Rather, it was the opposite. He looked normal and unremarkable, dressed in an off-white T-shirt with a loose, stretched-out collar. Thin as a matchstick, he was like a slight shadow tucked in the corner.
Walnut could easily take down two of him with his bare hands.
But the real reason Walnut was frozen stiff was because he knew this customer.
He lived on the same floor as them, in one of the affordable housing buildings in the lower district. They could technically be considered neighbors.
However, this neighbor had died a week ago.
The last time Walnut saw him was in front of unit 1716.
The doorway had been roped off with police tape and hordes of flies. The neighbor had been stuffed unceremoniously into a body bag, his few possessions plundered.
The next day, in the newspaper that everyone in the city received daily, this human life only occupied one tiny, simple headline, crammed into the most unnoticeable corner: “Shocking murder in a lower district affordable housing unit—perpetrators on the run!”
The rest of the page was taken up by a photograph of a wealthy young master surnamed Yu, who had spent money like water at an auction to buy an old emerald pocket watch for an exorbitantly high price.
They didn’t even get the pocket watch in the picture! The photo was merely a fleeting, blurred shot of his profile through the window of a sports car, taken a second before he drove off.
His face wasn’t even visible, and yet, this photo took up almost an entire page of _The Rose Daily._
*
Walnut had sighed regretfully for this dead neighbor of theirs.
But now that the dead man was sitting in their store, he was terrified to even breathe too loudly.
“A soul is lost on the first day and summoned on the seventh, and so it returns on the hundredth…” the old woman’s worn record player warbled shakily.
Walnut approached the neighbor just as shakily.
He meant to let him know that they were closed, but what came out of his mouth was: “Would you like to eat anything?”
The neighbor didn’t seem to recognize Walnut anymore. With his hair covering his eyes, he answered eerily, “No.”
_Then why are you here sitting in a restaurant?!_
Walnut’s face crumpled.
As if he could read Walnut’s mind, the neighbor spoke again. “I’m waiting for someone. They’re almost here.”
At that moment, a jingle came from the door.
Two drenched men slipped inside, complaining as they wiped the water from their faces.
“I _told_ you we should’ve left earlier, but you kept dragging your feet!”
“Who knew it would suddenly start pouring like this? It’s only been drizzling these past few days.”
“You think the weather’s just gonna do whatever you expect it to? This is great. The tunnel’s closed, the main road’s backed up, and it’s flooded under the bridge again. There’s no way we can get over there!”
_It’s flooded under the bridge again?_
Only one bridge on the entire island experienced frequent floods. The floodwater had swallowed many cars over the years.
That bridge sat right beside the affordable housing building where Walnut lived.
Walnut glanced at the two men.
In his peripheral vision, the dead neighbor also raised his head.
“According to the little sorceress, if nothing’s working out, that means a vicious ghost is blocking the path. Guess we gotta pick a different day.”
“A different day?! I already told you: I think I lost a button the last time we were there! I—”
The quick-tempered man cut himself off and swept a look around the restaurant.
The booth was in the way, so the two men didn’t notice the customer in the corner. They thought the old woman and her grandson manning the store were the only other people there.
“Oh well, whatever. Let’s eat first.”
The men took a seat at the nearest table. One of them slapped a handful of coins down and called to Walnut, “Two bowls of braised pork noodles.”
Walnut paused, taken aback.
“What are you zoning out for?” the hothead snarled. “Aren’t you running a business here? Hurry up! We’re in a rush!”
“I’m on it.” Walnut pocketed the coins and hurried off to the kitchen.
***
With a dark look on his face, the hothead broke a pair of chopsticks apart. He bounced his leg impatiently, causing the table to wobble and creak.
Suddenly, faded sneakers appeared in his periphery.
Someone had walked over to their table.
A cool-toned voice spoke. “I heard you’re in a rush. Where to? My home?”
“What do you mean, your home—”
The irascible man’s head snapped up, and he saw the newcomer’s face.
“!!!”
They knew that face.
A week ago, in that affordable housing unit, they had ground this face into the floor, crushing it under the soles of their shoes again and again.
Since he was too dirty to touch with their hands—he kept crying and bleeding everywhere, his face bruised black and blue—they sat on a chair and wedged its leg against his throat to force him to reveal where his valuables were hidden.
And then…
They picked up the chair and beat him to death with it.
Why was a dead man standing here?!
The hothead’s hair stood on end.
His instincts spurred him to spring to his feet and mercilessly kick that small, slight man. “I could pummel you to death when you were alive, so I can do the same when you’re dead!”
He remembered what this man had felt like beneath his hands and feet.
He was thin as a reed and could be snapped just as easily. Even his toughest bones had shattered to pieces after a few blows from the chair.
Even if he had returned from the dead, what could he possibly do to them?
A second later, that stick-thin hand clamped down on the back of his head.
The fingertips, sharp enough to rival pointed steel nails, dug straight into his scalp.
“Ahhhh—!” the hothead screamed. Amid a haze of pain, he saw his companion had also been gripped in a similar way.
_Crack!_
Their faces were smashed ruthlessly together.
Agony fractured through the hothead’s skull, and his companion’s blood immediately coated his face.
He couldn’t help but sink to the floor, wanting to bring his hands to his head, but the dead man’s hand gripped his hair and dragged him upright again.
Such a scrawny man, with such skinny arms, could somehow haul him up from the ground by his hair alone!
The hothead was beginning to feel afraid.
As the hand yanked his head back, forcing him to look up, the voice spoke again. This time, however, he said something rather strange. “The owner of this skin has sincerely requested that this blood debt be paid in blood. Come now. Look at this face, and say what needs to be said.”
The hothead couldn’t see anything with all the blood blurring his vision. He swore indistinctly, “You motherf—”
Before he could finish, his head was smashed into his companion’s again.
Blood sprayed through the air.
“Try again.” The voice was calm and detached.
The hothead spat out a mouthful of blood and several teeth, his face battered beyond recognition. “It’s our fault. We were wrong…”
“Too insincere,” the voice decided, still frighteningly cold.
The hothead felt a hand close around his wrist before twisting it sharply behind him.
With a few crisp cracks—
His arm snapped.
“ _Ahhhh!”_
The hothead’s shrieks were hoarse; he almost didn’t even have the energy to scream anymore.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he apologized desperately.
When he felt that hand grip his other wrist, his voice came out in a near-screech. “Please! Please, I’m begging you—”
The hands finally released him.
Engulfed by agony and terror, he collapsed in a chair, the strength draining from his body.
Just as he was about to exhale in relief, the matchstick-thin figure stepped behind him, and an icy hand cupped his jaw. “I’ve always been picky. Your voice is…”
The voice grew even calmer. “Truly awful.”
The hothead’s bloodshot eyes flew open, his pupils shrinking.
_Crack!_
The moment he started to struggle violently, he heard the sound of his own neck being broken.
…
That was the last sound he ever heard.
***
Walnut had the range hood turned up to its highest setting. With the fan roaring in the background, he tossed the food in the wok.
After pouring the saucy minced pork mixture over the noodles, he topped the bowls off with a sprinkle of chopped jade-green scallions.
Nudging aside the kitchen curtain with his head, he stepped out holding the bowls of noodles—just in time to see his skeletal neighbor snap the second man’s neck with his bare hands.
Meanwhile, his grandma was out like a light on the lounge chair. From fear or exhaustion, he had no clue.
Walnut: “………………”
The neighbor flung aside the body as if he were tossing away a piece of trash. Then he pulled out a wet wipe and began meticulously cleaning his fingers.
As he wiped away the last drop of blood from his fingertips, his figure suddenly transformed.
The skin wrapped over his short, skinny frame cascaded down like a robe being shed.
The lights in the restaurant short-circuited, plunging the room into darkness. By the time they flickered back on, someone entirely new was standing in the neighbor’s place.
He was astonishingly young, and his black hair was on the longer side, partially pulled back in a ponytail.
He wore an all-black suit that looked as expensive as it did pristine. It was likely tailor-made for him, the sleek lines emphasizing his tall, slender figure.
Throwing away the wet wipe, he pulled a pocket watch out of his pocket. The emerald embedded on the surface gleamed under the lights.
The blurry photograph that took up a full page of last week’s _The Rose Daily_ flashed through Walnut’s mind.
The sharp outline of the man’s profile in the sports car overlapped with the young man in front of him now.
His surname seemed to be Yu.
Only when Mr. Yu turned toward him did Walnut notice the tiny skeleton perched on his right shoulder.
A real skeleton!
No skin or flesh; only snow-white bones.
At first glance, it seemed to belong to a small cat or dog.
With a _mew_ , the little skeleton leaped to the ground with a series of soft clicks and clacks.
After extending its claws in a long stretch, it lowered its head and nosed at the two bodies.
A few seconds later, wet slurping noises filled the air.
The two bodies shriveled instantly, leaving nothing but a thin layer of skin and clothes.
Walnut’s eyes rolled back in his head as he slowly slid to the floor.
Just before he fainted for good, something seemed to alert Mr. Yu, and he turned toward him, glancing at one of the mirrors in the restaurant. “Is there a camera behind this mirror?”
“No,” Walnut answered.
Then his head slumped to the side, and he passed out.
The little skeleton also tilted its head in confusion. “?”
Mr. Yu headed straight for the mirror.
He was so tall that when he stared at the mirror from up close, it felt as if he were looking down at someone from above.
“There isn’t?” He scanned the sides of the mirror suspiciously before his gaze eventually settled on the center again.
He studied that spot for a good while. Finally, he said expressionlessly, “Then why do I sense someone watching me?”
***
After the screen briefly went dark, the game lobby’s world chat flew by at lightning speed. Even though there were still over three minutes before the game officially launched, the chat was already buzzing with activity.
Bright blue lines of text materialized one after another.
Somehow, it created the visual equivalent of many voices chattering at once.
— What an incredible character teaser! What a gorgeous face!
— What an incredible character teaser! What a gorgeous face!
…
The same copypasta filled the screen, interspersed with a few other comments.
— This ** game suddenly has art designers again? Then those ugly clowns jumping around in the earlier promo videos were there to…?
— To pick a fight with your dog-eyes.
— I support the game artists riding the game designers to work from now on.
— Can prob ride the programmers too.
— I need to know this character’s full name within the next ten seconds!
— Didn’t it already say in the promo? The Painted Skin: Yu Qing.
— The Painted Skin? No wonder he could change his appearance in a heartbeat.
— If we collectively start crashing out now, can we convince the developers to open the servers early?
— No. There are still three minutes left.
— How do these 3 mins feel so long!!
— How do these 2m56s feel so long!!
— How do these 2m41s feel so long!!
…
— The devs are probably crying from joy seeing you all so worked up.
— You think I’m this excited because of the devs? No. It’s for the NPCs’ faces.
— It’s for the money.
…
This was a full-dive virtual reality game called _Rose Island._
It was set in a world that blended Chinese cyberpunk with folklore-inspired fantasy. Neon skyscrapers could appear in the same frame alongside opera stages adorned with lanterns; vibrant supercars could appear on the same river bank alongside traditional black-awning boats.
The setting was chaotic, the aesthetics average.
The game was also saturated with all sorts of superstitious elements. Small, peculiar temples could be found throughout, tucked in every street and alley, each worshiping a different deity.
From the character teasers alone, over ten deities had already been revealed—the Night Wanderer, the Enchantress of Good Fortune, the Ghost of Impermanence, the Painted Skin, and so on. One teaser had come out every week, the schedule unexpectedly drawn out, with the last one releasing minutes before the game’s launch.
It made one deeply question the developers’ production capabilities.
Not to mention, only a section of the full map was explorable on release.
The rest was covered in a hazy fog.
There was really only one reason the game had broken so many records before it had even officially launched.
The game was highly interconnected with reality.
As long as you could successfully leave an instance with it alive, anything you obtained in the game—whether through quests, achievements, or simply by chancing upon it—could be exchanged on a pro-rata basis for real-life currency.
To put it plainly: you could actually make money from playing this game.
With the mindset of “well, since I’m already here…,” countless players waited for the game to launch. At the very least, they wanted to check it out and see how exactly they could earn some dough.
And so, that was how this scene came about, with tens of millions gathered in the lobby, counting down until the servers opened.
*
— How do these 13 seconds feel so long!!
Bright blue words continued to float across the chat as the countdown entered its final stages.
…
— 3
— 2
— 1
The screen went black for all the many players in the lobby.
Then a new line of text appeared before their eyes.
_Welcome to Rose Island._
_Here, faith runs rampant, and bewilderment amok._
_It seems unwise to be alone; more often than not, those without divine protection end up dead._
_Before stepping foot inside, please select the deity you would like to worship._
* * *
**Yan:** Hi I’m just gonna drop this here and go…
Against my better judgment and looming deadlines I speed-translated this, because I just got too excited about Musuli’s new novel >_< It was very fun to translate!!! But I won’t be continuing, as I simply don’t have the time right now :’) I haven’t read through this either so apologies for any mistakes.
I completely made up the deity names, so don’t take them too seriously. Some of them are from Chinese folklore (night wandering god, wuchang / ghost of impermanence, painted skin) but I have no idea who 禄姑 (enchantress of good fortune) is supposed to refer to. And I’m just messing around with the slang + comments, no brain cells left haha
Big fan of the glimpses of Yu Qing (shou) and Mi Xiaobai (gong) we’ve gotten so far~ and very curious to know who they really are!!
Hopefully a human tler will pick this up 🙂 please support musuli on jjwxc if this chapter intrigues you!
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