Lord of The Mysterious Realms - Chapter 4: Wooden Bowl

“Do we need to drink it all?”

His probing question to black robed man went unanswered, while Barnard wrote down a paragraph.

Compared to those that preceded it, this paragraph written in the space between the advertisements for maids and detective recruitment was obviously more scribbled.

“No,the liquid in some of the bowls is definitely problematic. To drink it all would be sending us to our death. Past experience has taught us that [Mysterious Realm],although weird and dangerous is rarely a challenge that will lead to certain death.”

He hesitated for a moment and wrote down another paragraph, “Maybe this is just a test of our courage, as long as we drink a certain number of bowls within the time limit.”

Is that so? It was only a guess after all, the time wasted after the two came in was not short although most of it was Jenkins asking questions.

Barnard put down Jenkins’ pen, carefully snapped the cap off and pinned it to the newspaper, then without a word picked up another golden bowl. Tilting his head, he drank it all, and for the first time a look of surprise appeared on his face.

“Luck is very good.”

He put down the bowl and wrote quickly in the newspaper, “I got a new ability.”

“Will it help to solve the current situation?”

Jenkins asked hopefully.

Barnard’s excited expression immediately dimmed down as he drew back the paper again, “No.”

“Should I not interrupt his excitement?”

Jenkins thought silently as the middle-aged man beside him once again returned to a state of tense silence.

Although the silence was forced.

Once again it was Jenkins’ turn and now there was only 7 of the 10 bowls left to choose from.

He tried to judge the difference between each bowl by sight, but unfortunately they were exactly the same.

We must know that in this era there is no large-scale electronically mechanized assembly line like the one Foxconn has, everything is made by flesh and blood, so theoretically speaking it is absolutely impossible for two identical bowls to appear.

(TN: Foxconn is a Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturer.It’s best known for making iPhones and other Apple devices.)

“Is it a supernatural creation?”

Jenkins can only guess, he knows very little about these things and the available information is not enough to enable him to determine the situation at hand.

He hesitantly stretched out his hand again while at the same time silently calculated in his head .

“Ten bowls, now one curse, one reward and one bowl of clear water, if the above is the correct probability, then the situation I will face is not the worst. No, the sample is too small, and this situation should be calculated according to the worst case scenario, that is,only one reward and less than three bowls of clear water ……”

“Am I dead?”

He had mixed thoughts in his mind. Revolving lanterns (TN:Aka flashbacks) appeared once more, Jenkins ignored them, licked his lips,casually picked up the bowl next to the candle and drank from it .

It is the second time he is drinking the liquid, so in the process of “drinking”, he also finally had the mind to notice the sense of touch in addition to taste.

“This bowl, why does it feel like it is made of wood ?”

While thinking about this, Jenkins put down the bowl.He was still alive and seemingly unharmed.

“It’s sour and tastes like expired black tea.”

He explained to the nervous man beside him, who breathed a sigh of relief.

No……it’s not that nothing had happened, something seemed to appear next to the three dots of light in front of him. Jenkins concentrated on the air in front of him and finally realized that it was a bubble.

At the same time, he also noticed that there were originally three bubbles in his vision but he had only noticed them just now.

Now Jenkins had a total of three points of light and four bubbles.

He hesitated for a moment, because he didn’t know whether this was a good or bad thing, before asking Barnard who was on the side about the situation in front of him. Of course, he did not mention the number of bubbles that originally exist.

Barnard showed an expression of surprise for a moment, then it changed back into depression.

“Nothing, this is a very good thing.” He slowly wrote, “You got lucky, go out and talk about it ……”

One person and one bowl, two rounds had passed, but the black-robed man still had no intention of letting them go.

“How the hell are we going to get out?”

Jenkins finally couldn’t help but open his mouth to the person across the table, although it was clear in his mind that this idea was way too risky but he had to do it.

There was no response, there was only terrible silence.

Barnard tugged on Jenkins’ dusty and sweaty sleeve and shook his head at him.

Once again, a steely expression appeared on Barnard’s face, and instead of writing another word, he picked up the bowl in front of him and drank again .

After a pause of two or three seconds, he shook his head and wrote down the word “clear water”.

Jenkins did not know whether he should laugh or cry. His expression must be very ugly at the moment, the black-robed man’s silence means he wants them to continue drinking, but after finishing half of 10 bowls only one “mine” was stepped on.

No matter what you think about it , you can understand that in the original 10 bowls a bad outcome should be a majority, or Barnard would not have used “weird” and “dangerous” these two words to describe the mysterious realms.So his remaining choices are more likely to be poison or curses.

But he had to choose, Barnard has bravely tried three times, Jenkins has no reason and no ability to force him to drink a bowl again. The black-robed man across from him was not a good match, and if they lifted the table at this point,he was afraid the two of them really wouldn’t see the sun tomorrow.

“My luck is too bad”

Even if Jenkins is not a person who loves to complain before transmigration, he can’t help but sigh at the situation in front of him that can be called desperate.

What Jenkins could think of, Barnard could also think of. But he did not know how he should comfort the young man in front of him, so he could only hold a pen and paper and be silent, and try to let him choose for himself.

“Think, is there any clue or I can only bet on luck?”

Jenkins yelled at himself in his mind, but it just seemed like how a clown acted before his death.

(TN: It means one’s foolish act before they got killed)

He hesitantly reached out his hand and tried a few times and withdrew it.

“Mr. Barnard, do you think there’s a difference between these 10 bowls?”

Turning his head, he asked, staring undaunted, his palms slippery from sweating.

“These ten bowls look exactly the same, they are all wooden bowls with messy lines painted on them. Williams [Mysterious Realm] will not force us to a dead end, so there must be a way out in the remaining bowls.”

The second half of his sentence was in good faith to comfort the desperate young man in front of him, but Jenkins didn’t notice it at all.

A wooden bowl?

He frowned at the hastily spelled out word in the newspaper and confirmed in his inherited memory that the word “wooden bowl” mostly refers to worn, chipped and worthless garbage” .