Busby’s Chair was the favorite chair of Tom Busby, who was hanged for murder in 1702. Since his death, everyone who sat on this chair would die in bizarre accidents. Therefore, it soon became known as the “Chair of Death.”
In 280 years, as many as 61 people had died after sitting on this chair. Most of them died within a few minutes to a few hours afterward. The longest was only a few days.
This was a chair with a death curse on it. There were those who didn’t believe in it and laughed at it, but when they deliberately sat on the chair to test it, they would all die without exceptions.
The real chair was preserved at the Yorkshire Village Museum in the United Kingdom, but this copy in the Pure White Realm was even more terrifying.
Him guiding her toward this chair, did he want her to sit on it?
Wang Que’s mind went blank.
Xia Qiongyun was also panicked. Her delicate eyebrows rose up, and she reached over Wang Que’s empty chair to tap Cui Zuojing on the shoulder. “Is it really okay?”
“It’s okay, trust me.” Although Cui Zuojing said so, his sitting posture wasn’t as relaxed as it’d been before. He watched the stage intently. If there was any accident, he would immediately rush up to intercept.
Xia Qiongyun didn’t know Cui Zuojing very well, but because she recognized his strength, she chose to believe him and settled back into her seat.
“But what we’re going to show tonight is not how the chair works. After the performance, I will break the chair’s curse on you. We can’t bear to let this beautiful lady lie down in a grave, right?” the magician said jokingly. He gestured to Wang Que. “If you believe me, just sit on it. It may be a bit dangerous, but the next performance will be harder for you if you’re standing.”
Wang Que didn’t move.
She stared at the magician and realized that the other’s dark eyes had a hint of teasing. The magician stretched out his hand again, like a real gentleman, and invited her to sit on the chair.
Before entering the circus, Cui Zuojing and Fu Zhe had provided them with detailed introductions about the circus. The clown and the strange doctor were the leader’s left and right hand men. The magician was also someone who had always followed the circus. Among the three of them, the clown was the strongest. However, the remaining two had special abilities and so they mustn’t be underestimated.
She finally sat down obediently.
In all fairness, sitting here was like sitting in an ordinary chair. She felt even a little embarrassed, particularly with all her sense amplified by the fanatical audience, the music, and the lights. This combination increased her fear and anxiety, burdening her with psychological stress.
“Okay, this young lady is someone we’d temporarily selected from the audience. My next performance is to hypnotize her.”
Hypnosis?
With two mental developers like Dong Zheng and Fu Zhe in the team, and with Fu Zhe’s ability being related to this, Wang Que had some familiarity with hypnosis. The process of being hypnotized actually involved invading the person’s subconscious world, which could be very dangerous.
She let out a panicked sound and instinctively wanted to leave as soon as possible, but she couldn’t even move a single finger.
When the magician had invited her up to the stage earlier, he’d used this same method to control her body.
Wang Que took a deep breath, trying to calm her emotions. She silently called for the little guys with her Fungus Bell but received nearly no response at all. Even the transparent insects that would normally automatically appear was nowhere in sight.
Her ability was suppressed.
Countless pairs of eyes were watching her. They only saw a girl in a black and red dress sitting on Busby’s Chair, her face revealing an uncontrollable excitement. As a lucky candidate, she looked like she was simply waiting to cooperate with the magician on his performance.
Only Wang Que knew that she was trapped in this chair, unable to call for help or to move.
She saw Cui Zuojing, Dong Zheng, and Xia Qiongyun in the first row of the auditorium not far away. The three of them were paying very close attention to her, their bodies tense. But Victor’s figure had disappeared. He wasn’t far from Wang Que and had mixed in with the animal show.
The white cat had mixed perfectly in with the group of animals playing with colored balls. He didn’t know how to perform, but he could generate waves of screams just by constantly selling cuteness. Victor’s ears were erect like a dog, attentive to the smallest of movements. If anything happened, he would definitely reach her first.
The heart that was about to jump out of Wang Que’s throat suddenly relaxed.
What was there to be afraid of?
Believe in them. Believe that if anything happened, they would help her in time. Believe that they were capable of dealing with any unknown dangers that may befall her.
She gradually relaxed. The magician noticed her changes and smiled. “Very well. It seems that our beautiful lady is ready so everyone, please be quiet. Next, I will use the most mysterious technique to hypnotize her. Any unnecessary sounds may interrupt this process.”
The magician’s words seemed to have some kind of magic power. The music stopped, the animals froze, and the sounds in the audience gradually became quieter. Finally, there were no sounds at all.
“Okay, young lady, I’ll start now.”
The magician held out a slightly worn brass pocket watch. He pressed it lightly, and the watch cover popped open. The time was pointing to nine o’clock.
“Time can’t stand being abused. As long as you maintain a good relationship with it, it will do whatever you want. For example, assuming that it’s nine o’clock in the morning, it would be time for class to start. You only have to give time a hint, and the hour hand will turn the one and a half position in the blink of an eye.”
The magician’s voice echoed in her ears. The pocket watch fell, hanging between the magician’s fingers on a thin, copper chain. It swayed left and right in a pendulum, while the second hand loyally ticked on.
A hint?
Wang Que thought about the magician’s words, but she didn’t know that as she was thinking, an image had already formed in her mind. In an instant, the pocket watch seemed to have gone crazy and suddenly turned to the one and a half position.
“The Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse sang loudly at the Red Queen’s concert.”
The rabbits and squirrels in overalls hopped silently on the stage, surrounding Wang Que’s feet. Meanwhile, the magician’s voice continued to rang out, “They’d just finished singing the first carol when the Red Queen shouted, ‘He is wasting time! Off with his head!”
She didn’t know when her vision began to gradually blur. The auditorium, the stage, and the magician’s hands all turned into a large block of color, and only the gently swaying pocket watch remained, the hour hand still ticking down.
“From that moment on, time no longer obeyed her command and forever stopped at six o’clock…”
The hour hand reached the bottom position, and at this moment, all the hands on the clock stopped rotating.
Everything was frozen.
Forever…afternoon tea time.
Fall.
In the chaos, the sense of weightlessness that came with falling wasn’t so obvious. Wang Que landed softly on the grass. After a moment, she opened her eyes in confusion.
She sat up and looked around. She was lying on a grassy area with neatly trimmed shrubs. A majestic palace stood not far away, and in the shade of a green tree was an elegant white table. Two people were sitting before it, drinking afternoon tea.
The person at the head was a middle-aged woman in a red dress. She was fairly short, was slightly overweight, and was close to fifty years old. She was clean-faced and looked like the auntie that lived downstairs who talked too loudly. She couldn’t look more ordinary, and yet her temperament made her stand out as someone wholly uncommon.
A burly, nearly two meters tall man was by her side. Wang Que recognized his familiar figure and black suit at a glance. She’d met him as the clown for the first time in the mansion.
But now, there was no ridiculous makeup in his face, but he was too far away for her to see his face clearly. Wang Que gazed at them vigilantly for a while. Realizing that the two of them couldn’t see her, she finally stood up and patted the grass clippings from her skirt. Then she walked over to them step by step.
If she thought about it, since she’d been hypnotized by the magician, this should be nothing more than an illusion.
When she got close enough, she realized that on the table between them was a thick book with a black cover.
The cover of the book had no words and only showed the pattern of an ancient formation. The texture of the granular animal skin cover could be seen with the naked eye. Wang Que raised her eyes and saw the clown barefaced for the first time.
….A little handsome.
It was the kind of handsomeness that didn’t come from the shape of his eyebrows or his facial features. To be precise, his attractiveness lay in the condense and sharp blade-like aura he emitted, making his rather ordinary eyebrows slash like a sharp blade and giving him a breath-taking quality.
Wang Que had seen this type of similar aura in Cui Zuojing’s eyes.
“Has that thing fallen?” the woman asked, putting down the teacup in her hand.
“The Legion chased it all the way to the Arrow of Revival. Just as it was about to be caught, someone summoned it and they lost its trace for a while,” the clown who wasn’t yet a clown replied. “After that, we followed its fluctuations and chased after it. But it seemed to have tricked the girl who’d summoned it, occupied her body, and escaped.”
“Continue to chase. Take the box with you. Once it’s caught, imprison it within and never let it out again. Block all areas where it appeared, use the box to separate the infected from the uninfected, then let Lina enter and treat all of the infected,” she spoke with unexpected assurance. Now she no longer seemed like an auntie to Wang Que. The woman thought about it and pushed the book in her hand toward the clown. “Take the Dead Sea Scrolls with you. If you encounter any difficulties and have an emergency, you don’t have to come to me and instead follow it’s prophetic words.”
The clown took the thick book and nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
The moment he touched the book, the ancient formation on the cover began to glow faintly.
Your Majesty?
Before Wang Que could think more about it, she heard a girl say from behind her, “Oh, it’s finally here.”
Wang Que turned her head and saw Luo Yan, whom she hadn’t seen in a long time, standing behind her with a loose braid hanging down her chest. She smiled at Wang Que. “That’s right. She’s the former Queen.”
The former Queen?
Wang Que looked again but found that the round table under the shade of the tree had disappeared, leaving her and Luo Yan alone in the entire garden.
Luo Yan pulled out a checkered tablecloth from out of thin air, spread it on the grass, sat on it, and patted the empty spot next to her.
Wang Que sat next to her.
“How have things been going for you?”
“Very good.” Although this was only the second time Wang Que had met Luo Yan, the atmosphere between them was as if they’d known each other for a long time.
“I’m relieved to hear you say that.” Luo Yan bent her knee, put one arm on it, and cupped her cheek in her hand. Looking at the spire of the gorgeous palace in the distance, she let out a long sigh but didn’t say anything.
Wang Que followed her gaze, still mulling over the words she’d heard earlier. The Arrow of Revival was a special area in the Pure White Realm, and the former Queen and the clown seemed to be hunting for something that had escaped.
It seemed that a box was artificially made, and the Dead Sea Scrolls that the former Queen had given the clown must carry some secrets.
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Thank you for the chapters~
Ooh, this is getting interesting. Was the thing they were chasing Murphy? But why did the clown direct Dong Zheng to free her if she was dangerous? What significance do the Dead Sea Scrolls have? And why is the magician showing all this to Wang Que? I was nervous when she was chosen, but there seems to be a reason at least~ It’s so sweet how everyone mobilizes to protect her and the way Wang Que senses it and calms down >w< I hope the chair won’t affect her.
Maybe the clown is planning to use Murphy against the new Queen.
Yup I think so too. I remember them mentioning before that Murphy’s issue gave the clown an idea of how to deal with Kether!
Ohhhhhh interesting.. I guess the people with the Slayer Ability really have that attractiveness around them, hehe.