Beginning with the Ubume Bird-Chapter 544 - 40 Dorothy Runs Out of Ideas

"At your service, madam."

As he spoke, Minced Meat bit the harmonica in his mouth, and in the candlelight, his diminutive shadow grotesquely stretched, brandishing claws and fangs. From beneath the wheelchair, mechanical arms unfolded silently, a shotgun, and a meat-covered chainsaw too, their bizarre shapes revealing a sense of darkness and ferocity.

"Awooo~"

Several wolf howls sounded in the middle of the night.

Minced Meat, lacking limbs, operated the strange wheelchair solely with his tongue and teeth. The wheels crushed over the ancient floorboards, and as the wheelchair turned a corner, Jane’s room came into view.

The yellow door knob rattled slightly, and the door opened silently. Minced Meat clenched the control handle in his mouth, curled up in his narrow wheelchair, his eyes gleaming with bloodlust.

There was a vague human shape on the bed, and the wheelchair’s mechanical arms, with two-fingered hands, shoveled onto the bed, the chainsaw roaring to life. It slashed horizontally across the duvet.

Blood soaked through the duvet cover, and a human head fell to the floor with a thud; it was that sinister old man known as "Bones Chopper."

Thud!

The corpse of "Skinning" also fell from the ceiling.

Minced Meat looked up, eyes widened in disbelief. Suddenly, the sound of steam erupted, a lithe silver figure descended from above, and a dense white steam burst into a giant net.

Gunshots erupted in the inn all at once.

As the gunfire began, the landlady with two heads opened her eyes wide.

The daytime head of the landlady screamed sharply, "Damn it, what are you doing now?"

The nighttime head of the landlady retorted strongly, "Your damned minions are really incompetent, they’ve made a complete mess of things."

After speaking, she fiercely pulled out a double-barreled hunting shotgun and was about to leave, "I’ll handle it myself."

But the other head showed utter terror, "Where are you taking my body? Stop right now."

However, before she could take a few steps, a gunshot sounded with a bang, and the head full of fear and resistance was blown open with a large hole. The other head, fierce in complexion, first froze, then paled drastically, and collapsed to the floor with a thud.

Li Yan walked in from outside, tucking his revolver back into his pocket.

Just then, an intense explosion came from Jane’s room.

The wall plaster was blasted away, leaving a large hole; "Minced Meat" and his murderous wheelchair were blown into pieces by a grenade. After a while, the control handle that resembled a "harmonica," which "Minced Meat" had held in his mouth, finally clattered to the ground.

"Your epic is rather dull, but your driving skills are not bad."

Filled with murderous aura, Jane stepped out of the large hole in the wall and charged toward the landlady’s room, only to see Li Yan and the landlady below him, gasping for air.

"Well done, I’m beginning to think you’re somewhat reliable."

"I hope there’s still room for growth."

Li Yan shrugged his shoulders.

Dressed in battle gear, Jane gave Li Yan a thumbs-up and then aimed the hot barrel of the grenade launcher at the innkeeper.

"Why did you attack us?"

The landlady, limp but still defiant, bellowed, "You want to enter Giant Lake; it’s a dead end anyway, so you might as well use the money on you to help us out. Oh, heavens, why are there so many fools who don’t know they’re courting death in this world."

Jane narrowed her eyes, her murderous intent growing stronger. She was not one to spare the rod, having left no bandits or thieves alive along the way.

The only living head of the landlady realized Jane’s intent to kill and lost her earlier fierceness, "Don’t, don’t kill me, I’ve saved quite a bit of money over the years, and I have my husband’s collection of steam devices, I can give them all to you, spare my life. They are all in the basement, I can take you there."

"Let me be frank, you don’t have much longer to live."

Li Yan shrugged his shoulders again.

Only then did the landlady realize that the death of her other head was also quietly consuming her life. Desperate, she let out a curse, vile beyond words, but it wasn’t long before her curses weakened, and she died of her grave injuries.

Li Yan narrowed his eyes and saw two figures, one following the other, both looking alike and serene in their pale golden hues, floating above the dead bodies. They were the twin sisters. Then, Li Yan turned her head again and saw another golden figure rising into the sky from the remains of "Minced Meat," who should have been killed.

Li Yan’s thoughts raced as she tried to activate "Blood Dip."

"Yan Fu moving about, please take note, you had once promised to adhere to the Historian’s three rules. Should you rashly kill a fairy-tale character, the player in reality will die instantly, you will be forced to withdraw from the fairy-tale world, and the ’Giant Lake’ event of Yan Fu will be declared a failure. The story will unfold according to the will of the Historian: Jane will ultimately kill Cyclops, gaining fame and honor, and become a glorious addition to the movement of replacing magic creatures with steam. The steam revolution will forge ahead vigorously."

Upon hearing this, Li Yan stopped attempting to use the power.

Yet Jane seemed as if she didn’t see these golden souls at all as she started rummaging through the place in search of something.

"Your Highness?"

Li Yan inquired.

"She said before she died that her savings and steam equipment are in the basement. To be honest, the design of Minced Meat’s murder wheelchair was quite ingenious. I’m looking for the key."

Li Yan’s eyes flickered and she picked up a blood-stained keychain from under a corpse, showing it to Jane with a flourish, "I think you might need this?"

"Thank you."

Jane didn’t hesitate to take the keys from Li Yan’s hand and clomped down the stairs, urging Li Yan to follow her down.

"The scope of your fairy-tale stories is really something."

Li Yan cast one last glance at the corpse of the two-headed landlady lying in the blood, her eyes still open in death, before heading downstairs with Jane.

In the basement, Jane found bags of jewels and gold, as well as boxes of banknotes. However, neither Li Yan nor Jane seemed too interested in them.

The basement also displayed many expensive steam devices, apparently the inventory the inn hadn’t yet managed to sell. Jane was not particularly interested either; after all, she had her six Tri-Orb Device-powered "Unicorn" contraptions and looked down on these ordinary items, selecting only a few parts that could serve as spares for her "Unicorn." Li Yan, on the other hand, was quite interested in dismantling these to enhance her own mastery of magic mechanics.

What finally drew Jane’s attention was a nearly three-meter-long, entirely azure blue, roughly metallic crossbow.

[Giant Squid Hunting Crossbow]

Category: Weapon

Quality: ???

The venom smeared on it came from some unknown terrifying creature from the deep-sea trenches, having hunted countless powerful monsters before.

Note: No matter how many times Dorothy’s fairy-tale story has been adapted, the Red Maiden’s later years would definitely regress into a staunch anti-steam activist, and Princess Jane would certainly use the Hunting Crossbow to kill Cyclops. Sometimes, I do not quite understand the insistence on these details by Dorothy. What is it for exactly? — A well-known critic from Munich

Jane’s eyes lit up upon seeing the crossbow; she circled it several times, unable to conceal her excitement.

"With this, I am even more confident of victory."

Thereupon, the fourth act of Giant Lake came to a close.

Lights suddenly brightened, the red curtain was pulled down, and the two-headed landlady, the dwarf, the hunchbacked old man, and even Wandering Poet Thalia who opened the scene, all took their bows and thanked the audience.

Li Yan awoke from the fantasy of the fairy tale, surrounded by bursts of applause, but it could not hide the great skepticism in the audience. Many were puzzled as to why Dorothy insisted on giving so much screen time to a Chinese person. Others questioned the plot’s thinness, which did not seem like Dorothy’s style at all.

This storyline was actually closer to the original version of Giant Lake: Steam Princess encounters a cannibal inn and finally kills the inn’s criminal, then with the help of the "Hunting Crossbow," she successfully defeats Cyclops. The only difference is that Dorothy replaced the original’s devoted, gentle and brave prince with the slick-talking (in some people’s opinion) Chinese apprentice from the clock shop.

The original, in an era when princes saved princesses, was considered quite innovative, and over the years, Dorothy had given the story many new interpretations.

For example, she adapted the two-headed innkeeper to be a character who lost her husband and child to dust diseases, hence her hatred for steam machinery, as a critique against factory owners who polluted at will. Another time, answering to some slogans, Dorothy changed the original story’s black-skinned, skin-flaying dwarf into an honest and simple-minded strong man who ultimately joined Steam Princess’ camp and heroically sacrificed himself in the fight against Cyclops, earning praise from countless people of color.

But this time...

Not only did the passionate blacksmith’s son and the elegant nobleman become extras, but the cannibal inn segment with the most dramatic tension was also "brutally" handled, and many veteran viewers, who thought they knew Dorothy’s tricks, already felt they could see where the story was going.

The Chinese apprentice from the clock shop would sacrifice himself in the fight against Cyclops, and a grief-stricken Jane would then kill Cyclops.

Totally uninspired.

Had Dorothy run out of ideas?