The Fallen's Guide - chapter 3

A few minutes later, the doctor came running back with Tang Nian’s phone, which had been kept at the nurse’s station. His cheeks were flushed. “You’re in such a hurry to get your phone-there must be something important!”

After the general anesthesia, Tang Nian’s only movable left hand was covered in IV tubes, stiff and weak.

She nodded and spoke softly, “Could you please unlock it for me?”

The doctor quickly held the phone up to her face to unlock it.

He eagerly asked, “And then?”

Tang Nian said, “Please open the first app on the main screen.”

The doctor swiped the screen, repeating, “First app on the main screen… what?”

His voice cut off abruptly, his expression turning to surprise. “You want to play a game?”

“Mm.”

Tang Nian was so calm, as if she hadn’t just come out of the intensive care unit.

With mixed feelings, the intern tapped the solid black square icon.

He heard the patient gently say, “Please tap to log in and enter the first map.”

“The first map?”

He tapped in, and a map appeared on the screen.

The map was divided into several regions. The first one was already lit up, outlined with vivid Wings, while the other maps were gray, showing as locked.

“This modeling is so realistic,” the intern exclaimed. “Is this a religious game?”

“Your ID is… Andrea? Does it mean something?”

Tang Nian replied, “It’s a system-generated name.”

“Hey! You have a Mission prompt.”

A prompt box popped up on the screen, and the intern read aloud, “The Temple is about to enter the seventh day. Please, Player, pull out the seventh nail and obtain a black Feather…”

Tang Nian said gently, “Please scan my face, thank you.”

“How could an Angel’s Feather be black?” he asked with interest. “Angel’s Wings are white, representing holiness and purity. Isn’t that common sense?”

He tapped the map, aiming the phone at Tang Nian’s face.

With a beep, the phone successfully scanned her face.

A sudden sense of weightlessness hit.

The intern’s chatter stretched and slowed in Tang Nian’s ears, like a broken radio.

Fragmented, blurry.

“Only a Demon’s Wings are black…”

The smell of disinfectant, the ticking of machines, footsteps and noise from the corridor-all disappeared.

Like watercolors being blended apart.

The hospital bed beneath her gradually vanished. Tang Nian fell from the darkness, her body, still suffering from illness, unable to adapt to standing, her ankle giving way as she collapsed.

Pale, slender arms reached out from the darkness, supporting her body.

Tang Nian was pulled into a dry but not warm embrace.

“You’re finally here.”

A voice as clear and moving as spring water sounded in her ear, without any fluctuation.

But for a moment, she couldn’t open her eyes.

It was too comfortable.

Her thoughts settled, and she felt soft Feathers brush across her eyelids.

“Rest.”

A heavy drowsiness swept over her.

Accompanied by gentle words, Tang Nian’s consciousness faded, and for the first time, she entered sleep within the game.

……

The game was about to enter the seventh day.

Tang Nian’s current Mission was to pull out the last nail and turn the Angel’s Wings black.

The main Mission of the Lost Temple stage was the Seven Deadly Sins. So far, Tang Nian had completed six days of Missions, each nail representing one sin.

The first day was Wrath.

Tang Nian, who had trespassed into the Sanctuary, met the extremely dangerous Angel for the first time-earthquakes, shattered rocks, magma. She carried the Angel, whose Wings had been torn, out from the entrance of hell.
The second day was Greed.

That day, the Temple was covered with gold, silver, and jewels, as if a treasure chest had been overturned. The Angel calmly told her that these were offerings from Believers.

But Tang Nian was the only Player in this Temple-where did these Believers come from?

The third day was Sloth.

The Angel leaned against the Idol that punished him, languid and lazy. Tang Nian carefully tried to speak with him, but he only lifted his eyes, showing a half-smile, half-mockery.

That was the first time Tang Nian touched the Angel.

The fourth time was Envy.

The strange Angel did not allow Tang Nian’s gaze to leave him, because there were too many other Angel Sculptures in the Temple, and even a stone Dragon guarding the Temple. He would not allow Tang Nian to look at anything else.

In the end, he gently ordered Tang Nian to close her eyes.

She was not allowed to look at anything.

The fifth day was Lust.

That time, the Angel covered her eyes.

Tang Nian vaguely heard unusual sounds. He trembled as he told her to leave, a series of cold, damp kisses fell on her cheeks, then he painfully pushed her away, keeping her from the high platform.

In the darkness, Tang Nian heard suppressed, trembling breaths.

The Angel’s pride and sanctity would not allow his dignity to be violated, even when trapped.

When the vines were pulled away from her eyes, Tang Nian saw a scene that felt blasphemous with just a glance.

The Angel leaned against the stone tablet, his eyes vacant, lips slightly parted and wet red, the corners of his eyes and brows misted with moisture, as if mimicking human breathing, his chest rising and falling in chaotic, arrhythmic waves.

Moonlight-like long hair clung to his cheeks, his collarbone, and spread beneath him.

Behind him were Wings stained with rust.

To prevent himself from acting indecently under the influence of Original Sin, he had pierced himself with Chains, fixing himself to the cross.

Tang Nian looked down and saw a bite mark on her wrist. When the Angel covered her eyes, he could not help but bite her.

The sixth day was the one she had just experienced-Pride.

It seemed Tang Nian’s progress was smooth, but the reality was quite the opposite.

It took her more than seven months to complete these six days in the game.

In the Angel’s erased memories, Tang Nian had tried to touch him 37 times, made him hate God 50 times, and tried to please him 22 times.

She died beneath his Wings 108 times.

In over a hundred attempts, the Six-Winged Angel was extremely dangerous; any accident could instantly take her life.

A mortal body is fragile.

The vast chasm between God and man doomed him to be so unattainable; for a human hand to touch an Angel was blasphemy and must be punished.

Through countless deaths and reloads, Tang Nian gained experience through pain, avoiding the 108 death triggers, and under the Angel’s cold gaze, pretended to be a devout admirer.

Finally, on the day of Sloth, she trembled as she embraced the Angel.

Sloth appeared especially ambiguous on him.

The Angel reclined on thorns, his lashes drooping in feigned sleep, allowing the tiny, ant-like human to reach out and hold him, like a lazy Persian cat cradled in someone’s arms.

He did not yet know that from that day on, Tang Nian would drag him step by step into the abyss.

The resident doctor was right-the Angel’s Feathers are white.

The Demon’s Wings are black.

But Tang Nian’s Mission was never to save him.

It was to make him fall.