The Trial Game of Life

Paying no mind to the dust on his body, Tang Cuo immediately inspected the tomb that exploded. 

Unsurprisingly, there was no corpse in the coffin, but a blue light ball was quietly floating above the tomb.

In this Cemetery of Souls, naturally, the ones that were buried must be souls.

Did Yong Ye CIty think that the colour of a human soul was blue? Or did everyone’s soul have a different colour?

Tang Cuo reached out his hand to probe the light ball, and as soon as he came into contact with it, the light was automatically sucked into his body. Following that, waves of memories and emotions that came from the owner of this light ball crashed into his mind.

This was a teenager of high-school age. Tang Cuo had roughly learnt about his life upon checking his cell phone tombstone. The teenager lived quite a worry-free life, but there was one issue, which was his indulgence in watching live streamers. After his parents found out that he tipped the streamers with such large amounts of money, he was badly scolded. The last thing the phone showed was a gamer’s live stream that the teenager was sneakily watching, with an unsent comment still lingering in the input box.

It wrote ‘6666666666666’In Chinese, the number 6 [liu] is homophonous with 溜, which is a gaming slang that means ‘slick/very smooth’. People would usually put ‘666’ in the chat when they see a gamer show an impressive skill.. 

This soul was light blue in colour, but there was also a vague shade of grey. It wasn’t totally transparent, but it gave Tang Cuo a refreshing feeling upon looking at it. Tang Cuo then opened the Character panel to view his attributes —

[Character]

No. K27216: Tang Cuo

Character points: 10 

Strength: 125

Intelligence: 66

Charm: 35

Rating: A

HP: 85

Soul Instability Index: 3

[Survival is not easy, please never stop trying.]

His Intelligence points had increased a bit.

What was this Soul Instability Index? Was it because his soul absorbed another person’s soul, which caused his own soul to become unstable? Tang Cuo thought about it, closed his eyes and carefully felt the memories and emotions brought to him by the light ball.

If one’s spirit was a fragment of an ocean, then the owner of the light ball was emerging from Tang Cuo’s ocean at this moment, shouting loudly that he wanted to watch the live stream and play the game.

This teenager was a rebellious one, for his shouts started sending out waves and caused Tang Cuo’s calm spirit to become slightly turbulent. The impact was small, but it didn’t seem like a good sign either.

Tang Cuo remained expressionless and tried to manipulate the fragment of ocean that belonged to him. He tried several times and found that he really could influence the flow of this ocean. Thereafter, he spent another ten minutes condensing the seawater in a huge hand, which then slammed down and pressed the screaming head of the teenager back into the ocean.

As the teenager struggled and wanted to rise again, Tang Cuo smacked him down with the huge hand once more.

The world then became completely quiet.

Looking at the Character panel again, his Soul Instability Index fell back to ‘0’. The strike was very simple and gave him no difficulty at all, and he even got Intelligence points without spending any effort.

Perhaps the owner of this soul was too weak, otherwise, if the tombstone exploded and caused him only so little damage while he could even earn points, there would be no need to solve the case; he just had to wait for every single phone screen to explode — Tang Cuo thought so.

Xiao Tong, who was sitting in the monitoring room drinking coffee and silently watching Tang Cuo, couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows slightly. He stared at Tang Cuo’s thoughtful face. The more he looked, the more intrigued he felt.

All Zone G dungeons actually lay right inside the zone. Since no one left this zone, Xiao Tong knew exactly what was happening in each dungeon. At this moment, the situations at the four gates were clearly shown on the monitors in front of him. He slightly lifted his hand, and the screen that showed Tang Cuo’s gate was zoomed in closely.

Tang Cuo patted the dust on his body, and as though nothing really bothered him, he simply turned to look at the next cell phone tombstone.

Xiao Tong tapped the cup with his fingers and said: “His soul seems extraordinarily strong. Such an attack doesn’t make him feel pain at all. He’s even stronger than Jin Cheng at the beginning.”

There was obviously no other person in the room, but he seemed to be talking to someone. After a few seconds, a crow appeared on the bookshelf behind him, which spoke as it shook his feathers: “You seem to be very interested in K27216. You’ve specially brought him to a separate gate. Do want to prove that your eyes are better than the great Mr. Crow?”

Xiao Tong turned his chair and leisurely gazed at Mr. Crow, then he said: “If he came here with a negative score, you should’ve sent him to Zone G since the very beginning.”

“This warden and your horrible, horrible mood swings! Haven’t you already taken a fancy to K26404? You’re too greedy, the great Mr. Crow won’t allow you to do this!”

“But you don’t like people on your Blacklist anyway, no? “

Mr. Crow looked as though he was being choked at the neck. Although no one could tell whether his face had gone red since he was entirely black, he was certainly angry. However, after rolling his eyes for one round, he said triumphantly: “But he’s together with G79081, and 79081 rejected you before, so he wouldn’t agree with you. The relationship called ‘love’ that humans talk about is like a sealed piece of equipment, you won’t ever be able to lay a finger on it, hmm.”

Xiao Tong: “You even know about humans’ ‘love’?”

Mr. Crow proudly puffed out his chest: “Mr. Crow is omniscient and omnipotent.”

Xiao Tong put down the coffee cup and turned back to look at Tang Cuo. He squinted for a moment, then shook his head regretfully: “It’s a pity. Compared with following Jin Cheng, he’s more suitable to stay here and become a great warden.”

“Two years ago, you said the same thing to 79081.”

“Heh.”

Mr. Crow seemed to have found pleasure from teasing Xiao Tong. He cleared his throat and stomped on the bookshelf with his wings on his back like an old man: “You still have another year left. Within this year, you can slowly find your successor, and the kind-hearted Mr. Crow will help you too. Don’t you still have 26404? Could it be that 26404 also rejected you, heh?”

Xiao Tong cast him a cold glance, but Mr. Crow turned around and raised his head high, pretending that he hadn’t seen anything. He remained completely silent.

A long time later, Xiao Tong still didn’t say another word. His expression seemed like a smile that didn’t carry any smiling intent. One moment, a spark of cold light flashed in those eyes, then the next moment, they looked as deep as a dark night, gloomy and unpredictable at the same time.

Watching him, Mr. Crow finally couldn’t help asking: “Why do you have to leave? “

Xiao Tong suddenly smiled: “Because the time is up.”

Mr. Crow tilted his head: “Even if the time is up, you can still stay. You are Yong Ye City’s warden. Unless this city forces you, who else could make you leave? Besides, what is good about reincarnation? Humans are stupid, ignorant and hopelessly romantic, and the mortal realm isn’t a good place to come back to. Maybe you’ll die again after twenty or thirty years, hey, you’ll meet me again then! “

But you won’t remember anything anymore, so I can torture you as much as I want! 

Thinking about this, Mr. Crow felt that ​​letting Xiao Tong go to reincarnation wasn’t quite a bad idea, or in fact, it was fantastic. But he was worried that if the Xiao Tong that came back later wasn’t the current Xiao Tong but someone who was weak and uninteresting, that would be very boring.

Human was really an unpredictable species.

“Have you never thought about going to the mortal realm to take a look?” Xiao Tong asked back.

“The mortal realm?” “Mr. Crow couldn’t help but glance at the four monitoring screens, as if he didn’t understand why Xiao Tong asked him that question: “It doesn’t look good at all, and it’s ugly and boring. “

At the end, he became happy again: “I still have to wait here for him to come back. One day, he’ll come back.”

By ‘he’, Xiao Tong knew Mr. Crow was referring to ‘God’. In the legend, he created Yong Ye City, and he was God in the [Song of God, Lambs and Crow]. But where had he gone to?

How long had it been since God left the mortal realm and Yong Ye City? 

At least there was no sign of him in this world.

As Xiao Tong was thinking about it, he suddenly heard Mr. Crow’s delightful exclamation while gazing at the monitor: “Look at 26404, this little cutie, this is the most suitable person to take over the position of the warden!” 

In the mental hospital, a massacre had already begun.

Zheng Yingying wandered alone in the corridor, and the wind blowing in from the broken window blew her cloak, revealing her extremely thin body under the clothes. Her ankles were so delicate they looked like they could break any time now.

She didn’t seem very strong, but her cloak gave out a creepy feeling.

“The clever Mr. Crow thought you would like 27216 and 79081 more. It turns out that you didn’t give [Infinite Forms] to them, but to 26404.” Mr. Crow thought that he himself was incredibly smart. He truly liked 26404 only because she was more ruthless than Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo, and she possessed a remarkable desire for survival, one that was too strong to be ignored. Such a person made people wonder what she would end up as in the end.

But compared to Jin Cheng, her own strength was still very weak.

[Infinite Forms] referred to the red cloak, which had a certain camouflage effect and extremely high defence capability. Among all the defensive equipment in Yong Ye City, it must rank in the top ten.

“I made a bet with her.” Xiao Tong smiled, sitting elegantly in the armchair with his legs crossed and his hands propped against his chin: “She wants to survive, and she wants to hold onto life by herself, by whatever means necessary. She isn’t willing to remain in Zone G, so I let her out. Within three days, no matter what method is used, as long as she can get 100 points, I’ll give her [Infinite Forms].”

“When did the formidable warden start doing charity? You humans call this ‘charity’, right? Right?” The crow hopped around the bookshelf, looking very curious.

A hundred points in three days could earn her the magical cloak [Infinite Forms]. In Mr. Crow’s viewpoint, this was equivalent to doing charity. What was more, Zheng Yingying still had the [Nameless Dagger]. With [Infinite Forms] and the [Nameless Dagger], coupled with Zheng Yingying’s mind, what kind of monster would be created?

But Mr. Crow also guessed that Zheng Yingying must be barely holding onto her life when she left Zone G. Even if the warden was so generous to her, the others wouldn’t be. So Mr. Crow continued asking: “How did she get it done?”

Xiao Tong just smiled mysteriously and said: “At the right time, in the right place, with the right person.”

At that time, all the players’ attention was on the special dungeon of Zone E, for they were busy joining in the race for the [Twelve Movements], and no one noticed such a lowly person like Zheng Yingying. Even Mr. Crow, who was known to have three thousands of him wandering around Yong Ye City, didn’t give her a look. This was the right time.

Jin Cheng single-handedly created the East Cross Street Safe Zone. Zheng Yingying, a new player who hadn’t gotten any blood on her hands, happened to be able to hide there. This was the right place.

She would have died because her points had all been taken away by Meng Yufei. She didn’t even have the money to buy the medicine, let alone earn 100 points. But she ran into Jiang He before she left Zone G. This was the right person.

Jiang He took her out of Zone G. The man really stuck to the motto of ‘if one had to help someone, help him till the end’. He not only gave her a flask of potion but also showed her a way to earn points — K from the Ruby Bar.

Zheng Yingying used a piece of information about warden Xiao Tong to exchange for exactly 100 points, and with these points, the little girl that started completely empty-handed obtained [Infinite Forms] cloak from Xiao Tong.

Xiao Tong should have strangled Zheng Yingying, but he truly admired the fact that Zheng Yingying was such a ruthless person. Only those who were ruthless enough would be able to survive in Yong Ye City. Moreover, Zheng Yingying hadn’t violated any rules regarding their bet.

The moment Xiao Tong said to her that ‘no matter what method is used’, it really meant that there were endless ways.

As for K, if Jiang He was there, Zheng Yingying must be under disguise when she sold the information. Of course, K was a cold-blooded veteran, but whether he saw anything or whether he chose to hide what he saw wasn’t something Xiao Tong cared about.

He truly looked forward to what would happen next.

Tang Cuo and Zheng Yingying came to Yong Ye City on the same day and took two completely opposite paths. No one knew who would die at the hands of the other, or what kind of state they would turn Yong Ye City into.

This sort of thing really made people curious, no?