The Trial Game of Life

In Ward 304, a fight was coming to an end.

Qian Wei, Zheng Yingying, the pregnant woman and the laughing man, plus Meng Yufei, who had come in from the window halfway to render help, teamed up, finally defeated all the monsters and returned the ward to peace.

The man who had been laughing had completely exhausted all his strength, but since the effect of the medicine was almost over, his laughter had turned into a soft hum. After gulping down a potion, he successfully survived the ordeal.

But just when everyone could finally relax, Meng Yufei suddenly drew his blade and pointed it at Qian Wei, causing everyone’s heart to almost jump out of their throat.

“What are you doing?!” Qian Wei also pulled out his sword immediately, vigilance exuding from all over his body. He could no longer recognise Meng Yufei. Even though he did feel that Meng Yufei’s blade was a bit familiar, he couldn’t remember it for a moment. In his impression, Meng Yufei was killed by Jin Cheng. Qian Wei was in that dungeon at the time; there’s no way he could remember wrongly.

So facing such abrupt hostility, he really wasn’t able to figure it out.

With her curiosity piqued, Zheng Yingying raised her eyes to look at him.

At this point, she had lifted her camouflage, wrapped herself in the red cloak, hid her face in the hood and kept a proper distance from everyone.

Meng Yufei stared at Qian Wei with such icy eyes, as if he was looking at a dead person, and said: “Jin Cheng and he are on the same side.” 

As soon as he said this, everyone showed a look of terror, and Qian Wei blurted out a “f**k”. He was wronged, he was really wronged. Didn’t he just happen to be in two dungeons with the big boss? Why was he suddenly thrown into the same gang?

But wait.

“How do you know?” Qian Wei’s eyes widened.

There was no such person in both of those two dungeons!

But as soon as the words left his lips, Qian Wei knew that this was bad. That man’s question was equivalent to admitting that he was under disguise. Peng Mingfan had warned him many times not to disclose to the public that they knew Jin Cheng. They were just two innocent small fries who never thought about hugging the big boss’ thigh, so the more low-key they were, the better.

In Yong Ye City, thighs weren’t so easy to hug, and one would easily be f**ked if he made a small mistake.

What was more, the two big bosses weren’t here now.

Seeing the flash in his eyes, Meng Yufei was even more certain that Jin Cheng and he belonged to the same bunch, and he sneered coldly: “You don’t need to know how I know, you just know that Jin Cheng should go to hell, and so should you.”

Every single one of them in the dungeon [Conquering Demon City] should go to hell.

Qian Wei had no idea why he deserved to go to hell, but he knew that this man might be the strongest in the ward, and that he couldn’t defeat that man.

F**king hell. He was going to be released from prison today, yet he ended up running into a riot. Before the riot was over, he got pulled into a dungeon. He wasn’t electrocuted by the monster in the dungeon, but then, he was charged with the wrong crime.

Whose luck could be sh*ttier than his?

“Brother, let’s talk amicably. I’m really not acquainted with Jin Cheng, we only met in the dungeons, really! If I were Jin Cheng’s man, could I be this f**king miserable? Look at my sword, it’s as horrible as a newcomer’s basic equipment. Look at me, from head to toe, do I have that air of a skilled player? Even if I want to take refuge in Jin Cheng, the big bosses in Zone A might’ve beaten me to a pulp already…” Qian Wei quickly put up a fearful cover, the corner of his eye subconsciously glancing  at the window, ready to run away at any time.

He didn’t hope that the other two patients would save him. There weren’t so many kind people in Yong Ye City.

Meng Yufei didn’t fall for this trick after all. But, Qian Wei didn’t expect that whether he had anything to do with Jin Cheng didn’t really matter. He turned up in the dungeon [Conquering Demon City], where Meng Yufei died but he lived. It was his crime.

As Meng Yufei came closer step by step, Qian Wei backed away step by step, while the other two patients looked at each other, both showing a look of hesitation.

At one glance, one could immediately see who was the weak one and who was the strong one between Qian Wei and Meng Yufei. If they helped Qian Wei, they would definitely put themselves in danger. But if Qian Wei was really Jin Cheng’s man, and they refused to save him at the critical moment, what if Jin Cheng hunted them down for revenge in the future?

And this one with the blade, would he really not kill all the witnesses later?

Everyone was caught in their own thoughts and Qian Wei’s anxious panting was the only sound heard in the ward. The air around them dropped to freezing point.

Qian Wei consciously moved closer to the window, but Meng Yufei didn’t stop him. But, being able to do it so smoothly didn’t make Qian Wei happy at all, because it meant that the opponent was either an idiot, or overly confident about himself.

The answer was obviously the latter.

“I don’t know what hatred you have with Jin Cheng, but other monster doctors may be coming soon. Are you sure you want to make a move now? Aren’t you afraid that it’ll attract their attention?” Qian Wei gritted his teeth as his hand holding the sword began to gather energy.

A cold light flashed in the pregnant woman’s eyes, and a small flame was summoned in her hand hidden behind her back.

“Then I’ll just send you straight to Hell.” Meng Yufei couldn’t hold back anymore. He was killed by Jin Cheng several times, forced to use his only resurrection item and was even driven to have his appearance altered. In this life, he vowed to never share the same sky with that man.

At this moment, the resentment was scorching his heart. If he didn’t dare to kill even this small fry here, he wouldn’t be Meng Yufei!

Thinking of this, he immediately drew his blade. But right at that point, a thin hand that missed a pinky finger pressed on his arm, and the familiar red cloak made him come to a halt.

“Do you know Jin Cheng?” Zheng Yingying stepped forward: “Then you also know Tang Cuo?”

Qian Wei was startled.

The pregnant woman hurriedly stopped her flame attack and almost spit out a mouthful of blood.

“I do.” Qian Wei knew that there was no point trying to hide it, and he also vaguely came to the realisation that between these two, the small girl was the one who had the final say. After sweeping a glance at them both, he decided to make a bet: “In fact, we’re more familiar with Tang ge.”

“We?” Zheng Yingying asked.

“Yeah, I was meant to be released from jail today, and my friend was waiting for me outside. We were together with Tang ge in his first dungeon. We believed our encounter was fated, so we called him ‘ge’, hehe. We made a promise that we would meet again after I’m out of jail.” Qian Wei started spewing nonsense that was half truth and half lie. No one here could expose him anyway.

But facing this risky situation, he was still nervous to death and his palms were drenched in sweat. He pretended to be calm and wanted to observe Zheng Yingying’s expression, but her eyes were blocked by the hood, and the lower half of her face was hidden in the shadows, making him unable to see anything.

Qian Wei’s heart beat faster as the tension gripped his head more tightly. When the flame inside the pregnant woman’s palm became hotter, Zheng Yingying finally said: “Tell me about the dungeon where you were together. If you tell a good story, I’ll let you go.”

“Why?” Meng Yufei’s face went solemn, his eyes looking like they were about to breathe fire. Rather than anger, a feeling of ridiculousness overwhelmed him. When did Zheng Yingying come into contact with Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo? No matter how he looked at it, didn’t they just look like completely different people who would end up as enemies?

As Zheng Yingying’s frosty eyes swept across his palm that hadn’t healed from the wound earlier, Meng Yufei instantly remembered the time when he was stabbed, and his wounded hand began to twitch uncontrollably.

“I don’t need to explain to you, Huanhuan. You only need to know that you can harbour hatred against Jin Cheng, but you can’t touch Tang Cuo. If you dare to lay a finger on him, I’ll kill you.”

This development not only shocked Meng Yufei, but also made Xiao Tong raise his eyebrows. Xiao Tong knew that Zheng Yingying and Tang Cuo came to Yong Ye City on the same day, but he truly didn’t know that their relationship had gone beyond mere acquaintance, so much so that Zheng Yingying was willing to let Qian Wei go and even wanted to hear his story.

He summoned Mr. Crow again.

Mr. Crow was intently watching Jin Cheng fight. Atop the road sign, he was hysterically jumping and flapping his wings, wishing that he could rush to fight Jin Cheng himself.

At least he firmly believed that if he was allowed to fight, he must be better than these little monsters that were fighting so feebly even with [Ruleless] in their hands. Mr. Crow was so angry he could die.

Today, The Warden also seemed particularly annoying. He was nowhere as cold as usual, and probably even more talkative than those human aunties. 

“What’s the matter with you? Mr. Crow is very busy, don’t call me time after time.” Mr. Crow felt very irritated, so he only stuck his head out of the air.

“Zheng Yingying and Tang Cuo know each other?” Xiao Tong went straight to the subject.

“They were both in the same batch.” Mr. Crow replied as-a-matter-of-factly, but when Xiao Tong asked him about the relationship between the two, he couldn’t answer.

At the time, Mr. Crow’s attention was all on Tang Cuo. Tang Cuo saved more than one person, so how could he remember a tiny Zheng Yingying, who could be trampled to death at any time like an ant?

Zheng Yingying only officially got his attention because of how much Xiao Tong cared about her while she was in Zone G. Now Xiao Tong asks me this question, then I ask whom?

Since he failed to answer, he was so embarrassed it turned into rage.

Xiao Tong understood and waved his hand to let Mr. Crow go back. But, this gesture was equivalent to poking the crow’s windpipe, such that he honestly couldn’t wait to poop on Xiao Tong’s head on the spot. But it wasn’t courteous for Mr. Crow to sh*t on someone’s head, so in the end, he decided not to return [Ruleless] to Xiao Tong for the time being.

Xiao Tong’s attention was no longer on him. No matter how Mr. Crow scolded, his eyes were only fixated on Tang Cuo. He had to admit that Tang Cuo was giving him more and more surprises, and he was getting more and more reluctant to return him to Jin Cheng.

At this point, Tang Cuo was still clueless about how many things had happened outside. After searching for a long time, he finally found the game live streamer’s cell phone tombstone.

It took him 20 minutes.

The reason why it took so long was because there was no other information on this phone, only an order interface. The phone owner ordered seafood fried noodles at 12:15 and received the meal at 12:55.

When the live streamer was killed, she happened to be eating a portion of seafood fried noodles, and the time of her death was 1:03 in the afternoon. The meal and the timing were both correct.

Of course, this couldn’t be considered concrete evidence, but Tang Cuo would be able to verify it by opening the coffin.

Not wanting to delay any further, he moved quickly. As the Holy Light surged atop the [Sword of Judgment], the whole tomb was split open with a single strike.

“Crack.” The phone snapped neatly in half.

At this moment, an unexpected incident took place. A strong beam of light burst out from the split tomb, with extremely strong attack power and killing intent. Since Tang Cuo had readied himself for this, he immediately stepped back and kept himself a distance away from the tomb in a blink.

If the three alive souls returned to Yong Ye City, wouldn’t they become players? Then what sort of players would be pre-arranged inside a dungeon? The NPCs.

What appeared in front of Tang Cuo was a monster similar to those in the other two gates, but the one Tang Cuo saw looked more like a human, with higher strength and clearer consciousness in its eyes. It was about two-meter tall, with sharp spikes on its back, its hair seemingly made of steel needles. Its muscles were so exaggerated that it looked as though its whole body was inflated, densely covered in thick veins and blue-black bruises.

“Who interrupted my sleep?” The words he uttered sounded exactly like that of a powerful game Boss.

Facing a one-on-one battle, Tang Cuo shook the sword in his hands. This was just in time for him to try out the results of his latest training.

The monster looked over, and the two pairs of eyes gazed into each other. The next second, Tang Cuo boldly made a move first. The monster’s two feet were still inside the grave, pressed under the mud and broken coffin board, making it unable to move.

It simply didn’t dodge the attack and caught Tang Cuo’s sword with its bare hands. This was called using violence to retaliate violence.

“Dang!” As Tang Cuo’s sword hit the enemy’s hand, bouncing back at him was the sound of tough metal that almost tingled Tang Cuo’s wrist. But the [Sword of Judgment] was a sacred weapon after all, so Tang Cuo pressed it down harder and eventually cut through the monster’s skin.

Since the monster’s veins were bulky and under fierce pressure, its bleeding almost blurted like a jet, carrying with it an intense bloody stench. As though feeling no pain, its other hand immediately grabbed Tang Cuo.

Tang Cuo struck fast and retreated equally fast. He turned around and jumped to a cell phone tombstone three meters away, standing firm amidst the harsh wind. But no matter how swiftly he withdrew, a few drops of the monster’s blood were still splashed onto his body, and as soon as they touched his skin, they began to eat into his flesh like sulfuric acid. Luckily, the damage didn’t spread out too much.

This undoubtedly triggered a huge warning for Tang Cuo. At this point, the monster finally broke free from the tomb and vigorously landed its attack. As Tang Cuo held up his sword to block, he quickly opened the Character panel to confirm his situation.

[*Erosion: Decrease Defence by 2.]

Tang Cuo was certain that if more blood got onto him, his Defence would be weakened even more. Using this sort of damage, one probably hurt the enemy by 1000 but hurt himself by 800. This monster was obviously the type with high Defence and high HP, which allowed it to last a long time. It likely would wait until Tang Cuo’s Defence got weaker and weaker, and as soon as Tang Cuo lowered his guard for a second, the situation would be overturned.

So, Tang Cuo had to be fast.

While trying to avoid being hit by its blood.

“Glish glish —” The monster’s claws were as sharp as a blade, and its speed was incredibly fast. In a split second when Tang Cuo accidentally let him get close, his sleeves were ripped off at once. Tang Cuo flicked his wrist and slammed down, thrusting the [Sword of Judgment] on its knee. Although the blade couldn’t crush the monster’s kneecap, it managed to make it stagger.

The monster immediately reached out to Tang Cuo to grab him, but Tang Cuo’s figure was as swift as a ghost. Dazzled by its opponent’s speed, the monster thought it had caught Tang Cuo, but in its hands was an ugly bloody doll.

“Aaaaaahhhhhh!!” The rag doll suddenly opened her eyes and her mouth let out an earth-shattering scream. The terrifying voice pierced the monster’s eardrums, directly hitting its spirits.

The monster quickly threw the rag doll away and snarled in pain while covering its ears.

Tang Cuo moved with the speed of electricity, and the moment he caught the doll, he flipped his wrist again to pull out a Blast Egg. The monster literally had no time to dodge; as soon as it opened its eyes, a round ball flying its way, then —

“Bang!” The Blast Egg exploded, blowing up all the surrounding cell phone tombstones and cracking their screens. The monster had remarkably high defensive ability, but because it was caught off guard, it was thrown to the ground. Wherever its blood trickled to, whether it was the granite floor or the weeds on the ground, they all quickly became eroded.

But Tang Cuo’s attack wasn’t over yet.

Before the smoke and dust from the Blast Egg even fell, and before the monster could get up from the ground, Tang Cuo drew a gun. This was the reward gotten from the zombie-fighting dungeon: [Gatling Gun], a heavy artillery.

“Kakakakakaka!” With an icy cold expression, Tang Cuo raised his machine gun and fired frantically. Normal-quality bullets certainly couldn’t break through the monster’s defence, but if one bullet failed, let’s fire one hundred, and if one hundred failed, let’s fire three hundred.

Under such feral shooting, the monster was immediately pushed back by three or four meters. Its tall, hill-like body aggrievedly shrank into a ball, and the part of its body facing the bullets almost turned into a sieve.

But it still stayed alive and didn’t even feel the pain. After Tang Cuo ran out of bullets and the firing came to a stop, it screamed and rushed forward, its eyes quickly stained with a sinister shade of red. With both its fists struck out, before it even got close to Tang Cuo, the two fists scratched Tang Cuo’s face, severely hurting his cheeks.

Tang Cuo stepped back and back again, prancing lightly on the tombstones, never touching the ground even once. Xiao Tong, who had been closely watching the battle, discovered that he had been moving within only a fixed area from the beginning till the end, without expanding the battleground to the entire cemetery.

Although the monster was still sane and not slow, there remained a lag between its moves. Most of the time, it fought by instinct, thus it was easily led by its nose and failed to get out of the circle that Tang Cuo had drawn for it.

At this juncture, Tang Cuo’s Defence was only reduced by 5 while his HP was reduced by 16. The situation was still in his favour.

The monster struggled, multiple injuries forming on his body and its bleeding keeping on. Because of its blood’s erosive effect, the creature looked almost like a walking zombie.

But he didn’t know what was exhaustion or what was pain, while its speed hadn’t slowed down at all compared to the beginning. Just at that moment, Tang Cuo once again jumped across its head. As it looked up, a man in a black trench coat shrouded almost half of its field of vision, his clothes fluttering in the wind like an eagle spreading its wings, and the sword in his hands plunged downwards –

“Clang!” It quickly tried to block, but being in a hurry, coupled with the fact that its arm was injured, the sword directly broke through its defence and smashed into its bones.

Tang Cuo used his own weight to press down, driving the monster to bend its knees and blue veins to pop up all over its body. As the blade cut through its bones, a spine-chilling sound permeated the air.

“F**k off!!!” Furious, the monster exhausted all its strength to blast Tang Cuo away. But before it could exert its force, Tang Cuo decisively jumped back, slapped his hand heavily against its head, pulled back his sword along the momentum and steadily backflipped to the ground.

The monster flew off the handle. Its severe wounds where its bones could be seen protruding out were set on fire due to the ‘Fireball’ that Tang Cuo released through his sword. Although it was only a small fireball, the two damages dealt to the monster weren’t as simple as one plus one.

“I’ll kill you!” Completely enraged, the monster crossed its arms on its chest and started gathering energy onto its whole body, as if it was about to release a big strike. But at this moment, Tang Cuo knelt on one knee and pressed his left hand that wasn’t holding the sword to the ground, activating the spell.

‘Earthquake’, activated.

The ground began to tremble. Although the impact only reached a five-meter radius, it nicely engulfed the monster. The monster staggered left and right, but the energy it had gathered wasn’t interrupted. however, its blood inside started twisting upside down, making it blurt a mouthful of blood.

Seeing this, a cold light gleamed across Tang Cuo’s eyes. He didn’t recklessly rush forward to attack, rather, he pounced on a tombstone, relying on the momentum to reach the highest point. He made a peculiar stop in mid-air before taking a double jump and quickly ascended to a spot about 15 meters above the ground.

‘Air Walk’, activated.

At this moment, the monster’s ultimate strike was also released. It looked up to the sky and let out a thunderous roar, its muscles visibly bulged up and its body grew from an original two-meter height to more than three meters. It stomped one foot and shook the entire ground.

No, it was still growing bigger!

Its blood veins exploded!

“Bang —” After countless veins blew up, in a blink, a blood rain poured onto the space within a 15-meter radius around the monster. Tang Cuo’s heart shuddered and he immediately waved his sword to call upon the ‘Holy Light of Judgment’, pushing away the blood rain coming towards him.

But he couldn’t stay in the air for long, because the cooldown time of ‘Air Walk’ took up one minute. As a few thoughts rapidly flew across his mind, he pulled out the [Gatling Gun] once more. The machine gun was very heavy, thus as soon as he drew it, his body sank with accelerating speed.

At the critical moment, he quickly pressed the trigger and fired at the ground, using the reaction force to push himself out of the range of the blood rain one second before the fall.

Both Tang Cuo and the machine gun heavily hit the ground, but he suffered only a few scratches and his HP dropped by 5, which was nothing to be worried about. But suddenly, Tang Cuo vaguely heard the sound of something piercing the wind.

What was that?

He immediately raised his head, only to see a spot with the colour of cold blood magnifying in his eyes.

Before he could swing his sword, Tang Cuo quickly rolled to the ground, his ears only catching the sounds of “Clang!” and “Clang!” behind him. Those were black spikes of 10-cm length that chased after Tang Cuo but ended up landing onto the hard granite ground.

Tang Cuo now remembered that there were spikes on the monster’s back. The blood rain had concealed their movements, making them a perfect hidden weapon and a perfect lethal move.

“Squeak —” Tang Cuo chanted a spell and an ‘Ice Shield’ appeared.

The small ice shield was so thin that it couldn’t stop all the black spikes at once, but Tang Cuo only needed to stop one at a time. He summoned ‘Ice Shield’ and ‘Earth Wall’ alternately. Although they were all elementary magic, his timing was just right.

Dozens of spikes flew towards him, and one hit Tang Cuo.

But just this single spike made Tang Cuo’s Defence drop by 50 and his HP drop by 20 in an instant. At this point, the fighting intent in Tang Cuo’s eyes reached its peak. With remarkably bright eyes, he gripped the hilt of his sword tightly with his right hand, turned around and counterattacked.

The monster was now drenched in blood. To hurt Tang Cuo, it had to pay a huge price. At present, it was unwise to come close to the monster, but Tang Cuo’s speed was now even faster than before.

As long as he was fast enough, the monster’s blood wouldn’t be able to touch his body.

Ten minutes later, the monster crashed to the ground.

Tang Cuo shook the blood off his sword and panted slightly. With an expression that was as calm as ever, he ended his first true one-on-one battle after coming to Yong Ye City.

But the battle wasn’t yet over, because it damaged a total of five tombstones, and there were now five souls with attack ability staring at him.

This was also one of the reasons why Tang Cuo wanted to keep the battleground within a certain range and not let it spread too far.