The Trial Game of Life

Wen Xiaoming was worried about Lilith, so after sending Chi Yan out of Black Hat’s Miscellaneous Store, he went back to Zone A. Chi Yan cherished his life, not to mention that he had managed to exchange for the password to open the black iron cage, so he was in a hurry to go back to save his Tang ge. As such, he decided to wave for a motorbike from the side of the road.

The public transportation in Yong Ye City was very convenient yet very trashy at the same time. It mainly depended on one’s luck.

With Chi Yan’s good luck, a huge motorbike came to him only five minutes after he waited on the roadside. It was jet-black, looking super cool, and its wheels were even shining brightly. The motorist was a fashionable young man wearing metal necklaces and big sunglasses, complemented with an old radio hanging on the front of his bike using a red string. When he turned it on — it was Teresa Teng’s singing.

“I haven’t seen you before, buddy, your bike is so cool.” Chi Yan, a natural social butterfly, turned into a chatterbox the moment he saw people.

“I’ve just levelled up from Zone F.”

“Even a civil servant player can level up?”

“This is called a promotion.”

“That’s great, congratulations.” 

The motorist was happy to hear that, but he didn’t give Chi Yan any discount. It took about ten minutes to travel from the Miscellaneous Store to Tang Cuo’s apartment and cost three points, which was one point more expensive than taking the bus.

Although Chi Yan felt his heart break upon having to spend three points, it didn’t prevent him from making friends with others. Starting the moment he stepped on the motorcycle, Chi Yan couldn’t hear much due to the strong wind, but as long as the two of them were in the mood, he continued to talk.

But while he was talking, a drop of liquid suddenly slapped him on the face. He raised his hand suspiciously and wiped his face: “Is it raining? Does it even rain in Yong Ye City?” 

The motorist couldn’t hear clearly and asked loudly: “Ah? What are you saying?” 

“I said, does it rain in Yong Ye City?”

“What rain! It never rains in Yong Ye City!”

Then what is this? Someone washed their clothes and didn’t wring them out? Or is someone standing on top of a building and pee in the wind? When Chi Yan thought of this possibility, his whole body shuddered, and he couldn’t help but lower his head to look at his hand.

The entire Yong Ye City was brightly lit, but as the motorbike hurdled in the middle of the road, the lights on both sides became very dim, reducing his vision. Chi Yan squinted to find that the colour of the liquid seemed a bit wrong. He sniffed it, why does it reek of blood?

At this moment, another drop fell on the motorist’s shoulder. Chi Yan hurriedly leaned over to sniff again, and his expression changed in an instant: “Blood, f**k! It’s blood!”

He immediately looked up but found nothing out of the norm; only the magical train was moving as usual, like a giant steel dragon soaring over his head.

At this moment, the motorist slammed the brakes with an ear-splitting creak, causing Chi Yan’s head to ram onto the motorist’s back. As Chi Yan rubbed his head and raised his eyes, the motorist shouted at the front:

“What are you doing? Randomly crossing the road may kill you, don’t you know?!”

Chi Yan poked his head out from behind and saw a man collapsing onto the motorbike, his body scattered with wounds and drenched in blood. It was almost impossible to see what he looked like originally.

“My friend, are you okay?” Chi Yan opened his itchy mouth to ask. After asking, he felt that there had been a lot of blood today, and his eyelids twitched a little. The moment he finally had a clear view of the person’s face, not only his eyelids shook, but his heart also began to shake.

“Puppeteer Yao Qing?!”

Yao Qing’s soul was called back to his body by Chi Yan’s voice. Seeing Chi Yan, he recognised that this was the kid that always tagged along with Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo. He didn’t bother to get up, just hurriedly yelling: “Quick, go look for Jin Cheng! Scarlet is in Zone E!”

Chi Yan took a deep breath. Wen Xiaoming had told him about Scarlet on their way to the Miscellaneous Store, but he never expected to run into her so quickly. Who would’ve thought that I just wave for a motorbike and already have to face her?!

“Faster, faster, let’s go!” Chi Yan frantically hit the motorist on the shoulder.

“Okay okay.” The motorist turned the front of the motorbike to avoid Yao Qing, stomped on the accelerator and charged forward, leaving only a cloud of dust behind. Yao Qing was choked till he almost coughed out his lungs. Feeling that his blood was once again pouring into his lungs after such furious coughing, he quickly gulped down a potion and finally heaved a long breath.

As he looked up, the magical train was passing by the huge moon. The moonlight coated the train with a faint glow, illuminating the things hanging under the train.

Chi Yan also saw them. At first glance, they looked like a string of sausages, but upon a closer look, they were actually human corpses. The liquid that dripped onto Chi Yan just now likely came from them.

Thinking so, Chi Yan’s scalp went numb like he had been electrocuted. Following the numbness was a chill that crept into his bones and froze his brain. When he finally snapped out of this state, he used his relatively smart brain to think carefully about this —

Once a killing took place in Yong Ye City, the deceased immediately got sent to jail, so there should be no remnants of corpses. But what was going on now? The corpses, the corpses are moving!

“What a hack, the corpses have come back to life!” Chi Yan grabbed the motorist’s shirt: “Run faster!”

One corpse, then two corpses started falling from the train like dumplings, descending into the city. But that wasn’t merely a simple descent. Because the corpses were moving during the fall, as though suddenly awakened, their bones deformed into eerie shapes, and as soon as they landed, a huge pit was blasted onto the ground.

“Bang—” A pit happened to form on the road right before Chi Yan, and the boy saw a corpse stand up from the pit with his own eyes.

In the critical moment, he remembered Wen Xiaoming’s words — Scarlet was basically a necromancer.

“Turn around!” Chi Yan didn’t dare to face her head-on.

At the same time, everyone else in Yong Ye City also noticed the strangeness of the sky and was even more disturbed by the huge smashing sounds. Those who were still inside their houses opened the windows to look out, while those who were walking on the streets gathered around the big pits.

“What’s happening?” 

“What’s going on?”

“Look, what’s hanging under the train?!”

“Oh my god……”

“Are those, are those bodies? Won’t this scare everyone out of their wits?”

As commotion rose in all directions, the corpses hanging below the train were still falling down. Stretching far past Zone E, the sounds of “Bang!”, “Bang!” and “Bang!” came from all parts of Yong Ye City.

The entire city began to waver. Someone raised his head and was slapped by drops of blood just like Chi Yan, as though waiting to be baptised by a blood rain. Before any exclamation could even be heard, a loud clamour came from behind him.

Chi Yan turned his head and saw a bizarre corpse that definitely hadn’t gone stiff despite its death, with blue veins bulging up all over its skin. It tore apart a player with bare hands.

The blood splashed to the circle of people that had gathered around, and the moment the blood dripped to the ground, screams echoed in the air. The players only now realised that they should counterattack, but some people were still staring at the sky, as if they had entered a trance.

In the deep night, without anyone noticing, the huge round moon was stained with a red dot. This red dot seemed to ooze some colour onto the hazy clouds around it, dying them with an unusual tint of scarlet.

On the other side, in Zone G, Lin Yandong finally gave his answer.

“Send me to the dungeon.” He looked at Xiao Tong, half of his face hidden in the shadows, seemingly laced with a hint of grief.

Xiao Tong sneered nonchalantly: “You really don’t have a heart.”

Saying so, he stood up and left without looking back. Lin Yandong glanced at The Warden’s back, his lips tugging into a bitter smile. Rolling the prayer beads in his hand, he slowly closed his eyes and waited for a few seconds.

“Ding!” The dungeon’s gate opened.

After taking his leave, Xiao Tong walked to the big lawn outside the prison. At the moment, his heart was a little flustered. He looked up to see the red dot on the moon, then he thought about Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo, who had just left this place, and felt a tad better.

I’ve already given a reminder. I hope my two little friends won’t die too miserably. After all, a one-sided game was nothing that deserved his attention; it would be more fun when the two sides were even.

“You’ll just let Scarlet run rampant like that in Yong Ye City?” Suddenly, he looked into the void.

“The pardon has been granted and she can now come out. Didn’t you deliberately set her free?” Mr. Crow appeared on the fence, shaking his wing and speaking with an arrogant tone: “Besides, she doesn’t violate any rules. Players fighting each other is Yong Ye City’s classic symphony. All this time, the great and benevolent Mr. Crow never disturbs their enthusiasm.”

“You sound very happy.”

“Of course, I really like 01724. Look at her. Every time she comes into the battlefield, her performance is a piece of art. How did she think of hanging the corpses under the train? How marvellous, such a prodigy at spreading panic. She’s a genius player born just for Yong Ye City! If possible, I really want to give her a Special Contribution Award.”

“Will you celebrate with a cup of coffee?”

“No.”

Mr. Crow felt uncomfortable in his throat when he thought of the sweet, greasy coffee and turned his head mercilessly. The next second, his figure appeared in Zone E, on top of a tower spire. He looked down at the players running around.

Chaos, noise and screams became the keynotes of this symphony.

Because the players suddenly discovered that the people killed by those corpses, temporarily called ‘living corpses’, didn’t go to jail as usual.

They became new living corpses.

At this juncture, the players didn’t dare to fight hard. No one knew whether they would be alive or dead after becoming a living corpse or whether they could be resurrected, so they hid in the buildings on both sides of the road.

But even so, the number of living corpses kept increasing.

Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo were on top of a building not far away. With a grim expression, Jin Cheng looked at the red dot on the moon and called out her name, “Scarlet.”

The worst situation was happening. Lin Yandong disappeared, while Scarlet was free from Zone G. They had lost precious time due to the dungeon [Realm of Mortals], not to mention that they needed to collect and consolidate information. The best opportunity had lapsed.

Scarlet was still the usual Scarlet, who killed indiscriminately without anyone seeing her moves. With all her might, she spread panic around, causing turmoil in the whole zone. Given such a glamourous killing show where she herself didn’t even show up, more people would definitely die today.

Resurrecting corpses and infecting everyone with corpse poison — these were her signature skills.

Lilith’s elder brother, Xia Cheng, was resurrected as a living corpse after death then later killed by Lilith herself. A living corpse would produce poison in its body and become ‘patient zero’.

People killed by living corpses became new living corpses after being infected with corpse poison. The first batch of corpses hung under the train should be ‘patients zero’ made specifically by her. Killing some players and activating the ‘Resurrection’ skill before their corpses vanished to Zone G were definitely a piece of cake for Scarlet.

But how did she escape the law of [Twelve Movements] and not get sent to jail? By using a certain item? Jin Cheng was baffled, but now wasn’t the time to think about it, because Tang Cuo hadn’t recovered his human form yet.

Very calmly, Tang Cuo also told him the bad news: “All of my most useful skills are in cooldown state, and it’ll take at least 20 hours to recover.”

Jin Cheng: “I think we need Rong Yi now.”

Rong Yi The Time Master, an expert at rewinding cooldown.

Tang Cuo: “In Scarlet’s most hated list, under Lin Yandong, is it you?”

Jin Cheng: “Probably. After all, I made the last strike during the siege of the city.”

Tang Cuo: “Amazing.”

Jin Cheng: “Thank you for the compliment.”

Three seconds later, Tang Cuo revealed his cat claws with a blank expression: “She’s here.”