The Trial Game of Life

Rong Yi really felt that his life was seriously not easy to live. His heart was in distress, but he was grabbed at the neck and couldn’t say a word.

In this strange room, his abilities had been suppressed, to the extent that he couldn’t escape from a pair of hands that merely seemed like chicken feet.

Since Yan Ye hadn’t gotten the 2nd Movement, naturally, she didn’t want to kill him. Waiting until he had barely one breath left, she loosened her hands a bit and said: “I know the 2nd Movement is in your hands. The result of my divination won’t deceive me. How did you get the 2nd Movement and why you didn’t use it? I’m not interested in anything, I just want you to hand it over.”

But Rong Yi simply closed his eyes and didn’t answer.

Yan Ye’s voice became sharper: “Don’t be delusional. Do you think you can put up some tricks to inform Jin Cheng and he’ll come to save you? You’re wrong. Even if he destroys my house, it’s impossible to find you. You can’t escape, and no one will come to rescue you. I won’t kill you and let you flee to Zone G. There’s only one way for you to escape, and that is to kill yourself.”

She suddenly chuckled softly: “I won’t stop you if you want to kill yourself. I respect your right to die.”

Rong Yi understood what she meant.

In Yong Ye City, even if the player was killed thousands of times, he would only be sent to jail. It was only a matter of the severity of the punishment. But once he killed himself, he was really dead. After all, Yong Ye City didn’t like this kind of behaviour. The [Twelve Movements] were non-binding items, so once he died, they would automatically fall down. Wasn’t it the best outcome for Yan Ye?

“Then why didn’t you chase me to the prison and kill me there?” Rong Yi asked back, for he was really curious: “What are you afraid of?”

“This isn’t something for you to care about.” Yan Ye’s voice went cold again. In just a few minutes, her mood had swung a lot, and she no longer carried her usual image of the icy, distant Fortune Teller.

“Are you afraid of Lin Yandong?” Rong Yi insisted on not letting go.

“Shut up.” Yan Ye said bitingly.

“You’re on the same side as Lin Yandong, aren’t you? You’ve been working for him in secret, but even when you learn if the position of the 2nd Movement through divination, you never tell him. But when he got sent to Zone G, you immediately attacked me. Do you want to snatch the movement all to yourself? Or did you want to get rid of Lin Yan from the very beginning —”

As though provoked by Rong Yi’s words, Yan Ye grabbed his neck again, and her whole figure moved out of the shadows in one step. She clutched him hard and pushed him against the wall behind.

With the light from the magic formation, Rong Yi finally caught a clear sight of her face, his pupils dilating in shock.

It didn’t look like a normal person’s face at all.

Her skin was loose and full of folds, but her eyes were lively and vivid, like a girl in her twenties. Her hair was dull while her body was thin and withered, like a dwarf.

In Yong Ye City, where players could distort their face and change their appearance at will, what conditions might turn anyone into this?!

“Are you scared?” Yan Ye’s eyes emanated one part anger and one part sarcasm: “Do you know why I keep getting stuck in this place and can’t get out? Lin Yandong saved my life and called himself my saviour, bossing me around to do things for him. But does he really think that I’m willing to put up with such a body and live in this pitch-dark house like a bug stuck in the drain?”

As she spoke, she clenched her teeth even harder, and caught in her ears were hints of Rong Yi’s fear. It seemed that the incident that took place in the dungeon four years ago was definitely not simple. The fact that no one was aware of the state Yan Ye had become proved that she must have changed after the dungeon.

Yan Ye sneered: “If this is considered alive, then consider me alive. But in that case, why won’t I want to give myself a better life? Why won’t I?”

Rong Yi gripped her wrist and stared intently at her: “So you conspire to release Scarlet and want to use her to kill others? Did you plan all this, or was it Lin Yandong?”

Yan Ye: “Why should I tell you?”

Saying so, she threw Rong Yi to the corner. But even though Rong Yi lived a not-so-easy life, he was second on the Red List after all, and he wasn’t the type who would let others push his life around.

He only pretended that he was suppressed so badly, simply to lure the enemy to expose herself. Now that their conversation had reached halfway, Jin Cheng must have also noticed the strangeness here. It was time he escaped.

“Tik — tok —”

As the golden pocket watch hung at Rong Yi’s fingertips, he bit his tongue and forced his mental power to climb to its peak in a blink, and the pocket watch stopped — Time had frozen.

Yan Ye stood rooted to the spot, caught in a posture of reaching out to Rong Yi. Coupled with her dwarf-like figure, the sight was a tad comical. With his face as pale as a sheet, Rong Yi took a deep breath and walked forward, wanting to take a careful look.

However, just as he was about to come close, Yan Ye suddenly turned her head and smiled at him.

Rong Yi’s heart shuddered and he backed away as fast as lightning, but Yan Ye didn’t chase him. Instead, she turned into black smoke and disappeared into the room. The whole room was pitch black, with only the magic formation exuding a dazzling light.

Where did Yan Ye go? Rong Yi had no clue.

He had underestimated the enemy.

Rong Yi kept himself steadily on guard, but he couldn’t help thinking of the scene where he parted ways with Jin Cheng, Tang Cuo and the others at the entrance of the Ruby Bar. Yan Ye should have eyed him very early on, for not long after he walked out, a player ran over and gave him a secret letter.

The secret letter said that Yan Ye invited him to meet in Zone B and that she had something important to tell him.

In the first place, Rong Yi already had speculations over Yan Ye, not to mention that with his boldness of a veteran and as the second-ranked player on The Red List, he didn’t think that going to see The Fortune Teller would require any help. As such, he headed straight to the appointment.

To his surprise, as soon as he walked in, his head went dizzy and he ended up in this room in a blink, while the opponent didn’t even give him time to react. At first, the room was so dark that he could only hear Yan Ye’s voice but couldn’t see her at all. Yan Ye kept forcing him to hand over the 2nd Movement, but even though Rong Yi couldn’t flee for now, it was impossible for a mere fortune teller to coerce him into submission.

The two sides held a stalemate for a long time, and at one point, Jin Cheng arrived.

Afraid that she would be exposed, Yan Ye had to come forward to deal with Jin Cheng. Rong Yi got a chance to breathe, and very quickly, he decided to disturb the time flow to send a warning to Jin Cheng.

But as Yan Ye had said, even if Jin Cheng tore the whole house down, he might not be able to find Rong Yi.

What she said was true.

While Rong Yi was meticulous in guarding against Yan Ye, Jin Cheng relied on sheer violence to blast the entire house into ruins, even digging three feet deep — in any case, with Rong Yi being so strong, he might not be crushed to death by the collapsing house; and even if he died, he would return to the Zone G and no harm would be caused.

But there wasn’t even half a shadow of any living person found in the ruins.

“Are they not here? That shouldn’t be…” Chi Yan scratched his head, feeling utterly lost. He called out Rong Yi’s name several times again, but no response came.

At this moment, someone patted him on the shoulder. He turned his head to see Jin Cheng’s smiling face, and the boy suddenly felt inexpiably nervous.

“Ge?”

“We’ll have to rely on you now.”

“Me???”

“I’m sure Rong Yi is still here. It’s impossible for him to sneak out without a sound right under my nose. If Yan Ye kidnapped Rong Yi, it would be even more improbable. But we didn’t find even half a shadow, did we? Since there’s no sure-win way to do this, we’ll have to trust in metaphysics.”

Ge, I think you’re more suitable to play with metaphysics than me.

Chi Yan felt the pressure weigh on him like a mountain.   

At the same time, a public trial was taking place at the Ruby Bar in Zone E.

Prosecutor: Tang Cuo

Defendants: Tall Man and Pei Pei

Assistant: Qian Wei

Jury: K and the other players

It wasn’t until halfway through the trial that Qian Wei gradually understood why Tang Cuo put Pei Pei in the black iron cage while leaving Tall Man alone outside.

On one hand, it could prevent them from killing each other and taking advantage of Zone G prison to achieve their purpose of fleeing; on the other hand, when one of them was being questioned, the other would be locked up and the two would remain separated, resulting in asymmetrical information. This could very well be used to worm the truth out of them.

And this trial was meant to be special from the beginning, because Tang Cuo took the route of a public trial but employed the methods of the twisted Warden.

In order to ensure that the trial proceeded smoothly, he even asked all the players to stand outside the bar and watch quietly through the large floor-to-ceiling windows and main door.

Looking through the glass, Tang Cuo stood tall and firm, his face icy cold yet very attractive. He gazed down at Pei Pei in the cage, and just by being looked at like that, all of a sudden, Pei Pei’s eyes started to bleed.

As though receiving a huge trigger, he clutched his head and started screaming. The players all felt their heart thump scarily fast, but after a few seconds, Pei Pei suddenly appeared normal again, though his face held a confused expression, as if he totally had no idea where he was.

Thereafter, the players saw Tang Cuo turn his head to look at Qian Wei, asking him to drag out Tal Man, who had been locked up in the private room.

Since Tall Man was still unconscious, Qian Wei splashed a bucket of water to wake him up. As soon as Pei Pei caught sight of Tall Man, he turned highly alert, his muscles grew tight and his eyes became ferocious, and gradually, his attitude showed signs of going mad.

At this point, Tang Cuo opened his mouth, but no one knew what he said.

Pei Pei went crazy at once and the [Spider Vines] crept out of his palms, and in an instant, they grew to seven or eight meters in length, crawled through of the gaps in the black iron cage and firmly tied up Tall Man.

Barely awake, Tall Man had to face such a crisis. The moment he saw that it was the [Spider Vines] that bound him, he shouted with rage: “What are you doing?! Don’t you see who I am?!”

Pei Pei’s eyes had turned bloodshot, as though he had lost his mind. With a wave of his hand, a ball of light rammed into Tall Man’s wide-open mouth.

Tall Man almost exploded into madness as he struggled to remove the thing that was stuck in his mouth. But since his hands and feet were all tied up by the [Spider Vines], he could only retch wryly. Pei Pei really came across as someone who didn’t know Tall Man, looking as though he wanted to kill the man for good. With a snap of his fingers, Tall Man’s body suddenly twitched violently, seemingly because something was permeating his body. Green veins conspicuously bulged on his forehead, as if he was suffering immense pain.

Furthermore, he had just been drenched in water. His warping, struggling figure really sent chills down all the players’ spines.

The chills worsened when they saw Tang Cuo remain absolutely calm. He had a face that looked like a good person’s and remarkably bright eyes that seemed to be unstained of anything, yet it made people feel multifold more frightening than a classic villain’s face.

But the truth was, Tang Cuo was just repeating an old trick.

The combination of ‘Soul Intimidation’ and [Tears of the Secret Lake] allowed Tang Cuo to fully disturb Pei Pei’s spirit ocean, to the point that he even shed tears of blood. Gaining complete control, Tang Cuo guided him to treat the Tall Man as an enemy.

Tang Cuo’s soul strength was much higher than that of ordinary players, and coupled with the training he received through the dungeon [Realm of Mortals], it was certainly not a problem to deal with Pei Pei.