The Trial Game of Life

Before long, Pei Pei passed out due to the enormous mental trigger on his mind. Even though the [Spider Vines] that were crawling all over Tall Man were no longer under their master’s control, they didn’t stop growing. Instead, they spread out even more cruelly, making Tall Man squirm on the ground in pain with tears messily dripping down his cheeks.

Tang Cuo understood now. Earlier, Pei Pei put this thing in the wine and wanted him to drink it.

Well, you reap what you sow.

But the players outside the bar were clueless about this truth. They only felt a tad frightened because Tang Cuo’s expression was way too calm. He didn’t even take this chance to interrogate any further, quietly watching Tal Man collapse and wriggle in sheer agony.

K also simply leaned on the private room’s door and watched, but the look he gave Tang Cuo was full of intrigue.

A long time later, no longer able to withstand it, Tall Man looked at Tang Cuo amidst his struggle: “Save, save me… What do you want to know… I will tell you, I will tell you!”

Tang Cuo nodded softly to Qian Wei, at which point Qian Wei strode over and poured a bottle of potion into his mouth to heal his body that had been damaged by the [Spider Vines].

Tall One breathed a sigh of relief, his whole body looking as though he just got scooped out of water, with sweat and tears mixed together and blood vaguely overflowing under his skin.

Tang Cuo crouched in front of him: “In the end, what is it that you’re trying to do?” 

“It was Chong Yanzhang who came to find us… No, this has nothing to do with us! It’s him! It’s him who pushed us…” Tall Man mumbled, his voice feeble and intermittent.

In his version of the story, it was Chong Yanzhang who took the initiative to find Lawless and conspired with them to release Scarlet in order to take back the 2nd Movement and gain control over Yong Ye City. Their tasks were different. Chong Yanzhang was responsible for going to Zone G to find Scarlet, while Lawless was responsible for helping from outside.

“But Chong Yanzhang is dead.” Tang Cuo said.

It wasn’t surprising that Chong Yanzhang came to Lawless to team up with them. Both sides tried to attack Jin Cheng back at East Cross Street, which gave a good reason for them to become partners. And all of them were elite players of Zone A, so they naturally had a certain understanding of each other’s desires.

But Chong Yanzhang was now dead, so there was no one left to verify Tall Man’s words.

“Trust me, what I said is true!” Tall Man held back the pain: “I have no way to go back… Scarlet won’t let me go, she’ll kill me!”

“That has nothing to do with me.” Tang Cuo stood up.

“Tang Cuo!!” Tall Man erupted into fury.

“If you were working together, there must be a secret contact point. Where is it?” Tang Cuo paid no attention to his temper and asked calmly, making Tall Man clench his teeth in anger, but his hands were completely tied.

In the end, Tall Man gave him a location.

Tang Cuo looked at Qian Wei, and Qian Wei nodded: “I indeed came from there. Oh, beside the little girl, there was also Miao Qi locked up there. At least a dozen people were there, or more than 20 perhaps? In any case, there were too many men, I couldn’t beat them!”

Tang Cuo was clear, but such cunning men certainly wouldn’t be so simplistic. He didn’t think Lawless had only one single contact point; there must be alternatives. Tall Man might seem like he had come to a compromise, but the information he gave had little practical use.

Pei Pei and he being captured here had proven that Lawless was colluding with Scarlet. The fact that he confessed and dragged Chong Yanzhang into the water was only a fool-proof confirmation of this collusion while he tried to make someone else shoulder the blame. In addition, him revealing the location of a base that might have been abandoned basically posed no harm to their original plan.

That said, it didn’t really matter.

Tang Cuo stared intently into Tall Man’s eyes again and asked: “Then based on the clues you’ve gotten, who is holding the 2nd Movement?” 

Just as Tall Man was about to answer, something else seemed to happen in his body and the man let out a shrill cry. He shook his head vigorously with a grim expression, and Qian Wei couldn’t help taking a step back, flustered by his terrifying state.

“Answer me.” Persistently, Tang Cuo pressed on.

“I…” Tall Man panted violently for air, his expression increasingly agonising as the clock ticked, and a second before he passed out, he finally spat out a name: “Lin Yandong, it’s Lin Yandong!” 

A commotion rose in all directions.

As Tang Cuo swept his eyes across the shocked expression of the players outside the bar, he couldn’t help feeling immense gratitude for Xiao Tong. Thank you, Warden. ‘Soul Intimidation’ is truly a useful skill.

Qian Wei, who had been standing next to Tang Cuo, didn’t notice Tang Cuo’s moving hands and feet, only thinking that Tall Mall was simply telling the truth. K glared thoughtfully at Tang Cuo’s eyes, but as an intelligence dealer, he had no obligation to reveal the truth.

“Tang ge, is the 2nd Movement really with Lin Yandong?” Qian Wei was both a little nervous and excited. He always knew he was just a small fry, but now he was standing right in the center of the situation and listening to first-hand information.

“If it was really taken by him, the 2nd Movement must have been either brought to Zone G, or fallen into Miao Qi’s hands.” Tang Cuo didn’t lower his volume as he spoke, making sure that the players outside the bar could hear.

As his voice fell, a few people secretly left the scene.

Tang Cuo’s show came to a halt and he asked Qian Wei to lock up Tall Man again, then he brought Pei Pei with him into the private room. He wanted to interrogate Pei Pei alone.

When the private room door closed, K followed inside, lit a cigarette and leaned against the door: “Do you suspect Lin Yandong?”

Suspect what exactly?

That the 2nd Movement was in his hands, or that everything about Scarlet was caused by Lin Yandong pulling the strings?

Tang Cuo looked at K and replied solemnly: “I’m just afraid that he’ll feel lonely in prison, so I’m sending everyone to give him some warmth.”

Hearing this, K almost choked on his cigarette. Raising an eyebrow, he looked at Tang Cuo through the smoke. K suddenly discovered that once this person started falling in love, he would grow similar to his partner at lightning speed. When K heard those words, he felt almost as if they came from Jin Cheng’s mouth.

“By the way, Mr. K certainly knows who Lawless’ members are, don’t you? Could I please trouble you to draw some portraits and distribute them to those outside?” Tang Cuo said.

“I know all the core members, but even if I’m an intel dealer, I can’t stare at the low-ranking underlings all day.” K said with a smile.

“Draw as many portraits as you can. Put the price on the tab first.”

“Do you still mean Jin Cheng’s tab?”

“Yes.” Tang Cuo replied with confidence. And just as K was slandering these dead gays inwardly, Tang Cuo spoke again: “Remember to give a 50% discount.”

This time, K really choked on smoke.

K: “Cough, what are you talking about???”

Tang Cuo: “Lawless members attacked the Ruby Bar. They not only smashed your tables and chairs but also affected your business. Shouldn’t you collect debts from them?”

K: “You aren’t wrong, but —”

Tang Cuo interrupted him: “So, I’m asking for some portraits from you in order to take down Lawless, which means I’m giving you a helping hand. Shouldn’t you give me a 50% discount?”

K really, seriously had no way to refute.

Ten minutes later, the waiter at the Ruby Bar really brought out a stack of A4 paper-sized portraits, and led by Qian Wei, he distributed them to the players outside the bar.

With guidance from Tang Cuo, of course, Qian Wei wouldn’t directly encourage the players to deal with Lawless. He only repeatedly reminded everyone to beware of the people in the portraits.

“Be careful, do you still remember the living corpses that fell from the sky? Run as soon as you meet these men, or you’ll only meet with death.” 

“Scarlet is terrifying, so her men must be terrifying too. My Tang ge is worried that you’ll fall into their trap, so he has specially prepared some portraits to help you recognise their faces. Remember the men in the portraits, and be careful to not become like those corpses on the ground that can’t even go to jail and are forever stuck at being crooked-mouth corpses.”

“If you see the men in the portraits, quickly spread the information…”

“……” 

In the private room, Tang Cuo interrogated Pei Pei by himself.

He poured potion into Pei Pei’s mouth to forcibly wake him up. The first sentence he said was: “Your teammate has given us the address of your base on South Sixth Street. Lawless is over.”

“You’re lying!” Even before Pei Pei fully came back to his senses, an enormous rage burst in his heart, and very swiftly, the string called ‘rationality’ in his head was tightly stretched, to the point that it could snap any moment now.

“Do I have to lie to you?” Tang Cuo smiled mockingly, took out a watch he borrowed from the waiter and shook it in front of Pei Pei: “You’ve been unconscious for three hours.” 

What could be done in three hours? If Tang Cuo acted fast, the base must have been investigated a long time ago!

But rationality told Pei Pei that this was impossible. They had meticulously planned this for so long, while the members of Lawless were also carefully selected elites who would never collapse so fast. But the time on the watch was like a thread that tightened around his neck, making him almost unable to breathe.

At this point, Tang Cuo said again: “Do you remember what you did before you passed out? You used the item that you wanted to hurt me with on your teammate. You betrayed Lawless before everyone’s eyes. There’s no way you could go back.”

You!” Pei Pei’s pupils immediately dilated, a clear sign that his memories had been triggered by Tang Cuo’s words: “It was you who made me do it! You made me do it!”

“So what?” Tang Cuo said ever so casually: “Even if you can explain, do you think your teammate will trust you again?”

Hearing this, Pei Pei was lost for words, as if cotton had been shoved down his throat. He knew in his heart that once he was suspected of being a ‘traitor’, even if he tried to explain, nothing would get better.

Wasn’t Yao Qing an obvious example? Two consecutive failures in the acts instantly threw him out of the core team. Lawless was really such a place. They worshipped power, and they were willing to do whatever it took to achieve the goal.

Pei Pei originally thought that such was a good thing. Since loyalty was never a possible choice in Yong Ye City, only power was left to be king. But when it was his turn to run into this situation, he could only feel a chill creep into his heart.

“Also, don’t forget Scarlet. You’ve ruined Scarlet’s plan, so even if Lawless pardons you because you used to be a member and chooses to trust you, do you think that Scarlet will listen to your explanation? Will Lawless oppose Scarlet just because of you?” Tang Cuo asked one question after another, this sentence colder than the next, which cut into Pei Pei’s nerves like a sharp blade. Very quickly, Pei Pei crumbled.

“Shut up!” He shouted.

“Why should I shut up? I’m just talking to you, but your teammate can’t wait to kill you. He has been tortured to death by those strange vines of yours and got sent to Zone G. As long as he can spread the news, I think it’s very soon that Lawless will send someone to kill you, the traitor. Make a guess, will they think that you choose to betray them only when war breaks out, or will they think that all this while, you’ve been — undercover?”

“No, I’m not a traitor! You shut up, shut up!”

Beside “shut up”, Pei Pei was unable to say any other word to refute. The gaze he gave Tang Cuo was as though he was looking at a horrifying demon, while his own figure reflected in Tang Cuo’s pupils was that of a poor victim who had been tortured to bleed from all his seven orifices.

“Snap —” The string of rationality in his head finally broke, and Pei Pei’s spirit ocean was swept by a brutal storm. This time, it didn’t feel like a sting caused by a mere needle. Not only his eyes bled, but also a warm liquid started flowing out of his ears.

With his spirit suffering one heavy damage to another, his endurance had reached its limit.

A big man who was more than 1.8 meter tall slumped helplessly into the black iron cage and gasped desperately for air, as if he had just been pulled out from water.

At this time, Tang Cuo’s tone turned soft, carrying with it a trace of tempting persuasion: “You have only one way to survive. Cooperate with us and kill Scarlet.”

Pei Pei didn’t speak. His eyes were blank.

Not in any hurry, Tang Cuo simply continued: “Can you tell me, besides South Sixth Street, what are the other bases that Lawless has? How did you contact Scarlet? By the way, let me inform you that Miao Qi has been rescued.”

The name ‘Miao Qi’ finally made Pei Pei react. As his hands trembled uncontrollably, he turned his head to look at Tang Cuo again and asked in a hoarse voice: “Can you make sure that I won’t die?”

Tang Cuo: “I can.”

Pei Pei: “Can I trust you?”

Tang Cuo: “Of course.”