The Trial Game of Life

“Luosha Feather Garment.”

“Qimen Dunjia奇门遁甲[Qimen Dunjia], is an ancient form of divination from China with applications in many aspects of life including matchmaking, childbirth, personal fortune, business etc..”

“Thatch’s Lead Bucket.” 

Each item was put on the gambling table, then Chi Yan accurately caught them all from the light orb. Tang Cuo wondered if Black Hat was hiding behind the wall and jumping angrily. The transformation speed of those irregular patterns was conspicuously getting faster. The twelve black hats sometimes twitched like they were electrocuted, looking both funny and strange.

But this Infinite Market of Dreams was great. They had obtained almost everything they wanted here, but after just a few bets, Chi Yan’s remaining items were almost running out.

If they didn’t have Chi Yan’s Kylin Arm, they might end up totally empty-handed.

“Magic stone that is of no use.” 

When Chi Yan called out this name, he was very puzzled. What kind of magic stone would be suffixed with ‘that is of no use’? What was even more bizarre was that he hit the jackpot for all the others, but failed to draw this random stone.

The wizard hats were very happy. As the twelve hats rotated simultaneously, all the bells rang furiously, playing the [Song of God, Lambs and Crow].

“Ge, what should I do?” Chi Yan hurriedly gestured.

“Continue.” Jin Cheng tossed a few more items to him. Over the past three years, he had accumulated a lot of good equipment, but most of them were repetitive and useless. Either they took the title of ‘High Quality’ yet didn’t carry the power of a high-quality item, or they didn’t match with his own combat style. Jin Cheng had always consciously asked himself and his teammates not to rely too much on equipment. With Wen Xiaoming the equipment master by his side, there were even more things left unused, so he now could make the best use of them by throwing them onto this gambling table.

Chi Yan immediately tried again and succeeded this time. Touching the plain black stone in his hand, he was in a complicated mood —  In the several dungeons that he had been through, even with his extraordinarily good luck, he hadn’t seen a lot of high-quality equipment. But this tiny stone cost seven pieces of equipment to exchange for.

He suddenly felt an urge to worship this thing.

But Jin Cheng didn’t even take this stone seriously. He conveniently threw it to Tang Cuo and said: “It could help improve your elemental affinity. It won’t help much though, but still better than nothing.”

Did you hear what the big boss just said? What ‘still better than nothing’?!

The wizard hats went bonkers again, all twelve staring at the three of them while their mouths opening at the same time: “Do it again? Do it again? Do it again? Do it again?”

Jin Cheng replied coldly: “Not again.”

Chi Yan felt that Black Hat must be so angry he could die.

As they left the miscellaneous store, the three bumped into a group of people still waiting outside. As usual, Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo treated all those men like air, and no one had the guts to stop them either. Meanwhile, Chi Yan followed closely behind with a stern face, like a loyal xiao di who really lived up to his name.

Just a few steps later, Jin Cheng suddenly saw a familiar face.

“Oh, isn’t that Little Yi Yi?”

Rong Yi was walking towards them, but upon hearing these words, he stopped at once, his eyes a solemn gaze. Chi Yan looked at him curiously, then his little brain carefully thought left and right to realise that the name with the word ‘Yi’ in it must be Rong Yi.

“Are you looking for me?” Jin Cheng shot him a devious smile.

As soon as Rong Yi appeared, the surrounding players were immediately triggered and their eyes became ten times more enthusiastic. But to everyone’s surprise, even though Rong Yi’s expression screamed that he just wanted to kill Jin Cheng on the spot, he simply walked over and left with Jin Cheng,

Those two didn’t even have some passing brawl, let alone a fight to death!

“Could it be that the news that those two competed for the movement in the dungeon is false?” Someone couldn’t help but raise doubts, but he failed to comprehend no matter how he thought about it — When did the big bosses in Yong Ye City stay together so peacefully?

On the other side, the men at the center of everyone’s attention were calmly talking with each other.

Previously, Rong Yi jumped down to Zone E because he wanted to enter the special trigger dungeon, so now he was a player of Zone E. He came to find Jin Cheng purely to have an open discussion.

“When are you going back to Zone A?” He asked.

“I’m not in a hurry. Being in Zone A right now might just put me at a loss for certain things.” Jin Cheng replied so very casually.

“Do you want to cooperate?”

“Aren’t you scared that I’ll trick you?”

Without commenting, Rong Yi went straight to the point: “Leng Miao is out of jail. I can convince him not to stand against you for the time being, and even help you if necessary. Lin Yandong also seems to want to get into contact with him.”

Jin Cheng: “What’s the relationship between you and Miao Miao?”

“Can you not call people’s names like that? It’s making me nauseous.”

“No.”

Rong Yi wanted to roll his eyes, but he held back.

Jin Cheng continued: “Since I’m already working with Lin Yandong, there’s no need to work with you.”

Rong Yi: “But can you even guess what Lin Yandong’s true purpose is? Meanwhile, my purpose has been made clear — I want to resurrect someone.”

Resurrection items such as Mr. Crow’s Feather were only useful when the player had just died. It wouldn’t be easy to resurrect a person who had died for a while.

Rong Yi had thought very carefully about this deal. Back in the dungeon, Jin Cheng didn’t agree to his conditions because the two sides were already in opposing positions. But, if they came to a partnership outside the dungeon, it might be feasible.

The more important thing was that this was a partnership formed within a restriction of how the circumstances turned out, so he wouldn’t be completely tied to Jin Cheng at all times.

“I agree.” Jin Cheng replied firmly. Compared to Lin Yan Dong, Rong Yi could indeed be considered a more reliable partner. But then he remembered something and said: “But you have to place some chips on this game first.”

Rong Yi: “What?”

Jin Cheng pushed Chi Yan in front of him, patted Chi Yan on the shoulders and said: “Take this didi under your wings. This is just nice. Didn’t you just drop to Zone E? As long as he doesn’t die, our partnership can go on.”

“Huh???” Completely lost about what was going on, Chi Yan’s eyes opened wide. He looked at Jin Cheng then at Rong Yi, and finally fixed his eyes on Tang Cuo: “Ge!”

Hearing that, Rong Yi looked at Tang Cuo: “Didi?” [T/N: A bit of elaboration here: ‘Didi’ can mean both a younger brother by blood or a younger ‘bro’ by acquaintance (basically the younger counterpart of ‘gege’). Here, Rong Yi thinks that Chi Yan is actually Tang Cuo’s blood brother.]

Tang Cuo wanted to tell him the truth, but looking at Chi Yan’s bewildered expression, he swallowed the words and made a gesture of implicit acknowledgement. Rong Yi nodded and said: “I’ll take him to the dungeon.”

Rong Yi continued talking with Jin Cheng for a while, and until the point where he took his leave, Chi Yan was still a little dazed. They had agreed that Rong Yi would come to pick him up tomorrow. Both of them even lived quite close to each other.

“I, I, I’ll just leave with him?” Chi Yan pulled Tang Cuo’s sleeve, like a little kid almost getting abandoned.

Jin Cheng said half-jokingly and half-seriously: “You can also choose to refuse.”

Chi Yan still put on the pitiful appearance of a little kid almost getting abandoned: “Well, farewell ge, but at least he’s still second on the Red List. But ge, you wouldn’t want me to keep watch on him all the time right? Do I need to pay attention to anything?”

“No.” Tang Cuo said.

“You’re too weak for that.” Jin Cheng added.

Chi Yan used to pretend to be pitiful, but now he really felt pitiful. These two ges were swaggeringly crushing all the tiny ego he still had left, even though he had just helped them win several SSR-grade items.

Then Jin Cheng went to the Ruby Bar again, while Tang Cuo took Chi Yan to the training ground. Tang Cuo couldn’t win over Jin Cheng for the time being, but it was still a piece of cake to torture Chi Yan.

Thirty minutes later, the tortured Chi Yan started doubting his life, while Tang Cuo, on the other hand, was a little surprised.

Chi Yan’s combat style should belong to the class of Special Ability User, but except for the Kylin Arm, other things weren’t worth mentioning. This Kylin Arm was truly peculiar, as if it came with its own eyes. Chi Yan was obviously an ordinary young man with little foundation, whose punches were both unstable, erratic and lacking in strength, but there were several times Tang Cuo almost couldn’t dodge.

If Tang Cuo got hit and triggered a critical hit, he might lose face.

As the time went by, a guess was formed Tang Cuo’s mind, so he threw a flask of healing potion to Chi Yan: “Get up and fight again.”

Chi Yan was already panting and sweating like rain, but his cold ge Tang wouldn’t show any sympathy. He only missed one beat and his ge’s fist already came flying his way.

Over and over again, Chi Yan got up from the ground to get back into a fighting position.

About twenty minutes later, Jin Cheng came over after getting his work done and Tang Cuo finally let Chi Yan go. The two stood side by side and looked at Chi Yan panting on the ground. Tang Cuo folded his arms and asked: “What should be the class for luck-type skills?”

Jin Cheng: “Control Specialist.”

Tang Cuo nodded: “I’ve done some experiment. This Kylin Arm helps the user draw the opponent’s luck to strengthen himself. But he’s a close combat type and will have to suffer lots of damage early on.”

Jin Cheng raised his eyebrows. He never thought that this Kylin Arm would be such an unreasonable skill. Nevertheless, Tang Cuo was right. Chi Yan had a weak foundation and could easily be beaten to death if he raised his fists at others.

“I think he lacks an Infinity GauntletA very powerful weapon in the Marvel Universe, which was designed to channel the power of all six Infinity Stones. In the movie Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos used it to wipe out half of the universe’s population..” Jin Cheng said.

Tang Cuo didn’t quite understand his sense of humour.

Jin Cheng shrugged and said: “Rong Yi is the Time Master, also considered to be a Control Specialist. I didn’t expect my random ‘matchmaking’ to be this accurate. But how much Chi Yan can learn from him depends on his own luck.”

As he said so, Jin Cheng took out the [Luosha Feather Garment] he had exchanged from the Infinite Market of Dreams and threw it to Chi Yan: “Take it. You can wear it inside for defence.”

Chi Yan quickly waved his hand: “This is very expensive. Let my ge use it!”

“What a young man.” Jin Cheng firmly clutched Tang Cuo’s shoulders and laughed without any restraint at all: “In Yong Ye City, opportunities and dangers coexist. You endure dangers and learn to seize opportunities at the same time. You’re very smart, so you probably understand that if you don’t have enough strength yet you continue to be by our side, your death will only come faster. Also, until you die, you can’t actually stand by your ge’s side, because I won’t allow it.”

Jin Cheng’s words were true, cruel yet especially calm.

Chi Yan held the garment tightly and didn’t speak for a long time. However, Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng were not worried that he would feel discouraged or care about such trivial things, because Chi Yan’s eyes remained very bright.

Tang Cuo tilted his head to look at Jin Cheng — what are you doing with my shoulders while educating the kid?

Jin Cheng understood what he meant, and immediately said to Chi Yan: “One more thing, do you know why I gave the garment to you but not your Tang ge? Because your Tang ge has me.”

Chi Yan: “Huh???”

He looked at Jin Cheng, then Tang Cuo, and his eyes finally stopped at Jin Cheng’s hand clutching Tang Cuo’s shoulders. First, his bright eyes exuded some doubts, and later, they became filled with astonishment then shock, as if he finally understood something.

Ten seconds later, Chi Yan silently put the garment away and lay on the ground with his back to them, curling up into a ball, completely motionless.

Eighteen-year-old Chi Yan had never fallen in love.

His mood was a bit complicated.

To his utter surprise, the two ges didn’t care about him at all and continued talking.

Tang Cuo asked: “Is there any news yet?”

Jin Cheng: “Not yet.”

Jin Cheng went to the Ruby Bar to look for K in order to buy information about the fortune teller’s customers. There were supposed to be three customers today. Jin Cheng wanted to know apart from Tang Cuo, who the other two were.

Although he had to stay alert against K, their usual partnership was still necessary.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, Chi Yan had to obediently sit up by himself.

That night, after Chi Yan went to bid An Ning farewell, he stayed at Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng’s residence, sleeping on the sofa. Jin Cheng’s wish didn’t come to fruition again, because Tang Cuo found a new reason to reject him — the house’s soundproofing was bad. [T/N: Sorry Jin Cheng but… Hahahahahahahaha (ノ＞▽＜。)ノ]

“Last time, I heard you telling Wen Xiaoming that you wanted to woo me.”

Jin Cheng was speechless.

Very early the next day, Rong Yi came to pick up Chi Yan and Jin Cheng asked if he was an old man, for who would wake up so early? Rong Yi didn’t want to talk to him and handed breakfast to Tang Cuo instead.

“You’re already here anyway, why not bring a fruit basket?” Jin Cheng turned on his fussy mode.

“Shut up.” Fruits were very expensive in Yong Ye City, so much so that even an apple could be sold at an exorbitant price. Rong Yi would rather feed the fruits to the pigs than buy them for Jin Cheng.

After Rong Yi took Chi Yan away, Jin Cheng also obtained the fortune teller’s guest list. The waiter at Ruby Bar specially came to deliver the list to him, with an extremely respectful and courteous attitude.

As he finished reading the list, Jin Cheng raised his eyebrows and passed it to Tang Cuo.

“Unidentified?” Tang Cuo frowned.

“K rarely gives such unreliable information. This person must’ve used some equipment to change his appearance and shield himself from inspection equipment.” Jin Cheng said as he lay on the sofa, thinking that it wasn’t necessary for K to lie about this matter. But if what K said was true, an unknown person had suddenly appeared. This definitely wouldn’t mean anything good.

And the information also mentioned that this was a two-person team.

As for the other customer, Jin Cheng knew him: Extreme Luck Yu Yiyi. This person was always engaged in some sort of metaphysics, so it was normal for him to appear at the fortune-telling room.

But to be on the safe side, Jin Cheng still looked for Wen Xiaoming to ask him to pay more attention to Yu Yiyi. He also gave the [Qimen Dunjia] exchanged from the Infinite Market of Dreams to Wen Xiaoming. This book was said to help players make their own equipment, but what would its specific effect be like? For that, Wen Xiaoming would have to judge for himself. After everything had been arranged, it was time to enter the dungeon.

The third round of the hidden mission [Kingdom Hidden In The Moonlight], [Forest of The Elves].

“Congratulations to the players for starting the hidden mission [Kingdom Hidden In The Moonlight]. This mission is a serial mission, and the third round is [Forest of The Elves]. Current number of players: 2, triggering two-player mode.”

“Please check the Mission panel at all times and follow the instructions to complete the mission.”

“Happy surviving!”

The translator has something to say: I officially adopt Chi Yan from now on. These two big bosses are horrible with kids. (」゜ロ゜)」