The Trial Game of Life

With the forced mission only six hours away, Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng arrived at the entrance of Zone G. 

Zone G was adjacent to Zone A and F, but the whole zone was surrounded by very high walls. If they wanted to enter, they could only pass through the main gate that faced the central area.

The gate was more than 50 meters wide. It was a huge black iron gate that remained open all year round, but few people had the guts to walk through it. Even the long cobblestone street outside the gate was rather deserted, for most players likely wouldn’t want to pass by this place, even avoiding it from a distance.

Tang Cuo glanced at the few kittens around him, and he had a foreboding that after the two of them entered, the place might become lively. Perhaps someone would open a gambling table to bet on when they would get out of here, or perhaps someone would have the same idea as them and wanted to barge in.

But for now, Tang Cuo just wanted to ask: “Are you sure Leng Miao will come?”

“Yes.” Jin Cheng knew Leng Miao’s personality well, but there was nothing that could be 100 percent certain in this world: “There are six hours left. If he doesn’t come, we won’t wait for him.”

Six hours was a perfect amount of time. If they triggered the warden’s dungeon, they would definitely not get sent into a forced mission. If they didn’t trigger it, six hours would also be enough to get the matter done, and they could return to the central area in time to enter the dungeon.

If they failed to leave the prison six hours later, they would be trapped, but then the forced mission could take them away.

After another ten minutes, just when Jin Cheng didn’t plan to wait any longer, Leng Miao finally turned up. As always, his expression was as cold as his name, carrying not even the slightest hint of smiling.

He had absolutely no plan to greet Jin Cheng, but he nodded to Tang Cuo, which meant that at least he acknowledged Tang Cuo’s presence.

Jin Cheng shrugged, and for a rare occasion, he didn’t tease Leng Miao, because Tang Cuo was there. He was afraid that Tang Cuo might get jealous, and Leng Miao indeed had the looks that would make people misunderstand. If he got into trouble and Leng Miao decided to pour more oil on the fire, it might be tough to explain.

Luckily, Leng Miao didn’t know what Jin Cheng was thinking under that seemingly righteous face, otherwise he might really jump at Jin Cheng till the point of mutual destruction, which, well, would save them the effort of having to walk through the prison gate.

However, the two of them still had a certain extent of mutual understanding, that was, they didn’t want to be next to each other, so Tang Cuo was forced to stand in the middle. With a blank expression, Tang Cuo lifted his feet and walked inside.

Jin Cheng and Leng Miao looked like his left-and-right bodyguards, with one ranking fifth and the other ranking fourth on the Red List. With this, Tang Cuo exuded such an overwhelming aura.

This stunned everyone in the city for a moment. As the news spread, the name Tang Cuo quickly rose to be the most discussed topic at the game hall, and his limelight even overshadowed the news of Chong Yanzhang’s demise.

But they were even more curious about why Jin Cheng and Leng Miao were together, and why they chose to enter Zone G at this point in time. Did it have something to do with Chong Yanzhang’s death?

The development of the matter didn’t stray far away from Tang Cuo’s expectations. He already predicted that someone was fishing in troubled waters, and now that the turmoil was further stirred up by them, the waters now seemed even more troubled.

At this moment, the trio was already standing on the vast lawn where Jiang He picked up Zheng Yingying. Countless searchlights from the fence were shining on them.

Leng Miao raised his eyes to gaze at the tower at the corner of the wall and finally spoke the first sentence: “At that time, Jiang He, Chen Liu and I were in the same area. Chen Liu was so noisy yet Jiang He didn’t move a finger. It’s even more impossible for him to kill Chen Liu now.”

Tang Cuo: “If it’s not Jiang He, who would harbour so much hatred towards Heaven’s Will?”

This was asked to both Jin Cheng and Leng Miao at the same time. Leng Miao said bluntly: “For example, you.”

Jin Cheng didn’t refute, because he did have a motive to destroy Heaven’s Will following the East Cross Street incident. However, since he was standing here, he was naturally eliminated as a suspect.

“It’s a bit slow today.” Jin Cheng folded his arms and glanced at the tower.

Tang Cuo could see that Warden Xiao Tong should appear there. But at this place, apart from the intense light from the searchlights and the dark, depressing prison before his eyes, there was no human voice at all.

Leng Miao frowned: “It shouldn’t be the warden’s game time yet.”

Hearing this, Tang Cuo suddenly thought of something. He looked at Jin Cheng and asked: “Is the prison riot surely over?”

“Not sure.” Being reminded of that issue, the corner of Jin Cheng’s mouth curled up into a mocking sneer: “It seems that our arrival isn’t very timely, no — maybe now is the right time.”

“Ding ding —” A bell chimed hurriedly, explaining exactly what Jin Cheng meant. A voice came from the front cell, which sounded even sharper and more urgent than what Leng Miao used to hear when he was in prison.

“Go. Let’s go straight in.” Jin Cheng made a quick decision.

When the electric bell rang, the warden would make his round.

Leng Miao stopped caring about the hostility between him and Jin Cheng and rushed in. The trio swiftly swept across the lawn and reached the real entrance of the prison. They didn’t pick any particular area, simply entering as soon as the gate opened.

“Squeak —” The iron gate made a piercing screech and the sound of footsteps from afar were so loud it could shake the land and the sky, completely separating the inside of the gate from the outside.

There was a riot, a real riot.

The lights inside the prison were dim, and the dark figures that were all jumbled up looked like evils that just crawled out of Hell, casting terrifying shadows on the wall. Steel keel built up the base structure of this prison, while the stairs and the floor were made wholly of black steel. As those figures stepped on them, the banging sounded like drumbeats that could burst the entire sky, but the ones that tried to shatter the sky this time weren’t immortals in Heaven, rather, they were demons from this very land.

All the cell doors were wide open and the ‘demons’ walked out of their cages, furiously biting each other. It was truly horror from Hell.

As Leng Miao was walking one step faster, the splashing blood stained his shoes. He withdrew his feet with a stern expression, and as his eyes swept across the scene in front of him, he kicked the man who was about to slash his sword at another man.

“Clang!” The sword holder slammed onto the steel frame, the sound of his broken bones clearly heard.

But this seemed to make him snap out of his daze.

Tang Cuo squatted down in front of him, while Jin Cheng looked at the one who was saved by Leng Miao and threw a question at both of them: “What’s happening here?” 

The two shivered in pain, unable to articulate their words. One of them was still lying on the ground and convulsing. Jin Cheng suddenly conjured a lead bucket and poured all the water on them both, then finally, they squeezed out a sentence —

“BS055! Someone took BS055 into prison! Crazy, they all went crazy!” 

Hearing this, Tang Cuo was confused, while Jin Cheng and Leng Miao changed their expression at once. Jin Cheng immediately explained to Tang Cuo: “BS055, another major creation in the BS series. It’s called ‘Mad Dog’.” 

Mad Dog?

Tang Cuo raised his eyebrows. This word never gave him any good feeling either. [T/N: Recall that in chapter 1, Tang Cuo’s Assessment Report mentions that Tang Cuo used to be bitten by a dog when he was 7 and was forced to be injected with rabies vaccine.]

Jin Cheng asked them about Xiao Tong, but these two men were just small fries and clueless about this sort of thing. The three had to abandon them and rush to other areas to check.

Luckily, although BS055 was an inhalable gas, it had completely dispersed, so the three of them could walk freely without worrying about being infected.

Looking all the way, there was blood everywhere on the ground, but no corpses were seen. There could only be two explanations. Either they were injured but had run away, or they had died and entered their karma-serving process.

Looking at the situation here, it was likely the latter.

A lot of them had killed until their eyes turned all bloodshot, and they started attacking the trio. Without Tang Cuo having to lift a finger, Jin Cheng and Leng Miao neatly dealt with all of these men.

“It looks like everyone has been released.” Jin Cheng opened a prison door. Seeing the mess inside, he asserted: “Our great warden must have intervened.”

Tang Cuo felt what Jin Cheng meant now. The warden was really a twisted man.

“But where is he now?” Leng Miao said.

“Leave him be, our goal isn’t to fight against the warden.” Jin Cheng replied.

“Then what’s your purpose? Are you so kind that you want to poke your nose into Heaven’s Will’s affair?”

“Why did you agree to come here then?” 

The two shot questions at each other, but neither answered, so they were even.

As they walked, Tang Cuo suddenly asked: “The last time you were in jail, who else were in the neighbouring cells beside the three of you?”

Thinking left and right, Tang Cuo still felt that Jiang He, whose whereabouts remained unknown up till now, must have something to do with this incident. Why did he disappear and appear again in Zone F?

Leng Miao thought for a moment before saying: “No one that seemed too special. But there was a little girl, maybe she’s dead now.” 

A little girl?

Not only Tang Cuo, but even Jin Cheng also immediately stared at Leng Miao, which had him taken aback. Even if he was dumb, he would still know that this little girl was unusual. Leng Miao thought about it carefully and said: “She came here earlier than us, and she was seriously injured, lying in the innermost cell. She never spoke nor showed her face. There’s only one very special thing: the warden seemed to take a lot of interest in her. He brought her out alone a few times.”

At the end, he added: “Chen Liu mocked her.” 

Verbally bullying a little girl who was about to die indeed sounded like something Chen Liu would do. But would she kill Chen Liu just because of a few ridicules?

Tang Cuo intuitively felt that this little girl was the one he saw when he entered Yong Ye City. Otherwise, there were two such littles girls turning up at the same time. In this place, how could there be an exact coincidence like that?

“Is she bald?”

“Yes.”

That must be it. Even if they counted all the little girls in the country, there wouldn’t be many who were bald.

Leng Miao understood at once: “Are you here for her? Who is she?”

The news about this little girl came as a complete surprise, but Jin Cheng didn’t intend to drive Leng Miao away from the topic and went along with the flow: “We don’t know her name, but we’ve seen her once. You only need to know that she’s a new player, but you’d better not take her lightly when you see her.”

Leng Miao was slightly surprised.

He had never thought that the dying little girl who was locked up next to him would reappear in this world like this.

Was Chen Liu really killed by her?

Now that he thought about it, the warden repeatedly brought her out alone, which indeed foreshadowed that she was extraordinary. Regrettably, back then, Leng Miao was being suspicious towards the entire world after being tricked by Jin Cheng, so seeing that the little girl was dying, he concluded that she wouldn’t survive till her sentence was over and didn’t care about her anymore.

He thought of something else and a tinge of realisation flashed on his icy cold face: “Jiang He.”

Back in the cell, Leng Miao thought the bloody stench next door was too strong and unpleasant, so he conjured an ‘Air Cage’ on her. It was Jiang He who stopped him, saying that this would suffocate the little girl to death.

Leng Miao saw Jiang He’s expression and decided to take back the cage.

“In other words, Jiang He saved her?” After listening to Leng Miao’s words, Tang Cuo finally connected all the clues together. The little girl, Jiang He, Chen Liu, Heaven’s Will and even Xiao Tong were all related to each other.

Regardless of whether Chen Liu’s and Chong Yanzhang’s deaths had something to do with the little girl, Xiao Tong must’ve known that they died in prison.

This also meant that the little girl was likely to be in this very prison right now.

At this moment, “Clack, clack,” the sound of leather boots suddenly came, and the trio quickly turned their heads — Warden Xiao Tong had finally appeared.