The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 1

Novel introduction & Translation masterpost
Character Guide
Original novel written by Nong Qing Feng (弄清风)
Translator: Michelle N.

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Chapter 1: Trial Game of Life

“Player K27216, Tang Cuo, at 23:05 on April 1, 2019 of the Solar Calendar, confirmed dead.”

“Failed to clear the Trial Game of Life.”

“Survival duration: 24 years, 4 hours, 8 minutes and 6 seconds, Rating: A, Initial character score: -5.”

“Ding — please collect your Survival Assessment Report.”

Standing amid a hazy white mist, Tang Cuo heard an announcement spoken in a male voice that came from nowhere, his face devoid of any expression. He felt that he must be dead.

Five minutes ago, he died on the main road, where, beside a drunk man lying unconscious by the roadside, there was only a stray dog. The dog quietly stood there waiting for him to become colder. In the blink of an eye, he arrived here — the blood was still on his body but the injuries had disappeared. His belongings were also gone. 

He looked around. There was nothing but white mist in this place, and his naked eyes could only see up to 5 meters away.

“Ding — please collect your Survival Assessment Report.” The announcement didn’t sound like an electronic voice. It was clear and transparent, like one coming from a young man.

As a private investigator, albeit third-rate, Tang Cuo never lacked the ability to judge the situation. He felt that he must be dreaming and everything in front of him was a fantasy in his dying moments.

Also, the dead wouldn’t need a report.

“Ding — please collect your Survival Assessment Report.” The announcement continued to urge him, totally ignoring Tang Cuo’s complete failure to pay attention.

Tang Cuo simply sat down because he was tired of standing. After a while, the announcement’s content finally changed.

“Player K27216, negative will to survive, first warning: deduct 1 point. Current character score: -6. Please collect your Survival Assessment Report immediately.”

As the voice faded, a book of a size comparable to the English-Chinese dictionary fell crudely in front of Tang Cuo’s face. It had a thick, black hardcover, with the name ‘Tang Cuo’ stamped in golden curly letters.

Tang Cuo opened the book to look at one page and his face turned black. The book was densely filled with records of his life, and one entry even wrote —

‘Tang Cuo, 7 years old, at 9pm on February 27, 2002, fought with fierce dogs at the Eunuch Lane in Gusu District, Suzhou City. Frightened many pedestrians who passed by: deduct 0.5 points. Refused to receive rabies vaccine: deduct 5 points.’

“Tsk.” Tang Cuo knew his eight characters1Refers to the eight Chinese characters that record the exact timing of a person’s birth. The time, day, month and year of the person’s birth each represents two characters, forming a total of eight. were not compatible with dogs, but what is going on with this stupid deduction system? Refusing to receive the rabies vaccine deducted 5 points from him, but eventually, he still got injected!

He turned directly to the last part and read the report’s comment on his short life — ‘A true rebel, negative and lazy, always takes extreme actions and recklessly dances with death. Suggest to cherish life and live past 25.’

Tang Cuo’s face turned even blacker and he snapped the book shut, not wanting to give it any other glances. But the moment he closed the book, the scene before him suddenly changed.

A faint golden light emerged from the white mist and Tang Cuo looked up to see its real appearance — it was a golden bell the size of a toddler’s hand.

The bell rang and the mist thickened.

“Ding —”

“If survival is a game, are you ready for it?”

“Please bear in mind the first rule of Yong Ye City: Survival is justice.“

“Happy surviving!”

The voice faded and Tang Cuo suddenly saw his surroundings turn completely black, then a whirlwind swept by. The whole process lasted for about 5 seconds. When Tang Cuo regained his vision, he found himself standing in a circular arena, surrounded by a bursting crowd of at least several thousand people. 

There were men and women of all ages. Right next to Tang Cuo was a frail, skinny girl in a hospital gown. The bald girl of 11 or 12 years old was crouching on the ground and desperately trying to cover her head.

A little further away, there was a grey-haired old man with his face shrouded in wrinkles, a nervous middle-aged man covered in blood constantly checking if his limbs were still intact, a dejected-looking woman in red clothes and many, many more.

The arena was very large, entirely paved with 1-square-meter tiles made of black granite, all of which shinily polished. It was deep into the night now, but the arena remained well-lit because there was a huge golden bell floating right above. The bell seemed to house a miniature sun that illuminated the whole place, making it as bright as daytime.

Another bell. Tang Cuo somehow felt that this bell was the same as the bell he saw in the mist just now.

As Tang Cuo continued to look around, he caught sight of 49 black stone pillars circling the whole arena. These were some strange pillars – each had a body so thick that at least three people were needed to hug it, and its height must be at least 30 meters. The stone pillars reflected the images of the center of the arena, giving off a huge sense of oppression.

It was a feeling of being peeped from above by the gods, as though one’s soul would be pressed into a tiny space, squeezing and shrinking until it turned into mere dust.

Tang Cuo didn’t like this feeling very much.

The surroundings were still noisy, and there were spots where desperate cries and held-back whispers kept coming endlessly like 10,000 ducks yelling wildly in his ears.

The woman in red snorted but didn’t give any opinion. Unexpectedly, the old man who seemed to already have one foot in his grave came to say hello to Tang Cuo.

“Boy, where did you come from?” He asked.

Tang Cuo didn’t answer immediately. From the corner of his eye, a flash of white light appeared, leaving behind a dazed young man who was wet from head to toe. Then he looked at the old man and said:  “Car accident.”

The old man was stunned and immediately touched the wrinkles on his forehead, as if he wanted to smooth them out, then he smiled helplessly: “It seems that you’re an understanding person and much stronger than us. I was old and didn’t have much time left. It was a long life and I pretty much passed on in my own home with natural death. But who would have thought that I would end up here after just a blink?”

With that said, he stretched out three fingers at Tang Cuo: “I’ve been here for about three hours.”

He carefully pointed to the others: “That poor girl, she had cancer and couldn’t be saved. The one with blood on his body only came here about half an hour ago. He still can’t manage to calm down until now. Seems like he was also in a car accident.”

All of them died just today.

As for the woman, the old man shook his head, looking as though he had no words to say. But when Tang Cuo looked back at her, she turned over impatiently and said: “We’re all dead anyway. Just wait for Yama2 Refers to the King of Hell in Chinese belief. to judge us. If we have to reincarnate, we reincarnate; if we have to go to Hell, then we go to Hell. What is there to talk about?”

The old man didn’t agree with her. The wrinkles on his forehead piled up like a dry bark as he said: “Which Yama receives us just like that? What you said doesn’t follow our ancestors’ wisdom since ancient times. Haven’t you heard that voice? It mentioned some games —”

Before the old man even finished his sentence, he abruptly closed his mouth. It was because his gaze finally landed on Tang Cuo’s Survival Assessment Report, his muddy eyes filled with astonishment.

“You sir…” He even used an honourific title without knowing.

The woman was also shocked as she held the report in her hands. She was young and her life of fewer than 30 years resulted in the thickness of this book, but then it was mostly because of her rebellious teenage years. She had seen the old man’s report too, but even with his much longer lifetime, his book was only a little thicker than hers.

But this one? He seemed even younger than her. What has he done in just 20-odd years?

The two didn’t speak anymore and for some time, they failed to comprehend the situation. The sudden silence made both the car accident man and the sick girl look over, then everyone turned completely quiet.

The atmosphere became a bit awkward.

Tang Cuo remained expressionless and didn’t want to clarify, rather, he just had the urge to beat up someone. At this moment, a loud, clear voice suddenly interrupted them, breaking the silence instantly.

“Mahhhhhhhhhhhh!” This voice was not only abrupt but also very energetic, just like its owner — a big boy clad in one-piece green dinosaur pyjamas. He looked about 16 or 17 years old, with a ruddy complexion and loads of energy.

The dozens or so people standing around him unanimously threw their attention at the boy.  He suddenly halted, his youthful face splashed with many shades of emotions: amazement, nervousness, fear and joy, all flashing by one by one. Then, the shades all disappeared with one sentence.

“Holy sh*t?” He blinked a few times.

The old man rubbed his temples. When people got old, they couldn’t handle such noise anymore, for it hurt their heads. The other people reacted differently. Most turned their heads back and no longer paid attention, yet only Tang Cuo remained unflinching throughout the whole thing. 

The dinosaur boy smiled and rubbed his head, turning left and right, looking a little helpless. The old man sighed and waved at him to come, and the boy immediately walked over.

“Boy, where did you come from?”

“From the shipping area, the shipping area. Just yesterday I said that I wanted to travel, then I ended up here. Isn’t this place quite far away?”

“Yes… How did you die?”

“It was probably a sudden death! Suddenly I died. You see, I’m still wearing my pyjamas. I bought this from Taobao for 39.9 RMB including delivery. It’s coral fleece… Hey, I haven’t even reached the hospital!”

“You’ve died so unjustly.”

“Isn’t it?!”

“What’s your name?”

“Chi Yan. ‘Chi’ of ‘chi tang’ and ‘Yan’ of ‘huo yan’3池塘 [chi tang] means ‘pond’. 火焰 [huo yan] means ‘fire’., so the name means water and fire existing in tandem…”

Tang Cuo folded his arms, feeling as though he was listening to a dialogue from a comic book.

The old man introduced the two to each other again. They all just died, so it was the right thing to make more friends. Just a short moment later, more people appeared at the arena, more panic and noise gathered, and no one knew how much longer it would last.

Tang Cuo never thought about the world after death. However, what he was most concerned about was not the existence of this world but the words mentioned in the announcement.

24 years, 4 hours, 8 minutes, and 6 seconds was the length of his short life as announced by the voice. His time of death and his life records in the book were both correct. If Yong Ye City really existed, it seemed like a world after death.

If there is a trial game of life, where does the ‘game’ come from?

Tang Cuo died suddenly on the street, so he failed to beat the game. Was his 24 years of life a survival game? Was it only for him or for everyone?

This half an hour’s experience was so incredulous that even Tang Cuo himself couldn’t make any conclusion. At this time, Chi Yan, who had put the tension and fear of a newcomer behind him, was squatting on the ground and coaxing the little girl.

“Right!” Suddenly he had a bright idea: he reached out to his pyjamas hat and tore it away. With just one “whoosh”, a big opening appeared at the back of his clothes.

The people nearby shot strange looks at him, thinking that he must have been scared silly and something had gone wrong with his head. The boy, on the other hand, was happily putting the green dinosaur head on the little girl: “Shhh, I’m letting you wear it. It’s quite cold at night.”

The little girl froze, clutching her bald head and completely forgetting to reply. The other people also had a similar reaction: they watched in amazement and turned away without saying anything. Some of them were frustrated, some were hesitant, some were disheartened, but some seemed to get a tinge of comfort from Chi Yan’s action.

A small act of kindness was like fireflies in the dark, which helped people feel a little bit better.

Time passed by quietly.

For the people here, waiting felt like having a rusty blunt knife ceaselessly slashing at their poor nerves.

“I can’t stand it anymore! I’m leaving. I can’t stay in this ghostly place, I’m going back, I’m going back… I’m going back!” A middle-aged woman with blood on her forehead suddenly went mad and stumbled away from the densely packed crowd, rushing out of the arena.

Tang Cuo narrowed his eyes. This wasn’t a normal space. Except for the arena being illuminated by the bell, anything outside it was engulfed in ominous darkness.

The middle-aged woman’s footsteps were heard after she disappeared from the arena. The moment she stepped out of the light, she seemed to be swallowed by the darkness and vanished into thin air.

Everyone was frightened, all their faces horrified and anxious, but no one dared to take a look. Just two or three minutes after the middle-aged woman disappeared, a shriek came from the thick blackness outside the arena.

Like the sound of a ghostly claw scratching a glass window.

The atmosphere suddenly froze and the people in the whole arena looked as though they were being strangled. The very next second, the familiar bell chimed, breaking the stagnation and making everyone’s heart jump.

“Ding —”

“This is a real-time announcement of 20190401 session: A total of 6,315 players completed the Trial Game of Life, Overall rating: F, Average score: 13.”

“On such a wonderful night, the once-a-day ceremony of entering Yong Ye City is about to begin. Let us warmly welcome the speech of the great and benevolent Mr. Crow!”

The voice hadn’t even faded yet before another angry voice suddenly inserted itself.

“No, today Mr. Crow doesn’t want to be benevolent even for one bit. Mr. Crow is angry, very angry! You are the worst batch I’ve ever brought here. The overall rating is only F! The average score is only 13! 13, what an unlucky number!”

Everyone looked up and searched for the source of the voice in wonder. Soon, someone found a crow jumping on his feet on a stone pillar in the east.

“The batches are getting worse and worse, really worse and worse! You lived such a poor life and you have the nerve to go looking for death! Let me see, car accidents, drowning, hanging… Oh my, there are even two who cut their wrists together in the name of love. Hey, you guys are really interesting.”

The couple that was named in public were so scared that their hands held together were immediately released.

“Mr. Crow is angry and wants to punish you. I can’t let you swagger into Yong Ye City so easily, it is unfair to other serious players. Let me think about it, how can I punish you, let me think carefully about it…” The crow walked around and around the stone pillar with his wings behind his back, and every time he shook his head in pleasure, it looked ridiculous.

But no one laughed.

The crow was very amusing, yet the looks on those people’s faces were even more amusing than him.

“I know!” The crow suddenly raised one of his wings and delightfully announced: “Let’s play [The Wheel of Fortune]!”

The moment his words fell, a huge turntable with a radius of ten meters appeared out of thin air from above the crow. The turntable was made of seven fan-shaped lattices of different colours and different sizes, with different content written on each lattice. Surrounded by a circle of colourful lights, it looked exactly the same as the big turntable that often appeared in the arcade.

The announcement came up again: “The Easter Egg game has been triggered — [The Wheel of Fortune]. The game this time is divided into four rounds. Players get penalties or rewards based on the turntable’s result. Survival is not easy, luck is most important, the game starts now!”

“Wait, how did it just start like that?!”

The arena was blasting with noise and the crow looked at it from the top. The more chaotic everyone became, the happier he seemed. He flapped his wings and jumped from this stone pillar to that stone pillar, then from that stone pillar to the next. Each time his wings flapped, the turntable spun faster.

The colourful lights shined brightly, their afterimages lingering like an ominous aperture that squeezed everyone’s fate.

Chi Yan was right next to Tang Cuo, carefully pulling his sleeve: “Ge, Tang ge4As this word will be used very often later, I’m keeping it this way to preserve the meaning. ‘Ge’ refers to how you address a man who is not too much older than you (like your elder brother)., did you see the punishment written on the turntable? What does that mean…”

Tang Cuo didn’t answer.

But Chi Yan couldn’t stop talking. He clearly saw that written on the turntable were ‘Bad luck for 13 points’, ‘Thousands of arrows piercing through the heart’ and so on, none of which sounded very good.

But the reality was that whatever you feared the most would always come. With a “ding”, the turntable suddenly stopped, and the red pointer stopped at the piece that Chi Yan saw — ‘Bad luck for 13 points’.

“Hee hee!” The crow was extremely happy and looked across the crowd. “I hate 13, 13 is not a good number. I declare that all people with a score of 13 will die, ha!”

The next moment, screams were heard from everywhere.

At many spots, a pure black hole appeared under people’s feet without any warning, like a monster opening its mouth to swallow people alive. In a flash, dozens of people disappeared right in front of everyone’s eyes.

Many didn’t even see how those people were devoured. They only saw a dark hole opened with no bottom in sight, and then — there were piercing screams.

As his life was hanging by a thread, one person managed to grab the edge of the hole, his face turning as white as a sheet after hearing the others’ screams. He struggled to climb up while frantically asking for help: “Save me, please save me! Save me!”

As the people nearby saw him, they reacted, some quickly and some slowly, but they all boldly rushed forward to pull him up. But before they could get close, the man started screaming even more helplessly, his expression petrified and twisting into desperation.

“Who is pulling me?! Let go of me! Help meeee —”

The people who rushed to rescue him froze. The next second, the person seemed to be dragged down by something, his horrified scream travelling further away with the speed of light and leaving only an echo behind.

“Ahhhhh!” The weak-hearted people began to shriek as the fear in their hearts made their brains start imagining countless brutal and terrifying images.

Sometimes the invisible was the most frightening.

Chi Yan also fell into a stupefied state, his body stiff and his mouth dropping open but no words could come out. Tang Cuo’s face was still, his brows furrowing but his eyes showing no fear. He stared intensely at the crow.

The crow laughed, and he once again began to jump from this stone pillar to that stone pillar, then from that stone pillar to the next. Like a naughty evil boy, he shook his head and said: “You are all cowards. Cowardly people can’t survive in Yong Ye City. So, let the great and benevolent Mr. Crow sing a song for you. With a song, you won’t be afraid, ha!”

The turntable continued to rotate. Like a scream that could pierce an entire ocean, a song came down.

“God, lambs and crow,

Had fun playing on the cliff together.

They sang and danced,

Flowers bloomed in the stone.

God said, look,

It was my flower.

One lamb ate the flower,

Let it go die quickly.

God, lambs and crow,

There were no more flowers in the world.

One lamb fell off the cliff,

Two lambs fell off the cliff,

Three lambs fell off the cliff,

Four lambs fell off the cliff,

Five lambs fell off the cliff,

Six lambs fell off the cliff,

Seven lambs fell off the cliff,

All dead,

They were all dead, ha.

The crow said,

The disobedient children would all die, ha!”

The song wasn’t long, but after being sung over and over, it seemed to never stop. The cheerful tone mixed with the eerie lyrics made one’s soul tremble.

Then everyone went mad.

“What the hell is this place?!”

“What should we do? We will all die, we will die!”

“I am afraid…”

“Stop singing!”

“Don’t sing anymore!”

But the singing continued.

“…

One lamb ate the flower,

Let it go die quickly.

One lamb ate the flower,

Let it go die quickly…”

“Ding!” The turntable finally stopped again, and the red pointer pointed to a small blue grid marked as ‘-2’. The crow looked up and shook his feathers in pity: “Regretfully, everyone’s points are reduced by 2.”

But soon he was happy again, tilting his head and claiming: “It doesn’t matter, we have another round!”

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The author has something to say: The [Song of God, Lambs and Crow]: Source of inspiration — Agatha Christie’s [And Then There Was None].