The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 142

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 142: There’s Someone Under The Bed (7)

The ghosts poured out from under the bed, and Tang Cuo fell into the loop again.

He split his mind into three tasks: one was to dig through the rest of the rooms, one was to resist the ghosts’ attack, and the remaining was to keep thinking. If his brain was a non-stop spinning top, he was the human that kept turning it. All this thinking didn’t affect the movements of his hands and feet in the slightest.

The first thing to be sure of was that the apartment building at the moment wasn’t an actual ‘reality’. As long as he was still repeating the process of waking up, he was stuck in this so-called dreamland.

The situation at this moment felt like a dream in a dream. He was totally aware that he was dreaming. He continuously woke up from the dream, but he couldn’t escape it. His dwindling HP was proof that this wasn’t a simple time loop, for his HP didn’t get reset along with the time, and neither did the cooldown duration of his skills. Time was moving forward, but he kept getting trapped inside this dream.

If Meng Ghosts Academy was a dream, he was able to leave it by lighting up the radical 犭. The apartment also had the radical 犭, and in both scenarios, this radical couldn’t be reached easily.

The former’s challenge was due to the absolute distance, while for the latter, he simply couldn’t get out of the apartment building. Did this similar setting mean he could leave both dreams by lighting up the radical 犭? Just that this time, the difficulty had increased?

Such a guess seemed reasonable, but Tang Cuo still felt that something was wrong. The peach blossoms were certainly a suspicious factor, but there was another doubt that lingered in Tang Cuo’s mind. He couldn’t quite tell what it was, but he wasn’t able to ignore it either.

Seeing that the entire apartment building was about to turn entirely upside down by him yet the phylactery was still nowhere to be found, Tang Cuo didn’t hesitate any further and pulled out another piece of equipment from Wen Xiaoming — the [Miniature Crossbow].

The bolt broke through the wind and, as fast as lightning, it headed straight for the signage of ‘Ju Dog Paradise’.

But the signage that wasn’t even far away remained unmoved.

Tang Cuo’s eyebrows furrowed. He had been staring at the crossbow and the bolt that flew out. The signage was so close that it was impossible to miss it. Immediately, he shot a few more arrows, only to hear the sound of the wind being torn off while the signage stayed absolutely intact.

This was odd. If he couldn’t even get close to the signage, wouldn’t he be trapped here forever? Could this dungeon be so difficult?

After all, it was just a dungeon of Zone E.

“The signage…” Tang Cuo mumbled the word in a low voice, and just at this moment, a ghost rushed over and grabbed his ankle. As soon as he came to a momentary halt, the other ghosts swarmed over at once.

As the chill sealed his joints, he was thrown to the ground by surprise. His ribs seemed to be broken, and his throat was filled with a taste of fishy sweetness. Luckily, he reached out and grabbed the corner of the table in time to stop himself from being dragged away. In an instant, he turned back and shot a ‘Fireball’, forcing the ghost who was holding his ankle to let go.

Through the pain brought by his broken ribs, Tang Cuo’s mind immediately became clear, and he finally understood where the problem lay — it was the signage, and the root cause of the signage was a distraction!

This was a mistake in his thought process.

After Tang Cuo found the switch at the signage of ‘Meng Ghosts Paradise’ and flipped it, he woke up on his bed in the apartment. As such, he subconsciously thought that the signage was the key to escape from the dream, and that everything that happened in the Meng Ghosts Academy was a dream.

But what if was the other way around? What if the bizarre Meng Ghosts Academy was the reality?

Let’s go back from the beginning. He returned to the dormitory with the patrol team captain and got the information about the victims’ eight characters being pure yin. He then deduced that he might be the next target of the murderer, so he lay in bed and pretended to fall asleep, waiting for the murderer.

Later, in a hazy state of mind, he fell asleep, and the moment he woke up, he found a new dead ghost, but he himself was unharmed. Then he felt that there was something wrong with the signage and went to check it.

In the process, he had experienced both falling asleep and waking up.

What if he hadn’t woken up at all? The murderer came to the door while he was asleep. Everything he experienced at the moment was a ‘dream cage’ created by that someone.

Regardless of whether this deduction was correct, he still had to confirm it.

All the thoughts happened in the blink of an eye. As Tang Cuo covered his wounds, his face went as white as a sheet, but the light in his eyes was brighter than ever. He seized the opportunity to jump off the building and return to his room, waking up again.

Once again, his HP fell below 10.

Tang Cuo dexterously pulled out a potion and took a sip as he glanced around. If the murderer was really manipulating this dream and trying to kill him here, where was the murderer at the moment?

Was he in this dream too?

No, Tang Cuo had certainly left no corner of this apartment building unsearched. There was no other presence here. Not to mention, the murderer could simply wait for Tang Cuo to be trapped and perish here. There was no need to take any risks.

This was the most reasonable guess so far to explain how the murderer could escape so easily. It was because he didn’t have to wait for the target to die after he made his move.

But how could Tang Cuo get out of the dream?

The murderer definitely didn’t want him to escape, so even if there was an escape route, it must be well hidden, or there might be no way out.

The ghosts were pouring out from under the bed again, but Tang Cuo didn’t have a second capsule CD player to block the way. Once again, he started his escape journey from the apartment. At this point, his body was extremely exhausted and his feet felt as though they were filled with lead, while there wasn’t even a tinge of warmth on his fingertips.

Luckily, he had gotten better and better at his ‘Fireball’ skill. The basic ‘Fireball’ skill rewarded to him by the system and his magic-based ‘Fireball’ skill were thrown out at the same time.

“Ah ah ah ah!”

The shrill screams were like a rain of needles that poured down from the sky to every corner of the room. As Tang Cuo’s brain felt a sense of tingling, his feet slipped. The sword in his hand slashed forward in annoyance, splitting open a female ghost’s stomach.

The moment he fell down, he neatly adjusted his posture to slide right below the ghost, and speedily, he got up on one hand. But the second he looked up, a bloody chunk of flesh was falling out of the female ghost’s stomach.

The moment the chunk of flesh reached the ground, four limbs poked out of it. It turned its head, and opened its eyes —

Two pairs of eyes looked at each other.

It was a baby demon1鬼婴 [gui ying], lit. translated as ‘baby demon’, refers to an unborn baby who dies and absorbs yin energy to evolve into a demon..

As Tang Cuo stared at the big swollen head that seemed to have been soaked in formalin then the deformed limbs, an alarm distinctly rang in his heart. A drop of sweat slipped from his temple, but it was quickly cut by a sharp blade. Facing the risk of being sieged by the ghosts, Tang Cuo’s figure moved as swiftly as the wind. He focused all his strength to activate his ‘Sprint’ skill and punctured the baby demon’s brain with his sword.

The sound of a baby’s distressing cry reverberated at once, and Tang Cuo’s hands shook uncontrollably, but his eyes remained firm. With a flip of his wrist, the [Sword of Judgment] fiercely twisted inside in the baby demon’s head, and at the same time, the Holy Light of Judgment surged up, illuminating the entire corridor in an instant.

“Boom —”

The moment both sides were blasted away, Tang Cuo summoned ‘Air Walk’ and turned 90 degrees to slip down the handrail of the stairs, and in the blink of an eye, he landed on the third floor from the fourth floor.

Gazing at the dark corridor, Tang Cuo kept walking. One by one, the voice-activated lights turned on with the sound of his footsteps, but they still couldn’t keep up with his movement. Like a chaser of the light, they could only tail after him for an eternity.

In the changing light and shadow, Tang Cuo was thinking, what is the reality of this dream?

It could only be an untruth.

Dreams were but illusions. They said ‘what goes on your mind during the day goes into your dream during the night’, so to a certain extent, dreams were also based on reality. But what was untrue would always be untrue. Whose dream was it here?

It was Tang Cuo’s own.

If Jin Cheng was here, he would definitely say: “I am the owner of my own dream.”

Thinking of this, Tang Cuo couldn’t help arching the corner of his lips, feeling that he must have been severely poisoned. Otherwise, how could he, while dancing so dangerously close to the edge of death, still be thinking of Jin Cheng?

As he thought of Jin Cheng, he was reminded of Mr. Crow’s feather, an item in his Inventory Bar that hadn’t been used so far, and decided to take a gamble. In any case, he could be resurrected if he died.

Truly, he felt no fear.

Since this couldn’t be delayed any further, Tang Cuo took out the two remaining drops of [Tears of The Secret Lake] and poured a drop into his mouth. This thing had been used against the enemy, but this was the first time he had used it on himself.

Before he could taste anything, an awful wave of dizziness made him crouch on one knee on the ground. He had to lean on the sword to stop himself from falling.

[Tears of The Secret Lake] had a strong hallucinogenic effect. He raised his head with all his might, and as far as his eyes could see, the corridor began to bend, and the ghosts that were chasing after him began to blur like drops of ink that had fallen into water.

This felt as though he was someone with 800-degree myopia who had gotten drunk on fake wine. It was rushing to his brain.

At this point, Tang Cuo’s Soul Instability Index had soared to 38, and his spirit ocean had turned rainy and stormy, but it was dyed with a hint of drunken pink. It had evolved from a disaster movie to an artsy drama.

It was Tang Cuo who decided the scenes. If he wanted light, there would be light. If he wanted stars, there would be no moon. If he wanted the Holy Light of Judgment to shine on Earth, there would be no trace of darkness.

The [Sword of Judgment], the sword of His Excellency, Duke Theodore of the Kingdom of Hundred Flowers. It was said that when the Holy Light of Judgment shined on the earth, all evil would be exposed.

When Tang Cuo obtained the sword, it was still in a damaged state and hadn’t been repaired yet. But under the dual effects of hallucinations and dreams, if Tang Cuo said that if it had been repaired, it meant it had been repaired.

He got up again, lifted the now-repaired [Sword of Judgment], and slashed it down. Light bloomed from the tip of the sword, and the crooked corridors and twisted ghosts dissipated at once.

Even Tang Cuo was completely swallowed up.

“!” Tang Cuo suddenly sat up from the bed, and as soon as he opened his eyes, he saw the peach tree branches by the window and the curtain blown up by the night wind. Looking over the half-opened window, the signage of ‘Meng Ghosts Academy’ was clearly visible.

Really, he had come back.

Having no mind to be bothered by the cold sweat all over his body, Tang Cuo immediately leaned over and looked under the bed. It was empty.

No. In the corner where the sunlight did reach, there was a peach blossom petal.

The murderer was just here!

The window!

Tang Cuo didn’t bother to put on his shoes and simply jumped out the window. The moment he landed, his eyes locked on a black figure that flashed by the path in front of him. With determination, he chased after that person, but they ran extremely fast. After a while, they led him to the small garden.

The glowing peach blossoms were still blooming quietly like a scene from a dream, but the person was gone.

It was already afternoon and dusk was approaching. The sunlight was no longer strong, but it still felt like fire when it touched the ghost-version Tang Cuo. However, he stayed completely calm and pulled out the [Rain Boots] he had obtained in the dungeon [Realm of Mortals], then put on the sunglasses produced by Wen Xiaoming. Firmly, he walked forward like the most fashionable man in town.

After making one round in the small garden, he still couldn’t find anyone. His eyes fell on the peach blossom tree again, and a thought flashed by.

However, he had tried it before. The peach blossom tree remained unscathed no matter how he tried to cut it.

He decided to take a look at the signage again.

Of course, he had to find a place to hide from the sun before heading there. In the Character Panel, his HP had dropped below 10 again, and there weren’t many potions left.

If this continued, Jin Cheng might really become a widower.