The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 144

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 144: There’s Someone Under The Bed (9)

While Warden Xiao Tong got up to deal with Rong Yi and Leng Miao, who came to look for Lin Yandong in Zone G, Jin Cheng was busy bragging about Tang Cuo with Scarlet, to the point that she wanted to vomit blood.

“The moment Tang Cuo entered the dungeon, the date of your death was already set. You are going to die anyway, don’t you want to pull a few pillows with you to cushion your back? For example, who is behind Chong Yanzhang?”

Scarlet leaned against the wall of the private room with her arms tied up, closing her eyes and refusing to answer.

Jin Cheng eagerly gave a piece of advice: “Don’t think that luck is still on your side. Tang Cuo also has Mr. Crow’s feather. Even if he just casually plays and even throws away a life, he can still find the phylactery.”

Hearing this, Scarlet finally opened her eyes and shot a mocking glance at Jin Cheng: “You kill that little girl, then I’ll tell you.”

Jin Cheng replied: “Why didn’t you kill Jiang He?”

Scarlet: “You should ask him. If I die, that little girl will die too. If everyone he follows all dies such unjust deaths, will he still have the courage to live?”

Jin Cheng: “You’re evil.”

“You flattered me.” Scarlet snickered. Casting a look at the drip bottle hanging next to her, she felt that besides the funny feeling in her chest, there was some sort of inexplicable admiration — Jin Cheng must be a genius to think of this method of using a drip bottle to infuse her with the healing potion. This not only left her hanging by a thread in severe pain but also prevented her from recovering too quickly.

If she could move, she would definitely kill him with a thousand blades to show her gratitude.

“Actually, you shouldn’t loathe me. I’ve always dealt with you with honesty. If you fail, it’s because you’re not as good as the others.” Jin Cheng might be talking very lightly, but it was enough to make people vomit blood. “The person you should hate is the one who treats you as a pawn. When you’re dead, they’ll still be alive and well. Aren’t you angry? If it was me, I would be angry even if I died.”

Scarlet rolled her eyes. Jin Cheng could really drive her so angry that she might actually die.

Jin Cheng continued: “I know you must be thinking that after you die, you couldn’t care less if this world explodes. You would rather take your secrets to the grave than make any of us feel better. But I can tell you with certainty that the final victory will be mine. It belongs to me. The only thing that matters is time.”

Scarlet was a little curious about where his confidence came from: “Why?”

Jin Cheng: “Because Tang Cuo and I will never be the same as you and Jiang He. You sever your ties even before the outcome could be told. He and I were comrades-in-arms before we became lovers, and the trust I give him is heavier than my life.”

Saying so, Jin Cheng smiled again and continued: “Maybe one day he’ll no longer love me, but he won’t betray me.”

Hearing this, Scarlet went silent and, for a long time, not a word came out.

She couldn’t understand what that so-called trust that was heavier than life meant, because she didn’t have it. No, perhaps she had it, but she threw it away before she knew about its presence.

Trust was a fragile thing for her, and she liked everything that was fragile and dangerous. Be it the wings of a butterfly, the foam of the summer sea, or a promise from a man’s lips.

Could she believe what Jin Cheng said?

The more handsome a man was, the more eloquent he became. But Scarlet could see the light in his eyes when he mentioned Tang Cuo, and at that moment, she actually wanted to believe his words, and at the bottom of her heart, she felt a hint of envy.

But, this envy ended with Jin Cheng’s next sentence.

“But it’s impossible for him not to love me. After all, I’m kind and invincible.”

“Go to hell.” Scarlet shot him a friendly ‘wish’.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t die for the time being.” Jin Cheng apologetically poured a cup of tea in front of Scarlet and said: “So, do you want to cooperate? You reveal the name of the mastermind behind the scenes and help me to waste less time on my path to becoming the king of Yong Ye City. In exchange, I’ll let you kill him yourself.” 

A light quickly flashed in Scarlet’s eyes, but eventually, she closed them both.

Jin Cheng didn’t expect to be able to convince her on the first try either: “Think about it. Think carefully about it. I promise to let you see Jiang He again.” 

Scarlet’s eyelashes trembled, and she quietly clenched the hands that were tied behind her back before helplessly loosening them.

At this point, the Fierce Ghosts Academy had become a real academy of fierce ghosts. Sharp claws were scratching at the windows and crimson eyes were hiding behind the curtains, while hair was tangled in the vines and the faucets in the laundry room were gushing out foul-smelling blood.

The blood-coloured moon in the sky had grown brighter, and the buds of the peach blossom tree in the garden had bloomed a little. Bathed in the moonlight, the light they radiated also carried with it a vague shade of red.

Tang Cuo went back to the dormitory and saw his five ghost friends.

Hanged Ghost was hanging himself from the window, while Hairbrush Ghost’s hair had grown to two meters in length. Meanwhile, a black mist was emitting from the two sick ghosts like a plague that was spreading fast. Drowned Ghost was lying face down on his broken water bed, and the water was drifting all over the ground. His entire body was dripping with water and his face was scarily pale, looking like a floating corpse.

The moment Tang Cuo walked past the door, five pairs of ghostly eyes swept over at once, and even Hanged Ghost, who was having his back towards Tang Cuo, turned around slowly and stared at Tang Cuo with bone-chilling eyes.

Tang Cuo felt that as a ghost who killed himself, he should cut his artery to show his respect. But since he never had a habit of self-mutilation, he said bluntly: “Earlier, the human hiding in the dormitory wanted to kill me.” 

In an instant, the ghost friends turned irritable, and Hairbrush Ghost started screaming. His hair flew up even without any wind, and the sound he let out shook the glasses to the point of shattering: “Who is it?! Kill him, I want to kill him! He ruined my beauty sleep!” 

Hanged Ghost suddenly stared at the umbrella in Tang Cuo’s hand and threw a question with bloodshot eyes: “Why is our school idol’s umbrella in your hand?

Tang Cuo frowned: “School idol?” 

The two sick ghosts also sat up in shock: “True, isn’t this the school idol’s umbrella? I’ve seen her hold this umbrella! Say, when did you get to acquaint the school idol, when did you get together with her?!” 

The school idol.

Tang Cuo instantly thought of the portrait he hid in the crevice of the bed, then of the time when he picked up the umbrella and the ghosts’ extreme reactions that followed. There must be something wrong with this school idol.

Immediately, he rushed out the door and ran to the female ghosts’ dormitory. But just as he reached the bottom of the female dormitory and was about to charge inside, a white figure suddenly fell from above Tang Cuo’s head and crashed straight into a spot one meter away from him.

As a strong wind blew across his temples, blood and brains splashed all over his rain boots. The scarily swift accident was followed by the slugging motion of time that was being stretched infinitely.

Tang Cuo turned his head and saw a corpse on the ground, his heart beating violently in his chest. For a while, there was only the sound of heartbeat in his ears, and in his eyes, there was only a bloody face with wide-open eyes that were gazing helplessly at the sky.

It was the school idol in the picture.

After the fall, she was lying on her back, with the back of her head completely ruptured and all her limbs smashed, each morphed into an eerie angle. Like a worn-out doll, her beauty was still mesmerising even though she had broken. A thin layer of makeup was worn on her face, making her appearance not ghost-like at all. Only her eyes had lost their colour and become empty, as though they were holding immeasurable sadness.

“Aaaaahhhhh —“ An ear-splitting scream broke Tang Cuo’s slow-motion playback. He turned around at once to see that almost all the ghosts in the dormitories on both sides had stuck their heads out.

The death of the school idol seemed to have gravely triggered them. They were shouting at the top of their lungs, scurrying in no order and tearing down things in hysteria, even making the ghostly light orbs on both sides of the path tremble and flicker on and off. The suffocating atmosphere almost made Tang Cuo unable to breathe.

Literally, he meant that he was unable to breathe. The breathlessness assaulted him, as though he was in a cage where he could never break free, or in a body of water that had frozen and spared him no chance of freedom.

But no matter how the ghosts ran amok, not a single one came near.

Tang Cuo took a deep breath and neatly knelt down to examine the body. Though the way the school idol died was different from the other ghosts, she couldn’t possibly be the murderer, because, even if Tang Cuo didn’t manage to catch up with the murderer, he could tell from the silhouette of their back that the person was a tall man.

Not to mention, the school idol was now dead.

Tang Cuo roughly checked the injuries on her body and determined that she died from the fall. He reached out to unbutton her clothes to see if there were any other wounds, but stopped.

Before the eyes of the public, even if he was in a dungeon and the person was already dead, such a move seemed to be quite offensive. Just when he was hesitating, he caught a glimpse of the school idol’s open collar, where a red spot was hiding.

It wasn’t the red shade of blood. Blood would be darker than this.

Tang Cuo immediately opened it to take a look and found a flower-shaped pinkish-red birthmark on her chest, just slightly above her collarbone. 

The school idol, the birthmark, the peach blossoms, the dream, the murderer. Tang Cuo quickly flashed the keywords across his mind, then swiftly rushed to the top floor.

If he deduced correctly, judging from where she fell, she should’ve fallen from the top floor.

The situation in the dormitory building was very chaotic, so much so that it could be labelled as a mad dance of demons. Tang Cuo ran in large strides and shuffled his way through the ghosts at the fastest speed without stopping, and a very short while later, he turned up at the rooftop again.

As expected, there were traces of her falling at the edge of the rooftop. And she actually killed herself.

It was a suicide by jumping.

She had been on the edge of the rooftop with her back facing down, and she had fallen naturally with her arms open.

The clues kept piecing together in Tang Cuo’s mind. He panted, vaguely feeling that he had touched some corners of the truth, so he rushed back to the building to find the school idol’s room.

The school idol lived in a single room.

There, Tang Cuo found her student card. Her birthdate indicated a yin year, yin month and yin day, marking a pure yin ‘fate’.

But why was her death different from the other ghosts?

Perhaps her pure yin ‘fate’ was just a pretence.

At this point, many ghosts broke into the room. Feeling the overwhelming yin energy, Tang Cuo turned around and he caught the glimpse of a familiar figure flashing past the door. He ran after them at once.

His [Sword of Judgment] was unsheathed in an instant. Tang Cuo kicked on the wall, made a flip over the heads of the others and landed in front of that particular ghost. He pointed his sword at her throat: “What are you running for?”

The female ghost’s crimson eyes opened wide and a hint of panic could be heard in her coarse voice: “Why are you stopping me?!”

Tang Cuo came closer: “What’s your relationship with the school idol? When your roommates died, why were you the only one doing the laundry?”

“How do I know?!” The female ghost was the one who luckily escaped death yesterday. Tang Cuo didn’t suspect her at first, because the murderer seemed like a twisted killer who targeted only ghosts with pure yin ‘fates’. If he could kill one more, he would, so the motive likely didn’t matter, and he probably didn’t have any accomplice either. But now it seemed that it was no longer the case.

“Why did you turn up at her room?” Tang Cuo continued to ask.

“She was part of our dormitory as well, and it hasn’t been long since she moved out. What’s wrong with taking a look?!” The more the female ghost uttered, the more emotional she became. It seemed she was so embarrassed that she was getting angry, and could go berserk any time now.

Tang Cuo promptly stopped. There were only ghosts here, so if the mass got mad, he might be torn to pieces right on the spot. Luckily, he still carried the role of a patrol team member, so he showed this identity and stepped back on his own volition, which allowed him to avoid a messy brawl.

“Why did she move out of your dormitory?” Tang Cuo controlled his tone and asked calmly.

“Moving out means moving out. She wanted to move out herself. Many boys came to help on the day of the move. There’s no way you don’t know that. Don’t you also keep a picture of her for yourself? You didn’t come to help her?” 

As her voice fell, the remaining ghosts also jumped in.

Seeing this, Tang Cuo felt a tinge of apprehension in his heart, but his expression remained unmoved. He asked: “Do you know that she has a birthmark on her chest?

The female ghost suddenly laughed: “I know. All of us know.”

The other ghosts nodded.

Tang Cuo looked at the grimacing expression that suddenly turned into a laugh and finally understood where the unease in his heart came from. It was incredibly strange. Why would the whole school know about the birthmark of a school idol?

There was also the head of security who was the first victim. What did he have to do with the school idol? Then there was Li Haoshuai, who was hiding a picture of the school idol. The female ghost asked him if he had come to help the idol move things out of her dormitory; was he involved in this somehow?

The ghostly faces around him all started to distort, letting out laughs that were so horrifying he could sense chills running down his spine.

Tang Cuo immediately left the dormitory building and headed to the crime scene at the security department again. No ghosts were batting an eye on that place anymore, and the patrol team members had scattered all over the school. Tang Cuo smoothly pushed the door in and turned the room upside down once more.

Roughly 15 minutes later, he found a bloody fingerprint under the bed, and a broken nail stuck in the crevice.

The nail and fingerprint were near the edge of the bed, but they were well hidden, so Tang Cuo couldn’t spot them during his first search attempt.

He thought that there was someone under the bed, which simply meant that there was a living human under the bed, but now it didn’t seem to be the case.

‘Literal meaning’ traps were hiding everywhere in this dungeon.

Judging by the position, as well as the shape of the fingerprint and the nail, it looked like someone was being pulled out from under the bed, and as such, that person grabbed the edge of the bed.

There was a layer of transparent nail polish on this nail, in which case, it could be reasonably assumed that the person was a young woman.

She put up desperate resistance as her fingernails dug into the bedboard but was still unable to withstand the force behind her, so a nail broke, leaving some blood on top of the fingerprint on the bedboard.

When Tang Cuo examined the school idol’s body just now, the nail of her left index finger also showed broken marks. It was an old injury that hadn’t completely healed.

The school idol was the young woman under the bed.

[There’s Someone Under The Bed]. Is that what it really means?

Tang Cuo held the broken nail, straightened up, looked in the direction of the garden and recalled the peach blossoms that were half-blooming on the tree, then fell into deep thought. What the murderer wants, is it revenge?

If it was, then the Fierce Ghosts Academy was probably not a reality.

He was still in a dream, and from the very first time he opened his eyes in the Fierce Ghosts Academy, he had been in a dream constructed by the murderer.

Thinking of this, he turned around again, pulled out the school idol’s black umbrella and opened it.

The talisman inside the black umbrella naturally hung down. He looked up and suddenly turned the umbrella handle. 

As the umbrella spun in his hand, the talisman also started spinning like a flapping butterfly.