The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 145

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 145: There’s Someone Under The Bed (10)

Tang Cuo returned to the dormitory and began to rummage through the boxes, searching for more connections between Li Haoshuai and the school idol. But after looking around, he couldn’t find any more information. He only had a picture of the school idol with him.

He began to pay a visit to more people, including the ghosts who had the same pure yin ‘fate’ as him and those that were killed by the murderer. Slowly, he pieced together a rough outline of the story.

One boy hid away the school idol’s hairpin. 

Another boy wrote the school idol a poem. 

Everybody loved the school idol.

When she moved out of her dormitory, a bunch of people came to help. Not only did she live in a single room, but even in the classroom, she sat in a separate seat in the back row.

Red hearts were painted all over her table, and the insides of the table were filled with gifts.

If it wasn’t for the school idol’s nail still in Tang Cuo’s pocket, he would’ve almost believed that this was a beautiful story of [Everybody Loves The School Idol].

There were still screams coming from the dormitory building, and every once in a while, another ghost was killed. This caused a huge mess, especially when many ghosts were triggered by the death of the school idol. The whole school was engulfed in a gloomy atmosphere.

Anger bred violence.

Panic brought madness.

No ghost could stay out of the way, and neither could they sleep or go to class. They clamoured, vowing to catch the murderer, but it turned out they could only watch their schoolmates die one by one.

Tang Cuo was no longer in a hurry. Holding the umbrella, he stood in the teaching building’s corridor and watched the school erupt into sheer chaos.

He was thinking about this particular problem. If Li Haoshuai was no different from the other dead ghosts, he should be just one of the murderer’s many targets for revenge. Why did the system select him as the protagonist?

What were the clearance requirements for this dungeon?

In his first dungeon in Yong Ye City, [On A Snowy Night, He Returns], Jin Cheng told him that the system might give out clues on a trigger basis.

The death of the school idol this time was a plot that only appeared after the signage was repaired. Yes, the plot. Tang Cuo believed this was merely part of the plot. It wasn’t part of the murderer’s revenge.

Because the school idol wasn’t the enemy. She should be the victim.

So how could the game clearance requirements be triggered? It was impossible for Tang Cuo to try one by one, and this dungeon carried too many twists. If he took a wrong step, he would block his own way to clear the game.

What was more important was that the murderer couldn’t be caught, and the peach blossom tree couldn’t be destroyed. 

Wait.

Peach blossom tree, birthmark, school idol?

Tang Cuo rested on the railing of the corridor with one hand, turned over and neatly jumped down, with the big black umbrella on top of his head and his two feet stepping on air through ‘Air Walk’. In the blink of an eye, he slid to the top of the pavilion in front of him.

Avoiding the rioting ghosts, he took a secluded path to the garden.

On the peach blossom tree, a few more buds had bloomed, creating such a triumphant, pretty scene.

Tang Cuo came to a halt and watched the tree for a while, then he pulled out the talisman from the umbrella and hung it on the tree. A familiar bell rang.

“Ding!”

“Congratulations to the player for triggering Plot C: [There’s Karma For Both Good And Evil]. Mission requirements: Help the human who’s hiding in the Fierce Ghosts Academy take revenge. When the progress reaches 48/99, the mission is cleared.”

“Happy surviving!”

Tang Cuo didn’t expect that this dungeon could spin him around to such a point that his ‘good side’ nature was completely reversed. If he hadn’t hung the talisman on the peach blossom tree on a whim and triggered Plot C, he would’ve tried to get rid of the murderer based on his earlier ideas. Wouldn’t it mean that he was sending himself to a dead end?

No, that didn’t seem right.

Since there was a Plot C, there must also be Plot A and B.

No wonder this dungeon didn’t give out the clearance requirements from the very beginning.

Tang Cuo felt that this was such a fitting choice. He put away the black umbrella, pulled out the [Sword of Judgment] with a neat swish, and allowed his neck to exercise a bit — it was time to finish these human killings.

Oh no, they weren’t ‘human killings’. They were ‘ghost killings’.

Inside the Ruby Bar, Zheng Yingying was also asking Jiang He about the dungeon. Tang Cuo was one of the only people she paid attention to in Yong Ye City, not to mention that this dungeon had something to do with Scarlet’s phylactery.

Jiang He replied with a hint of helplessness: “I really can’t go into details. The story should remain the same, but the main mission may be different. I believe that with Tang Cuo’s strength, he’ll certainly pass, but I can’t guarantee that his process will be the same as mine.”

Zheng Yingying: “Then how did you survive through it?”

Jiang He: “Fight the Boss, and it’s over.”

This was already a year ago, but since it involved the phylactery, Jiang He remembered it very clearly. After hiding the phylactery, he also repaired the signage and triggered the ‘Fierce Ghosts’ buff and the death of the school idol, but he never picked up the black umbrella.

He eventually set off Plot A. When the peach blossom tree was full of flowers and 99 ghosts had been killed, the murderer automatically appeared and turned into a Game Boss. As long as the Boss was defeated, the dungeon was over.

Jiang He also felt that since there was a Plot A, there should be Plot B or even Plot C. Plot A was probably the most common and easiest to pass among all the plots, and it would eventually be triggered when all other possible routes were blocked. If he was able to pass, Tang Cuo naturally would too.

It was just that under the requirements of Plot A, the story never came to completion. For example, he still didn’t know why Li Haoshuai became the dungeon’s protagonist or what role he played in the suicide of the school idol.

Hearing this, Zheng Yingying didn’t ask any more questions. In the end, she looked in the direction of the private room that held Scarlet and said in a hoarse voice: “Do you want to see her?”

Jiang He didn’t answer her straight away. He crouched down, looked at Zheng Yingying’s face that was covered under the hood and asked: “Do you want me to see her?”

“You can see her corpse.”

Zheng Yingying lowered her eyes and replied softly, as though she was muttering to herself, then suddenly smiled. When Jiang He chose her, she felt happy like a child. But actually, she was a child.

That said, Jiang He had been with Scarlet, and the relationship between the two had gone so deep, so wouldn’t it be too cruel if they didn’t get to see each other for one last time? Would Jiang He also be that ruthless towards her in the future?

But Zheng Yingying didn’t want Scarlet to see Jiang He, and she didn’t want Scarlet’s eyes to lay upon things that belonged to her. As such, she could only let Jiang He see Scarlet’s corpse.

It was a fresh corpse. The warmth was still there.

Jiang He looked at Zheng Yingying’s smiling face, frowned slightly and opened his mouth to say something, but at this juncture, Jin Cheng came over and knocked on the door to signal to them: “Time for business. One of you follows me, and one of you stays back. Decide that between yourselves.”

Zheng Yingying didn’t speak. Her attitude towards Jin Cheng was always this cold. Jiang He thought for a moment and asked: “Who did you assign to guard Scarlet?”

Jin Cheng: “Wen Xiaoming and Chi Yan.”

Jiang He nodded: “I’ll go with you. Let Yingying stay here.”

Jiang He also knew about Chi Yan and how he was related to Zheng Yingying. At least nothing would go wrong if they stayed together. In the arrangement of these matters, Zheng Yingying had always been willing to listen to him without any refutation.

When Jin Cheng and Jiang He left, Chi Yan also swiftly turned up at the door, sticking out his head and carefully looking at Zheng Yingying. He seemed to want to come in, his eyes twinkling with excitement and surprise, but he didn’t have the nerve to.

Looking at him, Zheng Yingying suddenly tilted her head and asked: “Are you afraid of me?”

“No!” Chi Yan stepped past the door almost immediately. Realising that he was overreacting, he scratched his head in embarrassment: “You changed your clothes. That’s why I couldn’t recognise you!”

Seeing that Zheng Yingying was just sitting quietly with the hem of her red cloak in tatters, it seemed as though she and the poor little girl in the hospital gown weren’t different at all. What was about that ‘nameless blade’, or ‘nameless dagger’? Chi Yan finally threw them all out of his head and gave her a big smile.

“It’s a pity that my Tang ge isn’t here, otherwise we ‘Three Musketeers of April Fool’s Day’ can sit down and exchange our views on Yong Ye City1Chi Yan was referring to the three of them: Himself, Tang Cuo and Zheng Yingying. April Fool’s Day was the day that the three of them died (1 Apr 2019).. Let me tell you, Tang ge is amazing.” Like a chatty fairy, Chi Yan kept blabbering, but he didn’t tell Zheng Yingying that he had been searching for and asking everybody about her. For Chi Yan, seeing Zheng Yingying still alive was already something to be happy about.

It was the first time that Zheng Yingying had heard someone talk so much after entering Yong Ye City. Stunned for a moment, she finally asked: “The ‘Three Musketeers of April Fool’s Day’?”

Chi Yan: “Didn’t we all die on April Fool’s Day? Isn’t that such a cool day to pass on?!”

Zheng Yingying: “……”

Chi Yan: “By the way, I still don’t know your name. My name is Chi Yan, ‘Chi’ of ‘chi tang’ and ‘Yan’ of ‘huo yan’2池塘 [chi tang] means ‘pond’. 火焰 [huo yan]  means ‘fire’., because my parents want me to have —”

Zheng Yingying: “Water and fire existing in tandem.”

I know. That was how you introduced your name when we first met.

“You finally respond!” Chi Yan could always find joy in such tiny matters. He took out a piece of candy from his pocket and handed it to Zheng Yingying, telling her: “10086 gave this to me. Do you know 10086? He’s fun and has so many interesting pieces of equipment. He also has a good sense of fashion, and that pink hair of his is so cool. I should definitely dye it green next time.”

Zheng Yingying looked down at the candy in her palm, and for a long time, she listened carefully. Finally, she answered his earlier question: “My name is Zheng Yingying, ‘Ying’ in ‘cao zhang ying fei’3草长莺飞 [cao zhang ying fei], lit. translated as ‘the grass grows and the warbler flies’, is an idiom used to describe the scenery of late spring in the south of the Yangtze River..”

Walking past the room, Wen Xiaoming saw the two young persons inside through the half-closed door, and relief finally took over his initial worries — It’s nice to be young.

On the other side, Jin Cheng and Jiang He were walking to Zone C.

The fact that Lilith had gone to visit the Vaccine Research Institute in Zone C was only known to herself, Tang Cuo and K. Trying to act in Jin Cheng’s favour, K revealed that piece of information to him. Calculating the time, Jin Cheng estimated that Lilith should’ve come back, not to mention, there was such a huge commotion in the central area just now. Given Lilith’s hatred for Scarlet, why hadn’t they heard anything from her till now?

While Jin Cheng was starting to get worried, Jiang He was pondering about what happened just now. He asked: “Do you think someone will come to rescue Scarlet?”

“Why are you so concerned about that? Aren’t you already here with me?” Jin Cheng asked back.

“I’m just curious about your judgment of Lin Yandong. In the matters surrounding Scarlet, he’s the likeliest suspect to be the one pulling the strings. But now, you seem to be suspecting someone else.”

“The Pyramid couldn’t be built by just one man.”

Jin Cheng snickered, then explained: “I never said that I no longer suspect Lin Yandong. A reckless man uses a blade to kill, but a smart man uses others to kill. The methods are different, yet the outcome is the same. To everyone, Scarlet is already an abandoned child, but I think she’s trying to lure someone out.”

Jiang He: “Who?”

Jin Cheng didn’t answer.

At the same time, in the Ruby Bar, inside the dark red private room, a secret door opened. 

K walked in and crouched down in front of Scarlet: “Good evening, my lady.”