The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 17

Table of Content | Character Guide

Chapter 17: On A Snowy Night, He Returns (11)

When it came to killing, it was better to get done sooner than later.

It almost seemed that the moment their eyes met, Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng could instantly understand what was going on in each other’s mind. At such a close distance, Jin Cheng would employ this weapon ―  a gun.

Which could shoot as fast as lightning.

“Bang!” The bullet was aimed straight at Xiao Yuan’s face but was blocked by the kitchen knife. She tilted her head to look at the bullet hole on the knife and asked suspiciously: “Why are you attacking me?”

Jin Cheng wasn’t at all surprised by this outcome. He simply fired another bullet.

Xiao Yuan leaned sideways, her movement almost at an unworldly speed, but by this time, Tang Cuo had already jumped in. He grabbed an axe from the storage shed because he had no other weapons at his disposal.     

Xiao Yuan was forced to the corner and she yelled out with a petrified look on her face: “What are you doing?! Stop it!” 

But both Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng didn’t like talking nonsense. As veterans who had been frequently dancing at the edge of death, they both knew too well the principle of [The villains always die because they talk too much]. If there was a chance they could end the fight, they wouldn’t waste their saliva.

“Bam!” Tang Cuo smashed the axe into the kitchen shelf and all the bottles and cans on it fell out. He immediately kicked the pepper jar towards Xiao Yuan.

Xiao Yuan paid no mind to the pepper jar heading her way, but Jin Cheng fired once again, aiming not at her, but rather, at the pepper jar.

With a bang, the jar exploded and the pepper flew all over Xiao Yuan, catching her completely off-guard.

“Cough, cough, cough…” Even amid her earth-shaking cough, Xiao Yuan still moved around extremely fast. Seeing Jin Cheng’s gun raised again and Tang Cuo’s axe almost in front of her, her eyes flashed and she rushed towards Zhao Ping.

Zhao Ping’s combat style was special ability, which was an ice-type ability that should have an advantage in this blizzard-setting dungeon. But in this narrow room, it wasn’t so easy. He quickly conjured three icicles towards Xiao Yuan, but Xiao Yuan’s dodge was so swift she avoided them almost in a blink, the kitchen knife in her hand pointing directly at his neck.

“Be careful!” Qian Wei exclaimed.

Zhao Ping gritted his teeth and quickly conjured an ‘Ice Shield’ in front of him, and the moment the shield was shattered, he stepped back at once. But he didn’t think about running away. On his retreating path,he plunged one hand into the water tank right behind him and secretly exerted his energy.

The water splashed and carried a breath of ice into the air, turning itself into a water dragon in a heartbeat and headed for Xiao Yuan.

But where was Xiao Yuan?

“F**k!” Zhao Ping almost exploded when he saw her figure jumping out of the window. In the blink of an eye, he understood that Xiao Yuan jumped at him in order to escape through the window.

Qian Wei was also very angry. He didn’t have the chance to attack yet, why did the Boss already run away?

Shame on him!

Qian Wei and Tang Cuo ran to the window almost at the same time but Xiao Yuan had already jumped out of it, Zhao Ping’s water dragon barely touching the corner of her shirt.

While jumping out of the window, Xiao Yuan also changed back into Li Ying Jun’s appearance. The honest young man turned back to smile at them, his smile uncharacteristically cruel.

“Bitch, stop running!” Qian Wei cried out.

Li Ying Yun didn’t listen to him and turned around to continue running, but he totally didn’t expect to meet with an arrow. His expression changed suddenly as the arrow scratched his arm despite his very swift dodge.

His blood gushed out and he looked at where the arrow came from ― Jin Cheng had appeared at the door all of a sudden with a smirk lingering on his lips, the mockery on his face totally exposed.

At this point, Tang Cuo and the others also chased after Li Ying Jun. Zhao Ping touched the ground with his hands and shouted loudly, forming a curved ice wall around the entire backyard’s wooden fence.

The second Li Ying Jun was blocked by the ice wall, Jin Cheng’s arrow came at him again.

When Li Ying Jun jumped at Zhao Ping, he immediately ran to the back door, his timing neither a second too soon nor a second too early.

Three arrows were fired in a row.

Li Ying Jun moved left and right and soon suffered another wound on his leg. But Zhao Ping’s ice wall wasn’t that sturdy and Li Yingjun successfully cracked a gap as he continued his escapade.

As he was about to run out, Qian Wei sprung on him.

Qian Wei was a swordsman.

In fact, in the low-ranking zones, there weren’t many users of swords, sabers or cold weapons1A cold weapon, or white arm, refers to a ranged weapon that doesn’t involve fire or explosions (resulting from the use of gunpowder or any explosive materials)., because they were much more difficult to manoeuvre compared to firearms. Even learning how to use qi would be easier. But Qian Wei had always harboured a dream of being a sword warrior and happened to encounter a martial arts dungeon earlier, so as chance would have it, he decided to pick up swordsmanship.

Of course, just like a qi attack in Yong Ye City could produce shock waves, a sword attack could also bring out some special effects, those that were known as ‘sword aura’.

Qian Wei’s sword aura was light orange in colour, and his skill wasn’t high enough so the sword aura he exerted didn’t seem very strong, but he had a lot of words to shout out — “Take this!”

“Here comes another!”

“Don’t run!”

Li Ying Jun could paid no mind to Qian Wei, but he couldn’t stand his insistent noise. Meanwhile, Zhao Ping had sealed the ice wall again and was gasping for air, making it obvious that he must have exhausted a very large amount of energy. He didn’t have much power left, but he decided to grit his teeth and conjure another few icicles, aiming them at Li Ying Jun together with Qian Wei’s sword.

But no one would expect that Li Ying Jun could shatter the icicles with just one punch.

Indeed, unless it was a metal-based attack, Li Ying Jun’s defence was almost invincible.

Although Qian Wei used a sword, his sword aura wasn’t metal-based, so the only one who could really weaken Li Ying Jun was Jin Cheng. Jin Cheng fought with much ease and forced Li Ying Jun to step back with another two arrows, but the shots weren’t lethal.

Zhao Ping was puzzled, and he looked back to find that Tang Cuo had suddenly gone missing.

Three minutes earlier, Tang Cuo gave a meaningful glance at Jin Cheng and quietly walked back to the hostel. He entrusted Jin Cheng with keeping Li Ying Jun from escaping and ensuring that Li Ying Jun wouldn’t have the opportunity to swap bodies with anyone.

At the front door of the hostel, Peng Mingfan was squatting on the ground, carefully studying the footprints that were about to be covered by snow. An Ning saw Tang Cuo coming over and quickly explained: “Xiao Yuan may have gone out. We searched the whole hostel and couldn’t find her.”

Tang Cuo asked: “Are these footprints hers?”

Peng Mingfan raised his head: “This is about shoe size 36, except for her, there should be no one else. What should we do, do we chase her? Or should we not bother?”

“Our goal is to kill Li Ying Jun, so we don’t have anything to do with Xiao Yuan?” An Ning interjected. “She’s been lamenting on and on about going down the mountain, so maybe she went down there?”

Peng Mingfan didn’t think so, and his intuition told him that Tangcuo didn’t think so either. How could it be that simple?

Tang Cuo quickly made a decision: “An Ning, go find some oil.”

“Huh?” An Ning was taken aback. “Oil? What do you want to do with it?”

Peng Mingfan quickly understood, his voice not able to hide the astonishment: “Are you going to set this place on fire?”

Tang Cuo: “We’re burning the whole forest.”

About five minutes later, Peng Mingfan and An Ning each carried a barrel of oil and followed Tang Cuo into the forest. Although An Ning was called An Ning2Her name is written as 安宁 [an ning], which means ‘peaceful’, ‘calm’ or ‘tranquil’., she wasn’t actually a calm person. She was astounded at first, but now her eyes were filled with excitement.

They’re setting the entire forest on fire, how marvellous.

At this point, Tang Cuo asked her another question: “I’ve seen your attack. Are your skills related to wind?” 

An Ning nodded: “Yes. Tang ge, don’t worry, I know what you want to say. I will blow the fire later and make it as big as possible. I guarantee you will be satisfied!”

Her words and actions went hand in hand.

The three of them only had to walk a short distance. An Ning and Peng Mingfan poured oil on the trees by the road and lit them with matches taken from the kitchen. The moment the fire ignited, An Ning didn’t have to put on a pretentious show. She directly placed both hands on her hips and started to inhale and exhale.

“Huff —” 

The wind blew and the fire instantly rose ten meters high, spreading smoothly from one tree to another, and in a flash, a wildfire was born.

Today was a rare day with pleasant weather, in which, despite a bit of snow on the ground, the snowfall was light and the air was dry. With so much oil splashed on it and the unceasing wind, the fire got bigger and bigger, until everyone in the backyard caught sight of the blazing fire and fuming smoke in the distance.

“What’s happening over there?!” Qian Wei’s sword fell off its path as he turned his head in amazement.

Zhao Ping gasped and looked back at Li Ying Jun, whose face had turned grim as a monstrous roar left his throat: “How dare you? How dare you set the mountain on fire?!”

“You will pay for this!”

“You all have to die —” 

An arrow pierced through his roar, breaking it into thousand pieces. Jin Cheng stood on the roof of the storage shed, his face devoid of any emotion: “The trees grow on human bodies. Even if we burn them, we are burning our own kind. What are you crying about?”

Li Ying Jun was actually stunned at how flawless his logic was.

Zhao Ping and Qian Wei also looked at each other. Indeed there was nothing wrong with such logic?!

But Li Ying Jun wasn’t so easy to fool, and he laughed angrily: “So what? You burn my firewood, you have to die all the same!”

“Tsk.” Jin Cheng hated such unreasonable people. It was already enough for this world to have one unreasonable man – himself. Wouldn’t it be messy if there were more? And since Tang Cuo had made such a big move over there, he didn’t need to go easy on this Boss.

He smiled and pulled on his bow once more.

Li Ying Jun could sense something coming. Right when Qian Wei and Zhao Ping were still shocked by the wildfire, he swiftly tried to crack through the ice wall. He made another gap in the ice wall, but this time Zhao Ping had no more energy to seal it again.

He ran fast, but Jin Cheng’s arrow was faster.

It was a metal arrow that seemed no different from the previous ones, but Li Ying Jun didn’t dare to take it lightly. From the corner of his eyes, he focused intensely on the incoming arrow and dodged to one side just in time.

But a magical scene followed. The arrow suddenly split into three mid-air, blocking all of Li Ying Jun’s escape routes.

Li Ying Jun’s pupils shrank and he quickly stepped back, but it was still too late. Of the three arrows, two pierced through his arm and chest with a force so powerful that they threw his whole body into the air and slammed it against the ice wall.

“Crack —” The ice wall shattered.

Li Ying Jun spit out a churn of blood, but he wasn’t dead. His head rose up angrily, a cold light flashing in his eyes as he was about to speak, but Jin Cheng ran in front of him and jumped down his throat:

“Where is your axe?”

Li Yingjun was dumbfounded again.

Jin Cheng asked again: “Where is your axe?”

Tang Cuo took an axe from the storage shed as a weapon, but that was obviously not Li Ying Jun’s axe. Li Ying Jun’s axe could break everyone’s defence extremely well, yet he lay here dying without it. Where was the axe?

Qian Wei and Zhao Ping finally came to understand what he meant, cold sweats subconsciously pouring down their backs.

Could it be that their judgment was wrong, and the person in front of them wasn’t actually Li Ying Jun?

“Whoosh!” Another arrow hit Li Ying Jun’s leg, pushing him another half a meter away. Jin Cheng coldly smiled at him and asked again: “Where is your axe?”

At the same time, deep in the forest.

The missing Xiao Yuan smiled and offered a black axe to Qu Li’s, saying: “You take it, and you will be Li Ying Jun from now on. Congratulations, you are officially on duty.”

Qu Li didn’t stretch out her hand. She clenched her fists so tightly her nails pricked into her palms, and she rode on that pain to retain her last bit of free will: “Why? I’m obviously here to replace you, am I not?”

“Uhm.” Xiao Yuan tilted her head adorably and said: “I also don’t know. In short, that’s what Mr. Crow said. And it’s not a bad thing for you to be Li Ying Jun. My serving period is not yet over and I can’t go down the mountain for the time being. I have to wait for the next newcomer to come here.”

“Mr. Crow?” Qu Li’s head suddenly buzzed as she remembered the fear of being hit by the Great Soul Pendulum. She couldn’t help taking a step back, not willing to pick up the axe at all. But at this moment, her eyes suddenly caught sight of a crimson flash in the distance: “What is that?!”

Hearing her words, Xiao Yuan turned around and saw the flaring flame, her hand covering her mouth in terror. An intense panic shot through her body, for she had never encountered such a situation after so many years here.

“Quick, quick, quick, it’s coming here!” Xiao Yuan put the axe in Qu Li’s hand without another word and ran away. Qu Li looked as though she was given a burning potato and subconsciously wanted to throw it away, but another dull pain struck through her head.

A familiar chime of a bell followed.

“Ding!”

“Player K26453, officially started to serve her karma.”

Not far away, a crow was jumping on top of a tree.

“Abominable! It’s so abominable! Those two damn humans, they even cause such a blasphemy, they really look down on the great Mr. Crow, they really look down on the supreme Yong Ye City. I’m so mad I could die!!!”

He flapped his wings and the feathers on his head started falling out. He failed to pay attention to his surroundings for a second and the flames below the tree suddenly burst up, almost roasting his feet. He became even more enraged as he flew up and tried to curse, but the words were stuck at his throat.

A long time later, he finally managed to gush out one sentence ―

“I’m so mad I could die!”