The Trial Game of Life – Chapter 2

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 2: Matching Game of Death

Tang Cuo got a debt of 8 points after two rounds.

At the beginning of the third round, as before, the crow paced on the stone pillar, straightened his chest and shook his head in pleasure. He shot a playful, arrogant glance at the crowd in the arena and seemed to intentionally stop at Tang Cuo’s direction for two seconds, but moved away disdainfully.

“Let’s see what the next round of punishment will be?” He deliberately prolonged his tone and forced everyone to look up at him.

The turntable slowly listened to his words and the pointer stopped at a huge yellow grid — ‘The Great Soul Pendulum’.

“What is it now?!” Chi Yan clutched his head and cried out desperately, but he didn’t dare to make a loud noise. He approached Tang Cuo subconsciously, as if it would give him some security.

The crow flapped his wings: “The Great Pendulum is good. I love the Great Pendulum! Three minutes of pure bliss. Are you ready?”

Everyone looked around in panic and saw that the stone pillars suddenly became strange as the dark figure of a huge black pendulum emerged from each pillar. The 49 pendulums began to swing around the stone pillars in different directions, different orders and different speeds, but somehow there seemed to be a wonderful rhythm.

Albeit called a ‘pendulum’, it wasn’t actually the same as the pendulum ride in the amusement park. Rather, it looked more like a judge’s hammer, except that this hammer was so large that it could sweep away a dozen people at once.

“Swoosh —” the strong wind from the pendulum’s oscillation could make people feel the pain creeping up their faces even from a distance.

“Run!”

“Avoid, avoid it!”

“Be careful!”

The people scattered around desperately to avoid the pendulums, but the moment they turned their heads from one pendulum, they met another. “Boom!” As the pendulum hit one man, before his blood even splashed, his whole body was thrown into the thick blackness outside the arena. He completely disappeared.

Another man was so frightened he crumbled on the ground, stiff and unable to move, with only the reflection of the pendulum growing larger and larger in his pupil.

Then another was so scared he slumped to the ground with both his hands clutching his head, but he luckily escaped. The people all looked up to see the pendulums swinging everywhere, creating a hurling wind so loud it could blow up everyone’s eardrums. There was absolutely nowhere to hide.

“Wham!” “Boom!” “Crash!”

Screams filled the entire space as blood splattered.

For the ones that had been lethally hit but hadn’t left the arena, a black hole that was exactly the same as the first round’s appeared below their bodies, swallowing them down in complete silence.

Many lives were lost, yet the crow sang that cheerful song again.

“God, lambs and crow,

Had fun playing on the cliff together.

They sang and danced,

Flowers bloomed in the stone.

The god said, look

It was my flower.

One lamb ate the flower,

Let it go die quickly…”

Chi Yan couldn’t remember how many times he got up from the ground. The continuous swings made him unable to stop to think. He could only run and run desperately. His nerves were so tight that he thought if he relaxed just for a split second, he would be smashed by a pendulum.

But why is this happening?!

Chi Yan rushed forward and fell to the ground. The big pendulum swept over the top of his head with a fierce wind. He almost choked on his own breath, streams of cold sweat dripping down his back.

The pendulum on the west side swung again.

Chi Yan hurriedly got up from the ground, then right at that moment, from a short distance away, he saw the little girl in the hospital gown being pushed by another person. The man was in a rush to avoid being hit, so when he saw the pendulum coming over, he unconsciously pushed the people around him to block it. But did he think about how a girl of merely 11 or 12 years old could block a pendulum?

“Run! Get up and run!” Chi Yan subconsciously wanted to rush over there, but before the pendulum on the west side could swing his way, from behind, another pendulum came crashing in. He totally didn’t notice and was instantly turned over by a violent whirl, which sent him rolling on the ground for several rounds before he could finally come to a stop.

It shook him to the core as he realised that he was almost directly hit. At this point, the little girl seemed to hear his cry, and she tried to get up from the ground, her face white with fear.

She crawled very quickly on both hands and feet. Tears almost started streaming down her face as the big pendulum was only inches away.

In that split second of imminent peril, a figure jumped over, caught the little girl then flew 5 or 6 meters away. The two rolled to the ground, barely avoiding another pendulum.

Chi Yan’s eyes widened. That man really caught the little girl!

How can it be him?

Chi Yan quickly looked in the direction of the man’s flight and saw Tang Cuo casually dusting his hands, as though he just simply threw out a bag of trash. Feeling Chi Yan’s gaze, Tang Cuo glanced at him but didn’t show any particular reaction. He turned around and walked back nonchalantly.

Ten steps later, he stood perfectly in the gap between two large pendulums. It almost seemed as though it wasn’t his black hair that was blown by the wind but the sorrow of his loneliness.

“Holy sh*t?”

Chi Yan felt his heart marvel as if he saw the hope of life, then he ran in the man’s direction. In fact, after avoiding the pendulums so many times, he could also see that they were swinging in a certain pattern. But to see was one thing, to apply it was another. Halfway through, he thought of the little girl again and pondered about taking her with him, then he found that she seemed particularly safe there.

It was a blind spot that no pendulum could reach.

Some other people soon discovered this excellent spot and gathered there.

Chi Yan couldn’t help but wonder if Tang Cuo had already figured it out very early on, but at this moment, he couldn’t afford to think about that. He gritted his teeth and ran to Tang Cuo: he had decided to hug this man’s thigh.

Tang Cuo walked graciously, one hand holding onto a random unlucky man’s back collar while the other hand holding onto his own Survival Assessment Report. When the shivering unlucky man who just escaped death wanted to thank Tang Cuo, he was slammed down, his forehead directly smashing into the ground.

Another big pendulum came and whizzed just above their heads.

“Ge! Help me, ge!” Chi Yan said, completely shaken with fear.

“First, save me first.” The unlucky man hastily interjected: “I think my head is cracking, save my life…”

Tang Cuo showed no reaction. He looked up for two seconds and said: “It’s almost coming to a stop.”

Chi Yan: “Huh?”

As he looked up, the speed of those pendulums really started to drop. Seeing this, Chi Yan’s brain was slightly stunned, and it took a few seconds for him to remember: there was a time limit.

It should be three minutes soon.

The danger that they had to face diminished along with the slowing down of these pendulums. When all the pendulums finally stopped, Chi Yan crumbled on the ground, his heart filled with the happiness of escaping death.

But soon, he couldn’t rejoice.

There were more than 6,000 people in the beginning, yet only about half were still standing in the arena now.

The crow had something to say: “The game is not over yet. Why are you all sitting down? In the final round, guess what surprise will come?”

The answer to him was silence.

The crow was very dissatisfied and jumped back and forth on the stone pillar: “You guys are really no fun. Not even a little bit interesting. You’re truly the worst players I’ve ever brought here!”

As the words were cut off, the crow went mad and rotated the turntable, and the lights once again shot up.

“Ding!” Everyone shuddered at the sound.

The frightened people looked up and held their breaths, their hearts hanging at their throats. In his heart, Chi Yan madly prayed that it would point to the only two reward grids, one being +5 points, the other being a blank grid. But the answer that fate gave him was —

The final round of [The Wheel of Fortune]: ‘Matching Game of Death’.

This time, the crow couldn’t hide his delight. With overwhelming excitement, he gave out the game description: “This is the ultimate version of a tile-matching game. I know you guys play this type of game in the human world, right? Surprise! The rules of this game are very simple: Based on your current positions, you will be divided into individual cells. In each column and each row, no matter how far apart the two players are, as long as you both die the same way and there’s no other player in the middle, you will be eliminated. I’ll specify a player as the starting point. After an elimination happens, the game will continue with the next closest player, all the way until there is no other pair left to eliminate. When the game is over, the remaining players can enter Yong Ye City.”

“No, this won’t work!” Some people objected immediately. The others looked at each other, seeing the same despair in the other person’s eyes. There were thousands of ways to die in this world, but they were mostly ordinary people, and ordinary people certainly could only die in a limited number of ordinary ways. If they really played according to this rule, everyone would die!

Some smarter players had begun to discuss with the people around them, trying to arrange their positions to ensure that they wouldn’t be eliminated. But they soon discovered that their legs couldn’t move at all.

The next moment, a shimmering light came from the gaps between the black granite tiles, dividing the whole arena into cells of equal size. If someone was standing on the edge, or if several people were standing in the same cell, a sturdy, unseen force would push them all neatly into separate cells. In the blink of an eye, the game was set.

The crow smirked, his wings held behind his back and his voice dragged on: “Let me see, where should I start?”

He looked as he jumped from one stone pillar to another. He looked left and right, then made almost one round around the arena but still didn’t announce his decision.

He must have intentionally done that to torture the miserable players. The more nervous and desperate they were, the happier he would be.

Chi Yan was so angry he started gritting his teeth with a heavy heart, but he still didn’t want to give up. He turned to look at the unlucky man next to him and whispered: “Big brother, how did you die?”

Unlucky man: “I pulled an all-nighter and somehow died…”

“What a coincidence.” Chi Yan rolled his eyes and almost wanted to die on the spot. But he was a brave and kind boy who would never admit defeat, so he turned to ask other people around him.

But actually, he didn’t need to ask.

Right in front of Tang Cuo was the man with broken arms and legs covered in blood. At one glance, it must be a car accident. Chi Yan still remembered Tang Cuo said that his death was also caused by a car accident. Bin-f**king-go.

This is worse than not asking.

“Ge.” Chi Yan looked at Tang Cuo quietly. “Would you say that the probability of getting cancer is high?”

Tang Cuo: “?”

Chi Yan: “We are both dead, at least we should let the little girl survive. Maybe her hair can grow back in that shitty Yong Ye City.”

Tang Cuo: “…”

Perhaps he knew he was going to die again, so Chi Yan started to speak endless nonsense.

Feeling a tiny bit annoyed, Tang Cuo asked back: “Do you think he really knows how each of us died?”

Chi Yan was stunned for a moment: “Huh?”

Tang Cuo had been thinking about this: what was the difference between the announcement and the crow? The announcement likely came from the bell, which was the game system. Then how about the crow? Was he an administrator or an NPC?

Either way, there must be a difference between those two.

The death methods that the crow just pointed out such as car accidents, drowning, hanging and wrist cutting were all detectable by the naked eye. If he wasn’t the system itself and didn’t know each person’s way of dying, this game would become very simple.

Thinking of this, Tang Cuo once again swept his eyes on the people standing around him.

There was a car accident three blocks ahead.

Two blocks away from the left was someone in a hospital gown with no blood on his body, so it was most likely death from illness.

On the right was Chi Yan, a sudden death.

The one behind him didn’t show any specific sign, but there was no blood on his body, so chances were it wasn’t an external injury.

“Ge? Have you any idea?” Chi Yan asked.

“Do you know how to swear at people?” Tang Cuo asked back.

“Ah?” Chi Yan was dumbfounded and started scratching his head. “Who am I swearing at?”

Tang Cuo: “The crow.”

Chi Yan immediately grasped his point. This was like the moment one got crazy right before his death. They might all die soon, which meant they would die twice in a day. If Chi Yan couldn’t live past this, he might as well go crazy and show some ‘respect’ to this shitty world.

“F**k you stupid bird! And f**k your mom too, you sh*tty chicken!”1This is a very tough insult to translate, so I’m likely missing out on the nuance here. The original sentence is “骂他鸟毛畜生。鸟毛畜生杂毛鸡，丢雷老母。”  Chi Yan threw a hilarious mix of Sichuan and Guangdong vulgars at the crow. 

Tang Cuo now saw that he hadn’t given the boy the respect he deserved and decided to look at the boy in a new light from now on. But he felt that these swears were still a bit lengthy, like an old lady’s foot wrap that was both too smelly and too long, so he decided to reduce it to —

“Hey, you stupid animal!”

Everyone in the arena had their jaws dropped.

The crow almost had one foot off the stone pillar and turned around in disbelief: “Who? Who is talking?”

Tang Cuo raised his hand: “It’s me, I’m swearing.”

Crow: “Who do you swear at?”

Tang Cuo: “The stupid animal.”

Crow: “Who is the stupid animal, please tell me clearly!”

Tang Cuo: “You.”

The crow flew off the handle. If he was just playing around before, then this time the great and benevolent Mr. Crow was really angry. He flapped his wings frantically, the feathers on his head starting to fall off.

“How dare you say that to the great and benevolent Mr. Crow, I will punish you! I must punish you! I’ve decided that this round will start with you, you! It is you! You quickly die!”

The familiar bell sounded.

“Ding —”

“Unable to eliminate, the game is over!”

The crow froze.

Chi Yan froze and everyone froze.

The game is over?!

“This is impossible! How can it end so soon?!” The crow flew up, hovering over the sky to vent its anger. But after he shouted and shouted, at one certain moment, his face suddenly became ugly — he finally understood.

“You cheat! You deliberately angered me!” The crow glared at Tang Cuo.

Tang Cuo shrugged.

Chi Yan realised afterwards: “Ge, what the hell is going on? How did the game end? You… you you you didn’t die in a car accident?”

Of course, Tang Cuo didn’t die in a car accident. If he died in such a common manner, his character score wouldn’t be so negative.

The crow was still indignant: “You treacherous, cunning player, you dare to fool the great and benevolent Mr. Crow. I must punish you, you —”

“Ding —” The chime of the bell interrupted his words.

“Congratulations to all the players who successfully completed the Easter Egg game of [The Wheel of Fortune]. Survivors: 2,315. Let us give a warm round of applause to the triumphant conclusion of Yong Ye City’s entrance ceremony!”

“Dear players,

Welcome back to Yong Ye City!”

As the voice fell, everyone’s vision began to blur and their consciousness gradually slipped away. Only the ravenous voice of the crow was still ringing in their ears: “K27216, you cunning human, I will remember you!”

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The author has something to say: 

Here’s a quiz with no reward: So, how did Tang Cuo actually die?