Chapter 25

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A “tick tock” sound emanated from the quaint clock on the wall, and the hour hand gradually pointed towards the topmost peak. Shen Mu took a sip of the still full mocha. His gaze moved to An Yu’s slender fingers that were also holding a coffee cup. The coffee in his mouth began to taste like a drop of blueberry juice, the one from his memories. An Yu didn’t notice his absent-mindedness, and brought up another matter. He said with a little humor: “How does it feel to have amnesia?”

Shen Mu recovered. He felt some surprise but it wasn’t entirely unexpected: “You know?”

“I’ve heard some of your conversations with Ke Xin before. She’s a very good little sister.” An Yu smiled. Turning his phone on, he drew something briefly before passing it to Shen Mu. “Actually Liu Dao also told me today.” After a pause, An Yu spoke again, “My master came from QingHe a couple days ago, hindering my movements and causing me to be unable to leave.”

Shen Mu paused for a moment before he realized that he (AY) was explaining why he (AY) had only come now. There was a feeling of warmth in his heart, and he couldn’t help but ask: “Did something happen at home?”

An Yu shook his head: “There’s nothing, it has already been solved.”

Shen Mu vaguely felt that something might be happening in An Yu’s family, but since he’d said it had been solved, Shen Mu didn’t feel any worry and asked curiously: “What does your master teach you?”

“He’s actually my adoptive father.” After glancing at the clock, An Yu lifted his cup filled with the remaining coffee, yet the words that he’d said had genuinely surprised Shen Mu, “Something happened at home when I was very young. Later, Master adopted me, but he was a monk and so I called him Master from a young age. Don’t make this expression.” Seeing Shen Mu’s face filled with shock, An Yu raised the ceramic cup. Shen Mu took the hint and touched his cup, draining his coffee in one gulp, smiled and said: “See you later.”

Shen Mu’s eyebrows held a hint of warmth: “Good, see you later.”

At that moment, the second hand reached the apex of the clock. The hour, minute and second hands all overlapped. Blackness suddenly descended before Shen Mu’s eyes. For a period of time, it seemed as though his head had been thrown into a washing machine. The sky spun and the earth went round*. It was only after a while that the world gradually stabilized. Shen Mu opened his eyes and suddenly felt the dazzling sunlight, subconsciously blocking his eyes with his hands.

*TN: giddy with one’s head spinning.

Before he had the time to see his surroundings clearly, a new message suddenly appeared in his mind!

‘Player Shen Mu enters the first round of the Suspended Life Game’

‘The system detects that there are 12 players who are officially advancing and 3 players who are re-challenging the game! All fifteen players have now become potential players! The first twelve players to reach the only building on the island will become official players in this round of the Suspended Life Game. The last 3 players will be directly determined to have failed!’

‘The rules of this game will be announced after the 12 players arrive at the meeting place! ‘

Shen Mu still felt slightly dizzy for a moment. As his brain gradually dissipated the off-setting feeling, Shen Mu’s vision became clearer, however upon seeing the surrounding scenery plainly, he couldn’t help becoming slightly apprehensive.

As far as the eye could see, his surroundings were filled with an ocean of green and yellow. There were many kinds of trees but none were particularly tall. The sun glared down upon him in waves from above his head, extremely dazzling. The surroundings were lush and verdant, giving life to the shrubbery. For a while, his sight was blocked by a succession of trees, unable to see far, but he could still use itt to determine where he was now. This was a stretch of woodland, possibly part of a forest.

Shen Mu reached out his hand and rubbed his eyebrows, calming his mood. He inadvertently glanced at the cuffs of his shirt from the corner of his eye. A familiar white uniform——clearly it was the outfit he wore during the preliminaries, yet the familiar “3” was missing from his chest. It seemed that it was simply an average outfit.

Is someone not counted as a player until they have a number?

Shen Mu understood in his heart. He couldn’t find either the familiar plate nor any other game-related items that he’d seen before even after searching his whole body and surroundings. It seemed that this was only an average woodland. Shen Mu was a little depressed. As a person with a bad sense of direction, in a place that was unfamiliar and unrecognizable, if he were to try and find a building without knowing its location or appearance…

Shen Mu turned around a few times on the spot. Indeed, he couldn’t see any telling differences in his surroundings in any direction. His gaze swept across a thick tree with hesitation, the tree… climb the tree?

With the mentality of trying, Shen Mu made a deadly attack on the tallest and most sturdy tree next to him. Originally, he’d thought that it would take some time to learn how to climb a tree, but who’d have expected that he could scramble onto the tree branches with ease. Shen Mu climbed onto a well-grown large branch, flexibly supporting himself with the tree trunk. His field of vision suddenly widened a lot. He looked around, staring with rapt attention for a moment, but this time he really was surprised——there seemed to be a low-rise building not too far away and it appeared to be an old ash grey, neither conspicuous nor unobtrusive when framed by its landscape of yellow-green.

Shen Mu quickly clambered down the tree and moved towards the low-rise building. There weren’t any roads in the woods so moving forward wasn’t easy, but Shen Mu tried to do so as quickly as possible. The location that he’d appeared in was too close to the designated building. If other players were nearby, then it would no longer be a long-distance race that tested endurance and comprehensive strength, but a sprint that tested time. Every minute and every second would be precious.

After a moment, Shen Mu arrived at what appeared to be his destination⸺in front of a dilapidated three-story building. Although he’d traveled cautiously along the way, there really hadn’t been any accidents or encounters with other players except for the rough road.

At this point, Shen Mu was able to take a closer look at the building. The hazy image he’d seen in the woods was refreshed when he took a closer look. It looked even more dilapidated, like an old dormitory that no one had lived in for a long time. Standing in front of the building, no message appeared in his mind. Shen Mu didn’t hesitate and walked to the front door. The door itself was of the anti-theft kind, an iron door. The rust on its body proved its age.

En?

Just as he was about to push the door open, Shen Mu noticed that the leaf litter in front of the door was piled into a somewhat irregular shape. It left a small blank space immediately before the opening and was stacked distinctly higher further away from the door. Already arriving at a conclusion, Shen Mu no longer lingered and opened the rusty door.

As he was pushing the metal structure, a gust of cold, damp air brushed across his face — it was the stale air of a sealed chamber, bereft of sunlight year-round. Entering the corridor, Shen Mu’s nerves were stretched tight for a while. By the time he’d completely entered the building, still no new information had registered in his mind. Shen Mu suddenly felt his body cool, before gradually warming again.

Looking down, he found that his clothes had changed. He was no longer wearing the incompatible white uniform, but instead was clothed in a blue and white suit. It was almost reminiscent of an adult version of a school uniform, but it more closely resembled factory attire. What was special was that there was a blue cloth containing the number “2” on his chest.

No. 2? Thinking of the fallen leaves by the door, Shen Mu gradually formed a conjecture in his mind. Studying his surroundings, the first room on the ground floor was dimly lit. It consisted of a damp hall and it was completely empty. Although it was daytime, the lighting was poor. Opposite the hall, beside the entrance, lay a staircase that extended into the darkness. On the left side of the hall there was a corridor.

Shen Mu entered the corridor. The first room’s number was 4, and going forward it was 3, 2, 1. As expected, it was identical to the preliminaries. Similar to the previous time, the ground floor had four rooms, but this time the numbers were ordered instead of being mixed up.

Shen Mu tried each room in turn, and indeed, he could only open door No. 2. Walking into the room, what came to view was a simple dormitory with a metal frame bed, a wooden chair and a desk. The toilet was also the same as that of an ordinary 60-square-meter residential building. It was just enough to be used, without even one extra inch to spare.

This accommodation was quite bad…

Sitting on the hard bed, Shen Mu smoothly withdrew a brand new phone from where it lay beneath the pillow. The phone closely resembled the one in the preliminaries, only this time it appeared even more beautiful than Earth’s most advanced smartphone, and it didn’t switch back to the ancient Nokia with this scene change. For some reason, Shen Mu felt a little disappointed.

Turning the phone on, he found that it was empty, without a single icon. Would the game only start when all 12 players had arrived?

Although the sunlight dissipated all over the place outside the window, the room itself was cold and damp. Sitting on the bed, Shen Mu sorted out his thoughts and suspicions. First of all…

“The smaller the quota the larger the number of reserve players, the first round generally doesn’t have players above quota.”

Not long ago, An Yu had spoken about the rules regarding game quota, yet he himself had already encountered three people who’d been above quota in the first round. Although Ah Yu used the word “generally”, it may indeed be a normal event with a small probability, but…

The image of An Yu dazedly struggling in the swimming pool flashed across Shen Mu’s eyes. Was this part of the punishment or was it another accident? If so, there were too many accidents…

The second question, would the players who advanced together from the previous round be allocated to the same round? There was no real point in thinking about this theory as it would be revealed soon. It was just that…

Shen Mu cared quite a bit about these three undetermined factors. Those players who’d failed and entered a coma as a result of the first round didn’t really matter but if the players came from a higher-level game, he didn’t know if their mental state would be normal. For the sake of making it into the quota and winning the game, he did not know what they would do… Shen Mu involuntarily clenched the bed sheets with his fingers, feeling worry in his heart. Regardless of Ah Yu, Ke Xin was a little girl so if she really met a player harbouring ulterior motives…

Thinking of this, Shen Mu’s heart was suddenly flooded with uneasiness: although Ah Yu hadn’t appeared worried, if he ended up being returned to his dazed state in the game…! As soon as this thought appeared, Shen Mu felt coldness seeping into his bones. Unwilling to waste any more time, he immediately rushed out of the room.

However, once he was standing in the corridor, having closed the door behind him Shen Mu began to calm down a little. An Yu having his mental capabilities compromised again was just a possibility whereas panicking was a big taboo. Currently, he didn’t know whether there were other people in the building. If players were sent into the world in the order of their allocated numbers, then at least one person should’ve arrived before him. If he was going to go out, he first needed to determine the situation and the number of players within the building.

Shen Mu came in front of door No. 1, “Dong dong dong…”

……

Silence, there was no response.

Shen Mu knocked on the doors of room No. 3 and No. 4 in turn, but they were also silent. There was nothing on the ground floor. Shen Mu returned to the lobby, going up the stairs to the first floor.

Translator’s corner:

Salted Fish: Good news, we are back to our normal schedule now.

Lin: If you’d like, you can join our discord (the link is in the side panel on PC). We usually send out a notification on discord immediately after a chapter is posted so you’ll never miss a chapter. You can also recommend novels that you’d like to be picked up and chat with fellow readers!

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