V2C1

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“Happy New Day!”

Lilith’s sugary voice shocked Lin Jue out of his stupor like a bucket of ice, a deep chill that was cold enough to break him open. He stood, frozen in place, his mind sinking into a quagmire of fear.

It wasn’t a dream- what happened last night wasn’t a dream! The rot, the howls, the desperate screams before the players’ death, all of it was real!

He still hadn’t woken up from the nightmare.

“Oh no, looks like he’s broken down from fear.” Lu Ren touched his bottom lip, his lips curved up in both menace and humor.

Song Hanzhang ignored him.

“Xue- Xuezhang, what’s going on?” Ominous premonition made Lin Jue’s voice tremble.

“Obviously, the game has not ended,” Song Hanzhang said calmly and continued his previous conversation with Lilith. “If I take your notebook now and cross out my name, will the game end?”

“You can always try.” Lilith grinned and passed the notebook to him.

Song Hanzhang’s eyes swept across the list- ten people’s names were already crossed out, their three names the solitary spaces in between the messy scratches. “Thank you, but there’s no need.”

Lilith sighed regretfully. “Such a shame, you guys missed out on a chance to escape.”

Even though she spoke words of regret, her wicked smile held little trustworthiness.

Lin Jue looked at that name list, images from last night flashing through his mind, finally stopping on Zhou Yuxiu’s despairing but blank face…

That would forever be a tragedy he couldn’t forget.

“The Zhou Yuxiu in the maze, just what was that?” Lin Jue forced open his numb mouth.

Lilith tilted her head, flashing a mocking, malicious smile. “Who are you talking about? Zhou Yuxiu? I’ve already forgotten.”

“What do you mean? I saw her myself…”

Lilith stopped him. “What is living? If there’s no one to remember you, if there’s nothing to record your existence, what is there to prove that you’ve been in this world? So, keep living; that’s the only evidence there’ll be to prove your existence. The dead aren’t deserving of such an honor.”

Lilith’s smile held emotions that Lin Jue couldn’t understand. It was like pity, or mockery, or a cold shard of emptiness. “The dead will be forgotten, that’s all.”

“Do we not have any new easter eggs?” Song Hanzhang patted Lin Jue’s shoulder in comfort.

“I don’t really care about easter eggs, but can you return my dao back to me? I really do like it,” Lu Ren said.

“Experience is the best easter egg. You can inherit your reward from the last round. Of course, there will be new rewards.” Lilith grinned at the basket in her arms, every easter egg wrapped perfectly in cellophane, hiding the text. There were exactly ten.

“But we won’t get the new advice on the eggs,” Lin Jue frowned.

“Experience is the best advice,” Lilith smiled and winked at him.

Lin Jue couldn’t help but shiver.

“Okay, that’s the end of our Q&A session! I’ll finish handing out these easter eggs in the next three days, and on the third, which is also Monday night, the game will continue! Have fun playing~” Lilith lightly strode past the three towards the dormitory gates.

The sun was so bright it hurt to look at. Standing underneath such light, Lin Jue felt a chill seeping into his bones.

As expected, this nightmare was far from over.

The joy from surviving had vanished and a numb sorrow filled Lin Jue’s heart. If this game of death would continue on indefinitely, he would definitely die one day. Everyone would die. Then what was the point of struggling to survive today?

They were walking on a road without light, bound to be swallowed by the darkness.

Lin Jue stood, dazed, soulless, in the empty space in front of the canteen.

“Looks like you’re quite taken back.” Lu Ren’s voice sounded in a whisper next to Lin Jue’s ear, filled with malevolent intent.

His ear twitched and Lin Jue took a step back, looking at Lu Ren in alarm.

“Nice eyes,” Lu Ren grinned ambiguously.

Song Hanzhang side-eyed Lu Ren before turning back to Lin Jue. “Are you hungry?”

Lin Jue shook his head. His hunger had disappeared without him realizing and his stomach felt as if it was filled with cotton now, leaving no space for anything else.

“Still, drink some congee, we can plan everything else later. We have three days; we’ll have the advantage compared to the next batch of players,” Song Hanzhang said.

“I want fried soy noodles, fried rice cake, and two meat buns!” Lu Ren grinned as he raised his hand.

Song Hanzhang ignored him and led Lin Jue into the canteen.

Feeling a little left out, Lu Ren shrugged and followed them in.

The bustling canteen and the lively atmosphere made Lin Jue feel a lot better. He had never realized how precious this noise was, but now, he could only feel like he was alive when standing among the crowd.

And not like a walking corpse in the dead of night.

&&&

The moment they walked into the canteen, Lu Ren immediately overtook them in a sprint and started babbling towards the food window, “Aunty Liu! Your complexion is really nice today, did you do your hair recently? The style really suits you. You’re much more fashionable than my mother. Oh, I want the fried rice cakes, extra vegetables, and two meat buns!”

The canteen lady at the window smiled at his flattery and gave him more vegetables as per his request.

Lin Jue felt as if he had been struck by lightning.

“It’s your turn.” Having already finished buying his breakfast, Song Hanzhang turned to remind Lin Jue, still in a state of shock.

“Xue- Xuezhang…” Lu Ren, that guy, he’s mad! The sentence echoed itself in Lin Jue’s mind.

He was unable to connect the bloody and vicious Lu Ren from last night with this bright and cheerful boy now—— he must have been possessed!

Song Hanzhang took a look at Lu Ren who gave them an almost ‘friendly’ smile from behind his plate.

Lin Jue felt like all the hair on his body was standing on end.

What was even harder to believe was that Lu Ren and Song Hanzhang were eating breakfast on the same table! Okay, even though Lu Ren was the one who approached them, Lin Jue was unable to get his head around eating with someone who had been their enemy just the night before.

He hesitated for a while but still ended up placing his food tray next to Song Hanzhang while looking at Lu Ren in alarm.

Lu Ren, sitting on the other side, completely ignored his existence. He was doing everything he could to stuff the rice cakes in his plate into his mouth, gorging himself so engrossedly that it was like nothing in the world could stop him.

He was enjoying his food, but his violent way of eating made everyone else on the table lose their appetite. At least Lin Jue had forgotten about his empty stomach by the continuous frights.

Song Hanzhang ignored the scene on the other side of the table however, slowly drinking his congee, not making a single sound, his movement regular and robotic.

It was only when Lu Ren finished his last meat bun that he breathed out a sigh of relief and he patted his stomach in satisfaction. “To be full and hydrated, such is the ideal life.”

“You’re speaking as if you’ve been starved for your entire life,” Song Hanzhang looked at his half empty bowl of congee and said.

Lu Ren laughed. “Even though the times you were starved were much greater than mine, especially when you had those detentions.”

“…” Song Hanzhang didn’t even bother raising his head and sent another spoonful of congee into his mouth.

Lin Jue’s heart dropped a little.

“Thank goodness my family doesn’t believe in that thing of yours.” Lu Ren shrugged and changed the topic. “When I received your call this morning, I felt like I was still dreaming. Even though what happened last night was exciting after all, it wasn’t exactly scientific.”

“Completely unscientific,” Song Hanzhang emphasized.

“Okay okay, no matter how unscientific it is, it’s happened already. So, after suffering with me for so long today, what do you want to know?” Lu Ren grinned at Song Hanzhang and leaned back into his chair.

“You should understand very well.” Song Hanzhang also placed down his spoon and met his eyes.

They two stared at each other for almost half a minute before averting their gazes at the exact same time.

“Alright, at least let me listen to your reasons. Aren’t you always the best at persuading others?” Lu Ren smiled.

Lin Jue felt as if he was drowning in a sea of confusion. Since when did these two come to some kind of contract? Even though he knew that they knew each other from before, from how Song Hanzhang had sounded, their relationship wasn’t very good, so why were they able to have such a seamless conversation?

Lin Jue felt a little left out and unnatural in the conversation and could only bury his head in his food. He would have to wait for Lu Ren to leave to ask Song Hanzhang any questions.

“Firstly, I admit that you have the power to survive easily in this world, at least, you can now, but I don’t believe that this situation will continue for long. If we look at what was happening last night, the situation worsened so much towards dawn that even you had trouble. There is always a limit to a person’s power, even if you can deal with it now, there will come a time when you have no strength left.

“Furthermore, analysing situations and making judgements is not your strength and information is always key to survival…” As he was speaking, Song Hanzhang’s phone suddenly vibrated. He took a look at it and his expression froze.

“The most important thing is, we have no choice left.”

As he said that, Song Hanzhang threw his phone towards Lu Ren. “I asked someone to check for me. The people who died last night don’t exist in our school rosters- none of them exist.”

Lu Ren skimmed over the text message and gave the phone back to Song Hanzhang, who gave the phone to Lin Jue. Lin Jue took it with both hands. On the screen there was a singular text message: 【I checked the rolls, the people you talked about don’t exist in our school, none of them.】

A dark coldness spread across Lin Jue’s body as he passed the phone back to Song Hanzhang, the words from Lilith passing through his mind involuntarily:

——What is living? If there’s no one to remember you, if there’s nothing to record your existence, what is there to prove that you’ve been in this world? So keep living, that’s the only evidence there’ll be to prove your existence. The dead aren’t deserving of such an honor

“Oh my, that is so very cool. If you die you’ll get erased from this world? What a large workload,” Lu Ren lamented exaggeratedly.

Song Hanzhang paused and suddenly stood up. “Sorry, I’ve just thought of something that I need to check. Goodbye.”

Lin Jue also stood up. “Then I’ll also…”

“Finish your breakfast first, then come find me in my dormitory. I’m in 217,” Song Hanzhang said.

“Oh…” Out of habit, Lin Jue agreed and sat down again.

It was only when he sat down that he realized there was something wrong; Lu Ren sat across him, grinning.

“Hi, big rabbit~ How’s your breakfast?”

“…” Lin Jue’s mind blanked out apart from one voice which was screaming- Help! Xuezhang, there’s a pervert here!

Luci: Welcome to the second book in the series!

Vera: Stuttering is so awkward to write in English. Lin Jue, I have so many complaints. Also, wasn’t it Lin Jue’s line in the extras for an ideal life having three meals a day? Lu Ren, you’re really going for that MC role huh…

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