V3C20

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Song Hanzhang and Lin Jue walked toward the plaza. Finished with talking about Judas, Song Hanzhang had gone back to keeping his lips shut and his heart sealed.

Lin Jue knew that he had a problem with thinking too much. If he didn’t ask Song Hanzhang what he was doing, Song Hanzhang would pretend he was a man without a mouth, everything heavy and silent in his own heart.

It was such a hateful flaw. Before, Lin Jue harbored many complaints against it, but after finding out about his past, he was able to understand that Song Hanzhang didn’t do it on purpose. His habits forced him to unconsciously observe, analyze, and think about everything, then hide every answer, never sharing without a prompt and never exposing his own thoughts.

For Song Hanzhang, it was safe, appropriate, reassuring.

But sometimes, if Lin Jue just pushed a little bit, a lot would come out…

“What are you worried about?” Lin Jue asked, straight to the point.

“Many things.” Song Hanzhang’s answer was half-hearted, but at least he answered.

Encouraged, Lin Jue continued, “What are you most worried about?”

Song Hanzhang glanced at him. Lin Jue got that the general meaning behind that look was ‘I’m thinking about a problem but here you are harassing me again’, but Lin Jue took pride in his shame and stared at him with complete sincerity. Finally, Song Hanzhang gave in.

“The most suspicious thing is for us to be able to return to the real world. I can’t believe that this thing that has us so close to death is suddenly showing mercy and letting us go. I’d rather believe that it has another reason, or… this is something it has to do. There must be a reason, some underlying cause we don’t know.”

“Are you worried that it lied when it said that it’ll let the winning team go back?” Lin Jue asked.

“There’s no need for it to lie to us. If it wanted to watch us fight to the death, it would only need to say that only one team could survive out of the three. We would try our hardest with or without the prize. I’m leaning towards it speaking the truth, but behind it…”

“Don’t worry about so much, it’s fine as long as we can go back.” Lin Jue didn’t care if there was a conspiracy behind the prize, he was satisfied as long as he could reach his goal. Compared to the vague mastermind, he was much more concerned about his opponents.

Song Hanzhang fell silent. He had many other questions as well: Zhang Sijia’s attitude towards Lu Ren was strange, almost as if he knew Lu Ren, or at least knew what he was like. But someone who had only read about Lu Ren through his profile would never be able to know how dangerous he actually was, so how did Zhang Sijia from ten years later come in contact with him? And what was the background of that mysterious cloaked figure from the 2022 team? How could he exploit the ambush against Team 2002 the best? Innumerable questions shrouded his heart, leaving him not even a second to rest, his head about to burst from the pain and his body tired down to the bone.

“I’m quite curious about that Su Tian, how did she go from 2002 to 2022? Didn’t Zhang Sijia say she had already died?” Lin Jue raised a question.

“She might possess some special item that allowed her to resurrect, but in 2022,” Song Hanzhang said.

“Like our witch box?” Lin Jue touched the box in his pocket.

“…” Song Hanzhang paused. “Perhaps.”

Their surroundings grew older and more neglected, the ground under them occasionally shifting like the warning rumbles of an earthquake. Lin Jue had been quite frightened when he felt the first shock, but his fear left as quickly as it came. Apart from the lamps turning off for a while after, it had no other effect.

“Earthquake?” Lin Jue asked.

“The school environment will continue to change in the latter half of the night. This is only the initial stage, don’t worry,” Song Hanzhang said.

That’s not very reassuring, Lin Jue criticized silently.

The two continued towards the time plaza. After the first quake, the shockwaves came more frequently; even though no damage was dealt, it gave them a foreboding feeling.

Under a lamp not so far away, a person was leaning against the lamp pole, as if they knew they would be here.

“Lu Ren?” Lin Jue was shocked by Lu Ren’s sudden appearance. Didn’t he chase after that cloaked figure in Team 2022? Why did he suddenly appear here?

Lu Ren grinned at them. “Long time no see.”

Lin Jue subconsciously took out his phone and looked at the time. 0:42, it hadn’t been that long?

“What are you doing here?” Song Hanzhang asked.

“Waiting for you, someone asked me to pass on a message,” Lu Ren said as a matter of course.

Lin Jue looked at Lu Ren in suspicion. Whose message? That cloaked man? What did they want?

Song Hanzhang suddenly scanned Lu Ren from his hair to the cloth-wrapped dao behind him to the tip of his feet, as if the person in front of him was entirely unfamiliar.

“… I understand.” Song Hanzhang sighed deeply, his eyes filled with complicated emotions behind his glasses. “Is that so? I understand!”

“Jeez, you’re such a scary person,” Lu Ren bared his teeth. “I haven’t even said anything.”

“Only I can hear the message, right?” Song Hanzhang asked.

“Of course.” Lu Ren grinned at Lin Jue, who was in a state of absolute confusion.

“Lin Jue, go to the plaza first… No, wait for me nearby,” Song Hanzhang said to him.

Lin Jue’s face fell. It was like this again: every time something big happened, Song Hanzhang refused to tell him about it. Was he so untrustworthy? It wasn’t as if he would do anything against him, so why did he keep him away? If Lu Ren could know it, why couldn’t he? Disappointment and anger clogged Lin Jue’s chest, along with a sliver of bitter jealousy.

“Hey hey, your rabbit’s ears are drooping,” Lu Ren teased.

Lin Jue looked at Song Hanzhang glumly, using his eyes to express his dissatisfaction.

Song Hanzhang looked at him deeply, and only said three words. “Listen to me.”

Lin Jue clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, and tolerated it. He didn’t want to start arguing with Song Hanzhang in front of Lu Ren – he doubted he could even argue with him in the first place – they could talk about it after Lu Ren left.

But to show that he was still angry, Lin Jue didn’t say anything to Song Hanzhang and went without a word. He didn’t walk too far away in fear that Song Hanzhang wouldn’t be able to find him though, sitting down on a nearby bench under a lamp.

He held his spear in his hand. Lin Jue didn’t have the spirit to care about if the chair was dirty or not; he leaned back and stared up at the foggy sky.

He could no longer tell whether or not Song Hanzhang believed in him. If he might, wasn’t he still hiding all the important things in his heart? If he might not, didn’t he give his witch box to him?

Thinking about that, Lin Jue zipped open his jacket’s pocket and touched the witch box inside. The box was cold to the touch, complicated patterns carved into its exterior. It was on such a tiny little thing that man’s hopes of revival were placed. How unbelievable.

I wish I never have to use it, Lin Jue thought.

By himself, Lin Jue’s thoughts gradually drifted. He even thought about what to do should they win and leave the game. Putting aside everything else, he should at least invite Song Hanzhang to a movie. They met in this horror game, and they had spent each day either preparing for the next moment or struggling to hold onto life. They really hadn’t had much spare time to enjoy it.

Hopefully, after leaving the game, Song Hanzhang would have it easier.

From the distance came the sound of approaching footsteps. Lin Jue’s ears perked up and he immediately turned, but what came wasn’t the figure of Song Hanzhang, but rather Gu Fengyi and Liu Qingqing. Lin Jue was immediately on guard as he looked at Liu Qingqing warily.

She was in bad shape, her face pale from blood loss, her clothes stained with blood and a strip of fabric wrapped around her wrist. Seeing Lin Jue’s unkind look, she pursed her lips and looked away without a word.

“Where’s Song Hanzhang?” Gu Fengyi asked him.

Lin Jue felt conflicted. How could he answer that? Was he supposed to say that Song Hanzhang was talking to Lu Ren and had told him to wait aside? That was too embarrassing! Never!

So Lin Jue, whose anger had not yet subsided, expressionlessly smeared Song Hanzhang’s good name. “He’s got diarrhea.”

Gu Fengyi’s lips twitched. Out of concern for her and Liu Qingqing’s safety, she wanted to head to Time Plaza with the others, or Team 2022 might break their agreement upon seeing only the two of them and kill them first. Even though there was a small accident now, she didn’t change her mind.

“Then let us wait for him,” she said.

Lin Jue glanced at Liu Qingqing. He had thought that even if Gu Fengyi didn’t have the heart to kill Liu Qingqing, she would have at least left her and gone on by herself. But Liu Qingqing was still being protected under Gu Fengyi’s wings. It troubled him greatly; how did Liu Qingqing convince Gu Fengyi?

Should he tell Xuezhang’s suspicions about Liu Qingqing to Gu Fengyi? Lin Jue hesitated, then after long deliberation, still spoke. “Gu Fengyi, Liu…”

“If you want to question me as to whether or not Liu Qingqing is Judas, I have already considered this issue very seriously. Though there are many suspicious things about her, we still don’t have conclusive proof. I’ll make a judgment after killing Dan Liang. Before that time, I’ll be responsible for monitoring her. If she has any tendencies toward harming others, I’ll deal with her myself. I hope you can accept this.” Gu Fengyi cut Lin Jue short, her tone not one of discussion, but of notification.

Lin Jue frowned and looked at Gu Fengyi in disbelief, before looking toward Liu Qingqing. Liu Qingqing caressed her right hand wrapped in cloth, her face pale. She looked as if she was on the verge of falling over, but she still stood up straight, not speaking.

Lin Jue thought a little and looked at it from Gu Fengyi’s perspective. If Song Hanzhang was the suspect now, he would have made the same decision as Gu Fengyi, and maybe even more extreme – at least she still suspected Liu Qingqing and showed mercy only due to their past friendship. If it was Lin Jue, he would have been fooled by Song Hanzhang to walk down the path of no return.

But he didn’t rashly promise Gu Fengyi anything and only said, “Let’s talk about this after Song Hanzhang comes back.

Gu Fengyi nodded. She looked like she was in a terrible state emotionally. The situation with Liu Qingqing had disturbed her greatly, even she found herself laughable. She had always thought that she was a logical person, but in the end, she turned out to be a failure who relied on emotions. She really did inherit that woman’s genes. Mockingly, she thought, why couldn’t she have inherited just a bit more of that man’s heartless personality? Even though she resented his licentiousness, how he gave her enough siblings to form a soccer team, under that resentment, she still tried her hardest to please him like the rest of them.

It was undoubtedly a twisted familial relationship. She didn’t even think it was family. Even though they were father and daughter, the only thing continuing their relationship apart from an indelible bond in blood was interest and calculation.

He only liked the most outstanding of them. Those who weren’t at the top didn’t exist, yet he had to have a dozen kids and countless mistresses, each of them wanting to be the one he saw, whether for his praise or his money.

“Damn it, that thing’s here again!” Lin Jue keenly sensed the change in the environment. The viscous feeling of substance once again permeated their surroundings, only this time there were three of them!

Black clouds pushed down on them; darkness attacked.

The world in front of them suddenly changed. The three of them were standing in a spacious mansion, in front of them two spiral staircases upwards, a red carpet on the ground. Underneath the staircase was a strangely shaped creature. Its body was long, without a head nor a tail, lying on the ground like a giant caterpillar; terrifyingly though, each section of its body had four human limbs so that at first glance, it looked as if it had a dozen hands and feet.

No, it wasn’t a caterpillar, it was a centipede of humans strung together from head to tail!

It crawled twisted on the ground, each pair of hands and feet fighting against the other. The exposed skin looked like a textured, muscled quilt, horrifyingly gruesome.

And standing on the veranda above the stairs, a humanoid monster with a whistle was looking down on them!

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