V1C8

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What was going on? Having just escaped from the terrible scene of zombies feasting on a live human, none of them could understand what exactly was happening.

The smell of barbeque mixed together with rancid zombies and blood caused their stomachs to heave like they had swallowed a bug, but that person. They had to assume he had lost his sense of smell already, because he was biting into the skewers in his hand with relish, complaining to himself as he ate.

“Ah it’s half-raw, as expected for my first time barbequing.”

Lin Jue’s stomach rumbled loudly. He had eaten dinner at around four that afternoon, and after such vigorous exercise, there was nothing left in his stomach to digest.

The handsome youth outside the food stall smiled kindly at them and asked, “Want one? Just treat this like a mid-game reward. It’s not that easy getting here after all, right, Song Hanzhang?”

Seeing that Song Hanzhang made no move to respond, he continued, “This isn’t a good place to shower out your love you know? What this game needs is constant slaughter. Things like betrayal, desertion, baggage, will only increase your chances of a gameover. Are you bringing those five along as cannon fodder? That sounds like something you’d do.”

Facing such piercing and malicious speculation, Song Hanzhang pushed up his glasses and said calmly, “This has nothing to do with you, Lu Ren.”

Lu Ren threw the skewers to the side. “Okay, okay, I know that in your eyes, I’m just a psychopath who should go talk to a therapist.”

“No need,” Song Hanzhang replied coldly. “You can go straight to the mental asylum.”

A sharp crash sounded; a zombie who had been stuck in the store next door was finally able to break out and stumble towards Lu Ren.

It was close, it was going to lunge soon! Lin Jue’s pupils shrank, his hands on his pipe tightening.

The man called Lu Ren ignored the approaching monster and casually picked up a drink without a single sign of fear. He even had the time to start a leisurely monologue. “Oh, I know this girl, she tried to confess to me last week…”

The zombie howled and rushed towards him. Lu Ren lightly placed the drink to the side, held onto the hilt of his sword with both hands, and struck- the cold knife carved a silver arc of death through the darkness, passing over the neck of the zombie with unparalleled precision.

The head flew, then fell, then rolled over the cold concrete floor while the headless zombie maintained its forward momentum for a few steps before falling, twitching, becoming a true dead body.

The murderer shrugged and picked up the drink he had placed down for another swig as if the body by his feet had nothing to do with him.

Lin Jue felt shivers down his neck. That strike was both too magnificent and too cruel. There was no hesitation or reluctance at striking down his kin; it was filled with merciless nonchalance, as if it was the same natural reaction as stepping on a cockroach.

Finishing the drink in one long gulp, Lu Ren threw the can to the side, landing it perfectly into the nearby rubbish bin. He happily cheered before remembering the body by his feet. Pityingly, he said, “Even though you were crying when you confessed to me, you gave up within the week. Women are such fickle creatures. Such a shame, I was going to give you a chance as well since you were quite pretty. Of course, that was before tonight.”

That tone of pity filled everyone else with terror. To be able to strike at someone once familiar to you, to be able to swing so easily, so carelessly, and maintain such an easy attitude afterwards, this guy… Was he not really a psychopath?

Those who were rejoicing at finding a strong companion stopped fancying that possibility. Was this a joke? Going together with a psycho like him would probably end up in everyone getting killed!

Lin Jue felt the same; he had even forgotten his hunger.

“Is that dao1 a reward from the plaza? Even you wouldn’t bring around a weapon like that with you. So you were the first person to arrive?” Song Hanzhang asked.

“Correct.” Lu Ren shrugged. “But I got hungry after I got the good stuff, so I came here to find some food.”

Obviously, he never considered, or rather, never cared about the dangers of it.

Anyone who would act so recklessly was either confident in their skills, or a complete psychopath. From their last few minutes interacting, Lu Ren was both.

“Where do you plan on going next?” Song Hanzhang crossed his arms and asked.

“I’m just gonna walk around. If you’re worried that I’ll do something against you guys…” Lu Ren touched his chin, seeming troubled. “You know, I’ve never killed a person before since I’m a law abiding citizen and all. I still don’t get why they sent out easter eggs on halloween and not easter, but it’s been a pretty great surprise for me so far. This game is absolutely wonderful! Can I rate it on Steam? I’ll give it five stars!”

Hearing that, Lin Jue felt that Song Hanzhang’s judgement against this man’s character was completely on point: a psychopath.

He had no sense of danger and saw everything as a game.

“Although, it has already been an hour and I’m feeling a little bored. Where can I find something fun?” Lu Ren stepped over the headless zombie body and walked towards them, his dao in hand.

Apart from Song Hanzhang, everyone took an unconscious step back.

“Ah, that terrified of me? I’m hurt. Seeing your terrified expressions, I’m so…” Lu Ren walked gleefully towards them, eyes glinting.

Gao Yifei trembled and hid immediately behind the closest person, which happened to be Lin Jue.

Lu Ren cocked his head to the side, his eyes landing on Lin Jue. Lin Jue’s heart skipped a beat and he was almost unable to control himself from taking another step back.

“There’s something on your shoulder.” Lu Ren grinned at Lin Jue, the dao in his hand appearing next to Lin Jue’s neck in a flash, the bloodied blade facing up just below Lin Jue’s earlobes.

It was a cold, wet, sharp blade; a blade that had just beheaded a zombie; a blade in the hands of a psychopath.

Lin Jue broke out in a cold sweat, not daring to move for fear that the slightest twitch would lead to the removal of his head. Gao Yifei stumbled backwards, her hands clutching her mouth tightly.

“A fallen leaf.” The dao swiped off the yellowed leaf from Lin Jue’s shoulder and Lu Ren swung his dao around in an almost show-off manner, the blade cutting through the dead leaf with a crisp crunch. The leaf fell into two halves midair, slowly swirling down to Lin Jue’s feet.

Lu Ren’s grin grew wider, as if satisfied at Lin Jue’s reaction.

Lin Jue shook violently, suddenly realizing that he was holding his breath. Not only him, everyone present was holding their breath, not daring to stop Lu Ren’s monologue. The living ones didn’t dare, the dead ones couldn’t.

“Oi, advise me a little. If there’s a boss in this game, where is it most likely to appear?” Lu Ren walked past Lin Jue towards Song Hanzhang.

“The medicine laboratories. These biological viruses more or less have something to do with experiments. You might find something there.”

Lu Ren looked at him, something that might have been a smile on his face, and weighed the dao in his hand. “Seeing that you’ve given me some pretty good advice, let me give you guys a warning as well~

“The bell rang just then and all the zombies became energized. There was this unlucky guy getting chased so I helped him out a little and ended up finding their easter egg. Didn’t think that there would be people carrying it with them; such weirdos,” Lu Ren said in distaste and turned back into the supermarket, returning not long after with a dead body. “I stuffed his easter egg back into his pocket before I came out since I am a good person after all.”

Another headless body with one hand gone, showing off the flesh and the pale bone within, the uneven wound looking less like a knife wound but like it had been ripped off by force.

Lu Ren searched through his clothes and exclaimed joyfully, “Found it!”

In his clean palm laid a yellow easter egg with patterns of leaves and branches illustrated on it.

“Who is the Judas2?” Lu Ren slowly read out the line on the easter egg, looking up at the sudden changes in expression of the people in front of him, his expression full of obviously malicious teasing. “There’s no such thing as a trusted partner in this game. Who knows who’s the traitor? But it looks like most of the survivors are here, including the Judas.”

Lu Ren threw the easter egg towards Song Hanzhang who checked the egg before passing it to Lin Jue.

“Even though you lack good intentions, I’ll still thank you for your information. In return, I’ll also tell you something important. One of the eggs said ‘dawn is hope’. This game will probably end by daylight.”

“Aw, a shame…” Lu Ren raised his brows and said in a strange tone, “I wonder how many people will be left by then.”

Lu Ren looked over their faces in mild curiosity and everyone evaded his eyes. Even Song Hanzhang frowned.

“To be eaten by zombies, duped by ‘companions’, betrayed by Judas, or even becoming zombies… they’re all possibilities. Ah, even though I’m a little curious at your endings, it looks like I’m not very welcome here, so I’ll go find some fun myself. That’s all, bye bye!”

Lu Ren grinned as he returned his dao to its sheath, grabbing a bottle of water, then leaving without a single drop of reluctance.

The evening breeze made the rest of them tremble and they stayed in silence for a long while.

Lu Ren didn’t just shock them with his power, but also with his morals.

Merciless, fearless, unguided by what was expected of a human- ‘even more terrifying than zombies’. That was Lin Jue’s judgement of Lu Ren.

Song Hanzhang turned around, his eyes going across everyone’s faces. Fear, uneasiness, confusion, dread, doubt… Not a single one of them was determined.

This team that hadn’t even been together for half an hour had likely already fallen apart. They had never been able to trust each other, not to mention now with the new, forboding easter egg.

Who was the Judas?

If the fear permeating the group had come from the zombies before, now it was from the fear of an internal betrayal. A hidden Judas was much more terrifying than zombies.

Song Hanzhang rubbed his temple and lightly sighed. “Let’s disperse.”

As soon as Song Hanzhang’s sentence ended, Liu Shan called out, “What do you want to do?!”

“You’ve heard him and you’ve seen the egg. Traveling together isn’t much safer than traveling alone; this survival game is testing our ability to run rather than our ability to fight. It might even be safer if we just find an iron-sealed room to hide in.” Song Hanzhang’s eyes betrayed no emotions but everyone understood the underlying message.

An unseen betrayal was even more terrifying than zombies.

The atmosphere immediately froze over, the seed of doubt sown, growing wildly in this nightmarish and bloody night, greedily absorbing desperation and despair.

Gao Yifei said meekly, “But there are limits to a single person’s fighting ability. It’ll be over if you get cornered by zombies.”

Liu Shan sneered. “Don’t mind him, so what if we disperse? Who cares. It’s more likely you’ll stabbed in the back if you stay with someone like that.”

“Song Hanzhang isn’t like that. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t even have been able to make it out of the dorms.” Zhou Yuxiu took a step forwards, her face still pale but her voice firm.

“You were always in the same group as them,” Zhao Liangsheng snorted, his eyes glancing over Zhou Yuxiu, Lin Jue and Song Hanzhang.

The group was split into two obvious teams. Maybe it was imprintion, but humans would always instinctively trust the first person they had met and been shown kindness from. Lin Jue couldn’t help but look towards Song Hanzhang. His trust towards this person was much, much higher than towards anyone else. If the group were to split up, he would follow after Song Hanzhang without hesitation.

“Of course they’re together. Even though they’ve got something good, they refuse to say anything. I heard everything you were whispering just then, don’t think I’m still in the dark!” Liu Shan glared at Lin Jue, an all-knowing expression on his face.

Lin Jue felt a throbbing in his head. The antibody was something that he could never just give away, especially not to someone like this.

“If we can’t trust each other, then let’s split up. I’ll be fine by myself.” Song Hanzhang had no interest in continuing the pointless argument and made to walk away.

“Wait——” Lin Jue grabbed onto Song Hanzhang’s wrist without thinking. The other man withdrew his hand violently but he was held in place. Lin Jue looked at him, his expression set. “Together.”

Song Hanzhang took a deep look at him before finally nodding.

Lin Jue heaved a sigh of relief. At least he had been acknowledged by Song Hanzhang.

“Wait! I also…” Zhou Yuxiu wanted to chase after them but her legs gave in beneath her. Gao Yifei caught her and shook her head heavily.

Zhou Yuxiu looked hesitatingly at her before turning back towards Song Hanzhang, only for him to turn around and say, “Lin Jue and I will be moving constantly. We’ll be consuming a lot of energy and we won’t be bringing extra burdens. Think about this carefully.”

Saying that, he threw his metal shovel at Zhou Yuxiu. Zhou Yuxiu reached out in a daze but didn’t catch it, the shovel falling onto the ground with a metallic clang.

Zhou Yuxiu stared at their fading silhouettes, her heart empty.

…It was too late.

Gao Yifei held her hand and gently comforted her. “Don’t worry, we have four people here. They’re also going towards the rec center, we might even meet up on the way.”

“Yeah…” Zhou Yuxiu held her left hand tightly with her right and made a soft noise of affirmation.

***

Vera’s Notes:

1 A Tang dynasty sword known as a Tang dao by official Western naming terminology. It’s a straight, single-edged sword with a pretty basic guard, but very good in terms of quality at the time. Fun fact, a dao (刀) refers to any blade in Chinese but usually a knife so it’s quite… odd to hear in this context for Vera at least.

2 This part was in English. For those who don’t know, Judas was a disciple of Jesus Christ who betrayed him to Sanhedrin by revealing his identity (and kissing him??? Ah, Luci tells me on the cheek.)

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