V3C26

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“Sijia–!” Zuo Linyuan sprinted out like an arrow leaving the bow.

Mu Chunning quickly climbed up from where she was clinging onto the roof and roared at Su Tian, “What are you doing standing there! Stop them!”

They needed to buy time for Zuo Linyuan to save Zhang Sijia!

Su Tian shakily looked at the suddenly encroaching opponents, gritted her teeth, and pressed down on the tattoo on her wrist. A huge wave of lightning spiked up from under her feet and surged forwards, the white-blue light jumping madly towards them, forcing the 2012 team to temporarily back away.

Lin Jue, whose senses had already awoken, dodged the lightning storm from side to side, ready to clean off the entire 2022 team in one go.

Hanging in mid-air, Zhang Sijia’s mind was blank. He didn’t dare believe that the person who saved him was the brother he had poured out all his hatred for. Zhang Jia grabbed tightly onto his wrist, his other hand latching onto the fragile rooftop edge; the concrete outside flaked off incessantly, countless small crumbs falling down as if the very next second, the two would fall into the abyss together.

It was exactly like Zhang Sijia’s dreams. When he was younger, he would dream of this: him and Zhang Jia standing on a tall building, the howling wind around them; him, hysterically spitting out those rotted-black words to the person he had hated for twenty years, hating him, cursing him, wishing for him to die immediately like that way, the dark flood in his heart could be eased.

In his dreams, Zhang Jia was always quiet, calmly watching him break down, listening to his hateful words, bearing his unjust hatred, until he had cursed enough, was tired, and finally quieted. He would then open his mouth and say…

“Sijia! Grab my hand!” Zuo Linyuan had already run to the edge of the roof; about a third of the roof had completely collapsed by now and the remaining parts were on the verge of breaking as well. He reached out his compound bow to Zhang Sijia.

Zhang Sijia looked at the bow, then turned to Zhang Jia who was pulling him up.

Zhang Jia looked down, his face one of clenched pain. “Take it and go up!”

Zhang Sijia stared at him in a daze. The desire to live made him reach out and grab onto the compound bow Zuo Linyuan handed him.

“Be careful!” Mu Chunning shouted.

Zuo Linyuan turned around; Gu Fengyi’s crossbow was aimed at him.

It was the perfect timing, right at when he had no way to move – if he tried to dodge, he would have to let go, but if he didn’t let go, he would be shot.

The arrow left the bowstring. Zuo Linyuan shouted as his shoulder was wounded and pulled Zhang Sijia up, the two stumbling onto the ground. The weight of two grown men made more cracks appear on the fragile concrete. Zhang Sijia sat up in terror. “Zhang Jia–!”

The cracks spread quickly towards Team 2012. The ground crumbled and the four, along with the half-dead Du Cheng, fell down into the lower levels, bricks tumbling down around them.

“Holy…” the word ‘shit’ was just about to leave his mouth when Lin Jue saw Song Hanzhang out of the corner of his eyes and forced the word back, changing it to a slightly more civil, “heck!”. He looked at the giant hole in the ceiling and said sullenly. “How do we get up now?!”

“Neither Zhang Sijia nor Zuo Linyuan are dead, we don’t have the advantage of numbers, and the building is breaking down. Are we really going to have the final fight here?” Gu Fengyi asked Song Hanzhang. She didn’t really approve of having a head on battle here. Only one team member had been removed from the opposition and in terms of raw power, there was no obvious difference between the two teams. It would be hard to tell who would be the winner here. She would rather play guerrilla warfare on the campus, since her snake-sense and lurking skills were extremely suited for assassination.

Song Hanzhang looked at the collapsed roof on top of him and shook his head. “Let’s go, we’re retreating.”

Lin Jue sighed in regret. He looked down at the moaning Du Cheng on the ground and sent the spear in his hands into his chest. Du Cheng’s eyes widened and hissed from the back of his throat before quickly swallowing his last breath.

[2002: Player count decreases by one. One survivor, six markings moved.]

On the rooftop, Zhang Jia was lucky enough to avoid the latest round of crumbling. Even though his situation now was even more dangerous than before, he was still latched onto the half-collapsed roof.

Zhang Sijia didn’t know how to describe his complicated emotions right now. He climbed up from the ground and took a stumbling step forward. Zuo Linyuan quickly grabbed him. “Don’t go over there, it’s too dangerous!”

“Don’t forget that he is our enemy. Even if we don’t kill him, he will die once we win. We might as well let him die now.” Mu Chunning also stopped Zhang Sijia, her eyes red from remembering her sister.

“I know…” Zhang Sijia said, his mind in a state of distress. “I know…”

Zhang Jia also knew.

Yet he chose to give him a hand at the most dangerous time, at the price of him being unable to climb up on his own like Mu Chunning.

“I don’t want to have my head bowed in his shadow for my whole life!” Zhang Sijia wrenched his hand free from Zuo Linyuan and walked towards Zhang Jia.

On the edge of the broken and dangerous roof, Zhang Sijia looked down at his blood relative, his emotions more complicated than ever.

“There’s no need to bow your head at me,” Zhang Jia said to him with difficulty. “In the end, I was the reason you, dad, and mom had so many years of pain. I should be the one who’s sorry.”

Zhang Sijia’s eyes moistened, the bitter taste of his wronging raging through his soul; the pain which had tortured him so terribly was suddenly forgotten. He had always known that the one who gave him such a sorrowful life, the one he needed to hate, had never been Zhang Jia. But he hadn’t dared to fight back, and so poured all his hatred onto an innocent man instead, allowing himself to twist and warp slowly.

“Don’t say that now, grab my hand.” Zhang Sijia reached out, wanting to help him up.

Zhang Jia shook his head at him. Zhang Sijia suddenly realized something and forcefully grabbed onto Zhang Jia’s hand. Zhang Jia smiled at him. “Have all of my marks. Take care of mum and dad.”

[Player Zhang Sijia receives 8 markings.]

“And…” Like what what happened countless times in Zhang Sijia’s dreams, after listening to his outburst, his questions, Zhang Jia, as always, said:

“… I’m sorry.”

With that, Zhang Jia released his grip on the rooftop and fell straight down into that fiery red lava.

In that short moment of freefall, Zhang Jia looked up. Under this dark sky, the rooftop became further and further away, along with his unfamiliar relative.

His world became surrounded by a warm and blinding light; this almost painful warmth reminded him of the first time he held Zou Lili’s hand, his heart thundering, not daring to look at her, his entire body feeling like it was on fire. At that moment, he was certain he had recovered his missing rib, and the other half of his soul.

In his daze, he seemed to see Zou Lili smiling at him under the moonlight.

That part of his soul which was ripped away from him was filled up again under that smile. Everything he had been forced through was all like a cruel test; now he could finally wake up from this nightmare.

So he smiled as well.

[2002: Player count decreases by one. Zero survivors, zero markings moved. 2002 team eliminated.]

A gust of wind filled with the smell of blood blew over the ruined and broken walls. The crumble of breaking concrete sounded yet again and Zhang Sijia was half dragged half hugged back by Zuo Linyuan away from the dangerous edge as Su Tian and Mu Chunning watched in silence.

“Let’s go, it’s too dangerous here,” Zuo Linyuan said forcefully.

Zhang Sijia, still shell-shocked, nodded half-heartedly.

The staircase to the rooftop had yet to collapse. Just as the four were about to leave, they suddenly heard the sound of footsteps downstairs. They immediately tensed and looked towards the room below that had collapsed into a cavern.

“Hm? You haven’t left yet? I saw there was a lot of thunder and fire going on over here, so I came over to see if you were all dead yet.” A handsome youth with a long dao wrapped in cloth stood there as he played with an intricately carved box.

The box glowed gently, and Du Cheng’s corpse by his feet vanished.

Zhang Sijia felt angry just seeing his face. “What’s the point of you coming here now? And what sort of tricks are you playing? Where is Du Cheng’s body?”

The person smiled and didn’t answer. He tucked the box into his pocket and swung onto the roof from the metal railings of the bed – there were at least three meters from the metal bed to the roof, and yet he closed the gap with shocking ease.

“Didn’t four people die? What happened to the other three?” the person looked around and asked in confusion.

“They fell, you can go dig them up from the lava,” Zhang Sijia said without a hint of good grace.

“That’s annoying,” they sighed. “I was planning on saving some strength but by the looks of it, I’ll have to look for in-team support.”

Zhang Sijia suddenly had a bad premonition. “What do you want?”

The person tilted their head, a brilliant smile on their face. “Take a guess?”

Zhang Sijia was still stunned but Zuo Linyuan had already felt the murderous intent from that person.

At that moment, a great tremor went through the already shaking ground. Zhang Sijia stumbled and Zuo Linyuan immediately grabbed him, stomping onto the cracked rooftop. The section of the roof collapsed with a roar and the two fell into the dormitory downstairs.

“Ah—!” Su Tian’s scream sounded. Unable to see what was happening on the roof, Zhang Sijia’s heart fell.

[2022: Player count decreases by one. Four survivors, five markings moved.]

[2022: Player count decreases by one. Three survivors, four markings moved.]

Two corpses tumbled onto the ground. That person stretched and took out a box from his pocket as he muttered, “I stayed loyal and did as I was told. Don’t disappoint me.”

[Witch Box: A player bound to the Witch Box will not be erased after dying as long as the Witch Box has not been destroyed, and will instead lose all of their skills and items gained in the game. Players in possession of the bound Witch Box can revive the player within the box by sacrificing three players. Remaining Uses: 1/1, Sacrifice Count: 3/3. Activated.]

[Confirm Revival?]

|TOC|

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