Chapter 4: Premature Optimism

Jiang Yanyan frowned, her eyes reddening.

Sensing the change in her mood, Ji Yunxuan comfortingly patted her shoulder and said in a low voice, “It’s all right. With me here, no one would dare lay a hand on you.”

“Let’s decide with rock-paper-scissors. After all, we all have skills and tools. It wouldn’t be easy to find another useless one like Lu Xi,” the crew-cut boy took the initiative to suggest.

Everyone looked at one another, but no one could come up with a better plan.

So they had no choice but to settle for this not-quite-ideal method.

The boys stood together; the girls stood together.

To prevent the loser from trying to run away like Lu Xi had, everyone stayed close to the cliff.

That way, once a sacrifice had been chosen, if he or she changed their mind and tried to flee, the others could simply step forward and shove them off.

Everyone agreed, each convinced the unlucky one would not be themselves.

Nothing is harder to fathom than human nature.

Head lowered, Jiang Yanyan shuffled reluctantly into the girls’ group.

For the sake of so-called fairness, even she had no special privilege.

She raised her head. After several rounds in this death realm, there were not many girls left alive in their team.

There were twelve people present in all, but only four girls.

By that count, the girls’ group should have been the first to decide upon a failure.

Her nerves tightened. What if she lost?

The loser from the girls’ group would still have to face another round against the loser from the boys’ group.

That was not fair.

Jiang Yanyan bit her lower lip. There were so many boys in the other group that each person’s chance of being chosen would be greatly reduced.

Why couldn’t they all be mixed together, boys and girls alike?

“Yanyan, you lost!”

The moment she saw three rocks and only her own scissors, Jiang Yanyan felt the world tilt before her eyes.

What should she do...

She did not want to die. She did not...

“It's all right, Yanyan. The boys’ group hasn’t been decided yet. You still have another round later; you might not necessarily lose,” the girl who had always been on good terms with her stepped forward, patted her shoulder, and offered comfort.

Jiang Yanyan clenched her teeth slightly. Her gaze flickered as it fell on the others.

Everyone was fully focused on the boys across from them, waiting for that group to finish.

At that moment, no one was paying attention to her side.

Suddenly, Jiang Yanyan screamed, “Tingting, don’t!”

Startled by that shrill cry, everyone turned back in unison.

They only saw Jiang Yanyan reaching out to save the girl, but it was already too late.

Everything had happened too quickly. The girl had already fallen from the cliff.

“Damn, what happened?” the crew-cut boy exclaimed.

Everyone rushed over.

“Yanyan, what happened?” Ji Yunxuan strode over and pulled the sobbing Jiang Yanyan into his arms.

“Tingting said... she couldn’t bear to let me take the risk, sob... Why was she so foolish?” Jiang Yanyan’s face was streaked with tears, her guilt overwhelming.

“It’s all my fault. I should have noticed earlier that something was wrong with her emotions. I couldn’t stop her... It’s all my fault.”

Jiang Yanyan had a face so lovely it stirred pity, and even when she cried, it was a fragile kind of beauty.

Men and women, old and young alike, could not help but feel fondly toward her.

At once, everyone gathered around to comfort her.

“It’s all right. Tingting was your best friend. She volunteered to be the sacrifice for you, so of course she wouldn’t want to see you destroyed with grief over her.”

“This is a survival game. Players die for all kinds of reasons almost every day. Besides, Tingting chose to sacrifice herself to save everyone. That spirit is a thousand times, ten thousand times better than that cowardly Lu Xi.”

The sacrifice had been chosen. In the distance, the ghostly crone let out two sinister laughs.

Then thick fog surged up around them. A few minutes later, when it dispersed, the crone had vanished without a trace.

Only then did everyone finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“Let’s go. We’ve been at this long enough. Find somewhere to rest,” Ji Yunxuan said, then took Jiang Yanyan by the hand and turned to leave.

The group followed Ji Yunxuan down the mountain.

“My skill points increased.”

“My storage space got a little bigger too.”

Everyone talked over one another about the changes in their skills and tools.

Joy scattered the fear that had just gripped them.

In the death game, each cleared level brought some corresponding reward.

This stage, the haunted village and its crone, had arrived in a great crowd, but now only eleven players remained.

Perhaps because they had just cleared the stage and were granted a brief time of peace, nothing strange happened until dawn.

Late at night, snores rose all around.

Jiang Yanyan opened her eyes, and before her seemed to float Tingting’s disbelief-stricken gaze.

She clenched her fists and told herself it was over. At the time, everything had been chaos; no one would know the truth of Tingting’s death.

**

“Ji Chenling, are you cold? Do you want to wear this black cloak for a while?” Lu Xi asked.

Ji Chenling’s gaze fell on her shoulder, and he smiled. “This seems to have been mine in the first place.”

Lu Xi awkwardly scratched her head. “Sorry, I was just...”

“It’s fine. You don’t need to explain, sis. I’ll give this coat to you as a meeting gift,” Ji Chenling said as he slowly leaned closer, the corners of his lips carrying a smile.

“Brother, you’re really a good man!”

Lu Xi slapped him on the back with such force that it looked as if she were ready to call him brother and sworn comrade on the spot.

She had never expected the pitiful little thing she had casually picked up to be so gentle and considerate, smiling like the breeze of spring, and so generous too.

Perhaps she had simply stumbled into a stroke of outrageous luck. Lu Xi suspected that this wizard-like cloak was some kind of tool.

Because although the black cloak looked thin, the instant she draped it over herself, not only did the hunger in her stomach vanish, but even that shivering cold disappeared quietly, as though she had been pulled into a warm spring day in the blink of an eye.

This was far too amazing.

Yet when she asked Ji Chenling about it, he said it was only an ordinary cloak.

Could it be that it only had such miraculous effects when she wore it?

For the moment, Lu Xi took it as a gift from fate, a “golden finger” meant for her alone.

“What are you smiling about?” Ji Chenling tilted his head and watched her.

Lu Xi said, “I just feel that sometimes I’m not actually all that unlucky. Take this cloak, for instance. On you, it’s just an ordinary piece of cloth, but when I put it on, I truly can feel that it’s something different.”

Was it worth being this happy over something so small?

After a few moments of silence, Ji Chenling suddenly laughed and said, “Sis, you’re so optimistic.”

Earlier, the two of them had gotten lost inside the castle, and the girl had nearly wilted into a frost-bitten eggplant. Yet now, because of one insignificant thing, she had come right back to life.

How interesting.

He suddenly... wanted to stay and play with her a little longer.

Such a vivid life. If she died, he would never see those clear, luminous eyes again. That would be a pity.

“Help! Help meaaah...”

A miserable cry for help, mixed with clamorous noise, suddenly rang out from afar, drawing nearer by the second.

Disorderly footsteps were also approaching.

Several players were madly running forward, while behind them a “person” wearing a clown mask clutched a blood-red chainsaw and gave relentless chase.

At the corner, that group of players happened to run straight into Lu Xi and the others face-to-face.

Lu Xi: “...”

Heh. A little too optimistic too soon.

“Run!” She instinctively seized the hand of the person beside her and turned to flee.

The sound of the chainsaw slicing through flesh rang out behind them. Everyone ran for their lives, not daring to look back.

Without a doubt, someone had just been cut in half.

If they ran too slowly, the next one to be sawn apart might, by some unfortunate slip, be themselves.