Chapter 2: Death Game
Tang Cuo, after two rounds, was eight points in debt.
As the third round began, the crow was still pacing on the stone pillar, puffing out its chest and shaking its head. Its mocking, arrogant gaze swept across the crowd in the plaza, seemingly pausing in Tang Cuo’s direction for two seconds, intentionally or otherwise, before disdainfully looking away.
“Let’s see what the next round’s punishment will be?” he deliberately dragged out his tone, hijacking everyone’s attention to look up with him.
The wheel slowly stopped, the pointer aimed at a massive yellow segment—Giant Soul Pendulum.
“What the hell is this now?!” Chi Yan clutched his head and let out a scream from the depths of his soul, yet didn’t dare to yell too loudly. He subconsciously moved closer to Tang Cuo, as if this would give him some sense of security.
The crow flapped its wings: “The Giant Pendulum is great; I love the Giant Pendulum the most! Three minutes of pure bliss, are you ready?”
Everyone looked around in panic, only to see the stone pillars suddenly undergo a strange transformation. Black shadows squirmed, separating from the pillars into massive black pendulums. Forty-nine pendulums, centered around the stone pillars, began to swing. They moved in different directions, at different times, and at different speeds, but there seemed to be a bizarre rhythm to it all.
They were called pendulums, but they weren’t like the giant pendulum rides in amusement parks. They looked more like a judge’s gavel, only massive—so big that one swing could send over a dozen people flying.
Whoosh— The fierce wind whipped up by the swinging pendulums made people’s cheeks sting even from far away.
“Run!”
“Dodge, get out of the way!”
“Watch out!”
The scattering crowd desperately tried to dodge, but just as they ran from one spot, they turned around to face another pendulum. Thump! The pendulum struck someone right in the waist. Before blood even splattered, the person was smashed into the thick darkness outside the plaza, leaving not a trace of their body behind.
Some were so terrified they collapsed on the ground, completely paralyzed, watching the reflection of the pendulum grow larger and larger in their pupils.
Some scrambled and crawled, lying prone on the ground with their hands covering their heads, luckily escaping disaster. The howling wind pierced their eardrums. Looking around, the swinging shadows of the pendulums were everywhere, leaving absolutely nowhere to hide.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Wails of agony filled the air as blood splattered everywhere.
For those who had died but hadn’t fallen out of the plaza’s boundaries, the exact same black holes from the first round appeared beneath them, silently swallowing them up.
Lives were fading away like flowing water, yet the crow began singing its cheerful song once more.
“God, lambs, and the crow,
Playing happily on the cliff together.
They sang and danced,
Flowers bloomed from the stones.
God said, look,
It is my flower.
A lamb ate it,
Hurry up and die…”
Chi Yan couldn’t remember how many times he had climbed up from the ground. The relentless pendulums gave him no time to stop and think; he could only run, run for his life. The string in his mind was pulled taut, as if the slightest slack would result in him being smashed into meat paste by a pendulum.
But why was this happening?!
Chi Yan lunged forward and hit the ground again. The giant pendulum scraped past right above his head with a fierce gust of wind. He almost couldn’t catch his breath, cold sweat already pouring down his back.
The pendulum from the west side was swinging over again.
Chi Yan hurriedly scrambled up from the ground. But just then, he saw the little girl in the hospital gown not far away being shoved by someone. The person was frantic to escape and, seeing the pendulum approaching, subconsciously pushed the person next to them out as a shield. But how could a mere eleven- or twelve-year-old girl block such a behemoth?
“Run! Get up and run!” Chi Yan subconsciously wanted to rush over there, but before the western pendulum arrived, the one behind him swung down. He didn’t even notice it, instantly getting blown head over heels by the wind, rolling several times on the ground before stopping.
A wave of delayed fear washed over him; he was only a hair’s breadth away from taking a direct hit from the pendulum. Right at this moment, the little girl, as if hearing his shouts, pressed her lips together. With a deathly pale face, she struggled to climb up from the ground.
She crawled quickly, using both her hands and feet, letting the tears swirl in her eyes without falling, but the giant pendulum was already within inches.
In the nick of time, a figure flew horizontally, tackling the little girl five or six meters away. The two tumbled to the ground, narrowly dodging the giant pendulum.
Chi Yan’s eyes widened; that person was the exact same guy who had just pushed the little girl!
What was going on here?
Chi Yan hurriedly looked toward the direction the person flew from, only to see Tang Cuo casually clapping his hands, looking as if he had just tossed a bag of garbage. Feeling Chi Yan’s gaze, Tang Cuo glanced at him without any particular reaction, turned around, and walked back unhurriedly.
Taking ten steps, he stood exactly in the gap where two giant pendulums crisscrossed. The howling wind was not blowing through his smooth black hair, but his sorrow of being invincible and seeking defeat.
“Holy shit?”
Chi Yan marveled inwardly, but also felt as if he saw the hope of survival, dodging left and right as he ran toward him. Actually, having dodged so many times, he had noticed that these giant pendulums swung in a pattern, but seeing it was one thing, and utilizing it properly was another. Halfway there, he remembered the little girl and hesitated about whether to turn back and grab her, only to realize the spot she was in seemed exceptionally safe.
A blind spot untouched by the pendulums.
Soon, others also discovered this excellent spot and flocked toward it.
Chi Yan couldn’t help but wonder if Tang Cuo had calculated all this from the start, but there was no time to think. He gritted his teeth and ran toward Tang Cuo’s side, deciding to cling to this big boss’s thigh first.
The “big boss’s thigh” maneuvered with stylish flair. With one hand, he grabbed an unlucky guy by the back of the collar, saving his life, while holding his own Survival Assessment Report in the other. Narrowly escaping death, the unlucky guy was still in shock. Just as he was about to say thank you, Tang Cuo shoved him to the ground, his forehead smacking the floor.
The giant pendulum swung over, carrying a howling wind as it swept past right above their heads.
“Ge! Save me, Ge!” Chi Yan finally arrived after a close call.
“S-save me first,” the unlucky guy hurriedly interjected. “I think my skull is cracked, help…”
Tang Cuo showed no reaction to this. He looked up for two seconds and said, “It’s almost stopping.”
Chi Yan: “Huh?”
Looking up, the giant pendulums’ speed had indeed begun to drop. Seeing this scene, Chi Yan’s brain stalled slightly, taking a few seconds to remember that this game had a time limit.
Three minutes. It was about time.
As the giant pendulums gradually slowed down, the danger level plummeted. Once they finally came to a complete halt, Chi Yan plopped down onto the ground, his heart filled with the relief of narrowly escaping death.
But soon, he couldn’t feel relieved anymore.
Out of the over six thousand people in the entire plaza, only a sparse scattering—less than half—remained.
The crow had something to say: “The game isn’t over yet. Why did you all sit down? The final round of the game—guess what surprise awaits?”
He was answered by dead silence.
The crow was very dissatisfied, hopping madly back and forth on the stone pillar: “You guys are no fun at all, so boring! Indeed, the worst batch of players I’ve ever hosted!”
With that, the angry crow spun the wheel frantically, the colored lights pulling into blurred trails once more.
Ding! Everyone shuddered along with the sound.
Still in shock, everyone looked up, holding their breath, their hearts in their throats. Chi Yan mentally begged frantically to land on one of the only two reward spaces: one offering “Points +5”, the other a blank space. However, fate delivered its answer at this moment—
The final round of the Lucky Wheel: Death Elimination.
This time, the crow was practically beaming with joy, extremely thoughtfully providing the game instructions: “This game is the ultimate version of Elimination. I know you humans love playing this in the human realm, so how about it? Surprise! The rules are very simple. A grid will be drawn based on your current positions, with one player per cell. For every column or row, regardless of how far apart two players are, as long as they died the same way and there are no other players between them, they will be eliminated. I will designate one player as the starting position. If the elimination condition is met, after elimination, the game continues from the nearest player until no more eliminations can be made. After the game ends, the remaining players will enter Yong Ye City.”
“No, that’s impossible!” Someone immediately objected loudly. The others looked at each other, seeing the same collapse and despair in each other’s eyes. There are thousands of ways to die in this world, but they were all ordinary people, and ordinary people died in those few common ways. If they really played by this rule, everyone would die!
The quick-witted ones were already conferring with those around them, attempting to change positions to ensure they wouldn’t be eliminated. But they soon discovered that their legs were glued to the spot.
The next instant, a faint light shone from the cracks in the black stone slabs, dividing the entire plaza into equally sized grid cells. Anyone standing on the edge of a cell or sharing a cell with others was shoved by an irresistible force into a single cell or forcibly moved to an adjacent one based on proximity. In the blink of an eye, the game was ready.
The crow smiled wickedly, wings tucked behind its back, dragging out its tone: “Let me see, where should we start first?”
It looked and looked, hopping from one stone pillar to another, glancing left and right, almost circling the entire plaza without giving a result.
It seemed intentional, deliberately torturing the poor players. The more nervous, terrified, and desperate they were, the happier it was.
Chi Yan gritted his teeth in anger, breaking down inside, yet still unwilling to give up. He turned to look at the unlucky guy next to him and whispered, “Ge, how did you die?”
Unlucky Guy: “I stayed up late and died of sudden cardiac arrest…”
“What a coincidence.” Chi Yan rolled his eyes to the heavens, almost suffering sudden cardiac arrest again on the spot. But he was a brave and kind-hearted young man who wouldn’t concede defeat just like that, so he asked others around him.
Actually, he didn’t need to ask.
The guy with broken arms and legs in front of Tang Cuo was covered in blood—a clear victim of a car crash. Chi Yan remembered Tang Cuo saying his cause of death was also a car crash. Damn it, a total wipeout.
It was better not to ask.
“Ge.” Chi Yan looked gloomily at Tang Cuo. “Do you think the chances of dying from cancer are high?”
Tang Cuo: “?”
Chi Yan: “Since we’re both going to die, at least let that little girl live. Maybe her hair will grow back in that bullshit Yong Ye City.”
Tang Cuo: “…”
Perhaps knowing he was about to die again, Chi Yan babbled endlessly.
Tang Cuo found him very annoying and asked, “Do you think he actually knows how each of us died?”
Chi Yan paused. “Huh?”
Tang Cuo had been pondering a question: what was the difference between the broadcast voice and the crow? The broadcast voice very likely came from the bell and was the game’s system itself. What about the crow? Was it an administrator or an NPC?
Whichever it was, there was a difference between the two.
The causes of death the crow had just pointed out—car crash, drowning, hanging, slitting wrists—were all visually distinguishable. If he wasn’t the system itself and didn’t know everyone’s specific cause of death, then this game would become very simple.
Thinking of this, Tang Cuo once again swept his gaze over the few people standing around him.
Three grids directly ahead: car crash.
Two grids to the left: hospital gown, no bloodstains, most likely died of illness.
To the right: Chi Yan, sudden death.
The one behind him had no obvious cause of death but also no bloodstains on his body; there was at least a high probability it wasn’t external trauma.
“Ge? Did you think of a way?” Chi Yan pressed.
“Do you know how to curse someone?” Tang Cuo asked in return.
“Huh?” Chi Yan was bewildered, scratching his head. “Who am I cursing?”
Tang Cuo: “The crow.”
Chi Yan instantly understood. This was probably what they called pre-death madness. They were about to die anyway, dying twice in one day. If they couldn’t survive, they might as well go crazy. At least cursing a few times would express their respect for this bullshit human realm.
“Curse him as a feathery beast. Feathery beast, mixed-breed chicken, drop a bomb on your old mother, MMP.” Cursing in bilingual Sichuanese and Cantonese—isn’t that cool?
Tang Cuo felt he had slightly underestimated him and would look at him with new eyes from now on. But he felt this sentence was still a bit too long, like an old lady’s foot-binding cloth—stinky and long. So, he condensed it to—
“Hey, mixed-breed beast!”
The entire plaza was in an uproar.
The crow almost missed a step and fell off the stone pillar, turning its head in disbelief. “Who? Who is speaking?!”
Tang Cuo raised his hand. “I am cursing you.”
Crow: “Who are you cursing?!”
Tang Cuo: “Mixed-breed beast.”
Crow: “Who is the mixed-breed beast? Make yourself clear!”
Tang Cuo: “You.”
The crow was furious. If he had merely been acting before, this time, the great and kind Mr. Crow was truly enraged. He flapped his wings and hopped madly, so angry that the feathers on his head were falling off.
“How dare you speak to the great and kind Mr. Crow like that! I’m going to punish you! I will absolutely punish you! I’ve decided, this round of the game starts with you! You! Yes, you! Go to hell!”
The familiar bell chime rang out in response.
Ding—
“Cannot be eliminated. Game over!”
The crow froze.
Chi Yan froze, and everyone present froze.
The game was over?!
“That’s impossible! How could it end so quickly?!” The crow flew up, circling above to vent its fury. But as it yelled and yelled, its expression suddenly turned extremely ugly in an instant—it understood.
“You cheated! You deliberately provoked me!” The crow glared at Tang Cuo.
Tang Cuo shrugged.
Chi Yan finally realized. “Ge, what exactly happened? How did the game end? Y-y-you didn’t die in a car crash?!”
Tang Cuo, of course, hadn’t died in a car crash. If it were an ordinary death like a car crash, he wouldn’t have negative points.
The crow remained highly indignant. “You treacherous and cunning player, how dare you make a fool out of the great and kind Mr. Crow! I will definitely punish you, you—”
Ding— The bell chime interrupted its words.
“Congratulations to all players for successfully completing the Easter Egg Game—Lucky Wheel. Number of survivors: 2315. Let us celebrate the successful conclusion of the Yong Ye City Entry Ceremony with warm applause!”
“Players.”
“Welcome to Yong Ye City!”
As the voice faded, everyone’s vision began to blur, their consciousness gradually detaching. Only the crow’s exasperated voice remained in their ears: “K27216, you cunning human, I’ll remember you!”
