The Trial Game of Life

The sudden third person had both Tang Cuo and Jin Cheng stunned.

The shocking cry for help penetrated through the phone and even Qi Hui could hear it.

“Zhou Dahai!” Both surprised and delighted at the same time, Qi Hui rushed to the phone, looking as though he just wanted to jump into the handset.

“Qi Hui? Is it you? Qi Hui! Help me, there’s a ghost over here!” Qi Hui and his teammate shouted at each other through the phone with equally desperate voices.

Attacked by double noises, Tang Cuo’s eardrums felt like they almost burst. Jin Cheng could stand the noises slightly better and asked decisively: “Zhou Dahai, calm down, what’s the situation on your side?” 

Hearing this, Qi Hui also wanted to ask something, but Tang Cuo clasped his wrist and cast an icy cold glance at him ― Don’t you dare to say another word.

Qi Hui shut up at once. The boss is really horrifying.

Zhou Dahai finally got back to his senses and quickly replied: “I don’t know, I got thrown into a basement as soon as I entered the dungeon. This is a f**king worshipping hall! There is a coffin and a spirit tabletAlso called a memorial tablet or ancestral tablet, this is a placard used to designate the seat of a deity or an ancestor on the altar., and even a ghost!!! I tried so hard to escape but the ghost is still after me. F**k f**k f**k —”

No one knew what Zhou Dahai saw over there, but a series of “f**k” accompanied by the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground had everyone’s eyebrows furrowed. Qi Hui clenched his fists even more nervously.

Jin Cheng: “Zhou Dahai? Zhou Dahai?” 

After a long ten seconds, a reply finally came through the phone: “Damn, I was almost scared to death. I finally ran out of the basement, but the ghost ran out too! I’m alone here. It’s frightening…”

Jin Cheng asked hurriedly: “Whose worshipping hall is in the basement?”

Zhou Dahai thought without thinking: “Yu, Yu Wangyue! I think I saw that name on the tablet!”

Jin Cheng: “What year is it over there?”

“I don’t know, how do I know that?!”

“You ―” Jin Cheng wanted to ask again, but the sizzling noise interrupted him and the phone was forced to cut off.

Tang Cuo and Qi Hui also lost all contact. They looked at each other and Qi Hui was extremely worried: “Zhou Dahai is the only player on his side. Will something bad happen to him?”

Tang Cuo asked: “If you already knew that something bad would happen, why did you still come here?”

Qi Hui was speechless. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, no word came out.

Tang Cuo didn’t ask anymore. He lowered his head and glanced at the old fountain pen in his hand, then he placed it back in his pocket and began to search around. After a moment of being utterly dumbfounded, Qi Hui hurriedly followed his footsteps: “What are you looking for now?”

“The basement.” Tang Cuo said concisely.

“Right, the basement!” Zhou Dahai mentioned that he appeared in the basement the moment he entered the dungeon.

Since it was a basement, the entrance must be on the first floor. The two searched all the suspicious corners and finally found a clue inside the built-in cupboard of the dining room.

There was a mechanism here. They could move the cupboard away by turning an animal ornament on one of the drawers.

Behind the closet was a staircase heading downwards. The inside was so dark that they couldn’t even see their fingers. Tang Cuo rejected Qi Hui’s homemade torch, instead, he looked for a candle, lit it up and walked in first.

Qi Hui followed closely behind.

After about three minutes, the two finally landed on a flat ground, but a door was still blocking the way.

Qi Hui looked at the locked door and tried to push hard but couldn’t open it. He couldn’t hold back the feeling of irritation: “Are we looking for the key again? Won’t we just forever look for keys in this house?”

Tang Cuo: “Where are the two remaining keys from earlier? Let’s try them.” 

Enlightened, Qi Hui slapped his head. He immediately took out the butler’s keychain and tried the remaining two keys. The first one didn’t work, but the second one was just right!

“It’s open!” Qi Hui firmly pushed open the door.

Tang Cuo held the candlestick and walked in. In the flickering candlelight, he observed the inside of the basement and couldn’t help frowning ― just like Zhou Dahai said, this was indeed a worshipping hall.

On the table in front of the black coffin were white chrysanthemums that scattered around a tablet, which were engraved with the words ‘To The Spirit of My Younger Brother, Yu Wangyue’.

Yu Wangyue was Yu Wangnian’s younger brother. Yu Wangyue was dead, so it wasn’t difficult to understand that his elder brother set up a spirit tablet for him. When Tang Cuo suddenly heard Yu Wangyue’s name from Zhou Dahai’s mouth, he actually thought that Zhou Dahai’s dimension was later than his year. Yu Wangyue died, so his body was moved from the attic to the basement.

But now it seemed that there was one Yu Wangyue inside the attic, and there was another Yu Wangyue lying dead inside the basement.

Who was the real Yu Wangyue?

Tang Cuo walked to the coffin, put the candlestick on the table and opened the lid. Although Qi Hui was a bit scared and consistently on guard for the ghost which Zhou Dahai mentioned would appear in the basement, he didn’t want to just sloppily get this matter over with and rapidly came over to help Tang Cuo.

The two worked together and quickly pushed the coffin lid aside, and a shrivelled corpse appeared in front of their eyes. At the same time, the smell of corpse stench blended with some other strange aroma overwhelmed the whole place.

“Cough, cough…” Qi Hui subconsciously covered his nose and mouth, raising his eyes to see Tang Cuo’s expression as blank as usual. He even reached out to touch the corpse. The big boss really deserved to be a big boss.

“The corpse has been specially treated and is very well preserved. Looking at the degree of dryness, it has been dead for at least a few months.” The more Tang Cuo looked at it, the more suspicion he felt.

Even if Yu Wangnian was a twisted man who imprisoned his own brother and poisoned his own wife, he wouldn’t just secretly set up a spirit tablet for a fake brother. However, this corpse looked a lot like how Tang Cuo had visualised the person inside the attic, in terms of both height, age and hair.

In addition, the key to the basement was in the hands of the butler, which showed that beside Yu Wangnian, there was also the butler who knew about this. The butler must be Yu Wangnian’s absolute confidant and be involved in almost everything.

“There doesn’t seem to be a ghost here. Where’s the ghost?” Qi Hui felt both lucky and puzzled.

“If it’s not here, it’ll be somewhere else.” Tang Cuo said as he opened the pocket on the corpse’s clothes and pulled out a key from it. He couldn’t yet estimate the time of Zhou Dahai’s dimension in relation to his dimension, but it should be easier now that he had this key.

There must be a room belonging to Yu Wangyue in this mansion.

“Let’s go.” Tang Cuo quickly went to the second floor and glanced at the clock on the wall as he passed the living room. There were only nine minutes left before it hit 12 AM. He couldn’t help speeding up and headed straight to the room next to the master bedroom.

Yu Wangyue was the younger brother, so it wasn’t possible for him to live in the master bedroom. Let’s try to start from the room right next to it.

On his second try, “Click”, the door opened.

Qi Hui felt that he could no longer express his admiration for the big boss with a simple “F**k”. He remained calm and followed Tang Cuo into the room, but in the very first second they entered the place, he had to blurt out: “F**k!”

There was a ghost in the room that looked exactly like the corpse in the coffin. Standing by the window, it slowly turned back to look at them.

“Yu Wangyue.” Tang Cuo called out his name, not a hint of fear heard from his tone.

Yu Wangyue’s gaze only stayed on Tang Cuo for a second, his eyes blank and empty. Soon, as though sensing something, his eyes finally regained some spirit, then he floated off the ground and went through the wall.

“What’s wrong with him? Aren’t we supposed to fight?” Qi Hui asked in a low voice as he readily loaded the gun in his hand.

Tang Cuo shook his head. He actually had a guess but it still needed to be proven, so he followed Yu Wangyue and walked slowly along the corridor until he finally reached a door.

Yu Wangyue lightly passed through the door.

“Where is this?” Qi Hui looked around and suddenly realised: “The piano room?”

Tang Cuo didn’t answer and started to count silently in his mind.

“Ten.”

“Nine.”

…

“Three.”

“Two.”

“One.”

“Ding —”

The wall clock in the living room rang softly, indicating that it was now 12 o’clock. The gleeful yet cheerie piano sound came from the room in front of them, playing the melody of the [Song of God, Lambs and Crow].

Qi Hui couldn’t help shivering.

Tang Cuo peered into the room through a crack on the door. He couldn’t see the piano, but he could see the window diagonally opposite the door. This window was still sealed by iron railings, but the railings could only block people, not the moonlight. The evening breeze blew open the white silk curtains and the moonlight fell on the ground, looking like a smooth veil of water.

It now seemed that when the butler wrote ‘12 AM: Piano room’ on the small blackboard, he was referring to the sudden sound of the piano from this room at midnight.

The honourable young master of this mansion had passed on, but his elder brother never disclosed his death. Inside the attic, there seemed to be yet another ‘Yu Wangyue’.

Yu Wangyue must have died an unjust death, so his ghost wandered around all day and played music in the middle of the night.

“Ghost, ghost!” Qi Hui’s yelling interrupted Tang Cuo’s thoughts again. He immediately turned around to find that the ghost patched up with many pieces of flesh had turned up in the corridor and was looking at them in silence.

No, perhaps he was looking at the piano room.

Tang Cuo didn’t think it was wise to look down on this ghost and drew his Sword of Judgment at once. But at this moment, he suddenly felt a strange wave of energy, something like ― a magnetic field!

Yes, he remembered that Jin Cheng had mentioned this word. As his eyes scanned through the ripples that were vaguely forming in the surrounding air, a bold guess was formed in his mind.

With the speed of light, he grabbed Qi Hui’s arm.

In the next second, everything before their eyes turned pitch black.

After being spun around for a while, Qi Hui stared in astonishment at the darkness where even his fingers couldn’t be distinguished. Just as he was about to ask what was going on, a chill came from behind, making his whole scalp numb.

Fireball!

Tang Cuo quickly summoned his magic and small fireball the size of a fist tremblingly struck at his behind, illuminating the figure of a female ghost with disheveled hair.

The female ghost was dressed in white, her complexion pale, her eyes bloodshot and her lips as red as blood. At one glance, she might frighten people to death.

The moment the fireball hit her hands, her two ghostly claws that looked like dead tree branches scattered the attack right away.

“Run!” Tang Cuo pushed Qi Hui to one side and faced the female ghost himself.

“Tang ge!” Qi Hui didn’t expect Tang Cuo to protect him at this critical moment. Scared yet incredibly touched, he gritted his teeth and decided to raise his gun to fire a shot.

“Bang!” The bullet passed through the female ghost, causing absolutely no harm to her. Qi Hui felt his heart slightly tense up, and at this moment, he saw another figure passing by.

Stomping against the wall, the figure moved as lightly as a feather. He raised his left hand and flickering spots of light emerged from between his fingers, shooting straight towards the female ghost.

As soon as the lights touched the ghost’s body, they turned into flames and burnt brightly. The ghost let out an excruciating scream and waved its hands indiscriminately, trying to put out the fire.

The figure took the opportunity to grab Tang Cuo’s wrist and quickly retreated downstairs.

Realising that he was the only one behind, Qi Hui hurriedly followed after them: “Wait for me!” 

A moment later, in the living room on the first floor.

Hiding beside the phone, Qi Hui was still struggling to believe what was happening before his eyes: “Are we in 1926? Wasn’t there the sound of the piano just now? Where is it?”

But the melody had gone. In front of him right now were only a nonchalant Tang Cuo and a smiling Jin Cheng.

Jin Cheng was in a really good mood. After having to stare at ghosts for more than two hours, he finally saw his disciple’s face and even felt that the little bastard was getting more handsome. At this moment, his eyes certainly didn’t see Qi Hui at all. Blocking Qi Hui from standing between him and Tang Cuo, he occupied all of Tang Cuo’s line of sight and asked: “How did you come here?”

Tang Cuo: “Previously, we talked about how players might be able travel between different dimensions. My time is two hours earlier than yours. When the piano is played, I’m here.”

His deduction on dimension shifting was derived from the time difference between the two of them. If this deduction was true, there must be something that could penetrate all times and spaces.

This thing must be very special and might even be the source of all the strange happenings inside this mansion.

Earlier, when the piano sound came at 12 AM, the space around him started showing fluctuations, making Tang Cuo immediately think of this. He didn’t have time to weigh his choices carefully and just took the risk of chanting ‘1926’ in his heart. It turned out that he smoothly slipped through.

Qi Hui was completely lost.

Jin Cheng understood his point: “Looking at this, Yu Wangyue’s death seems to be the cause. His ghost plays the piano at 12 o’clock every night. Players can use the sound of his playing to shift through different dimensions to unlock the mystery and escape from the mansion.”

Tang Cuo: “The biggest question now is: Who is in the attic?”

Jin Cheng: “My instinct tells me that the clue shouldn’t be in this dimension. Apart from Zhou Dahai, there are still two other players. If it isn’t because they’re trapped and unable to answer the phone, it can only be that they deliberately hide themselves.”

Hearing this, Qi Hui couldn’t help but interrupt: “My teammates won’t do that. They’re not that kind of people!”

Jin Cheng asked with a smile: “Who says that those two are your teammates? Are you sure?”

Qi Hui was dumbstruck for a second, then he realised that he might have made a serious mistake. He always thought that the four of them had followed Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo into the mission wall, that was, all four of them had entered the dungeon.

But in the game hall back then, were there only four of them staring at Jin Cheng?

There were six people in this dungeon. So far, there were Jin Cheng, Tang Cuo, him and Zhou Dahai; who were the remaining two? If they hadn’t spoken for so long, there was a high chance of them being foes rather than friends. The content of their calls might have all been heard and those men could have obtained the clues without having to say a word. They might even have found a way to clear this mission.

More importantly, since Tang Cuo and he could come to Jin Cheng, of course others also could.

Thinking of this, Qi Hui felt cold sweat pouring down his back.