"It’s not real here, but it’s not very different from reality. They will feel that pain of being tortured and killed again. And you... you will be the pusher, the executioner." The man moved his mouth close to Su Bai. "But I kind of like you right now. Although you’re a newbie outsider, you state of mind is much better than others, and you won’t do anything sloppily. Ho ho, you’re good, very good."
When the man spoke his breath was coming straight to Su Bai’s ear, which made Su Bai disgusted; when he finished talking, he even licked Su Bai’s earlobe.
Su Bai’s body shook and he immediately stretched out his hand. But his hand was grabbed; the man looked tall and weak, like those Korean "oppas[1]" with long legs, but the strength from his hand was terrible. Su Bai felt as if his hand was clutched by a pair of pincer pliers and he couldn’t move it at all.
"Don’t try me, or you’ll end up ugly. It’s your honor that I’m into you. You said it yourself that you wanna survive, right?"
The man let go of his hand. Seeing that Su Bai was not gonna try again, he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and went on talking: "My name is Meimei, and my family name is Hai. You can call me Childe Hai. As long as you be a good boy, I’ll let you live through this story, or even the next story."
Su Bai lifted his hand and cleaned his ear. He looked at Childe Hai and said:
"Your mommy and daddy were so smart that they gave you a perfect name."
"That’s alright. The more you behave like this, the more I’m into you. In my eyes, a little pepper is always more interesting than a sweetie. Okay, let’s cut the crap. Follow them. They can’t enter the room before us; that thing’s remaining is still there."
ChildeHai caught up with them. Su Bai hadn’t noticed that he was walking in an odd way; now walking behind him, he could tell he was slightly lame, but it was not very obvious.
Story…
Plot…
Su Bai only had a superficial knowledge of these stuff. Last night, the sunglasses guy and camouflage guy had made an unsuccessful attempt; now Childe Hai seemed to be planning for another shot.
Chen Chu and his girlfriend were walking in the front, Su Bai behind him and Childe Hai a little further behind them. This hotel was not far from Chen Chu’s rented apartment, but when the four of them got only halfway, the clear sky was suddenly filled with dark clouds and it started to rain.
Chen Chu began to run with his girlfriend, his arm around her waist; Su Bai also ran after them while Childe Hai rushed ahead in advance.
Chen Chu looked at Childe Hai; he was a little surprised, then he turned around to look at Su Bai behind him and put on a look of wonder.
He meant "is that your friend?"
"Yes, my friend. Flew here from Beijing for my birthday." Su Bai answered.
Chen Chu didn’t ask. They sped up.
Darkness fell very soon. Actually, it was still in the morning, but the dark clouds were heavy and it felt as if it was already nighttime.
When Chen Chu and his girlfriend arrived at the entrance of that building, to Su Bai’s surprise, he saw the light of several fireflies wandering in the air.
"Look, fireflies."
"Maybe they thought it was night, since it’s so dark." Chen Chu joked to his girlfriend. Then they walked inside together. Behind them, Su Bai saw a firefly landed on Chen Chu and another on his girlfriend.
Su Bai paused for a moment, wondering if he should go in with them. He looked up at the kitchen of that rented apartment. Childe Hai was standing there with a toothpick he found somewhere in his mouth. He nodded to Su Bai.
Then Su Bai walked onto the stairs.
The door was still open, the same as when it was kicked down; and the blood and Guo Gang’s broken body could be seen from out of the door. However, Chen Chu and his girlfriend just walked in as if they couldn’t seen any of this. Chen Chu’s girlfriend went to get some drinks while Chen Chu invited Su Bai in.
They couldn’t see the blood and the dead body on the floor at all, just entered their sweet home like usual.
"By the way, Su Bai, where’s your friend?" Chen Chu asked.
Childe Hai was standing right behind Chen Chu, but he made a gesture of "hush" to Su Bai. Then he walked towards Su Bai, patted Su Bai on the shoulder and signalled Su Bai to come out with him.
"My friend should be contacting the cooks. He arranged that specially for me. I was not even thinking of celebration. I’ll go downstairs to look for him, and check if the cooks are here."
"Oh, okay, then the two of us would be at home, waiting for food."
"You offered me your place already, that’s a huge favor." Su Bai smiled and went out with Childe Hai.
They went downstairs, walked out of the building and stood by the garden.
"What should we do next?" asked Su Bai.
"Make them a cold dish! [2] You are just a newbie experiencing life here and you don’t even know the task. But, lucky for you, if you accomplish the task with us, you’ll be awarded according to your participation ratio."
"Will they die right now?" Su Bai asked.
Childe Hai raised his head and pointed to the sky.
"Such scenery will be such a waste if nobody dies, isn’t it?" A raindrop fell onto Childe Hai’s face between his eyebrows. Childe Hai’s temperament was totally changed at once; his laziness was all gone and he became very cautious, "It is coming."
"So, last night?"
"Last night, those two idiots had done the math wrong and came one day in advance. But their plan was a good one. I want to see how bad that thing is and what level it is. If it’s not very strong, I’ll do Main Task 1; if it’s too tough, I’ll do Main Task 2."
"Main Task 1 and Main Task 2? What are those?"
Childe Hai looked at Su Bai, "I know you must have a lot of questions, but can you stop being a curious baby-"
His words were cut off. Next, he stepped backwards and a piece of grass was reaped from where he was standing.
"This time, it’s got some juice. It can sense onlookers! Retreat for now, retreat!"
Childe Hai started to retreat rapidly and Su Bai followed him, of course.
Their rival seemed to have no interest in chasing them. It went silent after a threat.
Childe Hai took out a piece of handkerchief from his pocket, rubbed his hands and shook his head, "This thing is tough." Then he looked at Su Bai. "Darling, you might be sacrificed as well, if necessary."
Su Bai looked at Childe Hai and said nothing. Up there, by the window of that kitchen, there suddenly came out a pale light of blood.
Yes, light of blood.
"Main Task 1 is to destroy that thing and Main Task 2 is to find out that thing’s background; Main Task 1’s award is definitely much more generous than Main Task 2’s, but against that thing, it will be a little difficult for me to do it alone, so I’d better choose Main Task 2. Come on, go with me, now!"
"Clap!"
Su Bai suddenly clapped against his neck. When he retrieved his hand, there was a dead firefly in his palm.
"What are you doing?" Childe Hai pretended to be confused, "It’s better for your survival if I controlled you."
Su Bai shook his head and began to step back.
Childe Hai narrowed his eyes. "Do you think you can escape from me?"
Su Bai pointed to the kitchen window upstairs. "He has begun to kill. Are you going up there, or coming to catch me?"
Childe Hai took a deep breath. "What do you know? If we didn’t go there to see its real identity when he’s killing that young couple, the story will go on, and it will pick one of us audience and continue killing us one by one until its identity is found; if we kept failing in finding its identity, this batch of audience here will all die!"
"Then what are you waiting for? For its next kill, you and me should be sharing the same odds."
"You are good." Childe Hai turned around. But just then, his body began to burn and turned into a flock of fireflies.
Su Bai was shocked for a moment. Then his neck was grabbed and a firefly was put into his mouth with the other hand of his rival.
Childe Hai showed up behind him unexpectedly with a deceptive trick.
"You are still too young to fight against me. Let’s go upstairs!"
After Su Bai was forced to swallow the firefly down, his whole body went out of control. He began to walk towards the stairs automatically, while Childe Hai walked behind him. Apparently, this thing was so fierce that it was beyond Childe Hai’s expectation. He said last night that Guo Gang and sunglasses guy’s method was dirty, but today, he had no choice but to use this dirty method as well.
When an audience died, the Danger Degree nearby would be reduced at once.
This was a kind of Principle.
Walking into that room again, Su Bai saw that Chen Chu was already nailed onto a chair with his stomach cut open. There was a condom box on the floor, and his stomach was stuffed up.
In the kitchen, there was someone moving around, and there came a nice smell of meat at the same time.
This was someone cooking the body!
But even now Su Bai’s body was still moving forward out of his control. Childe Hai was walking right behind him.
Finally, they got into the kitchen. On the floor and walls, pieces of flesh were placed neatly; in the boiler there were a lot of flesh pieces being cooked as well.
Next, the figure turned around with a pair of scissors in its hand.
Childe Hai reached his head out from behind Su Bai to take a look, only to be shocked at once.
"What the…"
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Oppa: An oppa refers to a female's older brother in Korean, but it is also used when a young female is addressing an elder male who has no ties of blood with her.
[2] Make them a cold dish: It is a humorous Chinese pun of saying "I don’t know either".