Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 21
by Little PandaBreaking the Cage
Escape 21
Legal Hunting
Xin Lan was called out, completely unsurprised. She walked over, unhurried.
“You actually dared to choose me, Zou Yunfei? Aren’t you afraid I’ll hunt you down?”
Zou Yunfei turned his head, pretending he hadn’t heard a thing.
“Teacher, I want to ask,” he said, turning to the instructor. “Can a ‘Grandma’ who survived a previous round be caught again?”
“Of course,” the PE Teacher replied. “This is a very free game.”
Zhou Zhou thought of something, his face turning pale. He’d assumed that, just like the warm-up game earlier, anyone who’d already been chosen wouldn’t be selected again.
Xin Lan gave him a leisurely smile and stood in the center of the circle.
“You know, there’s an ancient saying I particularly like.”
“Deal with a man as he deals with you1.”
Xin Lan closed her eyes. Zhou Zhou immediately went on high alert.
Shen Shuiyan kept her gaze fixed on the person in the middle. She knew Xin Lan would be perfectly fine, but she still just wanted to watch.
“Grandma, Grandma, what’s the time?”
“Four o’clock.”
“Grandma, Grandma, what’s the time?”
“One o’clock.”
Xin Lan’s attitude was exceptionally relaxed. Standing with her eyes closed and her hands in her pockets, she looked less like she was playing a horror game and more like she was out on a picnic.
“Grandma, Grandma, what’s the time?”
“Twelve o’clock.”
Xin Lan opened her eyes, locked onto her target, and headed in that direction.
Zhou Zhou’s stamina had already been heavily depleted by his previous run. Now that he had to run again, he barely had any strength left.
But both Zou Yunfei and Chu Lu were injured. Even if they tried to pull him along, they wouldn’t be able to move very fast. If they became a hindrance, they might get caught themselves.
Zhou Zhou could only pin his hopes on the idea that while Xin Lan was physically violent, her actual chasing ability might not be that strong.
But his prayers clearly did nothing. Xin Lan closed the distance in an instant.
Zhou Zhou panted, his survival instinct driving him forward.
His footsteps grew heavier and heavier, as if his feet were filled with lead, and his leg muscles were also aching and sore.
Xin Lan followed effortlessly behind him, appreciating his death throes like a cat toying with a mouse.
Zero Nine was timing the round for her, having been instructed to give a warning only when thirty seconds remained.
Xin Lan was too lazy to beat him up. Her conflict with Zhou Zhou wasn’t actually that deep. Although he followed Zou Yunfei around, he wasn’t like Chu Lu—completely shameless, running his mouth in an incredibly greasy way. Zhou Zhou was relatively quiet; his only mistake was that he’d actually chosen her today.
This was fine too—she could use the hand of the rules to eliminate one first.
Zero Nine: “Host, time’s up!”
Zhou Zhou figured that time was almost up, and since Xin Lan still hadn’t caught him, he let out a sigh of relief.
This would be perfect. Xin Lan would be wiped out by the rules, and her things would surely go to Shen Shuiyan. Without Xin Lan threatening her, Shen Shuiyan would definitely return to their team immediately. They’d have one less enemy and more clues, and their chances of winning would skyrocket.
But before he could be happy for more than a few seconds, he heard the sound of footsteps behind him.
A hand grabbed his collar from behind, halting him in his tracks.
“Caught you.”
The voice was smiling and cheerful, yet it made his body freeze inch by inch.
Exactly ten minutes. Not a second more, not a second less.
Before Zhou Zhou could even utter a word, he vanished just like that.
Zou Yunfei’s eyes turned bloodshot as he glared fiercely at Xin Lan.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Do you want to be the next seeker, hmm?” Xin Lan met his gaze without flinching, smiling as she spoke.
Her smile was so provocative that the blood rushed to Zou Yunfei’s head. He wanted nothing more than to fight her to the death.
But a shred of rationality remained, and he forced himself to calm down.
Xin Lan ran incredibly fast. Besides, he was currently injured. If Xin Lan selected him, and he tried to chase her, he might not be able to catch her at all. If he went after someone else, the chances were highly unpredictable, and Zou Yunfei didn’t want to risk his life.
Xin Lan didn’t choose Zou Yunfei; she chose Chu Lu.
She still had to keep Zou Yunfei around to torment him later. If he was too useless and really didn’t catch anyone, his death would mean her mission would be declared a failure right then and there.
So, it was better to keep him alive for now. As for the guy next to him, there wasn’t really any value in keeping him around. She had already given him a beating. As long as he didn’t stir up trouble, she had no interest in messing with him further.
Chu Lu stood in the center, his expression ugly. He was smart enough to know he couldn’t let his emotions get the better of him and chase Xin Lan. Zhou Zhou was already a cautionary tale of what happened to those who did.
This time, Chu Lu targeted Xu Deng, and the two of them kept running.
Chu Lu was thinking: if he couldn’t deal with Xin Lan, could he not at least target her teammate?
Seeing that Xu Deng was about to be caught, Xin Lan ran nearby, planning to find an opportunity to grab her and pull her away.
If Xu Deng had run toward her position from the start, Xin Lan would’ve pulled her to safety long ago. But Chu Lu had blocked that direction, so Xu Deng had no choice but to run elsewhere, leaving Xin Lan to chase after them to back her up.
Xin Lan thought that if it didn’t work, she’d let Chu Lu catch her first, and then she’d just kill him.
Xu Deng suddenly stopped. Chu Lu thought she was planning to give up the struggle.
But then, Xu Deng did something nobody expected. She spun around, kicked Chu Lu hard in his groin, and after doing that, she bolted.
That was one of a man’s most vulnerable areas. Suddenly hit with such a heavy blow, he doubled over and fell to the ground, sweating all over from the pain as he rolled around on the floor.
“Couldn’t tell, but you’re pretty capable,” Xin Lan said, her lips curving upward as she praised Xu Deng.
“When you’re in the jianghu, you can’t always help yourself2,” Xu Deng replied, pushing up her cracked glasses and accepting the praise in a very low-key manner.
Chu Lu finally managed to stand up, but with that area injured, every step was excruciating.
Everyone kept far away from him. With the ten minutes nearly up, he had no choice but to accept the reality of his failure.
“Xin Lan, you’ll die a horrible death!” Chu Lu roared this out with a distorted expression, just before he vanished.
“Is he sick in the head? I’m the one who kicked him, not you. Who’s he to blame if he couldn’t catch anyone himself?” Xu Deng couldn’t understand it. This was a cruel game of survival to begin with.
Xin Lan completely let it go in one ear and out the other. Too many people had cursed her to die a horrible death; who did Chu Lu think he was, anyway?
Back when she was a villain, the number of people cursing her could be counted in massive piles. True, her final outcome really hadn’t been that great, but she was the protagonist now.
Such a situation didn’t exist anymore; at most, it was just a wish that a cannon fodder could never fulfill.
But just because Xin Lan didn’t care didn’t mean others didn’t.
Hearing this, Shen Shuiyan felt a surge of anger in her heart. It was clearly their side that had picked a fight first. Yet because their skills were inferior, he actually dared to curse her Little Tiger? Her Little Tiger was such an amazing person; she’d definitely live to a ripe old age. Only those people would die horrible deaths.
Since the man was already dead, Shen Shuiyan couldn’t do anything to him, so she silently chalked this debt up to Zou Yunfei.
Zou Yunfei felt incredibly miserable. In just one game, two of his three brothers were gone, leaving him feeling suddenly isolated and helpless.
His hatred for Xin Lan grew even deeper. From a distance, he caught sight of Shen Shuiyan seemingly gazing in his direction, which made him feel a bit better.
Fortunately, he still had Shen Shuiyan standing on his side. Her looking at him like that meant she must be feeling sorry for him.
No matter what, he had to hold out until the very end. When the time came, he’d let Xin Lan see that the one who got the last laugh would be him, Zou Yunfei.
Shen Shuiyan was indeed looking, thinking about how to torture him.
By this point in the game, three people had already died.
There were still six rounds left, and only sixteen people remained.
The girl who was caught by Zhou Zhou in the first round but pushed the teammate who tried to save her out as a scapegoat ended up dying in the fifth round anyway—killed by that deceased boy’s close friend as revenge.
After nine rounds of the game, this nightmare of a chase finally came to a stop.
The PE Teacher blew his whistle and ordered everyone to assemble.
Twenty-two had arrived, but only ten remained.
In just a few hours, right before everyone’s eyes, ten lives were gone just like that.
“Alright, students. Class is dismissed. You can go eat now. See you next time,” the teacher said with a smile.
The students scrambled to leave.
Xu Deng originally felt that the atmosphere was very heavy and wanted to say something. But looking at Xin Lan, she seemed completely unfazed, and Shen Shuiyan also acted as though nothing had happened. The two of them were actually discussing what they were going to eat in a bit.
“How about scrambled eggs with tomatoes?”
“No, the scrambled eggs with tomatoes I had the other day were incredibly sweet. I suspect the chef mistook sugar for salt.”
“Then let’s have claypot rice3 and soup.”
“Sure.”
Xu Deng’s mouth twitched. She had completely lost her appetite because of that awful game.
These two made her feel so insignificant. She should be under the car, not inside it—she had lost.
“Are you eating? The three of us can queue up together,” Xin Lan said, turning her head to ask.
“I’m eating,” Xu Deng immediately replied, as if the person who’d had no appetite just now wasn’t her.
Xin Lan walked in. There were very few people queuing at the windows, and everyone was sitting scattered around, unlike the first day when there were so many people.
“Could every class have been forced to take PE?” Shen Shuiyan asked.
The headcount was clearly wrong. There couldn’t be any other explanation, and it was impossible that their class alone had received some kind of ‘special treatment’ and was the only one to participate in that game.
“That’s likely the case, which is fine too,” Xin Lan said.
It was fine indeed. The rules had stepped in to accelerate the pace of the game, making everyone’s conflicts sharper. She wouldn’t have to deal with many people to get enough clue fragments.
In other words, Shen Shuiyan had to speed up her progress on her end too.
Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan exchanged a glance, and Shen Shuiyan understood her meaning instantly, nodding in agreement.
“I’ll go find him tonight. We’ll meet in the teaching building.”
Xin Lan suddenly remembered something and nudged Zero Nine in her mind.
Xin Lan: “Is the guy who abused the original owner, causing her death, still alive?”
If he’d died due to some force majeure, she’d have missed out on an opportunity.
Zero Nine: “He’s still alive.”
Xin Lan: “That’s good.”
Xin Lan would go find him tonight. If she dragged it out any longer, what if he ended up dead?
Night fell, and the bells rang.
The campus grew quieter and quieter. The pitch-black night was like a beast with its jaws wide open, waiting to swallow people whole.
The rapid, heavy thud of running footsteps echoed down the corridor, followed by the sound of a door slamming shut.
Xin Lan: “Where is he now?”
Zero Nine: “The teaching building.”
Xin Lan stood up from her chair. Wasn’t that perfect? Shen Shuiyan was also heading to the teaching building to meet Zou Yunfei. She’d originally planned to take her teammate to the boys’ dormitory to handle things first, but she was worried about Shen Shuiyan—what if she got bullied?
Footnotes
- An idiom from Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi, meaning to pay someone back in their own coin, or to use an opponent's own methods against them.
- A famous wuxia idiom meaning 'once in the martial world, one's actions are dictated by circumstances.' It implies being forced to do things against one's nature to survive.
- A traditional Cantonese dish cooked in a clay pot (bāozǎifàn), featuring seasoned rice topped with meats and vegetables, known for the crispy, caramelized rice crust that forms at the bottom.
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