Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 57
by Little PandaVolume 3: Song of the Wanderer
Great Demon King 16
The Game of the Brave
When that voice disappeared, the lights in the room they entered also came on.
Xin Lan thought that voice must belong to the owner of that hand, a teenager of seventeen or eighteen, who had suffered some terrible acts in that room.
What he meant was that he had been dismembered, and his corpse had been hidden away. Their task was to find all parts of the corpse and piece them together within one day.
There were several points to consider: the youth said ‘he,’ though the gender wasn’t certain yet. That person should be the one who imprisoned the youth and carried out those cruel acts. More intriguingly, the youth had set a time limit.
He said within one day, while this three-story game had a time limit of seven days. They had already spent one day downstairs, and if this level took one day, that would leave five days for the third floor – did this suggest the third floor’s game would be more difficult?
This must be a group game, because if it were just an item-finding game, it would be impossible for one person to find everything while others came up empty-handed in the same space. Besides, they weren’t looking for trinkets, but dismembered body parts.
If they didn’t cooperate, assuming no one could complete this game within a day, then nobody would be able to advance upward – they would all die.
Looking at it from another angle, they currently had four people, but only three could go up. The fundamental nature of forcing people to kill each other remained unchanged, yet on the surface, it forced them to cooperate.
Piecing together the corpse, the first part should have been that hand, but when Xin Lan turned on the living room lights, she discovered the hand that had been on the switch was gone.
“What about those two people?”
Xin Lan asked.
“They’re dead.”
Pi Tianzi dragged her umbrella across the ground, speaking with indifference, even wearing a faint smile.
She didn’t take the people before her seriously – one with glasses, one with a violin, and one with a green hat.
She had already dealt with three people, so why should she fear these three? She would definitely be the final winner.
Qi Haolin [qí hào lín – character name] and Xin Lan weren’t surprised, but Ren Difei quietly retreated a bit.
Among the four people including himself, his chances of winning were probably the lowest.
It was impossible to defeat Boss Lady, and Pi Tianzi had already killed three people – she wasn’t even normal anymore, probably blood-drunk [shā hóng yǎn – idiom meaning to be consumed by killing]. As for that Green Hat Brother, though he looked capable, he was marked by Boss Lady, so he’d probably die here.
So if he wanted to get out, he’d have to overcome both Pi Tianzi and Boss Lady.
Moreover, he worried that before he could even get out, he would starve to death here.
The room was illuminated, and Xin Lan walked in again, ignoring the door she had kicked damaged.
The room had two lamps, not far apart, controlled by the same switch, lighting up the room brightly – so bright that nothing unsavory could be hidden.
When Ren Difei saw that cabinet of philosophical implements, his whole body ached, unable to imagine how those things would feel when used on a person.
Some might be for adding excitement, but some were truly inhuman, making those unfamiliar with such things feel uncomfortable all over.
For example, that thing as thick as a baby’s arm, that wooden horse with that thing, whips and such – it was a complete alphabet circle scene [zì mǔ quān – Chinese euphemism for BDSM community].
Generally speaking, most people would feel overwhelmed with shame seeing such things and would feel too embarrassed to look, but was Xin Lan an ordinary person? She not only looked closely but carefully observed everything, clicking her tongue.
She personally didn’t oppose such mutually consensual interests, saying that if people kept to themselves and processed it internally, it could even benefit their body and mind. However, this clearly wasn’t a consensual situation.
When Ren Difei put on his glasses, he saw a scene different from the current situation.
It looked like a long-abandoned room, the walls showing a defeated white [huī bài de bái – deteriorated white color], with some wall plaster fallen to the ground, giving off an aged feeling.
There was a large bloodstain on the hardwood floor, with obvious drag marks, making Ren Difei feel nauseated.
The scene was like when he used to pass by the meat stalls in the market, with settled blood on the chopping boards, flies buzzing around, making one’s stomach churn. He was already nearly starving, which made him feel even worse.
He walked closer, stopping at the chains fixed to the wall.
The chains had five rings [wǔ gè huán – five circular restraints], judging by the height, one for the neck and four for the limbs.
Just thinking about it felt humiliating.
The inside of the chains also had a dark red color, though not much, probably stained during struggles.
This room was very oppressive, feeling oppressive even without glasses, and after putting them on, he could feel that pain even more.
But what use was it to feel this? He was suffering too, and this poor person wanted them to piece together their corpse within a day – just thinking about it gave him goosebumps.
“Let’s split up to search. This floor isn’t very big. If the four of us search separately, we should be able to find everything within a day.”
Qi Haolin suggested, Pi Tianzi nodded, while Ren Difei looked toward Xin Lan.
Xin Lan had no objections – after all, even if Qi Haolin wanted to run, there was nowhere to go.
Seeing that Xin Lan didn’t object, Qi Haolin left first.
He really didn’t want to stay in the same space as this woman, finding it unbearable even for a minute. This woman seemed to have mutated [biàn yì – transformed], changing from a previous little white rabbit into a man-eating rabbit.
He had seen ghosts now, learned about the unscientific, and he felt that the soul in Xin Lan’s body was definitely not the same as before.
He had been with Xin Lan for several years and knew her personality well. How could she possibly make a complete 180-degree turn like this? She had become like a great demon king, very formidable and unbeatable.
But he didn’t want to die here; he wanted to get out alive with the money.
The person wearing Xin Lan’s skin held great malice toward him, but he hadn’t really done anything wrong. He pursued Xin Lan, they got together – wasn’t it mutual? He hadn’t forced Xin Lan to support him. Though taking her money when he left was unethical, he needed that money. After being together for years, what was wrong with taking her money? Xin Lan could always earn more, right?
That person wearing Xin Lan’s skin didn’t need to beat him up severely and keep watching him. He still felt lingering fear remembering that beating.
When Ren Difei saw Pi Tianzi and Qi Haolin leave, he described to Xin Lan what he had seen. Xin Lan said nothing and began examining the room.
Ren Difei didn’t wander out either. Others had murder weapons like umbrellas, and though he didn’t know what purpose the green hat served, a man wearing green pastures on his head couldn’t be too weak. He didn’t want to go looking for trouble, so he firmly stayed by Xin Lan’s side.
Xin Lan had Ling Jiu activate its search function, but as expected, nothing was found.
Including that hand from earlier – it couldn’t be seen either.
Xin Lan found this strange; it wasn’t logical.
If you tell people to piece together parts of a corpse, and the hand had already appeared, why not just leave it as the first piece? Why hide it again to make it part of the game?
But the existence of this game itself was illogical. Xin Lan began searching the room for dismembered parts.
In the center of the room, there was a sofa facing the direction of the chains.
The sofa was large and soft, looking comfortable.
Xin Lan could imagine someone sitting there once, leisurely watching the struggles of someone not far away.
One after another, all perverts.
Xin Lan felt around the sofa, then kicked it aside, seeing what was underneath.
Not dismembered parts, just a pair of shoes.
A pair of white ballet shoes, not very large, about size 30-something, perfectly suitable for a slender boy to wear.
Ren Difei didn’t want to look at that cabinet and its displayed implements, so he went straight to check the toilet.
When he lifted the lid, there really was a surprise inside.
He pinched out a section of arm, placed it on the ground, and wiped his fingers on his clothes.
That section appeared to be a forearm, bare on both sides, looking very bizarre.
He then opened the water tank and took out a wet small glass bottle.
“Why is this bottle empty?”
Ren Difei shook it, and indeed there was nothing inside.
Suddenly he felt as if something grabbed his hand, but there was definitely nothing there.
His reflex was to let go of the bottle, but he managed to catch it just before it hit the ground.
He sighed in relief; his intuition told him that if the bottle broke, something terrifying might happen. He gently placed it on the ground and walked around it.
The moment he put down the bottle, that cold sensation wrapping around him suddenly disappeared.
Ren Difei quickly walked to Xin Lan’s side and told her about this.
Xin Lan looked at the empty bottle with interest but didn’t pick it up.
Yu Wanyan followed beside Xin Lan, clearly seeing the figure crouching on the ground holding the bottle.
It was a youth with delicate features, so beautiful that their gender was ambiguous.
The youth raised their head, giving Yu Wanyan a somewhat guarded look.
“That’s his treasure.”
Yu Wanyan said this to Xin Lan.
Xin Lan raised an eyebrow – an empty glass bottle was a treasure?
But nothing was impossible; perhaps it really had some special meaning.
Xin Lan stopped looking at the glass bottle and continued scanning the cabinet.
As she scanned, she really did discover something unusual.
Among that row of items, there seemed to be one particularly realistic replica.
“You, come here, take that down and let’s look at it.”
Xin Lan ordered Ren Difei, who responded, but when he saw what Xin Lan wanted him to take, he couldn’t help but shudder [hǔ qū – literally ‘tiger body trembling’], feeling pain below.
His fingers trembled as he took down the indescribable object from the cabinet. The cut at its bottom was extremely neat, making his scalp tingle.
As a male, he felt truly uncomfortable.
After holding it, he immediately dropped it on the floor like a hot potato, withdrew his hand, and vigorously wiped his palm against his trouser seam.
“Is it real?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not preserved in any solution, how is it staying fresh? That’s quite mysterious.”
Xin Lan pondered – wouldn’t flesh inevitably rot once separated from the body?
“I don’t know either.”
And didn’t want to know.
Besides, isn’t this focus point too strange? Why worry about preservation period, hey! [wèi – exclamation of exasperation]
LP: Re-translated on January 25, 2025
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