Volume 11: The Days of Traveling on a Train
Judas
The man who betrayed God
Shen Maomao didn’t go home for the New Year. She told her mom she wasn’t coming back, but in reality, she’d already booked a flight from her parents’ city to Nan City, planning to bring the old couple over to celebrate with her.
Her mom was actually quite curious about her life with Lou Jingmo, so when she heard the plan, she grumbled about her daughter wasting money and muttered something about being “too much of a hassle to visit,” but she still made the rounds visiting relatives and giving out gifts ahead of time. When the day came, she was ready and waiting for her flight.
Lou Jingmo had managed to get her driver’s license just before the new year and had even bought a reasonably priced car for getting around. She’d used it to stock up on a mountain of holiday supplies, and now it was perfect for picking her two in-laws up from the airport.
For three days straight, Shen Maomao had been educating her “child,” repeatedly warning Puck that his grandparents couldn’t see him. He was absolutely forbidden from waving things in front of them to scare them, and pranks were completely off-limits.
She had been calling Puck “son” every day for the past year, and by now, he had fully embraced the role.
When the day finally arrived, the two of them got to the airport an hour early. They helped her parents stuff their luggage, overflowing with local specialty foods, into the trunk of the car.
Curious, Puck settled himself on Mother Shen’s shoulder. He was so light and she was bundled up in such thick winter clothes that she didn’t feel a thing.
Shen Maomao’s heart was in her throat the whole ride, terrified that Puck’s mischievous streak would get the better of him and he’d scare her mom into a heart attack. Thankfully, he seemed to remember the sting of Shen Maomao’s palm. He was on his best behavior the entire way home and didn’t cause any trouble.
The moment they walked through the door, Mother Shen’s eyes went right to the miniature villa in the living room. “Did you two get a pet?” she asked.
“That’s my house!” Puck announced. “I’m a little piggy, and my name is George!!”
Shen Maomao desperately wanted to laugh but forced herself to hold it in, the effort making her face ache.
“We’re planning on getting one,” Lou Jingmo explained smoothly. “So we got the supplies ready in advance.”
“Getting a pet is a good idea,” Mother Shen said. “A house this big must feel pretty empty with just the two of you, right?”
“Empty? Just you wait. Once I save up enough money, I’ll get you two a big bieye1 of your own—the kind with a private little garden so you can grow vegetables!” Shen Maomao declared.
Mother Shen beamed, her smile stretching from ear to ear. “Oh, we don’t need your money. You save it for yourself.”
The New Year’s atmosphere wasn’t as strong in the big city. There were no fireworks or firecrackers, and aside from the fresh red couplets pasted on every door, it felt no different from any other day.
The old couple stayed with them until the third day of the New Year before deciding it wasn’t lively enough and getting ready to head home.
Lou Jingmo prepared a heap of gifts for them to take back and share with their relatives.
Mother Shen didn’t refuse and left with all the goodies. Just before she left, though, she urged them again to get married as soon as possible.
The older generation always believed that marriage was the ultimate guarantee of love. They worried that a relationship without legal protection could never last.
Shen Maomao understood her parents’ concerns, but right now, she and the game were locked in a life-or-death struggle. Marriage was the last thing on her mind. She wanted to wait until everything was resolved before even considering it, so she just fobbed them off with the same old excuses.
Before boarding the plane, Mother Shen pulled her aside and whispered a few things in her ear. The gist was that she knew they had their own plans, but she hoped they would always be good to each other and come home to visit more often. And if she ever fought with Lou Jingmo, her room at home would always be waiting for her.
The whole speech left Shen Maomao not knowing whether to laugh or cry as she promised again and again that she would absolutely never fight with Lou Jingmo.
Besides, she thought, even if we did argue, it would just be a little lover’s spat. That’s all.
After seeing her parents off, Shen Maomao left two bottles of Coke by the door of the apartment next door as an offering for the golden retriever. But when she checked the next day, the sodas were gone, probably taken by someone passing by. She didn’t bother looking into it, figuring it was as good as the game’s golden retriever having received them.
As winter thawed into spring, Shen Maomao was lounging around on her phone when a notification suddenly popped up. She was so shocked the potato chip fell from her mouth. She scrambled to her feet and flew upstairs to find Lou Jingmo. “Lou-jie—! Lou-jie!”
“What is it?! What’s wrong?!” Before Lou Jingmo could answer, Puck, who had been watching Peppa Pig, zipped over to follow her, asking curiously.
“It’s none of your business,” Shen Maomao said. “This is grown-up talk, so don’t interrupt. Go back to your Peppa Pig.”
“I don’t like Peppa Pig anymore,” Puck declared. “I’m changing my name to Jerry2!”
“I’m begging you, just be a person for once…”
“But I’m not a person.”
“What I mean is,” Shen Maomao said, exasperated, “I’m begging you to pick a human name!”
“No! I wanna be Jerry! I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!”
“Fine, fine, fine.” Shen Maomao grabbed him and tossed him downstairs. “Jerry, go watch TV by yourself. Don’t bother me and your mom while we’re talking.”
Puck did a little spin in the air before steadying himself. He was used to being thrown around, so he wasn’t even angry. He just obediently settled onto a tissue box to watch Tom and Jerry3.
Lou Jingmo was in the study. Shen Maomao pushed the door open without knocking and burst in. “Lou-jie, did you get the forum notification?”
“I haven’t looked at my phone. What notification?”
Shen Maomao shoved her phone into Lou Jingmo’s hands. “Look at this. How malicious4 is that?”
Lou Jingmo took the phone and read the screen.
Game ID: Shang Zhou [Photo]
Card Collection: 12/12
Time Until Next Instance: 32 days 4 hours 28 minutes 30 seconds
Current Coordinates: (x, y, z)
Time Until Next Location Ping: 28 minutes 34 seconds
The coordinates were actually a link. Tapping it opened a ridiculously clear map. Her own location was a green dot, Shang Zhou’s was a red one, and the system had even automatically plotted the shortest route between them.
“This is vicious,” Shen Maomao said. “They didn’t just post his photo, they even leaked his z-axis coordinates. Isn’t that just messed up? It’s a blatant invitation for everyone to go hunt him down, isn’t it?”
The game was full of desperados5. For people like them, going to prison was probably better than constantly having to clear instances.
Shen Maomao finally understood. She understood why cards could be brought into the real world and why they would drop from a player’s body no matter where they were hidden upon death. The treacherous game had been setting the stage for this very day.
After clicking the notification, the forum would ping Shang Zhou’s location every thirty minutes. The countdown to his next instance was likely the window of time players had to seize his cards. It was a warning to everyone else: get the cards within this timeframe, or Shang Zhou would only have to clear one last instance to escape the game world for good.
Lou Jingmo put down the phone. “It seems Shang Zhou successfully dealt with that Ge Jiang Ting Hai6.”
“So what do we do now?” Shen Maomao asked. “Are we supposed to go after him, too?”
“And how would we manage that? Shang Zhou isn’t an idiot. He’s probably already distributed the cards among his people by now,” Lou Jingmo said. “Besides, the cards he holds won’t be easy to snatch. I’m less interested in grabbing his cards and more curious about who this Ge Jiang Ting Hai really is, and how she and Ren Yue used that Judas card to screw you over…”
“So we’re just going to ignore it?”
Lou Jingmo thought for a moment. “Let’s wait and see how things play out.”
Seeing how calm she was, Shen Maomao couldn’t help but think, What’s there to get so worked up about? If Lou Jingmo wasn’t worried, what was the point of her panicking?
With that thought, Shen Maomao instantly relaxed. She ambled back downstairs to watch Tom and Jerry with her elf son.
But as time ticked by, not only did the notification on the forum remain, but Shang Zhou’s coordinates kept changing. This meant one of two things: Shang Zhou hadn’t distributed the cards…
Or he couldn’t.
During dinner, Lou Jingmo gave Shang Zhou a call. The phone rang for over ten seconds before he picked up. He was panting on the other end. “I know what you’re going to ask,” he gasped. “I’m in the mountains. Just got off a train.”
“In the mood for jokes? Sounds like you’re holding up okay,” Lou Jingmo remarked.
“Don’t even start. This game is really going to be the death of me this time. Did you know? Once you collect all twelve cards, you can’t transfer them to anyone else! How am I supposed to survive for the next month?!”
He had been completely played by the game’s rules.
His guild had always stored their collected cards with him. So, the moment he acquired Judas, he’d immediately moved it into his inventory. That’s when the forum blasted the announcement to the entire world.
He was at the guild’s base at the time. The second it happened, he arranged for the other members to evacuate. He tried to transfer the cards to someone else, but when that failed, he immediately bought a ticket for the next departing train—one that had a stop within thirty minutes of departure—and began his life on the run.
Lou Jingmo had him on speakerphone, so Shen Maomao heard every word clearly. She couldn’t help but ask, “So you’re planning to hide out in the mountains now?”
Shang Zhou grunted an “Mm.” “You have no idea how ruthless this game is. My guild members told me they can see a giant red arrow hovering over my head now. It guarantees they can spot me in a crowd from a mile away. There’s no way I can hide in the city. Cars can’t get deep into the mountains, and helicopters can’t land easily, which makes it better for me to play guerrilla warfare7.”
“Woc8, helicopters?!” Shen Maomao exclaimed.
“The sins of the upper class are many. The one thing this game isn’t short on is rich people. Buying a helicopter is like a game to them.”
“This is literally Speed9,” Shen Maomao lamented.
Shang Zhou gave a bitter laugh. “I think this is where I’m going to bite it. I just hope that after I die in the real world, they at least leave a whole corpse10…”
An idea struck Shen Maomao. “Could you post on the forum and tell everyone that you’ll wish for the Confession Game to end? That way, everyone can be free!”
“You’re being too naive,” Lou Jingmo said with a sigh.
Putting aside whether anyone would even believe him, there was the matter of the wish itself. People are selfish. Not everyone’s wish is to leave the game. For some, certain things and certain people are more important than their own lives.
Shen Maomao realized she was right and sighed. “This is so complicated.”
Shang Zhou, however, was surprisingly optimistic. He’d been in the game for so long that life and death didn’t seem as important anymore. “Good thing you called when you did. My phone’s probably going to die soon, and then you won’t be able to reach me even if you want to.”
“You got Judas from that Ge Jiang Ting Hai?” Lou Jingmo asked.
“Yeah. The Judas she had was already used. You might have some kind of misunderstanding about her.”
That was the proof. The card Ren Yue used to swap into the instance in Shen Maomao’s place was Judas, the man who betrayed God.
Lou Jingmo seized on the key word. “Misunderstanding? What do you mean?”
“When you first told me she might have Judas, I thought she must be some big shot. But after we investigated for a month, we found out she only entered the game five years ago. Her instance-clearing experience isn’t even as high as my guild’s vice-leader.”
“Only five years?” Shen Maomao was floored.
She’d assumed Ren Yue’s master was the one pulling the strings from behind the scenes—some mysterious woman who had dug a pit and was just waiting for them to fall into it. But this result made her feel a sense of anticlimax. That’s it? That’s all?
By that logic, Ge Jiang Ting Hai had only been in the game for two years longer than her. Unless she was also moonlighting as a power-leveler11, she’d probably cleared fewer instances than Shen Maomao had.
“Right, just five years,” Shang Zhou confirmed. “Later, under our… persuasion, she confessed everything. That Judas card wasn’t hers. It belonged to her master.”
Shen Maomao was even more confused. “She has a master?”
“She did. But her master died a few years ago. She inherited the card from her.”
Shen Maomao’s thoughts were a tangled mess. “So who did Judas belong to? And who is her master?”
Lou Jingmo frowned, thinking hard. In the short time the other two were talking, she had already pieced it together. “Wait a minute. Her master… was her name Ren Yue?”
“If it’s the ‘Yue’ with the ‘king’ radical, then yes, that’s her,” Shang Zhou confirmed.
“?!” Shen Maomao was speechless.
A look of realization dawned on Lou Jingmo’s face. “I think I get it now. We were misled by what they called each other.”
Ren Yue and Ge Jiang Ting Hai had met in that other game. In that world, Ge Jiang Ting Hai was Ren Yue’s master, which is why Ren Yue called her that. But between the two of them, Ren Yue was likely the one who entered this instance-based game first, followed later by Ge Jiang Ting Hai.
In the real world, Ge Jiang Ting Hai was the master. But inside the game, Ren Yue was the one with more seniority.
Looking at it that way, Ren Yue might have entered an instance even before starting university. Because in all four years of college, Shen Maomao had never once seen her slip up… Ah, no, that’s not right. When that person jumped from the building, Ren Yue had acted strangely. But back then, Shen Maomao hadn’t suspected her in the slightest, so she’d never given the incident a second thought.
While she was lost in thought, trying to find the hua dian12 she’d missed back then, the conversation between Lou Jingmo and Shang Zhou continued.
“Does the Judas card have an effect?” Lou Jingmo asked.
“A huge one,” Shang Zhou said, walking as he spoke. “It really lives up to its name as the apostle who betrayed God. It turns out Judas can let you leave the game directly!”
Shen Maomao snapped back to reality and pressed, “Would you mind sharing the details?”
“Why not?” Shang Zhou said. “After using Judas, you can capture a scapegoat to enter the game in your place. If that person dies in the game, the cardholder can leave the game permanently.”
“Grass13,” Shen Maomao swore.
“Don’t get too excited,” Shang Zhou continued. “The conditions for using this card are extremely strict. It has a function that measures affection, and it requires the target’s affection level for the cardholder to be above eighty percent. Also, the target must be an innocent person who isn’t a Confession Game player.”
“Grass,” Lou Jingmo swore.
Shen Maomao frantically waved her hands at Lou Jingmo, whose vinegar jar14 had clearly been knocked over, trying to signal that she absolutely did not like Ren Yue and, in fact, wanted nothing more than to kill her.
Shang Zhou couldn’t see what was happening on their end and just assumed they were overly excited. He went on, “On top of those conditions, it also requires the cardholder to call out the innocent person’s name at a moment of their extreme fear. As long as the person responds, they’ll be instantly pulled into the game. The card provides an illusion to facilitate this—of course, if they don’t respond, the card becomes void.”
Shen Maomao thought back to that spring when she’d first entered the game. Ren Yue must have known she’d just watched《Ting Ling》and deliberately researched information about soul-summoning for life substitution15. That’s why she brought Ge Jiang Ting Hai along, to act out a play and terrify her.
She couldn’t help but feel her teeth itching with hatred16. Finally, she squeezed out a single sentence through clenched teeth17. “So damn shady.”
Shang Zhou laughed. “It is pretty shady… The scapegoat who gets pulled in not only has to clear the cardholder’s instances but also generates new instances of their own, so they have to clear two sets of instances at once. The cardholder can choose whether or not to have the scapegoat enter instances in their place. But anyone who would sell out someone who cares about them that much probably wouldn’t be soft-hearted. They’d probably be eager for the scapegoat to die in an instance as quickly as possible. But there’s one strange thing. Ge Jiang Ting Hai’s master used the card, but still died in the game. It’s possible her scapegoat managed to kill her in retaliation. Or maybe this Judas card, like Simon Peter, has some hidden rules we don’t know about.”
Tears were about to fall from Shen Maomao’s eyes. It all added up… Everything Shang Zhou said matched her experience perfectly…
But she hadn’t succeeded in killing Ren Yue in retaliation. In fact, Ren Yue had stabbed her, and she only survived because of Lou Jingmo’s Jacob card.
From Shang Zhou’s description, there was nothing inherently wrong with the Judas card itself. Even if it had a hidden trap like Simon Peter, it should have been something that triggered after the effect took place. But weirdly, Ren Yue had died right after, while she had remained alive and kicking18 all this time, clearing instance after instance without a single problem.
“So, will the cardholder and the scapegoat end up in the same instance?” Shen Maomao asked.
“Probably not? It’s a low-probability event, but I can’t say for sure. It’s a shame this Judas is already used, so we can’t test it on someone else. But I have a feeling it’s not that simple. Judas betrayed God, and the cardholder needs to completely exploit someone who loves them. In a way, that’s a betrayal too… Would the game’s creator, who likens themself to God, really allow Judas to betray them?”
A momentary silence fell on both ends of the line, broken only by the shh-shh of Shang Zhou’s constant footsteps through the grass.
Lou Jingmo tapped a finger against the solid wood desk. “Betraying your own friend,” she said suddenly, “doesn’t that also count as a sin?”
Shang Zhou’s footsteps paused. “Now that you mention it, that seems right. So that must be Judas’s hidden rule. The game’s basic principle for selecting players is sin. Betraying a friend is a type of sin. She thought she had escaped the game using the card, but she ended up triggering a new game because of her new sin. That’s why she ultimately died in an instance.”
While that explanation worked, both Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo knew it wasn’t the real reason for Ren Yue’s death.
“Anyway, trying to rely on a single card to leave the game is a trap,” Shang Zhou concluded. “Collecting all twelve is the more reliable way—wait, no, that’s a trap too. I don’t think the game creator wants anyone to—Wo cao19! Nima20, why is there a snake?! Why are the snakes in the mountains waking up so early! Gotta go, I need both hands to catch this thing!!” With that, he hung up.
“So how did Ren Yue really die?” Shen Maomao wondered aloud. “I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t know how she died,” Lou Jingmo said coolly, “but I do know that you’re about to get beaten to death by me.”
She’d never been straight, so from the very beginning, she’d suspected Shen Maomao might have had some special feelings for Ren Yue. Otherwise, why would she have gone to such lengths to bare her heart and soul21 for her? Of course, it might have just been Shen Maomao’s personality. She was the type of silly person who would give everything for her friends…
After they got together, Lou Jingmo had actively avoided thinking about that first possibility to keep from dying of jealousy. But now, her suspicion was all but confirmed.
Shen Maomao’s eyes widened. “What’s that about?! I was blind back then, okay? Who hasn’t been blind when they were young? Besides, I never felt like I liked Ren Yue! When Ren Yue and Ge Jiang Ting Hai were having dinner together, I didn’t feel sour22 at all…”
That part was true. When the three of them had eaten together, she had just felt awkward watching the other two talk excitedly about their game, regretting that she had tagged along. She hadn’t tasted a hint of sourness, so she must not have liked Ren Yue that way.
Realizing this, she quickly added, “That statistic was probably measuring my friendship value for her! And right now, that friendship value is in the negatives. It’s gone negative through the earth’s core23!”
Lou Jingmo was rubbing her fists and wiping her palms24. She rose from behind the desk and began walking toward Shen Maomao, one step at a time.
“What are you doing?! I’m warning you, domestic violence is a slippery slope. There’s only zero times and countless times. If you lay a hand on me, I’m going back to my mom’s!” Shen Maomao felt a little unnerved, but she didn’t run. She figured maybe she’d just let Lou Jingmo hit her once to let off some steam. It wasn’t like Lou Jingmo would ever hit her hard—and it was better than having the vinegar jar tip over and getting the silent treatment.
She watched with wide eyes as Lou Jingmo drew closer, finally stopping right in front of her and raising an arm. She instinctively threw her hands up to block the blow, but she never expected what came next. Lou Jingmo didn’t hit her. Instead, she wrapped an arm around her, pulling her into an embrace so her head could rest on her shoulder, and used her other hand to gently stroke her hair.
Shen Maomao froze for a second, then couldn’t help but smile.
She understood.
Lou Jingmo was heartbroken for her.
Heartbroken that she had once given her heart to a scumbag, regardless of whether that heart was offered out of friendship or something else.
She wrapped her arms around Lou Jingmo’s shoulders in return and nuzzled against her neck. “Aside from how much I hate the game, I’m actually really glad I met you.”
Lou Jingmo lowered her head and pressed a weightless kiss into Shen Maomao’s hair. For the first time, Lou Jingmo admitted her jealousy without any awkwardness. “I wish I had been the one by your side back then.”
“Oh, no way,” Shen Maomao said. “Honestly, if I wasn’t trying to hug your thigh25 for support, I would have kept my distance26 from a cold, intimidating person like you. I’d have stayed as far away as possible. If we had gone to the same school, forget dating—we probably wouldn’t have even known each other.”
Lou Jingmo released her and silently walked away.
That night, Shen Maomao was locked out of the bedroom. Lou Jingmo was dead set on not opening the door, so angry she didn’t even eat dinner.
✨ Unlock Early Access to Chapters! ✨
Choose your perfect membership at bamboopandatl.net:
📚 Full Access ($4.99)
• Advanced chapters of ALL ongoing novels
• Access to complete finished novels
• Ad-free reading experience
📖 Single Novel Access ($1.49)
• Advanced chapters of ONE specific novel
• Ad-free reading for chosen novel
PayPal is the only current payment option!