Chapter Ten: The Death Game
In the deserted convenience store, Qin Changsheng hurriedly grabbed several baskets of food from the shelves, biting fiercely into a large hot dog bun. He had stayed up all night at the internet café yesterday and hadn’t even had breakfast yet; now he was starving to the point of dizziness.
Ten minutes ago, Qin Changsheng probably wouldn’t have had an appetite at all, but now he had found the will to eat. He wanted to survive, to live and escape this damned place.
There were no clerks in the convenience store, but all the machines were still on. The hot dog bun in his hand was still warm, and the warmth spread in his stomach as he swallowed.
“Don’t take too much. Taking too much won’t help; we don’t have enough time left to eat it all, and carrying too much will slow us down,” Cao Mengmeng said beside the freezer, quickly stuffing some bottles of ice water and energy drinks into her backpack while turning to warn Qin Changsheng to know when to stop.
Though abrupt, it seemed they had already formed an alliance.
“I know,” Qin Changsheng replied, feeling uncertain. He always felt awkward no matter how he acted around this sudden girl.
Perhaps it was because the death of Chen Yuanyuan was still vivid in his mind. His head was a mess, unable to calm down and handle the situation.
“I’m your only hope to survive.”
Looking back, it was because of this sentence that Qin Changsheng became Cao Mengmeng’s teammate. Was that decision a bit too hasty?
Besides her name, he knew nothing about her!
Of course, it felt even more awkward to express regrets now, so Qin Changsheng hid these thoughts deep inside and said nothing.
Not knowing how to communicate with a stranger girl, he turned his gaze to the countdown tattoo on his arm.
It showed “17:47:12,” and the time was ticking down, meaning less than eighteen hours remained.
When the time reached zero, he had no idea what would happen, but the consequence was obviously far more serious than being unable to talk to a girl.
What should he do next? Although he had an unexpected teammate, Qin Changsheng hadn’t planned anything. He didn’t want any sudden incidents to cause a repeat of the previous tragedy!
While Qin Changsheng was lost in thought, Cao Mengmeng had finished gathering supplies, slung her backpack back on, and called to him, “Hey, stop dazing off, it’s time to go!”
“Wait!” Qin Changsheng hesitated just as he was about to follow, bit his lip, and decided to clarify the most important issue first. “I have something to ask you.”
“Now?” Cao Mengmeng frowned disapprovingly. “Do you have to ask now? We still have a lot to consider.”
“Exactly because of that, I must ask first,” Qin Changsheng said, knowing that without an answer, his confusion would affect everything. “Think about it carefully—we haven’t even properly introduced ourselves yet. If I don’t know who you are, I can’t work with you.”
“Hm…” Cao Mengmeng hesitated, surprisingly open-minded. “Alright, but we have to be quick.”
“You probably already know my name. I’m Cao Mengmeng,” she reintroduced herself. “As you see, I’m a university student.”
A university student wearing a JK uniform?
Qin Changsheng only thought this silently, still listening seriously as Cao Mengmeng continued.
“I study at Hangzhou Normal University, Qianjiang campus, usually live in the dorms. I’m 19, just finished my freshman year, originally from Xiaoshan, my zodiac sign is Leo, blood type O, and the type of guy I like is—”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Qin Changsheng interrupted, feeling the conversation was going off track. “You don’t need to tell me your private stuff!”
“But you said I should ask first,” Cao Mengmeng shrugged helplessly.
Qin Changsheng sighed, unsure if she was doing this on purpose or just had a strange way of thinking. Considering her earlier deadly glare, he wasn’t sure if her mind was entirely sane.
“Anyway, tell me something more useful for now,” Qin Changsheng switched tactics, showing her the countdown on his arm. “Like, what do you know about this countdown?”
“That’s easy,” Cao Mengmeng glanced at the timer with a relaxed expression. “When the countdown reaches zero, everything ends.”
“What do you mean by ‘everything ends’?” Qin Changsheng panicked, pointing at himself. “Do you mean we’re all done for?”
“Of course not,” Cao Mengmeng shook her head. “It means that when the time hits zero, we’ll all be safe. All the terrifying, abnormal things happening here will stop.”
Hearing this, the heavy weight in Qin Changsheng’s heart finally lifted.
Seventeen hours and forty-five minutes left—if he could endure that long, he would survive. This fact was a great encouragement.
“But how do you know this?” Qin Changsheng asked cautiously. “It’s not that I don’t trust you—I just want to make sure our information is transparent.”
“Others told me,” Cao Mengmeng replied.
“Others? So there are more people here besides us?” Qin Changsheng was surprised and quickly followed up.
“Of course, and there are many,” Cao Mengmeng jumped up onto the cashier’s counter behind her and sat on the edge, ready to explain. “When I first arrived, there were about a hundred people with me, and the number kept growing.”
“Before…” Qin Changsheng realized there must be a time delay and some randomness to arriving in this world, since he had come to an empty place.
“About six hours ago,” Cao Mengmeng added. “I was staying up late trying to rank up in a game, almost winning when I blinked and suddenly I was here.”
Qin Changsheng gradually pieced it together. He had checked the ranking after five, so counting back six hours must have been midnight.
It all started at midnight today!
“By the way, you said there were others. Where did they go?” Qin Changsheng looked out at the empty streets. Not a soul in sight. If there really were over a hundred people at the start, where had they all gone?
“They’re hiding,” Cao Mengmeng shrugged.
“Hiding?”
“To survive here, you have to follow the rules,” she continued. “I came with the first group. Some people seemed to have encountered this situation before.”
“I heard some news from them,” she said, raising one finger. “First, when the countdown hits zero, we’ll be completely safe.”
“Second,” she raised a second finger, “during the countdown, a monster constantly hunts the survivors. You must have seen it.”
At this, Qin Changsheng clenched his teeth to keep his emotions in check.
He had indeed seen it—the monster had brutally killed Chen Yuanyuan right before his eyes. His heart was filled with hatred and fear for it, two conflicting feelings tormenting him constantly.
“They call the monster the ‘Corpse Mountain.’ I don’t know if that’s a nickname or its real name,” Cao Mengmeng went on, seemingly unaware of his inner turmoil. “The only way to deal with Corpse Mountain is to run—as fast as you can—and never confront it directly.”
“Third,” she raised a third finger, “Corpse Mountain’s active period lasts five and a half hours at a time. When the time’s up, a bell rings, and it falls asleep for half an hour. During that half hour, it won’t attack anyone, even if attacked. That’s our best chance to escape or hide.”
So that was it. Qin Changsheng suddenly understood why, when the monster almost cut him with its serrated blade, it stopped just before touching him.
The bell he heard was the signal for Corpse Mountain to pause.
His luck was unbelievable!
Qin Changsheng then asked another question: “If we just have to survive the monster’s attacks for twenty-four hours, why was there that weird guy with the emoji mask chasing me? Was he another monster here?”
“No, that guy’s human, just like us.”
“Human?” Qin Changsheng was stunned. If that mysterious person was also trapped here, why was he chasing him to kill? Shouldn’t he just try to survive the monster attacks for twenty-four hours?
“That’s the last rule I’m going to tell you,” Cao Mengmeng suddenly leaned forward, grabbed Qin Changsheng’s arm, and held it in front of his eyes. “Look at the other two numbers on your mark.”
“The other two numbers?” Qin Changsheng was puzzled but looked at his arm as she said. “They’re 113 and 50…”
Wait!
Qin Changsheng suddenly noticed something. He remembered the first time he looked at those numbers, the first was 114, but now it was 113.
One number had decreased!
“What do these two numbers mean?” His expression grew serious, and he seemed to have a guess.
Cao Mengmeng said, “The first number started at 200, meaning there were initially two hundred people who entered this world.”
“Now there are only 113 left…” Qin Changsheng murmured. He had first seen 114 remaining. The one missing must be…
“The 50 below represents a limit,” Cao Mengmeng emphasized. “The survivor limit.”
“Only fifty people can survive. Once the number of survivors drops to fifty, Corpse Mountain will stop killing, and everything will end.”
A chill ran down Qin Changsheng’s spine. He understood what Cao Mengmeng meant and felt even colder.
“Compared to surviving the overpowering monster, turning your knife on weaker humans is easier for people, isn’t it?”