31

Translated by rabbitrisu

“Everyone should know the task requirements.” Cheng Yun gestured to his left arm. “Sometimes, we can figure out the difficulty of the nightmare world based on the time we need to survive. This time, we need to survive a full five days… This is the longest time I’ve encountered so far.”

Su Zimo waited quietly at the edge of the crowd, trying to reduce his presence, like a student who didn’t want to be called on by a teacher to answer a question when they were daydreaming in class.

After all, he had nothing to do with the task… It could be said that he knows nothing.

“The requirements of the task are relatively ordinary, there isn’t much text available.” Cheng Yun and the other trainers once again stretched out their arms and looked at the two simple lines of text. “In the past, when encountering tasks of similar difficulty, there would always be a large task description. There are always people who can find useful information in a large paragraph, but this time…”

“It’s not to say that there’s no useful information, it just feels like an ordinary routine in a horror novel.” The pockets on both sides of Jin Lei’s white coat didn’t seem mysterious, but there were two scalpel-shaped ghost tools in the left pocket, and a set of pens and paper in the right. There was some notes and information written on it that should be related to the task.

“The first line is… pay attention to the mirror. The second sentence is… looking for a lifeline?” Jin Lei rubbed her temples to resist her headache. “There are ten words in total, so we’re one word short for the eleven of us.”

“I had Bai Man shut her eyes to cover the mirror in the hall.” Cheng Yun pointed to the decorative mirror on the wall covered by the tablecloth. “If this main hall is used as our stronghold, then we should pay attention to it. It should be that mirror, but I can’t guarantee there aren’t other mirrors or reflective things in other parts of the villa, so everyone still needs to be very careful.”

“Yun-ge, have you seen anything in the mirror?” Xiao Huo, who was playing with his lighter, was curious about the mirror. He rubbed the top, and when he moved to the edge he even wanted to grasp the tablecloth with his fingers.

“Don’t move!” Bai Man stopped him. “The clearest point in the task requirements was to pay attention to the mirror. This low-level error is completely avoidable.”

“I’m just curious.” Xiao Huo’s playful motions with the lighter never stopped. At the beginning, it was fine. It took a long time before his motions began to feel too frequent. “No way. I’m an active person, and the less I move, the more jittery I get.”

“Of course you can move.” Cheng Yun said with a smile. “I’ll cooperate and pretend not to see. Go ahead.”

“….” Cheng Yun’s words seemed to block Xiao Huo’s next words, and the motion of his hand slowed down.

“Let everyone come and sit down.” Before everyone introduced themselves, Cheng Yun had already tidied the main hall with his companions, so the well-preserved chairs around the long dining table and the dusted sofa could be used by the trainers while they took a break. “It’s not always a bad thing for the task to take a long time.”

The trainers around him were almost all veterans. The only younger trainer was the little girl who hid behind Dr. Jin, so after hearing the task contents, Su Zimo adjusted to his identity as a newcomer and asked curiously, “Leader Cheng, why isn’t it a bad thing for the task to take long? According to the task requirement,s we’ll be completely exposed to the threat of the malicious spirit in five days, and it’ll be more dangerous.”

“I just wanted to comfort you.” Cheng Yun smiled helplessly. “If the survival time is a few hours, maybe the malicious spirit would chase us for the entire few hours. But if the survival time is a few days, then it can’t stare at us the whole time, and we’ll be able to gather here, right?”

“Of course, the present ease can only be considered the calm before the storm. When the intensity raises, it may be difficult for us to escape.” Bai Man looked at the ten people around her. “At that time, wisdom and strategy may not be so helpful. If you can fight, fight. If you can’t, you escape as quickly as possible.”

“Is this hall equivalent to our refuge?” The bearded man who claimed to be a madman suddenly raised his hand with squinting eyes.

“There are no newcomers in this world, so there would naturally be no refuge that ghosts can’t enter.” Cheng Yun was very sure this time. “Gathering everyone in this main hall is so everyone can take care of each other. After all, isn’t the stupidest horror movie plot splitting up when you know there’s danger? Although the hall isn’t safe, at least we’re all here. The goal behind Dawn Organization is to bring light to every trainer in the dark, so we’ll do our best to help everyone as much as possible.”

Cheng Yun spoke openly and charismatically. If there were any newcomers in the team who had entered the nightmare world for the first time, they may have been immediately moved by his words, as if he were a life-saving piece of driftwood while they were floating out at sea.

Su Zimo looked around quietly out of the corner of his eyes and found that in addition to the six members of Dawn, the outer four trainers seemed… unusually calm. It could even be said that they were expressionless or completely unphased.

But when Su Zimo listened, he felt that although Cheng Yun was a good person, at the same time, he told himself not to forget the painful past experiences of ‘unbelievable trainers.’

Qi Xiaomin, who he had fought beside, and even Du Xin, who he had known for over two years, couldn’t be fully trusted. And Cheng Yun, who he had just met for the first time? It was certainly too early to put their trust in each other now.

“In other words, there’s no other way but to sit here and wait.” The madman looked for a comfortable sofa, and rested his entire body against the armrest and said lazily, “It’s a pity this hall isn’t prepared for the banquet. If the food wasn’t spoiled, we wouldn’t have to worry about hunger.”

“The food here has spoiled into ashes, but it’s no pity.” Dr. Jin frowned. “How did you know that there was a banquet being prepared here?”

“Even if it’s a big family, the dishes and utensils prepared for meals on weekdays and banquets are different.” The madman turned around and saw the garbage pile on the corner of the table. “Forget it, I was just guessing.”

“Oops!” Qi Xiaomin, who was standing to the side at the time, whispered. “I decided to take some self-defense and first-aid items before I came. As a result, I didn’t bring any food at all, let alone water since it’s so heavy!”

“This old man also has a bad memory.” Mr. Fang Qin on the other side touched his beard. “Although there’s a countdown to enter the nightmare world on our arms, I accompanied my old partner to Tai Chi and forgot the time. Except for my clothes and this prop sword, there’s nothing on my body.”

“Five days…” Du Xin seemed a bit troubled. “I haven’t experienced any task this long, so I only brought some chocolate and biscuits, so it may not be enough for even a few people to eat.”

“I…”

Su Zimo was about to say something, then saw Cheng Yun and Bai Man. They had put their bulging backpacks on the long dining table, then called the others to go over to them.

“We’ve both experienced more than single-day tasks, so we always bring more. Additionally, this is one of the instructions that Dawn gives us team leaders. Someone may have experienced similar tasks.” Cheng Yun was comfortable while opening his backpack. “Although it may not be enough for eleven people to eat their fill, it should still be okay for everyone to maintain their strength.”

That being said Cheng Yun and Bai Man picked up the unzipped bakpacks and dumped everything in it onto the table in front of everyone. The amount of chocolate, candy, and biscuits wasn’t small, but the amount of drinking water was still unsatisfactory.

At the same time, Xiao Huo, Dr. Jin, Du Xin, and Liu Xu, who remained silent, also shook out their backpacks and put more food on the table.

Su Zimo was about to take off his backpack, but suddenly saw a black men’s wallet fall to the ground. Judging from the location, it should be Cheng Yun’s that fell accidentally when he shook his backpack.

“Leader Cheng, is this your wallet?” Su Zimo stooped to pick it up off the ground.

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“Ah, yes.”

Because the wallet was open when it landed, when Su Zimo picked up the wallet, he accidentally saw a photo of two people in the wllet. One of them was naturally Cheng Yun, but the other… it was also someone Su Zimo once met!

“Is that the legendary He He?” Qi Xiaomin glanced at the photos in the wallet while Su Zimo was stunned. Cheng Yun took the wallet back in under a second, so Su Zimo was the only person who could clearly see the people in the photo.

“He He?” Su Zimo was puzzled. The young girl he just saw in the photo was clearly…

“Didn’t I tell you that the leader is a famous wife-loving demon?” Qi Xiaomin winked at Su Zimo. “Becuase Leader Cheng has ‘Yun’ in his name, and his wife’s surname is ‘He,’ he always shows off that he is called ‘Yun Gui He Chu.’ Many people know about this.” ¹

“Haha, it’s quite embarrassing to hear that.” Cheng Yun smiled, eyes softening as he touched the photo in the wallet. “I always put my wife’s photos in the wallet as a reminder whenever I see it. Everyone needs to work hard. No matter what happens in the next five days, no one can give up because our relatives, friends, and lovers are waiting for us to go back.”

This time, the expressions on the trainers who weren’t Dawn members finally reacted.

But the expression on Su Zimo’s face was a little weird.

Because… the girl in the picture who was intimately embracing Cheng Yun was obviously Cheng Jingmeng who he had encountered in a previous nightmare world. Therefore, the girl not only didn’t have the surname ‘He,’ but also shared a surname with Cheng Yun.

Thinking of the girl who was tortured until collapsing with the slave medal, then thinking of Cheng Yun’s expression of his true feelings just now, Su Zimo knew that one of them must have lied.

If it was Cheng Yun who lied… what was his purpose?

“Hu-“

The crowd hadn’t responded yet. A gust of wind suddenly blew through the enclosed space in the main hall. The candles in the entire hall were extinguished by half, and darkness fell in the nightmare world.

Footnotes

<ol>云 means cloud, 何 can mean where, 云归何处 can mean ‘Where the Cloud Returns To’</ol>