“Did you not notice? When we met Lu Ren, there was already an extra person within us!”
“What?!” Lin Jue exclaimed, a shiver running down his spine. Before he realized, his back was already soaked through with cold sweat.
When? Who? How did he not realize that there was an extra person?
“When we left the plaza, there were eight survivors, and with the six of us, it meant that apart from us, there should have been two others. If you think about it carefully though, Lu Ren is for certain one of the survivors, the person we saw getting eaten at the gym another. Lu Ren had killed one more person though, and he said he had done it when the bell rang. That means that when we left the plaza, there were three survivors outside of it! The number of survivors shown on the screen in the plaza hence hadn’t matched up with the actual number, and with the hint of ‘Judas’, the reason for it can be confirmed. Judas was already among us!”
A chill rose up from the soles of Lin Jue’s feet. He shivered, terrified. “Was that why you decided to leave?”
“That was the main reason, but not the only one… I had the thought for a while by then.” The plastic water bottle protested under Song Hanzhang’s tight grip, his brows knitted together in a frown. “I’m still mostly concerned about the Judas; we know next to nothing about it. Is it a certain role that a player has to act out or is it some sort of AI pretending to be a human? What is its motive and how does it operate? Does it have some kind of power, such as knowing the location of every player? Or some kind of unscientific superpower? There’s not enough information. I can’t make any judgements and can only avoid it and see what it does.”
Lin Jue immediately felt a headache creeping on. He scratched his head and asked, “Maybe it’s Lu Ren. Didn’t that guy act really weirdly from the start?”
Song Hanzhang shook his head. “If it was him, we would have all been dead by now. His family runs a dojo and it wouldn’t have been a problem for him to go against ten people.”
They were words of compliment, but there were no sign of appreciation on Song Hanzhang’s face.
“Then how did Judas appear? Was it as a survivor in the middle of the game, or from the very start…” Song Hanzhang muttered to himself.
“I- I don’t think there was an extra person from the start,” Lin Jue suddenly cut in.
“Why?” Song Hanzhang showed a rare expression of interest and he looked towards Lin Jue.
Lin Jue felt his throat tighten all of a sudden. “Um… like… I mean, there were thirteen easter eggs in total. If we assume that Judas was the fourteenth, then they wouldn’t have been able to have one. As in, it wouldn’t know what was written on the easter egg.”
Lin Jue felt as if he was missing something but still decided to voice his guess. “Before, at the plaza, everyone had given a quote from the easter egg. If Judas was the fourteenth person, it shouldn’t have been able to say anything.”
“A slight improvement,” Song Hanzhang said lightly, but before Lin Jue had time to congratulate himself, he continued, “but have you considered that Judas had picked up another person’s easter egg like Lu Ren, or that it had simply made something up? It’s also possible that the person who called us gave them some clues on the information the easter eggs contained to allow it to pretend to be a normal player. Or maybe it was the caller all along.”
Lin Jue choked and looked depressedly at his shoes. He really hadn’t thought through all of the options.
“Don’t look so depressed.” Song Hanzhang patted Lin Jue’s shoulder. “Whether or not Judas is the fourteenth person isn’t the most crucial question right now. I’ve thought of a possibility…”
Lin Jue looked up at Song Hanzhang, not understanding just how this person was always able to come up with ideas. Even though they were both just normal university students, he felt as if the first twenty years of his life had been wasted when he looked at him.
Song Hanzhang’s cool voice echoed throughout the empty corridors of the fourth floor. “Judas was at first a follower of Jesus, a faithful disciple, but he betrayed him at the end. The name symbolizes betrayal and deceit. The story implies that at the start, Judas could have been a normal player like us, but at a certain point, their identity changed.”
“This identity change, or rather change of team, when would it happen?” Song Hanzhang asked Lin Jue as if he was testing a student.
“Zhou Yuxiu’s easter egg said ‘fangs turn sides’, so anyone bitten will become Judas?” Lin Jue felt a shock. “Has someone already been bitten among us?”
“That is one possibility, but there’s still something you can’t explain. A person will turn into a zombie one hour after getting bitten, but will the same happen to Judas? And if it had somehow received an antibody and used it on itself, will its side still switch? There are too many possibilities and I’m leaning more towards the other one- someone died and Judas replaced the dead person, acting as a normal player in the dead person’s stead.”
Song Hanzhang’s voice was calm, so calm it felt dissonant against their surroundings. “Lu Ren’s abilities mean that he won’t die easily, so it’s not him.”
Lin Jue looked at Song Hanzhang’s expression and felt a shiver run down his spine for no reason. He pursed his lips and asked, almost as if in a trance, “Then who would it be?”
Song Hanzhang leaned against the wall, the empty plastic bottle crackling in his hand. His glanced at Lin Jue leaning against the wall opposite him, their eyes meeting, exchanging emotions that even they themselves did not understand. Even though they were complete strangers before tonight, they now stood together due to a series of coincidences; even though they were still wary at heart, they were attempting to trust the other.
“Aren’t you afraid? Maybe I’m the person who died at the very start,” Song Hanzhang said quietly.
In that moment, Lin Jue felt as if his heart had stopped before pumping at twice its previous speed. He tried to find some sort of expression on Song Hanzhang’s face that might indicate it was just a joke, but was frustrated to find that he was still wearing that same expressionless mask.
“It’s not you, it’s definitely not you.” Lin Jue took a deep breath in and tried to make himself sound more relaxed. “Otherwise there would have been no point in you saving me at the beginning. When we were working together too, you had too many chances to make me disappear. It’s definitely not you.”
What truly made him relax was the slightly curved mouth of the other man.
“Similarly, I am also certain it isn’t you. The time gap between receiving the phone call and meeting you was too small. At the very most, you would have been able to find out that something was wrong and run down to floor one. I also observed that there were no wounds on you, nor any damage to your clothing. As compared to the people we met afterwards, I’d prefer to trust you.” Compared to Lin Jue’s method of following his heart then finding evidence, Song Hanzhang had analyzed everything from a logical point of view, almost to the point of ruthlessness. At the very least though, the trust between the two hadn’t been shattered by the appearance of the Judas, and that was enough.
Saying that, Song Hanzhang straightened and warmed up his joints before continuing, “We know too little about the Judas; all we know is that it isn’t being counted as a survivor. It’s unclear how it appears, but it pretends to be a player; its purpose is most likely to deceive and betray, possibly to increase the chances of death. Its existence means that it will become extremely difficult to cooperate with others without doubts.”
Lin Jue nodded, but a figure that he had always been on guard against flickered through his mind.
Who knew, it might be that person. But he didn’t have evidence either.
Song Hanzhang sighed and said in a self-deprecating manner, “Whatever, what’s the point of thinking about this. After all, this isn’t the real world, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything happening anymore.”
“Not the real world?” Lin Jue asked in surprise.
“Is it not obvious?” Song Hanzhang looked towards the elevator doors and said quietly, “Would this kind of thing happen in a normal world? Everyone around you becomes a zombie, the survivors are those who received easter eggs, everyone’s phones mysteriously lose signal after an even more mysterious phone call, and the walls suddenly reach an unscalable height… Instead of saying that we were suddenly hit by some kind of virus, it’s more fitting to describe this as a terrifying game, and everyone who received an easter egg, the players forced to participate. We are like mice underneath a cat’s claw. To think about it, maybe there’s even someone outside the game right now, watching as we struggle to survive and commenting excitedly, ‘Hah, hilarious’.”
The water bottle crackled in his tight grip. The sudden rage from Song Hanzhang made Lin Jue feel uneasy. Song Hanzhang had always appeared so calm, but now, suddenly, he had spiraled out of control… It was very unusual.
The sounds of crackling plastic stopped and the empty water bottle was thrown in the bin.
“Sorry, I just don’t like being controlled by others. Control freaks have issues- in their eyes, everyone should follow their script like a puppet, and once the puppet gains their own thoughts, they do everything they can to make you follow their rules, because in their opinion, that is the only correct path.” Song Hanzhang leaned back against the wall, hand reaching up against his forehead as he stared calmly at the overhead lights, his voice filled with a sense of nihilism.
Lin Jue didn’t know what to say and could only settle for dry comfort. “It’ll be fine as long as we live until daylight. Let’s not think too much and just survive the night.”
Song Hanzhang consented. “That is true; we don’t even know if we can survive tonight, so there’s no point in thinking about it. The other group should be going towards the student center, and Lu Ren isn’t the type to avoid zombies in a place like this. We are the only survivors in this entire library, so let’s wait a while longer.”
Lin Jue nodded obediently, praying for the remaining time to be without disturbances.
But if there really existed a devil outside this game that was full of malice, in control of everything, it would definitely not allow for that to happen.
The heavy sound of the elevator moving suddenly sounded amidst the silence.
The two immediately turned towards the elevator. The number which had been frozen in place for a long time switched from 4, to 3, then to 2…
The elevator was going down! Someone had pressed it!
***
Vera’s Notes:
Luci would not finish translating by the scheduled time.
Vera & Luci Translations 