In that asylum filled with mentally ill patients, he returned to being a quiet young man, reading the limited reading materials available under the sun, showing a gentle and obedient smile to everyone. But something had already rotted in the bottom of his heart, a bug that gnawed at him every living second, eating through everything that was beautiful, leaving behind only deceit, lies, and malice, growing into a soundless madness.
Half a year after he was sent to the asylum, three suicide cases suddenly occurred among the patients. The asylum was sent into a state of fear, but no one could find why their conditions had declined so rapidly. Those tragic ‘accidents’, he had planned to keep happening, but another accident suddenly appeared to put an end to it before it began.
A man arrived.
His father who had been away for ten years. This successful man and his lawful wife had nurtured a son and a daughter, but the boy had died during an unfortunate traffic accident. He finally remembered that he had an illegitimate son, and so he had started searching for mother and child, only to find that his bastard had broken down as a result of his mother’s suicide and was currently receiving treatment in an asylum.
He hesitated for a while, doubtful if a mentally ill child was capable of inheriting his career, but he still came to judge for himself. The visit dismissed his worries. His illegitimate son was a mentally healthy, emotionally stable, well-behaved youth who had inherited his mother’s pretty face. Even the nurses were extremely satisfied with his psychological health, believing that he would be able to return to normal life soon if he continued with his medication. His discharge was granted easily.
After, he was brought to his father’s family and introduced to his wife and daughter. The two women held such warm smiles yet threw daggers at him with their eyes.
Ah, look at this merciless hatred, it made him genuinely happy.
So he pulled out an obedient smile to mother and daughter, the seedling of malice taking root once more.
Two years later, his sister was disowned from the family because of drug addiction and pornography, and soon died of an overdose. His ‘mother’ committed adultery and fought with her husband, one insisting on divorce, one adamant against it. On the last night of the couple’s stay in their luxury villa, it suddenly and without warning caught fire, and both died in the blaze. He was just coming of age at the time and was attending an international summer camp, not even in the country, and had a lucky escape. When he flew back that very night and saw the collapsed mansion, he bawled in front of his accompanying lawyer and police.
In the investigation afterward, the police found traces of arson and suspected that his ‘mother’ tried to kill her husband because she didn’t want a divorce. The police even found traces of petrol removed from her car’s fuel tank in the garage. But because the suspect herself was already dead, the murder case could only be dropped.
Having received the largest slice of the inheritance, he transferred a final payment to a mysterious account and quietly vanished from the city. The day before leaving, he went to her grave again. Her face in the photo was still young, like the mother of his memories.
He burned the newspaper that published the tragedy of the wealthy family at her grave and gently confided to the cold stone.
He said: he never loved you, but I love you, mother.
Because he loved, he was in pain.
From then on, he kept lying, because only lies could fill the emptiness in his heart, and make him forget the guilt of killing his mother. He had resented himself countless times: why hadn’t he continued? Why hadn’t he kept creating a carefree Eden for her, and allowed her to live in an eternal naive dream, never to return to reality?
Lies were beautiful, like a colorful balloon that grew ever-bigger as he kept blowing into it. He felt pleasure as it inflated, revealing its bright color and patterns. He was happy like a child, wanting to celebrate it. But with just a small poke – the world collapsed with a bang.
That was the price to pay for a lie.
&&&
Another clay tile was shattered by his skull and smashed onto the ground.
Dan Liang gasped for a last breath. Lin Jue lifted him up by his hair and slammed it against the wall once again, causing a skull-numbing bang on impact.
Lin Jue was about to reach his limit as well. He crawled up from the ground, panting, and walked shakily towards the nearby corpse. He pulled the spear from out of her mouth and turned to the still-languishing Dan Liang.
Dan Liang lay collapsed by the wall and raised his bloody face; this handsome face which belonged to Song Hanzhang was now hideous like a ghoul.
His teeth were falling out, his mouth bloody, but he was still laughing, laughing so hard he cried.
Lin Jue was not much better. After the almost fatal ambush and ensuing fight, he was exhausted. Even worse, his eye was in extreme pain, and just opening his eyelid made him shudder, desperately wishing he could dig out his useless left eye from its socket. Half of his face was covered in blood, making him look more terrifying than Dan Liang, like a monster that had crawled out of hell.
Dan Liang watched as he walked closer and closer, and lifted his spear in front of him.
He finally stopped laughing. Without that twisted and vicious expression, he looked exactly like Song Hanzhang – Song Hanzhang collapsed in a puddle of blood, on his very last breath.
“Do you like Song Hanzhang? Even if he abandoned you so mercilessly?” Dan Liang whispered.
Lin Jue’s heart trembled before he stepped on his face in fury. “You have no right to say his name!”
Dan Liang understood. The madness returned to his eyes as he laughed maniacally and shouted, “Then I wish you well, I wish that you’ll lose him forever! Hahahahahaha, Lin Jue, you’ll be like me, you’ll be like me!”
Before he had finished speaking, Lin Jue had already pierced through his chest. Dan Liang stopped breathing as he laughed at the excruciating pain that pierced his heart.
As Dan Liang died, the Bead of Deception faded. He returned to his original appearance, lying in a puddle of his own blood, wearing a thin shirt like an innocent and harmless youth.
[2012: Player count decreases by one. Four survivors, six markings moved.]
Blood gushed up in a spray of sweet rust up Lin Jue’s throat. He glanced coldly at Dan Liang’s face, spat the blood onto Dan Liang’s face, and wiped his mouth.
Before leaving this room, Lin Jue carefully searched Dan Liang’s corpse. There was no skill tattoo on his wrist; it seemed that the transformation power did not come from a skill. It turned out that there were quite a lot of useful items on Dan Liang, such as the small dagger he received from the wishing fountain. Lin Jue just happened to be in need of a close-ranged melee weapon and took it with him. Apart from that, there was also a familiar-looking bag around Dan Liang’s waist.
[Medicine Bag: Contains hemostatic drugs, poison antidotes, insect repellent, painkillers, bandages, and other emergency medication.]
It took a few seconds before Lin Jue remembered that this medical bag was the reward Xia Huan received in round two. To think that it had ended up in Dan Liang’s hands. It seemed that stolen or picked-up items could change their owner and be received at the reward pool in the next round at the plaza.
[Invisibility Spray: Can remove one’s scent, makes monsters ignore the user’s existence unless attacked by the user. Each use lasts for 15 minutes. Remaining uses: 1/10.]
Even though there was only one use left, it was better than nothing. Unfortunately, he did not find the transformation tool; Lin Jue suspected that it had already run out of uses so it had been thrown away or had disappeared automatically.
How strange, Dan Liang held three items on him but during the ball, everyone’s skills and items had been reduced to two… Was it because he had transformed into Liu Qingqing during the reduction process, so he had managed to avoid it?
His face was still burning in pain, and his head throbbed. Lin Jue walked into the bathroom and opened the tap; a few gushes of red liquid sprayed out, disgusting in both color and smell. He immediately closed the tap and sprayed on the hemostatic drug from the medical bag.
The medicine was amazingly effective. His wound which had been bleeding incessantly finally stopped, saving his life.
Lin Jue looked up, the blurry mirror reflecting his current appearance. A wound cut from his left ear to the top right of his forehead. His left eye was blind and half of his face was covered in dried blood. He looked pathetic.
Even though he didn’t want Song Hanzhang to see him in this state at all, without water, he could do nothing but wait for it to disappear at the end of the round.
In the few short steps between the bathroom and the kitchen, Lin Jue’s body ached like it would collapse. From his eye to his body to even his organs, there was not a part of him that did not hurt. Just thinking that this torture would continue for another few hours, and in those hours, he would have to keep fighting, he thought he would rather kill himself.
It seemed pain really could destroy someone’s willpower.
There was no way he could keep on like this. Just enduring the pain was wearing him down to the bones.
Lin Jue reached into the medical bag and took out the analgesic injection.
[Analgesic: A powerful pain-reliever that lasts for six hours but will disturb the nervous system during the time, possibly resulting in illusions and other side effects.]
At a time like this, there was no point in thinking about the side effects. Lin Jue stabbed the analgesic into his thigh.
This injection, which might contain something like morphine or pethidine, was effective almost immediately. In less than a minute, that torturous pain slowly decreased to a level that he could endure.
Lin Jue finally felt alive again, his entire body drenched in sweat.
The time was 02:37. He looked at the markings on his hand. He currently held nineteen marks: seven from himself and twelve from killing Du Cheng and Dan Liang. Lin Jue touched the spear in his hand and walked towards the exit of the illusion.
The moment he stepped out of the illusion, another announcement landed.
[2012: Player count decreases by one. Three survivors, zero markings moved.]
Vera & Luci Translations 