Chapter 2

Volume 1 Chapter 2: Death Match

Tang Cuo was eight points in debt after two rounds.

The third round began. The crow still paced on the stone pillar, puffing out its chest and shaking its head. That mocking, arrogant gaze swept across the crowd in the plaza, pausing for two seconds in Tang Cuo’s direction—seemingly intentional, yet seemingly not—before shifting away with disdain.

“Let’s see what the next round’s punishment will be, shall we?” He deliberately dragged out his tone, holding everyone hostage to look up with him.

The wheel slowly stopped, the pointer pointing at a large yellow sector—Soul Pendulum.

“What is that supposed to be?!” Chi Yan clutched his head and let out a cry from the depths of his soul, yet didn’t dare shout too loudly. He instinctively moved closer to Tang Cuo, as if that could give him some sense of safety.

The crow flapped its wings. “The pendulum is great, I love the pendulum the most! Three minutes of blissful time—are you ready?”

Everyone looked around in panic. The stone pillars had suddenly changed—black shadows writhed on them, separating from the shafts to form massive black pendulums. Forty-nine pendulums began to swing with the pillars as their centers, in different directions, at different times, at different speeds, yet with a strange, wondrous rhythm.

They were called pendulums, but they weren’t like the ones in amusement parks—they were more like the hammers in a judge’s hand, only enormous, large enough to sweep over a dozen people at once.

“Whoosh—” The gust of wind from the swinging pendulum stung cheeks even from far away.

“Run!”

“Dodge, everyone dodge!”

“Watch out!”

People scattered desperately, but just as they ran from one spot, they turned right into another pendulum. “Thud!” The pendulum struck someone at the waist—before blood could even spray, the person was knocked into the thick darkness beyond the plaza, body and bones annihilated.

Some were so frightened they collapsed to the ground, bodies rigid and unable to move, only the reflection of the pendulum growing larger and larger in their pupils.

Some scrambled and crawled, hands over their heads, lying flat on the ground—and by sheer luck survived. The whooshing wind stung their eardrums; looking around, shadows of swinging pendulums were everywhere, with nowhere to hide.

“Thud!” “Thud!” “Thud!”

Wails filled the air, blood splattered everywhere.

For those already dead but still within the plaza’s bounds, black holes identical to the first round appeared beneath them, silently swallowing them up.

Lives drained away like flowing water, yet the crow began singing a cheerful song again.

“Gods, lambs, and crows,
Play happily together on the cliff.
They sing and dance,
Flowers bloom from the stones.
God says, look—
It’s my flower.
A lamb eats it,
Hurry up and die…”

Chi Yan had lost count of how many times he’d picked himself up from the ground. The relentless pendulums gave him no time to stop and think—he could only run, run desperately, the string in his mind pulled taut, as if the slightest slack would let a pendulum smash him into pulp.

But why was this happening?!

Chi Yan lunged forward and hit the ground again. The pendulum swept over his head with a fierce gust, and he nearly couldn’t catch his breath, cold sweat already streaming down his back.

The pendulum on the west side was swinging over again.

Chi Yan scrambled to his feet, but just then he saw the little girl in the hospital gown get pushed by someone nearby. That person, desperate to save their own life, saw the pendulum coming and instinctively shoved the person next to them out to block it—but how could a mere eleven-or-twelve-year-old girl possibly block such a massive thing?

“Run! Get up and run!” Chi Yan instinctively wanted to rush over there, but the pendulum on the west hadn’t come yet—the one behind him had. He hadn’t noticed at all, and was sent tumbling head over heels by the gust, rolling several times on the ground before stopping.

A wave of belated fear washed over him—he’d come within a hair’s breadth of being directly hit. At that moment, the little girl, as if hearing his shout, pressed her lips together and struggled to get up from the ground, face pale.

She climbed fast, using both hands and feet, tears circling in her eyes but never falling—but the pendulum was already inches away.

At the critical moment, a figure flew through the air and knocked the girl five or six meters away. The two tumbled and landed, barely avoiding the pendulum.

Chi Yan’s eyes went wide—that person was the same one who’d pushed the girl earlier!

What was going on?

Chi Yan quickly looked toward where the person had flown from, and saw Tang Cuo casually dusting off his hands, as if he’d just tossed away a bag of trash. Feeling Chi Yan’s gaze, Tang Cuo glanced at him without any particular reaction, then turned and unhurriedly walked backward.

After ten steps, he stood exactly in the gap where two pendulums crossed. The whooshing wind blew not through his smooth black hair, but through his lone-wolf melancholy.

“Holy shit?”

Chi Yan marveled inwardly, but also seemed to see hope for survival. Dodging left and right, he ran toward Tang Cuo. Actually, after dodging so many times, he’d noticed the pendulums swung in patterns—but seeing it was one thing, applying it properly was another. Halfway there, he remembered the little girl and hesitated about whether to go back for her, only to find that her spot seemed especially safe.

A blind spot no pendulum visited.

Soon others also discovered this excellent position and began gathering there.

Chi Yan couldn’t help but suspect Tang Cuo had calculated it all in advance, but there was no time to think. Gritting his teeth, he ran toward Tang Cuo, deciding to latch onto the big leg first.

The big leg moved with flair, one hand grabbing some unlucky fellow by the back collar to save them, the other still holding his own survival assessment report. The unlucky one, having escaped death, was still shaken and about to say thanks when Tang Cuo pressed him to the ground, forehead smacking straight into the pavement.

The pendulum came, sweeping over both their heads with a howling wind.

“Bro! Save me, bro!” Chi Yan finally arrived, safe and sound.

“Save, save me first.” The unlucky one quickly cut in. “I think my skull’s cracked, help…”

Tang Cuo showed no reaction. He looked up for two seconds and said, “It’s about to stop.”

Chi Yan: “Huh?”

Looking up, the pendulums’ speed was indeed decreasing. At this sight, Chi Yan’s brain short-circuited for a moment, and only after a few seconds did he remember this game had a time limit.

Three minutes—it was about time.

The gradually slowing pendulums sharply decreased in danger. When they finally stopped, Chi Yan plopped onto the ground, filled with the relief of having survived.

But soon, he couldn’t feel relieved anymore.

Of the six thousand-plus people in the plaza, only a sparse fraction remained.

The crow had something to say: “The game isn’t over yet—why is everyone sitting down? The final round, guess what surprise awaits?”

The answer was dead silence.

The crow was very displeased, hopping back and forth on the stone pillar. “You’re all so boring, not fun at all—truly the worst class of players I’ve ever had!”

With that, the crow spun the wheel in a fury, the colored lights leaving afterimages once more.

“Ding!” Everyone flinched.

The still-shaken crowd looked up, holding their breath, hearts in their throats. Chi Yan was frantically praying for one of the only two reward sectors—one with +5 points, one blank—but fate gave its answer at that moment:

The final round of the Lucky Wheel—Death Match.

This time, the crow was almost gleeful, extremely considerately providing the game instructions: “This game is the ultimate version of match-three! I know you all love playing this game in the human world. What do you say? Surprise! The rules are simple: positions are divided based on where you’re currently standing, one player per cell. In each column and each row, no matter how far apart two players are, as long as they share the same cause of death and no other player stands between them, they can be eliminated. I will designate one player as the starting position. If elimination conditions are met, then after elimination, the nearest player continues the game, until no more eliminations can be made. When the game ends, the remaining players enter Evernight City.”

“No, this can’t be!” Someone immediately objected loudly, and the others exchanged glances, seeing the same despair and breakdown in each other’s eyes. There were thousands of ways to die in this world, but they were all ordinary people—ordinary people died in ordinary ways. If the game really followed these rules, everyone would die!

The quick-witted ones were already communicating with those around them, attempting to change positions to ensure they wouldn’t be eliminated. But they soon discovered their legs were frozen in place.

The next instant, faint light glowed from the cracks between the black stone slabs, dividing the entire plaza into equal-sized cells. Anyone standing on the edge of a cell, or several people standing in one cell, were pushed into cells by an irresistible force or forcibly sorted into adjacent cells by distance. In the blink of an eye, the game was ready.

The crow grinned wickedly, wings folded behind its back, drawing out its tone: “Let me see—where should we start?”

It looked and looked, hopping from one stone pillar to another, looking left and right, making almost a full circuit around the plaza without announcing a result.

It seemed to be doing it on purpose—deliberately tormenting the poor players. The more nervous, fearful, and desperate they were, the happier it became.

Chi Yan gritted his teeth in frustration, internally breaking down, but still unwilling to give up. He turned to the unlucky fellow beside him and asked quietly, “Hey man, how did you die?”

The unlucky one: “I stayed up too late and died suddenly…”

“What a coincidence.” Chi Yan rolled his eyes at the sky, nearly dying on the spot again. But he was a brave and kind-hearted youth and would never give up just like that, so he asked the others around him.

Actually, there was no need to ask.

The one in front of Tang Cuo, with broken arms and legs covered in blood—clearly a car accident. Chi Yan remembered Tang Cuo saying his cause of death was also a car accident. Damn, a clean sweep.

He might as well not have asked.

“Bro.” Chi Yan looked at Tang Cuo faintly. “Do you think the chances of getting cancer are high?”

Tang Cuo: “?”

Chi Yan: “We’re both dead anyway—at least let the little girl live. Maybe in that damn Evernight City her hair can grow back.”

Tang Cuo: “…”

Perhaps knowing he was about to die again, Chi Yan chattered on endlessly.

Tang Cuo found him annoying, so he asked, “Do you think he really knows how each of us died?”

Chi Yan blinked. “Huh?”

Tang Cuo had been pondering one question all along: what was the difference between the broadcast voice and the crow? The broadcast voice most likely came from the bell—the game’s system itself. And the crow? An administrator or an NPC?

Whichever it was, there was a difference between the two.

The death methods the crow had called out earlier—car accident, drowning, hanging, wrist-slitting—were all visually identifiable. If it wasn’t the system itself and didn’t know everyone’s specific cause of death, then this round of the game would become very simple.

With that thought, Tang Cuo scanned the people standing around him again.

Directly ahead, three cells away—car accident.

Two cells to the left—hospital gown, no blood on the body, most likely illness.

To the right was Chi Yan—sudden death.

The one behind him—cause unclear, but no blood on the body either, so at least a good chance it wasn’t trauma.

“Bro? Did you think of something?” Chi Yan pressed.

“Do you know how to curse at someone?” Tang Cuo asked in return.

“Huh?” Chi Yan was baffled, scratching his head. “Who am I cursing at?”

Tang Cuo: “The crow.”

Chi Yan immediately understood—this was probably what they called madness before death. About to die twice in one day, if you can’t live then go mad—might as well curse a few times to show respect for this damned human world.

“Call him a mangy feathered beast. Mangy feathered beast, mixed-breed chicken, diu lei lou mou MMP.” Cursing in both Sichuan dialect and Cantonese—wasn’t that cool?

Tang Cuo felt slightly disrespectful, and from then on viewed him in a new light. But he thought the phrase was a bit too long, like an old lady’s foot-binding cloth—long and smelly—so he simplified it to:

“Hey, mangy feathered beast!”

The whole plaza erupted.

The crow nearly missed a step and fell off the stone pillar, turning back in disbelief. “Who? Who said that?!”

Tang Cuo raised his hand. “I’m the one cursing you.”

The crow: “Who are you cursing?!”

Tang Cuo: “Mangy feathered beast.”

The crow: “Who is the mangy feathered beast? You tell me clearly!”

Tang Cuo: “You.”

The crow was furious. If he’d merely been putting on an act before, this time the great and kind Mr. Crow was truly angry. He flapped his wings and hopped madly, so furious that the feathers on his head were falling off.

“You dare say that to the great and kind Mr. Crow?! I’ll punish you! I absolutely will punish you! I’ve decided—this round starts with you! You! Yes, you! Go die!”

The familiar bell sounded in response.

“Ding—”

“Unable to eliminate. Game over!”

The crow froze.

Chi Yan froze. Everyone present froze.

The game was over?!

“Impossible! How could it end so fast?!” The crow flew up, circling overhead to vent its rage. But as it ranted and raved, at some point its expression suddenly turned ugly—it understood.

“You cheated! You deliberately provoked me!” The crow glared at Tang Cuo.

Tang Cuo shrugged.

Chi Yan belatedly caught on. “Bro, what’s going on? How is the game over? You… you you you didn’t die in a car accident?!”

Of course Tang Cuo hadn’t died in a car accident. If it had been such an ordinary death, he wouldn’t have had negative points.

The crow was still indignant. “You cunning, treacherous player—you dared to fool the great and kind Mr. Crow! I will definitely punish you, you—”

“Ding—” The bell cut off its words.

“Congratulations to all players for smoothly completing the Easter egg game—Lucky Wheel. Survivor count: 2,315. Let us give a warm round of applause to celebrate the successful conclusion of the Evernight City entrance ceremony!”

“Players.”

“Welcome back to Evernight City!”

As the voice faded, everyone’s vision began to blur, consciousness gradually stripped away. Only the crow’s exasperated voice remained by their ears: “K27216, you cunning human—I’ll remember you!”