Elsewhere, Tian Zhu woke up to a squeaking ShuShu and washed up to get rid of the sweat on his body. His head felt a bit empty, but quite comfortable.
Fun. Trying to solve the puzzle was truly fun.
He almost wanted to go right back but at the same time he knew that it wouldn’t be the same. This time had been different only because everyone else was dead and the sole other survivor was not only their killer, it was also someone greatly interested in seeing him solve the puzzle.
ShuShu was nervous about seeing her owner in such a weird state but could not do anything, as Tian Zhu had to get downstairs for breakfast and thus turned her off.
After pressing the icon, he paused for a moment.
Turning ShuShu off like it was normal… and turning her on again some other time. For the first time in his life, it felt weird to do so. Even though she was only…? …Only a program.
He was earlier than the last week, so this morning he was there to join his family in quietly watching the news.
The image hovered in the air, a more expensive technology than what he had in his room. The reporter was reading the information from somewhere behind the camera and the image of a man popped up next to her.
“…-victim. Various people have reported to have joined the dream and seen his death shortly after the news were announced two hours ago, but so far there has yet to be any signs of evidence that any of the reports are to be believed. With this, the death count has risen to 67, more than one person per week on average.”
Tian Zhu went over the numbers. No one knew the exact start, but this started happening at least a year ago, meaning there were at least 52 times that this had happened.
With three to ten people in each dream, that made for a span of 156 to 520 people. Given the changing amount of people called, the chance of doubles and the uncertainty about the actual length of this happening, you could still easily believe there to be around 300 different people involved.
That was a pretty high death count. Not all of them must have died due to leaving, a number of them must have been swallowed up by shadows.
Since this night hadn’t ended with more victims, just dying must not necessarily result in actual death.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“I wonder what those dreams are like”, Ling Xian absentmindedly said to himself.
Rb bcf gfjmafv ab tlr kbgvr. Llr qjgfcar tjvc’a tfjgv atf weaafg jcv Kljc Ite ibkfgfv tlr tfjv ab fja.
Cr algfv jr tf kjr, tf fcpbsfv atf rkffa cewycfrr lc tlr tfjv jcv kjr fnfc ribkfg ja fjalcu atjc ereji. Llr qjgfcar vlvc’a kjla obg tlw, cba ecfzqfmafvis.
Ling Xian had other plans. He patted his brother’s shoulder and Tian Zhu stopped all his movement under the disgusting contact. He had to resist the urge to swat the hand away that was now squeezing his shoulder. It was never a good sign if any of his family members touched him, most of the time it spelled trouble. By now, his reaction was conditional.
“I’m meeting up with some of the others today. Why not come along? It will be fun.”
Tian Zhu did not think that the idiotic, superficial group that Ling Xian surrounded himself with could be called fun in any way.
The main reason why he wanted Tian Zhu to come along was to have a convenient errand boy, act as the kind older brother and at the same time, show himself to be better.
With a nod from the younger man, Ling Xiang finally took his hand away and walked past him. “Great! Hurry up and get ready, I’ll drive us there. I’ll be waiting in the living room.”
Tian Zhu allowed himself a few seconds of staring at his empty plate without any thoughts.
His chair squeaked as he pushed it back. He made his way into his room to find some more fakely formal clothes.
He didn’t want to stand out anyway, but while the toned down palette of his clothes was to his liking, he wished he could wear something a bit more form-fitting.
Maybe if he stopped training and started gorging on fast food he could have a body so bad that it didn’t need to be covered up. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to stop his training and switch away from his healthy diet habits.
It was a tiny bit of comfort. An activity that he enjoyed for the physical exhaustion it would bring and food that he liked to eat. Greasy food was not something he could stomach, neither were overly sweet or salty foods.
He liked the fresh meals that their cooks made the best.
An uncomfortable body or uncomfortable clothes; the latter was the lesser evil.
Ling Xiang was indeed waiting for him with such a perfect smile that Tian Zhu knew he was annoyed at having to wait, but pleased that his little brother wasn’t looking good.
“Come on. You know, you should get your driver’s license, too. Driving yourself is much more interesting than letting the system do it.”
They entered the garage through their house.
With a simple voice command, the silver car started itself up and greeted its owners in an electronic voice.
Although people still called it cars, it hardly had anything to do with what cars once looked like. It was much more capsule-formed and without wheels. A hover-car, maybe.
The only ones who still drove by themselves were the arrogant rich generations that wanted to impress with their skills. With a fully automatic system, no one had to learn how to drive anymore and on a lot of streets, manual driving wasn’t even allowed anymore.
However, their mansion was in the rich outskirts. Out here, manual driving was allowed and common.
Tian Zhu sat on the passenger’s seat and allowed the seatbelt to automatically fasten itself. Ling Xiang pressed a button for the steering wheel to appear and started some kind of modern music that was nothing but noise to Tian Zhu’s ears.
He leaned against the window and watched the world outside as the car began to move.
The glowing trees that were used instead of streetlights had a blue sheen even during the day and nature grew astonishingly out here. He watched a few six-footed rabbits scramble away and frowned.
Sure, technology had managed to allow nature to flourish again, but some of the effects were… a bit weird. That had nothing to do with evolution, it was pure mutation.
There was no conversation, only the sound of the music and Ling Xian humming along as his fingers tapped against the wheel. Tian Zhu was left to his own thoughts as he took in the view and quietly lamented the twisted state that this world was in.
It only took them about a quarter hour to arrive at the private club with the insane speed they were driving in.
Ling Xian’s friends were already outside, some of them smoking. The colourful fumes were rising up to the sky.
Most of them looked happy to see Tian Zhu, for the exact same reasons that Ling Xian had taken him along. One especially disgusting girl greeted him with a lingering hug.
Oh, he knew she was interested. She liked going after virgins – she had a thing for them. If his memory didn’t betray him, and he doubted that it did, one of her former interests ended up on video online.
No doubt at all that she would have fun doing the same with Tian Zhu, although she might hesitate to upload the video for the sake of the Qiao family.
Tian Zhu thought she was dirty. Not because she slept around a lot, but because of her nature. It was a dirty nature that liked using people and making their lives miserable for her own enjoyment.
Not that Tian Zhu had any rights to judge over another. He was a hypocrite himself. Most people were dirty, so in turn, it was quite normal.
He stopped his train of thought. Useless, anyway.
The girl wrapped herself around his arm, her large breasts squishing against him. The knowing grins of her friends made it clear they were aware it wasn’t genuine goodwill. “Tian Zhu, how come you’re not accompanying us more often? It’s been forever since we last saw each other!”
“Hasn’t it only been, like, a month?”, one of her male companions laughed.
“That’s long!” She pouted, blowing up her cheeks in a way that might be considered cute in the eyes of others.
Author’s Note
Lots of names incoming. It’s fine to just remember the two girls, they’re more important.
Well, a gathering of scum 😐
Oh you’ve got no idea yet how true that is
Is there someway that those girls end up in the nightmare and get killed by Jing Ci?
My skin crawled when that b**ch hugged my boi arm ugh…
+1
+1!ಠ_ಠ
Really, some people deserve a lot of slaps
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Really hope he can leave that toxic family and stay in peace or something
Can’t wait for more updates, Thank you for the chapter~🤩
Wait, I’m thinking. Tian Zhu really enjoyed his latest dream with Jing Ci, right? What if, when the two are always in the same dream, Jing Ci would always kill the other participants? I kinda like the idea. (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`)