Chapter 146
The sudden and unprovoked whipping quickly sobered all twenty-eight people in the room. The more they howled, the worse the beating; the more they avoided it, the worse the beating.
The twenty-eight people did not dare to cry out in pain and stopped resisting. When the keel whip struck, no matter how scared they were, they only took a few steps back, not daring to make any excessive evasive actions.
Hearing the sound of lashings lessening, Qin Zhou let go of Lin Yi.
The room was in total chaos from the indiscriminate beating the eight had delivered just now. Without being seen by any of them, Qin Zhou had been protecting Lin Yi. Had he been seen, they might taken Lin Yi alone and beat him.
“It’s fine,”” Qin Zhou comforted softly.”
He saw that Lin Yi’s lip was torn. Lin Yi must have torn it himself, biting down on it out of extreme worry.
“Go and wipe it.” Qin Zhou did not raise his hand to wipe it away for Lin Yi. Firstly, his hands were too heavy to lift. Secondly, the room had gone quiet and any unnecessary action he makes might trigger another beating.”
Lin Yi himself understood. He wiped away the blood on his lip with the back of his hand. Bright red smeared on the back of his hand.
Lin Yi comes across as gentle but he was also vindictive.
It was true that he rarely held grudges but he wouldn’t forget them and would be sure to pay them back. And at this moment, he drew a tally in his heart.
The room was silent. Lin Yi did not dare to communicate with Qin Zhou. Before, Qin Zhou had shielded him in his arms, blocking most of his vision. Only now did Lin Yi see the scene in front of him clearly.
Eight bald men had entered the room. They were shirtless and covered with fearsome tattoos. The keel whips in their hands knocked everyone in the room to the ground. Their expressions were undisguisedly malicious and they looked at them as though they were wild animals that were powerless against them.
“Everyone, stand up! Men and women line up in two separate lines!”
The leader of the bald-headed men had a writhing black dragon tattooed on his body. The dragon’s head had its mouth wide open. As he spoke, the dragon’s head seemed as though it would spit out words any second as well.
No one had ever been met with such a situation before. They were unclear whether this was happening to give them a better immersive experience or if something had gone truly wrong.
The only thing everyone knew well was that these people really knew how to give a beating. For now, all they could do was obey the man’s commands.
At first, everyone helped each other stand. The boys whelped the girls. But then the whip struck again.
If they mess around, they’ll get beaten.
Everyone had already had a taste of being hit by the keel whip. They were now too overwhelmed to even take care of themselves much less the weak.
Lin Yi knew that Qin Zhou was seriously injured so he made to help Qin Zhou up.
He was going to do it even if Qin Zhou wouldn’t let him.
Lin Yi whispered, “If we dally any longer, we’ll get beaten again.”
Seeing that Qin Zhou was no longer going to refuse, Lin Yi quickly stretched out his hand to help Qin Zhou up.
Just as they were about to join the boy’s line, there was a sudden “snap”, so intense that the whip seemed to cut through the moisture in the air.
The whip passed right in front of Lin Yi’s eyes, the tail of the whip almost hitting the bridge of his nose.
Before he could even lean back to avoid the whip, he heard a weak groan.
Everyone turned towards the sound and saw that the whip hadn’t hit Lin Yi but the boy lying on the ground. This boy was the one who had kicked the door open and he was also the first to ask to stop the game but was knocked down by these eight burly men instead.
The boy’s figure was on the thin side. When he had been kicked away earlier, Lin Yi thought he heard the boy’s bones snap.
Then he’d been beaten by the whips. It would be a surprise if he could stand up now.
However, the eight thugs did not seem to consider this at all. When the boy didn’t get up, they shouted curses at him. When he still didn’t get up, they hit him with the whips.
The other twenty-seven people watched the keel whips swing down and hit the boy’s head.
The boy let out a weak cry of pain and then lost his voice. They didn’t care though and kicked the boy again. “Stop playing dead, get up!”
“He seems to really be…”
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.
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Soon, the pool of blood, with the beaten boy at the center, gradually increased.
Screams rang out in the room once again.
“What are you screaming for!” Immediately, they stifled their fear-induced screams.
Lin Yi silently observed the boy on the ground. He had been through several Rule Worlds by now and had seen many participants killed by NPCs, but this was the first time he had witnessed a participant being so violently beaten by the NPCs.
The boy had stopped moving. He couldn’t even cry out in pain, staring blankly into the void with his eyes wide open.
When a participant is killed by an NPC, he or she will put on a eerie smile.
This time it was different. The boy did not grin at Lin Yi.
Therefore, Lin Yi couldn’t be sure whether the boy was still alive but he couldn’t reach out to feel for the boy’s breathing, otherwise he would be the one beaten.
Still unclear about what was going on in this Monster world, Lin Yi could only watch helplessly as the pool of blood grew larger and larger, slowly flowing to the feet of the other participants.
He looked down at the blood on the soles of his shoes and his eardrums suddenly buzzed, like a sudden and continuous tinnitus. The screams around him were muted and all he could see was blood red…
Before he had time to react to what was happening to him, the ringing in his ears and the dazzling redness filling his vision suddenly disappeared without a trace and what was left was an eerie silence.
His eyes seemed to be covered with something. Lin Yi reached out to take it off, it was a blindfold.
He was momentarily stunned. He then took off his blindfold and suddenly looked up.
He happened to see Qin Zhou also taking off his blindfold. Like him, Qin Zhou too had a look of worry and confusion on his face.
Not only Qin Zhou, Lin Yi saw all the other people taking off their blindfolds.
Lin Yi’s eyes swept over these people one by one, landing finally on Qin Zhou. Lin Yi’s confusion was amplified.
All of them are still in this room that was so humid you would break in eczema at any second. But there were no longer twenty-eight people in the room, only twenty-seven. And who was the missing person? Answering this was easy enough. ——The boy who’d been lying on the ground bleeding just now.
Lin Yi noticed that these people’s, included Qin Zhou’s, whip wounds had disappeared.
The situation was unclear, so Lin Yi took a step back and put a little distance between him and Qin Zhou.
He was unsure whether the twenty-six people in the same room with him were still human.
The strange silence didn’t last long and soon there was a sound.
“What…what’s going on?”
“Weren’t we lining up just now?”
“Where did that boy go?”
Everyone’s faces were covered with surprise and uncertainty as they looked at each other.
At this time, they all had the same questions but no one could give them an answer.
Then the strange silence descended once again. In the silence, someone looked at the iron door of the room.
The iron door was once again closed.
Lin Yi too looked towards the iron door. The footprints left by the boy who kicked the door panel were gone, leaving only the rust all over its surface.
It was probably because the boy had left a huge psychological shadow on everyone, no one dared to approach the iron door.
But the weird atmosphere in the room was really hard to stand, leading some of them to still approach the iron door despite the pressure.
The first one to approach the door was the girl who’d yelled with the boy last time, demanding to be let out. The girl carefully touched the iron door handle.
With a ‘click’, the iron door opened.
The girl was frightened by the sound of the iron door opening and backed into the crowd. Others were watching closely as the iron door swung slowly open.
Beyond the iron door, all everyone saw was pitch black darkness.
Lin Yi saw more though. He saw people in the distance walking through the dark.
But before he could warn the others about the situation, someone in the room gritted his teeth and rushed out.
With someone taking the lead, more people then rushed out.
After all, this is the only door in the room. In the eyes of most people, doors represent an exit. They thought that they could escape from here by going out through this door.
“Don’t–”
As soon as Lin Yi made a sound, someone who’d rushed outside was thrown back in. Just like how the boy who’d kicked the door open had been kicked into falling to the ground, the person who was thrown in fell hard and curled over in pain.
It was the boy who’d just taken the lead to leave the room.
Lin Yi immediately looked outside the door. The eight bald men reappeared. They’d caught everyone who ran out and now threw them roughly into the room.
Then without saying a word, the men raised their keel whips and began striking everyone.
It was the same.
Eight people with eight keel whips beat everyone in the room.
It made no difference if you were a girl or boy, whether you had run away or not. When the whip was pulled down, blood burst onto your skin and turned into horrible dark purple patches.
Screams and wails resounded in the room and the louder the sound, the harder those people beat them.
Once again, Lin Yi heard the sound of the whip breaking bones.
And once again, Qin Zhou protected him.
The last time he was beaten, Lin Yi still received a few hits from the whips but this time Qin Zhou had pushed Lin Yi into a corner formed by two walls and used his body to completely cover Lin Yi.
Lin Yi felt anxious and gripped Qin Zhou’s clothes over his chest. “Senior, it’s my turn…”
Qin Zhou leaned over and kissed Lin Yi’s lips, sealing the rest of his words in this untimely but perfect kiss.
This wasn’t the first time the participants had been beaten. After their previous experience, they quickly calmed down. After all, they were the only ones who suffered from the all this noise and screaming.
Then the whips slowly stopped as dead silence descended in the room.
To prevent the eight bald men from noticing that he had protected someone, Qin Zhou let go of Lin Yi and turned around before the sound of whippings completely stopped.
Lin Yi stared closely at the wounds on Qin Zhou’s back.
“Everyone, stand up! Men and women line up in two separate lines!”
The bald man with the black dragon tattoo said again, using the same words in the same tone and manner as last time.
This escaped the others’ notice. They quickly stood up and did as the bald man instructed.
Lin Yi saw Qin Zhou heading towards the boys’ line. He rubbed his eyes and followed suit.
Twenty-seven people, seventeen boys and ten girls.
They lined up in two rows.
The bald man stood in the between the two teams and said loudly, “Here, if you don’t obey, you will be punished! I know you’re all unwilling, so I’m making it clear right now who’s boss.”
Saying so, the bald head turned to the other seven thugs and said, “Take them all to wake up!”
Another of the bald men, this one with a green dragon tattoo, said loudly, “Follow me, don’t fall behind!”
After saying so, the green dragon tattooed thug took the two groups out of the room.
Lin Yi followed Qin Zhou. After leaving the room, he reluctantly moved his eyes away from Qin Zhou’s back to look at their surroundings.
He had to understand the situation here.
The light outside was very dim but it did not affect Lin Yi’s vision.
They were walking through a corridor. On the left side of the corridor were windows sealed with railings. The space between railings was very narrow, it would be difficult to even stretch out an arm. On the right side were rooms with stained and dirty signs hanging on the doors. The signs unabashedly proclaimed frightening words such as solitary confinement room and punishment room.
Green dragon tattooed thug finally led them to a room with the sign ‘Water Room’. He opened the door and turned around to look at the people following him. “Are you going down by yourself, or should I throw you down?”
Lin Yi looked inside and saw that there was a dug-out pool inside. The pool was large and filled with water. However, it looked like the water had not been changed for a very long time. The water was turbid and scum floated on the surface.
The participants’ faces turned pale immediately. It was only when they saw the pool that they realized what the black dragon tattooed bald man meant when he said “wake up”.
But these eight bald-headed thugs didn’t give the participants a chance to hesitate. The thug with the green dragon tattoo picked up the young woman in front of the line and threw her into the pool, while the other thugs began kicking people into it.
The pool was more than 1.8 meters deep. The girl who’d been thrown into the water couldn’t touch the bottom. She choked on water when she was thrown in.
There were some boys who couldn’t reach the bottom either.
While the eight thugs weren’t paying attention, Qin Zhou jumped in. He jumped into the pool, held on to the wall of the pool with his hands and calmly scooped up a few people who were choking, giving them a chance to catch their breath.
“Thank you…cough…thank you…”
A bald man heard the movement in the pool and said fiercely. “We can still talk, huh? Then you all get to stay in there for a couple of hours.”
The people in the water suddenly didn’t dare to speak.
The eight bald headed thugs continued to throw people into the pool. Lin Yi was about to jump into the pool on his own. Before diving, he saw Qin Zhou, who was already in the pool, making a move to catch him.
He felt a sudden pang of pain in his heart.
After that delay, Lin Yi felt a strong kick on his waist and he fell into the pool, caught off guard.
He didn’t choke on the water thought. Qin Zhou had been prepared to fish him up.
“Why are you dilly-dallying!”
The water was dark and the bald men on the platform couldn’t see the movements in the water.
Qin Zhou separated Lin Yi’s legs and guided Lin Yi to wrap them around his waist. With him around, Lin Yi would never sink to the bottom of the pool.
‘Bang’, the door of the water room was shut close by the bald headed thug with the green dragon tattoo. The water room fell into darkness.
Lin Yi heard Qin Zhou’s voice, close to his hear. Qin Zhou placed a hand on his waist and gently rub the painful area. “Does it hurt from that kick?”
Though immersed in the cold water of the pool, his hand hadn’t lost its warmth.
Lin Yi shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt…”
Lin Yi said softly, “Senior, I’m getting down. I know how to swim.”
Qin Zhou did not let go. “We don’t know how long we’ll be staying here, so you need to save some energy.”
Seeing that Lin Yi said nothing back, Qin Zhou thought that Lin Yi was about to argue. He reached out and pressed Lin Yi’s head to the crook of his neck, letting Lin Yi lean against him. He bit Lin Yi’s ear. “Little genius, behave.”
Lin Yi too extended his hand.
He embraced Qin Zhou, rubbing the water from his eyes against Qin Zhou’s neck. He whispered, “Senior, when we get out of here, I have something to tell to you.”
Qin Zhou: “Okay.”
thank you for the chapter!
Lin Yi is slowly starting to realize what I have been chastising him about the last few chapters: Qin Zhou loves him more than his own life, and deserves to know the truth.
Thank you for the update! This is all making me want to watch Alice in Borderland again