Editor: Elanor
Zhi Leng’s disappearance was discovered a week later.
No one was worried about it at first. It was normal for the big shots to disappear for a few days, indulge in a dark and erotic environment for a while, and then return to normal lives, claiming that the city was too noisy, that they had to go to a different place to find inspiration for a new round of passion and awesomeness.
It wasn’t until a week later, when the third round of the event entered the warm-up phase, that he was found missing.
The police must have gone to the hotel to do some investigation, about which Xia Tian didn’t have any idea as no one came to interrogate him.
He went to the free virtual platform provided by the organizer to do combat training every day. Relying on his old savings and stealing, he didn’t starve anymore. He would never go hungry again.
He saw the police coming and going in and out of the hotel. They neither inquired around, nor discussed any related topics. They kept a low profile, and behaved very intriguingly.
As for Bai Jingan… From Xia Tian’s viewpoint, what had happened was bound to make their relationship different, but clearly it was his one-sided delusion.
They hadn’t met each other since then. Bai Jingan only sent a text message afterwards, which contained a dense list of things he needed to train for; he really didn’t forget his job at any time.
It was only half a month later after that incident did the two of them meet each other on the virtual platform to do two training sessions. Bai Jingan didn’t mention anything about the incident at the banquet. After all that risk, he seemed to be eager to keep a distance from Xia Tian. Even if he had to say a few words, his tone seemed to be trying to minimize the number of conversations with Xia Tian.
It was difficult for Xia Tian to understand this development. For him, relationships had always been simple. When you shared adversity with another, you developed a friendship and you could go out for a drink.
—Of course, you also had to be ready to be betrayed at any time, but still everyone was willing to have a drink.
And Bai Jingan was obviously not of that type. He kept out of sight, misleading people behind a screen of teammates, clothes and official responses. The only thing that Xia Tian was certain of was that the guy didn’t like him… Of course, this was quite understandable.
Maybe Bai Jingan also had a time when he was high spirited and naive, but Xia Tian didn’t have the chance to see such a Bai Jingan. By the time Xia Tian met him, this guy had buried his true self deep inside, would no longer laugh or cry, would just be silent, and wouldn’t hook up with anyone to have a drink.
Xia Tian knew this type of people and had always stayed away from them, but… this was the Asaijin game system, where teammates were randomly determined by lottery, emphasizing the “collision of chance”, and “bad luck and surprises together”. You never knew what kind of teammates you would meet, what kind of abilities they were good at, and how you would get along with each other. So the show was full of fucking “suspense” and shit. He still had no idea which category Bai Jingan belonged to.
But no matter what both of them thought about the other, they obviously couldn’t get rid of the other in a short period of time.
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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And on that night of the banquet, most people didn’t have a decent alibi.
Xia Tian didn’t know how the police investigated. Anyway, this topic was discussed on the Internet for a while and then quickly forgotten. In the Upper World, with death being so common, keeping up with the latest trend was the key.
Qiao Ge, the chief planner of Floating Gold Channel 7 “Hot Sky” and Qi Xiashang, the chief planner of Floating Gold Channel 3 “Abnormal Laboratory” went together for a PK. In the end, the former ascended to the throne and replaced Zhi Leng’s position, and became the general boss of this year’s team competition.
“Hot Sky” was a survival reality show—the kind where everyone wore very little on an island. Although a lot of people had died under Qiao Ge’s hands, he had never run a program as crazy as the Asaijin team competition which also represented the highest achievement in the reality show business.
As a new chief planner from the fashion industry, he was the type who liked to be innovative and plan dramatic scenes, was ambitious and ready to do something big at this time, and was certainly not interested in Zhi Leng’s disappearance.
He didn’t cooperate with the investigation and was all about starting the competition quickly. He demanded that the police finish the investigation quickly and everything related to the reality show to be in place immediately so that the next round of the competition could be started and not waste energy on messy things.
The case was quickly concluded, and the police randomly found someone to convict and end the matter.
—Unluckily, a planner under the plot division of the Asaijin Team Competition, who wasn’t even at the banquet that day, was convicted. The plot that he had produced in the last session had killed a Killing Show star, that a rich and powerful person had liked, so he became a scapegoat.
At the same time, the Floating Gold Nine in association with the 199th Killing Show Pay-to-View Competition had also entered the warm-up phase, and the Internet headlines and hot search lists were full of topics related to the competition.
No matter how powerful Zhi Leng had been, doing whatever he wanted, when he died, the chariot of Killing Show mercilessly rolled over his body and roared away.
After all, wherever the Killing Show went, everything else had to make way for it.
Soon after, the third round of the Killing Show of the 199th Floating Gold TV Asaijin Team Competition officially began.
The lottery ceremony was held in the Sky Rock Plaza in the Floating Gold City and the event was quite huge. The big screen showed the highlights of the previous Asaijin Team Competitions of Floating Gold, and then the trailer of the new round. The music was magnificent and very enticing, calling on everyone to devote themselves to the great cause of the Killing Show and test their wits and strength on this world-renowned stage.
Nearly two thousand Killing Show players—criminals, perverts, and unfortunate ones—wore formal attire and stood under the stage, like an army on parade.
Hundreds of cameras were pointed at every corner. They recorded the player’s eager or worried expressions, recording their dreams to prove the disillusionment in the future, turning them into a source of exciting conversations.
Xia Tian looked around absently.
To his left stood Bai Jingan, wearing a black attire. He actually looked quite handsome, but he was expressionless, his eyes staring at a point in the air without squinting, immersed in his own world, not wanting to have any kind of contact with people.
On the other side stood La Tie, looking intently at the big screen, his expression full of dreams.
This person was the result of the lottery draw in the first round. Their team’s luck was average.
They got a team of three fighters and a tactical planner, so that in the first two rounds, Bai Jingan had to play the role of network logistician, and Xia Tian had served as a sniper.
There was another guy on the team named Jian Kui, who was also an authentic idiot like La Tie. He died in the second round. Xia Tian had really hoped that La Tie also died, but unfortunately he didn’t, so he was still around to do some stupid things in the team.
Xia Tian stood among the line of players, fiddling with the puppy button in his pocket that was missing an ear, wondering why he hadn’t lost it yet. He wouldn’t want to go into battle with such things. In a place like this, all you needed to bring were guns, coldness, a determination to die and bloody hope.
But he kept remembering his younger sister who had been left back in his hometown. She was still a child, and life was in a mess. The best thing she could do to survive was to hide, or she would end up becoming one of the countless tragic deaths in the Lower City.
When leaving, she had pulled the corner of his clothes, asking him to promise that he would come back to pick her up. He had assured her that he would come back as a rich man, and make a super beautiful wreath to be put on her head, but how could be that possible—
He felt the familiar, never-ending knot of nausea in his stomach, and there was a fire burning in his internal organs. Fear and anger made him want to kill anything, the more violently, the better.
He pushed the feeling down, telling himself that the feeling was quite common and no one cared.
He looked around distractedly. All of them had serious expressions as if going for a holy war. He walked away from the neatly organized group, with several people staring at him from the side. He passed through the large group of people without looking at them.
Before he could go very far, a staff member approached him with a cold face. The staff who was wearing a ridiculous and serious-looking battle armor uniform asked him to return to his position.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” Xia Tian informed.
“But the ceremony isn’t over yet,” the other party said.
“You don’t want me to solve it here.”
“The ceremony will be over soon, but until then, the players’ formation needs to be kept in order…”
“Do you want to fight?”
The other party stared at him for a while, as if caught in a battle between heaven and man. Finally he gave in, stepped aside, and said “Please come back as soon as possible.”
Xia Tian happily went to the bathroom. After torturing the staff, he no longer felt like throwing up. He dawdled around for a moment, then slipped a handful of candy into his pocket, and swaggered back to his original position. Bai Jingan glanced at him, and he returned a big smile and handed him a candy.
Bai Jingan shook his head and said that he wouldn’t eat. Xia Tian ate it himself and threw the candy wrapper on the ground. Noticing that the staff member was staring at him viciously, he returned the same big smile to the other party.
At the lottery ceremony, there was another boring little thing worth mentioning.
The advertisement on the big screen was too long. Xia Tian looked around happily and saw a lock of Bai Jingan’s hair curling up in the breeze. He stretched out his hand and pressed it down.
Bai Jingan swatted his hand away, and Xia Tian said, “It’s curled up.”
The other side only gave him a look of warning but said nothing.
After a while, the lock of hair popped up again, and Xia Tian pressed it down again and stroked it so that it would stay in place. Bai Jingan took a breath, as if trying to calm himself and endure it.
After that, Bai Jingan’s hair curled up three more times, and Xia Tian pressed it back seriously each and every time. Bai Jingan put on a patient expression, not bothering to resist him anymore.
This was just a boring episode in the ceremony because the advertisement was too long, and Xia Tian had always been handsy. However, this incident was recorded by the camera and was put in the category of “Who are the interesting newcomers this year?” on the official website. Below, some people commented that Xia Tian was “very childish,” some said he was “very cute,” whereas a few people discussed his performance in the qualifying rounds. Bai Jingan was called “The Boring-looking Man.”
These people later formed a discussion group to focus on Xia Tian’s performance on the Killing Show. Such groups appeared every time a session of Killing Show took place—some were long-lasting, while some were short-lived, like bubbles in a juice. It was nothing out of the ordinary.
No one paid any particular attention to this incident, but this was the first time Xia Tian had his own fans. This group would continue to expand until it became a monster and shook the huge foundation of the Floating City.
Link to a cute fanart is here!
And if you guys don’t want to get spoiled, don’t search for other fanarts. You might regret it.
Oh, hahah oh boy……
Thanks for the chapter!!
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter ( ╹▽╹ )
Thank you for the chapter 💛
XT’s definition of friendship is great. It’s all about finding someone to drink together…
Lololol the fans will shook the city.
XT being handsy and fighting with Bai’s hair is the best thing ever
Nah, you two wouldn’t be able to get rid of the other person your whole life, Xia Tian and Bai Jingan.
Also, the illustration is so fucking cute!!!
That was adorable! Thanks for the chapter ❤️❤️❤️