Editor: Elanor
The Joker card drawing was developed from the Killing Game system, so this type of game was played with lots of energy.
It was a game where a group of people were trapped in an isolated place and some kept dying. Everyone had to identify the murderer before the time ran out. It was enjoyed by everyone very much—only the audience and, to a limited extent, the players.
But in Bai Jingan’s point of view, the Asaijin Team Competition didn’t have to engage in the concept of Joker card. The players were supposed to kill each other in the first place. Would multiple murderers who want to kill everyone really make any difference?
But at this point, it was best to avoid speculating about what was going through the organizers’ minds. They might have done so on a whim, or to match the promotion of a game or a TV show, or they might have developed some other money-making tactic and used the Joker card concept to add to the gimmick.
Anyway, they asked you to draw a lottery, so you had to draw.
The leaders of the thirty-six teams from the third sub-arena, all clad in mysterious black robes, stood in front of a huge round table and drew the “Card of Destiny”. Bai Jingan was obviously the representative from Xia Tian’s team.
—The purpose of the round table was to allow everyone to observe the instantaneous reaction of others upon receiving their cards and gauge each other’s composure.
The sense of ritual was strong, and it matched their identities quite well.
People said they were stars, but in reality, they had long been abandoned by civilized life. Bai Jingan thought that the pervert in the Torture Chamber at the Commemorative Show was indeed right. If it were in ancient times, the players were that type of people destined to be burned at the stake as an example to everyone else, so that everyone else would know to stay in line, all the while providing them with entertainment.
This was the only way for them to survive in this modern yet barbaric world.
In any case, it would not be easy to investigate the person who got the Joker card at first, because everyone in the Asaijin Team Competition would be killing everyone. Also, there would be too many clues, making it look like there were no clues to follow at all.
Bai Jingan thought about the various possibilities while drawing his card with a blank expression. That was what people like them had to think about all day.
He expressionlessly looked down at the card in his hand.
What he was holding in his hand, however, was the very same big, killer card.
The Joker card was placed on the table in the preparation room. It had a distorted picture of the God of War, standing atop a pile of skeletons with a giant sword in his hand, smiling as if the end of the world was near.
“So, we are the Joker card,” Xia Tian stated.
Wei Xi glared at the card, as if he expected to change it with his thoughts. Eric said, “This was all planned out from the beginning.”
The four of them sat on the sofa in the preparation room, discussing the situation at hand.
They received new mission instructions while they were seated. Their identity was changed. They were no longer university friends whose families had gone into decline. Now the story was that they were the avengers who had killed the original university friends and were posing as them using their names and identities to travel to the island.
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.
The president of the business empire, “Mr. Shi”, had once conducted a large-scale biological experiment that killed their families. Most of the heirs who had come here had participated in that experiment—these heirs would obtain the inheritance qualification after proving their ruthlessness.
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“The protagonist treatment,” Wei Xi said.
Eric turned his head to look at Xia Tian, who tried to sit there with as innocent an expression as he could muster.
“I guess only people who sit in their offices all day without any real world experience would think that this method of Joker card to get us popular would actually work,” Eric said, “After all, how is it easy to disrupt the whole process and not let the game end smoothly? Where do we even begin?”
“We can kill everyone.” Xia Tian gave an idea.
Eric looked at him for a few seconds, assumed a serious posture, and was about to say something, when Bai Jingan suddenly said, “Well, it’s okay to kill them all.”
“Or we can get the inheritance right for ourselves,” Xia Tian said.
Bai Jingan nodded.
Eric looked at Xia Tian, then at Bai Jingan, unsure if there was a joke between the two of them that he wasn’t aware of.
“Uh, maybe we can just hold out until the end of the game time…” he said as he flipped through the mission manual. “Wait. How come I don’t see the end time?”
“There is no end time,” Bai Jingan said, “So either we take the inheritance right, or we kill everyone.”
Eric let out a string of colorful curses.
Then silence ensued, which was broken when Xia Tian said, “Anyways, in this situation, killing all of them can be included in the option, right?”
“What ‘anyways’?!” Eric said.
“That, guys!” Wei Xi stared at the terminal screen as he called out to them. “Have you seen this?”
“What?” Xia Tian said.
“Another one has died,” Wei Xi said.
Everyone turned to look at him, and Wei Xi said, “‘Execution’ ‘Private Law Punishment’ ah! They’ve killed another one!”
The network logistician zoomed in on the page, and the big headline read, “Another Execution?!” It was accompanied by a picture of a burning skeleton with a tattered battle flag in the background.
Someone had indeed died, and it was Xia Tian’s fans who had committed the crime.
After the first execution had happened, the flames of rebellion that had burned within them hadn’t fizzled out, and the Summer Flames website was now basically the “Resistance Army” website.
The media had been fanning the flames in the background, and now there was finally a second victim.
The victim this time was still a rich man. He was not involved in any lawsuits, but he was so overtly concerned about the lives of children that he had brought in some homeless kids from the Lower City town—such kids were pretty easy to find—to form a children’s version of the Killing Show.
Although rumours had been going around about this, there hadn’t been any conclusive evidence. But this time the killers had found the evidence and made the video public.
And unlike Wei Zhen’s execution, this time it was definitely not done due to a personal grievance. The perpetrators had carefully planned and collected evidence. The murder was also highly dramatic and extremely bloody.
He had died inside a gilded metal frame. He was stabbed in the chest and nailed to the wall by a long sword, with blood and guts spilling out in a horrifying swathe. The dead body hung there like a gory artistic creation.
These people also had put the promotional image on the front page of Summer Flames website.
The media swarmed, and the Upper City’s news was full of blood for a while, and uncensored videos of children’s versions of the Killing Show were spread everywhere.
The things in the evidence video were very anti-human, with scenes of the victim shouting at a banquet: “The children are real warriors; they are brave and dauntless. Even in the most horrific circumstances—where we adults might have given up on long ago—they remain hopeful. But they—”
Wei Xi reached out and paused the video, and the scene stopped on the man’s excited face. On the small screen behind him was a picture of children drenched in blood.
In the end, Wei Xi only asked: “Why would anyone do such a thing?”
A hush descended the room. No one answered him. What could they say at a time like this?
Eventually, Eric said, “Come on, we all know people here are sick. This kind of thing…” He made a gesture, looking exhausted. “It couldn’t be more normal, could it? There are no morals here. They do everything just for the fun of it.”
He was silent for a long time, and finally said to Xia Tian: “They will definitely interview you before the game, you should be prepared.”
Xia Tian, who was still watching the news, turned his head to look at Eric and heard him say, “The gusto won’t be small.”
“The killer didn’t come forward this time,” Bai Jingan said, “They planned meticulously and directly disarmed all the victim’s defensive locks, which were no cheap locks.”
“They also cleaned everything. No trace was found on the camera,” Wei Xi said, “This is not an ordinary technical difficulty.”
After giving it some thought, Bai Jingan remarked, “Perhaps it was done by a team of people.”
Silence fell again. This statement was surprising, but once you thought about it, it was not surprising at all. Since there were so many people who hated the powerful, they could naturally get together and treat murder as their work.
The news was talking about tracing the murderer, and Wei Xi said: “They won’t be able to find anyone.”
The coldness in his eyes flashed like a blade glinting under light.
“If these people could do this kind of thing, they would have a way of keeping people from finding them,” he continued.
“The media will continue to glorify the murderers as a hero,” Eric said, “These people vent their rage and receive media praise; chances are they’ll keep killing.”
“And more people will want to imitate,” Bai Jingan said.
“There’s going to be a blood-fest in the Upper City,” Xia Tian said, when his cell phone rang.
He picked it up. Huitian was calling to say that a big team of interviewers were coming their way.
Xia Tian hoped that they had written the interview words. His recent image was too high-end and full of leadership style. He really couldn’t think about what to say by himself.
The interview words were quite exciting from a certain angle, but there were obvious signs that it was hurriedly prepared, and some of them were simply copied and pasted from articles.
Eric turned around and said, “Can anyone translate this manuscript into human language?”
“It’s talking about the shift in social morality,” Bai Jingan said.
Xia Tian continued to watch without lifting his head. Since it was his fans who had made trouble and had named him, he had to go to the interview.
Fans often made trouble, but no one was more worry-free than him.
“You can’t use this for an interview,” Eric said, “This is not an interview script, but a theory about ‘Evolution of Social Ethics’.”
“The company may want to create a hero or a leader,” Wei Xi said, “And all leaders in every generation have to have a theory. Although it doesn’t have to be so complicated at all, the theory of revolution is always simple and provocative—”
“But they want to sell an upgraded version of ‘Holy Book of Resistance’,” Bai Jingan explained.
“Uh, it’s easier to understand this way,” Eric said.
As he spoke, Bai Jingan sat on the sofa next to Xia Tian, drawing key points and signs on the pile of interviews, suggesting ways to say it better. The scene was more like a pre-test review than an interview preparation.
Xia Tian had a good tutorial on the history of social and moral changes caused by the Killing Show.
—The history of killing as a game could be traced back to the early days of human history. The predecessor of the modern Killing Show was actually a show called “Dark Fight” on Floating Gold TV. The initial players were six death row prisoners who signed compensation agreements. The TV station made a full public opinion campaign, and also paid most of the proceeds to the families of the victims of those prisoners. The media was still arguing heatedly.
By the time the Floating Gold TV’s “Doomsday Race” started broadcasting the following year, people had already incorporated killing related shows into their lives and turned them into a fashionable thing in modern life.
Since then, many such programs had sprung up, and the Killing Show had officially entered the era of commercial marketing.
Now, all serious discussions were out of date, and the human world had entered an era where criminals were stars and murderers were idols.
People looked for recognition and projections on these murderer-players, and everyone thought it was a great thing to be able to kill someone who disagreed with you quickly.
The Killing Show aroused something in the nature of the wealthy and settled people in the Upper City. They were engrossed, their heartbeats accelerated, and adrenaline soared. Everyone became excited. Death always excited people.
So they finally repetitively repurposed death into in-game statistics. Xia Tian thought that not many people in this floating world would know what the hell death was.
Can I share a little twist on this novel?
If it’s not a spoiler, then please!