Editor: Junyans
At that moment, someone outside slammed the door open and shouted, “I understand—”
Xia Tian turned around and pointed his gun in the direction of the door. Against the light it was impossible to see the person who had stormed in, but killing in one shot was no problem for Xia Tian. The person continued to shout, “You want more. We’ve killed so many people, but you’re not satisfied! Seriously, we are not satisfied either. You want bigger sacrifices, more blood and death—”
Xia Tian lowered his gun. The voice was that of the reporter who had pestered him on the first floor. He was most likely just high on drugs. The man would probably never guess how close he had just come to death.
“I’ve been wondering how this would play out, Sir, you coming here, to our humble land of pomp and madness—” the other man recited in a chant-like manner, and then, he stopped abruptly.
Before Xia Tian could say anything, the man had reached out and turned on the light.
The light was bright and before it, the body was exposed.
This was a living room decorated in a post-modern style, mainly in silver and blue, with simple and elegant lines, which made the body look more startling.
Fan Ning, once well-dressed, was now like a mass of overused goods, destroyed and discarded, like a bloody wound in the midst of modern elegant decoration.
“My God,” said the reporter, “it’s Fan Ning!”
He walked right past the corpse without getting scared—a basic psychological quality of the Killing Show viewers. For them, the city seemed like a colossal game, where they indulged without a care in the world. Yet, at times, they acted like they were desperately searching for a crucial clue that would give meaning to everything, as if finding this clue would make everyone lead a joyful life.
The reporter turned his head and saw the mobile phone on the table.
He said, “Oh…”
Xia Tian grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out.
However, five minutes later, a big headline was already up on the Floating Gold News website: “The Confrontation Between Conservative and Resistance Forces Escalates Again!”
Xia Tian stared at his cell phone. The headline of the webpage was bloody, with a flame effect and several screaming skeletons appearing from time to time, full of the atmosphere of impending war. The headline was accompanied by a picture of Fan Ning’s death scene. Now that photography was advanced, reporters could walk around the room, and when they went back, they could make 3D models and add a bunch of filters to give dramatic effects.
Xia Tian was skeptical that he could write any news in five minutes, but the stoned reporters in the Upper City had such skills.
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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“However, the new god is young, proud and deadly, and will never stand idly by.”
Xia Tian quickly scanned the entire article. The reporter sounded frenzied, as if he were a believer about to embark on a holy war.
This was not a news headline, but a declaration of war.
The click through rate of the article soared to one million in no time, rose to the top of the list, and became the cover headline.
Honestly, a Killing Show contestant like Fan Ning dying in a hotel like this was indeed a vicious case, but it was really nothing compared to the final banquet. Downstairs in a side room, a group of young people had gotten high on a new version of “Rampage” and ended up eating each other, killing three people. Now, that was exciting news.
But over the years, Upper City had seen more than its fair share of outlandish deaths.
Fan Ning’s death was different. He had once confronted the planning team and was in the “God of War camp,” and someone put his body in front of Xia Tian’s eyes, with a cell phone on a table that said “Hi!”
They found meaning in this bloody death.
The sign of a looming war.
Xia Tian and Bai Jingan could only hide in a guest room on the top floor of the Sky City Hotel. The media had swarmed to occupy most of the space downstairs.
Bai Jingan was doing a 3D modeling of the murder scene. In the hologram, the body pinned to the wall was like a ghost hanging in front of his eyes.
All the public cameras in the room were on, like red eyes.
Huitian had once told him that everything here was meaningless, all was just a game. There was no great confrontation and hostility in the Upper City, and there was no personal grudge against anyone… It was just selling something, but the goods sold were human lives and war.
But sometimes, the things you needed to focus on were very simple—
Xia Tian’s cell phone rang, and he took a look; it was a press spokesperson calling.
He picked it up, and the person on the other side shouted at him, “Have you seen the news? Now all the media are talking about it. Did you see how much attention it’s getting? It’s like the opening of a holy war! The company hopes you will give a public interview right away, and I have the script ready—”
Xia Tian’s expression was cold, and he kept silent.
“Listen, the fourth round is over, but the media doesn’t want to stop the carnival. The whole city doesn’t want it to stop!” The man continued to shout, “They want another war. You’ve already trampled the planning team underfoot. Now, they have to find you a new opponent—”
Xia Tian ignored him. He had ignored this guy during the third round, and the man had gone from threatening him with Dee Dee to all his dead relatives. But now, after yelling for a while and getting no response, he became quiet.
“Just give me a statement…” The spokesman said dryly, “I have to explain to the media. They’ve been waiting for your word for so long that they’re going crazy.”
He knew that the people behind the curtain were watching him. These guys had just killed a pawn merely for a bloody opening. Over the years, they had piled countless corpses in the spotlight to add color to the game.
Xia Tian stared straight into the position of the camera and said, “Tell them, ‘Someone has to bear the responsibility.’”
Without waiting for a response from the person on the other end, he promptly ended the call.
Xia Tian walked over to sit next to Bai Jingan and split over a few screens.
The tactical planner was so busy sorting out the data that he didn’t even turn his head to look at Xia Tian as he said, “The surveillance camera data show no signs of intrusion.”
Xia Tian raised his eyebrows.
It was clear that someone had entered this room, killed Fan Ning, cut out his tongue, and gouged out his heart. The people who had killed him couldn’t have done so on a whim; there had to have been some monitoring and planning ahead of time. They should at the very least make certain that the body was still fresh and hadn’t started to rot when the “guests” entered the room.
Fan Ning was a star, so it was unlikely that he turned on the camera in the hotel room. That meant that someone must have turned it on before murdering him.
Xia Tian and Bai Jingan cooperated in an orderly manner, looking for traces on the surveillance protocols just like they had done when they had worked together to destroy the bodies of those they had killed secretly and exterminate traces of their involvement in the murder in the past.
The show was like this. Every incident and accident that seemed to happen by chance was meticulously orchestrated to evoke a sense of horror and create the illusion that everything that happened was fate. But it was not fate. Closer inspection of such incidents would lead to the discovery of traces of manipulation. Someone had planned them, someone else had executed them, and someone had done the post-technical operations. And when you pulled the thread, you would realize that the natural tragedy was nothing more than a tapestry of artificially woven, colorful threads.
“It was opened by a person with formal authority,” Bai Jingan said.
Xia Tian’s face sank.
“I like to have people directly responsible,” Xia Tian said.
Outside the window, it was almost dawn. Upper City was still brightly lit, and countless people were either still awake, stoned, screaming, in pain, or dying.
He turned to look at Bai Jingan, and his comrade was also looking back at him.
Their glances were filled with murderous intent. Bai Jingan did not hesitate to start inquiring about the shareholders and power holders behind Sky City Hotel. Xia Tian divided the screens and searched with him.
The Sky City Hotel was the largest hotel in the main city, and access to its hosting center was limited and strictly controlled by high-security procedures. Not everyone had authorization to access or intervene in it.
As dawn broke, the two Killing Show players had locked in on the main suspect: Ge Pei.
This man owned a private security company called “Safe World” and was also responsible for the security of the Sky City Hotel. His family was one of the families that really held power in the Upper City.
Ge Pei was registered with an organization called “Purgatory Soup,” but no one could tell where it was located, except that its members were full of powerful people with some gory hobbies.
Information about Ge Pei was not too difficult to find. These people did not deliberately hide their whereabouts. There was nothing to hide from, for the world was their playground.
Xia Tian and Bai Jingan looked at Ge Pei’s photo without uttering a word, only exchanging gloomy and murderous glances.
No matter who this Ge Pei was, they would find him and kill him at any cost.
Outside the window, the sun had risen and the rays of light enveloped the land. Xia Tian gazed at the beautiful blue sky and the wandering white clouds. He knew that everything they had been doing was being recorded by the cameras, seen by that Ge Pei guy… and by the upper echelons of the Upper City. It was also in the plans of the Guest Show.
Those people would watch them revolt. Rage and murder were just a couple of the countless bloody desserts in their long, rotten, and hollow feast. This was the fun for the bigshots of the Upper City, who lead empty and decadent lives.
It was said on the Internet that the Guest Show would drag your life into hell one step at a time. Once you became one of its “guests,” you’d be walking on a narrow, dark road that only got darker and darker until you reached the bowels of hell, which was the most rotten and twisted part of the Upper City.
It was a huge, hellish show.
Xia Tian didn’t know how far he could go on this road to hell, but he was definitely not going to hide in a corner and wait for those people to come looking for trouble.
Bai Jingan pulled up the itinerary records of Ge Pei. In his mind, the plan to take revenge took shape vaguely, then became more and more detailed.
On one hand, people like them were born in cages and spend their lives weighing situations and developing the skills to kill others with limited resources. On the other hand, even if you were a bigwig who had enjoyed unlimited resources your whole life, once you entered the Guest Show, no one could guarantee your safety. This was the price to pay for looking for excitement.
Like Xia Tian had said, someone had to bear the responsibility.
No matter who it was, no matter how many people.
