Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Pierce, Proofreader-adjective
At 6:58 in the morning, Ji Dong and the others arrived at the door hidden behind the revolving staircase.
The wooden door had an electronic lock but no password box. Instead, there was a timer on it, and the time was decreasing by the second.
At exactly 7 o’clock, the timer beeped and turned green. Mo Tiangen reached out and turned the doorknob, which opened easily, revealing a downward staircase behind it.
“Let’s go.”
He raised his chin at his four companions.
The group walked down the stairs, heading towards the unknown depths of the underground.
The villa’s decor was warm and exquisite, designed to be practical and homey.
But the underground staircase they were walking on now had a silver metal texture that was as smooth as a mirror on both the ceiling and walls. Parallel LED light tubes were arranged on both sides of the corridor, providing ample illumination. This made them feel as if they had suddenly traveled to a high-tech space station, wherein where they were now and where they came from seemed like two completely different worlds.
The stairs twisted and turned, and after the 68th step, the group finally reached the bottom.
What appeared before them was a straight corridor about 20 meters long, with a closed metal door at the end.
Ren Jianmo suddenly spoke up.
“It seems like we’re heading toward the direction of the opposite villa.”
Ji Dong, Mo Tiangen, and the Fan siblings all turned back in shock, staring at him.
When walking in a completely sealed space without any reference points, and going down twisting stairs several times, one’s sense of direction would become extremely disorienting. Unless you had a compass, it was impossible to determine your current orientation.
However, Ren Jianmo’s tone was indisputable, and Ji Dong and the others did not doubt that he had sufficient confidence to make this judgment.
As they were talking, they had already reached the end of the corridor.
Ji Dong took a deep breath and pushed open the metal door.
Outside the door was a square hall, but its structure was quite peculiar. The hall had two transparent glass walls, dividing the hall into a “品” shape.
Ji Dong and the others were now standing at the lower left corner of the “品”.
The space in the lower right corner completely mirrored theirs in terms of size and structure, but it was empty at the moment, and no one had come in yet.
Through the transparent glass wall, they could see a gigantic rabbit doll, about seven or eight meters tall, in the space above the “品”.
The rabbit looked exactly like the narrator they had seen in the trailer, and the eerie smile that stretched up to its cheekbones appeared even creepier when magnified several times.
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.
Ktf gjyyla vbii tjv j ijguf oiebgfrmfca rmgffc fwyfvvfv lc lar mtfra, yea la kjr meggfcais vlrqijslcu cbatlcu yea rajalm.
Mlcjiis, atfs cbalmfv atja atf gjyyla vbii’r tjcvr kfgf vfrlucfv ab yf fzafcvfv obgkjgv, qjrrlcu atgbeut atf uijrr kjii jcv gfjmtlcu lcab atf akb rlvfr bo atf “品”.
Cr atfs jqqgbjmtfv obg j mibrfg ibbx, atfs obecv atja atf tjcvr bo atf gjyyla kfgf cba rtjqfv ilxf olnf olcufgr, yea gjatfg ilxf jc CKZ mjgv riba.
“Is there something we need to insert into it?” they wondered.
Fan Luming pulled out the card with the instructions that Ren Jianmo had found in the entrance hall and tried to insert it into the slot. However, he found that the card was too big.
As they were examining the card slot, the door directly opposite them suddenly opened.
Five more people walked into the eerie hall through the metal door. They were all young men in their 20s or 30s, and Ji Dong had never seen any of their faces before.
But Fan Luming next to him cried out, “It’s you guys?!”
The faces of the people opposite them changed when they saw the Fan siblings.
Especially the leader of the group, whose eyes widened, nostrils flared, and expression was downright “ferocious”.
“You guys-”
His gaze swept over the Fan siblings, then turned to Ji Dong, Mo Tiangen, and Ren Jianmo, before returning to Fan Hemian’s face. He gritted his teeth and cursed, “You filthy b*tch!!”
“What did you say?!”
Although he wasn’t the one who got cursed, it was Fan Luming who got angry. He jumped like a cat had its tail stepped on, eyes wide as he shouted, “Shut up! If you dare to talk nonsense again, watch me—”
“Pei! You little brat!”
The man opposite them had already rolled up his sleeves, shouting profanities and pretending to pounce on them.
The atmosphere was tense for a moment.
If there wasn’t a glass wall separating the two teams, they might have resorted to violence without saying a word.
Ji Dong held down the jumping Fan Luming and leaned over to the other’s ear, whispering, “Don’t be angry. If there’s anything, we’ll talk about it when we get back.”
Fan Luming turned his head and glanced at Ji Xiao’niao, his eyes red and angry, but also aggrieved.
However, he has never been an impulsive person. After being persuaded by Ji Dong, he quickly realized that this was not the time to act recklessly, so he took two deep breaths, suppressed his anger, and turned his head to stop looking at the people in front of him.
The man opposite them, who was leading the group, seemed to think that Fan Luming was backing down and laughed even harder, provoking them more. He threw a series of insults and obscenities towards them, which had escalated from attacking the two siblings to Ji Dong and his two companions. His four companions not only did not stop him but also cooperated with their leader, laughing and cheering him on.
Mo Tiangen was annoyed by the situation and clenched his fists tightly, “Damn it! I want to beat them up!”
Ji Dong turned his head to glance at the man opposite them.
Objectively speaking, the man leading the group could be considered handsome just by his looks.
The man was about twenty years old, with delicate skin and tender flesh. His shoulder-length hair was stylishly parted in the middle. He looked like a pampered young master.
However, the man’s temperament was too greasy, and his behavior and way of speaking were both arrogant and lacking in education. He was the type of person who has trouble leaving a favorable first impression on people.
——Although he didn’t know who they were, they didn’t look like decent people.
In Ji Dong’s mind, he had already labeled the five people next door like that.
Just then, a cheerful bell rang in the basement.
“Ding ling ling, dang dang dang, dang dang dang!”
Everyone stopped talking and looked toward the source of the sound.
The fluorescent screen on the giant stuffed rabbit suddenly lit up, and a man wearing a rabbit head mask appeared in the center of the screen.
[Welcome to our 24 Point Game!]
The rabbit-faced man waved his hands and spoke in an exaggerated tone.
Meanwhile, a bursting sound of applause and cheer came from the background, as if thousands of spectators were clapping along.
[First of all, let’s welcome our red team, the Little Bird Team!]
The rabbit-masked man raised his right hand and half of the room where Ji Dong and his friends were located lit up in red amidst the noise and applause.
[Next, it’s our blue team, the Handsome Team!]
The rabbit-headed man waved his left hand, and the opposite half of the court immediately flickered with blue light.
Ji Dong thought to himself, ‘This unimaginative red and blue team, not to mention the unspeakable team names, is really too much!’
After introducing the “contestants” of the two teams, the rabbit-masked man began to explain the rules of the game.
[As everyone knows, in every city, various well-known or unknown urban legends are circulating…]
At the same time, a VTR began to play on the screen, which was like a horror movie’s highlights reel.
Within the rapid, flickering scenes, Ji Dong recognized many classic horror images.
There were the kuchisake-onna, the dandelion man, the lizard man, the moth man, the cat-faced old woman, the human-faced dog, the monkey dream, the Hachishaku-sama, and so on.
Of course, there were many more characters he had never heard of or recognized.
[In fact, if you look closely, you will find that numerous long-standing horror tales are circulating in our city, such as these 13 places!]
A map appeared on the screen, which was exactly the same as the one Ji Dong and his friends had seen in the trailer, except that this time the picture was more refined and had a 3D projection effect, making it more vivid and intuitive.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! 13 inverted water droplet-shaped coordinates were pointing somewhere in the map, almost evenly distributed in every corner of the city.
[And at each location, there is a playing card.]
As the rabbit-masked man’s voice fell, each coordinate was marked with a playing card number.
Ji Dong counted them one by one and found that there were 13 different cards from A to K, without repetition, with one of each kind, and the corresponding locations matched exactly what Ren Jianmo had remembered after watching the trailer.
——My Ren Jianmo is truly an extraordinary beauty!
Ji Dong was impressed and silently admired him.
[Now, what you have to do is explore each of these locations one by one, uncover the truth behind each horror story, and obtain the playing card of that location.]
The map disappeared from the screen, and a large, bold, and flashy number appeared – “24.”
[You need to add up the numbers on the playing cards you’ve collected to make the number ’24.’]
The numbers flipped and turned into a rapid succession of summational equations, all showing the various combinations of the 13 cards that would add up to “24”.
[Please note that the playing card ‘A’ can be used as either ‘1’ or ’11’, and it’s up to each player who gets the card to decide. The four cards ’10’, ‘J’, ‘Q’, and ‘K’ are all equivalent to the number ’10.’]
The rabbit-masked man continued to speak.
[The team that reaches 24 points first will win – after winning, all surviving members of the winning team can leave this place.]
In other words, if you die during the process of exploring and solving the supernatural incident, even if the team won, you wouldn’t be able to go back.
The rabbit-masked man chuckled a couple of times and said:
[Of course, the group that fails the game will be eliminated with regret and leave us forever~]
This meant that if you lose the game, there was no room for negotiation.
The loser could only face the plot’s death.
[In addition, all contestants must remember the following three rules.]
The commentator’s tone changed, and three pounding sounds of the drum were heard in the background.
This made Ji Dong’s heart tighten involuntarily.
[First of all, if the total points of one team’s cards exceed 24 points, it is considered a ‘bomb,’ and they will fail and be eliminated on the spot. At this time, regardless of the other team’s total score, as long as they haven’t ‘busted,’ they will be considered the winner.]
On the screen, the cards with a total of 25, such as 7, 8, and K, caused five little people to be marked with an “X” and fall to the ground dead. The other five little people had “WIN” written over their heads and were happily jumping and cheering.
[Additionally, if the remaining cards in the city cannot be combined to form 24 points for either team, it will be considered a game failure and they will be eliminated immediately. At the same time, as long as the other team has cards that can be combined, they will automatically be considered the winner.]
A new example immediately appeared on the screen.
One group of little people held two poker cards, an 8 and a Q, but they were missing a 6. There were only three cards left on the map, 3, 7, and 10, so these little people were marked with an “X.” The other group of little people held a 5 and a 9, and they were missing a 10. Since there was still a 10 left on the map, they were immediately judged to have won, and they were enthusiastically celebrating.
“my” ren jianmo 🤭