Translator-Rhapsodite
Editor-Abo Dammen, Proofreader-adjective
It was 9 a.m. on February 4th.
Ji Dong, Ren Jianmo, and Mo Tiangen posed in front of the fourth building in the [Peach Blossom Spring].
Ji Dong now had finally figured out the basic structure of this place.
The so-called [Peach Blossom Spring] had nothing to do with Tao Yuanming's “Land of Peach Blossomsh‘ Crossroad Traffic“, a place where chickens and dogs heard each other. This place did not exist in any dimension. There was no entrance or exit. The whole space resembled a steel-shaped space fortress. Participants could only live in it, but couldn’t escape from it.
A massive suspended platform with an Obelisk stood in the center of the [Peach Blossom Spring]. Four main buildings were constructed in the four directions of South, East, North, and West.
To the East was the ‘Colosseum’, with many small black rooms where players would return after completing the [Films] to settle their points and collectibles.
It was said that there was an additional area in the Colosseum called the Training Ground where participants could familiarize themselves with the props they had collected from the [Films] for the next round.
In the South was the participants’ ‘Apartment’, and it was where players lived when they weren’t fighting for their lives in a [Film].
‘Lian Ge’, where they had gone the night before, was to the North of the Apartment.
Lian Ge had hundreds of large and small rooms that the guild could not only use as a meeting room and activity room, but it also had bars, restaurants, scenic spots, gyms, and various other indoor sports fields. It was the main area for participants to carry out social activities.
As for the West, where they were now, there was a strange building called “Hourglass Cube” – where the participants would select the next [Film] they would enter, as well as the channel through which they would enter the [Film].
At present, there were few people in the Hourglass Cube.
With the exception of Ji Dong and his team, as well as the rest of the newcomers, who only returned to the [Peach Blossom Spring] at the beginning of this month, most experienced players had already selected their [Film] half a month ago and were already ahead with their preparation.
Ji Dong, Ren Jianmo, and Mo Tiangen registered as a team in the Hourglass Hall.
[Would you like to draw the [Film] trailer now?]
In front of the registration counter was a beautiful artificial intelligence sister disguised as a ground service employee, who smiled and asked Ji Dong.
Ji Dong: “……”
He looked over hesitantly at Ren Jianmo and Mo Tiangen, then back at the AI. “Does the captain have to draw from the lot?”
The AI beautiful sister smiled and said, “Yes, the team leader must draw lots.”
Ji Dong hugged his head and let out a lament.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
He was very upset and said, “I knew I shouldn’t have been the captain!!”
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.
Kfjmtfg Gjufc kjr nfgs mbcoerfv jybea tlr gfjmalbc. “Qtja’r atf wjaafg? Pa’r pera j iba!”
“Rb, cb, cb, sbe vbc’a xcbk!”
“You don’t understand a pure-blood Non-Chieftain's fear of drawing cards!” cried Ji Dong.
Al Wljb’cljb kjr oeiis jkjgf bo tlr jcmfrags; joafg atgff mbcrfmealnf ujmtj ujwfr jcv ojlilcu wlrfgjyis fjmt alwf, tf nbkfv ab cfnfg qijs jcs ujwfr atja gfdelgfv iemx jujlc lc tlr ilof.
However, the beautiful AI sister in front of him informed him that not only would he have to choose cards from a deck full of [Film], but the outcome would be directly tied to the life and death of himself and his two teammates eleven days later.
“Come on, Xiao’niao, don’t be so stressed.”
Mr. Dagen kindly comforted the depressed Xiao’niao.
“In any case, Zhao Zhui said that the [Film] sorts of F-level difficulty are set. It’s basically a series of physical assaults. It makes no difference at all!”
Ji Dong felt encouraged and believed it, so he cheered up and led the two attendants… No, the two team members bravely walked through a door directly behind the hall.
Inside the door was another hall.
However, the hall’s ceiling was higher than Ji Dong had imagined.
He peered up, trying to figure out how high the roof was. Unfortunately, no matter how far he strained his neck, all he could see was an unending night sky.
A massive hourglass made of glass stood in the center of the hall.
Ji Dong, on the other hand, thought the size disparity between the top and bottom parts made it look more like a funnel.
The lower half of the hourglass was only the size of a football, and the inside was empty; the upper half was astonishingly big, with the top stretching into the mid-air invisible to the naked eye, and it was filled with numerous “grains of sand.”
Each “sand grain” was a transparent cube, with a cluster of fireflies burning in the center, revealing a faint cold light.
At this time, countless cubes were floating in mid-air, defying gravity and moving in an irregular Brownian motion.
“Alright, I’ll draw the lot!”
Ji Dong took a deep breath, rubbed his hands vigorously, and reached out to touch the massive hourglass.
He expected to come into contact with the piece of glass, but instead hit an air wall.
His palm was barred by an invisible “wall” ten centimeters away from the Hourglass.
[Please select the [Film] difficulty you want to challenge.]
Ji Dong heard a realistic magnetic male voice speak to him. His pronunciation and tone were very similar to the CCTV news network’s standard broadcasting voice.
Simultaneously, two options appeared in front of him: [F] and [B].
Ji Dong was not arrogant enough to think that he could take on level B difficulty a second time, so he chose “F-Level” without hesitation.
The luminous cube floating in the glass hourglass started spinning, quickly disintegrating into a massive vortex of light particles.
After about thirty seconds, one of the cubes broke free from its companions, slid through the hourglass’s narrow neck, plummeted to the lower half of it, and made a crisp sound as it touched the translucent glass wall.
Then the air wall, which could be touched but could not be seen, suddenly lit up in front of the Ji Dong.
In the eyes of the three, it was as if a huge holographic projection screen appeared in front of them out of thin air.
First, there was darkness on the screen, and then slowly emerged a line of bloody words – [Separation of Flesh and Bone].
“What the fuck!”
Ji Dong and Mo Tiangen exclaimed in unison.
At this moment, they realized that this was the legendary trailer!
They dared not be distracted, so they quickly focused and stared at the screen in front of them.
The trailer only lasted thirty seconds.
From an aerial view, the camera soared over a deep mountain forest, then through an abandoned mine on the hillside, before coming to a halt above a small village almost entirely made of wooden houses.
Ji Dong saw the residents of the town.
They had cheerful and carefree smiles on their faces.
Two 14-year-old children carrying schoolbags crossed the street and turned to greet an old man in a robe in front of the wooden house; the chubby housewife put away the dry sheets in the bright sun; and several dark and stocky men were drinking together in the bar and boasting. The scene was warm and jubilant.
However, the atmosphere on the screen suddenly changed in the next second.
The entire town, as well as the mountains and mines beyond it, were encased in a translucent film.
The residents of the town disappeared.
“Why did we get a similar plot again?”
Teacher Dagen couldn’t help but complain in a low voice, “From the uninhabited city to the ghost village.”
However, as soon as his voice fell, wandering figures appeared in the dark mountain forest around the town.
The correct would be, it looked a bit like a “human”.
Ji Dong felt that he could barely distinguish the positions of their heads, bodies, and limbs, but relying on the shadows hidden in the dark, he was not sure whether those things could be regarded as “human”.
At this point, the trailer had come to an end.
They saw several special forces soldiers in camouflage clothes.
The soldiers fired their guns into the dark woods. Several people in white coats were protected by special forces and withdrew to a cave.
In the final seconds, the camera appeared to have switched to a handheld mode, resembling an early DV pseudo-documentary horror film, and it was swinging and toppling.
Ji Dong could only hear people’s panicked screams and howls, as well as the silhouette of some monster that occasionally wandered past the camera, as light and shadow intertwined.
The cameraman then appeared to enter a corridor, and the background changed to blood-stained snow-white walls and floors.
Finally, the camera dropped to the ground, and the image fragmented into a spider web, which was stuck to an empty syringe that was being used by humans.
The trailer ended here.
The screen returned to a state of darkness.
A line of scarlet letters appeared in the middle of the video: [Hold your breath, as flesh and bones are separated, something sinister is born.]
Ji Dong and Mo Tiangen: “……”
——What does this mean!?
——Dare you to be more spontaneous?!
Ji Dong, “In fact, this is also very good.I will never make complaints about those movie trailers that give away the whole plot,” he said with a serious face.
“Just admit it. It’s the work of conscience that cuts all the essence from the trailer.” Teacher Dagen stated with dead fish eyes, “At least movies nowadays tell you frankly what elements the movie will have.”
Teacher Dagen shook his head.
“However, when I saw this trailer, I remembered that in fact, in the previous [Film], I seemed to have been exposed to similar things.”
“Oh?”
Ji Dong was interested. “What do you mean?”
Before entering the [City of Ashes], when he went to the movies with his teammates, he saw a patch preview that only he could see. It was very similar to the scene he experienced later. Now that he thought about it, it was probably a sign that he would enter the [Peach Blossom Spring].
“The night before the maglev train accident, I had a nightmare. The dream was a gray and empty city.”
Mo Tiangen replied, “I didn’t take it seriously at that time. I almost forgot about it when I washed my face in the morning.”
He shrugged and helplessly spread his hand. “So, in fact, all of this is not accidental. I’m so unlucky that I’ve been targeted by the [Peach Blossom Spring] right?”
“All right.”
Ren Jianmo, who had been silent, opened his mouth at this time and interrupted the two people’s nutritious chitchat.
“It’s meaningless to tangle with the last [Film] now.”
He raised his chin at them. “The top priority now is to find a place and carefully analyze the trailer we just saw before our memory gets blurry.”
Thank you for the chapter!
Oho the next film seems very exciting!