translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
At night.
Wu Jin didn’t remain on guard for long. He quickly fell asleep to preserve his strength. There would be a lot of fighting in the future, and he needed to sleep as much as he could now. The clock usually moved faster in survival shows, and it was likely that the ‘next day’ would be started forcefully a few hours later.
His dreams were peaceful.
Nicholas danced the hula hand in hand with Caesar. Raphael played on the swings with Researcher Song, and the big boss tossed two mewling little rabbit balls into his arms, “Get lost! Take your rabbit heads and get out!”
The more Wu Jin looked at the big boss, the more he felt that there was something in his heart that was sprouting out of cuteness. He pounced happily onto the big boss––
Thump.
Wu Jin suddenly woke up.
His wrist watch was beeping constantly. In a certain part of the forum that nobody was interested in, he and Nicholas had prearranged to use an abandoned old thread to communicate. At this time, the thread was being pushed to the front page constantly.
Nicholas: Brother Wang!!!!
Nicholas: Brother Wang save me ahhhhh!!!
Thump, thump.
The sound of knuckles knocking on the wooden door through a layer of skin could be heard from a remote load-bearing wall, reverberating in the dark and empty corridors. It was a chilling sound.
Wu Jin’s hearing was much better than that of ordinary people due to his genetic modifications. He was stunned at first, then quickly came back to his senses. The knocking on the door was dull and orderly, rigid and deliberate like someone with an obsessive compulsive disorder.
Nicholas: Brother Wang, someone’s knocking on the door. It sounds like they’re knocking on my door, or it’s Silver Armor’s ahhhh––
Thump, thump––
Wu Jin was surprised. He didn’t know whether it was coincidence or not, but adding on the sound that had woken him up earlier, there were a total of 15 knocks at the door. It was consistent with the number of trainees in Rap Class 2.
It was like the soul of Lin Qingshan, who’d been eliminated.
Wu Jin: “Wait for me.”
He dressed himself quickly, then hit the bed post with a fist. His three roommates woke up one after another, “You––”
Wu Jin made a ‘quiet’ gesture. “Someone is knocking on the door. It might be the King of Hearts.”
One roommate’s hair immediately stood on end, “The King of Hearts? No way, are we going out to look for the King of Hearts?”
Wu Jin got out of bed and looked down at his roommate. His eyes flashed with a slightly chilly light, “You’re unwilling to go out when there’s four people. Could it be that you want to go out alone?”
That person fell abruptly silent.
Wu Jin didn’t hesitate to open the door. Wang Shu didn’t say a word as he followed behind him, and the two of them went straight over to push open the door and look into the corridor––
The corridor was empty.
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 lgbc vbbg bo atf olgf fzla atja ifv ab atf rajlgr kjr tjio bqfc.
Ktfgf kjr j yjcu!
Mgbw atf fcv bo atf mbgglvbg, Vlinfg Cgwbg bqfcfv eq tlr vbbg ja atf rjwf alwf. Ktf agjlcff’r fzqgfrrlbc kjrc’a nfgs ubbv. Lf ogbkcfv, jcv j kfjqbc atja tf qijccfv ab erf ab oluta jujlcra atf Blcu bo Lfjgar oijrtfv lc tlr tjcvr. Lbkfnfg, atf fwqas mbgglvbg kjr ilxf yflcu vberfv klat mbiv kjafg, mifjglcu jkjs atflg vfrlgf ab oluta.
The sound woke up all the trainees near the middle of the dormitory area. When Leica came out, he laughed at Silver Armor as though he’d managed to get even somehow.
Silver Armor stood at the door expressionlessly, his face blank as he looked at the dark fire passageway. Finally, he chose not to go up against the absent culprit and returned to his bedroom. The mechanisms clicked behind him, and the door was locked.
On the other side, Nicholas, who’d been peeking out the door, shook himself and locked himself back inside. Wu Jin’s two roommates seemed scared, while Wu Jin lay on the bed, listening vaguely to the conversation coming from next door––
“K made the rules.”
“K definitely doesn’t like people who break the rules… so he’ll eliminate Silver Armor. He was knocking on Silver Armor’s door, so what does that have to do with us?”
“Silver Armor, hey. He dared to erase the words that K wrote. However, as long as he keeps the door locked, nobody else can get in. He’s lucky, who asked him to draw ninth place…”
On the forums in their watches, Nicholas was also chattering on.
Wu Jin ignored it and closed his eyes, his head on the pillow. He went over the details in his mind.
15 knocks at the door.
The empty corridor.
The fire passageway…
In a half dreaming, half awake state, his mind circled around the words that Silver Armor had spoken in the corridor.
––“I’ll beat him. This is very important to me.”
Wu Jin rose up and drifted around in his dream.
He also wanted to beat K.
Because he wanted to.
Bang.
Wu Jin reacted in a flash and got up as quickly as he could. Wang Shu and another roommate woke up at the same time. After the previous knock at the door, everyone’s alertness had been raised up to the highest level. After that, their last roommate also followed suit and woke up.
The knock on the door was particularly rapid this time, going from light to heavy. Wu Jin couldn’t even hear where the knock originated from and how many times it had taken before he woke up.
On the forums, Nicholas was begging for help like crazy, “Brother Wang!! This time the knocks are on my door, my door!!”
“14 knocks––”
14 times.
That was one less than just now. One less sound than just now.
Wu Jin: “Don’t go out.”
Wu Jin’s eyebrows twisted in a frown. It seemed as though there were invisible ghosts wandering around the corridor. There was also a rustling sound from the bedroom next door, which happened to be the bedroom where the first to be eliminated, Lin Qingshan, had been staying.
On his watch, the survival number was 94.
6 people had been eliminated in one night. Not only had Rap Class 2 suffered losses and been affected by the chain reaction from Lin Qingshan’s elimination, but trainees from other unknown places around the training camp had also been eliminated.
The doors to the dormitories opened up one after another as players with varying expressions gathered in the corridor. Wu Jin knocked on Nicholas’s door to indicate that it was safe. Only then did Nicholas dare to peek outside.
14 people.
Everyone’s expressions changed slightly.
Countless gazes focused on one place.
Silver Armor’s bedroom.
Only Silver Armor hadn’t shown up. Wu Jin didn’t hesitate to go and knock on the door, but he received no response. All of a sudden, a trainee screamed in horror, “Look!”
On the ground, there were strange, bright red bloodstains that extended from Silver Armor’s bedroom, out along the crack in the door, then through to the corridor. It pointed towards––
Some trainees rubbed at the goosebumps on their arms and turned pale.
“It points in the direction of the studio.” Leica spoke in a muffled tone.
“It’s just red paint.” Wu Jin got down on one knee and touched the marks.
“Kick open the door.” To one side, Wang Shu’s words were concise and to the point. He gestured for Wu Jin to make way.
Silver Armor’s room was locked from the inside, and the windows were closed. It was like a textbook perfect secret room. However, under the joint efforts of the four trainees, Silver Armor’s wooden bedroom door finally couldn’t hold up and was kicked open. Wu Jin frowned and looked up.
Everyone sucked in a cold breath.
The bedroom was a mess, and a silver life-saving capsule stood still in the center of the spacious dormitory.
Silver Armor… had been eliminated.
“I said before, K hates people who don’t follow the rules… even if it’s a locked, secret room, he can still manage to kill Silver Armor…”
“Is K, is K a ghost…”
Wu Jin bowed his head slightly. Countless seemingly unrelated clues mixed around in his mind, as though leading him around and around into a dead end. The scene of Silver Armor in the corridor a few hours ago flashed back and forth in his memory.
It was impossible.
It was a locked bedroom. It was impossible.
Wu Jin retreated outside. Leica was already standing outside the door.
Nicholas was immersed in the joy of other people’s deaths having nothing to do with him, “Brother Wang––”
Wu Jin and Leica spoke at the same time, “To the training room.”
Nicholas: “What? It’s the middle of the night!”
Leica shot Wu Jin a probing glance, then took the initiative again, “The paint extends in the direction of the training room. K is leading us over. Let’s go, everyone together.”
––Even if K was one of the people among them.
No one objected.
K could be anyone. As long as they were alone, there was the possibility that they would be eliminated next. The group of people swept down the corridor, and the scattered red paint on the ground looked like a horror movie in the dark night.
The door to the training room was already open.
Leica was the first to go in, followed by Wu Jin.
Wu Jin hadn’t yet stepped through the door when he saw Leica’s arm tremble. He stabilized himself quickly, but it seemed that he’d been greatly impacted––
On the white wall of the room, the fingerprints belonging to the contestants had been covered thoroughly with red paint, like a pool of blood.
In the middle of the bloodstain was a pale, bloody face!
Wu Jin’s eyebrows jumped up.
It was a face that had been completely torn off. It was stuck to the wall, like the eliminated person was built into the blood red wall and would never be able to live again.
He recognized this face.
It was handsome and was worthy of its place as 9th place in the talent show for appearance.
Silver Armor.
“9.” There was a trembling voice from behind him.
Wu Jin turned back.
On the other wall, a brand new number had been written under the ‘15’ that had been smeared away by Silver Armor earlier.
9.
There were 14 people in the training room.
“The King… King of Hearts is angry.” Someone shuddered and spoke, “He’s going to execute five people next time.”
Juurensha: Aw, I feel bad for Silver Armor.
xiin: the King of Hearts sounds like some sort of scary joker o.o
Thanks for the chapter! 💕💕
I thought for sure Leica was the King of Hearts, but now I don’t think so. Or else he is, and the person doing the killing is the real person behind the King of Hearts’ reputation.
how are they so sure that its the king of hearts like seriously
King of hearts….sounds like a serial killer tbh or the ghost in a horror instance. 😂😂😂😂
thanks for the chapter!
Ah wait now I remember smth like ”first owner of this identity” i wonder if its got smth to do with that…maybe SA died during the first set of knocks, then the killer went to wear SA’s face when he went out of SA’s room.
”There was a bang!” then SA’s room door opened at the same time hmmm🤔🤔
Oh yeah thats plausible
You might be onto something. So the “killer” might be changing identities to hide himself.
everyone is like “king of hearts” this “king of hearts” that. i haven’t even met him yet but i’ve had enough of him LMAOOO
also didn’t the rules before the match started kind of indicate that you can switch identities??? so who knows, silver armour could have swapped masks with someone… or well anyone could have
Yeah the King of Hearts is really annoying me even though the trainees were the one that mentioned him
Even the super smart Wu jin became stupid in the game.
Oh no! I was rooting for Silver Armor. Poor guy was eliminated too early, he wont move forward in the competition. I’m loving the horror show feel of this.
Thanks for the chapter!
How can they be so sure that it’s the King of Hearts?? I mean just because the killer went on a killing spree?? There are a lot of people that can do that!!!
everytime the king of the hearts was mentioned, i felt like he was kind of a lore that was used by adults to scare children
Please for a moment there I started to wonder if the king of hearts mentioned was the player of a serial killer
lmao for real!!! 😆😆
Oh, now I felt like it is Nicholas. He is the only one that provide alibi that the knocks are 14 times and he had been suspicious since beginning. So could it be KoH really is quite weak and depended on dirty tricks? I mean Nicholas muscle mass that Wu Jin calculation based on tactile sense….
i feel like the king of hearts might be like the ghost girl in scumbag system. you know, kill someone, take their identity, and then pretend you’re dead, and find the next target while disguised as someone else. something like that.
I dislike how king of hearts is making the show out to be his personal show and a stepping stone why is being such a show off 😒 is this show his personal playground or something 😑