Then, not waiting for Shen Mu’s following questions, Liu Bo told the entire story: “We were all Professor Niu’s students at the Network Management Center. I don’t know why, but Professor Niu was in a bad mood that day and you just happened to provoke his temper. The professor erupted in anger, preparing to take you to the electric shock room ‘to teach a lesson.’ Speaking up to here, Liu Bo suddenly became silent, his voice was like a stone sinking to the bottom of the sea, suddenly fading away.
However, Liu Bo once again very quickly continued to say: “He…Xu Wenhao spoke up for you and was dragged to the electric shock room together with you, by Professor Niu. Then, it was not long before we heard that an accident had occurred. You and Xu Wenhao were both taken to the hospital, and Xu Wenhao, he…”
Speaking to here, Liu Bo’s eyes seemingly became red, but he did not stop, and continued to say: “Xu Wenhao could not be rescued, he…died. Shen Mu, you still consistently remained under observation. And though you did not die, you also did not regain consciousness.”
Speaking up to here, Liu Bo smiled mockingly at himself: “In fact, it happened only a week ago. Xu Wenhao’s family had some power, so Professor Niu was not able to suppress it and the dark secrets behind the Network Management Center were naturally exposed. We all came out, but did not expect to enter this Suspended Life Game just after leaving. Probably even the heavens want me to die!” After saying this, Liu Bo’s face revealed a somewhat murky aura of death.
Hearing the truth of the matter, Shen Mu felt perplexed in his heart. Having this kind of reason behind his amnesia was completely out of his expectations.
It seems that the reason behind my amnesia, and the stimulation of Professor Niu’s excessive electric shocks cannot be separated…Shen Mu was somewhat desponded, and could not help but ridicule in his mind: on what basis does the system of this Suspended Life Game choose players? Perhaps through random draws…How could a patient who was seriously injured and in a coma also become a player?
Liu Bo did not seem to be in a good mood. He looked at Shen Mu with a complex emotion in his eyes, it was unknown what he was thinking about.
Shen Mu could vaguely feel, that this was related to the other victim, Xu Wenhao. Thinking about it, he comforted Liu Bo: “Liu Bo, don’t panic, I have carefully read the rules of the game, it is not too strict. Especially for the town side, where the number of people are relatively more and the difficulty is also relatively less.”
Pausing for a while, Shen Mu once again said: “Moreover… you should also be able to feel it, this so-called Suspended Life Game, should possess supernatural powers.”
“Yes.” Contrary to one’s expectations, Liu Bo answered very quickly, “A moment before, I was still walking on the street. In the next instant, I had appeared on the bed in that room, with an excess of information about this game appearing in my mind. It is completely impossible to do this based on the current technology!” Near the end, Liu Bo’s mood once again became faintly excited.
It turned out that they were conscious when entering the game. Shen Mu, without batting an eyelash, continued to say: “So, perhaps after obtaining the victory of the game, it is possible to fulfill a desire that can not be realized realistically? Of course, these are all speculations, it could also be something ordinary like returning…”
Before Shen Mu finished speaking, Liu Bo slammed his fist against the hard window beside him, making a heavy noise: “Yes, yes! It is said to be like this in the novels!” Liu Bo gasped with excitement: “It must be like this! Victors can satisfy their heart desires or perhaps even acquire super powers!” The way that he looked at Shen Mu also changed: “Good brother, thank you!”
Shen Mu smiled and said: “This is nothing, when you calm down you would have also guess it yourself. Probably because I have amnesia and there is nothing to worry about, so my train of thought is clearer. However, what kind of existence the Suspended Life Game is exactly, I think only after passing this preliminary game, am I qualified to know.”
After Liu Bo has a goal in his heart, his mood is much better than before. Seeing Shen Mu mention the matter regarding his own memory loss and his mood was somewhat low, he also actively comforted Shen Mu: “You shouldn’t worry too much. When you win, you can make a wish to restore your memory. However, recovering your memory is not necessarily……forget about it, your matters are not up to me to decide”
Shen Mu did not actually care much about Liu Bo’s vagueness. Seeing that Liu Bo was in a much better mood, Shen Mu casually asked: “Oh by the way, brother, do you know how long I have stayed at Professor Niu’s Network Management?”
Liu Bo answered very quickly: “You came in July, roughly about three months. Right, now it is early November in 2019.
“Then, in this case,” Shen Mu asked the real question in his heart. “It’s not as if I had just recently arrived at Professor Niu’s Network Management Center, I should have already been fully aware of Professor Niu’s rules, and will not ask for trouble by violating a taboo. Why did I suddenly cause Professor Niu to make this kind of dead hand?”
Liu Bo’s eyes flashed, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. After seeing Shen Mu’s firm look, he also seemed to think that regarding Shen Mu’s own affairs, he should still say it aloud. Opening his mouth, he said: “Shen Mu, you are a homosexual. When you first arrived, you were also educated by Professor Niu in order to ‘treat the illness’. Later, your ‘illness’ was cured, and Professor Niu no longer attentively watched over you anymore. This time, I don’t know why, Professor Niu suddenly targeted you again, saying that someone had lied to him, making him very angry. Pretending that his illness has already been cured, when in fact…”
Liu Bo did not finish speaking, but his meaning was very clear.
Shen Mu’s heart was apprehensive: there must be an abnormality in what happened.
Liu Bo’s voice dropped: “Then…he…Xu Wenhao actually stood up and openly challenged Professor Niu, saying that homosexuality is not an illness.” Liu Bo’s voice sounded like he was both laughing and crying. “That stupid, could it be that he can rebel against Professor Niu?!”
Shen Mu already knew the final result, his heart was heavily pressured by a large piece of stone. Liu Bo’s voice rang again: “You shouldn’t think too much. You and Xu Wenhao are not familiar at all. Xu Wenhao is my roommate. He is a steel straight man, and standing up is purely because of the sense of justice in his heart. He is precisely this kind of man, and staying at Professor Niu’s place for a month did not cause his heart to change at all. I originally thought… I should have…”
Liu Bo’s voice became lower and lower, until it was a murmur, almost inaudible.
Xu Wenhao was a straight man, what about you?
Shen Mu somewhat recognizes the answer in his heart, not asking further.
Seeing that Shen Mu did not have much of a reaction, Liu Bo became somewhat hesitant instead: “You have nothing you want to ask?”
Shen Mu shook his head: “No matter what, I am very grateful to Xu Wenhao for being willing to help me, speaking up for the homosexuality. He is a brave person, and I admire him very much.”
It is irrational to openly defy Professor Niu under his□□centralized power. Apart from being tortured physically and even psychologically, there aren’t any good outcomes. But if you can compromise on anything due to fear of torture, even if you remain alive, even if you don’t become a walking corpse, perhaps you will have difficulty arousing any inner courage for the rest of your life.
But perhaps no one could have predicted Professor Niu’s unbalanced use of force. Xu Wenhao, who had fiercely resisted, was killed by the electric shocks. Shen Mu, who was seriously injured, also became critically ill and fell into a coma. Professor Niu fell from power and the other students survived this dangerous situation and escaped.
Shen Mu’s answer made Liu Bo’s expression become even more tangled. After hesitating a few times, he still ultimately asked: “…You… don’t have any thoughts regarding whether or not you are gay?”
“No.” Shen Mu replied straightforwardly.
Looking at Liu Bo’s complicated expression, Shen Mu thought a while before adding, “Sexual orientation is an innate disposition. If it is then it is, if it’s not then it’s not, there is nothing to feel entangled about.”
Seeing that Liu Bo’s eyebrows were still tightly knitted, Shen Mu patted his shoulders: “Well then, now is not the time to think about this. Have you ever thought that, amongst the 12 players, you and I are both from the Network Management Center of Professor Niu, then the remaining 10 players, could they also be students of Professor Niu?”
” Yes , there’s a possibility!” Liu Bo became shocked. “Come, let’s go downstairs and have a look!”
“Oh right, Liu Bo.” On the way down the stairs, Shen Mu said, “Thank you for telling me about my past. I want to ask you for a favour. Could you please not mention my amnesia to anyone else?”
“Sure.” Liu Bo quickly promised, and did not probe any further.
Shen Mu and Liu Bo’s rooms are on the second floor. Altogether, there are four rooms on the second floor, along with one restaurant. Shen Mu’s room was right next to the stairs, which was the outmost room of the building and Liu Bo’s room was close to Shen Mu’s. There was a silver house number on each of the rooms, and there are two other rooms, with one of them, No. 11, right next to Liu Bo’s and the other, No. 10, next to the restaurant. Past the restaurant was the other end of the 2nd floor, where there are stairs leading upstairs and downstairs.
After gaining a brief understanding of the entire structure, Shen Mu and Liu Bo came down from the staircase next to the restaurant to the first floor, where the gaming lounge mentioned in the rules was located.
The gaming lounge’s main tone was white, but the lighting was a yellow tone, giving off a repressive feeling. In the center of the lounge was a large round table with 12 circular stools. There was a distinct floating silver number for each position on the table, with the digits emitting a soft silvery light that seemed to imply that every player’s situation is based on”survival”.
There are two large soft sofas in the lounge, and as expected, some players have already arrived.
There were a total of 5 people, all of whom were pretty young, three men and two women.
A young girl with a short ponytail, although she was sitting with a look of eagerness, she seemed to be a high school student;
A girl with shoulder length chestnut curls, with a somewhat reserved look, seemed to be a college student;
A tall and robust boy, seeming to possess good physical fitness, also looked very handsome;
A boy stood next to the girl with the short ponytail, he looked to be older than her by a few years, and the two seemed to be quite intimate;
The last man was older than these youths, looking to be around 30, probably already working.
Seeing the two new arrivals, the five people simultaneously stopped their discussion and sized them up and down. Their gaze lingered on the faces and badges for a while. The tall and robust young man took the initiative to express welcome: “Hello, I am the No. 4 player, Yang Ge.”
No. 4? Right next to him in the order of speech. Shen Mu took particular note of Yang Ge, but he just happened to meet Yang Ge’s gaze. The other person’s line of sight swept across the “3” on Shen Mu’s chest, before introducing the others: “This is Jiang Shuyi, a junior sister from C City’s University of Commerce.”
“H-, hello! ” The girl with chestnut curls, No. 2 Jiang Shuyi, nervously greeted them, her eyes were faintly red.
“This is Big Brother Zhang Ji.”
The slightly older youth, Zhang Ji, nodded: “I’m the boss of a fried chicken shop. Next door is the tea shop opened by my wife, and at night, sometimes people would be playing board games there. I have also played a few rounds of the Killing Game, but I never thought that one day I would enter the real life version.”
The girl with the short ponytail who seemed to be a high school student stood up from where she sat on the sofa and introduced herself: “My name is Li Fengmei, 17 years old, sophomore. This is my brother Li Xuesong, he’s five years older than me.” She lightly smiled and turned her head to the boy standing next to her, and said, “I have played the Killing Game before with my roommates. I hope we can both get town roles, win together and survive!”
Li Fengmei, Li Xuesong…good names.
Teenager Li Fengmei’s confident aura slightly livened up the surrounding atmosphere. Yang Ge admiringly glanced at Li Fengmei and nodded his assent: “Yes, town’s victory, 9 people have hope for survival, I hope that we can all get town roles!”
Jiang Shuyi was not influenced by the atmosphere, her mood became even more downcast than before: “But if you get the killer role, aren’t you pretty much done for? …Even if, even if you draw a town role, the game regulations aren’t necessarily the same as the ones we are used to playing.”
“…And even if…I don’t know how to play at all…” Jiang Shuyi softy sobbed.
“Don’t worry about it.” On the contrary, it was the younger Li Fengmei who patted the back of Jiang Shuyi next to her. “From what we know currently, the probability of this being the same as the Killing Game that we often play is very likely. And if not, we will soon know the rules of the game, so don’t give yourself so much pressure.”
“That’s right,” Shen Mu continued to say, “Looking at it now, even if the rules do change, it will still be a logic social deduction game. And the regulations also state, that we are forbidden to carry out violent physical attacks, so don’t be too scared, you can only win if you stabilize your emotions.”
“Thank-, thank you…” Jiang Shuyi uneasily looked at the big round table that will be used for the discussions, seeming to be have been consoled, yet she seemed to become even more frightened.
Following this, Shen Mu and Liu Bo also introduced themselves as ordinary college students.
At this time, Li Xuesong glanced at his watch and said: “It’s already 5:50, it has been 50 minutes since we came in. The others still haven’t arrived, should we go looking for them?”
“How can this be so easily accepted…” Jiang Shuyi unreconciledly stated, but her tone was not strong.
Some people may not be able to accept that they were selected by the Suspended Life Game, but the power of the Suspended Life Game that transcends reality, causes the players to be unable to question its power and regulations.
“Do you guys think that we are physically in this space, or are our bodies still left behind in reality?” Li Fengmei said thoughtfully.
Li Xuesong patted his sister’s shoulders, shaking his head while saying, “Currently, we still have too little information. No matter what, we must first pass this so-called preliminary game!”
Just as the crowd was discussing, new footsteps are sounded at the entrance.
Timeless Translations 