IWOL Chapter 81: Basic Trust

Two minutes later, two people with bloodied faces were sitting side by side on the wooden box, pinching their noses hard, and speaking in muffled voices.

“The blood contract must be lifted. If I can’t even beat you during training, it’ll be difficult to achieve results. If today’s thing happens a few more times, I’ll go crazy.”

Dong Zheng nodded. He pondered for a moment, and said, “If there is no injury but there’s pain, will you feel it too?” Cui Zuojing said, “That’s a good question.”

Before he finished talking, he stretched his hand over and pinched the piece of flesh between Dong Zheng’s thighs. Then, he twisted hard—

“Hiss!”

Dong Zheng quivered from head to toe, nearly jumping up.

Seeing his reaction, Cui Zuojing pulled his hand back in contentment and said, “Obviously not.”

The place where Cui Zuojing twisted could be said to be the most painful part of the body. Even after he’d let go, Dong Zheng could still acutely feel his excitement continued to flow in an unending stream. This place could also be considered a man’s most sensitive area.

“Then, if your performance isn’t up to standard in the future, I will pinch it for punishment.” After Cui Zuojing said this, he took the key out from his pocket and pressed it into Dong Zheng’s hand. Jumping up from the box, he said, “I’ll get treatment first. Hangzhi and Allen had already been eliminated. You have to fight quickly. After such a large nose bleed, if you delay for too long, you might go into shock.”

“Okay,” Dong Zheng responded.

Cui Zuojing waved his hand at him and walked to the door at the fork in the hallway. He pulled it open and walked directly into the wall, disappearing.

Dong Zheng didn’t delay. He immediately used the key to open the door. What greeted him was no longer an endless hallway where space was folded. He walked into the empty room, with a key resting in the middle of the floor. When he bent down to pick up the key, his head became dizzy. It was most likely due to constant blood loss. As Cui Zuojing had said, he must speed up.

A few seconds after he retrieved the key, a black door slowly emerged from the empty wall. Dong Zheng opened the door and walked through. He found himself in a square room about a quarter of a football field. There were many picture frames hanging on the walls, all portraits of different people. Not far from his left hand side, he saw a middle-aged man with short platinum blonde hair and purple eyes. He was tall, with a deep silhouette and a high nose, with the facial features typical of Eastern Slavic people.

He looked somewhat familiar. Since he looked Russian, could this be Victor? Dong Zheng took a closer look.

The man in the painting had a pair of violet eyes. This eye color formed by genetic mutation was extremely rare. There were only a few hundred people in the world with this eye color, which could be considered one of the most beautiful eye colors in the world. The faces of the people on the other paintings were different. Dong Zheng also saw a portrait of the black-haired girl in the distance—the girl he’d recently seen on the paintings that hung in the hallway, and that he’d seen in his dreams. The current Prisoner of Dreams and Cui Zuojing’s former teammate, Luo Yan.

Dong Zheng quickly glanced around and slowly frowned. This place wasn’t quite right.

**************

Dong Linhai walked down the dark and muddy sewer with Wang Que on his back. Wang Que was very quiet, but from time to time, she would let out two uncontrollable sounds like she was choking back sobs. She was crying. Although she didn’t vent with words, Dong Linhai could still feel the collapse and pain that she was unable to hide.

Dong Linhai felt really awkward. He had never been good at comforting people. His face turned red and he could only choke out seemingly insincere words like, “Don’t cry. Don’t be afraid. I’m here with you. ”

He didn’t know why Wang Que was crying.

As he explored the area step by step, the ubiquitous sense of being watched became stronger and stronger. Dong Linhai had to speed up his pace, wanting to find the key so they could leave as soon as possible. Fortunately, Wang Que was very light and didn’t put too much pressure on his back.

A sound came from behind them, as if some kind of unknown giant creature was slowly crawling over, leaving wet, sticky substances on the ground. Large and damp. Wang Que immediately flinched. Her hands resting on Dong Linhai’s shoulders clutched the his clothes, and she hesitantly wanted to look behind her.

“Don’t look back,” Dong Linhai whispered to her in a firm tone. He was actually also quite scared. Goosebumps prickled all over his body, causing him to almost fall down. But, this was a good opportunity to display his masculinity and, besides, he couldn’t let the girl watch a good joke, right?

Wang Que held the flashlight, illuminating the blood that was oozing from above, as if the sewer was alive and injured.

Dong Linhai ran in large strides, not caring if his movements were too loud. He ran all the way for more than a thousand meters, made three turns, and finally saw light ahead. A semi-circular iron railing separated the sewer from the outside world, and one meter away from the railing was a key. Dong Linhai put Wang Que down and immediately knelt on the ground. He stretched his arm out between the railing to reach the key.

Gu ji, gu ji…

The wet, squishy sound behind them got closer and closer, followed by the muffled noises of the behemoth hitting the side wall of the sewer because it was moving too fast. Wang Que finally saw the thing that had been hiding in the darkness, following them and peeping at them. Her pupils shrank sharply and she began to scream uncontrollably!

Dong Linhai grasped the key. The railing in front of him gradually disappeared the moment he held the key. Wang Que’s screams sounded in his ears, mixed with some other strange scalp-tingling sounds. Dong Linhai didn’t even turn his head back. He simply grabbed Wang Que’s wrist in a backhand and directly pulled her out of the sewer!

In an instant, the weirdly thick and sticky sound, the indescribably fishy smell, and the dark chill that emitted from that thing was gone. Everything disappeared.

They found themselves standing in a hallway. If it weren’t for the mud on their clothes and shoes, no one would believe that they were in the sewer a second ago. Dong Linhai was still gripping the key tightly in his hand. He and Wang Que looked at each other, took a few deep breaths to calm their frantic heartbeats, walked to the end of the hallway, and opened the door.

They walked into a room full of portraits. Dong Linhai saw a bloody face across the room at a glance. He was taken aback and immediately recognized Dong Zheng. He breathed a sigh of relief and his tension eased. “Brother, how come you’re covered in blood? How long have you been here?”

“Not long before I arrived, I ran into Cui Zuojing on the way and finally threw him away.” Dong Zheng kept one hand in his jacket pocket. He stared at a painting on the wall, frowned slightly, and said, “This painting seems to be a little wrong. Linhai, come over and take a look.”

“What’s wrong?” Dong Linhai walked toward Dong Zheng unsuspectingly.

Wang Que noticed that something was off and stretched out her hand to pull his sleeve. But she hesitated at the last moment. Her fingertips only ended up brushing against his cuff, unable to grab hold of him. So, she could only watch as Dong Linhai walked away step by step.

“Be careful!” She blurted out.

Dong Zheng turned his head and looked at Dong Linhai, who was walking toward him. Dong Linhai saw helplessness in his eyes and couldn’t understand it.

Dong Linhai: ??

Before he could react, a whole piece of floor tile gave out underneath his feet.

The teen felt his whole body become suspended. Then, before he could even scream, he fell, disappearing right in front of Wang Que and Dong Zheng.

Wang Que: “…..”

She frowned slowly. Unlike Dong Linhai, after entering the room, she immediately observed their surroundings and found that the entire room was full of various traps. Just now, when Dong Linhai walked past, his foot brushed against a thin, almost transparent line. If it weren’t for the faint reflection under the light, Wang Que wouldn’t even have seen it.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” As his surroundings changed rapidly, Dong Linhai opened his mouth to scream. Then, he found himself sitting on a thick carpet in the living room. Allen and Lin Hangzhi were already on the sofa, waiting for the final test result.

When Allen jumped out of the window on the high wall and fell on Lin Hangzhi just below, it was extremely terrifying. Fortunately, Lin Hangzhi always wore his newly purchased armor. Apart from a slight internal injury, he wasn’t killed. However, Allen unfortunately twisted his ankle. Although they supported each other, they couldn’t hold on for long under Fu Zhe’s test and Cui Zuojing’s pursuit, and they were eliminated before they could find the key.

Seeing Dong Linhai also came out, Allen shrugged his shoulders, stretched out his hand, and said, “I think the final winner must be Dong Zheng. After all, he’s the captain.”

Dong Linhai sat for a while and finally reacted. He yelled in disbelief, “I was cheated by my brother! He actually cheated me?!”

Lin Hangzhi said, “In the end, there is only one winner. Of course, we have to PK each other. Xiao Cui said so when he first explained the rules. Didn’t you know?”

“I know, but, but—“

“But you didn’t expect Dong Zheng to knock you out of the game without even saying hello?” Fu Zhe smiled at the conversation and said, “Your older brother is a mature adult. In the Pure White Realm, even your most trusted partner and teammate may sometimes give you a knife when you are most relaxed, and for unexpected reasons. So no matter who it is, no matter under what circumstances, you must have the most basic vigilance.”

“What is this? If you don’t have trust, can you still be teammates?” Dong Linhai frowned, and in his heart he didn’t agree with Fu Zhe’s words. “Brother Fu, is it the same with you, Cui Zuojing and Victor? You have always been on guard against each other?”

Fu Zhe patiently explained, “The most basic trust between teammates is not equal to unconditional trust. We trust each other, but this is based on relying on your own logic to judge that the other party’s behavior is normal. Dong Zheng actually gave you a hint, but you ignored the abnormality in his behavior.”

Dong Linhai:…………………

He stopped talking.

Dong Zheng’s tone when he said that he “just threw away Cui Zuojing” when they first met was indeed a bit wrong, and Wang Que’s hesitation was also a sign. But he didn’t think about it. At this moment, he felt uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable.

At the same time, the tile that eliminated Dong Linhai was restored to its original state. The tiles that Dong Zheng and Wang Que were on turned blue and pink respectively, and in the center of the room, a trophy appeared out of thin air.

Fu Zhe’s voice came from nowhere. “As you can see, only you two have successfully reached the final room. Let’s make a game decision as to who the final winner will be.”

“There are many 30×30 floor tiles in the room, with 800 pieces that will trigger the mechanism. During each round, I will provide certain clues. You need to carefully observe and use logic to judge which piece is safe. When you’ve decided, go and stand on the piece. But, to reach it, you can only walk forward or diagonally to the adjacent tile. Whoever can get the trophy first is the winner.”

—————————-
Xixi: Cui Zuojing has a tendency to render me speechless. But, I’m not too confident that I translated the part that was being pinched correctly. It could be Dong Zheng’s male part or it could be his inner thigh. I’m leaning more towards inner thigh.

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