Chapter 128: Deadlock

Within just ten minutes of the game rules being announced, hundreds had met sudden deaths. Some lost in the roulette game; others panicked and tried to flee beyond the black-and-white wheel’s boundary, only to die as a result. To prevent panic from triggering a new wave of suicides, the government was forced to use force to seal tens of thousands of people inside the roulette area and evacuate nearby residents.

“…Please stay where you are and do not move. Rescue personnel have entered the containment zone. The state will not abandon a single person…” The government announcement looped across phones, intercut with footage of rescuers entering the sealed area. Xu Huo could tell that although their uniforms matched, some of their movements and postures were clearly untrained.

They were players.

The government wanted to use players to draw attention and buy time—time to find the underlying cause and cut it off at its root. At this point, someone had almost certainly started sneaking toward the skyscraper.

Xu Huo glanced at his train ticket. Except for the next departure five hours later to the Brick Fairy Tale Town stop, all other tickets were at least five days away. If outside-zone players were still scattered across the world, the timeline could be extended by several days. But now, the organization calling itself the Phantom Sound Knights had, for unknown reasons, lured a large number of players to Harbor City. If no Super Item appeared within three days, these people would vent their anger on Harbor City—or even the whole country.

His original plan had been to disguise himself as an outside-zone player, snatch the Super Item, then escape via the dungeon to divert players from all zones. As long as the Super Item could no longer appear in Zone 014, the crisis would be resolved. Even if more outside-zone players arrived later, it wouldn’t result in a mass gathering of high-level players.

But now there had been an unexpected turn. He was trapped in the Black and White Life-and-Death Game. If this was indeed a dungeon, then the train ticket might be unusable—and then there’d be no chance to shift focus. To test whether a ticket could get someone out of the life-and-death game was simple: watch if other players managed to escape, or use Wang Chaoqing as an experiment. But whether that succeeded or failed, he couldn't leave for the moment. If he escaped through the dungeon, he wouldn’t be able to return to Zone 014 for at least several days—and who knew what would happen in those days.

Also, because of the Phantom Sound Knights, Harbor City was no longer suitable for him to carry out his plan. So even if the government had surely sent people to hunt down the instigators, he still had to find another way to get out of the Black and White Life-and-Death Game first.

“Wait, wait—how long do we have to wait?” Wang Chaoqing, unable to get the train ticket from him, slammed a cup in a fury.

Xu Huo lifted his eyelids to look at him, then returned his gaze to his phone. Seeing him silent, Wang Chaoqing had to relent and came over. “Brother, think of something. We can’t just sit here and wait to die.”

“There’s nothing better than waiting right now,” Xu Huo said. Unless the government solved the crisis, the only option was to find a way out from within the life-and-death game.

“If you can wait I can’t. I’ll snatch a ticket even if I have to steal it!” Wang Chaoqing turned to leave, but froze at the doorway when he saw the blood smeared there. He glanced back and, seeing Xu Huo make no move to stop him, his shoulders drooped. “Tell me—what do you want me to do to get the ticket?”

“Go check the skyscraper,” Xu Huo finally looked him in the face. “You don’t need to do anything else. If there are outside-zone players in the skyscraper, follow them. If not, come back.”

“That’s it?” Wang Chaoqing stared in surprise.

“Can you do anything else?” Xu Huo asked in return.

“True.” Wang Chaoqing scratched his head, took the manager’s laptop nearby, and set his hands on it.

A knock came at the door. An elderly couple stood outside. “We’re looking for somewhere to sit for a while,” they said. They were old, and after waiting outside a long time with no sign of rescuers, they needed a place to rest.

The mall seating was packed. Other shops were likewise crowded; only the store Xu Huo was in had a death—nobody came in. The manager hesitated, then opened the door, brought them inside and poured them water.

“Thank you, thank you,” the elderly pair kept saying as the manager repeated Xu Huo’s earlier explanation, adding: “If you two see the roulette wheel, watch it closely—it might save thousands.”

“Manager, that might not be right…” the female server muttered.

“You don’t understand. The more people, the greater the chance,” the manager snapped. If he hadn’t been worried about crowds, Xu Huo guessed the manager would have already run out to recruit people.

The female server was about to argue when Xu Huo cut her off. “It’s fine. The wheel should appear randomly; it doesn’t depend on crowd size.”

With that reassurance, everyone settled down again. Xu Huo checked the time once more—nearly twenty minutes had passed since the previous explosion, and no new life-and-death game had appeared…

Just as that thought crossed his mind, a male server near him suddenly sprang to his feet with a shout, knocking over a water glass.

“Roulette! Roulette!” His eyes stared blankly ahead while he flailed his arms. Before anyone could grab him or back away, his body burst into a spray of blood foam, splattering the floor and tables.

“Ahhhh!” screams exploded through the shop. Painting Woman put down her phone and shoved handfuls of tissue into people’s mouths.

“How did he die so fast?” the manager cried in horror. “Wasn’t there supposed to be a ten-minute countdown?”

“He flailed and touched the wheel,” Xu Huo said with a grim face. “The more panicked they are, the faster they die.”

“Should we just bind them up then—” The manager didn’t finish the sentence before two voices rang out: one from the female server who had been on the table earlier, and another from the old woman among the couple who had just entered.

Remembering the previous incident, Xu Huo immediately clamped down on the female server’s arms, while the old man held his wife to keep her still. Fortunately, both regained their composure relatively quickly after the initial panic. The female server, though dazed, kept babbling, “A wheel about a meter high! Standing in front… There’s a countdown… The countdown’s moving… Nine minutes fifty seconds, nine minutes forty-nine, nine minutes forty-eight…”

Xu Huo tried to bring her back to clarity, but she instinctively fixed her attention on the wheel—counting down, second by second.

“Quick! Tie her up!” the manager urged. “If it spins, they die. If it doesn’t, maybe they’ll live!”

Like waking from a dream, the others scrambled for rope and, amid the server’s countdown, bound her and the old woman to their chairs.