7’s words made Lu Chu’s heart skip a beat, but it didn’t seem to be in fear.
Immediately after that, in a tone that seemed more like a statement than a question, 7 said, “you what to know what 7 represents.”
Lu Chu naturally nodded.
7 leaned against back against the chair, puckered his pale lips, and said, “I used to be a player.”
This had been one of his original guesses, Lu Chu realised.
“By itself, the number 7 doesn’t have much meaning,” 7 continued, “it’s just me thinking that compared to remembering the things connected to the name I had in the past, what I should be remembering is a method or survive, and after a long time, I really forgot my name. ‘7’ is nothing but the number of the ‘rule’ that I belong to.”
“The number of the ‘rule’?” Lu Chu had just learnt from Song Gui that many different rules existed, and now, he found out that they each had their own numbers. Suddenly, he had a lot more questions about their existence.
“Yes,” 7 answered, “each and every ‘rule’ has its own exact number. The larger the number, the younger the ‘rule’. The ‘rule’ that you belong to is number 413.”
Lu Chu couldn’t help but frown when he heard this, “7, is a number really close to the front.”
“It is. The ‘rules’ coexist with the ‘player’, and each ‘rule’ will have a limited amount of time to select a certain amount of players. After that time, the number of people in the rules can no longer be changed. The players then have to continuously participate in the game, until they all die, and the corresponding ‘rule’ will also be erased. After that, naturally, they’ll be new rules to replace it.” Saying until this point, 7 half lowered his strange eyes, “and the first six rules, have all been wiped out.”
“The ‘rules’ itself doesn’t want to be destroyed.”
Hearing until this point, Lu Chu said part of his what he had guessed out, “so, in order to not be destroyed, your ‘rules’ protected you?”
7 shook his head, “it doesn’t have that strong sense of autonomy. I’m the only person who survived under the ‘rule’ numbered 7, and because everybody can’t repeat a task, one day, I realised I’ve completed all the single-player tasks.”
Lu Chu swallowed, “all?”
The corner of 7’s lips hooked up, and he nodded his head slightly, “all.”
Lu Chu wasn’t sure what it would be like to finish all the single-person tasks, but he knew of people gave up on living after one game. For example, the middle-aged man who could never enter the illusion anymore.
“There was only me left under the same ‘rule’, and there was no way to undertake multi-people tasks, and single-person tasks can’t be repeated. The ‘rules’ and I fell into an awkward situation, and afterwards, the ‘rules’ were given new instructions from something I don’t know. Then, I became somebody who went into different games to eliminate the unstable factor.”
7’s red and bloodshot eyes stared at Lu Chu, “and after that, a long time passed.”
Until the point he became more and more numb, executing his orders like a machine, without saying a single word. He forgot about most things, and only had combat and a survival instinct left.
Lu Chu knew from what 7 had said, that for whatever reason, 7 had undertaken the role of eliminating unstable factors from inside the ‘game’ for a long time, and he was one of the roles that he had once needed to eliminate.
But even if he found out that they were on opposite sides at the start, Lu Chu still used a calm tone towards him, because he knew that 7 didn’t hold any malice towards him, “why did you let me go?”
Strictly speaking, not only did 7 let him go, but also saved him. Although right now, he still hadn’t figured out everything about the ‘rules’, but, 7 must have definitely paid a price for letting him go, telling him how to leave that ‘game’, to get rid of that ‘insider’ identity, and the method of becoming at player.
Why did you let me go?
When 7 heard this, he remembered about the first time he saw Lu Chu.
At that time, he received the order to eliminate ‘Lu Chu’, in ‘The Senseless City’, so he entered into that game.
When they first met, Lu Chu was going out to shop. Under the setting sun, Lu Chu strolled along the clean streets of the town, with a leash in his hand as Carrot led the way in front of him. From time to time, Carrot would rub his head against Lu Chu’s legs, Lu Chu would look down, lean his ears towards the direction of Carrot’s sound, then smile and call out a ‘Carrot’.
How strange.
Clearly, he was different from everybody else, clearly he had suffered too much, clearly he was just someone in a game who would be ‘refreshed’ at any time, but why could he smile in such a warm and peaceful manner?
Just as 7 had indifferently thought so, Lu Chu seemed to have felt something, and he had realised that somebody was following him.
He only saw Lu Chu turn his head and accurately align his body in his direction, then half-lowered his eyelids, gave a small smile, and with modesty, gently nodded in his direction as a greeting, then followed Carrot and left.
That moment, 7 wanted to remember his own name.
Later, he continued to follow Lu Chu, but didn’t take action time and time again, until he was invited into the house by Lu Chu as a guest.
He stopped thinking about this matter, and there was a trace of softness in 7’s weird eyes as he said, “Lu Chu, I won’t harm you.”
.
After their conversation, Lu Chu didn’t know how to react from the large amount of information he received, so after their mealtime conversation was over, 7 led him into a room to let him have a good rest.
Lu Chu laid on the bed, remembered what they talked about, and when he entered into dreamland, his mind was full of 7 looking directly into his eyes, saying ‘Lu Chu, I won’t harm you.”
The next morning, Lu Chu woke up early, and wanted to make breakfast, but saw 7 sitting at the table in a set of clean and neat clothing, with his grey lips tightly pressed together, gracefully and politely waiting for him to dine together.
Lu Chu took his seat, greeted with a smile and a good morning.
7 asked, “did you sleep well?”
Lu Chu nodded, and casually asked, “what about the other people in the basement?”
7 handed Lu Chu a cup of hot milk, and casually, “killed them.”
Lu Chu’s action of taking the milk paused, “killed…… them?”
“En.” 7 brought the cup filled with milk to Lu Chu’s lips, fed him, then passed another sandwich to him, before he said, “it’s something that’ll happen sooner or later, because the character that I’m replacing, has to kill a person every day before confronting the player.”
When 7 spoke until this point, Lu Chu understood.
On the thirteenth day, the kidnapper would choose the player for the ‘surgery’. Before that, he didn’t stop playing this game every day, and every day, there would be a person selected for surgery. This meant that before Lu Chu was caught and until he was selected, there would be 12 other victims.
7 couldn’t go against the ‘personality’ of the role he was replacing, but there wasn’t any need to kill them one by one, so wouldn’t he get rid of all of them at once.
Lu Chu didn’t know how many times 7 had to do such a thing, before he could say out the fact that he had killed the twelve people in the basement so calmly.
Someone who became numb to killing.
If this was any other person, Lu Chu didn’t know what kind of judgement he would make, but the one who did this was 7, so after Lu Chu was at a loss for a moment, he only felt his heart ache.
Lu Chu paused for a moment, and thought to himself, this was probably what biasness was.
The translator has this to add:
Apologies for taking a longer time to updates, been busy with irl stuff recently.
Thank you for the update! I hope all is well with you
thank you for the chapter! DOn’t worry about the updates, RL is always the first. Aww love at first sight