Monopoly
Everybody’s position within this temporary team was quite clear, and amongst them, the most obvious ones were Luo Qi and Qian Zhen’s positions that could be seen with a glance.
Song Gui easily assigned everybody the areas that they were responsible for, then asked, “any team should have a captain, is anybody going to recommend?”
The four of them stared at Song Gui,
and Song Gui said, “okay, I recommend Lu Chu.”Lu Chu turned to look at him, puzzled.
Song Gui patted him on the shoulder, “Lu Xiaochu, I’m optimistic about you.”
Luo Qi and others nodded, and didn’t object.
They were originally a team of several people with completely different personalities. There was no desire to control anything, and they simply wanted to live on.
While they were talking, a man that Lu Chu had never seen before passed by, all of them immediately stopped chatting. It was only after the man had left did Song Gui say, “that man’s called Zeng Ziran. I’ve worked with him before, and although he was outstanding in many aspects, he was completely indifferent to the dangers I encountered throughout the whole thing, and just stood by.”
Lu Chu nodded, and kept that in his heart.
Song Gui told everyone the task number, and soon, the time on Lu Chu’s bracelet was about to end so he bid the others goodbye and left the illusion.
Lu Chu stood before the floating rules,
entered in the number that Song Gui told them, and looked at the tips for the task with countless guesses in his mind.“Requirements: Complete the game and reach the end.
Clues: Monopoly
Tips: Trust me, luck is your best support.”
He chose to enter the ‘game’ without hesitation.
.
After entering the ‘game’, to Lu Chu’s surprise, he felt a strange sense of familiarity.
At this moment, he was sitting at a round wooden table with a total of five chairs around it, and one of the chairs was being occupied by him. Looking around, he could see the bluish black walls, and looking up, there was a spiral staircase heading towards the distant and pointed top. Everything around him resembled the tall tower that he and 7 had entered together when they first met.
With this sense of familiarity, Lu Chu couldn’t help but think of how everything used to be; his loving parents, the obedient Carrot, and his peaceful retirement-like lifestyle.
Lu Chu soon returned to his senses, and didn’t let himself stay in his memories for too long. What he needed to do now was to look forward, and live well. He’d promised his parents, and 7.
Soon, the other four people appeared on their own seats one after another.
After all five of them arrived, the table in front of them immediately started to change. The center of the round table sunk in, and a slightly concave square slowly floated up. There were connected squares around the perimeter of the square, with different symbols floating above each one – a bomb, a heart, ferocious monsters, and on the last square of the grid was a huge, shining golden crown.
At the same time, a dice appeared in everybody’s hands, and there was a piece of paper under the dice, the note stated – a warm reminder, even if you’re in a team, only one player per round will be able to roll the dice.
When she saw this, Yuan Kejie laughed, “the clue was Monopoly, and they’re really letting us play Monopoly?”
Lu Chu took the dice and observed it carefully, and shook his head, “it’s definitely not that simple. Looking at the symbols on this grid, I think that after we throw out the die, it’s very likely that it will be projected into reality.”
Luo Qi was very short, and her feet couldn’t even touch the ground when sitting on the chair. She stretched out her neck to look at the grid on the table, and then simply jumped onto the table nimbly after deciding that it was too much effect.
Squatting on the table, she stretched out her fingers and counted one by one, “one, two, three, four…… fifty-two, other than the starting point, there’s a total of fifty-two squares.”Song Gui leaned back against the chair, threw the dice in his hand into the air and caught it. He said, “when I saw this mission, I had the same idea that Lu Xiaochu just analyzed. This type of real-life monopoly game, don’t you think it’s very exciting?”
Qian Zhen objectively evaluated, “only you think so.”
Lu Chu looked through the fifty-two squares one by one, then said, “there’s no floating images on some of the squares, which means that if the number thrown reaches this place, it will not trigger unexpected events, and will be ‘normal.’ However, who knows what’s the standard for ‘normal’ in this ‘game’. The one with a heart symbol is outlined with pink, while the outline of the others are black. This shows that the heart will trigger something ‘good’, but there’s only two of them, so the possibility of getting them is very small. The number that needs to be thrown in Monopoly is inversely proportional to the number of rounds that needs to be played, so the higher we roll, the fewer rounds we need to go through, and the lower the risks we need to take. From these two points, luck is a very important thing.”
When Song Gui heard this, he caught the dice and held it in his hand. With his hands on the table, he looked at the other four people, “remember what the ‘rules’ said – Trust me, luck is your best support.’ Monopoly is a game that can prove that you’re a lucksack1 Original text uses欧洲人(also the Chinese word for Europeans), which is a slang for a lucky person (usually in games). Since it’s a slang term, lucksack sort of works, how about it? Who here thinks that they’re the luckiest person?”
Nobody answered.
Song Gui smiled and continued, “so, who wants to try it first?”
Just as he said that, the dice in Luo Qi’s hand had already been thrown onto the middle of the table, after the dice took a few beautiful turns, it safely stopped – on a three.
Luo Qi sneered, “I suspect it’s cheating.”
Song Gui raised his eyebrow, “you delayed my six.”
Luo Qi didn’t care, “it’s impossible.”
Yuan Kejie went along and said, “then after Qiqi, each of us will throw a round, then we’ll go to the next one.”
There was no objection.
Just as they were talking,
the things on the table started to change, and five paper people appeared at the start of the Monopoly grid. They floated forward together, then stopped at the third grid. There wasn’t an image above the third square, and this was the ‘normal’ that Lu Chu referred to.This was good. They would be able to see what would happen if they didn’t trigger something more dangerous.
After the five paper people stood still, a line of words appeared on the table – twenty-four hours later, the game table will appear again. Have a good game.
Next, the walls of the tower started to become transparent, slowly revealing what the outside looked like.
The five of them stood up and looked out, and the tables and chair disappeared as they did.
It was dark and gloomy outside the tower. Nature was flourishing, there were gothic buildings and houses scattered around them. The walls of those buildings were a pale bluish-gray, and green moss climbed up from the bottom of their walls. It was quiet and still around them, and together with the dark grey sky, it felt as if everything had declined and the end of the world had arrived.
Lu Chu took the lead and broke the silence, “first, let’s find an empty house for shelter, then look for some suitable weapons.”
The tower disappeared, and said it would reappear after 24 hours, but it didn’t mean that they could simply wait for a whole day to pass in this place. Anything could happen in a ‘game’, and the most unsafe thing would be to sit and wait; everybody knew this well.
Luo Qi cracked her knuckles, “where shall we go?”
They discussed for a moment, then decided to go north. The house there was the closest to them.
The sky slowly got darker, and everybody became more vigilant as they paid attention to even the slightest movements.
Once they were near the house, nobody dared to immediately enter it, but explored the outside for a while. The houses in this area were all single houses with gardens, and there were obviously no people living inside. The yards were overgrown with weeds, the trees were lush, and it looked very alive, yet it was so silent that one couldn’t even hear the sound of crickets.
The walls and gates of this yard were surrounded by an ordinary fence, and the fence was covered in thick vines, so although it got in the way, it was still an easy climb.
After confirming that there was no danger, everyone cautiously flipped over the wall into the courtyard.
Luo Qi went over and pushed the door open. It was locked.
When she saw this, Yuan Kejie stepped forward, picked up a slender bamboo stick from the ground and inserted it into the keyhole. With a few clicks, the door opened.
Lu Chu praised, “a very useful skill.”
Yuan Kejie said, “it’s really useful. If any of you wants to learn, I can teach you.”
Song Gui touched his chin, “then we’ll have to pick a safe time.”
It would be safe enough in the illusion.
They walked into the house, and Qian Zhen, who was walking at the back, didn’t forget to lock the door.
After going up and down the house to ensure that there was no danger, everybody started to search for weapons in the house that suited them.
Luo Qi only picked the largest and heaviest weapons, this time, she chose a huge shovel, and then took out a grindstone that she had gotten from goodness know where, and started to sharpen the shovel’s edge. Qian Zhen chose a fire axe, and then fixed the stick of the fire axe and an iron rod together, increasing the range of damage.
The others didn’t manage to find a weapon that suited them, so they could only take something to defend themselves first. Lu Chu took the large boning knife he found in the kitchen, and he also learnt from what Qian Zhen did and tied an iron rod to it. Song Gui found a pistol with a number of bullets, but there would be a time where the bullets would run out, so he also tied two more bladed tools at his waist. 2word used is 管制刀具 [regulated tools], which refers to a variety of tools are that regulated in China. For example, some daggers, switchblades, etc Yuan Kejie didn’t have as much strength as the others, and wielding a knife tied to a iron pipe for a long time could lead to her exhaustion, but she was more flexible, and had a variety of skills. Aafter thinking about it, she finally chose to tie a dagger to the front of a wooden stick. It was useful, only, it wasn’t as lethal.
When everyone was trying out their weapons, Lu Chu suddenly became alerted, and said, “did you guys smell that?”
Knowing that Lu Chu’s sense of smell was different from that of ordinary people, Song Gui immediately entered into a state of alert, ” what’s the matter?”
Lu Chu looked in the direction of the window, “there’s a, really unpleasant smell.”
“Bad smell?” Yuan Kejie doubted, “I don’t smell anything?”
Lu Chu explained, “just outside the window, a rotten smell, coming closer, and closer……”
Song Gui was on guard, and raised his pistol to point it in the direction of the window.
Although the others did not know what’s going on, but they quickly entered their state, and everybody became on guard.
“They’re here.” Lu Chu said.
The next moment, something started to slam against the wall, and because the windows were covered with dust, they could only see a vague shadow.
The heavy impact only occurred for a few moments. The window was smashed, and ugly monster jumped in. It was nearly two meters in height, and dark and
greasy all over, excluding the stench of decay. This monster was hunched over, and it’s long and muscular limbs made its jumping ability very strong. It had a horse-like head and mouth, and the teeth in its mouth were as sharp as an awl, as a yellow saliva that smelled like raw meat dripped down.Just as everybody was thinking about how to deal with this ugly monster, another identical monster jumped into the house from the window.
Luo Qi held the shovel in both hands, and looking at the broken glass, she said, “this house, has a shitty defense system.”
Titaaaaaan!
The group mission looks exciting!
Thank you for the chapters ♡
thank you for the chapter!
zombieeeesss~~