CH 120

Time passed in the blink of an eye, and it was Sunday.

As night fell, Yin Ren climbed into bed as usual. Zhong Chengshuo was already lying in bed, but someone disrespectfully dove forward, landing exactly on his stomach.

Zhong Chengshuo almost turned into Yellow Millet #2 as he let out a loud “puff”.

Fortunately, Lord Ghost King was able to control his weight. He felt the soft abdomen of his lover for a while, got up slowly, and kissed the tip of Zhong Chengshuo’s nose.

Now Comrade Xiao Zhong was quite good at facing this level of intimacy. He held down the back of Yin Ren’s head and rubbed Yin Ren’s nose with his cold nose, like two animals who were attached to each other.

Zhong Chengshuo’s pajamas were loose and soft, with a low collar. Even if he buttoned every button, his collarbone was still exposed. Yin Ren looked at the smooth skin stretched on the bones and suddenly had a subtle appetite.

He wanted to take a bite.

…But thinking about it…

This was the Fu residence, and Zhong Chengshuo looked too calm… Yin Ren now understood a bit how Zhong Chengshuo felt when he said “not daring to make mistakes” at the beginning.

Reason told him that they could slowly get to know each other, but the unexplained anxiety surrounded him at all times, urging him to deepen the relationship as soon as possible.

Perhaps it was because Yin Ren froze on Zhong Chengshuo for too long that the latter tilted his head slightly and kissed Yin Ren on the corner of his lips. “The competition begins tomorrow. Let’s go to bed early.”

“It doesn’t even say what time it’ll start. What if we oversleep?”

Yin Ren muttered as his hair wrapped around Zhong Chengshuo’s arm.

“I’ll call you when I wake up,” Zhong Chengshuo said solemnly. “I have packed the necessary luggage and equipped it with two bags of your favorite chocolate chips.”

“Nn.”

Yin Ren laid on the edge of the pillow. Reason and sensibility were still fighting for 800 rounds in his head.

They even had an audience.

At this moment, Yin Ren’s head was full of all kinds of “Great Celestial Master Zhong”. In recent days, they had surrounded him from 360 degrees. Half of them were a direct comparison to the laziness of the original, while the other half quietly emanated an aura of righteousness, making Yin Ren himself appear particularly arrogant and extravagant.

At this moment, reason was raising questions in his head with logic and evidence.

“Aren’t you familiar with humans? Isn’t it something that should be worked on slowly? You two haven’t fully understood each other yet. You’ve already surprised Fu Xingchuan with your actions. How do you know if Zhong Chengshuo has any other concerns?”

Yin Ren’s sensibility showed no weakness. ‘What’s wrong with wanting to get close to someone you like! The spring night is short*!‘

*(春宵苦短) Idiom referring to time flies quickly, especially when one is enjoying oneself, so they should cherish every moment.

“Once you break up, it’ll be awkward—”

“I just want to kiss him, and we won’t!”

Deep in his mind, the different forms of the Great Celestial Master Zhong booed in unison.

In the midst of their illusory boos, Yin Ren fell asleep in a daze. A soft strand of hair crawled over the pillow on its own and rested on Zhong Chengshuo’s lips.

Zhong Chengshuo’s forehead was still touching Yin Ren’s.

In the dark, Zhong Chengshuo stared at Yin Ren solemnly. As the second hand ticked away, Zhong Chengshuo lifted his hand slightly, wanting to place it on Yin Ren’s waist.

Yin Ren didn’t cover himself with the blanket, and his loose pajamas were wrinkled, revealing the tight skin on his waist. Zhong Chengshuo’s fingers dangled on the skin, and after a few minutes, he put his hand down as if he had made up his mind, and his palm touched the slightly cool skin.

Yin Ren made a vague “mm” sound.

Zhong Chengshuo closed his eyes and quietly felt the touch of his palm. The temperature washed over his mind, bringing up the wonderful longing that swept his heart with soft hair, but under that desire, there was something sharp hidden.

A trace of cold vigilance, like glass shards in fine sand.

Zhong Chengshuo didn’t put his hand away this time. He stubbornly rested his hand on Yin Ren’s waist and slowly closed his eyes.

……

Yin Ren was awakened by a smell that filled his nose.

For a moment, he thought he was being thrown into a trash can by Fu Xingchuan, who had completely gone crazy. Yellow Millet was whispering frantically in his ear, while Dog Thing didn’t warn him and was lazily pretending to be a phone.

Unfortunately, Yin Ren’s heart was as hard as steel. When he reached out his hand, he immediately grabbed at his side—

Empty.

Yin Ren sat up abruptly. He opened his eyes, and a pair of red pupils passed through the darkness and quickly scanned the surrounding environment.

This was definitely not the Fu residence.

There was the sound of dripping sticky water all around him, and he felt the “mattress” under him had a mixture of softness and stiffness. It was chilly, and it made his heart flutter with fear.

“Zhong Chengshuo?” Yin Ren called out as his nose sniffed the stench.

Before he could close his mouth, a pale hand grabbed him from behind and threw… a chocolate chip into his mouth.

“The competition has begun.”

Zhong Chengshuo was barefoot and wearing his usual pajamas and nightcap. He held a small suitcase in his hand and stood not far from Yin Ren.

“I felt a little wind in the morning—we didn’t open the window, so there shouldn’t be any wind. Unfortunately, I only had time to grab a suitcase. If this was an enemy attack, they wouldn’t have bothered to send in your phone too…”

Yellow Millet: “Puff…”

“And your phone pendant,” Zhong Chengshuo added with a stern face.

It was pitch black where they were. From Zhong Chengshuo’s perspective, most of what he could see was a pair of red eyes in the darkness. Yin Ren touched his face and settled down, kicking away the pillow covered with an unknown liquid.

He should have known earlier that this was the setup for the competition.

They were thrown to this ghost of a place in the middle of the night. The person who did this must be a master, as Yin Ren didn’t notice anything was wrong—this showed that the person who did this didn’t show the slightest malice towards them.

Was this “excessive concern leads to chaos*”? Yin Ren glanced at Zhong Chengshuo and took out his hair band from his pajama pockets and tied his hair up in a ponytail.

*(关心则乱) Idiom referring to excessive worry and concern can lead to unnecessary anxiety and confusion, and sometimes it’s better to maintain a calm and rational mindset.

There were no competition instructions, and no rules were emphasized.

[When a real battle comes, no one will give you the opportunity to prepare in advance.] Shian really did as they proclaimed.

However, since Shian’s spells could affect Zhong Chengshuo, it was likely that it was a “large-scale teleportation” similar to what the ghost market used and didn’t require targeting individuals. In other words, this place was reality and wasn’t a dream or illusion.

“It’s temporarily safe nearby. I haven’t sensed any abnormal energy,” Yin Ren said immediately.

“Nn.” Zhong Chengshuo started to change his clothes in front of him.

Comrade Xiao Zhong naturally unbuttoned his shirt and changed into lightweight and breathable sportswear. In the dark, the scar swayed majestically in front of Yin Ren’s eyes, clinging to the undulating muscle lines. Against the surrounding darkness, this person was simply dazzling.

It was very strange. Compared to Yin Ren’s first time seeing Zhong Chengshuo’s body, the “uncomfortable” side was completely changed. When he took off his pajamas, Yin Ren blushed, gave a dry cough, and turned around.

“I don’t know what happened to Ge Tingting and Yellow Pants*,” Yin Ren said.

*Clarity: Yin Ren was in the middle of saying Huang (yellow) Jin, but because he was preoccupied with Zhong Chengshuo changing, he said Pants instead of Jin.

Zhong Chengshuo, who was holding his pants: “……”

Zhong Chengshuo silently pulled out another set of sportswear from the suitcase. “You should change too.”

Perhaps this was the advantage of being of similar size to his lover. Yin Ren put on the t-shirt while secretly thinking—even if there was a difference, he could easily adjust his body.

They changed out of their clothes, and the embarrassment quickly faded.

Zhong Chengshuo’s pajamas and nightcap were stained with dirt, so he decisively discarded them. In order to prevent something from finding people based on smell, Zhong Chengshuo even took out a lighter and burned the clothes to ashes.

“The oxygen content here is not high, which places a certain burden on the body.” Zhong Chengshuo fastened the last nylon belt—all kinds of tools were packed into storage bags on the nylon belt. The dark straps stretched across his chest, midriff, thighs, and ankles, which was very… that.

Thank you, competition. Yin Ren muttered in his heart.

Naturally, Lord Ghost King completely ignored Zhong Chengshuo’s face. Zhong Chengshuo was looking at Yin Ren, who was wearing his own close-fitting sportswear, and the redness of his ears approached Yin Ren’s eyes.

“Ahem, Shian is examining our ability to respond to emergencies. The first step is to clarify the environment.” Zhong Chengshuo folded the suitcase and changed it into a square backpack. “The number of people in the Haigu branch is larger than the other two branches, so for the sake of fairness, they separated us.”

“So our first task is to figure out the environment and find our companions,” Yin Ren concluded. “I don’t know if Lu Xiaohe was thrown in.”

“It’s hard to say.”

After all, the current environment was extremely unsuitable for the survival of the “rear commander” species.

The space wasn’t big—at most about 30 square meters—and was shaped like an irregular egg. The “ceiling” was surprisingly low. The air was fetid and humid. Coupled with insufficient oxygen, it was enough to make the average person dizzy.

Not only the ground under their feet, but also the cave walls had a weird touch. Many vine-like things hung down from above, and the “wall” was uneven, green, and brown, glowing with disgusting water.

Yin Ren raised his head and looked around, only to see a muddy lake in the center of the space with weird flocs floating on it. Around space, there were many irregular holes leading deeper into the darkness. After taking a closer look, Yin Ren didn’t sense any living things.

It was a bit like the underground cave in Gengsheng Town, but it was narrower and more abnormal than that cave.

Even if they could contact their companions, they couldn’t infer their location.

…He hoped Ge Tingting and Huang Jin could hold on. Since the three coaches didn’t say anything, they didn’t know if the elimination of their teammates would have an impact.

……

“If people want to make money, why not do something else? At worst, prison seems better than here.”

Was it really worth it?

Huang Jin stepped with his slippers and stood in the darkness in a daze. He was almost suffocated by the stench and came here after waking up. Apart from a set of clothes, this spirit smith only had a pair of indoor slippers on him, and they were soft-soled, so even cockroaches would be hard to kill with a single blow from them.

He had no weapons, no supplies, and no preparations. Only Shian’s standard phone was stuffed in his trouser pocket.

Heh, but Shian didn’t even equip them with a surrender signal.

Huang Jin squatted down melancholically and poked the soft ground. Except for wanting to die, he couldn’t think of any effective “fighting method”.

“I get it.” Ge Tingting’s voice came from the darkness. Huang Jin wasn’t mentally prepared and almost fell forward in fright.

“Why are you here?!”

Ge Tingting: “I don’t know. I was here when I woke up, and Xiaohe Jie wasn’t by my side. Huang Jin, the Fu residence is full of people from Shian, so the competition must’ve begun!”

The little girl turned on her phone’s flashlight and tried to shine it on her surroundings.

“There are no rules. It looks like an escape room,” her AI voice said. “To be safe, let’s meet up with Yin Ren and the others first…”

“You want to go into a place like that?” Huang Jin frowned and pointed to the weird black holes in all directions. “I say, it’s safer to stay here and wait for them to find us, right? Let me start by saying that I don’t have half a spirit weapon on me. Even with the two of us, we won’t be able to beat a wolf dog together.”

“But if you stay here, we might get our points deducted.”

Ge Tingting worked hard to dig the soft ground.

“Isn’t there a punishment in games for ‘passive matches’? I don’t want to be eliminated.”

“Sometimes people have to learn to compromise.”

Ge Tingting: “I am short of money.”

“We lost the moment we didn’t take up arms.”

“I am short of money.”

“In this case, we must give priority to self-protection—”

“I am short of money.”

“I’m short too!” Huang Jin covered his chest. “Why are you so courageous…”

He suddenly remembered the little girl in front of him was a serious corpse servant, and the words he prepared got stuck in his throat. Huang Jin let out a tooth achingly loud sigh and pretended to scan the lighting, unintentionally to check his surroundings.

His gaze swept perfunctorily and suddenly froze.

[Good] [Painful]

[Don’t want to] [Die]

[Very] [Reluctant]

Several huge thought runes hung on the wall, mutilated.

He recognized this special form of runes, and the moment he determined their size, Huang Jin’s hair exploded all over his body.

“…Ge Tingting, listen. Let’s go.”

Huang Jin swallowed hard.

“Looking at it now, it’s pretty much the same wherever we go.”

“Ah?”

Huang Jin raised one foot, pulling out muddy yellow mucus from the sole of his slippers.

“The ‘environment’ here has fragments of thoughts left,” he said. “I have only seen this kind of highly degraded fragment of thoughts on rotting corpses… Well, rotting human corpses.”

He tried hard not to sound panicked.

“I don’t know why. We seem to be inside a rotting human corpse.”

Ge Tingting took a deep breath reflexively, and then retched. After a while, she hesitated and stretched out her hand, gently pressing on the ground.

The little girl blushed, and with a “pop” sound, a small bulge rose on the half-hard, half-soft “ground”.

Ge Tingting: “……”

Huang Jin’s judgment wasn’t wrong. Although it was only a little bit, she could indeed control the “environment” a little.

Ge Tingting’s cheeks bulged as she tried her best not to vomit.

“It’s really a human corpse.” The AI’s tone was steady. “Let’s take it easy for a while, okay?”

Before the AI could finish saying “okay”, Ge Tingting saw the hole in front of her squirm, and a “head” about the same height as her came out.

Two striped antennae twitched slightly, and the triangular head lifted slightly, with almost no cognitive runes on the surface. This thing looked familiar and strange at the same time. Ge Tingting and Huang Jin stood still, and two beams of light shot straight at this unwelcome guest.

No professional biological knowledge was required. Both of them, who had lived at the bottom of society, instantly recognized the “enemy” in front of them.

Huang Jin: “Cockroach…Cockroach…”

How could it not be illegal to have a cockroach this big?

He would rather face dangerous evil things.

The huge cockroach crawled a few times, then its head pointed steadily in the direction of the two of them.

Huang Jin: “Run!”

Ge Tingting: “Gwah!”

The two yelled at the same time.

Miraculously, at this moment, Huang Jin couldn’t understand Ge Tingting’s ravings, but he undoubtedly knew what she was trying to say…

The two cultivators in Unit 9 turned around on the spot, stretched out their legs, and ran.

The author has something to say:

In order to write this chapter, I went to Baidu for a close-up picture of a cockroach’s head.

Thank you. Has passed away peacefully…