Infinite Game Ch.61.1

Chapter 61.1 – Duolan Mountain (1)

Amidst the conditions set by Hu Li, Xu Gao eventually agreed to take on the job.

However, it can be said with a great deal of responsibility that every task he was responsible for, whether it was finding people or dealing with the information broker Liu Cheng, or locating Yuan Sanshui, none of them turned out successful.

You get what you pay for; knowing his capability yet daring to seek his help meant being prepared for the possibility of never finding out about that person. After completing the task, Xu Gao left work without any psychological pressure, glanced at his phone, and noticed that his gossip buddy hadn’t replied to his message.

Imagining briefly the possible state of the other person’s life, whether they might be starving at home or dead drunk in a tavern, Xu Gao, concerned for his gossip buddy, promptly made a call.

Fortunately, the gossip buddy was still alive. After a few rings, the call connected, and a voice came from the other end, with background noise of a TV, seeming like someone watching the news.

Xu Gao’s concern for his gossip buddy turned into accusation as he questioned why the buddy hadn’t acknowledged the heartfelt and emotionally charged message he had sent.

Jiang Yujin dodged and blurred the conversation, and after the other person finally accepted his explanation, he hung up.

After hanging up, he set his phone aside, and the barber shop owner, expressionless, came out of the kitchen with a dish in hand.

Jiang Yujin, obediently seated on the chair, reached out, “Where’s the food?”

“Are you a waste?” the barber shop owner furrowed his brow sharply, saying, “It’s in the kitchen, go get it yourself.”

He wanted to have a meal but was called a waste, but after all, it was a free meal, so Jiang Yujin endured it.

When he returned with the fragrant rice, the barber shop owner asked him, “Have you met up with Xu Tonggui these past two days?”

In any case, food first. Jiang Yujin chewed for a bit and then replied, “How did you know?”

Of course, the barber shop owner knew.

The last time this person came here, he would take the initiative to find food, and now he is sitting in his seat waiting for others to serve him, such a change wasn’t out of thin air. The only one who could raise a person to such a waste was Xu Tonggui.

Struggling to contain the urge to snap the chopsticks, the barber shop owner tried to advise in a softer tone, “Damn it, just go and be with him already.”

“That’s not feasible,” Jiang Yujin lowered his eyes, a slight tug at the corner of his mouth, chuckling, “I haven’t decided how to handle him yet.”

Rubbing his face, he leaned on one hand, his light-colored pupils tracing the patterns on the wooden table, “What should I do with him?”

For a moment, his pupils lost focus, but quickly, as if an illusion.

The barber shop owner glanced at him, initially wanting to say something, but eventually chose to stay quiet, swiftly eating his meal.

What was supposed to be a meal turned into a battle for food between the two.

As soon as he finished eating and set down his chopsticks, signifying the end of his free meal, Jiang Yujin swiftly finished and slipped away.

The high schooler who usually stopped him from drinking wasn’t around, so he wandered off and headed to a small tavern.

The barber shop owner watched him leave, got up to tidy the dishes, then cleaned the shop thoroughly inside and out. With nothing else to do, he leaned against the windowsill and lit a cigarette.

Feeling it was about time, smoking past halfway, he lowered his head and retrieved his phone. As expected, a call came through.

“Boss, Mr. Jiang has had a bit too much to drink again. Could you come over and pick him up if it’s convenient for you?”

The barber shop owner sighed, hung up, grabbed the keys, and stepped out.

He had no intention of bringing a drunken mess reeking of alcohol back to his own place. He dragged the person upstairs, rummaged for his keys, opened the door, tossed him onto the sofa, then hurried downstairs. His movements were practiced, honed over years.

Closing the door, the person lying in the dark room opened his eyes. His light-colored pupils reflected the light from outside, then slowly closed again.

In the late hours, when it should have been time for sleep, the room’s lights were still on, and downstairs, the barber shop owner was smoking another cigarette.

Clearly, despite a long time passing, he still remembered what happened before.

Regarding the special dungeon that appeared last, there were many theories and speculations outside, but most of them were actually wrong. The true situation was only known by them.

The dungeon was entered by the four of them together, and upon entering, it immediately started, allowing no reaction time.

There were no completion conditions, no time restrictions, and no tools whatsoever; it was simply a pure bloodbath. It was an eerie place, more primitive and brutal compared to other dungeons that underwent design and rule constraints.

No completion conditions meant there was never an end to be reached. To survive, one could only fight to the death—be it among the strange species or between them and the strange species.

The terrain here had undulations but lacked vegetation or water. Even the blood-red artificial sky they were accustomed to was absent; there was only an expanse of darkness, with the only life forms being them and the strange species. These strange species lacked thoughts; they only harbored the most primal desire to kill and territorial instincts—primitive and savage.

For a brief moment, in a low-lying area between two hills, a liquid began to flow, not water but the blood spilled from the strange species.

Ravines were filled by the corpses of these strange species, gradually smoothing out the once undulating terrain. The strange species were unending, for every one that fell, more surged forward.

Jiang Yujin had Shi Bu flatten the ground and build a long ladder that stretched from a higher point to where the strange species were fighting most brutally. The hillside over there turned into a huge pit, seemingly bottomless. The surviving strange species were still entangled within, causing tremors that extended to their location.

The ladder extended halfway into the air, and the people above leaped down from it. Upon their descent, the strange species, driven by the desire to kill those unlike them, pushed down on the ladder, causing them all to crash violently to the ground.

After Jiang Yujin jumped into the enormous pit, he and Shi Bu remained on the ground, witnessing Xu Tonggui, distant from them, instantly carving a path through the bloodshed and plunging into the abyss without hesitation.

Initially, there were long howls heard from within, but then everything returned to calm.

Inside, it fell completely silent.

After a brief calm, more intense changes ensued.

The mountain that had been completely motionless began to move slowly, the undulating curves continuously shifting. The bodies of the strange species heaped between the mountains were constantly compressed, all their tissues shattered, and the colossal bones flattened into pieces.

This space was alive, more accurately speaking, the place they were in was the body of something.

The undulating slopes might just be the epidermis of this entity.

The strange species ceased their unending appearances. After the prolonged stretch of flames and the thunderous gunfire echoing for kilometers, the numbers of the colossal strange species dwindled sharply.

As the last strange species was devoured by flames, the previously increasingly active ground gradually settled, seemingly deadened.

They moved towards the edge of the colossal abyss, only to find it sealed shut, the massive pit filled with the corpses of the strange species.

They had no choice but to wait. They waited in this place devoid of water, wind, nearly pitch black and suffocating.

Perhaps they waited for a very long time, so long that the stench of the decaying corpses of strange species could no longer be masked and permeated the entire space.

After setting fire to nearby corpses of strange species, they finally saw signs of change.

“Crack.”

A sound echoed from a distant place, curling around their ears.

It seemed like a beginning, followed by a series of continuous cracking sounds.

The blackness that shrouded above them, extending to an unseen distance, split open, allowing light to filter through.

It was a golden light, piercing through the undulating mountainous terrain, illuminating the piled corpses of strange species.

Initially, they didn’t quite grasp the significance of this light.

The crack widened further, revealing a fiery red something that seemed close by.

Shi Bu, bewildered, asked, “What is this?”

It was the sun. Perhaps it was the rising dawn or the impending sunset, but it completely filled their vision.

They had not seen the sky for so long that the sun was nearly fading from their consciousness.

The space started distorting from this moment, time became erratic. Surroundings became bewilderingly chaotic; they saw distorted versions of themselves recently engaged in killing the strange species, witnessed the reappearance and vanishing of strange species that were supposed to be dead, leaving no trace or sound. A massive rumble pounded their eardrums, as if something was collapsing slowly yet violently in a place they couldn’t perceive.

In this convoluted and intricate space, a figure emerged against the light. Strands of bloodstained white hair tinged golden by the light, the clothes billowing in the wind, stained and disheveled.

It was the first time Shi Bu had seen this person in such a state—clothes disarrayed, chest soaked in blood, hands stained, drops trickling down the fingers.

It was 001, and it could only be 001.

Shi Bu glanced around and asked, “Where’s Brother Xu?”

The figure standing in the distance lifted his head. Warm blood streaked down his face, devoid of any expression. His light-colored pupils were calm and still, exuding an intense lingering scent of blood, as if truly embodying the emotionless killer others described.

The massive golden sun slowly shifted, piercing through the darkness.

“He’s dead,” he said.

“Whoosh—”

Outside the window, the leaves rustled in the wind. A cigarette burned out, and Yuan Sanshui came to his senses, snuffing out the cigarette in his hand.

His deceased wife, former friends, the silent faces in the crevice, an array of varied images flashed through his mind, hauntingly persistent.

The barber shop owner lit another cigarette and glanced upstairs.

Liu Dongcheng was right; none of them had truly stepped out of the game.

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