Life-Saving Days by the Husky’s Side

Those with high friendship values will be forced to bind as a team.

Those with the same or zero friendship value will be randomly assigned a partner by the system, so the ones who still had flowers to send out planned to wait things out and spectate the wailing hoard. Among them, the one who howled the most was Zheng San.

As someone who also had some say in the second generation circle, Zheng San-shao certainly had no shortage of flowers gifted to him.

But he still had an image to maintain and was also worried that even if he finds a good partner in advance, everything will be useless if the other party couldn’t make it into the fourth floor. Since it was like this, he didn’t send anyone flowers and instead planned to find his partner on the fourth floor. As a result, the system didn’t even give people time to discuss privately and arranged things by itself, automatically and straightforwardly.

As for the few who had gifted him flowers, a small handful of them were fans from Mingying who had basically sent flowers to everyone, with the main targets being Ji-shao, Jing-shao and Xiao-Yan. The other handful had the intention to team up, but because he had a harder time clearing the third floor, they thought it was unlikely for him to pass and later ended up giving flowers away to others, which led to a friendship increase between everyone else. Thus, the unwanted Zheng San-shao became a tragic tale.

How it became a tragic tale was thanks to the later features of the game, because as it turns out, when a team was formed, the flowers in each player’s inventory will be automatically given to their teammate. At this moment, the public screen was full of messages announcing players sending each other flowers. Zheng San’s was the most eye-catching——he actually had six flowers.

[System] Player [Zheng San] presents to player [Zhou Er] a rose, I don’t need a reason to like you [Heart][Heart][Heart]

[System] Player [Zheng San] presents to player [Zhou Er]…

……

Six lines of system announcements were neatly displayed. It could be considered a public execution.

Zheng San: “……”

Zhou Er: “……”

Everyone else: “……”

The chatroom died for a second, then immediately jumped in the frying pot.

Liu Xiao Wei: Fuck, screenshot!

Jing Shao: Take a screenshot now!

Ba Zhong Ba: Say, could it be because you constantly talked about him in the public chatroom, so much so that the system partnered you guys up together?

Tang Xin Tian: Er-shao, what’s the mood?

Zhou Er: I am cursed*.

[T/N: ‘飞来横祸’ met with a sudden and unexpected disaster]

Zheng San: Laozi is the one cursed, okay?!

Zhou Li burst out with an uncontrollable laugh, turning to look at the person beside him. “How did you two get paired up together?”

Zhou Luwen was helpless. “I don’t know. I might as well forget about clearing this level.”

Zhou Li chuckled once more, thinking how this partnership was the real pitfall of the game.

[T/N: 觉得这是真的坑: not sure how to translate, basically how Zhou-er and Zheng San are set up to fail]

Ji Shaoyan was currently in the middle of a WeChat voice call with him. Listening to the chatters on the other end, he knew without a doubt that Zhou Li and Zhou-er were playing the game in the same room again. Immediately, he said thoughtfully, “Maybe the outcome will be better if you let him and Zheng San call each other as well.” Lest you two continue chatting.

Zhou Li agreed “en” and passed on the suggestion to Zhou Luwen.

Zhou Luwen thought the same thing and privately messaged Zheng San asking if he wanted to call. It’s such a pity that Zheng San was currently in a hissy-fit and refused without even thinking about it. Zhou Luwen followed his example and didn’t mention it again.

After the chaotic team formation, players had five minutes to read the rules of this floor.

This level was still a maze, but the difference is that Old Man Wei was very creative and planned to turn the maze into a Monopoly* board. Near the top of the screen, a reminder to draw a card will pop up every three minutes, and this action was mandatory. At the end of the countdown, a player will be randomly selected to draw.

[T/N: 大富翁: Chinese version of Monopoly I think]

There were six different card types: block*, transpose, freeze, speed boost, speed reduction, and thanks.

[T/N: literally, boulder]

On top of those, there were complex puzzles hidden throughout and every team pairing was required to cooperate in order to clear the floor. This maze had one exit and the exit will lead to the fifth floor. Once you reach the fifth floor, you will qualify. 

The rules were very simple to understand, that is; while walking through the maze, you must draw a card and solve a puzzle.

The summary consisted of just one sentence: Work hard and it will be over.

Everyone took their positions, waiting for the countdown to end. At zero, the players ran forward.

Three minutes later, the first round of drawing cards began. Zhou Li was lucky enough to be chosen as the representative of their group. With a flourishing tap, he drew the block card.

Once second later, they saw a huge boulder falling from the sky, blocking their path with an impactful “bang dang“. The pop-up text announced it would disappear after five minutes. During this time, they could not participate in the card draws and could only sit back to count their losses.

Zhou Li: “……”

Ji Shaoyan: “……”

Zhou Li suddenly returned to his senses. “Don’t panic, leave it to me.”

Ji Shaoyan understood him immediately and soon saw his partner bubble on the public chatroom.

Li: Oh, our luck is pretty good, we actually landed near the exit. Finished right when we started, everyone, thank you for your service* [fist and palm salute*]

[T/N: ‘承让’/you let me win (said politely after winning a game)]
[T/N: ‘抱拳’: one hand in a fist and is pressed against the palm of your other hand, a salute you can find in ancient dramas or wuxia]

As soon as this line came out, before Zhou Luwen had time to stop him, Zheng San who had just drawn the transposition card immediately selected Zhou Li’s ID and clicked ‘yes’.

The positions of the two parties switched instantly. Before Zheng San could send a string of “hahaha“, he finally looked up and saw the boulder blocking the road in front of him.

Zheng San: “……”

Zhou Luwen: “……”

After checking the debuffs of the rock, Zheng San’s sanity “pa di” and snapped.

Zheng San: What the fuck is wrong with you ahhhhhhhh! Can you be anymore deranged*?!

[T/N: to damage other people, can’t think of another term in this situation]

Liu Xiao Wei: What now?

Zheng San: He drew a boulder and tricked me into using my transposition card!

Quan Jie: ……

San Yue: ……

Xiao Yan:…

Ji Er: ……

Ba Zhong Ba: ……

Jing Shao: Hahahahaha

Tang Xin Tian: Thank god, we also drew a transposition card and was just about to use it. We were unfortunately too slow, our spot was taken by you first, so sad.

Zheng San: You come out, don’t pretend to be dead in front of laozi!

Zhou Li had no intention to act dead but still laughed behind the screen.

Hearing his puff of laugher, Ji Shaoyan couldn’t help but smile along, not reminding the other to continue walking. However, Zhou Li didn’t delay himself too long and quickly straightened up, patting Zhou Luwen on the shoulder and sending his condolences. “Pig teammate*, try to bear with it ba.”

[T/N: drags other teammates back, useless teammate]

Zhou Luwen helplessly laughed and sent Zheng San a message: Do you want to call or not?

Zheng San was honest and didn’t refuse the offer this time, pinching his nose* and hitting the dial button. 

[T/N: reluctantly]

Once the call connected, the first thing he said was: “Are you with that bastard? Tell him to stop playing dead!”

At this time, Zhou Li had just finished typing in the chat box. He sent to everyone: Soldiers never tire of deceit*.

[T/N: 兵不厌诈: There is no such thing as excessive deception on the battlefield]

At the sight of this proverb, Zheng San threw himself into a hissy-fit and instantly took on the mentality of ‘if I can’t play, you can’t play’, cussing him out in the public chatroom, challenging him to a real-life PK*.

Zhou Li calmly ignored him and seized the time to clear the card aspect with Ji Shaoyan.

Zhou Luwen couldn’t hold back the urge to say, “Can you back down.”

Zheng San spat, “No!”

Zhou Luwen: “If you called me from the beginning, you wouldn’t have been tricked.”

Zheng San: “How was I supposed to know that he’s a psychopath!”

Zhou Luwen had a good temper and reasoned with him. “When the rules were announced, you should’ve considered this possibility.”

Zheng San: “Who the hell considers these things?”

Zhou Luwen: “Most people should be able to.”

Zheng San: “…are you calling me stupid?”

Zhou Luwen: “No.”

As the two verbally abused each other, everyone ushered in the second round of card drawing.

Zhou Li was once again selected as their representative and with a quick draw, a speed reduction card came out. Their walking speed was instantly halved and the effect lasted for three minutes.

Zhou Li: “……”

Ji Shaoyan: “……”

Zhou Li coughed once, feeling a little apologetic. “That… Next time, I will try to get us a good card.”

With nothing else to do, Ji Shaoyan indulged his partner. He thoughtfully said, “It’s fine, the card draws are random. Besides, we can afford the three minute delay.”

The two slowly shuffled forward and after turning a corner, they were blocked by the a puzzle in the path.

There was a clock face decorated by elegant floral patterns and the clock dials must be pushed to a certain position in order to clear the puzzle. They must be turned to a certain position as the puzzle required for them to open the door. As someone who was able to acquire a full maze map just by walking through it once, this type of puzzle was simply a trivial obstacle to Ji Shaoyan. Just passing his eyes over the formation twice was enough for him to plan out the answer, and when they passed the round successfully, the third round of card drawing arrived.

This time, Ji Shaoyan finally had his turn.

He drew a transposition card. Once finished reading the instructions, he said, “This card can be saved for layer can’t be stacked. Even if we draw one again, we can still only use it once.”

Zhou Li said, “Save it for now, if we get a boulder again, we can just switch with another team.”

This result was neither good nor bad, though after another two rounds, Zhou Li waved his hand and a boulder came falling from sky.

Ji Shaoyan was speechless.

This idiot not only had a crow’s mouth, but his luck was also very heart-rending*. He proposed, “Do you want to use the transposition card?”

[T/N: touching/moving]

Zhou Li said, “No.”

He glanced at Zhou Luwen sitting nearby. In order to avoid being heard by Zheng San on the other end, he lowered his voice and brought his lips close to the microphone to say, “You should send a message.”

Ji Shaoyan understood instantly and left him a light huff of laughter.

Thus, everyone saw Young Master Ji bubble in the chat.

Ji Shao: Yi?

After the difficult third floor, he was already considered the core* of all players and everyone quickly asked what had happened and if there was a new discovery.

[T/N: 灵魂人物/soul figure: leader of a team]

Zhou Li closely bubbled after him: Nothing, nothing, there’s nothing new. His hands just slipped, we’re just chatting and playing around.

Not a single person believed him. One after another, they called for their Ji-shao, however, seeing that he had stopped speaking, they were all somewhat suspicious.

After the previous rounds, currently half of the teams had transposition cards and they felt that taking this chance was indispensable, an opportunity that will never come again. Very soon, someone put their card to use.

Ba Zhong Ba: Fuck, you bastard ahhhhhh!

Li: I’m what?

Ba Zhong Ba: You got him to send that on purpose, didn’t you?!

Li: Didn’t I say his hands slipped? Does no one believe in the truth these days?

Ba Zhong Ba: Only ghosts believe you!

The onlookers realised what happened and broke out in cold sweat. They stopped their ambitions shortly after.

Liu Xiao Wei: Ji-shao, you actually cheated people with him!

Qing Lin: Don’t you dare lead our Ji-shao on the wrong road, okay!!!

Ji Shao: Soldiers never tire of deceit [smile]

Li: See for yourself, look at how high your Ji-shao’s consciousness is.

Qing Lin: Piss off!

Old Man Wei jumped on at exactly eight o’clock to watch them play. He saw Li playing around like a cheating man and chortled loudly. He patted the table and said, “This kid, I like him very much. Even if he can’t pass the test, let’s still give him something.”

As he said this, he seemed to remember something. “The storage room I cleaned up the other day, didn’t a box fall from the shelves? Bring it over and put it with the other prizes. Tomorrow, send it over to the kid.”

The assistant took in the order and got to work.

The game was still in-progress and those whose brains began to ache from all the puzzles and those who drew boulders started to use their transposition cards. Floating up the chat box were all kinds of player updates.

Zhou Li kept an eye on the chat as he walked, commenting, “We will be more miserable in the later stages.”

Because everyone knew Ji Shaoyan was incredible.

Although no one know how long the maze was, as time goes by, people will increasingly suspect that their team may be close to the exit and the probability of others deploying their transposition on them was extremely high.

Ji Shaoyan studied the transposition card in his hand and said, “During a card drawing period, the number of times a team can switch locations is once. If we use it on ourselves, the others can no longer use it on us.”

Zhou Li: “But this can only work for one round, unless we somehow draw another transposition in the next one.”

Ji Shaoyan hummed, “En. We can’t do anything about that.”

Zhou Li also thought to himself that he was right. They couldn’t just stop playing. If they are somehow fast enough to rush to the finish line before letting other people see their movements, wouldn’t it be a big loss if they stopped now?

He asked, “If you want to switch, who would you switch with?”

Ji Shaoyan: “San Yue.”

Zhou Li felt a sudden stab at his heart.

Eggy, that is your dear mother ah!

But after thinking it through, this decision was understandable.

Because the props obtained in the first few floors can be used on the fourth floor, there were a few rare props in San Yue’s hand. Among them, there was a prop that allowed the player to move through the walls, which was particularly buggy. On the other hand, all he opened were hats, scarves and other completely useless accessories.

Curiosity took over for a while and he couldn’t hold back the urge to send a message.

Li: San Yue.

San Yue: ?

Li: Has anyone switched with you guys?

San Yue: There’s already been quite a few so my rare items are basically worthless.

Li: Oh.

San Yue: You guys also want to switch with us?

Li: I’m just asking casually.

Zheng San: Are you guys sharing this on purpose?

Li: No, you’re thinking too much.

Zheng San: Then why don’t you guys chat privately?

Li: I think all of you are quite curious too ah.

No one believed him.

As they all know, these two knew each other in real life, and one person in particular was a universal eyesore, so they reasonably suspected that San Yue might want to use props and asked him to help cover her. However, they did not rule out the possibility that San Yue had drawn a boulder and was wanting him to help her escape the wait.

Everyone had different ideas. When the next round of cards arrived, a few groups rushed to change positions with San Yue, having their resolve be based on the principle of them preferring to believe what they wanted did happen rather than believing it did not*. It just so happened that San Yue’s teammate, by an unfortunate chance, drew a falling boulder. Before anyone could start bawling, they were instantly transported away, safely and soundly.

[T/N: 宁可信其有不可信其无: quote from anonymous in the Ming Dynasty, meaning ‘I would rather believe that this event did happen, that it existed, rather than believe that it did not’ (answer from Baidu)]

The transposed person went insane, feeling that they had been duped.

Qing Lin: Ahhhhh, can’t you just keep to one person!!!

Jing Shao: Did San Yue’s side actually have a rock?

Qing Lin: En [bawling]

Zheng San: Told you ba, I literally just said he’s talking in the chatroom on purpose!

Qing Lin: Ji-shao, can you take care* of him!!!

[T/N: mind him (like looking after a naughty child)]

Zhou Li read up to here and was finally able to figure out his reputation* within this group.

[T/N: 回过味/aftertaste: refers to people saying stuff one line at a time so you don’t really know what’s going on until the last sentence is said, and then you understand all at once]

Li: I was honestly wronged this time, really.

Qing Lin: You scram ahhhhhhh!

San Yue: Cough, it really is a coincidence. There’s a countdown on the rock, look for yourself. We only got it during this round.

Qing Lin: But if he never talked to you, we wouldn’t have switched with you guys this round ah!

Li: You’re blaming this on me too?

Qing Lin: Yes!

Liu Xiao Wei: Ji-shao, hurry up and tell him off, don’t let him do this again!

Ji Shao: But he didn’t do it ah. The first two were tactical necessities and this time it proved to be a coincidence, isn’t that right?

Everyone thought about this and realised that it was really such a thing.

But for some reason they were still in pain, feeling that such a gentle Ji-shao was being ruined by a certain someone.

Another big pot has yet again fallen on Zhou Li, unfortunately unbeknownst to him. He stopped quarrelling with these people and continued to move forward.

After three more rounds, an announcement popped up on the public screen.

[System] Congratulations players [San Yue][Dan Ya Lan] for entering the fifth floor.

Damn it, so fast!

Everyone was caught off guard and their nerves instantly acted up. In the next second, they all quickly switched positions with the ‘powerful team’.

The situation Zhou Li and Ji Shaoyan predicted earlier on finally appeared.

Even if Zhou Li yelled at everyone in the chatroom, they had no idea where they were switched to and knew it was useless to know anyway, because these people had a blind trust in Ji-shao. This blind faith caused them to be essentially powerless, unable to walk even three streets at once with all the switches.

Zhou Li suddenly came up with a strong intervention* and started to broadcast the teams that had forcibly switched with them on the public chatroom, letting every other team change with those people. After all, if we have a hard time, everyone else can have a hard time too.

[T/N: 骚操作: strong intervention for the benefit of oneself]

The partnership between Jing-shao and Yan-shao was also one of the hardest hit areas, so like him, they started broadcasting certain teams. The public chat was soon full of updates from various teams for a while, making it difficult for people to tell which team was progressing faster.

Fortunately, the transposition card was not something that could be drawn out every time. After the initial chaos, things gradually calmed down.

However, Zhou Li knew this ordeal was not over yet. Soon, someone will draw a transposition card and make switching their teams’ positions their top priority. He walked forward for a while, and found that they had once again been replaced. He was speechless. “We can’t keep on going like this. Do you have any ideas?”

Ji Shaoyan said, “We still have one transposition card.”

Zhou Li: “Who do you want to switch with?”

Ji Shaoyan smiled. “Switch with an invisible team.”

Zhou Li raised his eyebrows.

Indeed, a very small number of teams that did not participate in the transposition struggle have been silently making their way through the maze, without interference from the outside world in terms of progress. But the reason no one cared was because their own abilities were overall average, so they may not have gotten far in the maze.

He asked, “You have someone in mind?”

Ji Shaoyan smiled again and answered, “I do.”

His stupid brother has always been very concerned when it came to matters regarding him. Even if he doesn’t have the guts to swap positions with him, he will still change with those teams that had previously swapped with their team. However, there were still no updates from Ji Er on the public screen. This was not normal. Perhaps on their side, there was already a boost to rely on, something big enough for him to be sure that he could get through on his own. 

He said, “Don’t walk anymore, I want to take a bet.”

Zhou Li naturally listened to him and they stayed for two more rounds of card drawings. When the third round was over, Ji Shaoyan immediately chose Ji Er and ordered a switch. In an instant, the image on the phone screen changed. In front of them was a half-solved transparent puzzle, and behind that was a small square, with a door emanating light standing in the middle. It was so obviously an exit.

Zhou Li: “……”

Ji Shaoyan: “……”

Ji Tianyang and his teammate: “……………………”

Zhou Li thought to himself that Ji Er should be afraid of vomiting blood in the next couple of seconds and proceeded to quickly solve the puzzle with Ji Shaoyan. However, before doing anything else, he couldn’t hold back the urge to leave a message.

Li: Thank you ah, you’ve worked hard.

Ji Shao: Goodbye.

[System] Congratulations players [Li][Ji Shao] for entering the fifth floor.

Somewhere else in the maze, Ji Tianyang stared at this announcement and suddenly vomited a mouthful of old blood.

His little cousin called him, falling apart as he cried, “He can’t be human! What do we do?”

Ji Tianyang unhappily spat, “What else can we do, let’s go ba.”

Hearing his poor tone, the little cousin didn’t dare to howl anymore and obediently walked the streets of the maze once more.

The fifth floor only needed ten people, not ten teams.

Four people have now entered, so strictly speaking, there were only three spots left. Everyone grew even more anxious, trying to harm each other while simultaneously making their way forward in the maze. Very quickly, a third team made their way to the exit, consisting of two study gods from one or two of the outside schools. The fourth team dealt a huge shock to everyone in-game, seeing that it was Zheng San and Zhou Er’s rival-like combination. 

Zheng San originally didn’t want to listen to anything coming from Zhou Er’s mouth, but those puzzles were headache-inducing and after being instructed several times by Zhou Er, he just carried on listening to the other person’s instructions without knowing it.

Obviously, he couldn’t say this to anyone, so he just posted a fat line of proud “hahaha”s on the public screen.

But even they were nothing worth writing home about, as the fifth pair was even more shocking; it was Ji Er and his little cousin.

People were astonished. Even if Jing-shao and Yan-shao spent too much time crawling through the Shura Field and were unable to turn the tide in the end, the winner still can’t be Ji Er ah. How did these two clear the game?

Ji Shaoyan narrowed his eyes.

Ji Tianyang has recently been locked up at home and was also not allowed to see guests, so did this mean that mastermind was currently by his little cousin’s side?

No matter how surprising the results were, after ten players, the little broken mobile game was considered to be completely cleared.

A system announcement popped up, saying that the server will not be shut down until 12 o’clock midnight tonight and that anyone who enters the fifth floor before this deadline will receive a participation award.

Idle people were idle, and so they continued to play.

On the other side, Zhou Li received a form online which needed him to type in his mailing address, where they will personally deliver his prize to the door tomorrow. He thought to himself that the so-called inheritance of antiques was indeed impossible. After filling out the form, he chatted with Ji Shaoyan and the others before logging off and heading to bed.

The next day, he had just finished eating when he saw the delivery person knock on their door.

The prize was a painted scroll with calligraphy written in accompaniment*, and in addition to that, there was also a small palm-sized box, a prize which was said to be an extra gift from Old Man Wei.

[T/N: 一幅字画]

Zhou Li guessed that maybe he had been too malicious in-game, which made the old man spectating very satisfied. He accepted the gifts with a smile and after waiting for the delivery person to leave, he opened the lid of the box. The smile at the corners of his lips instantly froze——lying in the box was a petal-shaped jade pendant.

The author has something to say:

Zhou Li: !!!

Petal-shaped jade pendant, see chapter one. I knew that if I mentioned the small broken game was related to the big melon, you guys will think of the jade pendant. You are all too talented.