Death Condition

A strange situation unfolded for the next ten minutes where everyone fixed their vigilant gazes on Jin Jiuchi, waiting for him to end up in the same predicament as Old Guan.

But much to their surprise – and Jin Jiuchi's confusion – nothing happened at all. Well, if they did not count how many times Jin Jiuchi had burped for the last ten minutes.

"B-Brother Yang…" Tang Ye was the first to speak up, unable to endure the weird atmosphere any longer. "How are you feeling? Is everything… okay?"

Jin Jiuchi tilted his head in confusion. "Yes…?" he said, puzzled. "Why are you guys staring at me? Shouldn't you go and check on Old Guan? All of a sudden, he just…" He looked at Old Guan who had melted into a puddle of unknown substance, and he pinched his nose when the smell started to overwhelm him. "Ugh, luckily I salvaged the meat sauce in time. Otherwise what should we do if it got contaminated by Old Guan?"

Everyone: "..." So that's what you're most concerned about huh?

Sister Hong scoffed and turned away. "We've already known from the start that he is abnormal. Why should we continue to fuss on him?"

"Hey!" Jin Jiuchi exclaimed, affronted.

What's the problem with this woman? How could she claim Jin Jiuchi for being abnormal when she was the one who… when she was the one who showed up reeking of Surnamed Zhi! Only God knew what those two were doing behind the closed door for their scents to mingle so intensely like that! Compared to her, what Jin Jiuchi did was perfectly normal, okay?!

"Okay guys, we shouldn't fight." Tang Ye stepped in to thaw the tension in the air, being the busybody he was. He looked at Jin Jiuchi and Sister Hong back and forth, and tried to plaster a friendly and harmless smile on his face. "It's very fortunate that nothing happens to Brother Yang, it means that we have one more manpower to finish the task. And Sister Hong, Brother Yang's personality is indeed very… unique, but there's nothing abnormal about him at all!"

Jin Jiuchi gave him a thumbs up. Finally, there was someone who could talk some sense here!

On the other hand, Sister Hong rolled her eyes and turned away with a cold harrumph.

Tang Ye continued to say, "Now that Old Guan and Brother Yang have both eaten the meat sauce and only Old Guan who had… um, met with an unfortunate accident, then can we all agree that eating the meat sauce is not the death condition?"

"Death condition?" Jin Jiuchi chewed the foreign words on his tongue, confused. "What is that?"

"Oh, look at me. I forgot that Brother Yang is a newbie." Tang Ye slapped his forehead and proceeded to explain the terms to Jin Jiuchi. "Okay, listen well, Brother Yang. Now that you're here with us, you have become a player. Or to be exact, a newbie player because you're entering the Cycle for the first time. I won't talk your ears off about the Cycle here, you can find out everything about it after you get out of here. What's most important right now is to earn the bus ticket. It's the thing you use to get here…" he trailed off all of a sudden, presumably recalling that Jin Jiuchi was an anomaly who had found his way to the bus without a ticket. But then he quickly regained his bearing, cleared his throat and continued to say,

"To earn the tickets, we have to finish the task issued by the NPC – I'm talking about Madam Liu. She is the NPC who has hired us to help with the ghost marriage procession. Only with the ticket can we board the bus again on the sixth day and get out of this place. Do you get it, Brother Yang?"

Jin Jiuchi nodded solemnly even though he still could not figure out what he was supposed to 'get'. He must have zoned out sometime when Tang Ye started to talk about players…

"And the death condition you're talking about?" Jin Jiuchi prompted.

"Just like the name implied, it's a condition for death to happen. Each Cycle has its own rule and it will not kill people casually, so as long as you don't fulfill the condition needed to trigger death, then you won't… meet your demise like Old Guan. I believe that we have all been told the first death condition last night – do not come out of our room after ten pm no matter what. If we violate this rule, something horrible will befall us."

Now Jin Jiuchi was starting to get it. "So what you mean to say is… Old Guan died because he ran out of his room last night?"

"I believe so," Tang Ye scratched his head and glanced at Old Guan with a frown. "But we can't exclude the possibility that Old Guan has fulfilled more than one death condition."

Jin Jiuchi blinked in surprise, "More than one death condition?"

Tang Ye nodded somberly. "There can't be only one death condition in the Cycle, Brother Yang. That's why, the faster we discover them, the larger our chance of survival will be."

"And the way to discover them will be…?"

Sister Hong finally lost her patience and snapped at Jin Jiuchi, "Why are you asking so many questions? Can't you use your brain to think for once?! Our focus right now is to finish the task and earn the tickets. Anything other than that will be an unnecessary distraction! Now that you have seen what happened to that man, I would advise you to be extra careful, newbie…" her lips curled into a contemptuous sneer. "Who knows? Maybe you will be the next."

"Let's go," she told Zhi and together, both of them strode out of the dining hall with the man trailing behind her like a well-trained dog.

"Wait, Sister Hong, Brother Zhi—!" Tang Ye glanced at the pair and Jin Jiuchi back and forth before jogging toward the former. "Well, that's the gist, Brother Yang! If you are still confused, let's talk again later. We have to go to the sixth floor now!"

In a flash, the three of them were gone, leaving only Jin Jiuchi, Nian and the very dead Old Guan.

Jin Jiuchi turned to Nian and started to grumble out loud, "Are all women like her, Nian'er? Why is she so fierce and annoying?" He bared his teeth at the door as if he could convey his distaste for her this way. "Moreover, she stinks to death!"

Nian stared at him for one long moment, his purple eyes sharp and scrutinizing. "She slept with that man?"

"Nian'er, you have to trust me!" Jin Jiuchi demanded loudly for fear that the jade doll would think that he was making things up. "Even if you can't trust my eyes, you have to trust my nose! My nose has never failed me before!"

"I know, I am not blind." Nian rolled his eyes in disdain. How rude. Only the jade doll would still look beautiful when he attempted something like this. "I can tell in a glance that something is different about them. If I'm not wrong, that woman's skill card must have something to do with hypnosis or mind control…" he mumbled, more to himself this time. After considering it for a few seconds, he turned to walk toward the door. "Throw that damn pot away. We have to go to the sixth floor now."

"Okay~" Jin Jiuchi obediently tossed the empty pot in his arms away, sending it flying in an arc only to land with a bang right in the middle of the puddle that was Old Guan.

He skipped after Nian and asked curiously, "By the way, Tang Ye has not answered my question yet. How do we discover the death condition in this place? Do you have any idea about it, Nian'er?"

Hearing that question, Nian abruptly halted in his steps and turned to Jin Jiuchi, forcing the latter to stop in haste to prevent them from colliding with each other. Alas, before Jin Jiuchi could lecture him on how dangerous it was to do something like that, Nian showed a mocking smile and said,

"How to discover the death condition? It's very simple. As long as people continue to die, we will gradually learn about them all."

.

.

A/N: new book event is closed! Thank you everyone for your lovely and kind reviews QAQ I'm really happy to see such enthusiasm from you! To be honest, I was afraid that this story will be too scary to attract readers, but reading your comments everyday has been a huge motivation for me >< please continue to support Jin Jiuchi and Nian, okay? *lick knife*

Winners will be announced on tomorrow's chapter! Please wait for it~