Future
When the helicopter crashed, Du Jing cushioned Zhou Luoyang’s fall, but had broken two ribs in the process of doing so. Zhou Luoyang only figured it out the next day, when he noticed that Du Jing’s breathing was labored whenever he spoke.
While stuck in the KCR’s casino, he had not been able to get it checked out. Fortunately, it was only his ribs that were broken, and Du Jing had received training on how to treat that. They obtained an elastic chest brace from a bodyguard, looped it around his shoulders, and tied it with a simple knot. When everything was over, they would get it x-rayed.
“All good?” Zhou Luoyang asked worriedly.
Du Jing inspected the box the KCR provided them. Playing down the gravity of the situation, he promised, “It’ll be fine.”
That morning, the rain had finally stopped for once, and the sun was splendid in the sky. Under the watchful gaze of the guards, an attendant delivered their gear. Du Jing received a brand new set of brass knuckles; presumably, Hong Hou had discovered the anesthetic coating on the original set and would not be giving it back.
Additionally, there was a suit tailored specifically to his measurements and a pair of sunglasses with no electronic functioning.
“For the sake of fairness,” Hong Hou explained through the wireless phone in the room, “I’ve made some tiny adjustments to your equipment.”
On the collar of Du Jing’s shirt, in gold embroidered letters, were the English letters: Hyp.
Zhou Luoyang received a set of touristy clothing—a white shirt, black shorts, and white sneakers that would be easy to move around in. His code name was also embroidered in gold on his shirt: Tha.
Just then, as he was turning over the meaning of these two names in his mind, Du Jing opened the box and presented its contents to him.
It contained the lipstick gun.
Zhou Luoyang understood and carefully slipped it into the pocket of his pants.
“If you’re ready, then please prepare for departure,” said Hong Hou’s voice from the phone. “I hope you’ve had sufficient rest over the past few days–and that you haven’t been losing sleep because of nerves.”
“It’s been alright,” Zhou Luoyang said breezily.
Du Jing put on the Eye of Forseti.
“You treasure that watch, I see,” Hong Hou observed.
“If I die in the game, please bury it with me,” said Du Jing in a cavalier tone.
“Certainly,” Hong Hou agreed easily. “But don’t underestimate yourself. Though you’re injured and have limited mobility, you’ve demonstrated that you possess formidable strength.”
The guards politely beckoned them forward and led them out.
First, they walked down a long hallway. Zhou Luoyang didn’t ask Du Jing about his plans involving Huang Ting; likewise, Du Jing didn’t volunteer any information. He simply turned his head by the smallest increment, as if studying the area surrounding the hidden casino from behind his sunglasses.
Zhou Luoyang had imagined they would soon emerge from below ground, as he had when he had been captured and brought here. Contrary to his expectations, when they entered the underground parking lot, he discovered that there was another concrete tunnel in the depths of the lot. A tour car was parked on the platform, and the guards ushered them in, though they didn’t follow them inside.
The tour car started on its own and drove into the dark.
There wasn’t a single glimmer of light within that darkness. Gusts of wind blew at them from ahead.
Zhou Luoyang’s heart rate picked up at once. At last, he could understand why Hong Hou could be so arrogant. Once they entered the area sealed on all sides by cement, all communication devices lost signal.
He grabbed Du Jing’s hand without thinking. Du Jing turned his palm up and curled his fingers reassuringly.
The car was self-driving. It made a few turns. By the fifteen minute mark, they had traveled well beyond one kilometer in the underground tunnels. Every time they passed a fork in the road, Zhou Luoyang wondered about their chances of escape if they jumped out of the car. But if Hong Hou had left them alone in the car in the dark, he must already have countermeasures in place. If they did run off, all that waited was death by starvation.
Zhou Luoyang couldn’t help but grow doubtful. How much manpower and money must it have cost to dig such a tunnel through the mountainous region of Cambodia? All merely to put on a competition? It didn’t seem very realistic.
Maybe they had fixed up old, existing underground ruins or catacombs? But no, what kind of underground ruins could stretch on for so long?
“It’s too far,” Zhou Luoyang murmured in the dark, “like an ant’s nest.”
“I think these might have been mines once,” said Du Jing.
It dawned on him now. Du Jing added, “Then they became one of the Khmer Rouge’s guerilla warfare bases.”
At the end of the winding passage filled with turns, the tour car finally parked on another well-lit platform. Hong Hou’s voice emanated from the car’s speakers. “You may now leave the vehicle.”
Du Jing checked his watch and told Zhou Luoyang, “We drove for thirty minutes.”
The tour car lurched away. Now, Hong Hou’s voice came from the speakers on the platform. “Walk ahead. Each person to a door. The doors have been labeled with your respective names.”
Hand in hand, Du Jing and Zhou Luoyang stood in front of eight doors. Each had a name written on it—Tha, Hyp, and the names of the other players—except for the eighth door on the far end. That one had no name.
“Well, this is it for now,” Zhou Luoyang said softly. “We’ll see each other again soon.”
Du Jing hesitated momentarily and crooked his finger. Zhou Luoyang shuffled closer.
Du Jing dipped down and kissed the corner of his mouth. He gave his sunglasses a shake and put them on. “Off you go.”
Zhou Luoyang: “……”
He knew there were cameras hiding all around them. At that very moment, it was possible that the broadcast had already gone live on the dark web. There might be viewers observing their every move.
The doors marked Hyp and Tha opened. Du Jing and Zhou Luoyang each stepped inside.
The doors closed, shutting Zhou Luoyang inside a small room.
“Please take the wireless earpiece to your left and be sure to wear it at all times. This is one of the most important instruments of communication. Do not lose it,” Hong Hou instructed. “Now, I wish you good luck.”
Zhou Luoyang picked up the tiny earpiece from the table and slipped it on. This time, he heard a synthetic, computerized female voice.
“Hello, Thanatos.”
When Zhou Luoyang heard the name, it promptly dawned on him what his and Du Jing’s code names stood for. Du Jing’s “Hyp” was short for “Hypnos,” while his “Tha” was short for “Thanatos”—the Greek gods of sleep and death!
These two gods were twin brothers. Could that have something to do with the fact that he was the only one who possessed a weapon that could kill?
“Looks like I’ll have to devote myself to playing the god of death.” Zhou Luoyang looked around the room. Besides the table, it was bare. The table was welded to the ground. There was a surveillance camera mounted on the ceiling.
The computerized voice didn’t say anything at first. Several seconds passed before it replied, “Yes. Please listen closely as your mission in the competition is explained. It will only be broadcast once, and it will have to do with the final outcome of the game.”
Zhou Luoyang knitted his brows. He debated whether the voice was AI-generated or a real person’s voice that had been disguised. But neither seemed right. The computerized voice could analyze his questions and provide answers, albeit with some delay. Was that because of a data transmission issue?
“Waiting for other players to get ready,” said the voice.
Zhou Luoyang was quiet. Several minutes later, the voice announced, “All players are now ready.”
“You are a tourist who has been passionate about Cambodian culture since you were a child. You fell in love with the ancient remains of Angkor Wat. You resigned from your job and put aside funds for travel. Then, you came to this unfamiliar country, fulfilling your childhood dream.”
“Ah, that’s so unfair. I slaved away to save up money just so I could come to Angkor Wat? I’d rather go to Rome. You Cambodians’ confidence in your culture is worse than even the Koreans’…”
“Once here, you hired…ha, ha, ha…Please don’t interrupt.”
“Searching text list. Restarting.”
Zhou Luoyang: “……”
“Searching text list. Restarting” was spoken in English, but right away Zhou Luoyang figured out the truth behind the computerized voice! It was human-operated! The awkward, artificial laughter revealed the fact that someone was entering text and converting it to speech through a translation machine in order to communicate with Zhou Luoyang, the contestant!
The explanation of the game’s rules was a copy-and-pasted script. If it hadn’t been interrupted, it would have been read aloud in full.
Simply put, there was, behind the electronic voice, someone inputting commands.
This piece of knowledge didn’t seem to hold any value, but it might come very helpful at a later time.
“…There was a local young man who, after his career as a hired gun ended, lived an impoverished, unfulfilled life. He asked again and again to be your bodyguard so that he could earn enough money to bury his comrade-in-arms.
“In the end, you agreed to let him accompany you to the ruins of Angkor Wat because he lacked essential ID documents. You didn’t have any doubts, but at the entrance of the ruins, you picked up a forgotten weapon…”
Just then, the room rumbled and shook violently.
In the midst of the deafening noise, Zhou Luoyang almost lost his footing, but managed to steady himself against the table. The unruffled voice continued, “You entered the ruins and began to explore. In your exploration, you accidentally knocked into one of Angkor Wat’s mechanisms and fell from a hidden alley and down underground…”
“Wait!” Zhou Luoyang yelped.
Sure enough, the room was in fact an elevator. It hurtled down, like a drop tower. Zhou Luoyang’s heart couldn’t quite take it.
“…In the dark, desolate underground world, you must find a way to escape with your life. You must reunite with your bodyguard as soon as possible…”
The room suddenly spun around. The door opened, and the momentum flung Zhou Luoyang into a sloped passageway. “Wait!”
“I will once again remind you to please keep your earpiece in throughout your exploration. If you lose your earpiece, you will face the penalty of death…
“Please do not exchange any real world information with other players during the competition, including but not limited to names and other identifiable information, or you will be penalized. After three penalties, you will be disqualified. You only have one life, so please be prudent.
“The relationships between the characters from the selection have been recalibrated, so please do not follow the selection’s guidelines for hostility between characters.
“As a precaution, please do not trust anyone, including teammates who have the same short-term goal as you. Please do not inform anyone of the items on your person.”
Zhou Luoyang slid down the tunnel before ramming into an unseen door. With a shout, he loudly slammed through the door and into a sea of darkness.
Luckily, his fall was cushioned by something soft as soon as he plummeted through the door.
It was a large block of foam.
“May you have a smooth journey.” At that, the computerized voice finally fell silent.
Zhou Luoyang pushed himself up and slowly got to his feet. He was surrounded by pitch darkness.
He didn’t say a word, but he could hear a voice not far away calling out, “Is anyone there?”
“Yes!” a different voice immediately cried. “Let me out!”
While getting up, Zhou Luoyang accidentally bumped into an iron gate, which let out a clang.
“How many people are here?” asked a male voice.
“Don’t move around,” came Du Jing’s patient voice in the dark. “When our eyes have adjusted, we can think of a way to get out.”
Zhou Luoyang calmed down at the sound of Du Jing’s voice. He groped around in the darkness, but all he could feel was a brick wall. He was in a tiny jail cell, with only a metal gate in front of him. There was a lock hanging from the gate.
Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the dimness, and he could see the glowing watch on Du Jing’s wrist not far across from him.
Unlike before, they hadn’t been locked in the same cell. Instead, there were one, two, three…seven, seven cells in total.
Seven contestants had been locked up separately.
“Light.”
Someone turned on a light and shined it at them. The fluorescent glare was jarring. Du Jing immediately said, “Don’t turn on the light. You should save battery and use it sparingly.”
Zhou Luoyang quickly calmed down and attempted to loosen the lock on the gate. It was heavier than the one in Wan City’s escape room, and it seemed more durable too.
“I am your handler. Currently, the crucial clue you need to escape has something to do with cell number one,” the computerized voice spoke in his ear. “But don’t tell the contestant in cell one yet.”
Zhou Luoyang’s heart stuttered. So there were people providing instructions to the players! Who were they? The viewers?
“Don’t respond verbally. You need to figure out a way to convince player one to open your door and let you out,” the voice said.
By the meager light, Zhou Luoyang saw that the people in several cells had subconsciously brought their hands to their earpieces.
The only one who hadn’t stirred was the player in cell one. He didn’t seem to have received any instructions, or perhaps his “handler” didn’t know of the crucial clue.
“Let’s start with a headcount,” said a familiar voice. “How many of us are there? Can you understand what I’m saying?”
That was Lu Zhongyu’s voice! He’d finally run into him!
“Yes,” came an unfamiliar voice from the cell that had previously emitted the bright light. “Starting from the innermost cell. You’re all Chinese…”
Just then, a warning spoken in English echoed through the hallway:
“Rule violated. Minor penalty. Penalties remaining: two.”
Immediately, a scream rang out from the cell.
The hallway went deathly quiet. No one spoke.
“Fuck,” the unfamiliar voice gasped after one time. “The earpiece shocked me!”
“Don’t take it off,” said Du Jing.
Another moment passed. Du Jing broke the silence. “Feeling better? Be more careful. Let’s number off.”
“One,” someone said. “Am I one?”
“Two,” Lu Zhongyu said.
“Three,” said the unfamiliar voice.
“Four,” said someone from cell number four.
There was a pause. No one spoke from cell five.
Du Jing said, “I’m six. There’s someone across from me, but he won’t talk. I can hear him.”
Zhou Luoyang was in the innermost cell. “I should be seven.”
“It’s currently 10:25,” Du Jing reported.
“The game—” The person in cell one broke off. “There’s no time limit on our adventure.”
“Fuck.” The man from cell three who had been shocked was still talking to himself. “Fuck! It’s like I’m an animal!”
“What do you all do?” Zhou Luoyang suddenly asked. “I’m a tourist. The one in the cell over there is my bodyguard.”
Du Jing gently rattled his cell door to let everyone know he was the bodyguard.
“I’m a botanist,” said cell one. “A Chinese emigrant.”
“I’m a mercenary captain,” said Lu Zhongyu in cell two. “I’m here to investigate the underground ruins.”
“I’m a professor, a theology professor.” The man from cell three who had been shocked sounded as if he was still in some pain. “I’m here for research.”
“I’m an archeologist from Vietnam,” said cell four.
The group fell silent once more. Then, an instruction came from Zhou Luoyang’s earpiece.
“There’s a killer among this crowd. He’s extremely dangerous. You have to figure out how to kill him as soon as you find out who it is. But don’t use the gun. Remember, you only have one bullet. Save that for the end.”
Everyone was quiet. Zhou Luoyang reasoned that they must all be listening to the instructions given through their earpieces, though the instructions were sure to be vastly different from person to person. After all, no one else had a gun.
Compared to the first escape game, the current competition had changed—there was an extra archeologist now, and everyone was more focused and less chatty.
“Let’s figure out how to get out of here,” Lu Zhongyu suggested.
“I can’t get the lock open.” There was a clanging noise from cell one. The botanist said, “It won’t open from brute force. Hey! Look at the lock! There’s a key on it.”
Zhou Luoyang felt for his own lock. “Wait, what do you mean?”
“Don’t tell them that your lock doesn’t have a key on it,” his earpiece quickly said.
“There’s a key to a different cell locked to the padlock of each cell—but they were locked on using a different key,” Lu Zhongyu replied.
But Zhou Luoyang couldn’t feel a key on his padlock.
“We need the first key,” Du Jing said. “It’s on the wall outside one of our cells. Hey, five, you still alive?”
If everything was as expected, the priest should be in cell five. But he hadn’t made a peep all this time.
“Who told you about the key?” Lu Zhongyu asked.
Du Jing didn’t answer him. The archeologist said, “Who has the light? Can you turn it on so we can see?”
“Professor?” Zhou Luoyang called.
“I don’t want to turn on the light right now,” the professor replied.
Zhou Luoyang contemplated that. He suspected the “professor” was following the instructions given by his earpiece.
“Tell him you know where it is,” Zhou Luoyang’s own earpiece said. “Once he’s gotten the key, have him open your bodyguard’s door first, and then have your bodyguard open your door.”
“I know where it is,” Zhou Luoyang promptly announced. “The key is on the wall to your left, botanist.”
The man in cell one turned right away, but said, “I can’t see it.”
“I can see it,” Lu Zhongyu said. “It’s to the left.”
Everyone watched as the “botanist” reached for it, but fell short by less than ten centimeters.
“Grab a tool,” Du Jing suggested. “There has to be some tool in the cells.”
Everyone began to feel around their dark prisons. Finally, Zhou Luoyang realized that one of the metal bars of his gate could come loose. There was a hoop at the top of the rod.
“Here, use this!” Zhou Luoyang rolled the iron rod across the ground.
The botanist removed the keys from the wall and attempted to unlock his door with shaking hands.
“Don’t be nervous,” the rest of them said soothingly.
“It’s not working.” The botanist’s heavy breathing permeated the darkness. “This key will only open someone else’s cell.”
Zhou Luoyang now realized that the mechanism for opening each cell had been carefully designed.
“Tell him to open the bodyguard’s door first,” came the voice in his earpiece.
“Open the door of cell six first,” Zhou Luoyang echoed.
“Toss the key over,” said Du Jing.
The botanist didn’t move.
“Open mine first,” the “professor” in cell three quickly piped up.
The archeologist in cell four said, “Open mine first.”
“Open mine. The keys are part of a loop. Once we get one door open, the rest can be opened too.”
“Who should I listen to?” the botanist asked.
“Decide for yourself,” Zhou Luoyang said.
“Let’s take a vote. I vote for cell six,” Lu Zhongyu said.
“Do you know each other?” the professor in cell three asked suspiciously.
No one answered. A moment later, the botanist declared, “Three votes for six.”
“Then I’ll vote for six, too,” the professor said.
As soon as the words were spoken, the botanist tossed the key to Du Jing. Du Jing tried it. It worked. But just as he twisted the lock open, the key jammed. It refused to come out. With great effort, Du Jing tried to turn it several times, then tried to twist it the other way to see if it would come out if the door locked again. Nothing worked.
But the other key attached to the padlock was now freed, so Du Jing still had one key in his hand.
“Get the bodyguard to open yours,” his earpiece commanded.
But Zhou Luoyang watched wordlessly as Du Jing walked out of his cell and beelined towards him with zero hesitation.
“Go open someone else’s door,” Zhou Luoyang told Du Jing. “See what’s in cell five.”
Du Jing reached out a searching hand, and then understood. He quietly shh-ed and strode toward Lu Zhongyu’s cell.
“Open mine,” the botanist implored, giving the metal bars a rattle.
The computerized voice asked Zhou Luoyang, “Why didn’t you listen to my directions?”
Zhou Luoyang didn’t answer. The voice spoke seriously. “I could penalize you, but I don’t see a need for it right now. You’d best start listening up.”
Still, Zhou Luoyang didn’t answer. He heard a door creak open. Du Jing had let Lu Zhongyu out.
Lu Zhongyu grabbed his key and made for Zhou Luoyang. Zhou Luoyang murmured, “Go open someone else’s door. I should be the last…”
“Are you sure?” Du Jing asked.
Wordlessly, Lu Zhongyu unlocked Zhou Luoyang’s cell door. Immediately, he received a shock and fell to the ground with a shout, where he twitched uncontrollably.
“Wait!” Zhou Luoyang cried. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t follow directions…” It took some time for Lu Zhongyu to recover and struggle to his feet. “It’s alright. I’ll be fine soon.”
“Come out, boss,” Du Jing said.
The cell door swung open. Du Jing grabbed Zhou Luoyang’s hand and led him out.
Zhou Luoyang was the only one who did not have the next key, so the task came to a dead end at this point. The remaining players were still locked up. No one spoke a word, silently watching the three of them.
All of a sudden, Zhou Luoyang was overcome with terror. Just like this, the remaining cells could never be opened.
lol i just want to say i would personally visit angkor wat over rome any day, but to be fair to zly i guess i would also be pissed if i were kidnapped for a weird hunger games reenactment
Translated by beansprout. Edited by opal.
beansprout translates 
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