Congratulations on Your Successful Escape

Chapter 22

Mo Yi’s eyebrows slowly wrinkled, and his fingers unconsciously tightened, leaving shallow marks on the rough surface of the paper note.

FIND ME？

He thought of the prompt given at the beginning of the game: “Good children, good children, can play games.”

This game, could it be referring to hide and seek? If so, then who would he be asked to find? Supposing that he won, what did that mean?

Then, … what if he loses?

There were innumerable doubts and suspicions gathered in Mo Yi’s brain, and he didn’t know what to think.

He raised his head to look at Song Qi, wanting to say something.

But was alarmed when he abruptly met the other’s person’s eyes attentively gazing at him. The light-coloured eyes in the semi brightness were half hidden, appearing extremely focused, and the very thin pupils were like the pupils of a snake, almost arousing fear in a person.

Mo Yi’s heart burst, and his blood went cold as a sense of crisis began to spread from his back.

With rapt attention, he once again looked, but he only saw Song Qi squatting down beside him with a normal face, looking at the note in his hand.

“What? What did you find?”

Mo Yi lowered his eyes and his thick black eyelashes drooped, concealing the surging emotion in his eyes.

He handed Song Qi the note in his hand. As he took it and carefully looked at it, Mo Yi casually said, “By the way, how did you recognize me in the first place?”

Song Qi replied, “Jiang Yuanrou told me that you would be the best-looking person in the crowd.”

Mo Yi, “…” That sounded exactly like Jiang Yuanrou’s style.

“But she also told me the specific characteristics of your appearance.” Song Qi raised his eyes and looked at him. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize you at a glance.”

Mo Yi knit his brows, and once again asked the question he had not received an answer to back in the lobby, “However, Jiang Yuanrou didn’t inform me of your secret signal for when we meet in person. I thought that you wouldn’t come.”

After hearing this, Song Qi looked at him, narrowed his eyes, and said slowly, “I would have certainly come.”

Mo Yi was stunned … eh? What was this talk without rhyme or reason?

In the next second, Song Qi had lowered his head again and explained as if nothing had happened, “At that time, I had received a list of newcomers to look after. You were already in the game by the time the copy was over. I didn’t have time to contact you.”

Jiang Yuanrou did say that there would be a waiting period before the copy was opened. As long as the props were used during this time, it was still possible to enter the same copy.

There was a clear explanation.

What’s more, Song Qi also knew Jiang Yuanrou’s name: it was important to realize that she concealed her identity without letting a single drop leak out.

Mo Yi pursed his lips and continued to ask, “Speaking of which, you just told the two girls that you’re a newcomer. What about the things you brought?”

Song Qi’s expression didn’t change, and he explained, “It’s just a simple prop exchanged from the in-game store.”

After he finished speaking, he stretched out his hand and made a grabbing motion, and a backpack manifested by his side. When he let go, the edges of the backpack disappeared in the air again.

Mo Yi nodded, and the suspicion that was hidden in his eyes finally faded a little.

He took the note he had handed over from Song Qi’s hand, stretched out his hand towards the railing beside him, and stood up.

Suddenly, at this moment, Mo Yi paused and then stopped moving.

His sight fell on the signboard at the head of the bed.

The signboard was already quite worn down, and it was covered in dust and dirt, but the handwriting was still vaguely visible.

It was written in beautiful fancy calligraphy: Iris Municipal Orphanage.

After those few English words, it was abruptly followed by two standard Chinese characters — “Mo Yi.”

It unexpectedly turned out to be his own name?

Mo Yi’s back felt cold, and he stood up in a hurry. He quickly walked to the other beds and examined the name plates.

“Daniel”, “Tommy”, “John” …

Apart from the bed he woke up on, the other signs hanging in front of the other beds all had some common English names, which should be the names of every orphan laying on those beds.

Mo Yi’s mind was in chaos. He stood in front of the furthest bed, and he turned to look at the bed where he had woken up on —

Under the dim light, the dusty room was silent and frightening. The narrow bed was half hidden in the dark corner, looking lonely and strange, as if it quietly waiting for something.

An idea suddenly flashed through Mo Yi’s mind:

This way of signing someone’s name, was like … he was a member of this orphanage.

Without warning, there was an intense clamour from outside the door, which pulled Mo Yi out of his deep thoughts. He had been in a trance, and instantly, his eyes became calm and sober again.

Mo Yi turned his head and said to Song Qi, “Let’s go and look.”

Immediately after, he took the lead to go out. Song Qi looked at the view of his back, paused, and then followed him out.

As soon as they arrived at the entrance of the hall, before they even went in, they heard a sharp scream, like a fingernail scratching glass.

“— Ah!!!”

Mo Yi’s steps indiscernibly paused, and he held back the impulse to stretch out his hands to knead his aching ears. Afterwards, he strode onwards with his long legs, his steps quickening as he walked in.

The moment he entered the hall, he saw a dead body hanging from the beam near the entrance.

It was a man; his whole body was stiff as it hung in the air. His blueish black face was swollen and congested from lack of blood flow. He was staring straight in Mo Yi’s direction, eyes not even closed in death. The pair of cloudy eyeballs were protruded, face horrified and distorted, as if he saw something terrifying before he died.

Everybody’s complexion was deathly pale. A woman was slumped on the ground, her legs limp. She was trembling, not daring to raise her head, and her face was full of tears — It was obvious that she was source of the scream.

At that moment, Zhao Yicheng walked out from behind the crowd and raised his voice to console them, “Don’t panic everyone. The most urgent problem now is to find out why this gentleman died to avoid being the next victim!”

Another female senior also came forward to support his point, “Yes, that’s correct. This game will never randomly select people to kill. He must have done something to have ended up like this. As long as we find out the reason, and then try to avoid it, we can minimize the chances of injury and death.”

Although there was still hesitation and panic in people’s eyes, their mood had become a little calmer than before.

A damp and gloomy atmosphere permeated the air, mixing in with the shallow hint of fear.

Everyone was still in low spirits. After all, less than hour after the start of the game, one of the ten people had died, and everyone still had no idea how to escape.

Mo Yi frowned and stepped forward, lost in thought, and closely examining the corpse in front of him.

It was evident that the man had just died, and there was still a residual warmth on the body, clashing with his lifeless face. A pair of lusterless eyes tinged with blood stared into a void, and his distorted facial features made nearly everyone feel physiologically uncomfortable.

Although he was hanging from the beam in the room, his bluish black face was not caused by suffocation, and his tongue was not sticking out due despite having his neck constricted.

Mo Yi’s brow grew more creased and taught, and the doubts from the bottom of his heart were on the verge of coming out. His mind was moving as fast as electricity, and in the next second, he stretched out his hand towards the chair beside him and stepped on it.

His fingers efficiently ran across the corpse’s shoulder, feeling his way to the back of his neck.

Several people on the sideline who caught sight of this act seemed to be stricken dumb with amazement at his boldness. They couldn’t refrain from gasping, stopping to look at him.

Mo Yi’s eyebrows and eyes were solemn with concentration as he twisted his fingers. The skin of the corpse was still soft and elastic. He could clearly feel the odd shape and direction of movement of the bones of the neck under the skin and flesh.

Sure enough, the bones of the neck of the corpse was broken, and it was broken very cleanly.

Mo Yi jumped off the chair, still immersed in his thoughts.

He absently raised his head to look at the corpse dangling in mid-air, mulling over his thoughts.

Neck fractures were rarely seen in situations where people were hanged by the neck. It was more like … execution by hanging.

Prisoners on the gallows would abruptly drop, and the gravity would break the victim’s cervical vertebra.

… Gallows?

Mo Yi looked stunned, and he subconsciously felt the note in his pocket.

He hesitated for a few seconds, then stretched out his hand and held the note in front of him.

The shapeless and twisted gallows on the note inexplicably coincided with the corpse hanging in front of him —

Just then, something strange happened.

A crayon drawing of a small figure hanging on the gallows appeared out of thin air, and several childish characters appeared on the note.

It was bright red and glaring like fresh blood:

“MY TURN.”

Translator’s Notes:

Sorry everyone. I’m going to be only updating once a week now for the following weeks. My stockpile is running low, so I need to take some time to replenish it. Thanks for reading and commenting!