Chapter 298: Colosseum (Part 6) “That’s a Colosseum.”

“You’ve eaten it?” Qi Si raised an eyebrow, motioning for Nian Fu to continue.

Nian Fu offered a faint, bitter smile, her eyes gradually weaving with the colors of memory: “I thought I’d never eat something like that again in my life…”

The human brain has an emotional protection mechanism; painful experiences are easily diluted into vague, unclear blanks. Only when that pain becomes a constant does it smear across a white paper like a large blob of gray paint, an undeniable mark.

Most of Nian Fu’s memories of the past took place in an orphanage.

Everything there was scarce, including food, clothes, and beds.

The director took the relief funds allocated by the federal government, fattening herself into a pig, and then grudgingly squeezed out meager slop from between her teeth to feed the children in the orphanage.

As long as no one starved to death, no matter how harsh the conditions, there would be no trouble. Even if a few died, chopping them up to feed pigs or selling them to the black market were good ways to dispose of them.

The only purpose of those children seemed to be to serve as a facade for the Charity Foundation, extorting one donation after another from people of all walks of life.

The rest of the time, they were left in various corners of the orphanage like unsupervised small animals, and under hunger and pain, they prematurely learned the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, fighting fiercely like beasts for scarce resources.

Nian Fu, as a child sent to the orphanage midway, was once a pampered darling in a privileged family before losing her parents. She couldn’t adapt to the rules of competition like those children who had grown up in such an environment since childhood.

In the first month, her food was often snatched by older children, and even her bed was occupied by them.

She could only sleep on the damp ground, learning from other children driven to the corners, picking up straw to spread on the ground, roughly serving as a bed.

The building was old and dilapidated, covered in cobwebs and various filth. At night, one could hear the squeaking of rodents crawling on the rafters.

One night, Nian Fu heard the squeaking sound reach her feet, and the straw beneath her seemed to be tugged by something.

She opened her eyes and saw a large, disheveled rat standing on her heel, upright like a human, its pea-like eyes glinting in the dark, staring intently at her.

After staring at her for a while, the rat bent down again, extending its white-whiskered mouth to pick up the straw from the ground… “I was very angry then. I thought I had nothing left, but that hateful rat wanted to steal the last bit of straw I had. I wanted it to die.”

Nian Fu smiled, her voice calming: “So I caught it. I originally wanted to strangle it to death, but then I thought that would be too easy.

“I hadn’t eaten for two days then, and I was very, very hungry, so I brought it to my mouth and bit off a chunk of flesh with my front teeth.

“I suddenly realized that humans are also animals, and can hunt like animals, using their claws and teeth to obtain food. To survive, a person can do anything.”

The girl’s tone shifted, and she said lightly, in a joking manner: “It’s unlucky, actually. I shouldn’t have had to go to that orphanage. After all, going through the process is quite troublesome. But it just so happened that a family had completed the process and then changed their mind, so they substituted my information in.”

Qi Si pulled a handkerchief from his backpack and carefully wiped away the bloodstains left by the rat meat on his fingers.

The sour taste of rat meat and blood lingered in his mouth like a ghost. He somewhat regretted losing the Evil God Finger Bone, which could convert the taste of meat into vegetarian food, in the Shuangxi Town instance.

He listened quietly to Nian Fu’s narration. The three words “orphanage” seemed impossibly distant from him, yet they tugged at parts of his memory like tangled threads, clinging like water-soaked gauze.

He remembered that after his parents died when he was sixteen, his uncle and aunt had intended to directly throw him, a burden, into the orphanage in the suburbs of Jiangcheng.

At that time, his uncle led him into the old building covered in moss and fungi, discussing donation funds and the process of handling various documents with the pot-bellied director.

He wandered alone through the decaying corridors, countless ghostly faces of children appearing and disappearing in the windowpanes, like evil spirits from the abyss, staring intently at him.

He seemed to see a few particular faces, perhaps there was indeed a girl gnawing on a rat, but all his thoughts at the time were: he hated this place, he had to leave.

He stayed in the orphanage for a few days; the eerie dampness permeated his flesh, almost making him moldy and rotten. He struggled to live, and once entertained the thought of killing one or two people to create chaos, but then realized: there, death was the norm.

Later, his uncle eventually took him away and brought him back to their old home in the countryside.

One night, he overheard his uncle and aunt talking through the wall.

“That little brat is really sinister; he must be possessed by something unclean.”

“Isn’t it because you insisted on bringing him over? He’s a monster, and you brought him into the house, causing a ruckus every day.”

“Don’t you know? Didn’t you also have that dream that night? The Evil God said if we abandoned him, our whole family would die!”

“Evil God, again with the Evil God! I think he’s more like an Evil God!”

Many fragments of memory were buried deep in the mind, flying up in a flurry once touched.

Qi Si suddenly remembered the foundation his father had supported during his lifetime, which primarily dealt with orphanage-related operations.

His fate should have been inextricably linked with that orphanage. If nothing unexpected happened, he would have been cast into another fate line closely entangled with the orphanage, differing in personality details due to different experiences.

But an existence beyond the chessboard gently nudged a chess piece, a movement as subtle as a butterfly’s flutter, yet it allowed him to slip past the net of his original destiny.

The experiences that should have been his were given to someone else, and he was able to sit here and listen to another’s story.

Nian Fu sighed, a smile still on her lips: “I’m not telling you this to gain your sympathy, but because this instance gives me a very familiar feeling. Although I can’t find any outward similarities, it still reminds me of that orphanage.

“Resources were so scarce, everyone was thrown into a no-win survival competition, fighting tooth and nail, to the death, yet seeing no future at all. To give an analogy, it was like a group of maggots fighting, only to end up with rotten flesh.

“At that time, I thought, that place was simply a Colosseum.”

Qi Si had no leisure to soothe his teammate’s childhood trauma. In his view, stories voluntarily shared by others were not much more real than fiction, and even if true, they were merely leverage that could be exploited.

It was just that everything was too coincidental.

The food provided to the players in the instance happened to be rat meat, which Nian Fu happened to be able to identify.

Nian Fu happened to have an experience living in an orphanage, which seemed to be inextricably linked to him.

They happened to form a team in this instance, able to share this information.

Since entering the game, Qi Si had felt manipulated by a higher existence, and Qi also truthfully informed him of the existence of the Gods Gamble.

But the manipulation seemed to go beyond that; the entire world seemed to proceed methodically, like a programmed script.

And this feeling of being manipulated reached its peak in this instance. From the moment Chang Xu activated the Dark Judge effect, the situation effectively slipped out of control, and all subsequent choices were made passively.

He was no longer even at the center of the stage, but had become an NPC-like existence, eyed covetously by players, ready to deliver a fatal blow at any moment.

—It was terrible, and very unsettling.

“Do you have a way to contact your other teammate?” Qi Si looked at Nian Fu. “Is his food also rat meat?”

Nian Fu closed her eyes for two seconds, then reopened them and nodded: “Yes, I suspect all the food here is rat meat.”

“Is that so?” Qi Si lowered his eyes, looking at his fingers, as images flashed before him.

“I thought of a game called ‘animal chess’,” he said. “There are eight types of pieces: Elephant, Lion, Tiger, Leopard, Wolf, Dog, Cat, and Rat. Among them, Lion, Tiger, Leopard, Wolf, Dog, and Cat can eat Rat, while Rat can eat the largest Elephant.

“According to the rules of animal chess, the food chain relationship between the Rat and the Elephant will be the key to breaking the deadlock.”

“Why do you think this is animal chess?” Nian Fu frowned. “There are eight types of pieces, but only six teams. Moreover, we are ‘Foxes,’ which don’t belong to any of those pieces.”

“A fox is a canid, corresponding to the ‘Dog’ in animal chess. And, the pieces aren’t necessarily on the board.” Qi Si paused, then asked, “Do you remember which animal sat highest in the audience?”

Nian Fu carefully recalled, following Qi Si’s words.

Various animals were crowded together in the audience, more densely packed closer to the bottom, and more spacious higher up.

The lower seats were mostly a mix of cows, sheep, cats, and dogs, while the upper ones were Carnivores like tigers, leopards, and lions. But there was one animal that sat above these predators… “An elephant,” Nian Fu blurted out.

Qi Si nodded, stating calmly: “In various animal-themed games, including the worldviews of various animations and novels, only animal chess sets the elephant as the strongest beast.”

“Only animal chess?”

“As far as I know, yes, and I believe the instance won’t set up puzzles beyond the players’ knowledge limits.” A light golden, straw-textured item flashed in Qi Si’s hand, too quickly for Nian Fu to see what it was. “The key to winning animal chess is to avoid putting one’s own side in danger and to seize the opponent’s weaknesses as much as possible.

“Considering that in this game, players’ information is asymmetrical—they know their own corresponding animal but not others’—I thought of an interesting way to play…”

…“The current situation is actually very interesting. It’s still early, and I can analyze it for you in detail.”

On the other side, Chu Xun sat on the straw bed, unhurriedly explaining: “First, one thing is clear: Chang Xu targeting Qi Si is not the Jiuzhou Guild’s intention. On the contrary, it is highly likely a violation of guild orders.

“Recently, the forums have been in an uproar over the Identity Cards. Jiuzhou, in a critical phase of internal cleansing and deeply embroiled in public opinion, would never willingly expose non-compliant behavior to the public eye, adding fuel to the fire.

“Chang Xu, as the number one on the rookie rank, is a key target for cultivation and promotion, and cannot have any blemishes. Using the extreme mechanism of the Identity Card against a new guild member, even if there’s a reason, can easily cause negative impact.

“Therefore, regardless of whether Qi Si lives or dies, as long as Chang Xu leaves this instance, he will be sanctioned by the Jiuzhou Guild, likely more than just expulsion from the guild. Chang Xu himself cannot be unaware of this, yet he still did it. It can be said that dealing with Qi Si is his desperate, crazy move; he will want to win more than any of us.

“A desperate gambler, to achieve ultimate victory, will inevitably be willing to sacrifice immediate gains. This will be a point we can exploit.”

Green listened, somewhat confused, and asked: “So, are we going to cooperate with Chang Xu and discuss the terms of helping them?”

“No.” Chu Xun shook his head. “We don’t cooperate with anyone.

“After Qi Si’s judgment by the Identity Card, he became the target of the entire instance. Any team’s inclination towards him would be a godsend. He might also bring us considerable benefits to gain our support.

“Only when the chess pieces are not yet placed can they make the players ponder and be wary. We have a huge advantage and can completely sit back and watch.”

Green scratched his head: “Brother, what you’re saying makes sense, but it doesn’t quite seem right. Didn’t that guy Fan Zhanwei openly state he was siding with Qi Si?”

“He just thinks he’s clever, wanting to be an opportunist who plays both sides. Unfortunately, they don’t have the capital to demand a high price.” Chu Xun looked at the tiger mask hanging on the wall, a faint smile playing on his lips. “Unless they are lions.”

…“We are ‘Lions’.”

Fan Zhanwei suddenly put down the bowl of rat meat in his hand, stood up, walked to the wall, and took down the lion mask hanging there, gently caressing it.

“I remembered, only animal chess places the elephant at the top. So that’s it, I should have thought of it sooner.” He spoke rapidly, seemingly excited, “We are Lions, we can eat Tigers, Leopards, Wolves, Dogs, Cats, and Rats, second only to the Elephant, and the Elephant is in the audience…”

Lin Ye held his bowl, sitting beside him, utterly bewildered as his teammate paced back and forth.

The latter’s previously lifeless, dead-fish eyes were now dazzlingly bright, reminiscent of the legendary neurotic mad scientist.

He swallowed: “What do you mean by all that confusing stuff?”

“I’m guessing the rules and mechanics of this animal fighting game.” Fan Zhanwei spoke eloquently, holding the lion mask. “If this game is truly based on real-life animal chess, then I think we are not at a disadvantage as I guessed; on the contrary, we hold the greatest advantage within the mechanism.

“We will win. It doesn’t matter if we are hated, ostracized, or offend many teams. Because we are ‘Lions,’ the largest piece, second only to the ‘Elephant’.”

Lin Ye was utterly confused.

He had played animal chess. When he was not yet a street punk but the youngest child on whom his parents placed high hopes, they often played various educational games with him.

Although he always made a mess of it, and then threw a tantrum under his parents’ helpless gaze, scattering the pieces and board everywhere… Lin Ye opened his mouth and asked: “What if there’s a team that’s an elephant?”

“There won’t be.” Fan Zhanwei put down the lion mask, extended a finger, and pointed upwards. “The elephant is up there.”

Beneath the wall hanging with the tiger mask, Chu Xun lowered his index finger, pointing to the bowl filled with blood and flesh: “The rat is here.”