CHAPTER 110: CHAPTER 110: GECKO

He... when did he get so close...

Black Trojan felt his body stiffen instantly, a chill flooding his mind as it shot up his spine.

Before becoming a player, Black Trojan was an experienced 996 elite programmer, and a defining trait of programmers is working overtime.

Overtime, overtime, overtime—shining bright for the company, burning oneself out to illuminate the boss’s path to wealth.

Black Trojan’s physical fitness wasn’t great. After becoming a player, he hadn’t allocated points to physique or strength. Instead, he had prioritized raising his Perception Attribute to 9 points.

Paired with the Code Observer glasses, Black Trojan could sense every rustle of wind and blade of grass within a hundred meters.

This was the first time something had managed to sneak up right behind him without his knowledge.

"Do you like blue, or red?"

As if he hadn’t received a response, the man in disguise behind him asked again, somewhat impatiently. Fresh blood and yellow pus continuously dripped from the cracks in his lips.

Black Trojan stiffly turned around, his hand clutching a Casio calculator, pointing the end of it at the man in disguise.

He had thought about attacking immediately, but the man’s frenzied, violent aura made him hesitate.

"Not answering, is that it?"

The man in disguise tilted his head and quietly opened his mouth. A tongue about half a meter long, resembling a belt, rolled out. Dripping with sticky saliva, it lay on the red cloak in front of him.

His sense of crisis soared. Black Trojan felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave; his limbs were so stiff he couldn’t move at all.

Outside the school building, Plague Doctor and Li Ang listened to the sounds coming from the walkie-talkie and exchanged glances.

Even though they couldn’t see what was happening inside the school building, they both understood Black Trojan was likely encountering a supernatural event and was in a dire situation.

Li Ang pursed his lips. He had previously collected urban legends from around the world, and one of them was quite similar to the current situation.

In the Japan Islands, there was an urban legend about students. After school, they would sometimes meet a strange person dressed in a red cloak and wearing an odd mask. This person would ask the students, "Do you like red? Or do you like blue? Or do you like white?"

If a student answered red, they would die in a pool of blood.

If they answered white, all the blood in their body would be drained.

If they answered blue, they would be thrown into water and drowned.

In this urban legend, he was called ’A.’ He was a living person, not a monster, who for years preyed on children on their way home from school and was never caught.

If you thought about it, this urban legend didn’t make much sense. Further research on the internet would reveal that this ’Mr. A’ was, at best, a baseless story, likely posted online by some idle netizens seeking attention. After several rounds of sharing, it eventually evolved into this strange tale, no different in essence from the urban legend of the slit-mouthed woman who asks, "Am I beautiful?"

But in the kill game, urban legends could turn into real, terrifying incidents. Yet, at the same time, the details from urban legends couldn’t be applied directly to real-life situations.

Li Ang’s mind raced. He gently pried the steel clip from the walkie-talkie and attached it to the collar of his S.W.A.T. uniform, then ran toward the wall of the school building.

He flexed his fingers. They clung like eagle talons to the crevices between the bricks on the building’s outer wall. As he climbed upwards, he spoke into the walkie-talkie, "Blue is the color of melancholy."

?

On the other end of the walkie-talkie, Black Trojan, frozen and unable to move, felt his heart pounding violently.

Just moments ago, it seemed he had lost the chance to find a path to survival by speaking. But the walkie-talkie allowed Li Ang to answer for him, like a ’double act.’

"You like blue?"

The man in disguise cracked a smile, but his speech was slurred due to the large tongue lolling down to his waist. "Very good..."

Before the man in disguise could make a move, Li Ang’s voice came through the walkie-talkie again.

"Red is the color of the sun, the color of hope. It symbolizes good fortune, joy, passion, and unrestrained enthusiasm. In many cultures around the world, red has the power to drive away evil. For example, the walls of ancient Eastern palaces and temples are red, as are papercuts. A lot of red is also used in Western Christmas celebrations."

The man in disguise waited for Li Ang to finish. With his large tongue in tow, he looked at Black Trojan with a somewhat malevolent gaze. "So, you like red then."

Black Trojan subconsciously felt that no matter which color he (or rather, Li Ang on the other end of the walkie-talkie) chose, the outcome wouldn’t be good. He struggled intensely, desperately trying to press the reset button on the Casio calculator in his hand, all the while praying that his teammate, Li Rising, who seemed to have such an unusual way of thinking, could be reliable for once.

Li Ang didn’t respond directly but slowly said, "Blue symbolizes melancholy, yet it’s more than just melancholy. It’s like being in a silent public restroom without toilet paper, and your phone battery is already dead. You sit on the toilet, staring at the blue stall door, feeling somewhat blue, but within that sorrow, there’s a hidden sense of tranquil isolation from the world. You, have understood."

???

What the hell did ’understood’ mean? What was all this nonsense?

Black Trojan was utterly confounded. The man in disguise in front of him also seemed a bit lost. After contemplating for a moment, he viciously asked, "...You like blue, very good, I’ll..."

Before he could finish, Li Ang on the walkie-talkie interrupted him brusquely,

"’The sunrise paints the river flowers redder than fire; spring arrives, and the river water is bluer than indigo.’ Is the red-blue dispute really that important? Don’t you know that since ancient times, red and blue make a CP—it’s either yuri or gay..."

Once Li Ang got going, he wouldn’t stop talking. The man in disguise was stunned for several seconds before he realized he was being made a fool of.

"If you don’t pick a color, then let me choose one for you..."

The man tilted his head back, his mouth gaping open to an unnatural extent, like a snake’s. At the same time, he seized the long tongue resting on his chest and yanked it violently.

SQUELCH!

Blood splattered, but the man in disguise seemed to feel no pain at all as, again and again, he wrenched the entire tongue out by force.

He held the bloody tongue, swinging it like a lasso-wielding cowboy, and slowly walked forward.

Black Trojan nearly had his wits scared out of him. He struggled desperately, his index finger inching closer to the calculator’s reset button.

However, his opponent was much faster. Before he could press the button, the tongue, covered in thick, foul-smelling saliva, wrapped around his neck.

A loop, a pull, a yank.

Black Trojan felt a sharp pain in his throat. A strong sense of suffocation pressed on his brain, and the skin on his face turned crimson, like a cooked shrimp.

Somebody, save me...

"Hey~"

Li Ang’s voice came from outside the corridor railing.

In what little was left of Black Trojan’s clear vision, he saw Li Ang clinging to the wall like a gecko, poking his head out from over the railing.

The System had only stipulated that one player could enter a building; it hadn’t said anything about players not being allowed to climb walls.

"Darling, your red high heels are so fetching."

Li Ang hung from the railing, looking at the man in disguise with a mischievous smile. "Too bad, you can’t beat me in beauty."