Surprise! The Supposed Talent Show Was Actually–?!

Chapter 61 - Coffin

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

When the trumpet rang out, the interior of the instance was instantly burned up by the blazing light from the ceiling, turning the extreme cold into the beginnings of spring. It was like paradise had arrived.

The arm that was holding the assault rifle suddenly tightened as Wu Jin flipped out of the coffin, narrowly brushing past the bullet that was aimed his way.

The trumpet in the Judgement card represented salvation; in the instance, it undoubtedly signaled the start of a new round of battle.

The coffins scattered throughout the middle of the instance forced the players who’d originally been far away from each other to gather together. The environment made it difficult to survive, and they had to scrape along together, but once the extreme cold was over––close combat battle was imminent.

Wu Jin’s breath came in short bursts as he switched to a different bunker in order to quickly survey the surrounding situation.

There were about 19 players who could still stand up, and 8 or 9 silver life-saving capsules scattered on the ground.

Judging from the sounds of shooting just now, most of the casualties had been caused by one person.

Wu Jin stilled slightly.

Common sense couldn’t be applied to the unknown trainee twenty meters away at all.

Not only had that person predicted the emergence of the safe zone earlier than he had, he had also turned into a human-shaped turret while everyone was still in a panic, using a basic rifle like a sniper rifle.

If he had a choice, Wu Jin would never compete with this man so early in the game.

However, at a distance of only 20 meters apart––it was far, far above the threshold for detection.

Five minutes ago, the two of them had snuck towards the same direction from opposing sides, making the same prediction and choosing to bet on the same safe zone. They’d also spread out their firepower at the same time, dooming them to fight until the death in this coffin-covered slaughter hell.

On the opposite side, the gun muzzle burst out with a shot.

Wu Jin’s waist and abdomen tightened to the limits as he rolled to avoid the bullet, then he lifted up his own gun with lightning speed!

Even if the other party’s hand speed was 300APM, they would still be limited by the starting weapon they’d all been issued by the program group. The weapon provided by the show was similar to a Mauser Rifle, with a very slow shooting speed of 8 shots per 10 seconds.

That also meant that this safe zone was completely Wu Jin’s for the next 1.25 seconds.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and he shot in the direction of the muzzle flash.

Missed.

Wu Jin was stunned, then dodged back to avoid conflict. One second passed by swiftly, and the other side came up to shoot again...

Wu Jin, who had originally planned to arch his body and dodge to the right and behind him, stopped abruptly and fell to the left instead, landing painfully on his right knee.

A third shot, then a fourth.

If Wu Jin could be said to still have had some will to fight a few minutes ago, by now, he seemed to have already been pushed into a dead end.

After firing many times, the firing speed of both people had reduced to 1.8 seconds per shot, making this crisis even more intense.

Wu Jin’s brain was completely blank. No matter how he planned out his moves, the other party would still manage to force him to change his strategy. He even had a vague illusion that his opponent was playing chess with him rather than shooting with a gun––

However, he’d been reduced to a white pawn who had been surrounded by the fierce, black dragon. He had nowhere to retreat to anymore and was only one step away from falling into certain death.

It didn’t make sense!

Wu Jin was almost driven into a dead end, and the alarms in his heart rang loudly. How could there be such a coincidence in the world? All of his thoughts were under the other party’s control. Even before the trumpet rang, every step and every prediction between the two of them had already been perfectly aligned.

This insight made his hair stand on end, and his blood boil. If the two of them were teammates––

Unfortunately, they were currently rivals.

The light in the instance dimmed again.

Wu Jin raised his head slightly. The statue that hung in mid-air darkened, staring at everything laid out beneath its feet in the darkness as the temperature dropped down to a freezing point once again.

If he continued to fight against the other party&#k2013;&#k2013;under the suppression of the gunfire, he might no longer have any chance of reaching the safe zone.

The youth lowered his chin in the darkness. His sweat was almost frozen solid on his protective clothing, and his physical strength was almost completely exhausted as he executed another evasive maneuver, the action creating small sounds of friction.

His closed eyes opened again, brighter than before. Amber eyes seemed to flash with an almost invisible light, making his eyes appear cold. He only had one choice left.

He couldn’t retreat and could only go forth.

If the other party’s aim was to keep him from entering the coffin in front of him––then he would rush out with guns blazing and snatch the coffin on the other side.

Wu Jin no longer returned any shots. After retreating behind the bunker, he quickly calmed down and loaded up his ammunition, pausing for a moment just as he was about to step out. He pulled out his two cards at top speed and quietly slipped them into a slit beneath the bunker.

His chances of victory weren’t high. If the cards were taken away by the other party––any advantages they might gain would put more pressure on Zoe and the others as they tried to advance.

The terminal on his right wrist showed that there were still 244 survivors.

At this time, the temperature in the instance was once again close to -20 Celsius. Many players were already heading towards the coffins to hide, and the sound of gunfire rang out from those who were behind them, who were striving even more for an opportunity. Suddenly, the entire instance was full of thunderous sound.

At that time...

Wu Jin didn’t hesitate before rushing out from behind the bunker, like a rabbit that had been forced into a panic, wanting to bounce up and bite people a few times if he could.

His assault rifle was clasped between his right arm and the crook of his elbow. His right index finger, reddened from the cold, pressed against the trigger as the bright coffin appeared abruptly in his vision, along with his opponent who had finally ventured out––

The sound of gunshots rang out.

Wu Jin shot out three rounds of bullets in quick succession, and the barrel of the gun turned hot in his hands. Wu Jin’s shorter body was already close enough to touch the coffin.

There was no reaction from the other side!

Wu Jin’s eyes brightened. He squeezed into the coffin and fell inside with a plop. The warmed coffin walls were like a stove in the middle of a cold winter, thawing out his body––

A ‘knock knock’ sounded out.

Wu Jin stiffened. The knocking sound came from the right and caused him to feel as though he’d fallen into an ice cellar once again. He lay there and didn’t dare to move. The right side was where his opponent had been just now, but he’d been sure that he’d landed a shot––

To the right of the coffin.

Wei Shi set down his gun and raised his eyebrows as he looked at the coffin that Wu Jin had excitedly stuffed himself inside.

Just now, Wu Jin had been forced into a panic, wanting to bite people with open teeth and dancing claws. He would never have expected that he’d been cheated into losing all his vigilance with a false move. He wanted nothing more than to build a nest in the coffin right away and rub his rabbit fur against it until it was toasty warm.

Wei Shi guessed that Wu Jin had been frozen too bitterly.

Wei Shi knocked on the coffin twice more.

Wu Jin, who’d been looking down, finally looked up blankly, following the direction of the noise. His expression was tangled, like a little white rabbit who was hesitating to open the door for the big gray wolf. However, he quickly reacted and realized that the cover of the coffin was still on the ground––

Whether or not he wanted to open the door was secondary. There wasn’t a door there at all.

Wu Jin sucked in a breath of cold air and held the gun carefully as he slowly, tentatively looked towards the right.

A hand with gun calluses was to his right, the knuckles wide and rough. It seemed that the extremely cold temperatures outside had been unable to influence it.

The man standing in front of him bowed his head slightly, and the familiar scent smoothed over Wu Jin’s stiff back. The small curls that had been trembling suddenly leaped up and fluffed out––

The carrot gun fell back into the coffin with a ‘bang’.

Wu Jin looked up in amazement and spoke in a daze, “Big, big brother?!”

Outside the coffin, the frost and strong winds combined into cold blades that sliced into their vision. The small round face that had warmed up in the safe zone smarted from the cold once again, but Wu Jin didn’t seem to notice it at all. He seemed bewitched as he stared as if he was in a trance.

The man stood there in front of the youth, one hand holding the assault rifle he’d used to shoot the rabbit. His facial features seemed carved out by the wind and frost; deep, cold, and daunting.

Wu Jin abruptly came to his senses and bounced up, rushing to exit the coffin, “Big brother, I, I, I’ll find another one...”

At twenty degrees below zero, the air was like sharp needles that pierced through human muscle into bone. Wu Jin had just taken a deep breath when he was suddenly pressed back down by a rough hand. Wei Shi’s hand was dry and warm; he was clearly standing there in the extreme cold, but he wasn’t affected by the temperature outside at all.

The man’s eyes narrowed slightly as he tossed Wu Jin back into the coffin, then moved his long legs to follow him inside.

Wu Jin: “......!!!”

At this time, the instance was already dark. The two of them were crowded into a single narrow coffin, and the original warm, sweet fragrance of the youth was brutally overwhelmed, the air filling with the man’s blazing scent.

Wu Jin tried his best to shrink into himself, but he couldn’t keep from touching the big boss’s knee. His heartbeat accelerated sharply.

In the next second, Wei Shi pressed down on the rabbit spirit with one hand while the other hand pushed the top of the coffin into place. The moment that the man lay down beside Wu Jin––

The coffin slammed shut, blocking them from the densely packed Crosson Show cameras.

Their field of vision turned black.

The two of them were too close together.

Wu Jin seemed to feel threatened and shrank back again even as his body unconsciously turned soft, all of his attention seized by the man in front of him.

Wei Shi was like a burning hot furnace that emitted fierce, magma-like, waves of heat. The places where their shoulders and knees touched seemed to burn silently, and Wu Jin’s frozen limbs warmed up one by one, the tips of his ears out of his control as they quietly turned red.

Inside the coffin, the two rabbit claws furtively shrank back, trying their best not to ice the big boss––

Wei Shi suddenly reached out and pressed Wu Jin into his arms.

“Cold?” The man was expressionless as he spoke, “I’ll hold you.”

Wu Jin was stunned, “Not, not, not cold...”

Wei Shi’s arm was around his shoulders, and Wu Jin had practically no way to resist, the claws that had been retreating stretching out reflexively.

Wu Jin: “!!!”

The rabbit paws fluttered in the dark a few times, but ultimately posed no threat against the man’s forcefulness. He landed against Wei Shi’s chest with a thump.

Wu Jin’s eyes were dazed and round, and he was about to subconsciously shrink back again, but the man held him in place in a way that brooked no refusal, “Behave.”

The man’s voice was a little hoarse and carried a strong sense of aggression that instantly left Wu Jin dizzy.

By the time Wu Jin reacted, his small round face had turned thoroughly red.

He was splayed out and clutching at the big boss like an octopus while in his embrace, like hugging a hard hot water bottle. It was clear that his soul was so comfortable that he wanted to smooth out his ears and go to sleep, but his rational self was so ashamed that he wanted to curl up into a rabbit ball.

Not only had he not won the gun fight, he’d even stolen the big boss’s safe zone, and––he was treating the big boss as a hot water bottle!

The coffin was so narrow that they could almost hear each other’s heartbeat.

Big boss’s heart beat once, and Wu Jin’s beat once.

Big boss’s heart beat again, and Wu Jin’s heart ‘thump-thump’ beat twice.

Big boss––

Wei Shi spoke calmly, “Nervous?”

Wu Jin froze. He mentally stumbled and tripped, and thoughts flashed as he anxiously tried to find a topic, “... Big brother, do we co-count as forming a team illegally...”

Wei Shi: “We’ve traded attacks. Doesn’t count.”

Wu Jin was stunned for a moment, then reacted and abruptly understood.

Crosson Show director’s studio.

The little stage manager who was watching the cameras suddenly spoke up in surprise, “How... could there be two players less than 10 cm away from each other?”

The director who was eating melon seeds to the side immediately stretched his head over, “What’s going on? Oh, it’s the Judgement card instance. Take a look at their combat records.”

Data flashed across the screen.

The director waved his hand, “Not a problem. After fighting so long, they probably fought their way into the coffin as a last resort. The space is so small that neither of them dares to shoot. Just let them stay inside.”

The little stage manager immediately got it.

The director continued to point out, “It’s pitch-dark there, and there’s nothing to broadcast. We’re short on manpower, so don’t waste your time here. You need to try and find highlights of all the players rather than focusing on the data, understand?”

“10cm isn’t worth reporting, unless the distance between the two players is negative 10cm––ah, enough, just keep watching the surveillance. Pay special attention to Jingyi Entertainment, something interesting will probably happen later...”

The little stage manager blushed and nodded repeatedly.

Crosson Show, Judgement card room.

The time before the trumpet rang out in the instance was like a long, extended night. The area outside the coffin was like a frozen hell, but the inside of the coffin was as hot as summer.

The frozen Wu Jin finally warmed up and was gradually able to focus his vision after adapting to the lack of light.

Inside the cramped space, the big boss’s chin was on his small, soft curls. His gaze was met with the strong, muscular curve of the man’s shoulder and arm.

Wu Jin forced himself to move his gaze away. He lifted his head to look up slightly, his eyes landing on the cold line of the man’s chin, the slightly shifting throat and closed lips.

The big boss never seemed to smile, but there was a kind of extremely oppressive sex appeal when he looked at others coldly.

One thousand years ago, if the big boss hadn’t become a survival show contestant, he could still have become a superstar that was chased by tens of thousands of people... No! Big boss wasn’t a trainee. Big boss was the militant leader of Floating City! It was a pity that society in the 21st century had been harmonious, but in that case, big boss could still be a handsome special forces soldier...

The rabbit who’d thawed out from the cold had a lively mind that skittered about, thinking about the employment possibilities for the big boss one thousand years ago. He didn’t notice that his small curls were rubbing against the man’s chin.

Wu Jin raised his head again to sneak a glance.

Big boss was really good looking... the corners of his mouth looked good too... he looked good wearing combat clothing, and in a military uniform... much more attractive than XXX in the XX film...

He paused suddenly.

One of the short films that Caesar had sent him popped up from the back of his mind. The image of the officer and the deputy eagerly kissing each other––

Wu Jin: !!!

Wu Jin: Stop! These thoughts can’t spread! You can’t secretly compare them! Not allowed!!

Wu Jin: Stop thinking! That’s big boss! That’s your big brother! Sto-stop ahhhhh! There’s something wrong with my brain! My brain has malfunctioned ahhh!!

In the darkness, Wei Shi seemed to sense something. He looked down at the rabbit spirit who seemed to suddenly be covered in a layer of heat, “Hm? What?”

Juurensha: ...is it a thing in C-novels that couples have to cuddle in a coffin? TGCF has it, 2ha has it...

xiin: juu... i-i’ve never translated anyone cuddling in a coffin before... *backs away*

Mar 17 – hey peeps, this is totally unrelated to the novel, but with the virus spreading globally and everything... please stay safe! take care of yourselves and family~ i believe we’ll all get over it but be careful in the meantime! <3