“What do you mean?” Su Shan turned back in confusion to glance at Lin Qin and Qin Dingdong, her gaze seemingly hoping for an explanation from the two seniors.
However, neither Qin Dingdong nor Lin Qin had ever boarded the Zodiac train before, so they naturally had no idea what the Earth Dog’s words implied.
“Nothing,” Earth Dog answered voluntarily. “Just daily grumbling.”
Su Shan took three “Dao” tokens from each person and handed them over to Earth Dog.
Earth Dog curled his lips but ultimately accepted the tokens reluctantly. He stretched his limbs, as if transforming into a completely different person, then turned and opened the door behind him.
It appeared to be a fairly large glass shop.
“Slacking off is one thing, but once the tickets are paid, it’s work time,” Earth Dog said with a serious expression. “From now on, I’ll do my best to kill all of you.”
The short sentence sent a chill down Zhang Chenze’s spine.
It was hard to imagine such blatantly unlawful words being spoken with such conviction, as if it were just another ordinary job.
The group followed Earth Dog inside and found that this place was quite different from the game venues they had seen before.
The nearly hundred-square-meter glass shop was impeccably clean, with all fragments and debris tidied away. Even the various glass displays had been dusted, making it almost indistinguishable from a real-world storefront.
How could this be the work of someone who claimed to be “slacking off”?
“Were we tricked?” Su Shan remarked. “You’ve cleaned this place so thoroughly—clearly, you wanted people to come in and take a look, didn’t you?”
“Don’t flatter yourselves,” Earth Dog replied coldly. “When I’m working, I just want to do my job well. No one can make me slack off. And when I’m slacking off, I just want to slack off. Anyone who tries to make me work will have to fight me.”
“What a strange person,” Su Shan said.
“A strange *dog*,” Qin Dingdong corrected.
Earth Dog led the group to the center of the room, where several large glass structures stood, stretching from the ceiling to the floor. They looked like enormous fish tanks.
Qin Dingdong tapped one of the massive tanks and found that the glass was thick, seemingly made of a special material.
“Try not to leave fingerprints,” Earth Dog said. “They’re a pain to clean.”
Qin Dingdong shot Earth Dog an annoyed glance and, while he wasn’t looking, deliberately smeared a big handprint onto the glass.
Su Shan peered into the tanks and noticed that each contained something resembling a lectern, with two small holes on top of unknown purpose.
The floors and ceilings inside the glass rooms were made of metal mesh, and various mechanisms seemed to be installed on the surrounding ground.
Earth Dog walked to the wall and pressed a switch. The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly.
Spotlights descended from above, illuminating the five large fish tanks at the center, while the rest of the shop plunged into darkness. The entire space now resembled a grand stage, with only the tanks glowing brilliantly under the lights.
“Listen closely as I explain the rules,” Earth Dog said.
He led them to the tanks and began his explanation: “The rules of this game are simple. If even one of you four manages to defeat me, you win.”
“Defeat?”
“Yes,” Earth Dog nodded. “Each of us five will have our own glass room. At the start of the game, everyone will be inside their respective rooms.”
The group examined the towering tanks. Their arrangement was deliberate.
At the center stood a cylindrical glass room, with four square glass rooms positioned directly in front, behind, to the left, and to the right of it. The rooms were spaced about two or three meters apart, and since they were made of glass, everyone could see into each other’s spaces.
Interestingly, the four square rooms used slightly different glass, each with a faint tint.
Pink, green, orange, blue.
The central cylindrical tank, upon closer inspection, was made of deep red glass.
“Looks like there are five rooms for five of us,” Su Shan observed. “Even though we’ve surrounded you, we can’t actually reach you. How are we supposed to ‘defeat’ you?”
“You don’t have to defeat me in the literal sense. As long as you beat me within the game’s rules, it counts as your victory,” Earth Dog patiently explained. “Think of this as a simple item-based battle.”
“Item-based battle?”
Earth Dog nodded and pulled out several wooden sticks from his suit pocket.
Upon closer inspection, the sticks resembled fortune-telling slips from temples.
“At the start, each of you will have two different ‘slips.’ On your turn, you’ll receive one additional slip. Each slip has a unique function,” Earth Dog said, opening the door to one of the square glass rooms. “If you want to use a slip, insert it into the small hole on the right side of the desk—this counts as ‘wishing.'”
Lin Qin stepped forward to examine it. The concept was similar to playing a card. Inside the glass room, the lectern stood on the ground, with two holes just large enough to fit a slip.
“What about the other hole?” Zhang Chenze asked, pointing to the left one.
“That’s what I was about to explain,” Earth Dog replied. “If you insert a slip into the left hole, you’ll pass it to the person on your left—this is called ‘gifting.'”
“‘Gifting’?”
“Exactly.”
Earth Dog casually inserted a slip into the left hole. It disappeared instantly, and a few seconds later, popped out on the desk in another glass room.
“That’s how ‘gifting’ works,” Earth Dog demonstrated. “Each turn, you can only choose one action—either ‘wish’ or ‘gift.’ If you choose one, you can’t do the other.”
Su Shan frowned as she surveyed the room. From the inside, the glass was indeed thick enough to block outside noise entirely.
In other words, even though the four of them were supposed to defeat Earth Dog, they wouldn’t be able to communicate during the game.
Without communication, the “gifting” rule seemed particularly odd, since neither the sender nor the receiver could know each other’s intentions.
“One more thing to note,” Earth Dog added. “Whether you choose to ‘gift’ or ‘wish,’ you can only use one slip per turn.”
After hearing the rules, both Lin Qin and Qin Dingdong felt uneasy—
This game was a bit too difficult.
But Su Shan didn’t seem too concerned. She looked up at the ceiling of the glass room, where numerous grids suggested that something might drop during the game.
Su Shan nodded and turned back. “Earth Dog, what’s this game called?”
“My game is called ‘Year of Disaster.'”
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