"How do we earn Dao?"
Qi Xia asked again.
"We found a Bull game. Listening to the rules, we can earn a large amount of Dao, but that game requires twenty people to start. We are still short by five people. Do you guys want to come along?"
"Short by five people?"
Qi Xia paused in surprise.
"You have already gathered fifteen people?"
It seemed there really were many participants here.
"That is right."
The man with glasses nodded. He pointed into the distance, and sure enough, there was a crowd of people. It looked like quite a few were already there.
Qi Xia pondered for a moment and nodded, saying, "Alright, let us go take a look too."
"Okay! Then I will head over first and wait for you!"
The man with glasses tactfully walked away.
"Hey!"
Qiao Jiajin felt something was wrong.
"We are going over together?! What if that is a violent gang? Do you want me to show them a thing or two?"
"That will not happen," Qi Xia said.
"Each room has a maximum of nine people. In this kind of environment, trying to form a gang of more than a dozen people is too far-fetched. Needless to say for these strangers, even we who came out of the same room might not completely trust each other."
After speaking, he looked at Lin Qin, seemingly with a hidden meaning in his words. Lin Qin looked a bit displeased. She did not seem to know why she was being suspected.
Could it be just because she did not recognize that flyer? Walking across an old street, the four people arrived in front of a large building. Just as the man with glasses said, a man wearing a water buffalo mask stood at the entrance of this large building.
Outside the door, the many participants grouped themselves in twos and threes, deliberately keeping a distance from each other. Although these people were all strangers, seeing so many normal people appearing together still made Qi Xia and the other three feel a long-lost sense of relief. No matter how unpleasant these people looked, they were still living human beings.
"Not bad, little glasses!"
A middle-aged man patted the man with glasses.
"You found four people all at once!"
Qi Xia looked at the bull-headed man in front of him, stepped forward and asked, "What are the rules of the game?" The bull-headed man said calmly, "A Bull game. The entry ticket is one Dao per person, and it requires twenty people to start.
Players will be eliminated during the game. When the game ends, the players remaining on the field can each obtain an amount of Dao equal to the number of people who cleared the game."
"Dao equal to the number of people who cleared the game?!"
Qi Xia was startled.
"Are you saying that if twenty people remain on the field in the end, then each of these twenty people can get twenty Dao?!"
"Yes."
Hearing this, Qiao Jiajin also opened his mouth wide.
"Damn! Wouldn't we strike it rich in one go?! That is four hundred Dao in total!"
"Will it be that easy..."
Tian Tian felt it was somewhat unbelievable.
"Hey, Human Bull, you won't back out on your debt, right?"
The bull-headed man fell silent for a while after hearing this, then shook his head and said, "Please allow me to correct you. I am not a Human Bull."
"Not a Human Bull?"
Tian Tian looked doubtfully at the large man in front of her.
"But aren't you all called Human something?"
"I am an Earth Bull."
The bull-headed man said calmly.
"If you think I am a Human Bull, you will end up in more trouble than you can handle."
The crowd then realized that the Earth Bull in front of them was indeed quite different from the animal masks they had seen before. His mask was very clean, so lifelike it was almost like a living bull. His black suit was also spotless, looking as if it had been specially ironed.
When he spoke... it seemed as though the mouth of the mask was also moving slightly. But what was the difference between a Human Bull and an Earth Bull?
"Earth Bull..."
Qi Xia scratched his head, unable to figure out the connection. He looked up and asked again, "Earth Bull, what is your game?" Earth Bull paused slightly and said, "Pay the ticket, and you will know the content."
"Pay the ticket..."
The only thing Qi Xia cared about right now was that if all four of them participated in the game at the same time, the tactics they had discussed earlier would become useless. The four of them would be thrown into an unknown game at the same time, which was extremely risky.
But if they were participating in a game with such high stakes, the risks and rewards seemed to be directly proportional.
"Con man, what do you think the type of the Bull game is?"
Qiao Jiajin asked from the side. Qi Xia pondered slightly and replied, "It is probably the type I hate the most."
"Oh? You actually have a type of game you hate?"
Qiao Jiajin suddenly became interested.
"What is it?"
"Bulls are born to work hard. If I am guessing correctly, it should be a physical type of game."
Qi Xia gave Qiao Jiajin a calm look.
"It might be more suitable for a brute like you."
"Ha!"
Qiao Jiajin rolled up his sleeves, revealing his sturdy tattooed arms.
"It is finally my turn to shine... Wait, who did you call a brute?"
Qi Xia shook his head helplessly and said, "If it were not for the sake of Dao, I probably would not enter the Bull's room."
"Relax, just call me boss, and I will get you through all the Bull games."
Qiao Jiajin said with a wicked smile.
"Sounds like a good deal, right?"
Qi Xia turned his head and looked at Qiao Jiajin in front of him.
"You and I look about the same age, twenty-six or twenty-seven at most. Why should I call you boss?"
"If you are going to say that, I have to figure this out with you!"
Qiao Jiajin scratched his head.
"What year were you born?"
Qi Xia always felt that Qiao Jiajin carried a fearless aura, still able to smile and joke in such an oppressive environment.
"If you have this much free time, you might as well warm up early," Qi Xia said dismissively.
"Lest you get cramps later."
"Don't be like that."
Qiao Jiajin got excited.
"Hurry up and tell me! If you are older than me, I can also call you boss!"
"Sigh."
Qi Xia really could not argue with Qiao Jiajin, so he could only sigh and say, "Alright, then you go first. What year were you born?"
"The year 79," Qiao Jiajin said with a chuckle.
"The year 79... Is that funny?"
Qi Xia frowned.
"You really resort to any means just to trick me into calling you boss. I don't want to talk about this topic with you anymore."
"Eh? Why?"
Qiao Jiajin looked at Qi Xia in confusion.
"Hurry up and say what year you were born. Are you younger than me?"
Tian Tian also smiled and shook her head from the side. It seemed that staying with Qiao Jiajin was the right choice. His personality would make the gloom in everyone's hearts dissipate a little.
Qiao Jiajin called Qi Xia's name a few more times, and finding that the other party completely ignored him, he could only shake his head helplessly. A few minutes passed, and the current number of people was still nineteen. It seemed that although there were quite a few participants here, they were not everywhere to be seen.
Trying to gather twenty people in a short time was indeed a bit of a stretch.
"Is he still not here?" the middle-aged man asked the little glasses next to him.
"Did he sleep in?"
"I do not know either. He promised to come over this morning."
Little glasses scratched his head.
"Otherwise, I will go back to the street and pull someone else over."
"Forget it, forget it..." the middle-aged man waved his hand.
"There are already nineteen people now. We should just wait for him. I do not want to die without knowing why."
Their conversation was caught word for word by Qi Xia not far away.
"Die?"
Qi Xia frowned.
"What does die mean? This game can kill people?"
Before he could figure it out, a sluggish figure appeared in the distance. He was bare-chested, revealing a body full of scars, and wore a pair of camouflage pants on his lower body. He stretched lazily as he moved in this direction.