POTG chapter 1: God’s Game

Hello readers! I’m Yue Chen (pronounced as “u-a“), a new translator and this is my first ever project! I’ll be translating the novels which haven’t been picked up yet and are enjoyable to read(ofc). 


Imp note: I’m as lazy as a sloth! I’m so so lazy, I’ll be posting sporadically(for now) because my exams are going on and I’ll be totally free after 28 June, YAY! ＼(^o^)／


Also idk Chinese so I’ll be honest that I’ll be using MTL as reference! But don’t think low of my English *smirks*


Okay without further ado, let’s head to the chapter! ENJOY~ 

The door was unclean and the floor was full of dirt with coagulated blood and finely chopped pieces of meat strewn about.

The landlord hurriedly came out with a bucket and mop to clean up and smiled while cleaning up: “I’m sorry, I’ll clean it up right away, don’t mind.” 


The mop randomly dragged bloodstains on the ground, and the wet cloth strips were stained with remnants of minced meat while more pieces of meat were haphazardly swept into the trash.


The scene was so disgusting that the female compatriots present couldn’t help but vomit, and even the strong man who was used to seeing bloody scenes couldn’t help but turn pale, leaning against the wall to forcibly suppress his nauceousness that surged up his throat.



The landlord carried away the mop and trash can, ignoring the ugly faces of everyone present: “You guys are obedient, I didn’t have to work hard to clean the floor.”


Although he said this, the greediness in his eyes while eyeing the trashcan couldn’t be hidden away. Thinking of the pieces of meat in it, he couldn’t help swallowing his saliva as he spoke.


“Young people just don’t listen to persuasion! Have you been taught a lesson now? I already told you not to run around and to be obedient.” The landlord had told them to be “obedient” several times now, but in fact he wanted all players to violate the rules.


There were a total of 9 people in the hall. At this time, all of them looked coldly at the landlord as he ran upstairs with the trash can full of meat.


The hall regained its quietness and a young man suddenly asked curiously, “What is that landlord going to do with the minced meat? Could it be that he will eat it?”


When the rest of them heard this, they couldn’t help but tremble, recalling how often the landlord gulped while looking at the pile of meat.


But that is a pile of human flesh, even if it is squashed into slag, it’s still human flesh in essence!


They heard another lazy voice reply: “Don’t be as unhygienic as he is, daring to take a trash can to fill the ingredients*. I will hack you up if you do so.”


*ingredients, here the person is talking about human flesh mess*


“…” Where did this talent come from? Is this the time to be talking about hygiene?


The corners of everyone’s mouth twitched as they turned to look at the two young people conversing. The two should be around twenty-one years old. In terms of appearance, they were typical of being little white faces.


The blonde young man who spoke first was dressed in trendy clothes and looked very delicate, like a popular traffic star.


Next to him was the young man who had shown a penchant for hygiene, with short black hair that fell down softly and a warm and steady temperament.


“What are these two people’s names? They look very calm.” 


“Who knows?” 


“God knows.”


“Didn’t I introduce myself? How come no one remembers it?”


The others were too lazy to pay attention to him, they had just seen two living people die so tragically in front of them, who had the patience to play with him?


The highschool girl in the group couldn’t help but say, “What should we do now?”


“What should we do?” A middle-aged man wearing a Taoist robe said, “Didn’t you listen to the landlord? Be obedient, as long as you are obedient, you can live. Disobedience has only one end- being minced into a mass of meat and eaten by the ghosts here.”


Hearing this, except for the two beautiful boys, everyone in the team felt indescribable fear shroud their heads.

—



Half an hour ago, 11 of them had suddenly appeared in the lobby of this old-fashioned unit building. Everyone was dumbfounded, thinking it was a prank, and then they heard a mechanical sound echoing in the hall—[Welcome to the game of the gods~]


Then, the electronic sound announced a bunch of rules that went unheard before turning silent. Silence permeated through the hall and then a pair of lovers in the team pointed their middle fingers towards the hall, spat and walked out of the hall with their arms around each other.


As soon as they stepped out of the door of the hall, they were immediately hacked into pieces by the wind that came from nowhere. Blood and mangled flesh spilled all over the front door, but strangely, not a single drop of blood spilled into the hall making it clear to the ones present that the threshold was a dividing line, bloody and dirty on the outside and spotless inside.


Everyone was shocked and dared not treat it as child’s play.



—


“Who else remembers the rules from just then?”


Everyone turned back and looked at the black-haired boy.


No one spoke because they didn’t remember either. They were subconsciously angry, surprised and panicked.


The blonde boy turned towards the black-haired beauty: “Gao Yan?” 


Gao Yan was wearing a short white tshirt and his thin waist was faintly visible. Combined with his toned, long legs and a pair of sneakers, plus a high-level little white face, he was a type of handsome that made people unable to look away!


The muscular man asked him, “What do you want to do?”


Gao Yan turned a deaf ear and went straight past the muscular man to the front desk, stretched out his hand and pressed the key of the cassette recorder placed in the front desk.


The next moment, the mechanical and eerie electronic sound echoed in the hall again.


This time, everyone heard it:


【Welcome to the game of gods~】


【Please find the last pair of arms of the god within six days.】


【The kindness from the gods: Thousand-handed Guanyin has only 998 arms, why do you want to deceive the world?】


【Regulations: Please listen to the words of the gods.】


【Rule: Please listen to the words of the gods!】


【Remarks: Please be sure to obey the words of the gods^^】


【I wish you clear customs as soon as possible, and strive to become a real god, don’t die accidentally.】


【Reminder: Be careful not to get too close to dirty things. If you die, the gods are not responsible. 】


The last two sentences were particularly clear, the yin and yang’s strange exhortation was more like hoping that everyone in the hall would die quickly.


The person who came drooling and gulping with a mop and trash can to clean the human meat was also the same strange landlord who was neither yin nor yang. It is conceivable that in addition to similar players, other aliens, including gods, would be happy to see their deaths.


The rules put great emphasis on ‘obey the words of the gods’, and the landlord also repeatedly mentioned ‘obedience’.


The couple were killed because they didn’t obey the god’s words and left without authorization.


“Gods like obedient good people.” The middle-aged taoist man said with a cold face.


Gao Yan: “Gods who indiscriminately kill people?”


“Those were all damned people.” The taoist man looked around the crowd and said, “This is not my first time participating in such a game and I have already survived it twice before.” 


Then, he changed his words: “We didn’t have any surprises, but all the people in my team died because they were disobedient.”


Hearing this, the others immediately looked at the middle-aged man in the taoist robe as if they had found a backbone to lean on, hoping that after following the words of this ‘experienced’ senior, they could leave safely.


Once the middle-aged man in the taoist robe faintly became the leader of the team, he swept his eyes over Gao Yan and his blonde companion and said: “Fortunately, this is a copy of the beginner’s instance, there is plenty of time and there aren’t many ghosts. As long as you are obedient, basically everyone can survive.”


“‘God’s Game’ is very generous to novices, because they are usually very obedient. First of all, I will tell you that the key to triggering the game is temples, statues, etc. Basically, everything related to gods will trigger the game and since you are here, you should have been more or less exposed to things related to gods before you came in.”


“The difficulty of the game depends on the player’s experience. I have the experience of two games and have always followed the rules. In addition, advanced players can choose low-level games to enter the game to gain experience. So I entered the game on my own initiative.”


“You are all newbies, this is a dungeon that will never kill.” 


The beginner dungeon, but two people died at the beginning, shows how important it is to obey the rules.


Some people in the hall slowly believed the words of the taoist man and gradually moved closer to him.


The taoist was slightly satisfied when he saw this: “According to the request, we have to find the last pair of arms within six days. The kindness of the gods is a reminder, reminding us to find the last pair of Avalokitesvara’s¹ arms, and then we can pass the game.” 


The muscular man asked: ” Where can we find the Guanyin’s arms?”


The taoist said, “Since we are here, it must be in this building. Anyway, we have six days, so we can look for it slowly.”


A woman in the team asked: “Are we going to look for it now?” 


The taoist said, “Before it gets dark, let’s get acquainted with the environment and understand the situation. The name of this dungeon is ‘Guan Luo Yin², which is a ghostly technique from southern Fujian.


The rest nodded in agreement, as if they regarded the taoist man as their leader, obeyed his instructions and went upstairs to check out the situation.


Except for Gao Yan, the blonde beauty and the highschool girl.


The three of them stood there and didn’t move.


The taoist man asked, “Aren’t you coming?”


Gao Yan leaned against the front desk and stared at the radio. Hearing him, he raised his head and looked over. After a few seconds of silence, he replied, “Let’s get familiar with the hall first.”


The blonde boy nodded repeatedly: “I’ll follow him.”


Hearing this, taoist man suddenly lost his patience with the two of them.The two were perfunctory to him, presumably planning to act privately.


There were many naive people the taoist man had seen who thought they were protagonists because of their cleverness. They treated the game as a stage for a personal show and ignored the rules in the game of death.


The taoist man was too lazy to hold the stinky feet of these young people; they will naturally learn how high the sky is after they have been taught a lesson.


It’s just a pity that after learning this lesson, they might not have the time to reflect on it.


The taoist man sneered, no longer persuaded, Quan Dang* the two little white faces were dead.


*here Quan Dang (权当) means to act as if to treat something/someone as if it were, to be more precise the taoist treated them already being dead, cause it’s a common plot in escape games that novices who act proud and alone die early*


He looked at the hesitant high school girl again: “What about you? You also saw the end of the couple who violated the rules and were hacked immediately, with no chance to plead and appeal.” 


The high school girl hesitated and asked: “Didn’t you say that the junior dungeon won’t kill people?”


The taoist man immediately lost his patience and stalked upstairs after tossing his sleeves. 


‘Even if you die, you can’t drag others down. Those were just a couple of reminders of good intentions I said before, since you don’t appreciate all of them, let’s remove you from the team.’


The taoist man was unfeeling towards kicking newbies out of the team at will in the death game.


There were only three people left in the hall, Gao Yan, the blonde boy and a highschool girl.


The blonde boy: “Don’t be afraid little sister, brother will protect you.” He also blinked his peach blossom eyes and seduced the underage little sister.


The high school girl smirked: “Little sister? You bastard, does your husband know about you hooking up?


The blonde boy suddenly seemed to have seen a ghost and stepped back to Gao Yan’s side: “Brother Yanyan, she—”


“Don’t you think you owe it?” Gao Yan glanced at him, interrupted and asked directly.


The blonde beauty choked and suddenly felt like an abandoned puppy.


As Gao Yan walked around the front desk, he said, “You call someone little sister* despite already have a partner, and you are still seducing people, do you think you don’t owe it?”

*in a seducing/flirting way*


He was rummaging through the drawer at a high speed and finally took out all the things he thought to be useful and piled them on the table: two packets of caramel-flavoured melon seeds and a can of green tea leaves.


The blonde boy muttered in a low voice, “How does she know that I have a company*?”


*partner/husband/boyfriend*


Gao Yan raised his eyes and they fell on the red mark on his neck which wasn’t as heavy as a woman’s sucking. There was also a circle mark on the ring finger of his left hand, but if you don’t look carefully you won’t find it.


The highschool girl wearing a Japanese high school uniform was actually a 21 y/o adult.


“My name is Yang Mian, I’m from Suihai City. I’m a professional financial analyst and I like cosplay.” Yang Mian pushed her bangs behind her ears and took the lead: “Before I appeared here, I happened to be in Suihai City offering incense to the Guanyin Temple.”


The blonde boy looked at Yang Mian, surprised by her age, because he was only 19 years old. As Gao Yan said, he should have called her sister….not little sister!


“My name is Su Jiang, from Shencheng. I went to college in Suihai City and majored in acting. I debuted not long ago and I currently have less than 1,000 fans and thirty-eight lines.” Su Jiang pointed back at Gao Yan with his thumb: “He is my landlord. Before we appeared here, we also happened to be offering incense at the Guanyin Temple in Suihai City.”


Therefore, the taoist man was right. The key points that triggered the game were temples, statues, etc.


At present, all three of them had offered incense at the Guanyin Temple but the number of people was too small, so it was not entirely certain that only those who had offered incense were drawn into the game.


Gao Yan then introduced himself, “Gao Yan, 22, from Suihai City.” He was from Suihai City, but that wasn’t his hometown. “I am a professional marketing planner.”


Yang Mian leaned her arm on the front desk: “How do you know I’m older than him—” She pointed to Su Jiang: “How old is he?”


She has always had a tender face and while wearing a highschool uniform, no one treated her like an adult. Gao Yan’s eyes were poisonous and he could see at a glance that she was older than Su Jiang.


Gao Yan took out a student card from the back of the recorder and handed it to Yang Mian: “You pressed the recorder too fast just now, and the student card fell out of your pocket.” He had glanced hurriedly earlier when she pressed the play button, so that’s why he knew Yang Mian’s basic information.


Yang Mian shrugged: “Okay, great, it means I didn’t pick the wrong person*“.


*She’s talking about the taoist robe man team and Gao Yan, that she chose the right person at least*


Gao Yan knocked on the table and called Su Jiang: “Pick up the melon seeds and green tea on the table and take them away.” Then, he said to Yang Mian: “Teamup?”


Yang Mian nodded affirmatively: “Teamup.”


There is no comparison between a god teammate and a group of pig teammates.


Su Jiang obediently picked up the melon seeds and green tea and stared at the two of them with a dazed expression. Although his IQ is limited, fortunately, he is obedient and he will not make trouble if he doesn’t understand.


Gao Yan smiled, tapped on the table and took the initiative to explain: “It wasn’t the tape recorder that explained the rules at the beginning. The tape recorder recorded the rules because Yang Mian pressed the record button before the thing spoke.”


At that time, Yang Mian dropped her student ID. This scene happened to be seen by Gao Yan.


And when Gao Yan saw it, it means that he reacted very quickly at that moment and noticed something.


Su Jiang suddenly realised and the next moment he had new doubts: “Then what explained the rules to us the first time?”


Gao Yan took two steps back and lifted the red cloth behind him: there was an eight-armed wooden Guanyin statue without palms. The statue was solemn, except for the eight arms that were empty from the wrist. The original eight palms were all cut off, and the incisions were smooth and extremely strange.


Guanyin Bodhisattva had always been a compassionate image, but in this game, he had become an evil god and ghost boss.


But for some reason, after the Guanyin statue was covered with a veil of evil, it added a sense of terror.



The author has something to say: 


Some of the knowledge of ghosts and gods involved in this article is fabricated. There are very, very many private settings about gods in this article.

Main notes:


1 Avalokiteshvara is the earthly manifestation of the self-born eternal Buddha Amitabha, whose figure is represented in his headdress, and he guards the world in the interval between the departure of the historical Buddha, Gautama, and the appearance of the future buddha, Maitreya.

2 a Taoism necromancy which leads people’s souls to hell and communicate with the dead ones in person/soul there.