Controlled Experiment Chapter 25

Game of Death – 1

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Li Yao's car was parked in another parking lot. The vehicles here were all registered under other people's names, and Li Yao rarely drove them. In the trunk, he kept two large backpacks and a toolbox all year round. The bags contained wilderness survival gear and food, though they hadn't been updated in a long time. The water was probably still fine, but the food had most likely expired. Fortunately, the place they were heading to today wouldn't take that long.

Before leaving, Li Yao got out of the car and looked up at the window of his bedroom. A small night light was on inside, giving off a very faint glow. His gaze lingered there for a moment, then he looked down at his watch.

Zhuang Hao sat in the car, staring blankly ahead. Li Yao called his name.

"Synchronise watches," Li Yao said.

Zhuang Hao paused, glanced at the watch on his wrist, and nodded.

"I've spoken to the people at the dock, it won't take long."

Li Yao said nothing, glanced at that window again, then opened the car door and got in.

Zhuang Hao sighed and reminded him, "You're comfortable leaving him alone?"

Li Yao started the engine. "I'm on shift at nine tomorrow morning, we have to make it back before then, don't waste time."

Zhuang Hao blinked and nodded.

Compared to Jing Mo, Li Yao was the more composed brother. He didn't say much usually, and sometimes even gave you the illusion that he was easy to deal with, but Zhuang Hao knew Li Yao was in no way inferior to Jing Mo. He'd heard a bit about how Li Yao had returned to the country.

In that gambling game all those years ago, Li Yao had been the one who was lost.

Logically, the one who was lost in a bet ought to have had the hardest time, the hardship referred to life itself. After all, being used as a bargaining chip and handed over to someone else meant a life under someone else's roof, which was far from easy. Though Li Yao now seemed to be living well, only he knew how he had survived it.

But what about Jing Mo? He had clearly been the lucky one, the child who got to stay, how did he end up like this?

Zhuang Hao couldn't understand how such a good hand of cards had been played so poorly. What exactly had happened to Jing Mo?

Staring at the side of Li Yao's focused face as he drove, Zhuang Hao suddenly remembered something.

"Du Yusheng will wake up around six, your shift starts at nine." Zhuang Hao held up two fingers. "If he wakes up and you're not there, how are you going to explain those few hours to him?"

"He won't know," Li Yao turned to look at Zhuang Hao and said. "Since he won't know, there's no need for me to explain."

Zhuang Hao didn't quite understand, but he didn't press further. If Li Yao said it, it meant he was confident in what he was doing.

Li Yao drove fast, hovering on the threshold of traffic violations. By the time the two of them arrived at the agreed dock, Zhuang Hao glanced at his watch. From the time they had left to now, with the roads completely clear in the middle of the night, it had taken less than forty minutes.

Li Yao parked the car and threw the toolbox from the trunk to Zhuang Hao.

The person Zhuang Hao had arranged to meet at the dock was squatting by the corner. He was wearing a black cap and dressed like the typical dockworkers in the area.

This was a semi-private dock, usually left abandoned, so the surrounding facilities were all in disrepair.

The man had a cheap cigarette dangling from his mouth. When he saw Zhuang Hao approaching with someone, he stood up quickly, swearing under his breath.

"What the fuck took you so long?" He spat the cigarette onto the ground and said, "I charge by the minute, you're ten minutes late, do the maths yourself."

Zhuang Hao didn't have much patience. Having spent years in that kind of circle, he had a fierce temper, and he snapped right back with a curse, "Trying to jack up the price on the spot? You must be tired of living. Take a fucking look in the mirror, see who the hell you think you're negotiating with."

As he spoke, it still didn't feel like enough, so Zhuang Hao raised a fist and aimed to land a proper hit.

The man didn't even dodge and took the punch head-on.

He raised his head with a grin, "Zhuang Hao, you've stirred up some shit, haven't you? I'm not blind, I can see that. Someone else came asking after you today. I said exactly what you told me to, I said you'd gone out to sea. That was doing you a favour. But let me be clear, either the money's right, or you can get lost, you're not getting on my boat otherwise."

Typical rats fleeing a sinking ship, everyone was ready to kick him when he was down. Zhuang Hao made a show of raising his fists again, but Li Yao suddenly stepped in to stop him.

If it was something that could be settled with money, it wasn't really a problem.

Li Yao handed a card to the man, gripping one end of it, and said, "There's enough money on this card to cover the trip. But let me say this, if you so much as breathe a word, I'll turn every last bit of this money into joss paper and burn it for you."

The way he spoke was very different from Zhuang Hao, every word polite and proper, but to the dockworker, each syllable sounded just as dangerous.

He took the card obediently and shoved it into his pocket.

Although the air felt bitterly cold at this time of year, the temperature on the water never dropped low enough for ice to form. The island was called Huan Island because it is surrounded by the sea on three sides, forming a rough semicircle. There were many surrounding islands, scattered in varying sizes. The larger ones, and those with better scenery, had been developed into scenic spots and residential areas. The smaller, more remote ones were all but forgotten, some didn't even appear on counterfeit maps. These islands were so isolated that developers had long given up trying to make anything of them, and over time they were left abandoned, remembered by very few. (Angel: Huan Island = Ring Island)

On the boat, Zhuang Hao opened the toolbox Li Yao had handed him. Inside were only two iron spades.

They were brand new, their locks tight and stiff. Zhuang Hao picked them up and weighed them in his hands.

He looked at Li Yao and said, "Sometimes I feel like you know everything."

Li Yao gave him a sidelong glance and didn't say anything.

His mind was preoccupied. The boat had been travelling for a long time, but he hadn't registered the passage of time. When they finally came to shore, it felt to Li Yao as though no time had passed at all.

He told the boatman to keep the boat moored and not to disembark.

Li Yao and Zhuang Hao stepped off the boat. There were many islands like this around Huan Island, isolated, neglected. The one beneath their feet was clearly one of them. It looked as though it had just rained, as the soil on the ground was still damp. Li Yao crouched and rubbed the earth between his thumb and forefinger. The rain hadn't been heavy, the ground hadn't soaked through.

Li Yao wiped his fingers clean, then pointed at the fork in the path ahead and said to Zhuang Hao, "Lead the way."

Zhuang Hao nodded, slung the spade over his shoulder, and headed down one of the diverging paths.

Few people had ever set foot on this island, there wasn't even a proper path, one had to step through the bushes. Without someone to guide the way, it was nearly impossible to find any direction. The air on the island was thick with humidity. Strange trees grew everywhere, most unrecognisable. Li Yao lit the way with a flashlight, revealing nothing but flying insects and endless plants.

The rain had left a heavy fog, and in the darkness, Zhuang Hao seemed to take several wrong turns. It took considerable effort before he finally found the place.

Unlike the dense undergrowth they'd walked through earlier, the bushes here were clearly much sparser.

Li Yao watched as Zhuang Hao came to a halt, then shone the flashlight onto the clearing between them. He pointed and said, "Dig."

Zhuang Hao nodded, and the iron spade on his shoulder sank deep into the earth.

Li Yao shone the flashlight on the ground. It was a field-grade flashlight, designed for outdoor use, with a powerful beam, long range, and excellent battery life. Each spadeful Zhuang Hao dug could be seen with perfect clarity. Li Yao crouched down so that he was level with Zhuang Hao's line of sight and glanced at his phone. There was no signal on the island, the phone had effectively become a brick.

Li Yao could do nothing but keep his eyes on Zhuang Hao's movements.

After digging for a long time, the first thing to appear was a human fibula, then a femur. When the last spade went down, Li Yao saw a skull.

One, two, three.

Some were decomposed down to bare bone, others were only partially decayed. Everything one could expect to see in a textbook, Li Yao saw it all here.

According to the degree of decomposition, the clothes on the bodies had decayed in varying stages as well. It was quite a spectacular sight.

Whether in hospitals or back in school, Li Yao had seen countless remains like these, yet this was the first time he felt so dizzy, so disoriented. Whatever else could be said about these three people... Li Yao knew without a doubt that Jing Mo could never turn back now.

Zhuang Hao was beside him, panting from exhaustion. Li Yao hadn't helped at all, and Zhuang Hao was utterly worn out.

"Just these..." Zhuang Hao let out a long sigh. "Jing Mo's a clever man, he'd never do it himself, he always found a middleman. And those middlemen, they were all desperate men. Some had already taken many lives or were fresh out of prison for murder. And now this, this is where his middlemen ended up."

Li Yao turned off the flashlight.

"Why did they listen to him so willingly?"

"The price of the game of death."

Li Yao smiled bitterly and shook his head. A sharp ache rose in his chest, and he suddenly wanted a cigarette.

Zhuang Hao was just about to start refilling the hole with earth when Li Yao switched the flashlight back on and watched him.

"You still have the list from back then?"

Zhuang Hao's hand froze mid-motion. He widened his eyes and looked at Li Yao, stopping him. "... I know what you're trying to do, don't get involved."

"It's too late," Li Yao said. "Zhuang Hao, once this is over, you know how it ends for you." Li Yao stepped up beside Zhuang Hao, gently lifted one side of the collar of his jacket, and said, "If you die, let it be for something that matters. Do yourself justice."

Zhuang Hao froze, his fists clenched tight as he gave a muffled grunt, and he continued to bury the soil back in place without saying a word.

The corpses, tangled with scraps of fabric, were gradually buried beneath the soil. Li Yao spotted something reflective on the ground. He crouched down and scraped away the earth with his hands, uncovering a watch buried in the dirt. It was a common model, many people owned one, but this particular watch, Li Yao had seen on Du Yusheng's wrist.

Zhuang Hao straightened up slowly as he looked at the watch in Li Yao's hand.

"You recognise it?"

Li Yao nodded. "There were only ever two of these watches, and Du Yusheng bought them both. He kept one for himself, and gave the other to his father."

Zhuang Hao suddenly took a step back.

"... What do you mean? The watch belonged to his father? That means... Old Master Du is here? One of these three corpses is... Old Master Du's dead?" Zhuang Hao trailed off, shocked by his own deduction, but quickly shook his head in denial. "But no one killed him... why would he be here?"

Thinking back, it was true, there hadn't been any news about Old Master Du for quite a while, and anything they knew about him had always come from Du Yusheng's mouth. If the old man had already died long ago, the more Zhuang Hao thought about it, the colder his chest felt.

He looked to Li Yao, almost pleadingly. Li Yao tossed the watch back onto the ground and gestured for it to be buried as well.

The look on Li Yao's face was difficult to interpret. There was no visible shock, no trace of sorrow, almost as if he had already expected this.

Zhuang Hao shovelled a few more spadefuls, then turned to Li Yao and said, "Do you think Du Yusheng knows that his dad is dead?"

Li Yao pointed to the earth on the ground.

"Just now I noticed that the soil here had been freshly turned before we arrived." Li Yao motioned for Zhuang Hao to keep digging and continued, "Who do you think came?"

"Du... Du Yusheng?"

Li Yao shook his head and gave an ambiguous answer.

"I don't know."

Li Yao looked up at the sky and sighed. At this hour, the person fast asleep at home likely hadn't woken yet. Perhaps everything he had endured was buried deep in his heart. Sleeping might be more painful than staying awake, because when you sleep, you dream. And in your dreams, you remember.

As for this outsider who had once come to the island, Li Yao hoped it wasn't Du Yusheng.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: May 28, 2025 by Angel

Edited: June 17, 2025 by Angel