The storehouse manager was killed in the end anyway.
Ochrehair did it himself.
He seemed to have forgotten that his initial target was number 199, and entered a state of frenzy. He did not care that his wound on his shoulder blade from which bones can be seen is bleeding uncontrollably, nor that his team members were killed in turn when members of Team 40 made it back, nor that he was surrounded, and only focused on venting out his outrage at being tricked with onto that traitor.
His hands, his face, his body. All were covered in blood.
The storehouse manager has long passed away, yet the demon soaked in blood is still throwing punch after punch onto the brain of the corpse.
Its eyeballs ruptured, its nose sunken inwards, its sharp teeth piercing his arms, but he does not stop.
Old Veteran murmurs, “has he lost it?”
“He has always been clear-headed.” Bright knows that the other person has calculated meticulously. His own team now has a vacancy.
He talks to Ochrehair, “welcome to Team 40.”
“Wash thoroughly.” Bright kicks the man, drenched in blood, flesh, bone fragments and brain tissue, into the water.
He picked a quiet place far from where they were, so that the smell of blood doesn’t draw them to the route they are planning to sail on.
However, everyone besides him mistook it as heading off to enjoy the reward of his victory.
Ochrehair throws the clothes that cannot be worn anymore into the water, quickly washes up his body. At the same time, he glares at Bright with an expression that was as if he wanted to violate him. His EQ is clearly higher than Bright, and walks nonchalantly out of the water after he’s done cleaning himself, not caring that he is baring all in the face of the camera in broad daylight.
Bright takes a cursory look at his, and feel satisfied, thinking, hmph, can’t measure up to mine.
He throws clothes pilfered from the corpses at him, after which the other person throws an expression approaching utter dejection at him. Bright feels baffled. He looks at the current colour of the sky, and urges him, “hurry up.”
When they returned, Thin Bamboo exclaims in surprise, “you’re done?” The word ‘disappointment’ is clearly written all over his face. The monstrous dragon was just tawdry all along!
Old Veteran has a look of pity on his face, as if to say this generation sure ended up being underwhelming.
Bright, who just caught on to what was going on, “…” Please dump bleach on all that yellow gunk in your brains and scrub it hard until it’s clean, thanks!
Probably because everyone just lived through a slaughter together, the atmosphere in the team has eased up a lot. There’s even someone actively talking to Bright.
“How did you see through his betrayal?” Ochrehair isn’t at all deterred by the stony face Bright is putting up, and asks again, “how did you take him under you ?”
Hey hey hey, can you not phrase it in such a misleading way?
How number 199 managed to one-up number 56 when all factors were against him is a question whose answer everyone wanted to know. Everyone on the raft perk their ears up, and the camera is facing him directly – the show is waiting for him to reveal the trick too.
It’s a good opportunity to appeal to the audience with wisdom. The stage is set, the stairs are lent to him, and the actor only has to raise his feet climbing it to go up.
Bright, however, isn’t interested in speaking with the person trying to mess him up all along. And it’s a universal truth that characters rambling on and on tend to die . So his lips were sealed the entire way through.
Ochrehair, whose life has been smooth sailing and who has always been the centre of attention, loses his temper, “are you mute?!”
Bright is thinking, if how much you spoke was inversely proportional to how long you lived, then he is certainly a mute.
Old Veteran is rowing the raft at the back. Big Retard is facing the sun as snot is running down his nose. Bright wanted to get away from Ochrehair, who’s clinging obstinately to him, so he turns his head to Old Veteran, “change places.”
Ochrehair is thinking, I’m definitely despised by him!
“Leader, number 199 isn’t cooperating at all! It’s making me so mad, let’s let the alligators out and bite him to death!”
The leader wanted to tell him he’s not alone, but he’s currently receiving transmission from the vice director, so he could only roll his eyes at him. He waves his hand horizontally at his neck to order him to shut up.
As seed contestant number 56 joined Team 40, this team is definitely passing. And from what the upper brass is implying, it seems some bigshot has developed an interest in number 199. So they can’t send alligators after them for now.
The leader ended communications. Seeing how George still seemed bitter, says, “just add subtitles then, interspaced with shots between number 199 and the traitor, making it looks like he has saw through what the other was trying to do from the beginning. Vice director said we can’t show the fact that number 56 was deceived by some minor character, so we’re changing it to him being displeased because the traitor was swayed by number 199’s coaxing, and killed him himself. Later in the two teams’ fight, the team with number 56 lost unfortunately, but number 199 admired him greatly. And it’s just the case that his team wasn’t full, so invited him to be his own member.”
George’s face makes it look like he has swallowed a pile of excrement, “number 199 admires number 56 greatly?”
The leader shrugs, “he takes him to wash up, admired his naked body, and afterwards gave him clothes to wear.”
George is like, … I’m still too young for this shit.
They continued working, talking about how best to plot this story.
The little wish that the dead storehouse manager had, went unfulfiled in the end.
Bright passed successfully. He had to face another sex orgy at the top 100 celebration party, but because Ochrehair didn’t leave him alone, nobody dared disturb them, so he ended up having the rare occasion of peace and quiet. Even his expression loosened up a bit.
He is still alone, drinking his nutrient mixture, not touching any food.
Ochrehair is playing tango suppressing a short-haired ginger teenager, while locking his eyes onto Bright at the other side of the sofa, spewing foul swears nonstop, “I’m gonna fuck you dead! Let’s see you kick me now! Or pretend to be mute! Argh——!!”
Bright is silent, “…”
At the hallway in the middle of the night, Bright meets the unfortunate short-haired ginger who had to bear the outburst in his place.
Bright greets him first, and to the other person who had a blank look on their face, says gently, “thanks, for in the training room.”
Before the competition for 200 down to 100 started, he pretended to be seducing someone in the training room, but he actually let him hear about the news of grouping up on purpose, so that he could prepare.
Even though he still ended up alone thanks to everything else, all’s well that ends well, and he lived and advanced to the next episode. No matter what, it’s a favour that Bright recognised.
The man’s eyes were serious, and sincerity can be seen from the pair of clear, calm eyes.
The teenager was touched seeing that those brown irises were capable of being so soft and warm. It made him recall the worn-down teddy bear doll he found in rubbish piles. It was so fluffy and soft.
Never having been seen with such eyes, the short-haired ginger felt so awkward his ears were dyed red.
He looks around nervously, as if afraid anyone might be listening in, and sighs in relief when he’s certain it’s only them.
“It’s, it’s nothing. I’m also an Outsider, so I think, we should help each other.”
Bright felt a bit guilt at that. He wasn’t from this world, and he understands neither the Outside nor the Inside of the City. Afraid that he’d more easily get something wrong if he speaks a lot, he doesn’t talk a lot about himself personally. The teenager is more extroverted though, and mentioned a lot himself. He would happily go on talking even if he just receives a ‘mmhmm’ from Bright.
“I’ve arrived.” Bright stops in front of his dormitory room.
“Then… see you. Can you help me train tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
Bright walks into the dormitory, closes the door, and sees his roommate fixedly staring at him with a passionate gaze.
“The little slut is super interested in you. He’s practically splitting and asking you to screw him.” The roommate hasn’t the least bit of awareness or respect for others’ privacy, and licks his lips suggestively.
Bright frowns, warning him, “he’s got a name.”
“ Ugh! ” His friend is pissed off, and stares at Bright angrily. The latter returns his gaze calmly, his eyes firm. It was powerful even if no words are used.
Bright wins the staring contest without surprise. In terms of poker face maintaining, he’s at Conqueror level.
Bright washes his face speechlessly. The roommate’s probably dissing him with the companions he made.
The next day, Bright overhears that there’s been gossip about him.
“The two Outsiders have joined up !”
Author’s notes: As the Top isn’t nearly ready enough yet, and any premature interaction with the Bottom will definitely end up with him between a rock and a hard place, so here we have some transitioning phases. The parts with our protagonist Bottom is coming up soon.