Welcome to the Bizarre Games

Chapter 401 A foreign city
These past few days have been very difficult for Zhou You.

The first day was filled with fierce fighting.

The next day, the fighting continued. Feng Qianlin was slightly injured, but none of the wounds were fatal, and he was still able to move.

On the third day, the fighting continued, and Zhou You was stabbed in the shoulder—this was to cover Han Lu's wound. The wound was not deep, but it hurt terribly.

On the fourth day, the snow cleared up.

This might be good news for others, as the heavy snowfall over the past few days would be considered a natural disaster even in a place like the north—but for Zhou You and his group, it was an absolute catastrophe.

The main thing is.

At this point, the opponent was finally able to take advantage of their numerical superiority.

—Wan Ren stabbed several times like stars, causing a man to stagger back, spitting blood. At the same time, thunder roared again, and several arrows, with a diminished whooshing sound, rushed towards them.

These guys actually managed to get their hands on crossbows, which are strictly prohibited items!
Fortunately, Zhou You wasn't fighting alone; Peach Blossom Fan nearby flicked and deflected his attacks, preventing him from getting completely chilled. At the same time, Feng Qianlin fired his last few bullets, blowing the heads off the attackers.

Without long-range support, the remaining enemies were no longer a threat. After several charges, they finally managed to scatter the enemy. Zhou You ignored the fleeing enemies, and instead, slightly panting, he planted his sword on the ground and asked Han Lu.

"How many waves is this today?"

Hanlu was also exhausted. She looked at the conspicuous scars on the peach blossom fan in her hand, remained silent for a long time, and then answered.

"This is probably the fifth wave, Senior Brother Zhou."

Zhou You's face instantly turned extremely ugly, but he still forced himself to stay alert and continued to ask.

"How far are we from the ghost market now?"

This time it was Feng Qianlin's answer.

"It's not far, probably about five or six days away."

Zhou You paused for a moment, then couldn't help but smile wryly.

Five or six days is not a long distance, but for them now, it feels like an insurmountable chasm.

Not only are there more and more people surrounding and killing them, but so are the numbers.
In his mind, the team personally led by Yu Sanzhi was getting closer and closer.

If these guys really catch up, the consequences are self-evident.

So, are you just going to abandon Feng Qianlin and run away on your own?

Zhou You glanced at Feng Erye's calm face and immediately dismissed the thought.

Admittedly, given Feng Qianlin's personality, he would never blame him in the slightest; in fact, he had been subtly trying to get him to leave these past few days.

But Zhou You himself couldn't get over this mental hurdle.

so.

Let's take a step by step.

Before long, they crossed another hill and finally came to see the plains.

After spending so many days in the forest, this should have been a joyous occasion, but everyone was stunned for a few seconds.

Something is wrong.

No, it doesn't mean that Yu San's men have come after us again.

Instead, nestled amidst the snow-covered landscape, stood a small settlement.

It looked like a small county town, not very large in area, and probably because it had just snowed, there weren't many people coming or going. But looking through the town gate, you could still see pedestrians coming and going, shops doing business, and noisy voices—it seemed like there was a market here now, and it was quite lively.

Normally speaking, this would be a decent place to rest, where one could at least buy two bowls of hot soup and a few steamed buns to replenish their energy, even if they didn't have time to rest. However, because Feng Qianlin was afraid of implicating innocent people, he would always deliberately detour around such villages and towns.

Everything seemed normal, yet for some reason, Zhou You still felt something was off.

Wait, this scenery seems familiar...

Hanlu, who was standing to the side, also stared for a while, then suddenly turned to Feng Qianlin and asked.

"Second Master Feng, I've traveled around the North for quite some time now. Is there such a city here?"

Feng Qianlin also frowned and answered with great confusion.

"I don't seem to remember. Wait a minute, I passed through here on a merchant's journey a while ago, and it was a completely deserted wilderness then. Could it be that the Qing court approved the construction of a city here recently? But even that couldn't have been built so quickly."

No one has ever seen it, no one has ever heard of it, which means that this place is also Yu Sanzhi's ambush?

The group exchanged glances, and though they didn't speak, they all felt it was best to be safe and avoid the area for now—but for some reason, Zhou You's sense of familiarity grew stronger, to the point that he couldn't help but turn around.

However, he then saw the city's signboard and its name.

Haining City

Feng Qianlin was walking along the city wall, but before he could take more than a few steps, Zhou You pulled him back.

"Get away from this city!"

Feng Qianlin was initially confused, but his expression quickly became extremely serious.

"has a problem?"

This time, Zhou You unusually didn't reply. Instead, he led the two men away quickly, running more than a hundred meters away before leaving them behind.

Then, he took out the tattered book that Old Man Li had given him from his pouch, flipped through several pages, and finally figured out what it was.

"Brother Feng, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"

"Good news, right?"

"The good news is that this city has nothing to do with Yu Sanzhi, so we can rest assured and don't need to worry about being ambushed."

"Where's the bad news?"

"We've been fucking haunted!"

—That's right. This city is indeed a place of chaos and disorder, and not just any ordinary chaos and disorder.

As Old Man Li once said, superstitions are divided into different levels, and normally they shouldn't exceed that limit. But there are always some things in this world that are outside the norm, and Haining City is one of them.

According to a record by an elder of the White Gate, this city appeared several decades ago, and then appeared precisely every four years, each time devouring dozens or hundreds of lives before disappearing without a trace.

That senior member of the White Gate was quite capable; he risked his life to explore the city multiple times. But aside from the fact that he couldn't crack the code and that the city's corrosive power was extremely strong, forbidding any information from being leaked, he ultimately came up with nothing.

However, he still only marked the city's danger level as low.

After all, compared to the hundreds of people who die every four years, this city is extremely peaceful.

This time, by sheer coincidence, I happened to be there just as the city appeared—and probably because I had read the notes, it just so happened to be right next to me!

Zhou You grabbed the two men, trying to get as far away from the place as possible—but suddenly, he stopped.

He realized a key point.

Soon, Zhou You turned his head and asked Feng Qianlin seriously.

"Shang Jun, I have a plan, but it may require you two to take some risks. However, if it succeeds, you can escape this dangerous situation. Do you agree?"

Feng Qianlin was stunned.

To be honest, this was the first time Zhou You had asked him to use his courtesy name since they met—but he quickly gave him a knowing smile. “Since Brother Zhou says so, then of course I agree.”

—He didn’t even ask what the method was.

Then Zhou You looked at Hanlu.

The girl simply nodded and then spoke calmly.

"I will follow your instructions, Senior Brother."

“Alright.” Zhou You took a deep breath, then looked at the city. “I would like to ask you two to accompany me to brave this chaos.”
-
About five or six hours later.

With a burst of shouts and the neighing of horses, dozens of iron hooves instantly shattered the tranquility of the mountains and forests.

Normally, horses would have a hard time walking after a heavy snowfall, but these were no ordinary horses. They were hybrids made from the blood of various demonic beasts, and their hooves shimmered with magical light, allowing them to tread on flat ground even in the soft snow.

Soon, a knight wearing a cloak jumped down.
He casually picked up a corpse next to him, examined it, then picked at it, pulling out some blood that had already frozen into ice crystals, and tasted it for a while.

Then he respectfully addressed the person in the lead beside him.

"Sir, judging from the degree of blood clotting, they shouldn't have gone very far, and they're not moving very fast. If this continues, we should be able to catch up in about a day."

The leader of the knights—that is, Yu Sanzhi—ordered calmly.

"Very good, but don't be too careless. It's better to be slow than to have an accident. After all, several of our groups have been defeated by them, especially that White Gate disciple. Although Old Ghost Li has been corrupt for many years, he was still the leader of the conference back then. I don't know how much of his true teachings his disciple has inherited, but he is definitely not to be underestimated."

After saying that, he turned to another person next to him.

The man sat on his horse, holding a stack of divination sticks. Although it was the dead of winter, he was covered in sweat, whether from nervousness or exhaustion, it was hard to tell.

Yu Sanzhi's words were quite ordinary, and there was no sense of urging in them. He simply asked in a kind manner.

"Old Ma, how is your calculation? Did the revolutionaries provide support, or has anything changed?"

The man trembled, then stammered.

"Reporting to the Chief, I don't know why, but the divination... the divination results are always somewhat..."

Seeing his behavior, several people around him couldn't help but sneer, but Yu Sanzhi still smiled and comforted him.

"Don't be anxious, speak slowly."

The man was almost sweating profusely.

Not in a hurry?
You're kidding!
The heads of those shamans were hanging right next to my horse, how could I not be anxious?!
However, even if he had the greatest courage, he wouldn't dare to utter a sound. He would bite his tongue hard to dispel the fear with the pain, and then barely managed to say a complete sentence.

"Although the divination results are somewhat unstable, and with no support in sight, they still only have three people."

"Very good, then let's speed things up and strive for it."

Just then, someone came to report.

"Gang leader."

"what happened?"

The person giving the report hesitated for a few seconds before speaking.

"It seems there's been a problem. Would you please come and take a look?"

Before long, the group stopped by the riverbank, staring in disbelief at the scenery before them.

Just like what Zhou You had seen before, it was still a small town, still bustling with pedestrians, and still a thriving market.

There seemed to be nothing unusual.

But everyone looked like they had seen a ghost. After a while, Yu Sanzhi finally spoke to the person next to him.

"I said, do you remember there was a city here?"

He looked completely bewildered when asked the question. He scratched his head, trying to recall his years of struggle in the North, but he couldn't remember that there was a city there.

Yu Sanzhi asked a few more questions, and the answers were still exactly the same.

But soon, someone else discovered the problem.

"Boss, we've been standing here for ages, so many of us are pretty conspicuous, if not outstanding. Why hasn't a single one of these guys come out to look?"

After these words were spoken, the others also noticed the problem. They exchanged glances, and some even tried to throw out a few spells, but they all disappeared without a trace.

This plunged everyone into even greater confusion.

A few minutes later, it was the same person who had tasted the blood first who spoke.

"Could this be a trap set by that brat Bai Men?"

Upon hearing this, someone immediately snorted coldly.

"If he could just build such a huge city out of thin air, that kid would probably have reached the realm of a terrestrial immortal by now. What would we be doing chasing him? We'd be lucky if he didn't turn around and chase us!"

"Could it be an illusion?"

"Your illusion magic can be this realistic? If you really have this method, teach me, I'll pay you whatever it takes!"

"Can you please stop being so foul-mouthed?"

"I just can't stand idiots."

Seeing the noisy argument escalating, Yu Sanzhi sighed inwardly.

This group was hastily assembled; they might be fairly strong, but in terms of discipline, they were nothing more than a rabble.

It's a pity we squandered all our wealth back then, otherwise we wouldn't need these idiots.
Yu Sanzhi shook his head, and seeing that the group of people were about to fight, he still spoke up to stop them.

"Everyone, please be quiet."

The words weren't harsh, but the accumulated power over the past few days had successfully silenced those bastards.

Yu Sanzhi just stared at the city, pondered for a long time, and then said.

"Although that kid from the White Gate probably doesn't have that much ability, now is a crucial moment. The encirclement is still ongoing, so it's better to be cautious, Old Ma. Are you sure those people haven't left?"

"The hexagram did not move, so it means they haven't left this place."

“Alright,” Yu Sanzhi said calmly. “Everyone, evacuate first. Once those blinded cannon fodder arrive, let them test the waters in this city. Then we…”

But before he could finish speaking, Yu Sanzhi suddenly felt a blur before his eyes.

In the dim light, the plaque hanging on the city wall grew larger and larger, and the bright red characters became clearer and clearer, even obscuring his own figure!

Immediately, Yu Sanzhi understood.

It's not that the signboard has gotten bigger, it's that I've gotten smaller!
Instead of calling for a retreat, he decisively retreated while others were still confused, seemingly intending to abandon the group and save himself.

however.

Suddenly, a tremendous suction force came from the city gate, which swallowed them all in the blink of an eye.

Soon, except for the bewildered steeds, peace returned to the area outside the city.

Only the words on the plaque slowly melted and dripped from the city wall, like several lines of hideous bloodstains.

(End of this chapter)