DA chapter 6

 

This newcomer is actually… still alive?

Not only is he alive, but he’s also asking all the questions today with such vengeance?!!!

Everyone was stunned.

Lin Jia stood alone facing the group. He triggered the Fishman’s task and stepped into danger in the middle of the night, yet he was calmer than the others. His tailored clothes hugged his 1.82-meter frame perfectly, and there was not a trace of arrogance in his appearance. Standing against the light, the dim light outside the apartment failed to blur his features. Instead, it made his expression look cold and highlighted the aloof and reserved aura that lingered around him.

He rubbed the edge of his index finger, as if foreshadowing an attack. He did it once, then twice, neither hurried nor slow.

He single-handedly rounded up the remaining seven — more than enough.

His gaze moved past the crowd and settled squarely on Shi Luo. Taking the initiative to relieve Shi Luo’s shock, Lin Jia calmly repeated, “I’m the one who asked all three questions today.”

Shi Luo reacted instantly, pushing aside Glasses, who stood innocently between him and Lin Jia.

Glasses was caught off guard, and Shi Luo’s push sent him stumbling. His glasses flew off, and as he reached for them, his hand—just as it touched the frame—snapped and was crushed to dust.

He glanced up and saw Shi Luo swooping toward Lin Jia, determined to die together.

There are few rules or laws within the belly of the fish, so the elders exploit uninformed newcomers to extract as many answers as possible from the Fishman. Newcomers also don’t know that the elders can prepare before entering the Fish’s Belly. They often bring food and weapons for self-defense, which can be helpful.

For example, a newcomer without food will undoubtedly suffer from hunger. The elders offer food to lure newcomers into questioning the Fishman. Whether they’ll keep their promise is another matter.

They may also bring out weapons that were originally intended for self-defense but have been transformed into instruments of persecution. They’ll hold a knife to a newcomer’s neck and force them to confront the Fishman and ask questions.

Someone like Shi Luo would undoubtedly carry a knife. Despite his severe myopia, he could see Shi Luo’s hand reaching into his pocket.

In the belly of a fish, one can kill oneself or others.

Screams of surprise rose one after another, and the cat perched on Lin Jia’s shoulder bared its teeth at Shi Luo.

The cat’s growl echoed in Lin Jia’s ears, sounding like thunder. Lin Jia didn’t know or care what it would sound like to others. He watched Shi Luo pull a folding dagger from his handbag. Shi Luo pressed the spring, and the blade sprang out, reflecting his ferocious face.

Lin Jia didn’t move an inch, only raising his voice slightly. His tone remained unfazed, carefree and nonchalant. “As you can see, I have the answers to three questions you don’t know. Whether you want to find the Soup Base or just stay alive is up to you.”

Everyone was stunned by Lin Jia again.

The man with the buzzcut glared at Lin Jia and cursed, “Fuck!”

He reacted the fastest. Just as Shi Luo was about to swing his knife at Lin Jia, Lin Jia lunged forward and knocked Shi Luo down, sending them both crashing into the wall. Shi Luo was old, while the buzzcut was at his peak strength. However, Shi Luo’s anger overwhelmed him, and the buzzcut was unable to wrest the knife from his hand. In the process of snatching the knife, the man cut his palm.

Blood trickled down and landed squarely in Shi Luo’s eyes. With his vision shrouded in a bloody haze, Shi Luo swung his knife more vigorously, howling like a madman, “Die! Die! How dare you set me up! Die! I’m going to kill you. If I don’t survive, neither will you!”

“Damn it!” The man with a buzzcut struggled to restrain Shi Luo, but he was injured. Realizing that Shi Luo would soon break free, he turned and shouted at the others. “Are you all idle? What are you standing around for? Don’t you understand what this means? If Shi Luo kills him, you’ll lose three answers! Do you know what three answers means? You idiots!”

The number of questions per day was fixed. The Fishman were mutating at an alarming rate, causing panic among the crowd. They didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the quota to refresh. Losing three answers would make it even harder to find the Soup Base before the Fishman fully transformed.

The buzzcut’s shout finally grabbed everyone’s attention.

At first, they’d been afraid of getting involved, so they kept their distance, but that was no longer the case. Everyone was involved, and no one could escape.

Someone joined the fight to seize control of Shi Luo’s knife, and more people joined in, pinning him down and immobilizing him. The high school boy seized the opportunity to snatch the knife from Shi Luo’s hand, instinctively turning back to impress Lin Jia.

However, Lin Jia simply exchanged a casual glance with the high school boy and refused to give him a second thought.

For a moment, the high school boy felt like a fool. Everyone was a fool, ridiculous prey manipulated by Lin Jia’s applause.

—

Last night, in the flash of his phone, Lin Jia saw blogger Xiao Wu clinging to the wall. Whether Xiao Wu was actually in Room 303 or had materialized because of his question, Lin Jia didn’t know, and he didn’t intend to find out. It didn’t matter.

In a fleeting moment, he simply pulled the rusty, corroded doorknob and locked himself outside, trapping Xiao Wu inside with a bang.

Then he turned back.

His steps backward were the same as when he came in: calm and steady. As he passed the first-floor lobby, he paused slightly. Under the illumination of the voice-activated lights, he turned off his phone’s flashlight, looked up, and gazed at the Fishman in the corner.

The Fishman didn’t smile but stared at him silently, seemingly displeased that he had completed his mission and escaped unscathed.

Lin Jia’s brows furrowed slightly. The Fishman’s face, refracted by the light, shone with strange spots. A closer look revealed layers of brown scales.

Unable to discern the significance of the scales, Lin Jia glanced down at the cat at his feet. After confirming that the cat was still by his side, Lin Jia returned to Room 103.

He had questions for the cat, but before he could ask them, the cat spoke impatiently after the door was closed and locked. “You’re okay! What happened? What happened? Was it the phone light? But how did you know?”

The cat kept asking questions, so Lin Jia temporarily suppressed his doubts. “The Fishman assigns missions to kill people.”

The cat nodded.

That was true. The Fishman only wanted to eat those caught in the Fish Belly. Its tasks weren’t meant to help them find the Soup Base. If it truly wanted them to succeed, it wouldn’t limit the number of questions they could ask.

Lin Jia said, “Completing the task should be enough.”

After triggering the Fishman mission, Shi Luo urged Lin Jia to finish it, reminding him that he would be killed by the Fishman if he didn’t complete it within six hours.

In other words, as long as he finished the mission in time, he wouldn’t be killed. So why not just finish it on time?

The cat pondered for a moment, seemingly recalling fragments: “But the mission itself is a death signal. Most of the time, completing it is tantamount to committing suicide.”

It asked curiously, “So, how do you avoid death?”

Based on what the cat knew about Lin Jia, he was definitely not the type of person who relied on luck. If he were, he would never have survived in the business world.

“The Fishman mission has me knocking on the door of Room 303 for verification,” Lin Jia said methodically. “There are three possible points of death: being killed on the way to Room 303, being killed by blogger Xiao Wu inside Room 303 during verification, or being killed by something under surveillance.”

The cat agreed with the first two possible death scenarios, but doubtfully repeated the last one, “Killed by something under surveillance?”

Lin Jia pulled out his phone and played a video. A voice echoed from the room, “I seem to be being monitored. I don’t know who’s watching me.” This was one of the shots recorded by blogger Xiao Wu.

“Given this situation, the surveillance at Room 303’s door is interesting.” Lin Jia turned off his phone, and the room fell silent. He emphasized two words: “Knock.”

Fishman’s original words: “Perhaps you can go to Room 303 and knock on the door to verify it yourself.”

“Knocking on the door involves stopping and exposing your body to the camera.” Lin Jia stated flatly, “So, of these three possibilities, which do you think is more likely to kill me?”

The cat suddenly realized: “Yes.”

If he had been killed on the way to Room 303 or by blogger Xiao Wu, Fishman wouldn’t have needed to mention knocking on the door. Fishman had deliberately placed Lin Jia under surveillance in Room 303 so that the person watching the surveillance camera would see him knock on the door, remember him, and then come kill him. Lin Jia chose to knock on the door after dark so that the darkness would blur his silhouette. He turned on his cell phone’s flashlight and held it up to his eyebrows. With the high exposure, the camera would only capture a halo of light.

Lin Jia gently nudged the cat, which suddenly realized something and asked, “Why is the Fishman growing scales?”

The cat said, “Let me think about it.”

After a while, it said, “The Fishman is mutating.”

Lin Jia gave the cat a questioning look.

The cat explained, “The Fishman will slowly turn into a fish. The scales growing on its body are part of the mutation. Once it’s fully mutated, it’ll eat you all alive. That’s why finding the Soup Base is time-limited. You must find it before the mutation is complete—one second late is too late.”

Lin Jia pulled up a chair and sat down, his mind racing to the scales covering the Fishman’s face.

He asked, “When do the Fishman questions refresh?”

The cat thought for a moment and replied, “At dawn.”

Lin Jia said calmly, “At dawn.”

The cat sensed that something was wrong and quickly asked, “What are you going to do?”

Lin Jia replied, “What can I do?”

The cat looked at him suspiciously.

At the first light of day, Lin Jia stood before the Fishman.

He asked his first question: “Are there any toiletries in the apartment?”

“Yes.”

Second question: “Is there food in the apartment?”

“Yes.”

The Fishman’s questions and answers would likely be materialized. Lin Jia didn’t do anything; he simply satisfied his own needs while pursuing his own grievances.

The cat was stunned.

 

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