Chi Wei slowly opened her eyes beneath the bright light overhead.
She was in a sealed room like a concrete box, its walls white and unbroken. A long conference table stood in the middle, surrounded by chairs occupied by players just like her.
She counted them with a glance. Including herself, there were ten people.
Chi Wei pushed herself up from the armrests and first reached for her face—
Good. When she’d created her game avatar, she’d added a half-mask.
The cool, hard surface over the bridge of her nose, with its little triangular points, was the black cat mask she’d chosen.
She didn’t like running into so-called “friends” while she was doing her own thing.
“Hey, everyone!”
With that worry out of the way, Chi Wei broke the silence with a bright, vivid smile.
She waved to the other nine, who were slowly coming around, her lips curving in a smile so friendly it was almost excessive.
“Where am I…? How did I get here?”
“Has the game started? When did you all get here?”
A scarred man sat opposite her. The moment he opened his eyes and saw the room, he leaned forward, looked around, and started firing questions at everyone.
Wow. He’s nailing the look of a newbie just spawned into the game’s starting area.
Chi Wei studied the others. Most wore bewildered expressions as they warily surveyed their surroundings. Their faces showed excitement, fear of the unknown—and, more than anything else, anticipation.
Like her, most of them were probably playing this so-called Lucky Game for the first time.
“I just woke up too. We all did. We’ve only just entered the game.”
The woman with dreadlocks, sitting two seats away from Chi Wei, spoke up. From her cadence and the way she looked down her nose at people, she might as well have been a rapper.
“Quiet, please. They might announce the rules any moment.”
The man sitting beside her interrupted the hubbub with a frown. He pushed his square-framed glasses up his nose.
He wore a wrinkled plaid shirt and had thinning hair. A homebody sort, he avoided people’s eyes while he spoke.
For now, I’ll peg him as a programmer, Chi Wei thought. Whether I’m right or not, he certainly looks the part.
Sure enough, the room fell quiet after the programmer spoke.
A few seconds later, a mechanical rumbling filled the room. High up on one wall, a huge black animal’s head suddenly pushed out.
It looked like a cat, but not quite. Like a leopard, but not quite. Its pupils glowed green, and its ears were short and pointed. It looked like some mysterious, ancient species—or perhaps a distant relative of cats.
“Oh!” Chi Wei touched the mask on her face. Hers was a black cat too.
“Don’t look at me. I’m definitely not a VIP.”
No one paid her any attention.
How boring. No one appreciates a joke.
The enormous head gazed down at them. Then a screen appeared on the wall beneath it.
Lines of text emerged one by one to the rhythm of typing.
[Welcome to the Lucky Game.
Every player in this game will receive a personal prize of 5,000,000 yuan upon completion.
Game introduction follows.
Page will turn automatically in 30 seconds.
…
Game name: Pilgrimage Journey
Game description: On the map, a traveler is making their way toward a sacred place. Each player takes turns rolling the dice, and the traveler moves forward the number of spaces shown. When the traveler reaches the destination, the game is won and every player receives their personal prize. If the traveler lands on certain special spaces, the Saint’s Game will begin. The traveler’s pointer will randomly select a player, who must complete the game.
Players must agree on who will roll first. After that, play proceeds clockwise.
Game start!]
The screen stopped there.
A map suddenly appeared on the conference table. It had a starting point and a destination, with evenly spaced squares between them. A little figure stood at the start, and a bowl-shaped dice cup sat in the middle of the map.
It looked like an ordinary game of Monopoly. Even the players got to decide who went first. It was like a laid-back family game night.
Chi Wei had come for the five-million-yuan prize. The fact that so little seemed to be required in return only made her more wary.
Starting from the person on her left and going clockwise, she gave the others mental labels: the student, the Dyed-Haired Man, Little Fatty, the scarred man, the heavyset older woman, the one-eyed man, the programmer, the woman with dreadlocks, and the silver-masked woman.
The rules had just been announced, and the game didn’t look difficult. Most of the players seemed relaxed.
The scarred man let his guard down and raised his hand first.
“I’ll roll first. Anyone have a problem with that?”
No one did.
Clatter, clatter.
The scarred man rolled a six. The little figure moved six spaces from the start.
“Six! Lucky number! I’m on a roll!” He laughed.
The heavyset older woman, the one-eyed man, and the programmer rolled next. The figure advanced according to their rolls.
Step by step, it moved a long way from the starting point.
The game continued smoothly.
At this rate, reaching the destination was only a matter of time. All they had to do was keep rolling.
With the mood so relaxed—and two turns still to go before hers—Chi Wei decided to ask the others a few questions.
“Is this everyone’s first time playing?”
It was. No one seemed to see any reason to hide that.
“I’m new too. Do any of you remember how you got here?”
She’d already taken a good look around. Something was off.
There were no doors or windows, yet despite sitting in the room for quite a while, she hadn’t felt short of breath.
She’d even pinched her thigh when no one was looking.
Ow. That really hurt. So this isn’t a dream.
Besides, she’d always been suspicious about how she’d entered the game in the first place…
If she remembered correctly—
“Huh? I really don’t remember. I just remember lying in bed, and then… I guess I suddenly passed out.” The Dyed-Haired Man tucked his legs up on his chair.
It was the kind of relaxed posture people fell into without thinking when they felt safe in their surroundings. Chi Wei believed he was telling the truth.
“I was writing lyrics,” the woman with dreadlocks said. “I’d just registered for the game, and my phone showed a ten-second countdown to entering. I didn’t think much of it. Next thing I knew, I was here.”
Little Fatty suddenly understood. “So that’s why I ended up here when I went to grab a soda. I thought I’d gone through the fridge.”
The others described much the same experience. The details varied, but the process was identical:
First they passed out. Then they were transported.
Chi Wei, who’d blacked out right in front of her computer, could only accept the supernatural weirdness of it all.
Of course a place where you can earn five million yuan overnight wouldn’t be on the up-and-up…
“Are we sure the prize is in real yuan and not ghost money?” she asked lightly.
“Don’t say things like that, young lady. You’ll jinx it,” the older woman scolded her. Some people couldn’t stand hearing anything inauspicious.
“I have a friend who’s already made over ten million here. She recommended the game to me. It’s creepy, sure, but the money’s real. If you don’t believe me, then don’t play!”
The older woman was just as worried that Chi Wei might offend the game’s organizers and lose her prize.
God or ghost, I’m not afraid of either. Being broke is much scarier.
Chi Wei smiled and said nothing. When her turn came, she simply rolled the dice, avoiding an argument with the older woman.
There was no point getting into a fight with her. This wasn’t a market or the entrance to some village.
She rolled a three, and the little figure moved three spaces.
The destination was now only two-thirds of the way off. Victory seemed close enough to touch.
What is this, a newbie protection period? Are they just handing out five million yuan?
Or did I really luck into the Lucky Game’s lucky game? Maybe it’s simply that easy, or we’ve avoided all the hard parts.
Yeah, right.
Chi Wei didn’t believe even her own parents would give her five million yuan for nothing.
The longer the calm lasted, the more it felt like the lull before a storm. Her instincts were screaming danger.
Going by the other players’ reactions to that long stretch of calm, she sorted the nine of them into three groups.
Group I: total idiots with no grasp of reality, convinced they were one-in-a-million lucky stars. The heavyset older woman, the scarred man, the Dyed-Haired Man, and the one-eyed man.
In real life, people like them probably had a side gig: keeping scammers in business.
I hope they’re the kind of fools fortune favors, Chi Wei thought, rubbing her forehead.
Group II: people with some sense of caution and an instinct to think about the unknown. Little Fatty, the programmer, the woman with dreadlocks, and the student.
Group III: the person on Chi Wei’s right.
The silver-masked woman.
Not only was her entire face hidden behind a silver mask, leaving no way to read her expression—her every word and gesture was just as inscrutable.
Chi Wei had watched her for a long time and still couldn’t figure her out.
All she could say was, “Your planet-shaped earring is pretty. Where’d you get it?”
Chi Wei turned her head and smiled at the woman’s ear.
Her earlobe was lovely, and the half-white, half-blue planet earring looked elegant on her. Given the graceful line of her neck and the color of her skin, she was probably beautiful.
But the silver-masked woman’s icy voice instantly shattered Chi Wei’s friendly smile.
“Put away those useless little tricks.”
Oh. She won’t even let me make conversation.
So much for trying to learn something by chatting.
Chi Wei turned back to the dice cup. At that moment, Little Fatty rolled a one.
The little figure advanced one space.
As it landed on the next square, a forest and some underbrush suddenly sprouted across the previously empty space—and then a wolf appeared among the trees.
