The third task level was the Labyrinth Array. The array was filled with all sorts of mechanisms and traps, and the labyrinth array was very large, with only one exit.

If you were able to successfully avoid a mechanism or a trap, you could collect a small amount of points. If you found one of the four labyrinth pillars and took down the four-colored gems on them, you could collect a large amount of points. Once all four pillars were found, the task would be over.

The labyrinth array was surrounded by mountains, and those entering the array could easily be attacked by people ambushed in the mountains. Plus once you enter the labyrinth array, all weapons would become unavailable, which was the perfect opportunity for those outside in the mountains to attack. The players in the joint counterattack team had already discussed this plan, and took advantage of this opportunity to try to wipe out all of the people in A team.

Qi Feng assigned combat tasks to the team. The original A team members would split into groups and enter the labyrinth array, and the new team members would go into the mountains. Anyone who met someone hiding in the mountains wanting to ambush them from a distance did not have to be polite to them and should directly kill them off.

As soon as the task layer opened, the A team original members entered as quickly as possible, and the others split into teams to quickly occupy the surrounding mountains and wait for those people attempting to ambush them.

At the entrance of the labyrinth, Qi Feng said to Jing Yang, who was standing a little far away from him, “You go with me.”

“I…,” Jing Yang hesitated. “I will still go with Goose Over ba.”

Qi Feng frowned, and Goose Over immediately said, “You should still go with boss, just think of it as for our sake, don’t be in a group with us.”

“Quickly go.” Goose Over urged the others. “Hurry up and finish the task and go back earlier, hurry, hurry!”

The other team members quickened their pace and hurried away, leaving only Qi Feng and Jing Yang two people still standing there. Qi Feng motionlessly stood, looking at Jing Yang, and Jing Yang was helpless. He could only thicken his face and say, “Then let’s also go in ba.”

The labyrinth walls were about twice their height, and the passage was quite spacious, Jing Yang followed behind Qi Feng. Looking at his upright back, Jing Yang actually felt quite uncomfortable in his heart. He had been deliberately avoiding Qi Feng recently, and he definitely must have felt it. But if their encounter was wrong, he didn’t want to deepen this mistake.

Next to them the wall suddenly shifted forward. Qi Feng quickly retreated a couple steps to protect Jing Yang, and those walls constantly moved around, changing their position. They couldn’t use any weapons in the labyrinth, and could only hide when they encountered a mechanism or trap.

Qi Feng turned and hugged Jing Yang’s waist, quickly avoiding the walls that were still moving and squeezing toward them. The two men’s bodies tightly clung together until those walls stopped moving. Qi Feng pressed Jing Yang against the wall, looking down at him.

Jing Yang pushed at him but he didn’t move, and said while looking downward, “We, can keep moving forward now.”

“Why are you avoiding me?” Qi Feng stared at him.

“Right now we are in a task, can we talk about this after we go back?” Jing Yang still did not look up to meet his gaze.

“The task is not as important as my question.” Qi Feng raised his chin, forcing him to meet his gaze. “Answer me, why are you avoiding me?”

“I…” Jing Yang wanted to deny that he was avoiding him, but this kind of obvious lie had absolutely no meaning. “I just feel that we shouldn’t be so close and should keep a proper distance away from each other, which would be good for everyone.”

“Reason? Why would it be best for everyone?” Qi Feng frowned.

Jing Yang opened his mouth, and finally decided to tell him his thoughts. “This is in the game, I don’t want that kind of virtual feelings where I can’t tell the other person’s real thoughts. If I do start a relationship, I hope that it will be in reality.”

Qi Feng thought about the meaning of his words, and asked, “Is it because that person called Dark Flame hurt you, and gave you a psychological shadow for feelings in the game world?”

“Uh…” Jing Yang was a little speechless, this misunderstanding was really big. “Dark Flame that kind of person could not cast any psychological shadow for me, I never liked him.”

When Qi Feng heard him say this, he inexplicably felt somewhat happy, and was even not so angry anymore about Jing Yang avoiding him.

“In the game world, we won’t be in a relationship, and everything will wait until we go back to reality, okay?” Jing Yang looked at him very sincerely.

“I can promise you.” Qi Feng seriously said. “But you must also promise me, when we go back to reality, you cannot continue to avoid me. Otherwise, even if I have to force you, I will not let you hide from me.”

This domineering character was really exactly the same as that of his lover. Jing Yang said, “Wait, wait until we return to reality and see…”

Qi Feng was very unsatisfied with his answer, but Jing Yang refused to relent, not promising him. They also could not always stay here, the task still had to continue.

Qi Feng thought, since he insisted on not getting into a relationship in the game, then he would wait until they returned to reality. Then no matter what, he would definitely get him. In short, this person was his!

Those people who had wanted to climb into the mountains and ambush A team from afar had just gotten halfway up the mountain when they were first attacked by the new A team members. As soon as their weapons swept across them, a large group of people would fall down. Those people were originally preparing to push forward and attack, but seeing that everyone who went up would die, no one dared to send themselves to die.

“What the hell is going on here?!” The captain of the silver dragon team furiously grabbed Dark Flame’s collar, roaring, “What kind of crap plan did you set! More than half of our team died!”

Dark Flame pushed him away, covering his still painful chest. “I also didn’t think that their weapons would be so powerful ah!”

“You didn’t think? If you didn’t think of it, why didn’t you let your team members rush forward!” The silver dragon squad captain threw Dark Flame to the ground with a single punch.

The smoke squad members immediately went up to stop him, and then lifted Dark Flame up from the ground.

Dark Flame was endlessly resentful, the plan had been set by Easy Nobility, but he was the captain, so naturally he had to come forward to consult with the other team captains. Now that the plan had failed, and even caused quite a few people to die on the joint counterattack team, he would have to take responsibility for all of it. But with so many people’s lives, how could he take responsibility?

They all knew that the original A team members had very powerful weapons, but no one thought that those players who had just joined A team would also have such strength, how did they achieve this?

The teams in the joint counterattack team had originally all had their own , cooperating on the surface but with different ideas in their hearts. They all hoped that the other teams would rush in the front, while they themselves could enjoy the benefits . After this fiasco, they would never unite together, no one was willing to go risk their lives again. Even if they were able to succeed in the end, it would still be other people profiting from it, and no one wanted to sacrifice their own lives for other people.

After passing through all kinds of knife and arrow, fire and ice mechanisms and traps, A team successfully retrieved all four four-colored gems, and the labyrinth array task was over.

Back at the residence, Jing Yang and Dragon Seven rushed to continue to deal with the problem. They separated out the error code from the four-colored gems, and then through the page connected to the main system, they attempted to repair the error codes, and if they couldn’t fix it, they would try to delete it.

A few days later, they informed the rest of the team that they could continue to add people into the team.

Jing Yang and Dragon Seven had finally solved the error code, and had not only fixed part of the problem, but could also open more escape channels.

The news that A team was continuing to recruit members was released, and all of the other gamers were shocked, especially those who had already joined the team. They involuntarily became nervous, feeling that as more people entered the team, their chances of survival would decrease.

Those players who had still not joined would definitely not care about how those players who were already in the team would think, no one was willing to miss the chance to live. In order to be able to join A team, no matter what conditions the team mentioned, they all agreed.

A team , and everyone who wanted to join would be accepted as long as they were willing to behave. But those who had just joined couldn’t help but worry about how they would compete for those 100 spots with the others who were already considered as part of the team.

It didn’t take long before everyone received a system notice that the number of escape channels had increased, and the number increased was exactly the current amount of players in A team.

The shock in the players’ minds couldn’t be expressed in words, even though they did not know why this would be the case, at this time they could not bother to go find out. Players flocked to join A team, and the number of escape exits was also increasing at the same time.

The veteran players in A team finally explained the situation to the other players in order to stabilize their spirits and not disturb the current situation. They explained that the reason why as long as more people joined A team, the number of escape exits would also increase accordingly was because they had found a way to deal with the game system failure and had joined forces with the game technicians to try to free all players from the game.

The gamers received a system message in which the technical staff confirmed the words of A team’s veteran players. So all of the players could relax, and were all full of joy at being able to survive without having to compete with each other, full of gratitude to A team for rescuing them.

The only team in a complicated mood, both happy and unhappy, was the smoke squad.

Everyone has the opportunity to leave the game alive, and they obviously also wanted this chance, but they still had a feud with A team, which would likely keep them from this opportunity. Then the end would very likely be that only they would die in the game, which would really be tragic.

“No matter what, we all have to survive, even if we have to kneel and ask for forgiveness that would still be fine. No matter what you all think, I will definitely go join A team. I don’t want to die in the game.”

“Who wants to really die in the game? No one wants to, what I’m worried about is that even if we are willing to let go of everything and beg them for forgiveness, they also won’t accept it.”

“But…, in fact, A team and us don’t really have that much hatred ah, the person who made a sneak attack on them was Black Hawk, and Black Hawk has already been killed by Ding Nuoyang. We haven’t been able to take anything from them, right?”

The rest of the team thought about it, and found out that it was really true. This was originally something that they were unwilling to admit, but now it had actually turned into their salvation.

“The one we have really offended is Ding Nuoyang, and we can tell that the A team members are all very protective of him. If he is not willing to forgive us, I’m afraid the other A team members would also not accept us.”

The team members all fell silent again.

“We just have to return all the things that we made Ding Nuoyang pay for, sincerely apologize to him, and then agree to whatever requests he has, then he should…, probably, forgive us.”

“I also feel that it won’t be too difficult for us to ask for forgiveness, but…” Someone looked at Dark Flame and Easy Nobility. “It’s hard to say.”

The other team members also felt that with how excessively Dark Flame and Easy Nobility had treated Ding Nuoyang before, it would be somewhat difficult for him to forgive them, and it may also cause the rest of the team to also be less likely to be forgiven.

“I will go ask for Nuoyang’s forgiveness, no matter what kind of requirements he has, as long as they let all of us join, I will do it.” Dark Flame could also tell the others’ meaning, and knew that if he didn’t take a stand, the other members would definitely remove him and Easy Nobility. He had married Easy Nobility in order to survive, and had caused him to end up in this kind of situation, naturally he was willing to seek forgiveness in order to live. And that person was Nuoyang, as long as he could forgive himself, he could do anything.

Easy Nobility had never expected that things would end up like this, he had thought that with the game system failure and everyone being trapped in the game to compete for 100 survival spots, this would be a huge opportunity for him. He thought that he could take advantage of this chance to make Ding Nuoyang disappear completely, and could take advantage of this chance to get Dark Flame, and could get a new and beautiful life, like being reborn.

But no, he had nothing, he had lost very thoroughly. No matter how much hatred and jealousy he had in his heart for Ding Nuoyang, in order to be able to live, he had to apologize to him and ask for his forgiveness. And even return all of those things to him, he was unwilling! He was really unwilling, he definitely did not want to! But he had no choice, because he didn’t want to die, so even if he had to give up his dignity, he still wanted to survive. Only if he was still alive would he have hope.

The smoke squad members took out everything that they had previously had Ding Nuoyang buy them from their spaces. For the items that they had already used and couldn’t return, they substituted other items to make up for it, and gave them all to Dark Flame, letting him go apologize as their representative and ask for the chance to enter A team.

———

[1] – 各懷心思, basically means each team has their own ideas, mostly secret

[2] – 坐享漁翁之利, means like a fisherman, enjoying the profits without lifting a finger

[3] – 來者不拒, idiom, means refusing nobody, all comers welcome