CR: Chapter 550

Chapter 550 – Card Labyrinth (End)

Old Mo’s white cloth had doubled in size from the beginning. Thankfully, Liu Qiao’s white cloth could be extended continuously. It could even turn into a cloth curtain over two meters long. Old Mo was more comfortable drawing a map on this white cloth.

In addition to the diamond-shaped distribution map of the rooms, Old Mo also marked the cards that appeared on the wall next to each room.

For example, the cards that appeared on the wall of room 2 were the 8 of Diamonds, 8 of Hearts, 8 of Spades and 8 of Clubs. On the wall of room 4, there were the four suits for number 6. Room 6 had the four suits of the K card and room 7 had the four suits of the number 3 card.

The four rooms 2, 6, 4 and 7 proposed by Old Mo were the transmission areas from the Diamonds area to the other areas.

Just now, Chief Shao won a game and they took one extra 6 of Hearts. Gui Yuanzhang suggested, “Should we collect Hearts next? We already have the 6 of Hearts.”

Old Mo agreed. “Okay, we will go to room 6 and take the K of Hearts as well.”

They now had a map so it was quite easy to find room 6. Under the leadership of Old Mo, the three of them quickly came to room 6 and took down the K of Hearts card. The door at the end of the passage wasn’t the same as just now. The three of them walked through the door and entered a straight passage but this passage had no playing cards on the wall. Instead, it was paved with marble tiles.

There was a soft red light flickering in the distance. Obviously, this passage wasn’t a ‘small room’ but a transportation passage.

Old Mo looked down at the map he had drawn.

Judging from the path they just walked, this 3D labyrinth could be understood as a ‘seven storey’ structure. In the diamonds area, 2 was on the top floor, 8 was the ground floor and 6 and K were on the fifth floor. They had just taken K of Hearts from room 6. There was no staircase and they didn’t fall. Instead, they exited to a horizontal passage. This meant that the Hearts room they were going to next must be on the same floor.

Old Mo continued to expand the handkerchief and walked along the horizontal line from 6 to K. Then he started to draw the rooms of the Hearts area.

A moment later, the three of them entered the room.

The interior structure of the small rooms in the Hearts area was exactly the same as the Diamonds area. There was a white ceiling, black marble floor tiles and walls covered with playing cards on the left and right.

Four cards also appeared on the blank wall.

It was fortunate that they took the time to figure out the structure of the 3D labyrinth. If they had collected cards indiscriminately from the beginning and went from the Diamonds area to the Hearts area, the exact same internal structure would’ve made people’s sense of direction completely chaotic!

Old Mo marked it on the handkerchief while Shao Qingge directly took the 5 of Hearts card from the four cards of the 5 of Hearts, 7 of Hearts, 9 of Hearts and J of Hearts. They would collect it in the order from small to large.

The mechanism opened and the three of them walked through the door of 5 of Hearts. Then their bodies started to fall rapidly.

They came to the 5 of Hearts room and found that the cards here were four suits, namely 8 of Hearts, 8 of Spades, 8 of Diamonds and 8 of Clubs. Shao Qingge immediately said, “It seems this room 5 is the teleportation point of the Hearts area. We can go back to the Diamonds area through here or go to the Spades or Clubs area.”

Old Mo nodded. “Yes, I made a mark. First take the cards.”

They naturally wanted to take the Hearts card. Gui Yuanzhang picked 8 of Hearts and the room was straight, indicating that rooms 5 and 8 in the Hearts area were on the same floor.

There was Old Mo drawing the map so Shao Qingge and Gui Yuanzhang continued to move forward in a very relieved manner.

The moment they entered room 8, they saw a huge wall with scattered fragments on it. The fragments were of various shapes and there were a large number of human face patterns on them. The fragments were in different shades of color that were mainly brown, black, white and red. The fragments covered the entire wall.

A familiar mechanical voice entered their ears. “This is a jigsaw puzzle game. After it is completed, the double buff will be turned on and two playing cards can be collected in this room. The game will begin.”

Before Shao Qingge could react, he saw Gui Yuanzhang take a step forward. He quickly grabbed the fragments on the wall with his right hand and started to put them together. Shao Qingge saw he was gradually sorting and putting together the fragments by colors and he rushed to Old Mo to say, “I almost forgot. Gui Yuanzhang is the president of the Jiangzhou Painting and Calligraphy Association. Seeing how fast he is acting, he must’ve seen this painting before.”

Old Mo nodded. “Yes, there are many chaotic fragments and so many faces. I can’t see the pattern…”

Of course, they could slowly put it together if they had never seen this painting. The face of a person was always symmetrical. After being fragmented, find the other half of the face and then the clothing of the person. They could always finish it in one or two hours.

The problem was that it was now a time limited labyrinth!

Just now, in order to find out the structure of the labyrinth, they went back and forth in the Diamonds area and wasted a lot of time. Shao Qingge and Old Mo became nervous when they saw there was only 35 minutes left on the countdown.

However, Senior Gui’s expression was serious and his movements were fast. The two of them didn’t dare disturb him with loud noises.

The countdown was 34 minutes…

33 minutes…

Time passed and the painting on the wall gradually revealed its original appearance. Shao Qingge and Old Mo were overjoyed. The moment when the countdown reached 31 minute and 35 seconds, Gui Yuanzhang finished the painting.

The two of them looked up and saw that the painting on one wall was very complete. The colors were a bit dark but every woman looked vivid. There were 12 women in total, all wearing red. They sat around a long table. Some were drinking tea, some were drinking, some were playing the pipa…

Gui Yuanzhang introduced it. “This is part of the Ladies of the Tang Palace paintings and one of the top 10 famous paintings.”

Shao Qingge had heard of this masterpiece but he had never seen it with his own eyes. Now he saw Old Gui piecing it together in five minutes and couldn’t help feeling admiration. “Fortunately, you are familiar with this painting. If it was me and Old Mo, we would probably take at least an hour.”

Gui Yuanzhang said, “Hurry up and get the cards.”

The mural disappeared and four cards appeared in front of them. There were 4 Hearts cards.

Shao Qingge picked two cards including the 2 of Hearts and they walked into the next room.

Thanks to their experience in the Diamonds area, the process of collecting cards in the Hearts area went smoothly.

Old Mo drew the map as he walked. They collected more Hearts cards and the shape of the structure gradually appeared on his white cloth. Old Mo excitedly exclaimed, “All the rooms in the Hearts area are indeed arranged in the shape of the heart on the playing card!”

Gui Yuanzhang glanced at the map on the white cloth. “Do you think the Spades and Clubs area will follow such a rule? It is a seven story 3D labyrinth. 13 rooms are arranged on seven floors and according to the shape of the card suit?”

Shao Qingge answered, “It is very likely. Where do we go next?”

The Hearts area went well but it still took them 10 minutes to finish. There were 25 minutes left and it was a race against time.

Gui Yuanzhang suggested, “Clubs.”

Old Mo had marked the teleportation point of Hearts on the white cloth. He heard this and immediately brought his two teammates to room 5. They took the 8 of Clubs from the wall and entered the Clubs area.

The experience of the two previous areas made the three people silently speed up. In order to avoid distractions, the number of words decreased and the two of them followed Old Mo all the way forward. Every time they saw the cards on the wall, they took the smallest one until they collected 13 Clubs cards.

The Clubs area also had a game and it was located in the 9 of Clubs room.

The familiar mechanical sound was heard. “Welcome to the gold coin elimination fun event. There are a large number of gold coins of varying amounts on the gold coin wall in front of you. Two gold coins of the same denomination can be eliminated at the same time. Once all the coins are eliminated, the game is completed. The double buff rewards will be obtained and you can take two cards at a time.”

They couldn’t go backward so the three of them couldn’t skip the game and go to other rooms to get cards. They could only hurry up and play the game. The massive amount of gold coins on the wall dazzled the three people. Shao Qingge said, “We will divide up the denominations to eliminate. I will eliminate the 50,000 gold coins, Old Mo the 100,000 gold coins and Senior Gui the one million coins.”

The round gold coins were about to blind people under the illumination of the light. The gold coins with denominations of 50,000, 100,000 and one million were scattered everywhere in unequal amounts. The three people worked together and quickly eliminated their assigned denominations. There was the ringing of ‘ding dong’ and ‘crash’ of the game in their ears…

This sound effect wasn’t pleasant at all and Shao Qingge felt it was very noisy.

This game must’ve been arranged by A of Clubs. Everyone knew that he was the money controller of the card world. Did he directly build a gold coin wall to show off his wealth? Were the four walls covered with gold coins where he lived?

It took another five minutes for the three of them to eliminate all the coins.

Shao Qingge had transformed into the bug king and could crawl around on the gold coin wall. The suffering Old Mo and Gui Yuanzhang were already old but they didn’t dare to stop for a second. After five minutes, they felt that their hands were sore to the point of numbness…

[The game is cleared.]

[This time, a total of 58.35 million gold coins have been eliminated. This amount will be deducted from Shao Qingge’s account.]

[A notice from the card bank. Your card central bank account had 58.53 million gold coins transferred out. Your current balance is 10 million gold coins.]

Shao Qingge, “???”

It was a gold coin elimination game and the corresponding gold coins were eliminated from his account? Could money still be deducted even if they won the game?

Old Mo couldn’t help being stunned when he saw this notification. “What is this? We won the game but Chief Shao’s money was deducted?”

Gui Yuanzhang was calm. “That is why it is called gold coins ‘vanishing magic’. The Clubs’ keeper deliberately did it.”

Shao Qingge wanted to catch that boy with facial paralysis and beat him up but now wasn’t the time to think about it. He took a deep breath and resisted the impulse to curse. Then he walked over to take two Clubs cards from the wall.

Old Mo took advantage of this time and took out the lazy sofa. He sat on it with Senior Gui for a few seconds to recover their energy. Then they followed Shao Qingge and continued to move through the labyrinth.

It was as they expected. All the small rooms in the Clubs area had a 3D structure similar to the shape of the ‘Clubs’ on the playing cards.

13 cards were gathered and only Spades remained.

Old Mo took the 10 of Spades from the teleportation point and entered the Spades area.

Every time Spade was mentioned, people reflexively worried about the danger. After all, the theme of Spades was survival.

The three of them were worried and their steps were naturally more cautious.

The moment they entered through the door of 10 of Spades and the door closed behind them, a dense rain of arrows suddenly shot toward them.

Shao Qingge wasn’t afraid of arrows but it would be the end if Old Mo and Senior Gui were hit by the arrows.

Gui Yuanzhang reacted extremely quickly. The tip of an arrow was less than 10 centimeters away from the tip of his nose when the brush in his hand slammed outward. The air around him formed a fierce hurricane in front of him and blew away all the arrows!

Being able to directly blow the arrows back showed the ability of this brush to control the wind…

Old Mo was shocked and said in a trembling voice, “It seems that the Spades area isn’t easy. Everyone, be careful.”

Shao Qingge took the initiative to stand up. “I will go to the front. Senior Gui, I will trouble you to protect Old Mo and let him concentrate on drawing.”

Gui Yuanzhang nodded. “Rest assured.”

The three of them escaped the rain of arrows and took a 3 of Spades from the wall.

There was the patio-like passage and the familiar sense of weightlessness. They fell down in the darkness and couldn’t see what was under their feet. Gui Yuanzhang had a bad feeling and directly threw out his inkstone.

At almost the same time, Shao Qingge cried out coldly, “Be careful. There are sharp knives below us!”

The bugs could see in the dark environment. Shao Qingge clearly saw the knives under his feet. Fortunately, Old Gui had insight and the huge inkstone was thrown down. There was a loud bang and the knives were smashed by the inkstone.

Old Mo smiled bitterly. “A of Spades really knows how to play…”

That’s right. There were 10 minutes left on the countdown. Not only did they have to hurry up to collect cards but they also had to find a way to save their lives.

In addition to the initial rain of arrows and the knife trap, the later rooms had poisonous snakes, falling rocks, ghosts, etc.

They ran for their lives while looking for cards. Thankfully, the three people had first-class psychological quality.

Old Mo’s labyrinth map was very comprehensive and Senior Gui always protected them. Compared to hunters, these arrows, knives and traps weren’t difficult to deal with. Perhaps it was because this labyrinth was too difficult but the mini-games were quite friendly. Of course, apart from the gold coins consumed.

Shao Qingge felt pained when he thought of the more than 50 million gold coins that had been seized for no reason.

The 13 cards of the Spades suit were finally gathered. Old Mo looked at the display on the countdown and said, “There are still three minutes left but we are missing two key cards.”

Shao Qingge realized this serious problem. “The big and small jokers… we never saw the joker cards along the way!”

In a deck of playing cards, in addition to the 13 cards of the four suits, there were also two joker cards.

They recalled the experience of the Diamonds, Hearts, Clubs and Spades area. According to Old Mo’s map, they walked through almost all the rooms and the walls of each room had four cards. 13 x 4 x 4 was a total of 208 cards.

Yet among these 208 cards, there was no joker card!

The mood of the three people became tense when they saw that the countdown had reached 2 minutes and 59 seconds.

Gui Yuanzhang frowned. “Is it possible that we missed a room?”

Old Mo picked up the map that had expanded to over a meter long and quickly looked at it. “It is impossible. Every room has a corresponding number and we have walked through all of it. I’m not mistaken.”

The two of them naturally believed in Old Mo’s sense of space and direction. They had walked through all the small rooms and hadn’t found the big joker and little joker cards. Where would these two key cards be?

Could it be that there were still unopened areas in the labyrinth?!

Proofreader: Paranoid Kitten & Fictional Reality