Tang Mo falls at a very fast speed. It’s dark all around, but he seems to be falling along a tunnel in the ground. His body keeps hitting the walls of the tunnel, but because of his physical condition, it doesn’t hurt at all. However, he’s unable to control this feeling of falling.

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He could have been falling for a minute, or he could have been falling for an hour.

Bam!

Tang Mo finally hits the ground.

It’s pitch-black around him, and he can’t even see his hand in front of his face. Tang Mo touches the ground beneath his feet. The moist dirt lets him understand that he is actually standing on the ground right now. He calms his nerves and carefully listens. After confirming that there are no other sounds, he begins to feel around with his hands, cautiously checking out the environment.

He feels around for three minutes to no avail.

Suddenly, a familiar bumping noise comes from above, and Tang Mo retracts his hands. He cautiously takes note of the noise, and half a minute later, a large object smashes into the ground along with a loud, pained man’s voice. “Ouch, that hurts! Where is this place?”

Tang Mo’s heart leaps. He quietly asks, “Li Wen?”

The man stops yelling. After a while, he says, “Tang Mo?”

Tang Mo’s heart settles a bit, but before he can say anything, another round of bumping noises begins, and another person slams into the ground. Then, a fourth person. One after another, they all fall to the ground, cursing and yelling.

Tang Mo counts. Including himself, there are seven people.

A bright light suddenly appears, lighting up the dark. Everyone turns to look at the source of the light, only to see a middle-school-aged girl looking scared. She’s very skinny and looks sickly but holds a flashlight in her hand. She says shakily, “I… I brought a flashlight. It was too dark, so I turned it on.”

An elite-looking, suit-wearing man nods and walks over. “Can I borrow it? I want to see what’s around us, see what kind of place we’re in.”

The little girl gives him the flashlight, and the man begins to examine their surroundings.

Tang Mo looks along the light beam. Very quickly, the man walks around the entire cave and returns to his original place, sticking the flashlight in the dirt to let the light shine upwards. This way, the light can illuminate as much of the cave as possible, and everyone can see everyone else as well.

The man sits beside the flashlight. “Let’s all introduce ourselves. I’m Li Bin, I’m 29, and I work at a public relations company. Right now, no one knows what’s going on, but I bet it’s got something to do with the Black Tower. All we can do right now is team up and protect each and every one of us before the Black Tower creates some unknown situation.”

The little girl had communicated with Li Bin just now, and she seems to trust this man, so she sits down too. Her voice is shaky as she says, “My name is Peng Yuwen, I’m 15 and I’m in the eighth grade at Twelfth Middle School. You can… you can all call me Wenwen.”

Everyone else looks at each other. No one moves.

Tang Mo walks over to sit. Li Bin and Peng Yuwen both look at him.

He smiles slightly. “Tang Mo, 23, librarian.”

Li Wen doesn’t really understand why Tang Mo suddenly decided to trust these two people, but since Tang Mo went over, he follows too. “Li Wen, 25. Right now I’m unemployed and living off my parents[1].”

Out of seven, four people decided to group together. The other three grit their teeth and run over as well.

“Lin Qiao, 20, I’m in college.”

“Zhao Xiang, 32. Before that stupid tower appeared, I was a chef. After that thing came, my boss ran away out of fear, so I guess I’m unemployed too.”

The last one is a respectable-looking man wearing glasses. He sits down slowly, gaze sweeping across everyone in the circle, lingering on Li Bin and Tang Mo. “Luo Fengcheng," he says finally. "28, game designer.”

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Like this, the seven people meet.

With five men and two women, the girls decide to stick together. Lin Qiao sat down beside Peng Yuwen from the beginning, and they quickly become close, whispering together on the side.

Li Wen scoots next to Tang Mo. “What’s this about? Tang Mo, do you know?”

Tang Mo shakes his head. “It probably has to do with the Black Tower.”

“The Black Tower?” Li Wen shudders. “What the heck is this place? We haven’t been trapped, have we?”

“This should be an underground cave,” a calm voice says. Everyone looks over. Luo Fengcheng pushes his glasses up, eyes cold and distant. “The moisture of the soil will rise as we get further from the surface. The closer it gets to underground water sources, the more moist the soil will be. At the moment, the water potential of the soil beneath our feet is about 3 bar[2]. Normal underground water cannot cause this amount of potential. If we’re still in Shanghai, then we must be near a water source. This is a cave near a water source.”

Li Bin looks at him weirdly. “You’re a game designer?”

Luo Fengcheng: “I majored in hydraulics[3].”

But the suspicious gazes don’t disappear, and Tang Mo also looks at this person curiously.

This is certainly a cave, which is in line with what everyone’s thinking.

“The seven holes above us are probably where each of us fell down.” Li Bin points at the seven dark holes above them, gaze heavy. “I think you all heard what the Black Tower said before falling down?”

Lin Qiao nods and repeats the words. “China District 1 stowaway Fu Wenduo has successfully unlocked the Black Tower: Floor 1. In three minutes, all China players, please begin to attack the tower.”

Out of the seven, the little girl, Peng Yuwen, doesn’t talk much, and the chef, Zhao Xiang, also only listens, sometimes even asking everyone else to explain things. On the other hand, Luo Fengcheng also quiets down, as if he thought he already spoke too much.

Li Bin takes up the responsibilities of being the leader of the group. “I don’t really understand a lot of what it just said, so let’s not focus on it right now. But do you all still remember the Three Definite Rules of the Black Tower? It announced them yesterday morning, and the last one asked us to work hard to attack the tower, so are we attacking the tower right now?”

Li Wen asks curiously, “So how do we attack the tower?”

“I don’t know.”

Tang Mo says, “Maybe there will be a hint? How about we look around in the cave?”

Li Bin shakes his head. “I already looked all over and didn’t find anything.”

At this moment, a clear childlike voice rings out in the cave.

“Ding dong! The Black Tower: Floor 1 (dumbass mode) has started. Seven-person survival game loading…”

“Sandbox forming…”

“Game data loading…”

“Main mission: the seven people chosen by god, please work hard to survive!”

The silence in the cave is deafening.

After who knows how long, Li Wen nervously asks, “Game? That was the Black Tower’s voice, I remember it! What does it mean by game? What’s a seven-person survival game…”

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Tang Mo looks at him. Now he’s finally sure that Li Wen has never played a Black Tower game before.
The chef Zhao Xiang purposefully yells to hide his nervousness. “We’ll probably have to escape from here, so let’s hurry up and leave.”

But Li Bin says calmly, “Don’t worry. Since the Black Tower gave us a mission, it can’t be something as simple as digging a hole and leaving. Maybe there’s some sort of trap.” On closer inspection, Li Bin’s lips are trembling, but he’s trying hard to appear calm. “We have to first confirm the situation we’re in, and then think about what…”

“Shh!”

“Don’t make noise!”

Tang Mo and Luo Fengcheng talk at the same time.

They exchange a glance. Tang Mo furrows his eyebrows. “Did any of you hear anything?”

The others hold their breath and carefully listen.

Suddenly, the college student Lin Qiao opens her eyes wide and screams. She immediately puts her hands over her mouth and whispers, “I heard it, I heard it. The sound of digging, it’s the sound of digging! I like to play survival games, and this is the sound effect that plays when you’re digging. There’s something digging!”

Li Bin stands up immediately. “It’s over here.”

Everyone stands and looks at a dirt wall.

The chef Zhao Xiang’s face is bright red as he clenches his fists. “Fucking damn it, whatever it is, I’ll smash it to death.”

Everyone’s hair stands on end as they fearfully look in the direction of the digging sound. The sound gets closer and closer, and Tang Mo can hear his own heartbeat thumping in his ears. The soft sound of digging never stops, and in a flash, it’s already beside the cave.

Boom!

The last thin layer of dirt is dug away.

A blood-red light shines from within the dark hole, and a pair of small eyes sweeps across each of the seven people. It reaches out enormous claws, pushes away the pile of dirt in front of it, and the entire person… the entire rat climbs out of the hole and into this giant underground cavern.

Whoomph!

This is a giant beastly mole more than two meters tall. When it stands, it seems like it could cause the sky to come crashing down. It throws a half-human-sized turkey on the ground, little eyes staring at the seven people, sharp teeth creakily gnawing and making a terrible sound.

The mole wipes away its drool and laughs creepily. “How come the Black Tower’s so kind today? I wanted to eat turkey, and it gave me fuel. Seven humans, perfect for roasting this turkey, and then with delicious cumin… oh, thank you, Black Tower, Happy Thanksgiving!”

The chef just said it was going to smash whatever-it-was to death, but now that he’s seen this terrifying huge rodent, he stumbles backwards in fear. Then, he suddenly turns and runs.

Tang Mo hurries to say, “Don’t move!”

But it’s too late. The moment after the chef turns to run, the giant mole leaps like a bolt of lightning, swiping at the chef with a claw and slamming him into the wall.

The chef falls to the ground, blood spurting out of his mouth, no longer moving.

The mole looks at the other six people with its beady little eyes. At last, its gaze falls on the short and skinny fifteen-year-old girl, Peng Yuwen. “This fuel is the thinnest. I’ll make you the center of the fire. The fattest one can be last. Turkeys must be roasted with a raging fire—this is a secret that I haven’t told anyone. This way, the turkey will be the most delicious.”

“Ahhhh!” Peng Yuwen is so scared that her face turns pale. She tries to run, but the mole flies over and grabs her hair, pulling her away. Peng Yuwen screams in agony. Li Bin grits his teeth and grabs onto her right foot, roaring, “We can’t let it take her away! It’ll be us next!”

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Tang Mo isn’t coldblooded enough to watch an underaged girl get snatched away right in front of him. He grabs the little girl’s other foot, and Li Wen shakily grabs her leg. The college student Lin Qiao also gathers her courage, grabbing the little girl’s other leg.

Luo Fengcheng steps right on the mole’s paw. He chose a tricky angle and stepped right onto the nail of the last toe of the mole’s foot. He steps with all his might, and the mole roars in agony, but looking closely, it’s not even bleeding. The mole lets go of the little girl, and everyone pulls her back.

The two-meter-tall mole roars with anger. “I will turn you all into fuel right now to roast my turkey!”

“Ding dong! Side mission one: roast a turkey for the cute Mr. Mole.”

Seven people all hear this voice by their ear.

What the fuck is a cute mole?!

Right now, everyone wants to rip the Black Tower to shreds.

Tang Mo vaguely feels that these words are familiar, but the situation doesn’t allow him to dwell on the thought. The mole waves its huge claws, slapping Li Bin away. The college student and little girl are so scared by this that they try to run away, but Tang Mo hurriedly says, “Don’t run! We have to band together. If we separate, it’ll catch us!”

The little girl runs away anyway. She’s young, after all, and it’s understandable that she’s terrified.

The college student gathers her courage and runs back towards the group.

“Catch!” Luo Fengcheng tears off the turkey’s legs and throws one to Tang Mo. However, he didn’t control his throw well enough, and it lands at the feet of the college student.

The mole is a huge mole, and the turkey is a huge turkey too. Its leg is as big as a baseball bat and the skin is thick and hard. It can totally be used as a weapon. Luo Fengcheng holds one, and the college student hesitates just a moment before picking up the other leg. Together, they rush towards the mole.

The mole is swinging its claws at Li Bin at the moment. As it hears a noise, it stops and turns.

Li Bin coughs out blood, holding onto the mole’s leg with trembling arms. “Hurry!”

Luo Fengcheng and the college student rush in from each side, swinging the turkey legs at the mole. The mole is trapped in place by Li Bin and can’t dodge. Two steel-like turkey legs smash into the mole, but at the last moment, the mole raises its claws to protect its head.

The turkey legs collide with the claws and form a shower of metal sparks.

The mole slowly lowers its claws, grinding its long, sharp teeth. “Burn, I’ll burn you all!”

Li Bin lies on the floor in despair. Even now, he’s still tightly holding onto the mole’s leg. Suddenly, his eyes light up in hope. He sees Tang Mo rush forward, charging towards the mole carelessly.

But he doesn’t even have a single turkey leg!

A bucket of cold water pours onto his head, extinguishing his flames of hope. Li Bin shouts loudly, “Don’t ask for death!”[4]

In a blink, a giant match appears in Tang Mo’s hand. No one knows when it appeared; the chef is lying on the ground, life and death unknown, and the little girl’s long-since run away and has disappeared. Li Bin, Luo Fengcheng, and the college student can only look at this big match in shock.

The huge match smashes down, with the sound of the rushing wind as a testament to how much power lies behind it.

They excitedly watch Tang Mo, watching the match in his hand that will inevitably come down on the mole’s head.

Suddenly!

The mole reaches out and catches the match in its claws.

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Not only them, but Tang Mo’s heart descends into the icebox as well. The inertia of the match’s movement makes the mole stagger a bit, but regardless, it’s not hurt. It holds the other end of the match, looking down at Tang Mo.

Tang Mo purses his lips tightly, furiously wondering if his stupid ability can do anything else.

But surprisingly, the mole doesn’t attack. It tilts its head, holding the match with its left hand, holding its face with its right hand, and does a cute move that many pet dogs know how to do. “Hmm, how do you have Pixels’ match?” Its bright red nose twitches a few times. The mole sniffs, opens its eyes, and says oddly, “Ah, you have Pixels’ scent on you! It’s a very, very contemptuous scent!”
​
Tang Mo: “…”

Notes

[1]

无业游民 = unemployed wanderer. 啃老族 = (tribe of people) living off elders. Specifically, 啃老 means 'gnawing on elders' and it's used to admonish those young people who don't work and instead spend their parents' money all day. Since some people can also be brought up by their grandparents or other family members, it can also just mean family elders in general. Li Wen's family, of course, is rich, but most people aren't. 啃老族 is pretty looked-down-upon in China but it's also fairy common for young people to live at home off their parents' money...

[2]

According to this source from UMass (and a few Chinese articles), soil water potential is a measure of how much energy it would take to draw water out from the soil. In other words, it's a measurement of how much work the water will need to do in order to leave the soil. It's usually measured in bars (unit of pressure, 1 bar = 100kPa [kilopascals]). The greater the potential, the more work is needed to draw the water out, aka the drier the soil. A soil water potential of 0 means the water does not need to do any work and is willing to be drawn out; this, then, means that the soil is completely saturated with water. From what I understand (aka this Chinese source), China may use negative numbers to indicate soil water potential? Either way, I'll speak of it in positive numbers so it's easier to understand. (Interestingly, this source gives positive numbers, so I'm not sure what the proper notation is anymore lol.) Normal plants grow with a soil water potential of 0 to 15 bars (again, 0 being the wettest and 15 being the driest). When Luo Fengcheng says that 'normal underground water cannot cause this amount of potential', the original sentence was smth like 'normal underground water cannot potential that's this high', possibly owing to the fact that China could use negative numbers to indicate potential (and -3 is pretty close to zero, aka 'high'). Either way, he means that the soil here is very wet, and I translated it vaguely on purpose because notation differences suck ass. Tl;dr: Luo Fengcheng means that the soil in this place is so wet that normal underground water could not have caused it, which means that they must be near a legit source of water. Wow, physics ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡ (jk jk this is more environmental science/agriculture).

[3]

A continuation of sorts of the previous note: I googled 水利 and it gave me either hydraulics engineering or water conservancy??? I went with the vague 'hydraulics' because Luo Fengcheng was vague too. Also, 'hydraulics' sounds more professional than 'water conservancy', which might be a thing but not, I think, for LFC.

[4]

Normally, I wouldn't have explained this, but the last chapter had 作死 (asking for death) and this term was originally 送死 (throwing yourself into death). Similar but different, so I thought I'd explain. 作死 is more doing something dumb and dying as a result. 送死 is more you know you're going to die/might die but you're doing it anyway. One of them, you're literally being stupid. The other one, a bit less stupid. With 送死, there's more of a 'tragic hero' sort of connotation (especially in this context), but 作死 is always 'you're just dumb'.

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