“What on earth is going on? Weren't we just sheltering from the rain? How did it suddenly turn into this?” The girl with the high ponytail spoke with a slight tremble in her voice, her eyes filled with unease.
She instinctively looked at Filament next to her and tightly grabbed her best friend's arm. “Tongtong, I'm so scared. This is just a prank, right?”
Filament frowned, repeatedly looking over the white paper and card in her hand, her expression rather grim. “There must be a way to get out of here without playing this game. This is too ridiculous. What battle royale? What faction confrontation? I don't believe we have to slaughter each other like this.”
“What's there to be confused about?” The capped man put away his card and white paper, crossing his arms as his gaze swept across the panicked crowd. “It's very obvious we've been dragged into a strange battle royale game. Either win or die. It's as simple as that.”
“Um, I have a question,” Bai Ci said, raising her hand cautiously.
“You again.” The capped man rolled his eyes at Bai Ci once more. “If you have something to say, just say it. This isn't your classroom, why are you raising your hand?”
“The rules don't mention a voting phase to eliminate people,” Bai Ci said, acting embarrassed as she put her hands behind her back. “I know Werewolf has a voting phase, but there isn't one here.”
“Besides, there are four Madmen, which means they only have four vials of poison in total. There are eight of us in the good faction. How are they supposed to eliminate all of us? And how do we eliminate them?”
As soon as Bai Ci spoke, most of the people on the stage fell into deep thought.
From the perspective of the Madman faction, four vials of poison could at most poison four people, leaving four survivors in the Citizen faction.
From the perspective of the Citizen faction, the doctor and the police officer's skills could only eliminate two Madmen, leaving no way to deal with the remaining two.
It was simply impossible to meet the condition of 'wiping out one side entirely.' How was this game supposed to be played?
When she raised this question, Bai Ci already knew the answer in her heart, but the persona she had set for herself didn't allow her to solve it.
While everyone was deep in thought, Fu Yan spoke up. “There's no need to vote, and there's no need to obsess over the number of poison vials. The rules don't say we can't kill with our own hands.”
“The Madmen can use poison, but they can also take direct action. Although the Citizens have no skills, they can also fight back to survive. Simply put, there are no restrictions. As long as you can wipe out the opposing faction, any method goes.”
Exactly. That was the answer.
Cruel, bloody, and dark. To win, one's hands had to be stained with blood.
“With rules like these, there's a simple, brainless way to solve it. As long as I kill all of you, I can guarantee that I'll be the final winner.” The capped man made a shocking declaration, successfully drawing hostile glares from everyone.
Then, he casually shrugged. “Just kidding. Playing the game like that would be boring even if I won. Besides, I don't want to become a murderer so quickly.”
“No! This is definitely a prank!” The long-haired woman's sudden shriek shattered the silence brought by the capped man's shocking statement.
She slammed the card and white paper in her hand onto the floor, seemingly losing control of her emotions. “Someone is definitely playing a trick on us, bringing us here just to scare us. Don't believe them!”
“Come out already! I know you're watching us!”
She screamed and shouted while looking around wildly, as if this was the only way to ease her anxiety.
Seeing this, the girl with the high ponytail calmed down a lot under Filament's comfort. Out of a certain reluctance to see someone like herself suffer, she reached out to pull her back.
“Hey, miss, please calm down. Let's figure out the situation first. Screaming and shouting won't do any good.”
“Don't touch me!” The long-haired woman violently shoved the high-ponytail girl's hand away with great force. The girl stumbled back a few steps, nearly falling over.
As if she had gone mad, the long-haired woman spun around and rushed toward the curtains at the back of the stage, screaming as she ran, “I'm not playing this stupid game! I want to leave!”
“Don't be afraid, baby,” Fu Liu whispered, taking Bai Ci's hand.
“Mm,” Bai Ci murmured in response.
The long-haired woman had clearly collapsed mentally. If an acquaintance had held her back, she might have calmed down. But everyone here was a stranger to her. Not only could they not persuade her, but their presence only fueled her anxiety, like pouring oil on a fire.
It was only normal for an innocent college student to be scared out of her wits by this scene. Realizing that she couldn't stop her, Bai Ci chose to just watch.
Aside from a few genuine college students who were genuinely terrified, the rest probably shared the same mindset as Bai Ci: respect others' choices, while also using the long-haired woman to test the rules.
The curtain was deep red, heavy and luxurious, concealing the scene behind the stage. The long-haired woman rushed to the curtain, grabbed it with both hands, and yanked it hard. The curtain was torn open, revealing the scene behind it.
A cold wall, with a vermilion wooden door right in the middle of it.
Seeing the wooden door, the long-haired woman's eyes lit up. A smug smile appeared on her face as she shouted to the crowd, “There's a door here! We can leave! Who would play this stupid game!”
As she spoke, she grabbed the handle of the wooden door and pulled hard, but the door didn't budge at all, as if it were securely locked.
The long-haired woman's face darkened, and she kicked the wooden door impatiently, cursing, “What a piece of junk door!”
As someone who loved mountain climbing, her kick carried a lot of force. With a loud clatter, she actually kicked open a crack in the wooden door.
Immediately after, she kicked it hard a few more times. The wooden door was kicked completely open, revealing the pitch darkness behind it. There was no light, nor any sound, like a bottomless pit.
The long-haired woman grew even more smug. She glanced back at the crowd and raised her chin. “See? I told you it was a prank. Now that the door is open, I'm leaving. Play by yourselves if you want.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she stepped into the wooden door without hesitation.
The instant her foot stepped inside, her head fell straight off her neck and rolled onto the floor. Propelled by the momentum, it rolled all the way to the feet of the high-ponytail girl, who was closest to her.
Blood sprayed out, staining the pristine white stage floor red, splashing onto the high-ponytail girl's pant legs.
“Don't look, baby.”
Bai Ci's vision suddenly went dark as someone covered her eyes. She only heard the high-ponytail girl let out a shrill, piercing scream, followed by the sound of her collapsing onto the floor, accompanied by sobbing.
At that moment, the capped man spoke up slowly, his voice calm. “Whether it's a movie or a novel, there's always a character like this in a battle royale game.”
If there were any highly righteous characters among those present, they would have stepped forward to scold him right now. But among the participants allocated to this game, there didn't seem to be anyone with that kind of personality.
“How can you say that?” the high-ponytail girl cried out in reprimand, her voice choked with tears. “She's dead! How can you still say things like that?”
Well, there was still someone with a strong sense of justice and empathy, even if she herself was still crying, terrified by the scene before her.
Rate on N.U.
