"Ah..."
Han Yimo's eyes gradually filled with panic.
"Aren't there harpoons in those holes?"
Hearing Han Yimo's words, Qiao Jiajin decisively put down the table board and walked to the wall to look into the holes. He wouldn't have known if he hadn't looked, but one glance gave him a huge shock.
"Damn!" he yelled, hastily backing up a few steps.
"They really are harpoons! The holes are all full of harpoons that are pulling back!"
The crowd was in a state of panic, their shouts and cries rising and falling one after another. But Qi Xia watched Han Yimo the whole time with a complicated expression.
"You knew there were harpoons inside all along?"
Qi Xia asked.
"No... I just happened to glance over just now..."
Han Yimo's eyes kept darting away; he was clearly lying.
"Could it be that you too..."
Qi Xia stared blankly at Han Yimo, but swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue. Han Yimo remembered too. He had hidden this fact.
From another perspective, it seemed that everyone who remembered what happened before had received the Goat-Head Man's card. Since Qi Xia didn't know what would happen if he exposed the memory, he could only choose not to call him out.
"There's no need to be afraid."
Qi Xia changed the subject, looking at Han Yimo seriously and said in a low voice, "The harpoons won't pierce you this time."
"But... but Qi Xia..."
Han Yimo seemed to have something to say, but he just didn't know how to start. If Qi Xia guessed correctly, what Han Yimo wanted to say was "I was pierced last time."
"We'll adjust our positions this time. You stand between me and Officer Li."
Qi Xia looked toward the others.
"If there are no gaps around you, there's no reason for a harpoon to pierce you."
Han Yimo glanced at Qi Xia with a hint of gratitude and nodded blankly. After everyone calmed down, Qi Xia rearranged the team's formation. He tried to have a man stand next to every woman, and then he made sure Han Yimo was protected.
In any case, Han Yimo was an "Echo User," so there was no harm in protecting his life.
"Also, I need to arrange a contingency plan. Everyone, please come here for a moment."
Qi Xia directed the group.
"If anyone's table board becomes difficult to stabilize later..."
After arranging everything, Qi Xia had everyone get into formation ahead of time, pressing all the table boards together to form an unbreakable cone. Standing inside the cone, the group was back-to-back in the pitch blackness, unable to see a single speck of light. Qi Xia could feel Han Yimo next to him trembling constantly.
It seemed this formation gave him no sense of security at all.
"I'm sorry..."
Han Yimo seemed to know he was drawing attention and could only apologize in a low voice, "I've always had claustrophobia. I've been afraid of enclosed spaces and dark environments since I was a child." As soon as he said that, something suddenly occurred to Qi Xia.
Han Yimo was shot by a harpoon inside the pitch-black cone, and then pierced by a giant sword in the pitch-black dawn. Could this all be related to his "claustrophobia"? Suddenly, a loud sound of something cutting through the air echoed from all around the cone.
"They're coming!"
At Qi Xia's command, everyone began to shift their center of gravity, firmly bracing the table boards in front of them. After all, the strategy Qi Xia had given seemed foolproof. The most important thing now was to ensure the stability of the cone.
The harpoons began to rain down on the cone like a violent storm. The participants only felt their palms ache from the shock, but thankfully, the nine of them were mentally prepared this time. The cone was unbelievably sturdy.
"Bang!!"
A loud noise erupted in front of Xiao Ran, and the table board in her hands was instantly knocked askew. A glaring beam of light shot in through the crack. Qi Xia immediately felt something was wrong.
After all, Han Yimo was right behind Xiao Ran. If a harpoon shot through that crack, it would one hundred percent take Han Yimo's life.
"Turn!"
Qi Xia shouted. Receiving the order, everyone turned to the right with their table boards. The entire cone was like a spinning top in a rainstorm.
Not only were the sloped surfaces deflecting the harpoons, but the cone itself was also rotating non-stop, repelling the harpoons that tried to enter the crack. After two rotations, Doctor Zhao, who was beside Xiao Ran, helped her stabilize the table board.
"Stop!"
Qi Xia shouted again. The group stabilized their table boards once more, like spring bamboo after rain taking root in the ground. As the sounds of impact near the table boards gradually diminished, the harpoon assault slowed down.
After another half minute, the impacts could no longer be heard at all.
"Is it over?" someone asked in a low voice.
"Wait one more minute," Qi Xia said very cautiously.
Naturally, no one objected. They waited quietly for another minute inside the extremely silent cone. Qi Xia carefully lifted his table board.
He looked at the now-safe room, reached out to pat Han Yimo's shoulder, and said, "See?
We're fine."
Han Yimo was still trembling, but he nodded gratefully.
"Are we... Are we okay? But I keep feeling like..."
The others also lifted their table boards one by one, only to be struck speechless by the scene before them. The two corpses on the floor were now covered in harpoons like hedgehogs. Blood was splattered everywhere, creating a truly hellish sight.
"Oh? What's this?"
Officer Li, with exaggerated acting, picked up a harpoon from the floor.
"There seems to be writing on this."
Qi Xia shook his head helplessly. Making Officer Li do something like this was really putting him on the spot. While Officer Li was leading the others to inspect the harpoons, Qi Xia checked on Han Yimo's condition again.
Although he still looked very scared, he was in much better shape than before.
"Han Yimo, I told you we'd be fine this time."
Han Yimo gave a bitter smile after hearing this and said, "Qi Xia, thank you... but I don't know why, I just have this feeling that those harpoons will definitely shoot me." Qi Xia was just about to say something when he suddenly felt that something was not right.
A faint sound of chains could still be heard from somewhere in the room. Could there still be more harpoons? At this moment, Qiao Jiajin also seemed to have noticed something.
A rope was pulled taut, suspended horizontally in mid-air in the center of the room.
"What the hell is this?"
Qiao Jiajin looked at the rope and found that both of its ends were in the holes, very different from the ropes on the ground that were tied to harpoons. Qi Xia also felt a little confused. Why were both ends of the rope in the holes?
Where was the harpoon? Qiao Jiajin walked up and gently touched the rope, discovering it was trembling slightly.
"How strange..."
He tried pulling the rope and found that it could actually be pulled out. Qi Xia was slightly stunned for a moment, then instantly thought of something. That wasn't a rope "suspended in mid-air" at all.
Rather, a harpoon had, by some strange coincidence, shot into a hole in the wall, and this harpoon had gotten stuck on another harpoon.
"Qiao Jiajin, don't touch it!"