While struggling to turn the table, Qi Xia said, “The positions of ‘Ningxia’ and ‘Shandong’ can be connected to form a horizontal line.”
“‘Inner Mongolia’, ‘Sichuan’, and ‘Yunnan’ can be connected to form a left-falling stroke.”
“And the four points of ‘Guangxi’, ‘Guangdong’, ‘Shaanxi’, and ‘Jiangsu’ can form a square. This is precisely the character for ‘Right’ (右).”
“No matter what Han Yimo’s hometown turned out to be, whether it was Guangxi Province or Taiwan Province, it would form a ‘mouth’ radical (口). So the answer was fixed from the very beginning.”
As the group quickened their hands, they cast strange glances his way. Qi Xia’s line of thought was too unconventional, yet he had unraveled the mystery twice in a row. This couldn't help but make everyone suspicious.
Qi Xia understood this himself, so he spoke to the group, “Don’t misunderstand. If the next game is about abandoning you to save myself, I will do what it takes to survive without any hesitation.” Hearing him say this, the others could only remain silent, gritting their teeth as they turned the table.
Eight people sat around the table, continuously pushing it to the right.
“How many rounds?”
Qiao Jiajin asked.
“Twenty-six,” Lin Qin answered.
“You can even count that?”
Qiao Jiajin blinked.
“This table looks the same all around.”
“I’m counting by watching the bloodstains on the table,” Lin Qin said seriously.
“Counting is very important for us psychologists.”
Qi Xia frowned.
“We’re not even at thirty rounds yet. We need to hurry.”
The group fell silent and quickened the movements of their hands. But the closer they got, the harder the table was to move, as if the chains inside were winding tighter and tighter.
“Damn, what’s going on?”
Qiao Jiajin said through gritted teeth.
“This thing is too heavy.”
“Keep going… maybe it’s really connected to a door!”
Tian Tian said, also grimacing. Her words gave everyone a sliver of hope in their despair.
A door.
If this room could make holes appear out of thin air, why couldn’t it make a door appear out of thin air? Everyone’s arms were aching, but they continued to rotate the table, round after round.
“Don’t give up, everyone! Only five rounds left!”
Lin Qin shouted. At this moment, everyone was gritting their teeth and exerting all their strength. Not a single person dared to slack off.
Creak, creak.
As the final round finished, the table was clearly embedded into something. Everyone finally let out a sigh of relief as the soreness in their arms gradually began to surface. There were only five minutes left until a quarter past one.
“Where’s the door?!”
Qiao Jiajin shouted anxiously. The surrounding walls showed no change. In the pitch-black holes, the cold glint of the harpoons could still be seen.
“Damn! There’s no door!”
Qiao Jiajin’s voice was laced with a hint of despair.
“It was wrong! We guessed wrong!”
Xiao Ran screamed.
“We should have turned it left, right?! We shouldn’t have trusted that con man! We’re all going to die in here!!”
Qi Xia frowned slightly…
Wrong?
Before anyone could react, the clock in the center of the table suddenly acted strangely. It trembled slightly, then shot out eight beams of laser light. The eight laser beams shot out from the clock, gradually moving to the edge of the table before stopping.
To everyone’s confusion, the clock precisely cut the table into several fan-shaped pieces of equal size, just like a pizza.
Crash!
With a loud noise, the table split into four or five pieces. The clock in the center now stood alone on a small wooden post. Qi Xia looked closely.
There were eight small fan-shaped pieces, and one large one. No, it was more accurate to call them ‘triangles’ rather than ‘fan-shaped’, since the bottom edge of each piece of the tabletop was flat. Time was too tight, and everyone was in a frantic mess.
“What is this?”
Han Yimo cried out in alarm.
“Why did the table break?”
Officer Li noticed at this moment that there were actually handles on the back of each fan-shaped piece. Years of professional experience made him understand instantly.
“They’re shields!”
He picked up the largest fan-shaped piece of the tabletop and held it in front of himself.
“We can use these shields to block the harpoons!”
Hearing this, everyone else quickly picked up a piece of the table. Unfortunately, there was only one large piece. Everyone else could only grab a small triangle, barely enough to cover their own body.
But after just ten-odd seconds, everyone realized the problem.
“How are we supposed to block?!”
Lawyer Zhang Chenze showed a rare trace of panic.
“If there are harpoons on all sides, we can only block one direction.”
“We need to cooperate,” Qi Xia said, snapping back to his senses.
“We’ll form a circle and cover each other’s backs.”
After hearing this, the group quickly adjusted their formation and waited quietly. Right now, it was so quiet they could only hear each other’s breathing. Eight strangers had now become teammates, and not a single one could be missing.
Qi Xia happened to glance back at the writer, Han Yimo, and saw that his face was covered in a fine sweat. He was trembling all over and looked extraordinarily nervous. At this moment, a bell tolled again from somewhere far outside the room.
“Are you alright?”
Qi Xia asked.
“I’m… I’m fine…”
Han Yimo shook his head.
“Hey! Doctor Zhao, turn your tabletop piece upside down!”
Zhang Chenze suddenly said.
“Why?”
Doctor Zhao looked at the piece in his hand. Its pointed end was down, and the wide end was up.
“You can’t block my legs like that!”
Zhang Chenze said nervously.
“I’ll get hit!”
“If I turn it upside down, I won’t be able to block my head!”
Doctor Zhao shot back, not to be outdone.
“Which is more important, a head or a leg?”
Some people who overheard their argument thought Doctor Zhao had a point, and they actually started to flip their fan-shaped pieces over. Pointed end down, wide end up. This created a bizarre situation.
The harpoons flying in from all eight directions would only be blocked on the upper half, meaning everyone’s legs would be injured.
“Is this really right?”
Xiao Ran was taken aback.
“Even if we can hide our legs behind the pointed end and block the front, what about the harpoons coming from behind? And what about the ones flying from the sky?”
“I’ll block the top!”
Officer Li raised his huge piece of the table.
“Everyone get closer, I’ll protect you.”
It had to be said that this method seemed to be the best solution now. The largest piece held by one person to block from above, while the rest blocked the sides. But Qi Xia still felt something was wrong.
Lin Qin thought for a moment and said, “The rest of us can arrange our pieces in an alternating up-and-down pattern. We can stagger ourselves!”
“Right! That makes sense!”
Qiao Jiajin chimed in.
“No.” Qi Xia spoke up, cutting them off.
“If everyone’s tabletop pieces are perpendicular to the harpoons, they’ll be pierced too easily…”
“Handsome, what do you suggest then?”
Qiao Jiajin asked. Qi Xia’s gaze rested on the goat-skin mask on the floor.
“Why are bamboo shoots not afraid of the rain?”
The final clue sent Qi Xia into deep thought.
“Hold on, hold on… Give me a little more time,” Qi Xia said with a frown.
The group held their breath, watching the time tick away second by second. There was only one minute left before the harpoons were launched.
“Let’s just ignore him!”
Doctor Zhao barked coldly.
“We’ll do as Lin Qin said, an alternating pattern!”
“You useless punk, shut your mouth!”
Qiao Jiajin shouted back.
“I trust what the con man says.”
“You!”
Doctor Zhao gritted his teeth and swallowed his words. What was the meaning of the large and small tabletop pieces…?
“No…”
Qi Xia’s eyes suddenly widened.
“It’s the ‘lie’! The large piece will get us killed!”
“What?”
Officer Li looked at Qi Xia, a little confused.
“Officer, throw away the large piece. Go get the last small piece. Everyone, points up!”
Although they were a little skeptical, most of their minds were blank. They could only comply for the time being. Doctor Zhao thought for a moment, then also turned his piece so the point was facing up.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Officer Li also picked up the last small piece.
“Everyone, crouch down!”
Qi Xia continued.
“Move the pointed ends back and press them together. Officer Li, you don’t need to block the top either, join us!”
Under Qi Xia’s command, everyone slowly lined up all the fan-shaped pieces, forming a cone. No one had ever imagined that after discarding the large piece, all the small pieces would fit together seamlessly to form a pyramid, blocking the gaps from all eight directions and directly above.
From a distance, the cone looked like a bamboo shoot, waiting for a great rain to fall. In the dark space, everyone’s heart pounded nervously. Only the sound of their breathing echoed between them.
“They’re coming…”
Qi Xia calculated the time in his head and gave a soft warning. The next second, all they heard was the sound of wind shattering as something unseen slammed violently into the tabletop piece in Qi Xia’s hand. Immediately after, sounds from all eight directions swept in like a torrential storm.
The force of the harpoons was surprisingly strong. Everyone felt their arms ache from the shock, and it seemed they were about to lose their grip on the table pieces. Fortunately, all their pieces were now pressed together, creating a delicate balance.
“Ah!”
The tabletop in front of Xiao Ran was suddenly pierced by a harpoon, making her scream in terror. Qi Xia turned his head and saw that the harpoon had stopped just two centimeters from Xiao Ran’s eye. Luckily, the tabletop was hard enough.
Otherwise, Xiao Ran would be dead by now.