What do the zodiac signs represent?
What lies at the end of this corridor?
The underworld?
In this dim, seemingly endless corridor, the group trembled as they inched forward.
After several intense rounds of the “game,” everyone felt physically and mentally exhausted. Now that they had a moment of respite, the shadow of death that had loomed over them began to fade.
Qi Xia turned his head slightly and noticed Lin Qin standing beside him.
She had been covering her mouth and nose the entire time.
“Aren’t you uncomfortable like that?” Qi Xia mimicked her gesture, placing his hand over his own mouth and nose. “Even though the smell here is awful, you’ll have trouble breathing this way.”
“Breathing?” Lin Qin paused, then smiled faintly. “I don’t feel any trouble breathing. It’s just that leaving my mouth and nose uncovered feels… strange, like—”
“Like what?”
“Like not wearing clothes.” She chuckled awkwardly before lowering her hand.
Her nose was well-defined, and her lips were naturally rosy—there was no need to hide them. Qi Xia couldn’t grasp what she meant by “like not wearing clothes.”
Lin Qin smiled again but still seemed uneasy, so she raised her hand to cover her mouth and nose once more.
“It’s a bit embarrassing… Don’t you all feel weird?” she asked Qi Xia. “Just exposing your mouth and nose like this.”
“Why would it be weird?” Qi Xia found her question odd.
“It’s about the ‘mask’…” Lin Qin looked at him with confusion, as if he were an alien. “How can you all be so calm without wearing a ‘mask’?”
“A ma—”
Before Qi Xia could respond, a faint, eerie light flickered in the distance.
Drawn by the glow, everyone turned their gaze forward.
An exit.
A warm, sunset-like light seeped in from the opening.
“We’re getting out!!” Qiao Jiajin shouted excitedly. “I can see the sunset!”
His cry was like a shot of adrenaline for the group. Dr. Zhao supported Han Yimo as they all quickened their pace.
“Sunset?” Qi Xia frowned in thought. “We woke up at twelve. After over an hour of ‘games,’ it should be around two now—whether it’s 2 AM or 2 PM, there’s no way we’d see a ‘sunset.'”
“You’re overthinking it,” Officer Li shook his head. “The time in the room might not be accurate. It could actually be evening right now.”
Qi Xia nodded slightly. He knew Officer Li had a point—his entire sense of time came from the clock in the room, and there was no guarantee it was correct.
After a few more steps, they spotted a shadowy figure near the exit.
As they approached, the silhouette gradually took the shape of a person—another masked figure, but this one made their stomachs churn.
Unlike the others, this mask wasn’t crafted from a single animal’s head. Instead, it was a grotesque patchwork of stitched-together organs.
The mouth resembled a crocodile’s, the nose was bull-like, the cheeks were covered in fish scales, and the neck was wrapped in snake skin. To top it off, the mask was adorned with a lion’s mane and antlers from a stag.
This creature looked like…
“Greetings. I am ‘Human-Dragon,'” the stitched-together monstrosity spoke slowly. “All of you survived? How… novel.”
“Dragon…?”
The group instinctively halted, their nerves on edge.
Not because “dragon” was inherently frightening, but because they knew this introduction all too well.
Every time someone introduced themselves this way, a horrifying game followed.
“No need to be nervous. Your ‘trials’ are over,” Human-Dragon waved a hand—revealing gloves tipped with eagle talons.
Every animal part on his body seemed decayed and bloated, emitting a foul odor, yet he carried on as if oblivious.
“I won’t subject you to another ‘trial.’ I’m merely here to offer advice.”
Silence fell as the group huddled together, eyeing Human-Dragon warily.
“You have ten days to change everything,” he said calmly. “If you fail to collect 3,600 ‘Dao’ within that time, the world you’re in will vanish. Everything you see will perish with it.”
The words left them stunned.
“3,600 ‘Dao’?” Qi Xia frowned. “What even is ‘Dao’? And what do you mean our world will vanish?”
“Questions—heheh, good.” Human-Dragon nodded. “Questions mean you’re still lucid. ‘Dao’ is…”
He reached into his black suit pocket, rummaged around, and pulled out four small golden spheres.
The orbs had white outer rings and golden cores, shimmering oddly under the dim light.
“This is ‘Dao,'” he continued. “Gather 3,600 of these, and you’ll be saved.”
Qi Xia hesitated, then took one. The sphere wasn’t hard—it had a strange elasticity.
“Take them. They belong to you anyway,” Human-Dragon said with a grin.
After a moment, Qi Xia accepted all four.
“You passed four trials—’The Liar,’ ‘Bamboo Shoots After Rain,’ ‘Death from Above,’ and ‘Right or Wrong.’ These are your rewards… and your bargaining chips.”
No one had expected that their life-or-death struggles would culminate in these unremarkable beads. They were at a loss for words.
“‘Dao’…” Qi Xia muttered, frustration creeping into his voice. “So you’re saying if we don’t find 3,600 of these, this place gets destroyed?”
“Heheh, correct. And if this place is destroyed… you won’t escape.” Human-Dragon’s fish-scale cheeks and lion’s mane swayed grotesquely as he nodded.
“You seem to have plenty of these. Can’t you gather 3,600 yourself?” Officer Li cut in sharply. “And you’re clearly stronger than us. Why rely on us?”
“Me?” Human-Dragon sneered. “We are the guilty. The guilty cannot attain ‘Dao.’ Only the chosen—like you—can obtain it… and ascend as ‘gods.'”
“This is absurd!” Zhang Chenze interjected, arms crossed in anger. “Do you even hear yourself?”
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