Chapter 19: Omnipotent
"I..." The Human Snake was momentarily taken aback. He wanted to choose an answer, but found that no matter what he said, it was futile.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!"
The Human Snake suddenly burst into laughter, laughing so hard he leaned back and forth. Not long after, he stopped laughing and said, "You are really interesting."
"Interesting?" Qi Xia coldly looked at the Human Snake. "What's interesting about it? Haven't I already won?"
The Human Snake slowly walked to the wall and reached out to pull the lever.
Everyone felt their bodies drop, then slowly descend.
Qiao Jiajin was full of confusion. He turned to Qi Xia and asked, "Liar, what's the meaning of this? Why does this count as winning?"
Qi Xia noticed that the rope was indeed lowering and secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He said, "Think about it. As long as that question was asked, no matter what, we were already saved."
"'If my next question is 'Will you pull the lever,' would your answer be the same as this one?'..." Qiao Jiajin silently repeated the question, but couldn't figure it out.
"I see..." Dr. Zhao nodded thoughtfully. "If he answers 'yes,' then the next question can only be answered 'yes,' and we are saved. After all, the next question is 'Will you pull the lever.'"
"But what if he says 'no'?!" Qiao Jiajin felt like he had found a loophole. "Can't he just say 'no'?"
"If he says 'no,' then the next question can only be 'yes,'" Han Yimo said weakly. "The beauty of this question is that if he answers 'no,' he admits that he would give different answers to the two questions. Remember? This snake-headed man said he doesn't tell lies."
Qiao Jiajin was stunned. He turned to look at Qi Xia again and asked, "Did you just think of all this... What kind of monster are you?"
"I wouldn't dare call myself a monster," Qi Xia shook his head. "I'm just a wandering liar."
As they spoke, the group slowly landed on the ground.
Due to hanging for a long time, everyone's palms were burning with pain, and the two injured people were in even worse condition.
"Everyone, congratulations on surviving the 'Interview.' Push open this door, and a new world awaits you." The snake-headed man put his hands behind his back and stood next to the wooden door.
"You bastard..."
Qiao Jiajin walked up fiercely, as if wanting to vent all his dissatisfaction with the "Human Sheep" and "Human Dog" onto the "Human Snake" in front of him.
The Human Snake turned coldly and looked at the menacing Qiao Jiajin without moving.
"Are you all freaks?!" Qiao Jiajin shouted, stepping forward and grabbing the Human Snake's collar. "Wearing these strange masks, trying to kill us over and over again. Now I've finally got you!"
The Human Snake sneered and said in a low voice, "While you're still alive, I advise you to let go."
"What did you say?!"
Qiao Jiajin raised his fist forcefully, about to smash it into the snake-headed man's face, but Officer Li grabbed his arm.
"Hey, have you forgotten the man whose head was smashed?" Officer Li said in a low voice. "If they are all the same kind of people, how are you going to defeat them?"
"I..." A look of unwillingness appeared on Qiao Jiajin's rugged face. He gritted his teeth and slowly spat out a few words, "But these damn..."
"Don't worry, we can get out, can't we?" Officer Li interrupted him and said quietly. "As long as we get out, I'll make them pay."
The crowd fell silent and slowly walked up to the Human Snake.
Seeing this person up close, they realized how eerie he was.
The temperature around this snake-headed man was lower than elsewhere. His old suit and the mask on his head together emitted a strange, rancid smell.
His eyes were shooting out from the mask, clearly human. But the smell on him was like a snake that had been dead for a long time.
"Everyone, welcome to the new world."
The snake-headed man's muffled voice came from the mask, and then he turned to open the door.
With a soft creak, light from outside streamed in.
Qi Xia frowned. He found that outside the door was not outdoors, but rather a corridor.
"Where is outside?" Qi Xia asked.
"I told you, it's the new world," the snake-headed man slowly raised his hands. "The future 'God' will emerge from among you! He will be born in the new world! How exciting!"
"God again..." Qiao Jiajin asked fiercely, "What the hell are you planning?"
Seeing someone ask a question, the snake-headed man clearly became interested: "An omnipotent god...! He can make any wish come true!"
"Omnipotent?" Qiao Jiajin's brows twisted into a knot.
Dr. Zhao quietly waved his hand at Qiao Jiajin, then said to the snake-headed man, "Okay, we understand. Now let us out."
The snake-headed man paused, then nodded and stepped aside.
Qi Xia walked out first. The others behind him seemed unwilling to stay there any longer and quickened their pace to follow.
As soon as they stepped into the corridor, a peculiar smell filled their nostrils.
How to describe that smell?
Heavy—a very heavy smell.
It was as if billions of people in the world had died, exposed to the air to rot. This rotting smell attracted countless bugs to feast.
They bred in large numbers, died in large numbers, and then rotted too.
After letting this overwhelming stench settle for a while, when it was no longer pungent, it became this heavy smell.
It took Qi Xia a long time to come to his senses. He opened his eyes and saw another desperate scene before him.
They were in a corridor that stretched endlessly. The ceiling was low and oppressive, extending forward along the corridor.
On both sides of the corridor, countless wooden doors were slowly opening.
Just like the wooden door behind them.
Soon, figures began to appear in the doorways.
Most were bloodied masked people. From a distance, only a very few doors had normal people walking out.
And those so-called "normal people" all looked exhausted, trembling.
Like Qi Xia, they had also survived.
"What's going on..." Han Yimo asked weakly, "Were more than just the nine of us captured?"
Qi Xia's expression was exceptionally grim. The situation before him far exceeded his imagination.
This organization had captured countless people and then made them play deadly games?
"But... the survivors are so few..." Zhang Chenze sighed.
Among the thousands of doors in sight, only a handful of people came out.
There wasn't even a single case like Qi Xia's room where "everyone survived."
"Everyone, this way, please."
The snake-headed man waved to the side, indicating the direction, then stood by the door with his hands behind his back. It seemed he wasn't planning to leave.
"Let's go."
Knowing it wasn't wise to stay, the group formed a line and slowly moved away.
Passing by broken wooden doors, they saw up close the people wearing animal masks.
Among them were oxen, horses, dogs.
And the sheep and snake they had seen earlier.
They all exuded an eerie aura, reeking of decay. The scenes inside the doors were mostly full of corpses; no one knew what "games" they had participated in.
After walking another dozen steps, everyone was startled by two animal masks in front.
On the left, a person wearing a huge rat mask leaned against the wall; on the right, a person wearing a huge rooster mask stood with arms crossed.
These masks were clearly not man-made but made from real animal heads.
But where in the world could such huge rats and roosters exist?
Like the others wearing animal masks, they merely glanced at Qi Xia and the group without any other action.
"What are these animals..." Lin Qin was a bit scared and instinctively moved away from them.
Qi Xia frowned slightly, as if thinking of something.
Sheep, dog, snake, rat, rooster...
"They are the Zodiac," he said softly, his lips moving.
Everyone was stunned and looked over.
The animal masks worn by those in shabby suits were indeed all within the twelve zodiac animals.