Chapter 306: The Giant Thing Overhead
This time, the call lasted noticeably longer than before, as if everyone was carefully weighing their answers.
After all, this game truly killed people, and anyone could be the next.
The choice between "life and death" was hidden within the answer of "yes or no."
*Ding-a-ling-a-ling——!!*
Chen Junnan had been waiting for a long time. He reached out and grabbed the phone.
"Go ahead."
"Um..." Yunyao began to ask, "Did the person next to you die?"
"Yeah." Chen Junnan nodded. "He's probably been flattened. He's now a sauce-flavored handsome man."
"There's something I can't figure out..." Yunyao hesitated. "Why did he die?"
"I can't figure it out either." Chen Junnan said bluntly. "I guess it'll take a few more rounds to see the pattern."
"Mm..." Yunyao thought for a moment on the other end, then said, "Chen Junnan, is this time's question 'Let's kill another one'?"
"Damn it..." Chen Junnan felt something was off. "That old lecher isn't even pretending anymore?"
"I have a feeling a lot of people will choose 'yes'..." Yunyao said dejectedly. "After all, the fewer people who survive, the more 'Dao' each person gets in the end."
The two held the phones in silence for a while.
"Big star... do you think 'death' might be random?" Chen Junnan asked out of the blue.
Yunyao was taken aback. "Are you saying that last time's 'Should it fall?' caused one of the twelve people to be randomly crushed to death? Meaning each of us had a one in twelve chance of dying?"
"Yeah." Chen Junnan nodded. "That would fit the logic of gambling, right? Next time, the chance of death would be one in eleven. As the number of people decreases, our probability of dying increases each round—just like Russian roulette."
Yunyao felt that what Chen Junnan said made sense, but upon closer thought, there were some holes: "But that falls under 'luck' and 'probability.' It doesn't seem like an 'Earth Snake' game, more like one for 'Earth Pig.'"
"You're right." Chen Junnan nodded, then hung up the phone.
This new question was very important. If more people chose 'yes,' it would directly prove that more people wanted to kill.
That meant, whether this game was 'killing by probability' or 'killing by strategy,' they would do everything in their power to eliminate their opponents.
He slowly reached out and pressed 'No.'
He hoped that this time, everyone would answer honestly, so he could better gauge the situation on the field.
Chen Junnan thought for a moment, then picked up the phone and pressed the dial button. This time, it rang ten times with no answer. On the eleventh ring, someone picked up.
"Hello?" A female voice spoke.
"What should I call you?" Chen Junnan asked.
The girl on the other end thought for a moment. "There's no need to exchange names, right? What's the question?"
Seeing that she was being evasive, Chen Junnan could only shrug and say, "The question is 'Should we kill again?' Something like that."
"This..." The girl was clearly stunned after hearing this. "Didn't you change the question?"
"Don't be ridiculous. We're already at the tail end of this round." Chen Junnan shook his head. "What would be the point of me changing the question? Just your answer and mine alone can't sway the whole situation."
"That's true..." The girl hesitated. "Then what did you choose?"
"I chose 'No.'" Chen Junnan answered truthfully.
"Okay... I understand." The girl hung up.
This brief exchange helped clarify Chen Junnan's thoughts somewhat.
What exactly was the real question Earth Snake asked each time?
After all, he had only seen the actual 'question' once, and he could barely even repeat that one a second time.
"Einstein published what... Canyon Collision?"
Other than that, all the questions he had received came from Yunyao.
So what was the probability that Yunyao was deceiving him?
This one-on-one phone system was a very cunning tactic. If he didn't know the person in the next room, he might easily fall into a crisis of trust.
But he knew Yunyao too well. In Chen Junnan's mind, Yunyao was practically the 'Earth Flower' of the 'Land of Endings.'
This girl's mind had always been relatively pure. When she wasn't using her 'Echo,' she couldn't be more ordinary.
That left only one possibility: by the time Yunyao heard the question... it had already changed.
Before Chen Junnan could draw a conclusion, the screen lit up again.
"The final answer for this question is—'No.'"
The sound of giant chains rippled through the air once more, like a flock of wild geese passing overhead, eventually flying off to who knows where.
Chen Junnan did the math. Five questions had been asked so far. Three answers were 'yes,' and two were 'no.'
One participant dead.
In the room next door, Yunyao slowly lifted her head and looked up at her ceiling.
Something was coming. She could feel it.
It might have been a woman's intuition. At that moment, she distinctly sensed something hanging above her head.
Cold. Giant.
"Is it coming... the 'square' that killed someone?"
In his own room, Chen Junnan couldn't stop bouncing his leg.
How could he possibly calm down?
The clues he had gathered were far too few. What exactly was that old lecher Earth Snake asking?
If each person took turns receiving a question, he still had seven more questions to go before his next 'direct question.'
Could he hold out until then?
Before long, the phone rang.
*Ding-a-ling-a-ling——!!*
Chen Junnan picked up the phone and could immediately tell that Yunyao's tone had changed.
"Chen Junnan... I might be about to die." Yunyao's voice was heavy.
"What the hell..." Chen Junnan frowned and tried to reassure her. "You don't even know what's happening. How are you about to die?"
"I can feel that thing..." Yunyao looked up at the ceiling again. "It's right above my head. I can even smell the blood seeping down through the cracks in the ceiling..."
"Above your head...?" Chen Junnan felt something was wrong.
That giant iron ball had just crushed his neighbor to the left, and now it was hovering over his neighbor to the right.
Was it circling around to crush *him*?
"And this time's question..." Yunyao swallowed hard and said slowly, "This time's question is still 'Should I sit down?'"
"Oh...?" Chen Junnan's eyes turned cold. "So it falls every two questions, doesn't it?"
"I feel like I'm about to die." Yunyao slowly closed her eyes. Her ears were buzzing. She had gained nothing, and now she was about to die for no reason.
"I don't think that's necessarily true."
Chen Junnan's words instantly cleared the strange noise from Yunyao's ears.
"What did you say?"
"Having hung around Old Qi for all these years, I've developed a bit of insight into human nature." Chen Junnan chuckled. "The answer to that last question triggered a loud crash that startled everyone. So, thanks to some kind of butterfly effect, in the short term, people will want to see what happens if they choose 'No,' rather than repeatedly making the same choice."