Chapter 325: Iron Hedgehog
Zhong Zhen’s room.
The room now looked completely different from before, dotted with patches of blood.
The chair in the room had already been smashed to pieces. Zhong Zhen held a broken chair leg in his hand, his cheeks flushed crimson. Not long ago, he had used that broken leg to pierce his own ears.
There was no other way.
Even if he didn’t answer that woman’s calls, it was useless. He would still be controlled by her “Echo.” This bizarre and powerful “Echo” could apparently only be broken by completely losing one’s hearing.
He held the phone and repeated his words over and over, enduring waves of dizziness, until his throat was dry.
He really hoped the people behind him could hear. He calculated—the iron ball had just landed on “-1,” and the woman in white’s coordinate was “-7.”
Now, after two rounds, it should be hanging right above her head.
Before the game ended, this might be the last chance.
He hung up the phone, then raised it again in front of him.
Since he had completely lost his hearing, he absolutely could not leave the phone hung up. Otherwise, if no one answered for a long time, the woman in white would call the next person. So the best method was to keep the line busy.
Zhong Zhen let out a breath, wiped the blood from his face with both hands, and then used the blood-soaked fingers to slick his disheveled hair back over his scalp.
It worked better than hair gel.
“What a pity… my dear neighbor. I found the way to break it, but I can’t strangle you with my own hands.” Zhong Zhen said with frustration. “The world is vast… if we pass by each other, where will I go to kill you next time?”
—
At that moment, the girl in white looked up at the ceiling, a hint of confusion on her face.
The iron ball was crashing around randomly—what kind of rule caused that?
And ever since a while ago, the sounds from the ceiling had been strange…
—
Round thirty-three. The iron ball landed on “-5.”
Xu Qian and the girl in white both heard the commotion from “-5,” since they were each one room away from it.
If her memory was correct, that man was still alive, but now he was dead too.
It seemed only four people remained on the field.
“0”: Yun Yao.
“-3”: Xu Qian.
“-7”: The girl in white.
“-8”: Zhong Zhen.
Now these four were connected end to end, passing questions around, but Zhong Zhen couldn’t hear anything anymore.
In addition… there should be two invisible people on the field.
“-2”: Earth Snake.
“Unknown”: Chen Junnan.
These two were supposed to be betting their lives against each other, yet both had hidden themselves away, completely refusing to communicate with anyone else.
Yun Yao knew Chen Junnan must have used some trick, but his method was far too clever. He could make the iron ball completely ignore its original path and precisely kill the living people on the field.
Not even an “Echo” could be that powerful.
The iron ball was now hovering over “-5,” ready to fall at any moment above Xu Qian and the girl in white.
“In that case…” Yun Yao was frowning, deep in thought, when suddenly the phone rang.
She knew the only person who could call her was Zhong Zhen, so she grabbed the phone without thinking and prepared to hang up.
She couldn’t trust Zhong Zhen.
But before the phone left her ear, a mischievous voice floated out from it.
“Hey there, big star!”
Yun Yao froze for a moment, then slowly brought the phone back to her ear. “Chen… Chen Junnan?”
“Hey! Long time no see!” Chen Junnan said, panting heavily. “Wait till your boy sits down first. It hurts a bit.”
“Hurts…?” Yun Yao asked anxiously. “What the hell is going on? What did you do?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that. First, praise your boy a little.” Chen Junnan took a deep breath, then chuckled. “Am I awesome or what? See? Your boy is on a killing spree.”
Yun Yao thought for a few seconds, then asked, “You… what kind of ‘Echo’ is it?”
“Scapegoat,” Chen Junnan said. “In this venue, as long as I want, the unlucky one is me.”
“Un… unlucky?” Yun Yao suddenly understood something. “That ‘Echo’ sounds like it can only make the iron ball fall on your head…”
“Yeah.” Chen Junnan nodded. “To be honest, the last few iron balls all landed on my head.”
“What…?”
“Big star, let me ask you a few questions.” Chen Junnan hissed between breaths, then said, “Do you think that big round ball that falls would smash everything in the room to pieces?”
“That’s only natural,” Yun Yao said. “Just from hearing the sound of the iron ball hitting the ground, you can tell.”
“But there’s a catch,” Chen Junnan said. “Earth Snake’s room was hit by the iron ball, so how could he still answer the phone… and answer the questions?”
“This…”
Yun Yao paused, then slowly widened her eyes.
Yes. The iron ball had neither smashed the phone nor the monitor. How was that possible?
“I thought about it a long time before figuring it out,” Chen Junnan said. “The phone is easy to explain—it’s in the corner. Since our rooms are square, and everyone guesses the iron ball is round, the corner is safe. Honestly, as long as you hide in the corner, there’s a very high chance you’ll dodge the iron ball…”
“Yes.” Yun Yao nodded. “I thought of that too. As long as a person is slim enough, they could hide in the corner.”
“But people still died,” Chen Junnan said. “Why, if everyone knows hiding in the corner will keep them alive, did no one survive? Could such a simple truth only occur to me?”
“I still don’t understand…” Yun Yao said. “According to your reasoning, everyone should have survived.”
“That’s because we were misled,” Chen Junnan said, shifting his tone with a laugh. “The thing above our heads isn’t an iron ball at all.”
“It’s… not an iron ball?”
“Since everyone who saw it died, no one could pass that information on.” Chen Junnan sighed.
“What is it…?”
“Big star… this thing is covered in iron spikes. It’s an iron hedgehog. Unless you can hang yourself high up in the corner like the phone, you’ll die in any corner.”
“What?”
“You must have realized too: if it were just an ordinary iron ball, we wouldn’t smell blood.” Chen Junnan rubbed his nose. “The blood we smell is because its spikes are covered with shredded flesh.”
“So that’s it…” Yun Yao was a little stunned. “That means many people tried to run to the corner before they died… but they weren’t crushed—they were torn apart instead.”
“Right, that’s what I mean.” Chen Junnan lowered his voice and groaned a few times, then said, “I’m pretty smart to figure all that out, aren’t I?”
Yun Yao sensed that Chen Junnan’s condition was really off, and she asked with some concern, “Are you okay? Do you need to rest first?”
“I’m fine. Don’t interrupt me…” Chen Junnan laughed softly, then asked, “Big star, guess how I survived?”
“I can’t guess,” Yun Yao shook her head.
“That old snake, he’s both stingy and cunning,” Chen Junnan said cheerfully. “He was afraid the huge iron ball would smash the display in the room, so he made a bad decision.”