Chapter 128: Deadlock
Within just ten minutes of the game rules being announced, hundreds of people had died unnatural deaths. Some had lost in the roulette game, while others had panicked and forcibly tried to run outside the black-and-white roulette range, leading to their deaths.
To prevent panic from triggering another wave of suicides, the government had no choice but to use force to seal off the tens of thousands of people within the roulette area and evacuate the surrounding residents.
“…Try to stay where you are and don’t move. Rescue personnel have entered the sealed zone. The nation will not abandon anyone…”
Video phones scrolled through government announcements repeatedly, also showing footage of some rescue personnel entering the sealed zone. Xu Huo could tell that although these people were uniformly dressed, some of their movements and postures were clearly untrained.
They were players.
The government was using players to draw attention and buy time, hoping to seize an opportunity to cut off the problem at its root.
At this moment, there were surely people quietly approaching the skyscraper.
Xu Huo glanced at his ticket. Aside from the next one heading to Block Fairy Tale City in five hours, the earliest other tickets wouldn’t be available for at least five days.
If the outer zone players were still scattered across the world, time could be stretched for a few more days. But now, an organization calling itself the Eerie Sound Knights had, for some unknown purpose, attracted a large number of players to Hai City. If they didn’t see a super item within three days, these people would surely vent their anger on Hai City, or even the entire nation.
His original plan had been to disguise himself as an outer zone player, snatch the super item, and then use an instance to escape, drawing the attention of players from various zones. As long as the super item could no longer appear in Zone 014, the crisis would naturally be resolved.
Even if more outer zone players arrived later, it wouldn’t be a situation where large numbers and high-level players converged.
But now, with this unexpected turn, he was trapped in the black-and-white life-or-death game.
If this was an instance, then the ticket was highly likely unusable, making it impossible to divert attention.
Verifying whether he could use a ticket to escape the black-and-white life-or-death game was simple—just observe if any other player had successfully broken free, or directly use Wang Chaoqing as an experiment.
But regardless of success or failure, he couldn’t leave for now. Once he escaped via the instance, he wouldn’t be able to return to Zone 014 for at least a few days.
And what might happen during those few days was unpredictable.
Moreover, because of the Eerie Sound Knights, Hai City was no longer suitable for his plan. So even though the government had surely dispatched people to find the instigator, he still had to find another way to break free from the black-and-white life-or-death game first.
“Wait, wait, wait! How long do we have to wait!” Wang Chaoqing, who hadn’t gotten a ticket from him, smashed a cup in a rage.
Xu Huo lifted his eyelids to glance at him, then lowered his head to look at his phone again.
Seeing that Xu Huo wasn’t responding, Wang Chaoqing had no choice but to compromise and walk over. “Brother, think of something fast. We can’t just wait to die like this.”
“There’s no better option than waiting right now.” Unless the government cracked this crisis, the only way out was to find a path within the life-or-death game.
“You can wait, but I can’t. Even if I have to steal one, I’m getting a ticket!” Wang Chaoqing turned to leave, but at the door, seeing the bloody mess on it, he hesitated. Especially when he looked back and saw Xu Huo showing no sign of stopping him, he slumped in defeat. “Tell me, what do I have to do for you to give me a ticket?”
“Go check out the skyscraper.” Xu Huo finally gave him a proper look. “You don’t have to do anything. If there are outer zone players in the skyscraper, try to follow them. If not, come back.”
“That’s it?” Wang Chaoqing stared at him in surprise.
“Can you do anything else?” Xu Huo countered.
“I guess not.” Wang Chaoqing scratched his head, grabbed the store manager’s laptop nearby, and placed his hands on it.
Just then, someone knocked on the door—an elderly couple.
“We’re looking for a place to sit for a while.” The two were quite old. After waiting outside for a long time without seeing any rescue personnel, they had come to find somewhere to rest.
All the seats in the mall were taken, and other shops were equally crowded. Only the shop Xu Huo was in had seen a death, so no one else had entered.
The store manager hesitated for a moment but still went to open the door, letting them in and pouring them water.
“Thank you, thank you.” The old couple expressed their gratitude repeatedly. The store manager quickly repeated Xu Huo’s earlier explanation and added, “If you two see the roulette, make sure to look carefully. It might save tens of thousands of lives.”
“Store manager, that’s not right,” the female service staff couldn’t help saying.
“What do you know? The more people, the bigger the chance.” The store manager scolded her. If he weren’t afraid that Xu Huo might abandon them if too many people showed up, he would have gone out to recruit more people long ago.
The female service staff wanted to say more, but Xu Huo interrupted her. “It doesn’t matter. The roulette should appear randomly; it has nothing to do with how many people are here.”
Hearing this, everyone sat back down.
Xu Huo checked the time again. Nearly twenty minutes had passed since the last wave of explosions, and no new life-or-death game had appeared yet…
“Slap!” The thought had barely crossed his mind when a male service staff member near him suddenly stood up violently, knocking over the water cup on the table.
“Roulette! Roulette!”
His eyes stared straight ahead, his hands flailing wildly. Before anyone could grab him or step back, he exploded into a mist of blood, splattering large amounts of blood across the floor and table.
“Ahhh!” A fresh wave of screams erupted in the shop. The Painting Woman put down her phone, grabbed a few tissues, and stuffed them into their mouths.
“How did he die so fast?” the store manager asked in terror. “Wasn’t there a ten-minute countdown?”
“He moved his hands and touched the roulette,” Xu Huo said grimly. “The more panicked you are, the faster you die.”
“So if we tie them up…” The store manager didn’t finish his sentence before two more sounds rang out—one from the female service staff who had climbed onto the table earlier, and the other from the old lady among the couple who had just entered.
With the previous incident fresh in mind, Xu Huo immediately clamped down on the female service staff’s arms, while the old man chose to hold the old lady tightly to keep her from moving.
Fortunately, after their initial panic, these two managed to calm down quickly. The female service staff, though her eyes were vacant, kept shouting, “A roulette over a meter tall! Standing upright in front of me… There’s a countdown on it… The countdown is ticking… Nine minutes fifty seconds, nine minutes forty-nine seconds, nine minutes forty-eight seconds…”
Xu Huo tried to snap her out of it, but she soon fell into the same instinctive focus on the roulette as the others, counting down second by second!
“Tie her up quickly!” the store manager urged. “Since spinning means death, maybe not spinning means survival!”
The others snapped out of their daze and scrambled to find ropes. Amid the female service staff’s countdown, they tied her and the old lady to chairs.