Chapter 2062: The First Person to Survive Dinner

From the sound of the palm striking the face, the angle of the head snapping back, and the way it bounced after hitting the ground, it was clear that the Painting Woman hadn't held back at all with those slaps. Zuo Yu's face was visibly swelling, making it momentarily unclear whether she was actually helping or just picking a fight.

In any case, Zuo Yu was awake. She was probably a bit concussed. The first thing she did upon opening her eyes was dry heave, and then she saw a communicator extended toward her. "Are you alright?"

Zuo Yu understood her situation in an instant. After the Painting Woman stood up, she got up to thank her.

"You're welcome. Your puppet is ugly, but you did give me a gift after all." The Painting Woman smiled, then pointed at the Sweet Girl. "She's nasty. She wanted to cut your tendons."

Zuo Yu's face twitched first, then she followed the direction of the Painting Woman's finger to look at the Sweet Girl, pulling at the corner of her mouth. "I'll remember that."

No one else had any other thoughts after that, so they simply waited in the dining room for the meal to be served.

Fluorescent Powder and Scar Forehead each took the first seat on the left and right respectively. Xu Huo sat next to Fluorescent Powder, with the Long-Coated Man across from him, next to Scar Forehead. The Painting Woman sat opposite the Sweet Girl, followed by Zuo Yu and her shattered puppet, with the other players taking their seats in order.

Soon it was time for dinner. The Puppet Maker appeared again. This time, he wasn't holding anything, but when he saw the destroyed puppet on the table, the pressure around him dropped noticeably. This subtle change made all the players present tense up: they had miscalculated!

The Puppet Maker stopped in front of his own seat, raised both hands slightly forward, then gently pressed them down. It looked like a gesture inviting everyone to sit, but as his hands descended, Zuo Yu, who had been sitting upright in her seat, began to collapse from the head down. In an instant, she turned into a cloud of blood mist in midair!

"Pop!"

One explosive sound was followed by another. After Zuo Yu, Scar Forehead on the right side was also dead!

Everyone was stunned. Judging by the speed and brutality of the deaths, today's Puppet Maker was noticeably more irritable... Could this be the "lack of patience" mentioned in the instance introduction?

Whether it was because the puppet had been destroyed or because the passage of time had caused this change in the Puppet Maker, it was bad news for the remaining players. It meant that the judgments for rule violations would likely become increasingly harsh from now on!

Xu Huo pushed the drink cup in front of Fluorescent Powder, who was sweating coldly. "Moisten your throat."

Fluorescent Powder was drenched in cold sweat. The look she gave him could have shredded him to pieces, but she didn't dare move. She could only grit her teeth and say, "You remember this!"

Xu Huo reminded her to look at what had happened to Zuo Yu, who had said the same thing earlier.

Fluorescent Powder suppressed her anger and finished the meal without tasting a single bite.

No one communicated during the entire dinner, but after the Puppet Maker put down his utensils, he had Number One actively retrieve the puppet that Fluorescent Powder had placed beside the table.

After everyone in the castle had left, the players felt as if the guillotine hanging over their heads had been removed. Then they all turned to look at Fluorescent Powder. She was the only one in two days who had obtained a puppet and successfully survived dinner.

"Get up," Xu Huo said. "Moving around outside the Puppet Maker's field of vision should be fine. Otherwise, you would have been the first one he killed when he came in."

Fluorescent Powder, having narrowly escaped death, slowly stood up from her seat and said meaningfully, "Then I suppose I have you to thank."

As if he hadn't caught the implication in her words, Xu Huo smiled faintly. "You're welcome."

"It seems the missing parts correspond to the players' body parts," the Long-Coated Man said. "Whatever part the puppet is missing represents the part the player is missing. Naturally, you can't move the missing part. Yesterday, one person had a leg, another a hand, and today it was the head. They all moved parts they shouldn't have."

"Is the rule that simple?" someone asked hesitantly. "Just don't move the body part that the puppet is missing? Then what was the cause of Zuo Yu's death?"

"What else could it be? The puppet was destroyed," Fluorescent Powder said, crossing her arms. "The sketches in the studio only showed the puppet's parts divided into six sections. Her puppet was shattered like that; there was no way to repair it."

Whether or not her explanation was correct, there was no doubt that the player and the puppet were bound together.

Fluorescent Powder's successful survival through dinner also resolved two of Xu Huo's questions. First, "rule violation" and "punishment" both occurred in the same setting and required the Puppet Maker to "see" them. Second, the early appearance of the puppet was a notification to the player, but not every puppet would appear early. Sometimes the Puppet Maker would personally bring the puppet over.

As for the players' puppets, today's puppet was actively retrieved by the Puppet Maker. This was definitely not a meaningless action. Clearing the instance was likely related to this, though the specific details had yet to be figured out.

But thanks to the Sweet Girl's boldness, the players had also tested another rule of the instance: if you want to kill a player, destroy their puppet. Zuo Yu was the example.

As for whether the player who actively destroyed a puppet would face special punishment, that remained to be seen tomorrow.

Of course, there was another point that no one had forgotten: the Long-Coated Man, who had killed someone last night, didn't receive his own puppet today and wasn't targeted by the Puppet Maker.

Reducing the number of players to increase the chances of being chosen for a puppet was feasible.

In the midst of the silence, Xu Huo looked up to meet Fluorescent Powder's hostile gaze. He slowly took a sip of his tea before saying, "You don't think your chance has come, do you?"

Fluorescent Powder smiled sweetly. "Even if I might not be able to beat you, as long as I get your puppet... what do you think?"

Xu Huo's expression didn't change. "'Rule violation' and 'punishment' both require the castle owner's 'sight' as a necessary condition. If you don't want him to see it, just hide the puppet, right? At worst, you wait for the next round. To shorten the time, reducing the number of participants in the instance is a good shortcut."

This wasn't an empty boast. Everyone present knew that he genuinely believed this was a "shortcut."

Fluorescent Powder's expression shifted. "Can you be sure that hiding the puppet will be fine?"

"Try it and see," Xu Huo said.

He wasn't sure at all. On the contrary, the solution he proposed carried significant risk, because so far, no player's puppet had ever been destroyed.

"You want to destroy his puppet?" The Painting Woman stared at Fluorescent Powder. "If you do that, I'll kill you."

Fluorescent Powder's face darkened even more.

"Haha!" The Sweet Girl burst into laughter. "If that's true, then Zuo Yu died for nothing, didn't she?"

Whether it was for nothing or not was hard to say. Whether hiding a puppet would be considered "malicious" toward the puppet, or whether it would affect subsequent clearance, were all unknowns. It was just a gamble with one's life.

"Today's harvest was good." The Long-Coated Man stood up, smiling at everyone. "Everyone, see you tomorrow."

(The chapter ends)