Chapter 13: A Rainstorm
1504 Words
While desperately turning the table, Qi Xia said, "The positions of Ningxia and Shandong form a horizontal line."
"Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, and Yunnan form a 's***h'."
"And Guangxi, Guangdong, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu form a square, which is the character 'right'."
"It doesn’t matter where Han Yimo’s hometown is. As long as it's either Guangxi or Taiwan, it will form the character 'mouth', which means the answer was determined from the beginning."
The others quickened their movements as they glanced at Qi Xia in surprise. His thinking was so unconventional, yet he had solved the puzzle twice in a row. This made the others begin to doubt.
Qi Xia understood their suspicions and said, "Don't misunderstand. If the next game involves abandoning you all to save myself, I will not hesitate to survive."
Upon hearing this, the group fell silent, gritting their teeth as they continued to turn the table.
The nine of them surrounded the table, turning it to the right, circle by circle.
"How many circles?" Jo Jiajin asked.
"Twenty-six circles," Lin Qing answered.
"You can count them?" Jo Jiajin blinked. "The table looks the same to me."
"I count the bloodstains on the table," Lin Qing said seriously. "Counting is crucial for us psychologists."
Qi Xia furrowed his brows. "Not even thirty circles yet. We need to hurry up."
Everyone fell silent and picked up the pace.
But the table grew heavier as they moved forward, and the internal chains seemed to tighten with each turn.
"D*mn, what’s going on?" Jo Jiajin gritted his teeth. "This thing is too heavy."
"Keep going... maybe it really connects to the door!" Sweet Sweet said through gritted teeth, her words giving a glimmer of hope to the others.
A door. If this room could conjure holes out of thin air, why couldn't it conjure a door?
Their arms were sore, but they kept turning the table, circle by circle.
"Don’t give up! Only five more circles!" Lin Qing shouted.
At this point, they were all gritting their teeth and using every last bit of strength they had. No one dared slack off.
Clink!
With a final loud sound, the table clearly locked into something.
Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief as the ache in their arms began to settle.
Only three minutes were left until 1:15.
"Where’s the door?!" Jo Jiajin shouted anxiously.
The wall in the west showed no change. In the dark hole, the cold glow of the harpoons could still be seen.
"D*mn! There’s no door!" Jo Jiajin’s voice carried a hint of despair.
"Wrong! We guessed wrong!" Xiao Ran screamed, "We should have turned left, right?! We shouldn’t have trusted that liar! We’re all going to die!"
Qi Xia frowned slightly…
Wrong?
Before anyone could react, the clock in the center of the table began to act strangely.
It shook slightly, then shot out eight beams of laser light.
The lasers moved across the table, gradually stopping at the edges.
To everyone’s confusion, the clock then sliced the table into equal-sized fan-shaped pieces, just like slicing a pizza.
Crash!
With a loud sound, the table split into five pieces.
The central clock now sat on a small wooden stand.
Qi Xia looked carefully and saw that there were nine small fan-shaped pieces and one large fan-shaped piece.
No, it wasn’t exactly "fan-shaped"; it was more like a "triangle," as the bottom of each piece was flat.
Time was running out, and everyone was in a frenzy.
"What is this?" Han Yimo exclaimed. "Why did the table break?"
At that moment, Officer Li noticed that each fan-shaped table had a handle on the back, and his professional instincts told him what was going on.
"It’s a shield!"
He grabbed the largest fan-shaped piece and held it in front of him.
"We can use this shield to block the harpoons!"
Hearing this, everyone grabbed their table pieces, but unfortunately, there was only one large piece. The rest could only hold onto smaller triangular pieces, which could barely protect their bodies.
However, after just a few seconds, everyone realized the problem.
"How do we block?" Lawyer Zhang Chenze said, looking unusually panicked. "If the harpoons are coming from the west, we can only block one direction."
"Cooperate." Qi Xia snapped back to reality and spoke, "Let’s form a circle and block each other’s backs."
Everyone quickly adjusted their positions and silently waited.
Now, in the room, the only sound was the sound of their breathing.
Nine strangers had become teammates, each indispensable.
Qi Xia accidentally glanced over at Han Yimo and noticed his face covered in sweat. His whole body was trembling, and he looked especially nervous.
At that moment, a distant chime sounded from outside the room.
"Are you okay?" Qi Xia asked.
"N-No... it’s nothing..." Han Yimo shook his head.
"Hey! Doctor Zhao, flip your shield!" Zhang Chenze suddenly called out.
"Why?" Zhao asked, looking at his shield, with the sharp side down and the wide side up.
"Like this, you can’t protect my legs!" Zhang Chenze said, tense.
"I can’t protect my head if I flip it!" Zhao retorted, unwilling to back down. "Which is more important, the head or the legs?"
Some of the others, hearing their argument, felt Zhao’s point made sense and quickly followed suit, flipping their shields.
Now, the situation was strangely reversed. The sharp sides of all the shields were up, while the wide sides were down.
But this only caused another problem.
The harpoons coming from the west would only be blocked by the upper half of their bodies, leaving their legs exposed.
"Is this really okay?" Xiao Ran hesitated. "Even if we can shield our front with the sharp side, what about the harpoons coming from behind? What about those coming from above?"
"I’ll block the top!" Officer Li shouted as he raised his large shield, "Everyone, get closer. I’ll protect you."
This seemed to be the best solution, as the largest shield was used to cover the top, while the others blocked the west.
But Qi Xia still felt something was off.
Lin Qing quickly thought it over and said, "The rest of us should arrange ourselves one above, one below. We can stagger our positions."
"Yes! That makes sense!" Jo Jiajin agreed.
"No." Qi Xia interrupted. "If all the shields are vertical to the harpoons, it’ll be too easy to pierce through them..."
"Hey, handsome, what do you suggest we do?" Jo Jiajin asked.
Qi Xia’s gaze landed on the sheepskin mask on the ground.
"Why aren’t bamboo shoots afraid of rain?"
The last hint made Qi Xia deep in thought.
"Wait... give me a moment," Qi Xia said, frowning.
Everyone held their breath as time ticked by. Only a minute remained until the harpoons would launch.
"Forget it!" Doctor Zhao snapped, "Let’s just follow Lin Qing’s suggestion and stagger our positions!"
"Shut up, you brat!" Jo Jiajin shouted. "I believe the liar’s words!"
"You!" Zhao gritted his teeth and swallowed his words.
The large and small shields... what did they mean?
"Not right..." Qi Xia suddenly widened his eyes. "It’s the ‘lie’! The large shield will kill us!"
"What?" Officer Li looked at Qi Xia with confusion.
"Officer, toss the big shield aside and take the last small one. Everyone, sharp side up!"
Though skeptical, most of the group had empty heads and could only follow his instructions.
Doctor Zhao hesitated for a moment, then turned his shield around.
After a few seconds, Officer Li picked up the final small shield.
"Everyone, crouch down!" Qi Xia continued. "Move the sharp side to the back and get close to each other. Officer Li, you don’t need to block the top anymore. Join us!"
Following Qi Xia’s orders, they all adjusted the shields, forming a conical shape.
No one had expected that by abandoning the large shield, the small shields would fit together perfectly to form a pyramid, blocking both the western side and the top gaps.
From a distance, the cone looked like a bamboo shoot, waiting for the rainstorm to come.
In the pitch-black room, everyone’s heart was pounding, and the only sound was the rhythm of their breathing.
"It’s coming..." Qi Xia mentally counted the time and whispered.
In the next second, everyone heard the sound of wind tearing apart, and something invisible slammed into the shield in Qi Xia’s hands.
Immediately after, the sounds of the harpoons coming from all directions from the west seemed like a violent storm.
The force of the harpoons was so strong that everyone felt their arms aching, and they almost couldn’t hold the shields anymore.
Fortunately, the shields had formed a subtle balance, with all of them pressed together.
"Ah!"
A harpoon pierced through the shield in front of Xiao Ran, causing her to scream.
Qi Xia turned around and saw that the harpoon had stopped only two or three centimeters from Xiao Ran’s eyes.
If the shield hadn’t been so strong, Xiao Ran would have been dead by now.
- Writer
