Sacrifice

Pain.

Piercing, bone-deep pain.

Qi Xia bit his teeth, groaning in agony on the ground.

He felt as if he truly had some serious psychological issues.

Every time someone around him died, his head would throb with pain.

What caused this? Does it happen just by seeing the dead?

No, Qi Xia had already seen many deaths in the game.

Not everyone's death caused his head to hurt.

It took a full half-minute before Qi Xia finally let out a long breath, stood up again, and resumed his emotionless expression.

The three people outside also finally noticed the situation inside the room.

They rushed in one after another to check and found that Officer Li had died with a cigarette in his mouth.

Zhang Chenze covered her mouth, wanting to cry but not daring to make a sound.

"Damn it..." She slowly walked to the corner, pulling at her hair, her previously overly standard Mandarin now turning into a dialect, "What's going on? What are we doing?"

Her emotions seemed extremely unstable, as if she had been greatly shocked.

Before Qi Xia could speak, the bell rang again in the distance.

"Dong!!"

Lin and Old Lu were startled and looked in the direction of the sound.

Although they didn't know what the bell signified, they had heard it many times when someone died.

Lin calmed her nerves and went to Lawyer Zhang, gently patting her shoulder, and then said, "Lawyer Zhang, you need to be strong."

"How can I be strong..." Lawyer Zhang lifted her head with a look of despair, her eyes filled with hopelessness, "Officer Li died for me... he died to save me..."

"What exactly happened?" Lin held Lawyer Zhang's cold hand, "Don't keep it to yourself at a time like this, tell me about it."

She seemed to know how to talk to someone who was emotionally out of control. In just a few words, she managed to make Lawyer Zhang let her guard down.

"It's all that rabbit..." Lawyer Zhang shook her head, "That crazy rabbit... she wanted both of our lives... If it weren't for Officer Li, we would both be dead... They're all lunatics... There is no law in their eyes..."

Lawyer Zhang slowly recounted what had happened after Qi Xia and the others left.

Their experience was different from what Qi Xia had deduced. It wasn't that Officer Li discovered the game mode of this hellish place, but rather, Lawyer Zhang did.

After Qi Xia and the others left, Lawyer Zhang decisively struck up a conversation with the Minotaur person across from the convenience store.

As she herself said, she needed to gather enough intelligence to make the right judgment.

Upon learning that the games in this place would not result in death but could potentially win the "Way," she explained the situation to Officer Li, Xiao Ran, and Dr. Zhao. However, only Officer Li supported her view and decided to take their last "Way" to take a gamble.

This approach was strongly opposed by Xiao Ran. She was well aware that the "Way" was a "chip" used to participate in the game but insisted on keeping the "Way" with her, preferring to let this sliver of an opportunity go to waste rather than risk it in a gamble.

Officer Li, due to the other party being a frail woman, always tried to persuade her kindly, but Lawyer Zhang did not indulge her.

After a few sharp and logically coherent confrontations, she left Xiao Ran speechless.

After all, when it came to "arguing," how could a kindergarten teacher possibly win against a lawyer?

The game designed by the "Ox Person" across from the convenience store was a simple game—a hurdle race.

There were many old tires and wooden walls in the restaurant. As long as one could complete the track within the set time, they would win two "Ways."

This game was almost tailor-made for Officer Li. He was originally from the police academy, and hurdle races were a regular practice during his student days. Although it had been many years, and he was a bit rusty, completing the track within the set time was still more than enough.

The entrance fee was one "Way," and winning would earn two "Ways."

Officer Li seemed to have found some loophole. He participated in the game three times in a row, and their "Ways" increased to four.

It was not until he was truly out of physical strength that the two of them left the game area.

This experience greatly boosted their confidence, and they believed they could collect enough "Ways" to see Qi Xia.

Later, by chance, they ended up at the "Rabbit Person's" game area.

It was a game of "escape," and they initially thought the difficulty of this game would not be too high either.

In a small room, the two were trapped in opposite corners of the room.

Lawyer Zhang was tied up in a large transparent fish tank, which was filling with water.

Officer Li, on the other hand, was handcuffed to a wall on the other side of the room.

He only had a wooden stick by his side.

The key to Officer Li's handcuffs was placed in Lawyer Zhang's fish tank.

The switch for the water filling the fish tank was not far from Officer Li.

Both of them had the means to save each other.

However, Lawyer Zhang was bound by wire and could not untie the rope or throw the key out of the fish tank.

Officer Li, although close to the water valve switch, was handcuffed on his right hand, and there was always a two-step distance to the water valve.

Neither of them could save the other first.

How cruel was this game?

It was not an "escape" game at all but a game that thoroughly tested human nature.

It seemed that both of them were trapped and needed to escape on their own, but upon closer examination, Officer Li's situation was fundamentally different from Zhang Chenze's.

As time passed, Zhang Chenze would inevitably drown, but Officer Li would not.

He would be safe even if he stayed there for a whole day.

Zhang Chenze said without hesitation, "At that moment, I thought I was definitely going to die."

Next, Officer Li tried many methods to break free from the handcuffs.

For him, ordinary handcuffs were not difficult to open, but he had no lock-picking tools at hand, and the only thing that could be useful was a wooden stick.

"Officer Li was really foolish..." Zhang Chenze sobbed and lowered her head, "Why didn't he throw the stick over here to break the fish tank...? Instead, he broke his own..."

Qi Xia sighed helplessly after hearing this: "He had a mental struggle."

"What?" Zhang Chenze lifted her lifeless eyes, "You mean this was the result of his consideration?"

"Hmm." Qi Xia nodded, "He should have known that using a wooden stick to shatter the glass was not a wise choice."

"But he didn't even try..." Zhang Chenze started crying again, "He could have tried..."

"What if he tried and failed?" Qi Xia said, "If that wooden stick didn't break the fish tank and instead fell to a distance, both of you would have completely lost hope of escaping from there."

In Zhang Chenze's shocked expression, Officer Li used that wooden stick to smash his own hand.