Chapter 13 : Hallucination? Or…

Blue, or red?

Lin Ya’s heart immediately clenched.

This question, taken purely at face value, could be said to be incomparably simple.

After all, Lin Ya had no real reason to save Raccoon.

Her wish was only to revive.

Even taking a step back, if Lin Ya’s death truly had something to do with Time Chips, making it impossible for her to revive so simply, or causing her to be murdered again after succeeding… then when she wanted to seek help, Wolf would definitely be a more reliable teammate and adviser compared to Raccoon.

Therefore, if Wolf’s command itself was the truth, then Lin Ya would choose red without the slightest hesitation.

…But would the matter really be that simple?

Although Lin Ya could not read Wolf, she could understand Raccoon.

When they had written the “blood note” earlier, she had deliberately remained still to make Raccoon remove her own mask.

That way, she could observe Raccoon’s expression and judge her thoughts from it.

If the piece of mask Wolf gave Raccoon ordered her to choose blue and told her that he himself would choose red, then Raccoon would immediately realize she had been abandoned.

In that case, she should now be terrified, resistant, or even emotionally out of control.

By the same logic, if Wolf only told her to choose blue but did not tell her what he himself would choose, then Raccoon should also hesitate, waver, and think seriously. After all, this was an important choice involving her own life.

But

Why was she showing such a strange expression?

It was as though what she saw was not a single short line of words, but memories of the past through that line. The expression on Raccoon’s face changed repeatedly, so complicated that even Lin Ya could not quite understand it.

Thus, amid intense unease, Rabbit thought of another terrifying possibility:

Could it be that the one who had been abandoned was actually herself?

After all, Fox and Raccoon were both “useful teammates” to Wolf. Only she herself was not particularly useful.

And Wolf’s action… he had done that right at the beginning. At the time, he had pretended to slap the button on his right, but secretly changed his vote to the left. Could he be using the same method this time too, pretending to vote red while actually changing to blue?

But… she had, after all, accepted one chip from Wolf. She was an ally he had “bought”!

Chaotic thoughts swelled inside Lin Ya’s mind.

All sorts of different possibilities tore at one another like wild beasts, making it impossible to tell which was right and which was wrong.

Thinking up to this point, Lin Ya suddenly froze for a moment, remembering what the host had said about the game “Escape the Sheep Pen.”

Wait, could it be

She looked toward Wolf in shock.

Could this be… Wolf’s “revenge”?

Because of her invitation, “Wolf,” whose original ability surpassed theirs, had been pulled into this fair game where victory was decided by luck.

In this game, whether it was “Dog,” whose physical strength was powerful, or “Fish,” whose intelligence was strong, both had been eliminated without being able to fully display their strengths.

The minority “strong” had instead been eliminated by the majority “weak.”

From this perspective, Rabbit had rendered a great service!

She had pulled a boss they originally could not fight into a luck-based format where they had a chance to defeat him.

And Wolf was also happy to accept a life-and-death gamble—he seemed to enjoy that pleasure of being incomparably close to death.

When he survived, there had been none of that lingering fear of “barely managing to live.” Instead, there had been a sense of release like bathing in a rainstorm. Even his voice and attitude had become genuinely gentle.

It was practically like post-nut clarity

But Wolf had not forgotten how he had fallen into this situation.

The fundamental reason behind all this was that Rabbit had pulled him in. And the direct reason he needed to gamble against Fish was because Lin Ya had proposed that “guaranteed winning method” that was doomed to be impossible to complete.

At that time, he had made a move and saved Lin Ya once.

Now, he was demanding that Lin Ya, whom he had saved, could not simply stay safely in the back.

Instead, she had to gamble with her life once, just like him!

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Only then would it be fair.

In order to punish Lin Ya, Wolf had even placed himself back onto the roulette of death—there was an extremely small possibility that Lin Ya and Raccoon, overthinking things, would accidentally vote him out!

Thinking this, Lin Ya gritted her teeth and decided to believe Wolf after all.

After all, she already knew that Wolf was definitely much smarter than she was. Then her current thoughts were very likely all within his predictions.

Wolf had asked her, “Can you trust me under any circumstances?”

Then I’ll… trust you once!

Don’t be clever!

I won’t be clever again!!

With surging emotions in her heart, Lin Ya forcefully pressed that button.

Submit answer!

Lin Ya took a deep breath, feeling that shudder rising in her heart, her legs trembling uncontrollably.

It was that feeling of having someone point a revolver at her head and slowly pull the trigger.

While it made her feel an almost suffocating terror

…there was actually also a trace of distorted pleasure, as if she were trampling all over herself?

She subconsciously glanced toward Raccoon, wanting to see her answer.

It was like going to compare answers with the top students after an exam.

But Lin Ya suddenly froze.

She had absolutely no idea what Raccoon was seeing at this moment.

Raccoon suddenly covered her head with both hands, crimson flames leaping in her pupils.

She let out a heart-rending scream of pain.

“What… is this?”

Shock, fear, sudden realization.

A nearly trembling voice was squeezed out from between Raccoon’s teeth. “What is this—?!”

Originally, she had not been thinking so much. She had been about to press the red button without hesitation.

But just before she was about to press it

Raccoon’s whole body trembled as if she had been struck by lightning.

In that instant, her expression changed rapidly and grew abnormally complicated.

Even Lin Ya could not understand what exactly she was thinking.

That feeling, as if she were seeing someone become possessed, made a chill run down her spine.

Suddenly, Lin Ya thought of someone.

She abruptly looked toward Fox and discovered that Fox had looked over at the same time.

They had thought of the same person!

That short man who had suddenly gone insane and run out!

“…Wolf, do you still remember me?”

Raccoon stopped moving and stared straight at Ming Po, asking a question without beginning or end.

Ming Po, under her gaze, looked back at her with great interest. “Oh? Should I remember?”

Beneath the dim round table, it seemed as though faint wisps of candle-like light were vaguely flowing out from his eyes.

Just looking at that dim yellow light made Raccoon’s pale face grow even paler.

She began trembling violently. As if she had seen a devil that could only appear in nightmares, she could not help letting out a terrified shriek!

Her features turned ferocious and twisted. She gasped and sobbed violently, her hands unconsciously clawing at her fragile neck until it was dripping with blood.

It was as if someone had clamped an invisible hand around her throat!

A gentle and kind “Wolf”?

A “gambler” who enjoyed betting his life?

No. None of that!

It was all disguise!

He was a devil. A demon!

Hazy fragments of memory surfaced in her mind.

Perhaps these were hallucinations, perhaps precious information sent back to her from the future… or perhaps she had finally broken free from this demon’s illusion.

“I don’t believe it. This place must still be an illusion you created!”

She screamed, her originally innocent and confused pupils now filled with terror and hatred. “You still want to trick me. I won’t be used by you again!”

Raccoon—or rather, Liao Tinglan—stared fixedly at Ming Po.

Ming Po’s neat clothes were drenched in blood in her eyes now. Even those clean and fair hands seemed to be covered in chunks of flesh and blood.

For an instant, Liao Tinglan had even thought she was still acting as the tiger’s accomplice in that game of wolves and sheep.

He had stood just like that at the entrance of the burning manor, then turned back.

He revealed a happy and peaceful smile exactly the same as the one at this moment. Brilliant dim yellow radiance burned in his pupils.

And when she was locked onto by that dim yellow firelight, she fell into yet another layer of illusion.

Meanwhile, that gaunt patient had both legs severed and was crying as he crawled toward the wide-open manor gate.

“All die, or two live.”

As though completely unconcerned about the deaths of those people, or how exactly they had died, that man looked at her with great interest. “Is such a choice difficult to make?”

And yet, in another instant, Liao Tinglan felt that perhaps the game she had participated in from the very beginning had actually been “Death of the Minority,” not “Escape the Sheep Pen.”

Wolf had indeed been a gentle and refined big-brother-next-door type from the beginning, a reliable teammate who could be trusted… Although he looked somewhat reckless, generally speaking, he could be considered a good person.

A game that used luck to decide life and death was so merciful, so fair.

The figure in her hallucination overlapped with reality.

“I absolutely—”

She stared at Wolf, her eyes filled with hatred. “I absolutely will not, will not believe your lies again!”

The next instant, Raccoon’s left hand, stained with her own blood, slammed down hard!

Blue!

“How rude,” the man in her hallucination sighed. “I haven’t told you a single lie up to now. Didn’t I give you a way to survive? And I even let the extra people survive too. Why are you hissing at me?”

In reality, Ming Po was also looking at her.

“How rude…”

Ming Po sighed. “I haven’t told you a single lie up to now. I clearly gave you a way to survive. You were the one who didn’t choose it.”

Two voices, somewhat different yet almost identical, overlapped, making Raccoon’s pupils tremble violently.

Ming Po looked toward Raccoon with pity and calmness. “How does it feel to be fooled by the truth?

“You made the wrong choice.”

He said calmly, “However, I respect your choice.”

“Fourth round over.”

The host’s voice sounded at the same time as Raccoon lost control of her emotions.

“The minority, Raccoon.”

The host announced almost simultaneously:

“—Immediate execution.”

(End of Chapter)