Chapter 24: The Third Round of the Duel of Life and Death

Jiang Nian’s words were faint, as if they had never been spoken, yet they lingered around the listener like a ghost in the dead of night, refusing to dissipate.

Watching Jiang Nian walk back, Pei Wenxuan clenched his fists until they trembled with rage. "Fine, very well! Jiang Nian, since you’ve chosen to stand on the opposite side of me, just you wait!"

He barked, "Drive!"

The driver dared not utter a sound. Struggling to steady his racing heart, he pressed the accelerator and drove away smoothly.

Shen Li, having just enjoyed a refreshing shower, was about to head back to the dormitory when she saw Jiang Nian approaching with his head bowed. She looked in the direction from which he had returned, catching only a glimpse of a receding taillight.

There was only one person on this island who owned a car.

Moreover, their dormitory was just a few steps from the intersection. Based on the timing, it was clear that Jiang Nian had just gone to meet Pei Wenxuan.

She curled her soft, pink lips into an intriguing arc.

As expected, her intuition was right: Jiang Nian was a plant sent by Pei Wenxuan. She had to carefully consider how to deal with him, but until then, she could not let him realize that she had already uncovered the truth.

Well then, she would act. If he could play the part, so could she.

With that thought, she happily wiggled her hips as she skipped back to the dormitory, acting as if she had seen nothing. She had only learned of the online situation after Bai Qiuya told her about it upon her return; she had merely liked a post from an industry insider who had retired from the limelight and thought nothing more of it.

...

In a makeshift conference room, the director, the head of the technical department, the planning team lead, and the props team lead sat with furrowed brows.

The planning team suggested, "Should we postpone the recording by a day?"

"Impossible," the director dismissed the proposal. "The schedules of those top-tier celebrities are all booked in advance. Do you think you can just delay them whenever you please?"

"Then what do we do?" the technical department head asked, looking deflated. He truly could not comprehend how Shen Li possessed knowledge of the 'Sky Eye' system when she was not even listed on the world’s top technicians' leaderboard.

He had even checked the hacker rankings; although hackers used aliases, there were no women in the world's top ten.

Furthermore, in the last ten years, only two people had ever cracked the world's top ten hacker rankings—one had switched careers, and the other had vanished, likely having retired as well.

Some even rumored that the latter hadn't disappeared, but had been killed.

In short, it was absolutely impossible for it to be Shen Li. Setting aside the fact that those two female hackers had become famous so long ago, when they had risen to prominence, Shen Li would have been at most seventeen or eighteen—hardly the age to possess such advanced technical prowess.

Therefore, how Shen Li mastered the Sky Eye system remained an enigma. If one had to provide an explanation, it could only be that Shen Li had cheated.

It seemed he would have to keep a close watch on her. Once he caught her in the act, he could take the credit with President Pei. When that happened, would he ever have to worry about resources or money again?

His thoughts returned to the meeting, where the director and the planning team lead were already discussing changes to the game rules.

"Here’s what we’ll do. Since the audience is here to support the top-tier team, we’ll increase the rewards for the livestream votes," the director finally decided.

Every time a round ended, the voting in the livestream would reset, with each viewer allowed only one vote. In previous seasons, the 'Scandal Team' had never surpassed the 'Top-Tier Team' in votes, so the reward would certainly go to the latter.

The more the director thought about it, the more satisfied he became. "We’ll boost the recommendation vote reward. Planning team, find a way to increase the difficulty of tomorrow’s game for the Scandal Team without the audience noticing."

"Understood, that’s easy enough," the planning team lead replied. Shen Li had cost him a lot of bonuses over the past two rounds, so tomorrow, she would undoubtedly lose!

The meeting dispersed. The crescent moon hid behind dark clouds, offering no light.

The quiet island fell into a long, deep silence. Those asleep would hear nothing but the intermittent roaring of the ocean waves until the sky began to brighten. Then, the creak of a door opening sounded, and Shen Li’s eyes snapped open.

Having spent a long time in a psychiatric hospital in her previous life, she had grown accustomed to hearing strange noises at night, usually the other patients having episodes.

Over time, she could no longer sleep soundly; the slightest sound would wake her.

She didn't move, only squinting to peek. A group of men in black opened the door and crept in—it was the production crew.

Two men in black stood on either side of her bed and hoisted her up. Her teammates were also being taken away. If someone was awake, the men would strike them on the back of the neck to knock them out before carrying them off; if they were asleep, they would simply be carried away.

Shen Li was awake, but she continued to feign slumber.

This was the third round of the game. They would be taken to cubicles resembling public restrooms and strapped to chairs—coarse hemp rope for their hands and iron chains for their feet.

The cubicles were larger than a restroom stall and filled with various items. The doors could be kicked open from the inside; once kicked open, one would see a countdown timer on the opposite wall, set at 30 minutes.

Four keys hung from a hook beneath the timer. Around each person's chair were various long poles and hooks intended for retrieving those keys.

Shen Li remembered that in her past life, she had quickly untied the hemp rope on her hands. At the time, her teammates were struggling to untie theirs, while hers had been loosely bound and came undone with ease.

She hadn't understood the game rules then, nor why this was the case. She had only thought to free herself quickly to save her teammates. She never expected that after she managed to undo the iron chains on her feet and escape, the timers for her teammates on the wall would be cut in half, and the time would begin to run at double speed for three minutes.

Because of this, after she escaped the cubicle, the time for her three teammates dropped from twenty-eight minutes to eight, frightening Ji Beishu, who had already undone his rope, into paralysis.

In the end, she was the only one from her team to escape, and she was vilified for it, accused of being selfish and only caring about her own survival.

The difficulty of this game lay in the choice: save oneself, or save the teammates?

As long as someone escaped, the time on the wall would be halved. According to the production team's rules, a maximum of two people could escape per team, and the team with the higher number of survivors would win.

In her past life, only Lan Ting and Lu Ziwei from the top-tier team had escaped; Jiang Fuya had conceded her chance to escape, gaining a wave of public sympathy.

She wondered what adjustments the production team would make this time.

[Welcome to the third round of the Life or Death Duel.]

The heavenly voice rang out. Shen Li gradually heard the sounds of the cubicles; she pretended to wake up along with the others as the voice continued to introduce the rules and the settlement rewards.

[The Top-Tier Team leads in the livestream votes. Reward: 30,000 in recommendation points. The duration of this round has been increased by ten minutes.]

[Theme of this round: You Die or I Perish. Will the eight participants please carefully contemplate the theme? Remember, the more people who escape, the higher the chances of winning.]

The voice vanished. The Scandal Team’s timer was set to 30 minutes, while the Top-Tier Team’s was at 40. Shen Li frowned; the reward was different this time. In her past life, only 20,000 points were awarded. It seemed the director was afraid of her winning again.

Shen Li scoffed, looking into the fixed camera in front of her. "Boring."

Behind the monitors, the director and the planning team lead felt as if they had just been insulted.

...

The voice of Qiao Le came from a cubicle: "The hemp rope on my hands is so tight, I can't untie it at all." Bai Qiuya raised her voice, "There are scissors on the tabletop by the wall." Qiao Le scanned the area.

"Found them! As expected of you, Qiuya, your observation is so sharp."

The two jumped over with their chairs, straining to reach the scissors. Ji Beishu suddenly spoke up: "Wait, the production team didn't tell us the specific rules. Don't you find that strange?"

Viewers in the livestream could check the rules at any time.

—They definitely wouldn't have guessed that only this production team could come up with such cruel rules.

—As expected of the Black and White confrontation I love. The production team is finally back to form; let’s see how Shen Li tries to act tough this time.

...