Three minutes passed in a flash.
A piercing buzz sounded, and the barrier vanished.
As tense as everyone else, He Zheng stared at his watch.
He didn't care about their earlier clash. Compared with the hellish difficulty of the Death Gaokao, it was nothing.
An invisible pressure surged down from overhead. An icy mechanical voice sounded from every watch at once.
"Examination begins."
"Exam topic:"
"[Origin of the Gods]"
"This place was once humanity's greatest mistake. Yet life was born because of it in this land of despair."
"Round One exam type: Choice."
"Disaster will strike in ten minutes. All examinees must make their choice and survive to the next round."
"Warning: Stay away from the danger on Basement Level One. Contact carries a one hundred percent mortality rate!"
"Points available this round: 20."
...
When the announcement ended, He Zheng let out a long breath, then sneered at Ye Lin and the others.
"Lucky for you, the first question isn't about slaughter or ghosts. Run into those things and you won't even know how you died."
"All right. Split up and check upstairs and downstairs. Meet back here in one minute. Find anything, tell us over your watches. Those things work anywhere!"
"If you've got no ideas, do as I say!"
He pointed at the massive metal door upstairs, which had turned blue, indicating that he would check there.
"We... we don't have any ideas. You've got the most experience, Brother He. But I think we should stay away from that door on Basement Level One."
A skinny boy tried to ingratiate himself with He Zheng.
Unlike the others, who seemed afraid of him, the boy had thought it over and decided that following He Zheng gave him the best chance of surviving.
"What do you think, kid?"
He Zheng ignored the scrawny student hovering beside him. He only wanted Ye Lin's opinion.
Ye Lin quickly read through the information and surveyed the hall.
"Humanity's mistake. The birth of new life. Stay away from Basement Level One. Putting those three things together..."
"We're probably in some kind of underground base. Someone made monsters here, and the danger behind the door is something artificial. So staying away from downstairs makes sense."
"But..."
He frowned at He Zheng.
"Given the topic, Origin of the Gods, those monsters could be artificial 'gods.'"
"Are you sure we can fight a god?"
Ye Lin couldn't imagine what an artificial god would be. The question itself felt deeply unsettling.
He'd also noticed that He Zheng hadn't reacted much. Unless the man was an idiot, he couldn't be that unconcerned.
The others tensed at his words. They stared uneasily at the door half-hidden in darkness below.
It felt as though something might burst out at any moment and tear them apart.
As expected, He Zheng remained untroubled.
"Good analysis, kid. More or less what I was thinking."
"But don't worry. It's your first exam. You won't run into anything like that yet. I'm guessing the question is just about escaping this place."
"Fuck, I hate puzzles. Guess wrong and you don't even know what killed you."
He sneered at their frightened faces.
That was what he said, anyway. Even if all they had to do was run, few of these rookies would make it out alive.
Ye Lin nodded. There wasn't enough information for any further deductions.
But if He Zheng thought it was manageable, he would provisionally assume the challenge was finding a way out.
"All right. I'll check downstairs first."
He Zheng blinked.
He'd been planning to force a few people to go down. He hadn't expected Ye Lin to volunteer.
Still...
That saved him some trouble.
"Fine. Be careful. If you..."
"Never mind."
He stopped halfway through. There wasn't much point giving instructions.
The kid wasn't stupid. As long as he didn't open the door, he should be fine.
And if there were clues down there, it would be idiotic not to look.
They split into two groups. After some hesitation, five of the other students followed He Zheng, leaving a tall, dark-skinned boy standing alone.
As Ye Lin started down, the big boy finally gritted his teeth and ran after him.
"Hey, Ye Lin! Wait for me! I'm Zhang Tie. I'll go with you!"
...
Zhang Tie was tall. A burly northeasterner, he stood 1.97 meters tall, like an iron tower.
Before the metal door on Basement Level One, Ye Lin studied its surface in the faint light behind him.
He waved Zhang Tie aside and asked casually,
"What did you come down here for? Aren't you scared?"
The door was smooth and unmarked. Waves of cold seeped through its tiny gaps. A chain as thick as a finger was wrapped around it.
"I am. But I still feel better sticking with you."
"Besides, you're so skinny. If something happens, I can carry you and run."
Ye Lin stared. Zhang Tie looked completely serious, genuinely ready to throw him over a shoulder and flee. It gave Ye Lin an odd feeling.
The big guy looked simple, but he was surprisingly considerate.
Their eyes met. Zhang Tie rubbed his shaved head and grinned, looking even more guileless.
...
"Brother Ye, this door sure is big..."
Unable to make anything of it, Zhang Tie tried pushing. To his surprise, it seemed to open a crack.
A sickly sweet, fishy stench rushed out. He recoiled.
"Holy shit, what's that smell? Why's it sweet and rank at the same time?"
He almost vomited.
Ye Lin glanced at him, then sniffed carefully without speaking.
That smell seemed to be rotting corpses.
After four to seven days of decomposition, bodies developed a distinctive sickly stench. The rankness came from cadaverine, while the sweetness came from esterification as fats and proteins broke down.
With a sweetness this strong, the bodies behind the door had probably been dead about two weeks. That was when fat decomposition was greatest and the sweetness peaked, something like fruit.
Judging by how strong it was, there had to be quite a few.
A whole mass of corpses?
Ye Lin straightened, deep in thought.
People had died behind the door. That suggested they'd tried to flee upstairs, only for something to catch them. The bodies had been rotting for so long, which meant whatever killed them hadn't disposed of them. It had simply left.
Unable to see how they'd died, Ye Lin frowned.
So... had a god been chasing them?
He filed the thought away.
Just as he was about to test the chain's strength, his watch began beeping urgently.
He Zheng?
"Kid! Run! Acid! There's sulfuric acid here!"
"Get upstairs! Move, or it'll be too late!"
A hideous scream rang through the comms, as though someone were being skinned alive.