The system notification appeared without warning, giving the players no time to prepare.
As the two lines of text materialized, the surrounding scenery collapsed in an instant. The walls of the room toppled like dominoes, unfurling outward in every direction.
Of the original six rooms, only Rooms 1, 3, and 5 remained. The other partitions were completely demolished, reconstructed into a series of winding, intricate corridors that solidified in a flash, now adorned with colorful decorations.
A labyrinth rose from the ground. Its walls, reminiscent of an ancient Greek colonnade, were sparsely decorated with yellowed parchment, on which one could vaguely discern a twisted, snaking script.
Farther on, several display cases jutted out from the walls, holding a wide variety of card games.
“Hey, hey, hey? What’s going on?” Dong Xiwen grumbled, his eyes narrowed. “We just woke up, and they’re already throwing something new at us. I thought they were supposed to let us rest?” He received no response.
New rules materialized on the system interface.
[Battle Royale Rules—Performance Edition]
[1. This act is a battle royale. The pursuers are monsters born from the players’ sins. The fugitives are the “Players.”]
[2. Under normal circumstances, players will not be attacked by their corresponding monster. When a player dies, their corresponding monster will also disappear.]
[3. The power of players and monsters will be represented by a numerical value. A monster’s power level is 2. A player’s power level is 1.]
[4. Killing a player increases your power level by 2. Killing a monster does not change your power level.]
[5. The outcome of a kill is determined by comparing power levels. The one with the higher power level will always win in a confrontation.]
[6. The monsters in this act cannot cooperate. Players may attack each other.]
Following that, a cold, unfeeling timer appeared in the top-left of their vision:
[Preparation Time: 00:10:00, Escape Time: 01:00:00]
Ten minutes to prepare, one hour to escape. As long as they could survive for an hour, this act would be over.
Dong Xiwen scanned the rules several times. “Is this even a battle royale?” he griped. “It feels more like a math problem. From the blackjack game onward, every act has been a test of the players’ math skills, hasn’t it?”
“This is game theory.” Qi Si’s gaze was fixed on the words “Killing a player,” and a strange smile slowly spread across his lips. “The solution is already embedded in the rules, isn’t it? Choose one person to kill another, raising their power level above the monsters, and then quickly eliminate all of them.”
He paused, his voice dropping to a low whisper, “Or, we could just kill everyone. Then all the monsters would disappear.”
Dong Xiwen’s face twisted into a pained expression. *What a twisted killer,* he thought. He spoke of murder as casually as eating or drinking.
His mind raced, and his expression soured as he suddenly realized that Qi Si’s proposal was actually feasible—and brutally efficient.
By killing just one person, the other two could easily survive this so-called “battle royale.” From a numbers perspective, it was a sound investment.
And if they had to choose someone to kill, based on strength, a rookie like him wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving...
He Hui lowered her head and timidly suggested, “Maybe we can talk to our own monsters and ask them not to hurt the others...”
She looked up to see both Dong Xiwen and Qi Si gazing at her with the kind of look one gives a naive child.
“The rules state that ‘the monsters cannot cooperate,’ which is an indirect way of saying they can’t communicate.” Qi Si had already formulated a plan and was more patient than ever. “In a situation like this, anyone with a grasp of game theory knows that cooperation is the best strategy. I doubt my monster is an idiot, so—why wouldn’t it choose to cooperate with the others?”
“If we really steeled ourselves and killed one person, raising someone’s power level to 3, it would be a catastrophe for those monsters. You think they wouldn’t see that coming?”
At this point, Dong Xiwen more or less understood the nature of this game.
Zero-sum game. Utilitarianism. This instance was constantly forcing players to use the group to execute an individual.
In this kill-or-be-killed game, the number of survivors was fixed. All who lived would bear the weight of original sin...
Dong Xiwen let out a soft breath, his voice strained. “No matter what, I don’t think we should resort to harming others until it’s the absolute last resort...”
Qi Si turned his head to look at him. “Do you have a better idea?”
Dong Xiwen was speechless, racking his brain for a solution.
Then he heard Qi Si sigh. “It’s too early to think about that now. A ‘battle royale’ is, by definition, all about the ‘escape.’ Maybe if we split up and run in three different directions, the monsters won’t catch us before the act ends.”
The young man’s calm voice held a trace of imperceptible helplessness, as if the attitudes of his two teammates had truly made him abandon his original plan to kill someone.
Dong Xiwen breathed a sigh of relief and agreed, “Yeah, killing someone should be the absolute last resort. Maybe we’ll find another solution while we’re on the run...”
After yanking his teammates’ emotions back and forth with a few well-chosen words, Qi Si figured they wouldn’t grasp the crux of the problem for a while. He finally began to survey the newly formed scene.
The stage lights were still blinding, yet there was no discernible source, as if the entire world were constructed from particles of light. Every corner was painfully bright, with no shadows, no place to hide.
The once-small space had been stretched to feel boundless. The three of them stood in the center of an area roughly the size of a sports field. In the distance, they could see smooth walls and neat rows of doorways.
The moment their eyes fell upon them, a flood of non-narrative information poured into their minds, revealing the tangled complexity of the routes within.
It was a perfect setting for a battle royale. If you were fast enough, agile enough, darting through these corridors... maybe... the monsters really wouldn’t be able to find you.
The countdown in the top-left of their vision showed only five minutes remaining. The warning of the monsters’ imminent arrival hung over them like the first drop of rain from a dark storm cloud, fraying their nerves.
“Let’s split up,” Qi Si said flatly, his lips pressed into a thin line. “It’s all up to fate now.”
He stood with his hands behind his back, as if trying to restrain some powerful impulse.
Dong Xiwen knew that, given this veteran player’s usual principles, he likely wanted to kill someone right away to clear the stage the easy way.
A pure egotist, someone who valued himself above all else—why would he abandon such a simple, brutal solution in this situation?
Dong Xiwen couldn’t figure it out. His mind replayed the words the young man had said to them during the second act—
“I’ve always hated that utilitarian principle of sacrificing one person for the good of the many. It’s so boring, so inefficient.”
Could those have been his true feelings?
He calmly explained his sins, yet he detested utilitarianism so much. Was it because he, too, had once been abandoned by others using that same principle?
Dong Xiwen felt he had found the ultimate answer. In that instant, the character logic of “Zhou Ke” became perfectly coherent to him.
The way he looked at Qi Si was now tinged with obvious sympathy.
“You two should go,” Qi Si urged, adjusting his cold mask. His tone was indifferent. “If you don’t, once the monsters appear, my only option will be to kill one of you to solve this.”
He Hui didn’t dare hesitate, quickly scurrying away. Dong Xiwen gave him a long, deep look before turning to leave as well.
Qi Si stood there loosely, watching their figures shrink in the distance until they were two specks, one white and one blue, before they vanished into the light.
Once he was sure they couldn’t see him anymore, he shook his head and turned toward the door to Room 1.
After the scene changed, the entire space had expanded several times over, like a sponge soaked in water and then stretched from within.
The door to Room 1, once just a few steps away, was now at least fifty meters distant. He strolled leisurely for a while before reaching it, turned the handle, and pushed his way inside.
The moment he stepped over the threshold, the countdown hit zero with a cold, metallic *ding*. [Battle Royale, Begin]
Bloody mist rose from the floorboards, swirling up from his ankles to slowly sketch the outline of a crimson figure.
It was a young man in a red formal suit, standing sideways in the center of the room with the same relaxed posture as Qi Si.
Upon seeing Qi Si, he tilted his head and grinned, revealing a mouthful of sharp, white teeth. “Just so you know, I can’t help you. The rules are watching.”
Qi Si stared into the young man’s eyes and asked earnestly, “Then can you kill me?”
The red-clothed youth paused, then his eyes narrowed in a smile. “First, a reminder: your chips from Act Two are useless here. They can’t save your life. Second, if I kill you, I die too.”
“Uh-huh,” Qi Si grunted. “So, what’s your choice?”
A silent atmosphere spread through the air, thick with a certain unspoken understanding.
Two seconds later, the red-clothed youth’s eyes curved into a smile, his scarlet irises glowing with an eager light. “Right now? I’ve wanted to know what it feels like to peel my own skin for a very, very long time...”
A slight smile touched Qi Si’s lips.
He had to admit, this instance had a good grasp of his sins. He really had always wanted to try turning himself into a specimen.
A suspicious rustling came from outside the door, growing closer. Mirrors emerged from the ground, each one reflecting Qi Si’s image. Transparent arms stretched from the mirrors, elongating unnaturally.
A giant set of scales slowly rose into the sky above the arena, stopping at a certain height to cast a shadow like a dark cloud and issuing solemn interrogations.
Qi Si slammed the door shut, leaned his back against it, and sat down. He pulled his character card from his pocket and began to pick at the edge with his fingernail.
After a moment of prying, he finally peeled off a thin layer of paper from the surface.
Beneath it lay a completely different card.
[Character Card - Spectator]
[Effect: "Otherworld"...]
The answer was clear.
Qi Si laughed. “So that’s how it is? As a spectator, I should have the privilege of leaving the theater at any time, right?”
Charlie had said from the very beginning that the players were both actors and spectators. But lost in round after round of voting and games, the players had come to internalize their roles as “actors” more and more deeply.
Including Qi Si.
It wasn’t until Dong Xiwen claimed his character card was “Spectator” that Qi Si realized there might be more to their roles than met the eye.
If the roles of actor and spectator could overlap, there would be no reason for the game to issue a separate Spectator card to a player.
Unless... the two roles were interchangeable, and “Spectator” was also a viable choice.
“As much as I’d love to chat, I don’t think your colleagues will give me the chance.” Qi Si clutched the Spectator card, leaning back against the door, feeling the distinct impacts and scratching on the other side. His smile was radiant.
“—In that case, please kill me now. I’m done acting in this play with its predetermined ending!”
Hearing this, the red-clothed youth broke into a bloodthirsty grin. He reached out, his bladed fingernails hooking Qi Si’s jaw before piercing straight through it in the next second.
A normal person would have died instantly from such a wound, but the pain only made Qi Si feel more lucid.
He glanced down and saw his body had been sliced in half along the centerline, the skin and flesh of each side hanging off him like a coat.
It was an excruciatingly painful sensation, yet he smiled with delight, a healthy flush returning to his face.
He laughed heartily as the scene before him faded to black, like the curtain falling at the end of a stage play. An instant later, it was filled with the light of a blazing fire.
And then... his nose belatedly registered the smell of something burning.
The scene around him had changed. It was the burning theater from his dream on the first night. But compared to the dream, the fire here wasn’t as severe. Aside from one area that was a sea of flames, the rest of the theater only had a few clusters of flame embedded in the walls, the afterglow of a great fire that refused to be extinguished.
“Zhou Ke, you son of a bitch! Your day has finally come!” Hansen’s vicious voice rang in his ear, laced with a pained screech. “You think killing me would guarantee your victory? Dream on!”
Qi Si blinked and saw a man-sized birdcage standing in the sea of fire. Hansen, his clothes completely burned away, was covering his private parts while hopping around, glaring at him with a ferocious expression and cackling with vengeful satisfaction.
Qi Si nodded in agreement and said earnestly, “But I have clothes.”
Hansen: “...”
Hansen: “Aaaaaaaaargh!”
Qi Si ignored him and shifted his gaze slightly. He saw that he, too, was confined in a similarly styled birdcage, though there were no flames or other unpleasant designs around him.
Beside him was a row of birdcages. Two were empty, and in another, a figure sat hugging her knees. It was Cynthia.
Excellent. It seemed everyone who died in the play gathered here.
Qi Si was now immensely grateful that he hadn’t fallen back on his *Double Happiness Town* mindset and killed all his teammates.
Otherwise... when they eventually got out of these cages, he would probably be the first one to be collectively decapitated and put on public display...
Qi Si never wasted negative emotions on things that hadn’t happened.
He sat cross-legged, squinting at the two people he had indirectly caused to be killed, and smiled sincerely. “You two, now that we no longer have any conflicts of interest, why don’t we put our heads together and figure out how to get out of these cages?”
...
Meanwhile, the play was still in progress.
Dong Xiwen clenched his jaw, darting left and right through the doorways of the corridor.
Mirrors pursued him relentlessly, appearing without warning on the path ahead, replacing sections of the wall and reaching for him with their arms.
Though he was a rookie with no life-saving items, his physical fitness was decent, and he managed to narrowly avoid most of the attacks. The few arms he couldn’t dodge clamped onto him, but he broke free with a clever twist of his body.
He was panting heavily but didn’t dare slow down for a second. His legs, heavy and sore, felt as if they no longer belonged to him, moving forward on pure momentum.
After rounding a corner, he heard He Hui’s trembling voice: “Dong Xiwen, is that you? Please... kill me...”