As Qi Xia struggled to turn the table, he said, "The positions of 'Ningxia' and 'Shandong' can be connected to form a horizontal line."
"'Inner Mongolia', 'Sichuan', and 'Yunnan' can form a 'slash'."
"Meanwhile, 'Guangxi', 'Guangdong', 'Shaanxi', and 'Jiangsu' can form a square, which represents the character 'right'."
"Regardless of where Han Yimo's hometown is, as long as it's in either Guangxi Province or Taiwan Province, it will form the character '口'. So the answer was already determined from the beginning."
The group sped up their movements, glancing at each other with strange looks.
Qi Xia knew what they were thinking, so he said, "Don't misunderstand me. If the next game is about abandoning you to save my life, I will unhesitatingly choose to save myself."
Hearing this, the group fell silent, gritting their teeth as they continued turning the table.
Nine people sat around the table, each turning it to the right.
"How many turns has it been?" Qiao Jiajing asked.
"Twenty-six," Lin Qing replied.
"You can even count that?" Qiao Jiajing blinked. "This table looks the same all over."
"I'm counting the bloodstains on the table," Lin Qing said seriously. "Counting is important for us counselors."
Qi Xia frowned. "Not even thirty turns yet, we need to hurry up."
The group fell quiet again, speeding up their movements.
However, as they neared the final stages, the table became harder to move, as if the internal mechanisms were tightening.
"What's going on?" Qiao Jiajing gritted his teeth. "This is so heavy."
"Keep going… maybe it really connects to the door!" Tiantian gritted her teeth and said.
Her words gave everyone a glimmer of hope in the midst of their despair.
A door.
If this room can create holes out of thin air, why not a door?
Everyone's arms were sore, but they kept turning the table, one turn after another.
"Don't give up! Only five more turns!" Lin Qing shouted.
At this moment, everyone gritted their teeth and pushed with all their strength. No one dared to slack off.
Click, click.
As the last turn ended, the table clearly clicked into something.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief as the soreness in their arms began to creep in.
At this point, there were only three minutes left.
"Where's the door?!" Qiao Jiajing shouted urgently.
The walls remained unchanged, and the cold, gleaming fishhooks were still visible in the black void.
"Damn it! There's no door!" Qiao Jiajing's voice held a hint of despair.
"You're wrong! We guessed wrong!" Xiao Ran screamed, "We should have turned left, right? We shouldn't have trusted that liar! We're all going to die!"
Qi Xia frowned slightly… Wrong?
Before anyone could react, the clock at the center of the table suddenly did something strange.
It shook slightly, then shot out eight beams of light.
The beams moved toward the table's edges and stopped.
To everyone's confusion, the clock precisely divided the table into several equal-sized wedge-shaped pieces, as if it were slicing a pizza.
Crash!
The table split into pieces.
The clock now stood on a small wooden base. Qi Xia carefully looked and noticed that there were nine small wedges and one large wedge.
No, it wasn't really "wedges," but rather "triangles," since each piece had a flat base.
Time was running out, and the group was in a panic.
"What is this?" Han Yimo screamed, "Why did the table break?"
Officer Li quickly noticed that the back of each triangular table piece had a handle. His professional experience told him immediately what was going on.
"It's a shield!"
He grabbed the largest wedge and held it in front of him like a shield.
"We can use this to block the fishhooks!"
The group quickly followed suit, but the larger table piece was the only one available, and everyone else had to settle for the smaller triangular pieces, which barely shielded their bodies.
However, just a few seconds later, they realized the problem.
"How do we block them?!" Lawyer Zhang Chenze, usually calm, showed panic for the first time. "With fishhooks coming from all directions, we can only block one side!"
"We have to cooperate," Qi Xia said, snapping back to his senses. "We need to form a circle and block each other's backs."
Everyone quickly rearranged, preparing for the worst.
At this moment, they could only hear each other's breathing.
Nine strangers had now become teammates—each one indispensable.
Qi Xia glanced at Han Yimo, who was trembling all over, beads of sweat covering his face. He looked especially nervous.
At that moment, a distant bell rang from outside the room.
"Are you okay?" Qi Xia asked.
"N-nothing…" Han Yimo shook his head.
"Hey! Doctor Zhao, flip your table piece over!" Zhang Chenze suddenly spoke.
"Why?" Doctor Zhao glanced at the table in his hands. The pointed side was down, the wide side up.
"If you leave it like this, you'll leave my legs exposed!" Zhang Chenze said urgently. "I'll get hit!"
"Flip it over and I won't be able to shield my head!" Doctor Zhao retorted, "Which is more important—my head or my legs?"
After hearing the argument, some people thought Zhao's point made sense and began flipping their pieces.
Now the situation was odd.
All the table pieces, with the wide side up and the pointed side down, would only shield the upper half of their bodies, leaving their legs exposed.
"This really works?" Xiao Ran asked, puzzled. "Even if we can protect our upper half, what about the fishhooks coming from behind or from above?"
"I'll take care of the top!" Officer Li raised the large table piece above his head. "Everyone, huddle close, I'll protect you."
This seemed to be the best solution at this point. The largest table piece was held by one person to block above, while the others blocked the sides. But Qi Xia still felt something was off.
Lin Qing quickly thought it through and said, "The rest of us should alternate between high and low positions. We can stagger our placements."
"Yes! That makes sense!" Qiao Jiajing agreed.
"No," Qi Xia interrupted, "If everyone's shield is aligned vertically with the fishhooks, they'll easily penetrate."
"Handsome guy, what do you suggest?" Qiao Jiajing asked.
Qi Xia's gaze stopped at the sheepskin mask on the floor.
"Why do spring bamboo shoots not fear the rain?"
The final clue made Qi Xia thoughtful.
"Wait… Give me more time," Qi Xia frowned. "Let's not worry about it!" Doctor Zhao snapped, "Let's do as Lin Qing suggested, stagger the shields!"
"Shut up, you idiot!" Qiao Jiajing shouted. "I trust what the liar said."
"You!" Doctor Zhao gritted his teeth, swallowing his words.
What exactly do the large and small table pieces mean…?
"No, wait…" Qi Xia suddenly widened his eyes. "It's 'lies'! The large table piece will get us killed!"
"What?" Officer Li looked at Qi Xia with confusion.
"Officer, drop the large table piece, and take the last small one. Everyone, wide side up!"
Though most people were skeptical, many had empty minds at this point and had no choice but to follow his instructions.
Doctor Zhao thought for a moment and then also flipped his piece.
Officer Li hesitated for a few seconds before grabbing the last small table piece.
"Everyone crouch down!" Qi Xia continued, "Move the wide side backward and get close together. Officer Li, you don't need to block above. Come join us!"
Following Qi Xia's command, everyone carefully arranged the table pieces, gradually forming a cone shape.
No one expected that by discarding the large piece, the small ones fit perfectly together, forming a pyramid-like shape that blocked all openings from all directions, even above.
Looking from a distance, the pyramid resembled spring bamboo shoots, waiting for a storm to arrive.
In the pitch-black space, everyone's hearts raced as the only sound was their breathing.
"It's coming…"
Qi Xia counted the time in his head and whispered to everyone. The next moment, they heard a sudden gust of wind, followed by something invisible crashing into the table piece Qi Xia was holding.
The sound of fishhooks hitting was deafening, as they seemed to come from all sides, like a violent storm.
The force of the fishhooks was immense. Everyone felt their arms aching as the impact nearly made them drop their shields.
Fortunately, the table pieces remained firmly aligned, maintaining a delicate balance.
"Ah!"
A fishhook pierced the table piece in front of Xiao Ran, causing her to scream.
Qi Xia turned around and saw the fishhook had stopped just two or three centimeters from Xiao Ran's eyes.
If the table piece hadn't been so strong, she would have been dead by now.