The arrangement for Round Two voting was straightforward.

Xu Fang He reasoned that with 10 votes, if the red-eyes voted for two people, they would split votes 5+5; if voting for three people, they would use a 4+3+3 split. But the red team would likely anticipate the yellow-blue alliance — a 4+3+3 split clearly had no advantage in single-person vote concentration, so the red-eyes would most likely use the 5+5 approach.

The yellow-blue alliance together had 15 votes. Voting in a 5+5+5 formation would allow them to eliminate at least three red-eyes. As for the remaining two slots, they were unavoidable casualties not worth calculating for.

……

In the dead of night, moonlight shining bright — before the summoning bells had even rung, everyone gathered early at the square.

Red-eyed: 10 people.

Yellow-eyed: 8 people.

Blue-eyed: 7 people.

The stone orb overseer rolled lazily across the rooftop, its tone light and chirpy: “Round Two voting begins~! Line up, line up — go in one by one to vote~!”

People wore all manner of expressions as they filed one by one into the voting booth.

The entire process was quiet, still, not a single word spoken…

When Bai Youwei entered, she found that the numbers eliminated in the previous round had gone dark. Twenty-five numbers remained available for selection.

There was no way to see how many votes each number had received.

She thought for a moment, then pressed Number 2.

……

All votes cast.

The stone orb grew excited, its spinning speed increasing, whipping up a whooshing rush of air.

“Ah, ah! This is my favorite part~! Now announcing the eliminated numbers and vote counts for Round Two!”

“Number 2, 4 votes.”

“Number 12, 4 votes.”

“Number 22, 5 votes.”

“Number 23, 4 votes.”

“Number 26, 5 votes.”

The player holding Number 22 instantly went white as a sheet and stared at Xu Fang He in disbelief: “Dr. Xu Fang… why? My number — didn’t you cross it off…”

Before the words were even finished, the person vanished into thin air, completely gone!

Disappearing alongside him was the silk-scarf woman from the yellow-eyed faction!

Xu Fang He’s gaze snapped immediately to the Black man!

This was nothing like what he had imagined!

His calculations had predicted the five eliminated players’ vote counts would follow either a 5+5+5+5+5 pattern or a 5+5+5+4+3 pattern — but why were the actual counts this scrambled?!

Not only had the red-eyes failed to vote in the expected 5+5 pattern, the blue-eyes hadn’t followed the plan either!

Of the three numbers he had planned to vote out — 17, 23, and 26 — only 23 and 26 had actually been voted out!

Where were the 5 votes meant for Number 17?

Could those 5 votes — the ones that went to Number 22 — have been the votes originally meant for Number 17?

Had the blue-eyes gone insane?! Leaving the red-eyes alone and instead voting against his own yellow-eyed people?!

The fury lodged in his chest, and the refined, graceful Dr. Xu Fang’s expression showed its first trace of dark menace.

His expression settled into still water as he walked up to the Black man, his tone utterly calm yet conveying neither pleasure nor anger:

“You and your people do not appear to have voted as we agreed.”

The Black man looked at Xu Fang He with complete disdain. “Do you think I’m stupid? Vote according to your terms, and what kind of situation would we end up in — don’t you have a sense of that yourself?

“Yes, fine! If we cooperated to eliminate 3 red-eyes, it would genuinely deal the red team a serious blow. But what about the other two slots? Once those two slots both land in our blue-eyed camp, the biggest winners would be you — the yellow-eyes! And after that, would you still cooperate with us?”

If they had voted as Xu Fang He proposed, the outcome might have been:

Red-eyes: 10 members — eliminate 3, leaving 7.

Yellow-eyes: 8 members — zero eliminations, remaining at 8.

Blue-eyes: 7 members — eliminate 2, leaving 5.

The Black man’s lips curled into a mocking cold smile. He gave Dr. Xu Fang’s shoulder a light pat:

“Before, we had the fewest people, and you wanted an alliance — we had no choice but to accept. But now… the faction with the fewest people is yours. Come next round of voting, you’d better play by my rules. Understood?”

—