The surrounding stone walls were covered in watery mud, trickling down.

And at everyone’s feet, the mud pit now had countless holes.

—The golden ball was in one of those holes.

No one spoke.

And no one moved.

The color gold often made people think of nobility, but it also made people overlook that it was itself a hard metal. If struck by a face-sized piece of metal moving at high speed, what would the result be?

At best, broken bones.

At worst, instant death!

The middle-aged fat man standing at the launch position stood frozen, his face white as paper. Large bubbles formed in the muddy water beside his leg from the vibrations. “Pop”—one burst. The fat man couldn’t help but shudder. The acrid smell of urine faintly spread…

The cave was stuffy, hot, and silent.

No one had the mind to mock.

Everyone just stared at those holes, fearing the golden ball would ricochet again.

—Clearly an extremely hard ball, yet its trajectory was like a fully inflated rubber ball! During the high-speed movement just now, the golden ball nearly hit people several times. The splashing muddy water drenched everyone over and over! Caught off guard, unavoidable. Now everyone stood or sat like mud sculptures, dumbfounded, both pitiful and laughable!

Find the ball?

Their legs had gone weak.

Bai Youwei roughly counted. Just within her line of sight, there were over thirty holes. Who knows how many more in places she couldn’t see clearly. This meant the golden ball’s rebounds numbered at least sixty times or more.

She finally understood why the game time was 20 seconds.

One of the characteristics of mud was its loose, soft nature. When a pool of mud was smashed to create a hole, the mud around the hole would slide down due to gravity until the hole was refilled.

So, to find the golden ball in a hole, they had to act before the hole was filled.

Bai Youwei roughly sorted through her thoughts. These 20 seconds also passed in a flash.

By now, most of the mud holes had collapsed, merging with the surrounding mud. Only a few spots showed vague traces of sunken depressions.

The golden ball was somewhere unknown.

Everyone had been shocked by the earlier speed and force. Plus, with muddy water flying everywhere, obscuring their vision, no one knew the ball’s final landing point.

After 20 seconds ended, an area in the mud suddenly bulged. The golden ball burst out of the mud!

It shook itself up and down, then rotated left and right, flinging all the mud off its surface, returning to its gleaming golden appearance.

“What’s the deal—” The complaining tone was drawn out slowly and long, extremely dissatisfied. The golden ball questioned: “Why didn’t you come find me? I already said just now, the demonstration is only once! A full 20 seconds, and you didn’t check a single hole?!”

Everyone looked at it with ugly expressions.

Find the ball?

One wrong move and their heads would split open! They couldn’t even dodge in time. How could they search?!

The golden ball huffily swept its gaze over everyone (though it had no eyes at all), saying irritably: “Whatever, the demonstration is over anyway. Let’s start the game now!—

This game’s theme is The Frog’s Golden Ball. The Monitor will launch the ball from any position, any angle, with any force. Players can clear the game by finding the ball within 20 seconds.

The criteria for finding the ball are: one, hands must touch the ball; two, the ball must be stationary.

Are you ready? We’re start…”

“Please wait a moment.”

A soft voice rang out from the crowd.

Everyone looked toward the sound and saw it was Bai Youwei.

She sat on the snail shell propped up by her arms, her disheveled long hair wet and clumped in strands, her voluminous skirt soaked with muddy water, clinging tightly to the shell, like a stranded mermaid, quiet and weak.

Only her gaze was gloomy and a cold smile played at her lips, creating a strange dissonance with her overall bedraggled state.

Bai Youwei raised one hand and asked: “Haven’t the game rules left something out?”