The Frog’s Golden Ball—

Find the golden ball within 20 seconds, or the frog hidden in the mud will come out and eat the bugs disturbing its sleep.

As for where the frog would emerge from, it was impossible to predict, because stepping on its soft outer skin felt no different from stepping on wet mud.

But this wasn’t right.

Bai Youwei stared at that enormous frog without blinking, thoughts racing through her mind.

This wasn’t right.

This level design was too difficult!

First, they had to dodge the golden ball’s trajectory, then overcome the difficulty of moving through mud soup, and the time to search for the golden ball was only a mere 20 seconds!

And finally, they had to face this building-sized frog!

A game couldn’t possibly give people no chance at survival.

Even in last time’s brutal race, as long as you ran fast enough, had sufficient stamina, or were knowledgeable enough to answer every question correctly, or were ruthless enough to use others as stepping stones—any of these advantages could win the game!

But in the current game, Bai Youwei saw no chance of survival at all.

How many more people would the frog eat?

When would the game end?

Who could retrieve the golden ball from right under the frog’s nose?

Each seemingly simple question was so deadly!

At this moment, screams in the cave gradually subsided. At a glance, not a single human figure could be seen. Only upon careful examination could one discover some people curled up behind snail shells, trembling and gasping for breath.

No one dared move. Even breathing sounds disappeared into the air.

Bai Youwei was even less able to move.

She sat in the mud, quiet enough to almost merge with her surroundings. A pair of crystalline eyes silently searched for Shen Mo’s figure. When she discovered Shen Mo and Tan Xiao hiding together in a blind spot behind the frog, her heart relaxed slightly.

Shen Mo was fine.

Only temporarily fine. No matter how brave he was, he couldn’t possibly oppose this frog.

After the frog finished eating everyone in front of it, it now sat motionless in the mud. Perhaps because its body was too massive, perhaps the game design itself was this way—in any case, it didn’t move a single step.

The situation became a stalemate.

Everyone was waiting, waiting for when an opportunity might appear.

Time passed second by second. It felt like not much time had passed, yet it felt like every second was an eternity. Finally, the frog showed movement—

It straightened its two thick, plump front flippers, dug into the mud before it, buried its head, and burrowed in.

Its hind legs kicked twice more, and its entire body completely burrowed into the mud!

The mud soup rippled for a few seconds before everything returned to normal.

Bai Youwei closed her eyes, then opened them again. In her field of vision, the frog was gone, the golden ball was gone. All around was deathly silent, with only a group of people still in shock.

After waiting quietly for a while longer, people began emerging one by one from behind the snail shells. They wiped the muddy water from their faces, their expressions showing extreme terror and rigid disbelief.

Shen Mo returned to find Bai Youwei, looking her up and down and asking: “Are you hurt?”

Bai Youwei gently shook her head.

Shen Mo bent down to pick her up and placed her on a nearby snail shell. He turned to glance at the others, his brow visibly furrowing, with a sense of powerlessness.

“Twenty seconds have passed. The golden ball wasn’t found. I don’t know what this stage of the game counts as,” he said in a low voice.

It definitely didn’t count as clearing it.

But they hadn’t turned into dolls either, because they were still alive.

Crying sounds began in the cave.

Survivors called out the names of their respective loved ones—parents, spouses, classmates, friends… Some found corpses with bones shattered by the golden ball; some couldn’t find corpses, swallowed whole by the frog’s belly.

Just as the sorrowful emotions were about to break through, the golden ball appeared again.

“Current game failed. Nineteen players survived. Now entering the second round of ‘The Frog’s Golden Ball.’ Players please prepare—”