“What do you mean?” Su Man asked anxiously. “What does this figure have to do with the apocalypse? What is a radiation level? Li Li, would you just explain it clearly!”

“Ugh, I can’t explain it to you!” Li Li was growing agitated too. “It’s technical stuff — I can’t break it down for you!”

Zhu Shu asked, “So what you’re saying is that Professor Song concluded the situation was unsalvageable and used that as an excuse to abandon the King? Cut his losses while he still could?”

“He probably had his suspicions for a while now,” Yan Qingwen said. “I remember at the last meeting, Professor Song mentioned that the Doll Game had very likely descended before. Now this research report partially corroborates that…”

“Then why didn’t he just tell Weiwei and the others directly and have them give up participating?” Zhu Shu asked. “The King still has one surrender right, doesn’t she?”

“I can’t figure that out either.” Li Li’s brow furrowed deeply. “If the launch of the final battle directly determines the fate of all humanity, something that enormous — why wouldn’t Professor Song just say so outright? And what’s strange is that the radiation level has already increased to such a terrifying degree — why do none of us feel anything at all? By all logic, the human body simply couldn’t withstand this level of… Forget it, I can’t leave this alone! I’m going to find Professor Song and ask him!”

“Come back here!” Yan Qingwen called him back. “If he didn’t tell you from the start, do you really think going to ask him now is going to make him open up?”

“Yan Ge, this is no small matter — we absolutely have to get a straight answer!” Li Li said urgently. “There are so many people at the base right now. If the apocalypse is really coming, we need to start preparing immediately!”

Yan Qingwen turned the question back on him: “And what do you think we could possibly prepare?”

“Mass migration, or building underground cities — anything is better than sitting here waiting to die!” Li Li said. “This is more terrifying than a nuclear explosion! Do you understand?!”

“But you just said yourself that based on the current radiation levels, the human body should have already given out long ago,” Zhu Shu couldn’t help pointing out. “So even if this value increases again, what does that actually prove? Maybe… maybe nothing will happen at all?”

Li Li froze.

If the human body’s maximum threshold was 100, what difference was there between the value rising to 200 versus 2,000?

“Song Mingchuan’s arrangement must be for some other reason.” Yan Qingwen mused aloud. “Let’s think this through again…”

Lu Yuwen looked around at everyone and spoke up: “We can’t make sense of the research data, but we can try to reason it out — if Fu Miaoxue and Bai Youwei can’t recruit enough subjects, what would the consequences be?”

Zhu Shu replied, “They’d have no choice but to surrender. Every battle has a minimum participant count; if the numbers fall short, you’re automatically eliminated.”

“No, it wouldn’t even come to that.” Yan Qingwen shook his head slowly. “Even if Bai Youwei and Fu Miaoxue were eliminated from the next battle, their lives wouldn’t be in immediate danger — they both hold a considerable number of puzzle pieces. The real problem is the final battle.”

Zhu Shu said, “But the rules for the final battle haven’t been announced yet. No one knows what the minimum participant count is.”

Yan Qingwen was silent for a moment, then spoke slowly: “Right now there are only a handful of Kings left. Regardless of whether it’s Bai Youwei or Fu Miaoxue, both have a real chance of winning. For Song Mingchuan to simply abandon the King makes no sense at all — unless he’s somehow concluded that the King is destined to lose without any doubt.”

Yan Qingwen looked at the documents again, growing more puzzled by the moment. “…The radiation hasn’t affected people — could that be because we’re within the occupied range of the puzzle pieces? If that’s the case, then once the King holds all the puzzle pieces and their territory covers the entire globe, the radiation levels continuing to rise shouldn’t cause any harm. But if they lose…”

Yan Qingwen stopped. The others sitting there fell silent as well.

If they lost… the King would lose all their puzzle pieces. What would the world become then?

—