About a minute later, Yun Yao slowly lifted her head.

“I’ve got it…” She gradually widened her eyes, carefully considering the feasibility of the entire plan. “This strategy will work… I have a solution!”

“What solution?” Chen Junnan asked.

“It’s…” Yun Yao froze, then said, “I—I can’t say.”

Chen Junnan suddenly understood something and nodded with a smile. “I see! Big Star, you’re right. That’s not a ‘strategy’ at all, but a ‘fact’ that will happen with one hundred percent certainty.”

“Exactly!” Yun Yao also nodded with a serious expression. “It will definitely happen, so it’s not my strategy. Everything is just a sudden stroke of ‘good luck.'”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan continued to ask, “What do I need to do… to welcome this stroke of good luck?”

“Smash him,” Yun Yao said. “Let that spike-covered wowotou fall as usual, and everything will happen.”

“Got it!”

Chen Junnan hung up the phone, then stepped on a chair in the room, jumped up, and grabbed onto the massive iron chain moving along the ceiling.

The rules had never stated that participants couldn’t appear in other participants’ rooms, much less that they couldn’t appear on the ceiling.

“I really am a genius.”

For the next two rounds, Yun Yao sat in her room steadying her mind, trying to deepen her conviction.

What should happen will definitely happen… yet fine beads of sweat trickled down her forehead.

Although her “luck” was strong, for this “future” to truly come to pass seemed far too difficult.

“It will happen… it will definitely happen…” Yun Yao constantly reassured herself.

In the thirty-third round, Chen Junnan had already approached the ceiling above the Earth-Snake. At this moment, he was hanging in midair, gripping the iron chain with his hand. He hid in the darkness, staring at the Earth-Snake’s screen. As long as the final answer for this round on that old bastard’s screen showed “Yes,” he would immediately shift his position and guide the iron ball to smash down.

But what he hadn’t expected was that the answer this time wasn’t “Yes” at all, but rather “No.”

“What…?” Chen Junnan hesitated slightly for a moment, but quickly understood.

He had made things a bit too intense earlier.

From everyone’s perspective, the iron ball now was essentially an indiscriminate attack. As long as it fell, someone would definitely die. So this time, no one dared choose “Yes.” They could only choose “No” unanimously, except for Yun Yao, to protect themselves.

“If you all start protecting yourselves now… it’ll be a bit difficult for me…”

Chen Junnan felt his tactics had gotten stuck again. The six people currently in the field were all exceptional individuals. How exactly could he make them unite and choose “Yes”?

The time ahead was extremely precious. Everyone only had fifteen rounds left, during which the iron ball only had five chances to fall…

“No, wait…”

A flash of inspiration struck Chen Junnan’s mind, and he somewhat understood Yun Yao’s tactic.

If Yun Yao’s tactic was what he thought it was, then their remaining time would be even shorter—not fifteen rounds at all, but nine rounds.

The iron ball had to fall in the Earth-Snake’s room within three times. Only this way could they guarantee killing him with one hundred percent certainty.

“Fuck, fuck…” Chen Junnan was so anxious on the ceiling that he was covered in sweat. “Old Qi, oh Old Qi, I really want to call you for help… How exactly can I make all these people listen to me?”

A few seconds later, Chen Junnan suddenly thought of something.

“Wait, why do I need to figure out this solution myself?” He slowly revealed a trace of a smile. “This solution… should naturally be figured out by clever people!”

…

The white-clothed girl sat in her room pondering what might happen next when she suddenly heard a faint knocking sound.

Dong dong dong.

This knocking startled her, but she still didn’t make a sound. She stood up, walked to the door, and remained silent the entire time.

She pressed her ear against the door and listened quietly for a while. That knocking sound rang out again, only this time it wasn’t coming from the door but from the ceiling.

Dong dong dong.

She dragged the chair in front of herself, then stood on it and listened carefully. The sound really did seem to be coming down from the ceiling.

Someone’s up there?

What kind of lunatic is this?

The white-clothed girl thought for a moment, then reached up and knocked on the ceiling herself.

Dong dong dong.

“Hey!” A muffled voice came from above the ceiling. “Good morning! Can you hear me?”

The white-clothed girl slowly furrowed her brow. “Who are you?”

“I’m just a law-abiding participant. I have a business deal I’d like to discuss with you.”

“Law-abiding…?” The white-clothed girl looked up at the ceiling and replied with interest, “Go ahead… let’s hear it.”

“Hey, I’m gambling my life with an old geezer, and now I’m a bit stuck… I might need you to come out and help me figure things out.”

Upon hearing these words, the white-clothed girl slowly crossed her arms and revealed a meaningful smile on her face.

“Huh?” She laughed. “So you’re the one gambling your life with the Earth-Snake? Right now you look even more terrifying than the Earth-Snake. How can you be lying on a single girl’s ceiling?”

“Hey! You’re absolutely right!”

Chen Junnan sighed with slight annoyance. “But I really had nowhere else to turn, so I had no choice but to lie here for a bit. But rest assured, I’m an upright gentleman. I would never do something like peeping.”

“Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease…” The white-clothed girl smiled and nodded. “So what kind of help does this ‘gentleman on the beams’ want from me?”

“I want you all to choose ‘Yes,'” Chen Junnan said. “I know you’re a formidable person. As long as you can convince the people on your left and right to choose ‘Yes’ together in the next round, we’ll definitely win.”

“Isn’t there something wrong here?” The white-clothed girl looked up and said, “If we choose ‘Yes,’ it looks like only you can win—we can’t. After all, after choosing ‘Yes,’ the iron ball might fall in any room, but it just won’t fall on the ceiling.”

“Wrong, wrong,” Chen Junnan shook his head. “The iron ball doesn’t fall randomly. I have a way to control it.”

“Oh…?” The white-clothed girl listened to this man’s confident words and quickly thought things through in her mind. “I understand… You’re that ‘Scapegoat’?”

“Hey…” Chen Junnan helplessly shook his head. “You and Old Qi are really the people I find most annoying in this entire ‘Land of the End.’ How can you guess it so quickly?”

The white-clothed girl, hearing Chen Junnan indirectly admit to this answer, felt even more puzzled.

“Since you’re ‘Scapegoat’… that means the iron ball has been smashing you all along, right?” She began analyzing Chen Junnan’s “Echo.” “So now that you’re lying on my ceiling, are you trying to kill me?”

“This…” Chen Junnan felt that things were getting hard to hide. “I actually don’t want to make a move against a young lady, but to be honest, if I die at this point, things will become even more troublesome. So I can only threaten you a bit here.”

“Is that so…?”

The white-clothed girl looked up again. Blood was actually starting to seep down from the ceiling. It seemed this man was seriously injured and was currently bluffing.

Chen Junnan didn’t know whether his plan had succeeded or not. Just as he was about to add a few more words, he suddenly felt his neck being violently seized by a hand, pinning him to the ground.

He looked around frantically, only to discover that what was gripping his neck was actually his own right hand.

The white-clothed girl’s voice came from inside the room at this moment: “Which screw in your head is loose… that you actually think you can threaten me?”