“I think you’ve gone insane.”

The Shar-Pei Dog completely ignored Zhang Qiang and me, directly engaging in a heated argument with Baiyang.

“Baiyang, do you know what kind of place this is? This is the ‘Train’!” the Shar-Pei Dog said. “We’re not that far from those upper levels… What you’re doing is far too risky!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Baiyang said. “I don’t need you to understand. It’s just that I don’t want to remain stuck here forever, so I’m preparing to do something about it.”

The Sheep pondered for a moment on the side, then asked, “If we insist on stopping you, what will you do?”

Baiyang glanced sideways at the clock on the table and said in a deep voice, “It’s now twelve-oh-one. We’ll take four minutes to vote against each other. Everyone present has voting rights and can vote for anyone, including themselves. I’m making a bet with you two—by twelve-oh-five, the person with the highest votes dies.”

After hearing this, the Shar-Pei Dog thought for a few seconds, and his eyes gradually filled with anger. “Explain to me what ‘the person with the highest votes dies’ means.”

“It means exactly what it says,” Baiyang said. “Everyone willingly accepts the outcome of the bet. The loser can commit suicide directly, or have someone else do it for them, as long as the goal is achieved. We treat the ‘Participants’ equally—no one is an exception.”

“Have you lost your mind?” the Shar-Pei Dog asked. “Committing ‘suicide’ or being ‘killed’ because of a temporarily decided game… This is completely outside the scope of the contract. If we die, we’re dead—we can never be revived again!”

“So what?” Baiyang asked. “Even if there’s only one ‘Zodiac’ left in this place… it doesn’t really matter.”

“What do you mean ‘so what’…?” The Shar-Pei Dog looked extremely angry. “Every room needs three ‘Zodiacs’ to oversee it, without any exceptions! Once one of us three dies… how will you continue?!”

“That’s hard to say,” Baiyang shook his head. “I feel that you two are useless. I clearly asked ‘that person’ to arrange the strongest teammates for me, but your performance has disappointed me somewhat.”

“What?”

Baiyang turned his face toward the Shar-Pei Dog. “Man-Dog, your game ‘Bamboo Shoots After Rain’ has a good concept, but the hint word is ‘one hundred.’ Are you planning to use just these two characters to make the participants realize they need to ‘turn the table one hundred times to the right’? Isn’t that too far-fetched?”

“Then what’s your suggestion?” the Shar-Pei Dog asked.

“I’ll write ‘one hundred circles’ on the paper,” Baiyang said. “This way, even if they don’t use my method to break through the game, they can still understand they need to turn the table using the hint I gave them.”

“How could that possibly be that easy…” After hearing this, the Shar-Pei Dog said without confidence. “My game is already very difficult… If you do it this way, the game will…”

“But I’m in front of you,” Baiyang said. “If there’s a ‘Participant’ who can organize the remaining eight people to break through my game, it’s impossible for them not to break through your game.”

After saying this, he turned his head to look at the Sheep.

“And you,” Baiyang continued. “Sheep, if someone can really get through mine and Man-Dog’s games—how could they possibly lose in your ‘Death From Above’? Making the floor shatter… can that really kill people?”

After hearing this, the Sheep paused slightly, then said, “How do you know I’ll make ‘the floor shatter’? I’ve never told you about my game, have I? Every time my game is conducted, you should already be dead. Even Man-Dog doesn’t know what my game is about…”

“I guessed,” Baiyang said. “This room has no door now. If we need to leave a way out for the ‘Participants’ to reach the corridor, we’d either have to break through the ceiling or shatter the floor. But breaking through the ceiling is unlikely to cause casualties, so I guessed you shattered the floor, making the ‘Participants’ fall to the next level. This way they have the possibility of ‘falling to their deaths,’ but the enhanced you doesn’t.”

“You…” The Sheep didn’t choose to argue with Baiyang, but instead fell into a state of disbelief.

“Let me keep guessing,” Baiyang continued. “When you’re hosting the game, you’re afraid that everyone will die at this final stage, leading to a complete failure, so you tell them to stand in the center of the room as much as possible and wait for a chance to survive. Although this game has great momentum, it leaves plenty of room for survival. As long as they follow your instructions, they won’t encounter danger.”

After hearing this, the Sheep nodded. “Yes, so what do you think…?”

“In my opinion, I would naturally tell everyone in the rules to stay away from the center of the room. I’ll tell them that death still falls in the center, so please stay as close to the walls as possible,” Baiyang said softly. “Don’t forget, we are ‘Sheep.’ ‘Sheep’ can lie in the rules.”

“But how can this work… There are too few smart people in this world…” the Sheep said somewhat anxiously. “If we lie in the most important rule… they’ll follow the rules and die here.”

“Then that means they can only go this far,” Baiyang interrupted the Sheep. “After all, our room is a bit different from other rooms. Our ‘beginning’ and ‘end’ are both ‘Sheep.’ They can deduce the characteristic of ‘rules lying’ from my game, thereby breaking through your game.”

After hearing Baiyang’s few words, the Sheep clearly fell into deep thought.

Seeing that he had convinced the Sheep, Baiyang asked again, “You two don’t think that as long as we send these ‘Participants’ out, we can complete the task, do you? Do you really want to die in vain every single cycle?”

The Shar-Pei Dog still wanted to argue a few more points at this moment, but was stopped by the Sheep.

“Baiyang… what exactly do you want to do?” the Sheep asked.

“I want to pave the way for myself,” Baiyang said. “I’m planning to raise the strength of the ‘Participants’ in the room as much as possible, making them enter ‘Taoyuan’ in their strongest form and most desperate state of mind. Only this way is it possible to trigger everyone’s ‘Echo.’ And once these people preserve their memories, they’ll gradually get involved in more dangerous games. Only then can we be promoted to ‘Earth-level’ in the fastest time possible.”

As soon as “promoted to Earth-level” was mentioned, the expressions of the Shar-Pei Dog and the Sheep changed.

“Isn’t it fast enough already…?” the Sheep asked. “Our room already has the fastest disappearance rate of ‘Participants’ among all interview rooms… What more do you want…?”

“It’s still not fast enough…” Baiyang said. “My time is limited… I absolutely cannot delay.”