Bai Youwei watched the two men quietly.

The silent atmosphere seemed contagious. All around, not a sound could be heard. Everyone watched Bai Youwei, waiting for her reaction.

Perhaps because Bai Youwei had stared at him for too long, Fang Yu turned his face away and said, “If you don’t believe me, go ask someone else.”

Bai Youwei seemed to suddenly snap back to herself. She clutched her chest as if recovering from a scare, and broke into a smile:

“That startled me — I almost thought for a moment that I was red-eyed! Thank you both!”

She returned to Xu Fang He’s side, let out a long breath, and murmured to herself: “I knew it — I’m definitely yellow-eyed… Voting is about to start, and right at this moment someone says I’m red-eyed. It’s obviously a trap…”

On Xu Fang He’s side, the bespectacled man and the woman in the silk scarf exchanged glances.

The silk-scarf woman said to Bai Youwei: “Let’s head back. These people are all up to no good — there’s no point continuing to listen to their nonsense.”

Bai Youwei nodded. “Right, let’s all go back. They’re so aggressive when they argue — it’s frightening~”

Xu Fang He said slowly: “The game forbids us from using violence — perhaps that was exactly the concern it had in mind…”

The commotion ended there. Everyone returned to their respective rooms to wait for the moment of voting to arrive.

……

Yu Chaohui came to Fang Yu’s room and couldn’t stop himself from asking: “Just now — why did you say her eyes were yellow?”

“Didn’t you go along with it too?” Fang Yu replied with a frown. “The Black man obviously wanted to watch the red team make fools of themselves. The red team already stole one of our people and then lost one in return — they came out even. We can’t very well hand the red team another person, can we?”

Yu Chaohui’s expression twisted with conflicting feelings. “I know… it’s just — her relationship with Commander Shen…”

“It’s fine.” Fang Yu said dismissively. “This is only the preliminaries after all. Losing doesn’t mean death. Besides, the Commander might even thank us — getting her eliminated early saves her from having to compete in the more brutal rounds ahead.”

Yu Chaohui sighed and nodded. “Ah… I suppose you’re right. I just feel… that deceiving her leaves me with a guilty conscience.”

“What else would you have us do?” Fang Yu asked, a note of displeasure in his voice. “Tell her she’s red-eyed, and the red team jumps straight to thirteen members? And then there’s the Black man — he’d definitely come after us for answers! …It’s not that I’m afraid of him, but you have to understand — both our numbers are in his hands.”

When they had been arranging who to vote for, the members of the blue-eyed camp had each told their number to the Black man who led them, to avoid accidentally voting against their own side.

Yu Chaohui said nothing more, only sighed.

……

The preliminary game had begun around ten o’clock in the morning. Eight hours later, the setting sun hung half below the horizon, dyeing the ocean into a blaze of fire, ten thousand streaks of rosy light spreading across the sky.

Bai Youwei heard the sound of bells ringing.

It was the signal summoning everyone to the first round of voting.

She wheeled herself out at an unhurried pace and rolled toward the square. Because of her limited mobility, she naturally fell behind at the back.

By the time she reached the square, the short-haired woman had just emerged from the voting booth.

The other party was apparently still nursing a grudge over Bai Youwei joining the wrong camp. As they passed each other, she muttered “Idiot” under her breath.

“Hey~” Bai Youwei reached out and grabbed her arm, smiling sweetly. “Were you just calling me an idiot?”

Her tone deliberately emphasized the word “me,” as though it carried an implicit threat.

The short-haired woman looked at her with a peculiar expression.

After a moment, she shook off Bai Youwei’s hand and walked back to the red-eyed group with a dark look on her face.

Bai Youwei smiled without concern and wheeled herself into the voting booth—

The sensor door opened and sealed shut again once she entered. In the small cylindrical space, only she remained.

Before her was a display screen showing thirty numbered tiles from 1 to 30.

Per Xu Fang He’s instructions, she was to vote for Number 2.

But strangely, all the numbers were grayed out and unselectable — only Number 1 and Number 9 remained available for selection.

—