Today, I Have Yet to Become a Doll

After dinner, everyone lingered outside instead of immediately returning to their rooms. The rooms were stuffy, while the outdoors felt open and refreshing.

They chatted leisurely while sorting through their belongings. Teacher Cheng pulled some expired food from the vehicle, his expression pained as he discarded it.

Tan Xiao, however, remained optimistic. He comforted Teacher Cheng, "Autumn is almost here. The corn and millet will definitely be ripe by then. We can just grab a sack from a village, and that'll be enough for us to eat. There are fruit trees on the mountains and fish in the water. We won't starve!"

Teacher Cheng asked, "But what about winter?"

He expected Tan Xiao to suggest gathering more food in the autumn to prepare for winter. Instead, Tan Xiao, as if he hadn't considered it at all, paused, then replied, "We'll worry about winter when we get there."

Although his words were bleak, the way he said them was inexplicably funny, and everyone burst out laughing.

Tan Xiao scratched his head and laughed along with them, looking silly.

Cheng Weicai shook his head and sighed. "I'm worrying over nothing. The immediate challenges before us are the maze and the games. If we can't overcome those, preparing more food is pointless."

The mention of the maze reminded Shen Mo of the five-person team he had encountered.

"When I was coming back, I saw a group of people just exiting the maze. It seems the difficulty level of this maze isn't too high."

Bai Youwei asked curiously, "Why do you say that?"

Shen Mo explained, "They were driving a jeep, and there were five people in it. That jeep can only seat five people at most."

"What about five people?" Tan Xiao didn't understand.

Bai Youwei said, "Five people went in, and five people came out. They cleared the maze without any casualties, so it doesn't seem that difficult."

Tan Xiao suddenly realized, "Oh…"

"Well, not entirely without casualties. One of the women was injured." Shen Mo paused, then added, "They had a gun."

(Author's Note: The word 'qiang' cannot be written, nor can 'baozha,' 'zhadan,' 'zidan.' Otherwise, the chapter will be blocked. Separators don't work either.)

"Could you tell what kind of injury she had?" Bai Youwei asked.

Shen Mo shook his head slightly. "I was too far away to see clearly. I heard them say they wasted an item because of it. I guess there are still some dangers in the maze, but since the five of them made it through okay, we should be able to handle it too."

"Aren't weapons prohibited in the game?" Tan Xiao asked again.

"The maze is different from the game," Cheng Weicai said, then mused to himself, "If only we could ask them what the maze is like inside."

"Are you kidding!" Tan Xiao's eyes widened. "They have a gun! What if they just shoot us full of holes?"

"We don't know if they're friend or foe, so of course we can't just rashly approach them." Teacher Cheng waved his hand. "I was just voicing my thoughts…"

"Even if we asked, there's no guarantee they'd tell us the truth," Bai Youwei said, her lips curling into a sinister smile. "They might even lie to us."

Teacher Cheng still held onto the belief that unity is strength. "If everyone only cares about collecting puzzle pieces for themselves, then when will the puzzle ever be complete? As long as the puzzle isn't complete, the game won't be fully cleared. As the saying goes, 'A thousand people with one mind can achieve the strength of a thousand, but ten thousand people with different minds have the strength of none.'"

"Unfortunately, it's a paradox," Bai Youwei chuckled. "For collecting things, the more people the better, of course. But each puzzle piece grants immunity once, which means no one will want to share unless it's a puzzle piece that has already been used."

Shen Mo paused slightly. "If we could collect puzzle pieces that have already been used…"

Bai Youwei's eyes lit up, understanding his meaning. "It would be twice as effective, wouldn't it?"

URGENT: Our Google Ads account was blocked due to violations. We'd deeply appreciate your support through donations to help us continue our work. Or we won't be able to continue the translations.

ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ

Love what you read?