While the crowd had yet to recover from the gore-soaked "execution" they had just witnessed, I stole a quick glance toward the center of the room. The bone-white hourglass remained cold and indifferent, fulfilling its duty. The fine, lethal grains of sand flowed steadily - not a heartbeat faster, not a second slower.
I squinted for a closer look. Less than four minutes remained.
Four minutes - a cruelly brief number. It was the fraying boundary between life and the fate of becoming nothing more than heaps of shredded meat beneath that entity's feet.
Another player noticed it too; he let out a shriek, his voice cracking with terror:
-"The clock... Look at the clock! We're running out of time!"
The scream was like a bucket of ice water splashed over everyone's stupor. The space, already thick with the scent of blood, suddenly descended into a different kind of chaos.
-"The problem isn't just one person's sacrifice anymore!" another man bellowed, his face contorted under the pressure. "If no one gives the right answer in the next four minutes, all of us... every single one of us is going to die here!"
Words were easy, but action was an abyss.
After the horrific death of the previous man, the crowd's courage had been utterly pulverized. They were like a stunned flock of sheep watching a wolf tear one of their own apart; everyone wanted to live, yet no one dared to step forward and face An Yue's blood-stained maw.
With every passing second, the hiss of the sand in the bone hourglass sounded like a mocking laugh at our cowardice.
Suddenly, I felt a weight of gazes converging on me. The girl with the strange heterochromatic eyes approached, her voice trembling but carrying a faint, desperate shred of hope:
-"I've noticed you've stayed very calm from the beginning... You're the only one who hasn't panicked. What... what do you think about all this?"
Her question acted like a fuse, causing the desperate eyes around us to swivel toward me. Were they looking for a "savior," or more accurately, searching for the next scapegoat to bet their lives on? In that moment, the air around me felt bone-chillingly cold; the way these people looked at me was intense, as if they wanted to devour me whole.
I looked at An Yue.
She was still slowly feasting on our fear, her tentacles swaying threateningly. In my mind, the fragments of the riddle began to chain together with clarity.
The stillness of the stuffed horse, the glowing red eyes that had just flickered open, and the way the girl clutched it so tightly... everything pointed in a single direction.
I knew that if no one stepped forward now, death would spare no one. Thinking of my frail, ailing mother, I felt the need to be stronger. I wasn't a hero; I was just someone who wanted to survive this insane world. And to live, sometimes one must gamble against the smallest of odds.
I took a deep breath. The pungent, metallic scent of blood filled my lungs, making my mind unnervingly sharp.
I looked into the girl's two-toned eyes, then glanced at Chu Hao Cheng, and replied calmly:
-"I think... I have the answer."
My voice wasn't loud, but in the silent room, it landed with the weight of a thousand-pound hammer hitting still water. Everyone held their breath.
Time seemed to freeze the moment I prepared to step out of the safety zone.
One step, two steps...
Each footfall on the rotting wooden floor felt as heavy as lead.
My heart hammered against my ribs, echoing in my eardrums with a pressurized thud. In this life-and-death moment, the image of my mother's kind face and my loved ones suddenly flashed before me, becoming the only rope pulling me back from the abyss of fear.
I could not afford to fall here.
The closer I got to An Yue, the thicker the atmosphere became.
The stench of fresh blood mingled with the smell of rotting flesh emanating from the slimy tentacles made me nauseous. That scent of death felt as though it wanted to stain my very lungs black.
Seeing me trudging forward, An Yue suddenly moved. The threateningly squirming tentacles abruptly froze, then slowly retracted, vanishing beneath her pallid skin. I held my breath, muscles tensing, thinking she was coiling back for a fatal pounce.
But no, she simply withdrew the monstrous weapons, revealing once again the form of a small, frail child.
Her voice suddenly became melodious, falsely gentle as it rang through the silent room:
-"You want to answer too?"
-"Yes," I replied, my voice firm and decisive, without a trace of a tremor despite my palms being drenched in cold sweat.
The girl tilted her head slightly, and that smile - torn all the way to her ears-reappeared, showcasing the malice hidden behind her innocence:
-"Are you... sure?"
-"I am certain," I affirmed once more, staring directly into her bottomless, pitch-black pupils.
Instantly, all expression vanished from An Yue's face, replaced by a terrifyingly vacant, soul-less look.
Her eyes went dull, and then that mechanical, distorted voice-like a sound from the afterlife-rang out, repeating the exact script that had sent the previous man to his doom:
-"Tell... Me... Your... Answer."
The entire room held its breath. I could feel dozens of eyes boring into my back, filled with both hope and dread. I slowly raised my arm, my fingers no longer shaking. I didn't point at the girl's demonic face, nor did I point at anyone in the crowd.
My finger pointed straight at the massive stuffed horse she was clutching in her arms - the only thing that remained leisurely still amidst this blood-soaked battlefield.
-"The imposter is that. This stuffed horse is the 'something' with four limbs that is masquerading!"