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墨書 Inktalez
The echo of the metal door slamming shut behind her still reverberated in Su Xia's ears, and her back was already slick with cold sweat. She stared at the blood-soaked bandage on Cheng Ye's neck—left there three hours ago when he had shielded her from falling iron spikes.
"Don't dawdle," Cheng Ye suddenly pulled her down, the iron mesh above grazing his scalp, carrying with it the stench of rust. His oil-stained fingers traced a twisted map on the ground. "The ventilation ducts change direction every fifteen minutes, and the camera in the southwest corner rotates according to..."
Su Xia looked at the veins bulging on the back of his hand and suddenly realized that this man, who always provided precise data at critical moments, might not be a programmer at all. Just like her, she had never revealed her true profession to anyone.
The incandescent lights began to flicker violently, and a mechanical voice shattered the silence: "Please select a sacrifice within five minutes."
The steel cage suspended from the ceiling began to tilt, revealing the unconscious curly-haired girl—who had shared compressed biscuits with everyone just half an hour ago—now trapped inside.
"What the hell!" The Tattooed Strongman kicked over a metal chair, the sound of metal clashing echoing in the circular space. The lizard tattoo on his neck writhed as his muscles tensed. "Draw lots! Whoever gets the shortest one becomes the sacrifice!"
Su Xia saw Cheng Ye's Adam's apple move; his pupils were trembling at a specific frequency behind his glasses. This was the third time she had noticed this detail, like some kind of encrypted Morse code.
As corrosive liquid began to seep from the bottom of the steel cage, she finally understood his lip movements: Ventilation Opening.
"I oppose!" She suddenly raised her arm high, the fluorescent bracelet on her wrist drawing a green arc in the dim light. This was a signal that the audience voting channel had opened, and laughter from the judges surged from all directions: "Looks like our Cinderella wants to be a savior?"
Cheng Ye's pupils constricted sharply. Su Xia could feel the gazes around her pinning her to a moral pyre, but she had bet right—the audience support rate on the live stream instantly soared to 87%.
As the steel cage safely descended and the curly-haired girl was rescued, she clearly saw Cheng Ye tapping out a rhythm on the ground—a universally recognized danger signal. Betrayal came faster than expected.
As the seventh mechanism was activated, the dull thud of Cheng Ye being struck in the back of the head blended almost imperceptibly with the alarm.
Su Xia turned just in time to catch his slipping body, the warmth of his blood seeping through her fingers and into the scar on her palm. The assailant wore a gas mask, but the crescent-shaped burn on his palm was unmistakable—it was the Tattooed Strongman who had suggested drawing lots earlier that day.
"It seems our doctor is about to face a dilemma," the Judge's voice crackled with electrical static, slithering into her ears like a venomous snake.
A medical kit fell from above, landing at her feet. Trembling, Su Xia tore open the gauze, but she heard the man in her arms whispering, "Southeast Corner... third tile..."
Suddenly, she recalled the grip Cheng Ye had on her wrist before he lost consciousness; it was the sensation of him slipping some kind of miniature device into her sleeve. When the audience voting interface reappeared, she stared at the option "Sacrifice a teammate for clues," and suddenly flashed a grim smile at the nearest camera. "Don't you want to see a performance of humanity?"
The entire space plunged into darkness. In the thirty seconds before the backup power kicked in, Su Xia could hear her own frantic heartbeat.
When the lights flickered back on, Cheng Ye was gone from her arms, replaced by the sound of metal scraping from a ventilation duct. The screen for the live stream exploded with blood-red letters spelling "Traitor," while the Tattooed Strongman's screams seeped from some closing mechanism nearby.
"Wonderful!" The Judge's applause sounded like thousands of beetles gnawing at her eardrums. "Let's see what this Angel in White has hidden in her sleeve."
All screens suddenly switched to a close-up of Su Xia's sleeve, where a glimmer of metal could be seen—Cheng Ye had slipped her a miniature signal transmitter.
Squinting under the sudden glare of spotlights, Su Xia felt a searing pain radiate from her wristband. The audience's real-time voting surged dramatically; the progress bar for "Execution" greedily devoured space on the screen.
Staggering back against a wall, she pressed her lower back against a protruding button and heard Cheng Ye's last whispered words echoing in her memory: "When all cameras are aimed at you..."
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