Chapter 50: The Little Bear Knocks on the Door

The next second, as the dim, yellowish lights all flared on, not a single eye remained on the walls; everything from just a moment ago felt like a mere illusion.

Except that this originally empty room now possessed four doors.

"Hahaha..." It emitted a sharp laugh, though one could easily tell from the sound that it was in a very good mood.

"The rules of the game are simple. We will draw lots to decide who the little bear is."

"The remaining four people will hide inside the rooms, and the little bear will knock on any door of their choosing. Once the person inside opens the door..."

"They become the new little bear and continue knocking on the doors."

Li Luyan sensed that something was amiss. If the little bear knocked on a door and replaced the person inside, then this game would be endless, stretching on infinitely with no way out.

"Then what is the endgame?" She gently stroked her chin with one hand. Clearly, looping endlessly in this world was not a good choice.

It licked its dry lips, staring at Li Luyan with a meaningful smile. "Guess?" Its gaze was akin to someone looking at a sweet cake, waiting eagerly to devour it at any moment.

She offered no reply. The monster's intentions were blatantly obvious; it was toying with them like a cat playing with a mouse.

It wanted to wait until she became the little bear—the cat—only to knock on one of the doors, devour the person inside, and then assume their role to knock on the next door.

Clearly, it could not be allowed to draw the little bear in the first round. Conversely, the player who drew the little bear must not choose "it" behind the door; once the monster became the little bear, the consequences would be identical to the former scenario.

It would knock on the doors one by one, devour them one by one, and only then would the game end.

The game presented on the surface was actually nothing more than a prelude to a feast.

How scheming. Only something with this level of high intelligence could be truly interesting.

Li Luyan's gaze drifted among the four doors. The corners of her lips curved upward slightly, and her fingertips tapped lightly against the outside of her thigh, as if calculating something.

Rather than being dragged out and dealt with in the first round, it was far better to willingly become the hunter. As long as she was careful enough to keep the monster trapped inside a room while she played the little bear, she could slowly search for a way to break the game.

"Drawing lots?" she spoke up abruptly, her voice cool and clear. "Why not let me be the first 'little bear'?"

It licked its lips and let out a malicious laugh. It seemed this prey wanted to stall for time. Although it enjoyed... playing the slow game of cat and mouse.

Rules were rules, however... only bad children disrupted the rules.

"No... we must draw lots." The next second, it produced a blood-stained iron can from nowhere, inside of which were five neatly folded pieces of paper. "Blank ones are humans... the ones with a smiling face drawn on them are the bear."

***

Once everyone else had finished drawing, Li Luyan picked up the final piece. She unfolded it to find a distorted smiling face drawn in red ink.

"How terribly sorry... I am the 'bear'." She smiled.

"That is truly a pity..." It feigned regret and pouted, though the excitement in its voice was impossible to conceal. "Then the game begins... the little bear will close her eyes and count to ten, and the humans will hide in the rooms."

"Good children must not peek, oh."

Li Luyan closed her eyes. She felt her senses being blocked, unable to hear a thing, as if an invisible pair of giant hands were pressing tightly over her ears.

"Three..."

"Two..."

"One..."

When she opened her eyes once more, her senses returned to her as well. This monster possessed such a trick as well? Interesting as it was, winning would certainly prove difficult.

Yet Li Luyan had never known defeat.

She stood in place and spun around, beginning to appraise the four doors. Externally, the four doors were identical—identical wooden doors, identical bloodstains.

The only difference was the distinct patterns painted upon them: a landscape of mountains and rivers, the moon, the sun, and an eye, respectively.

Fundamentally, there was no real distinction, but would Lin Youwei choose the moon? Her divine nature.

She placed her hand upon the door of the moon, feeling the temperature and texture of the wooden door, yet she did not push it open.

Could Lin Youwei be behind this door?

She felt her blood begin to boil, her entire body trembling. How exhilarating... she was moments away from deciphering the outcome.

Without hesitation, she withdrew her hand, setting aside the question of whether Lin Youwei was behind this particular door.

She walked toward the door bearing the eye. There was a high probability that the monster was not behind this one; its defining feature was precisely the eye.

Based on human psychology, it would surely assume she predicted the eye would be behind this door and would therefore push a different one, making the chance of pushing the door that actually held it much higher.

Li Luyan pushed the door open without hesitation. Yu Yue was inside. She lowered her voice and said, "Do not push open the door where 'it' resides."

The next second, the world spun, and everyone was transported back to the center, seemingly teleported by it.

***

"Ah... it appears we have caught a new little bear." It clapped its pale hands, its dark fingernails nearly ten centimeters long, looking thoroughly repulsive. "Then the game continues..."

As the little bear began to close her eyes, she headed toward the room painted with the 'eye', but the scheming 'it' stepped in and entered the room first.

Before closing the door, it shot her a derisive look, as if saying, 'You're dead!'

Now only one room remained—the room painted with mountains and rivers. She walked inside.

This room was considerably larger than the eye room, roughly three times the size. The walls were adorned with paintings of green mountains and flowing rivers; if created before the apocalypse, such landscape paintings would be the work of a master.

She pressed her hand against the wall. A strange sensation first traveled into her fingers and then exploded upward within her mind, instantly conjuring fragmented images in her consciousness...

Like riding a rollercoaster, a crowd of men and women in diverse attire surrounded a woman glowing with golden light. She tried to make out the woman's face, sensing a deep familiarity about her.

The next second, the image shattered like glass. Li Luyan clutched her head as those shattered fragments pierced deeply into the recesses of her mind like sharp needles, bringing a sensation of tearing pain...

The Crystal of Destiny within her spatial storage let out a mournful wail, and the next instant, it tore through space on its own, squeezing out from a spatial fissure.

Acting as though it possessed a life of its own, it attached itself to the mural. A burst of golden light erupted, and the imagery on the mural gradually faded... until it vanished entirely.

"Is it protecting me?" Li Luyan widened her eyes, catching the fully sated Crystal of Destiny as it fell from the wall. "Thank you..." she murmured softly before returning the crystal to her spatial storage.

The true original appearance of the entire room was finally revealed.

There were no murals left; the entire room was dilapidated, the walls covered in cyan mold, with patches of peeling, aged plaster that could rival the girls' dormitory at an old campus.

Even the entire room drifted with a musty, decaying odor.

She seemed to have found the way to break the game. The original wooden door had transformed into a green iron door.

It appeared this monster primarily relied on creating illusions to deal with them, and pushing open this wooden door was the key to breaking the game.

She took a deep breath and shoved the iron door open with all her might.

Gazing out at the scene beyond the door.