When the overhead broadcast announced that Test Subject 1513 had eliminated the first member of [Four Faces of Confusion], Bai Chunian contacted Lu Yan again.
“Press close. Then press the third-floor button.”
Lu Yan pressed A1. The B1 elevator doors shut and slowly descended from the fifth floor to the third. “Then what?”
Bai Chunian asked, “Are the three little omegas from Team ‘Is There an A’ still there?”
Lu Yan replied, “Right next to us.”
“Have that sea spider omega take my loudspeaker, walk across the corridor to Building B, turn on the playback button, and throw it into the B1 elevator.”
Lu Yan hesitated. “He’s going. What’s the sea spider for?”
Bai Chunian moved the earpiece slightly away from his ear. “He looked braver than the others.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a hysterical scream erupted over the sea spider omega’s channel. Bai Chunian rubbed his ear. “Louder than I expected.”
The sea spider omega collapsed against the wall outside the B1 elevator, clutching the loudspeaker with both hands, trembling violently. His muscles were so rigid his legs would not support him.
When the elevator doors had slowly slid open, what greeted him was a wash of red. The entire elevator interior was sprayed with the stench of blood. Small chunks soaked in thick gore—shredded bone and flesh chewed apart, fragments of skull bitten into pieces. Two eyeballs, no longer supported, had slipped from their sockets and hung suspended by a few strands of blood vessels, swaying slightly with the elevator’s vibration. Suddenly, the strands snapped, and the eyeballs rolled out of the elevator.
A shredded silver team uniform lay scattered in the corners. A blood-soaked nameplate bearing the words “Ghost-Search Squad” lay discarded on the floor.
Bai Chunian’s voice came calmly through the communicator. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just He Wenxiao’s corpse from the Ghost-Search Squad.”
Suppressing the bile rising in his throat, the sea spider omega stiffly turned on the loudspeaker and threw it into the elevator before scrambling up and fleeing unsteadily.
The loudspeaker began looping a prerecorded message Bai Chunian had prepared:
“Refrigerators, televisions, washing machines, electric fans—repairing range hoods, repairing gas stoves…”
After receiving confirmation that the sea spider omega had completed the task, Bai Chunian told Lu Yan to close the doors and press the fifth floor again.
The B1 elevator, carrying the continuously blaring loudspeaker, returned to the fifth floor and slowly opened.
Lu Yan had been stationed at A1 the whole time, pressing buttons. Slightly confused, he asked, “Down, then up—what exactly are we doing?”
The examinees inside had gone nearly forty-eight hours without food or water. Bai Chunian was no exception. His throat was dry, and he was too tired to explain in detail.
Earlier, while the Snake Woman had been devouring He Wenxiao’s not-yet-fully-petrified corpse, Bai Chunian had instructed Lu Yan to close the elevator doors, trapping the monster inside B1. He sent it up to the fifth floor of Building B, opened the doors to release it to wipe out Team Four Faces of Confusion, then lured it back into the elevator with the loudspeaker and locked it in again.
Leaning back, Bai Chunian closed his eyes for a brief rest. From the distant Building B, the faint, noisy loop of the loudspeaker suddenly cut off—likely because the Snake Woman had returned to the elevator and destroyed it.
“Close the door,” Bai Chunian instructed Lu Yan. “Send Big Brother to the nineteenth floor of Building B to clear out the other two allied teams.”
In less than five minutes, the Mad Dog Team and the Dare-to-Hit-Your-Dad Team, who had been hiding on the nineteenth floor of Building B, were completely wiped out by Snake Woman. Just like that—without shedding a drop of their own blood, without lifting a finger—three top-ten teams were eliminated in succession. The field was cleared.
Snake Woman was still wandering the nineteenth floor of Building B. At this point, the exam could have ended. The rankings and scores were already decided.
Lu Yan pulled the aelerant hallucinogen from his pocket, looking a little regretful. “We haven’t even used this thing yet. Looks like the Ghost-Search Squad got one too. Did everyone get one?”
“Hmph.” Bai Chunian scoffed. “When we grabbed ours, the rack next to it was already empty.”
Lu Yan curiously fiddled with the injector gun. “You think this might be the monster’s weakness? One shot and it can’t move?”
“Little rabbit, your school teaches English, right? Did you only memorize the word abandon and forget the rest that start with A?” Bai Chunian scolded through the communicator. “If I remember correctly, aelerant means stimulant—an accelerator. If you inject Snake Woman with that, it’ll hit maturity instantly. Then it’ll start swallowing you little kids whole and bite your head off.”
Bi Lanxing coughed lightly. “Brother Chu, don’t scare him.”
The Ghost-Search Squad captain contacted Bai Chunian. “We’re still inside the C2 elevator on the fourteenth floor. Help us press the open-door button outside.”
“Mm. I’ve sent a little omega to pick you up.” Bai Chunian added another reminder, “Don’t use that AC hallucinogen you’re holding. Skip that mission. I don’t want you finishing the exam with psychological trauma.”
“Alright. We’ll listen to you.”
Behind the three research institute buildings was the coastline. A little over a hundred meters to the south stood a marine observation base, about twenty stories tall, crowned with a massive honeycomb-like structure—highly stylized in design.
By now, the sky was fully bright. Sunlight reflected sharply off the honeycomb glass at the top of the base. Bai Chunian raised a hand to block the glare, and from the corner of his eye he caught a brief flash of circular reflection on the rooftop across the way.
He suddenly stood up, grabbed the M25 sniper rifle at his feet, and peered through the high-magnification scope at the figure on the rooftop.
The familiar face remained cold and detached—the greyhound omega he had toyed with and let go earlier. The omega held a crossbow fitted with an injection dart. The dart was not aimed at Bai Chunian, but at a higher floor slightly above him.
Bai Chunian’s expression changed instantly. He vaulted over the computer desk and dropped to the window. The moment his crosshairs aligned with the greyhound omega’s head, he fired. A lightning-fast snap shot—headshot. The powerful round exploded the upper left side of the omega’s skull into a spray of blood.
But the crossbow bolt had already been released.
The greyhound, struck in the head, swayed and fell from the rooftop. Blood covered his cool, indifferent face, yet he smiled at Bai Chunian—a smile of vengeance fulfilled.
[Just Shooting Around] Bai Chunian eliminated [The Wind Howls] Xiao Xun.
As the kill announcement sounded, the computer in the lobby emitted a warning tone:
Test Subject 1513 successfully injected with aelerant hallucinogen.
Test Subject 1513 accelerating growth…
Incubation phase ending in five seconds.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One—
Test Subject 1513 Snake Woman has awakened to maturity. High alert! High alert!
“Xiao Xun.” Bai Chunian gripped the sniper rifle tightly. “You really are a bastard.”