The End of Ten Days

Qi Xia turned the table with great effort while explaining, "The positions of Ningxia and Shandong can form a horizontal line."

"Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, and Yunnan can form a diagonal stroke."
"And the four points of Guangxi, Guangdong, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu can form a square, which is the character for 'right'."
"No matter where Han Yimo’s hometown is, as long as it’s in Guangxi or Taiwan, it will form the character 'mouth'. So the answer was determined from the start."

As everyone sped up their movements, they cast strange glances at Qi Xia.
His reasoning was too unconventional, yet he had solved the puzzle twice in a row. This made everyone begin to doubt him.
Qi Xia himself realized this and spoke up, "Don’t misunderstand me. If the next game involves sacrificing you all to save myself, I wouldn’t hesitate to do so."

Hearing this, everyone fell silent, gritting their teeth as they continued to turn the table.
Nine people sat around the table, constantly rotating it to the right.
"How many turns have we made?" Qiao Jiajin asked.

"Twenty-six," Lin Qin replied.
"You can keep count?" Qiao Jiajin blinked in surprise. "The table looks the same every turn."
"I’m counting based on the bloodstains on the table," Lin Qin said seriously. "Counting is important for us psychologists."

Qi Xia frowned. "We’re not even at thirty turns yet. We need to hurry."
Everyone quieted down and sped up their movements.
But the table became harder to move as they went on, as if the internal chains were tightening.

"What the hell is going on?" Qiao Jiajin gritted his teeth. "This is way too heavy."
"Keep going… Maybe it really is connected to the door!" Tian Tian said through clenched teeth.
Her words gave everyone a glimmer of hope amidst their despair.

The door.
If this room could create holes out of thin air, why couldn’t it create a door?
Everyone’s arms were sore, but they kept turning the table, one rotation at a time.
"Don’t give up! Just five more turns!" Lin Qin shouted.

At this moment, everyone was gritting their teeth, pouring all their strength into the task. No one dared to slack off.
Click, click.
As the final turn was completed, the table clearly locked into something.

Everyone finally let out a sigh of relief, the soreness in their arms gradually setting in.
There were only three minutes left until 1:15.
"Where’s the door?!" Qiao Jiajin shouted anxiously.

The walls around them remained unchanged, and the cold gleam of harpoons could still be seen in the dark voids.
"Damn it! There’s no door!" Qiao Jiajin’s voice carried a hint of despair.
"We were wrong! We guessed wrong!" Xiao Ran screamed. "We should’ve turned it to the left, right?! We shouldn’t have trusted that liar! We’re all going to die here!!"

Qi Xia frowned slightly…
Wrong?
Before anyone could react, the clock in the center of the table began to act strangely.

It trembled slightly, then emitted eight laser beams.
The eight lasers shot out from the clock, gradually moving to the edges of the table and stopping.
To everyone’s confusion, the clock precisely divided the table into nine equal-sized sectors, like a pizza.

Crash!
With a loud noise, the table shattered into pieces.
The clock in the center now stood on a small wooden stump.

Time was too tight, and everyone was in a panic.
"What is this?" Han Yimo exclaimed. "Why did the table break?"
Officer Li, noticing that each sector of the table had a handle on the back, immediately understood due to his professional experience.

"They’re shields!"
He picked up a sector and held it in front of himself.
"We can use these shields to block the harpoons!"

Hearing this, everyone quickly grabbed their own table sectors.
But within seconds, they realized a problem.
"How are we supposed to block them?!" Lawyer Zhang Chenze rarely showed a hint of panic. "If harpoons are coming from all directions, we can only block one side."

"We need to cooperate," Qi Xia said, coming to his senses. "We’ll form a circle and cover each other’s backs."
Hearing this, everyone quickly adjusted their positions and waited quietly.
At this moment, the only sound was their breathing.

Nine strangers had now become teammates, each indispensable.
Qi Xia glanced back at Han Yimo and noticed the writer was covered in sweat, trembling all over, clearly extremely nervous.
A distant bell rang outside the room.

"Are you okay?" Qi Xia asked.
"I-I’m fine…" Han Yimo shook his head.
"Hey! Dr. Zhao, flip your sector over!" Zhang Chenze suddenly said.

"Why?" Dr. Zhao looked at his sector, which was pointed downward, with the wide end facing up.
"You can’t cover my legs like that!" Zhang Chenze said nervously. "I’ll get hit!"
"If I flip it, I can’t cover my head!" Dr. Zhao retorted. "Which is more important, the head or the legs?"

Some people, hearing their argument, found Dr. Zhao’s reasoning convincing and began flipping their sectors.
Pointed end down, wide end up.
This created a bizarre situation.

Harpoons coming from all directions would only be blocked in the upper half, leaving everyone’s legs exposed.
"Is this really the right way?" Xiao Ran hesitated. "Even if we can hide our legs under the pointed end and block the front, what about harpoons coming from behind? Or from above?"
"I’ll cover the top!" Officer Li raised his sector. "Everyone, get closer. I’ll protect you."

Lin Qin quickly thought it over and said, "The rest of us can arrange our sectors in an alternating pattern, covering each other!"
"Right! That makes sense!" Qiao Jiajin agreed.
"No," Qi Xia interrupted. "If everyone’s sectors are perpendicular to the harpoons, they’ll be too easy to penetrate…"

"Then what do you suggest, smart guy?" Qiao Jiajin asked.
Qi Xia’s gaze fell on the sheepskin mask on the ground.
"Why aren’t bamboo shoots afraid of the rain?"

The last hint made Qi Xia ponder.
"Wait, wait… give me a bit more time," Qi Xia frowned.
Everyone held their breath as the seconds ticked by. Only one minute remained until the harpoons would fire.

"Forget him!" Dr. Zhao snapped. "Let’s just follow Lin Qin’s plan and arrange them in an alternating pattern!"
"Shut up, you idiot!" Qiao Jiajin shouted. "I believe what the liar says."
"You!" Dr. Zhao gritted his teeth and swallowed his words.

"Got it!" Qi Xia’s eyes widened. "Everyone, point the sharp ends upward!"
Though some were skeptical, most people’s minds were blank, so they followed his instructions.
Dr. Zhao thought for a moment, then flipped his sector as well.

"Everyone, crouch down!" Qi Xia continued. "Move the sharp ends back and press them together. Officer Li, you don’t need to cover the top anymore. Join us!"
Under Qi Xia’s direction, everyone arranged their sectors side by side, forming a cone.
No one had expected that all the sectors would fit together perfectly, blocking all directions, including the top.

From a distance, the cone resembled a bamboo shoot, waiting for a rainstorm.
In the dark space, everyone’s hearts pounded with tension, the only sound being their breathing.
"It’s coming…"

Qi Xia calculated the time and softly warned everyone.
The next second, they heard the sound of something slicing through the air, followed by a loud impact on Qi Xia’s sector.
Then, the sound of harpoons came from all directions like a storm.

The force of the harpoons was astonishing, and everyone felt their arms go numb from the impact, nearly losing their grip on the sectors.
Fortunately, all the sectors were pressed together, creating a delicate balance.
"Ah!"

A harpoon pierced through Xiao Ran’s sector, causing her to scream.
Qi Xia turned and saw the harpoon had stopped just two or three centimeters from Xiao Ran’s eye.
Thankfully, the sector was sturdy enough, or Xiao Ran would have been dead by now.

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