Some people say that life is fundamentally a multiple-choice question: at every single moment, you must make various choices that will lead either to success or to failure.
Two minutes ago, Yan Ao made the most significant choice of his life.
○: Participate in the game, becoming a plaything of the gods to endlessly entertain them.
X: Death.
Hint: Please make your choice within 4 minutes and 44 seconds. Exceeding the time limit will be considered an abstention, and those who abstain shall die.
"Thump, thump..." As Yan Ao made his choice, a series of harsh, popping sounds echoed in his ears. Inside the enclosed shopping mall, one head after another exploded without warning. Flesh, brains, and bone scattered across the floor like graffiti.
Zheng Yunyun, who was standing closest to Yan Ao, let out a piercing scream and fainted. The class monitor, Lei Yuyao, turned pale and collapsed limply onto the ground, a pale yellow, foul-smelling liquid seeping through the crotch of her jeans. Yan Ao's good friend, Lan Zhijie, stood there with a vacant stare, trembling uncontrollably.
Including Yan Ao, the four of them stood dumbfounded in the middle of a pile of corpses. Scattered around them were a few other bystanders, equally pale-faced.
What on earth is happening?
Yan Ao's mind was completely blank; only this single question kept echoing in his mind. He repeatedly asked himself what on earth had happened and why those people had died. His gaze fell upon the corpses. One of them, wearing a blue dress, had lost her head, yet her two smooth calves were still twitching.
Two minutes ago, Yan Ao had been agonizing over when to confess his feelings to her. He never expected that two minutes later, her head would explode right in front of him, looking like a smashed watermelon, her blood mixed with white brain matter spilling all over the floor like ketchup.
With her warm fluids still staining his face, Yan Ao instinctively swallowed hard. His legs went weak, causing him to fall to the ground, and his phone slipped from his hand. The screen emitted a soft white light as the multiple-choice question blurred and vanished, the phone returning to its previous state.
"M-Murder! Help!" After nearly a full minute of silence, screams finally rang out from some of the people around them. Bloodshed, terror, loss of control—all kinds of emotions began to spread. Yan Ao and the other three remained frozen in place, utterly at a loss.
"D-Dead... Xiaoya and the others are dead..." Class monitor Lei Yuyao had finally regained her senses, hugging the unconscious Zheng Yunyun and weeping softly.
"W-We'd better leave quickly. We can't stay here," Lan Zhijie said, unable to bear the air in the place or the pile of headless corpses before them. Even though several of those bodies belonged to their classmates and good friends, he didn't want to stay here another second.
Yan Ao nodded blankly. He wanted to leave, too. Staggering to his feet, he glanced back at Tan Qingya's still-twitching corpse, and with a heavy, complicated heart, he joined Lan Zhijie in supporting the unconscious Zheng Yunyun as they left.
They had originally been on the second floor of the mall. After the incident, the mall's power seemed to have failed; when they reached the ground-floor entrance, several dozen survivors had already gathered at the exits. However, judging from the content of their conversations, the situation was looking rather grim.
"What is going on? When did these doors close? Damn it, open the door, let us out..." A man in a short-sleeved gray shirt was hammering frantically at the mall's iron security gate, his expression ferocious, a hint of anger and panic faintly visible. The other people were equally anxious, stretching their necks as they crowded around the mall's entrance. Endless cursing and crying filled the air, and some people were making calls to the police for help, only to discover with horror moments later that their calls wouldn't go through.
Yan Ao and his group were just as anxious, but because they had to take care of the unconscious Zheng Yunyun, the four of them could only find a corner to wait in, sending Lan Zhijie to scout the situation. Lan Zhijie quickly returned with bad news: all the entrances and exits of the mall had somehow been locked shut, and the eerie part was that everyone had tried every possible method without managing to smash those doors open.
"How could this be? Is there really no one outside who heard us calling for help? Wait, let's call the police first..." Yan Ao said, reaching out to check for his phone, only to grab empty air. It took him a moment to remember that he had dropped his phone in the pool of blood on the second floor.
Just as Yan Ao was debating whether to go back and look for his phone, Lan Zhijie said, "It's no use. No one has any signal, and emergency calls won't go through."
"No... That can't be true?" Lei Yuyao clearly refused to believe it, pulling out her own phone and dialing repeatedly, but the result was the same: the screen displayed "No Service."
In fact, she had already dialed numerous times; she had simply assumed it was a problem with her own phone at first, never expecting that everyone else in the mall was in the same boat.
"Why is this happening? Are Xiaoya and the others really dead... Sob." Lei Yuyao started crying again. Lan Zhijie grew annoyed just listening to her and paced back and forth incessantly.
Yan Ao was still consumed by the reality of Tan Qingya's death, staring in a daze at the people clustered around the mall's exits. After a long while, he ultimately gave up on the idea of returning to the second floor to find his phone—after all, that place was simply too terrifying. Of course, there were plenty of corpses on the ground floor as well. The tragedy had struck so suddenly that no one had even had time to react; these bodies lay sprawled haphazardly across every corner of the mall. Some were shoppers, some were employees, men and women, old people and children only a few years old. Without exception, every single one of them had lost their head and lay in pools of blood.
Yan Ao blankly covered his ears, his mind replaying how several close classmates had gathered together today to discuss tomorrow's graduation trip, never imagining that things would turn out like this.
Xu Ming, Zhou Kai, Li Peipei, Shen Yan, and... Tan Qingya. They were all dead. "How could this happen? What on earth is going on?" Yan Ao kept repeating this question in his heart until another commotion erupted from the crowd ahead.
The massive advertising screen on the first floor of the mall suddenly lit up, displaying a set of options formed from eerie, blood-red text.
○: Survivors are requested to gather in the first-floor atrium.
X: Stay where you are and wait for death.
Hint: Please make your choice within 4 minutes and 44 seconds. Exceeding the time limit will be considered an abstention, and those who abstain shall die.
Seeing this, Yan Ao's eyes widened slightly. He remembered now: just a few minutes ago, a similar set of options had appeared on his phone.
A fierce sense of crisis washed over him, and his heart began to pound wildly. Without a second thought, Yan Ao stood up and said to the others, "Quick, let's go to the first-floor atrium." Lan Zhijie naturally saw the options on the big screen as well, but he didn't think as deeply as Yan Ao; he just looked at Yan Ao in bewilderment. "What are we going to the atrium for?"
Yan Ao had no time to explain. He bent down directly to lift the unconscious Zheng Yunyun, speaking urgently as he walked. "Let's move, we don't have time."
Though he didn't know what Yan Ao was up to, trust in his companion made Lan Zhijie snap out of it and hurry over to help. As for Lei Yuyao, despite crying so bitterly a moment ago, her reaction upon seeing the option on the big screen was even more dramatic than Yan Ao's—she simply abandoned her good friend Zheng Yunyun altogether and bolted upright, running away.
Yan Ao didn't have the luxury of time to blame her, because if they didn't hurry, death was the only outcome left.