Chapter 42 - 42 Zhang Hua’s Props
The group had nearly finished their discussion, and Jin Qiu also leisurely emerged from the muck, a mischievous delight permeating from his artfully whimsical childlike voice—
“Current game failure, 13 players are alive, now we are entering the fourth round ‘The Frog’s Golden Ball’. Please prepare yourselves, players! The countdown to one minute begins. 59, 58, 57…”
After several bouts of shock and fear, they were unknowingly already in the fourth round.
The survivors had dwindled from 33 to 13 people.
Shen MO picked up Bai Youwei, preparing to hide her back in the shell.
However, Bai Youwei gently tugged at his shirt corner and whispered in his
ear: “Go over there.”
She pointed in a direction.
Shen MO raised his brow slightly, “Why?”
“I want to keep my distance from him.” Bai Youwei said, “That Zhang Hua, he might go mad.”
Upon hearing this, Shen MO looked back only to see a dense pile of field snails in the muck. He couldn’t tell where Zhang Hua was hiding in the confusion. However, knowing Bai Youwei, he understood she wasn’t one to speak randomly.
It would be good to change positions.
Getting further away took more time. By the time Shen MO placed Bai Youwei inside a snail shell, the countdown was nearly over.
He stood still without haste, watching the golden ball up high.
He had his own approach.
The condition for clearing the game was to find the golden ball, which now posed two major challenges: 1, insufficient time; 2, the scope was hard to determine.
He had tried narrowing down the area as much as possible through the splashes’ positions, but the short timeframe would only be solved by killing the frog.
Given the last attack, killing the frog wasn’t impossible. The frog’s skin was thin, easily torn off by a trivial injury. However, the knife was too small, making it difficult to inflict a deeper wound.
What were the frog’s weak points? …The eyes? The belly?
While mulling it over, the countdown ended, and Jin Qiu began to bounce “energetically” around the cave once more.
While everyone else avoided the ball, only Shen MO chased after it. When the ball stopped, Tan Xiao, Hui Ge, and others quickly followed Shen Mo’s lead and searched for traces of the golden ball in the mushy mud.
Jin Qiu was very cunning. Each time, it would create sixty or seventy muddled mud holes to confuse everyone. Even when Shen MO narrowed down the range, searching a dozen or so holes was still quite laborious!
Professor Cheng, despite his old age and weak limbs, rose from the snail shells and joined them in their search.
He looked while calling for others to come out and help.
For such a task, the more people, the quicker they would find it. Consequently, some more people crawled out of the snail shells and joined the search for the golden ball.
But the time was still not enough, only 20 seconds, merely 20 seconds! After 20 seconds, the mud pit began to tremble, indicating the frog was coming again!
The only consolation was that Zhang Hua had guessed it! This time, the frog wasn’t coming as fast as in the last round, but it recovered its slow pace, leisurely rolling out from the soggy mud—
Shen Mo’s pupils abruptly contracted.
He saw that the frog’s back was oily, shiny, and green, completely intact!
“Damn it!” Tan Xiao saw it too and cursed, “How did it heal?!”
Everyone started cursing and turned to flee.
However, another sudden change happened!
A gunshot rang out! — Yes, a gunshot! It exploded in the cave. The people who had just reached the edge of the snail shells couldn’t stop their legs. They missed their “refuge” and kept running forward!
There were groans and curses all over the ground. The panicked people had no idea what had just happened. Even after tripping, they could not control their flailing legs!
Mud and water splattered around as the overjoyed frog started its feast!
Shen MO was the first person to stop running. He rolled behind a large field snail, his fingers tightly gripping the rim of the snail shell as he forcefully suppressed the urgent thought to run in his mind!
He then turned his head to look at Bai Youwei!
Bai Youwei had also heard the gunshot. However, being differently-abled, no matter how strong the urge to run, she couldn’t take even half a step.
At this moment, she slid out of the snail shell, sitting near the edge, trying to see what was happening outside. When she glanced, she found Shen MO staring at her.
She shook her head at him and placed the toy gun on her chest, the meaning was clear: I was not the one who fired the gun..