What malicious intent could NPCs possibly have? C42.2

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Chp42. part2

One person had shaken their device sixty-five times—three times the normal amount—making it impossible for it to have been an accidental mistake.

This time, only the three who had shaken the most received a Little Red Flower; everyone else got nothing.

The crowd fell silent, and some began to cry softly.

Teacher Wu’s face turned pale as he stepped into the center of the group.

“Listen to me, everyone. If none of you shake more than the required amount, you’ll all survive. But don’t be afraid, there’s still a chance. It’s not too late to turn back now. In the last round, three of you received an extra Little Red Flower. But that’s okay.”

Teacher Wu tried to soften his tone and patiently explained the situation in detail.

“Because the rankings can be tied, if everyone shakes exactly twenty times in each subsequent round, you’ll all receive the same number of Little Red Flowers. By the end of the game, those three will tie for first place with the extra flower, while the rest of you will tie for second place. Everyone will survive.”

No one spoke.

Teacher Wu pondered for a moment. “How about this: if you all trust me, after you finish shaking your pedometers, hand them over to me for safekeeping…”

Before he could finish, a Masked Man behind him suddenly spoke up, “During the competition, pedometers must remain on your own wrists.”

This plan wouldn’t work.

Still not turning to face the Masked Men, Teacher Wu cleared his slightly hoarse throat and forced a smile at the entire carriage. “Twenty shakes per person. You still have time to turn back now.”

The next round began.

From the start, something felt wrong.

Ning Ge heard a man in a denim jacket curse ahead of her. “What twenty? Fuck that! We were just going easy on you, and now you’re going all out? You think I can’t out-shake you in a real contest?”

With a flick of his arm, he began shaking his pedometer wildly, like a motor running at full throttle.

His actions set off a chain reaction. The others exchanged panicked glances before also picking up their pace.

While many still tried to follow the rules, unwilling to shake more than necessary, the number of people forced to speed up grew steadily.

Panic filled the entire carriage.

Everyone watched each other, and as they saw others shaking their pedometers faster and faster, their own hands involuntarily sped up. Finally, everyone was shaking their small pedometers with all their might, frantically.

The alliance had completely collapsed.

Ning Ge noticed that among the crowd, only Teacher Wu wasn’t shaking his pedometer. He looked around in bewilderment, his face filled with despair as he stared at the frenzied, flailing arms surrounding him.

Ning Ge averted her gaze, silently holding her pedometer still.

She had started too late; there was no way she could squeeze into the top three. Without a top-three finish, she wouldn’t get the Little Red Flower, making her efforts pointless. She might as well rest.

Pei Han and Owen also stood still, observing the scene.

The faces of those around them were contorted in agony.

This was vastly different from the previous rounds, where people had only shaken their pedometers dozens of times. To shake theirs relentlessly for five full minutes, their arms felt like they no longer belonged to them.

Someone in the front was weeping softly. “Both my arms have been broken before. I can’t shake this fast.”

The five-minute countdown ended.

The Masked Man began tallying the results one by one, announcing the numbers in a cold, emotionless voice, his eyes behind the mask devoid of warmth.

The numbers reported this time suddenly jumped dozens of times. Many people reached over 800, while the man in the denim jacket stood out, approaching 1000.

The top three finishers each received a Little Red Flower.

It wasn’t the same three people as before.

Interestingly, when the competition reached its peak, the person who had broken the agreement at the start didn’t win.

They had simply exploited the loophole when most people weren’t competing at full strength. In the long run, breaking the agreement wouldn’t benefit them, because as the competition intensified, someone would eventually surpass them.

Yet they had dragged the entire carriage onto a sinking ship they couldn’t escape.

Now, six people had one more Little Red Flower than the others.

Owen laughed. “Is this what they call ‘involution’? I miss the days when everyone only shook 20 times. What’s the point of all this frantic shaking? Everyone’s exhausted to the bone. They could all live fine without this competition. Are they stupid?”

“They’re not stupid at all,” Ning Ge replied. “In fact, they’re a little ‘too’ clever.”

Pei Han said, “The only way to avoid this situation is through an alliance, but the current alliance is too fragile. To ensure everyone adheres to the pact, we can only…”

He made a throat-slitting gesture.

The Masked Man likely wouldn’t intervene in players slaughtering each other; he might even welcome it.

However, Teacher Wu was clearly not the type to resort to murder to maintain order. Pei Han could only watch in anguish as the teacher’s plan to keep everyone in the carriage alive collapsed spectacularly.

He muttered, “I hope in every subsequent round, a new person gets a Little Red Flower…”

Ning Ge understood his meaning.

If new people kept winning Little Red Flowers in each round, they would all tie for first place, while the others would tie for second. In that scenario, everyone in the carriage could still survive.

But the man in the denim jacket was rubbing his hands together, his expression one of determined ambition.

If he won another flower this round, he would have two more than anyone else, placing him first. Those who had won one extra flower would tie for second, and everyone else would fall to third.

This was the last possible arrangement that could save everyone.

But the rounds were far from over.

There were eight rounds of competition in total, with four remaining. If, in the next four rounds, the ranking shifted by one tier—with some gaining three extra Little Red Flowers, others two, and still others one—while most of the rest received no additional flowers, they would all die.

Teacher Wu also foresaw this outcome, his face turning deathly pale.

Ning Ge squeezed the two Little Red Flowers everyone had been given.

In this seemingly peaceful train carriage, playing the easiest game to pass was paradoxically the closest she had come to being thrown off the train since boarding.

Only two ways remained to survive:

One was to confront the Masked Man head-on. The second was to risk cheating right under the Masked Man’s nose.

The Masked Man stood by the door, separated from Ning Ge by the crowded throng. Any small movement would go unnoticed.

Since there were no better options, she decided to try.

Ning Ge looked up at Pei Han and reached for his hand through the crowd.

He was also reaching for her.

Their hands clasped, the small pedometer hidden in their palms.

They had both had the same idea. They met each other’s eyes and smiled.

Pei Han took her pedometer, steadied her by the shoulder, and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

He acted out the intimate gestures between them so convincingly that Ning Ge couldn’t tell anything was amiss. His large hands held both pedometers without any difficulty.

Not content with just fooling Ning Ge, Pei Han turned and mouthed to Owen, “Me or you?”

“Are we really competing?” Owen rolled up his sleeves, rubbed his hands together, and breathed on the pedometer in his hand. “Bring it on. Let’s see who wins.”

Pei Han threatened him, “If you don’t make it into the top three, I’ll throw you out of the carriage.”

“Not make the top three?” Owen chuckled softly. “I just don’t feel like trying. These losers aren’t worth the effort.”

A ding sounded over the broadcast, signaling the start of the next round.

This time, Pei Han truly started shaking the pedometer seriously, his movements so fast they were terrifying. His arm blurred into a phantom image, and Ning Ge felt like his joints were about to smoke.

Owen was fast too, but not as fast as Pei Han.

He glanced at Pei Han and muttered, “No wonder you’ve been single for so many years…”

He abruptly cut himself off, remembering Ning Ge was right beside him, and swallowed the rest of his lewd remark.

Ning Ge also grabbed at the air, pretending to shake it vigorously while watching the others.

After the frantic five minutes, everyone was utterly exhausted. Their movements were far slower than in the previous round, but they had to keep shaking the contraption or they wouldn’t survive.

As Owen had said, if everyone simply shook it twenty times, they’d all live. Instead, they were pushing themselves and each other to the brink.

Just before the countdown ended, Pei Han discreetly returned the pedometer to Ning Ge.

She took it and saw the insane number: 1,257.

She shook it a bit more, bringing the count close to 1,300.

Pei Han continued shaking vigorously, pushing his count past 1,400.

Owen, surprisingly strong, also managed to reach 1,130.

Unsurprisingly, Ning Ge, Pei Han, and Owen each secured a Little Red Flower.

This was Ning Ge’s plan, and Pei Han’s plan too.

The only way to turn the tide now was through complete domination and suppression.

Over the next three rounds, they had to maintain their top three positions, securing all the Little Red Flowers and leaving none for anyone else.

This would put the three of them in a three-way tie for first place, with the six people who had earned an extra Little Red Flower in the earlier rounds ranking second, and everyone else tied for third. All participants would pass.

In the next two rounds, Pei Han repeated his strategy, ensuring all three of them secured Little Red Flowers again.

As the final round began, a man in front of them frantically shook his pedometer, desperate to earn an extra Little Red Flower, while glaring enviously at Pei Han and the others.

“How could they possibly have gotten so many?” he shouted. “They must be cheating!”

Teacher Wu, who had been silent until now, finally snapped.

“Idiot! They’re saving you all!” he roared.

Teacher Wu’s mind remained sharp.

But he only grasped half the truth.

These people were too unreliable to be trusted.

Ning Ge and the other two had to secure all the Little Red Flowers to maintain their first-place position and ensure their survival. Even if others managed to earn some flowers, there was no need to worry.

Moreover, this strategy would ensure everyone in the carriage passed.

Two birds with one stone.

But the argument between the man and Teacher Wu drew the attention of the Masked Men.

One of the Masked Men glanced at them, then turned to fix his gaze on Pei Han and the others. After a moment, he pushed through the crowd and began walking toward them.

She couldn’t let Pei Han continue shaking for her.

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