Kicked Back into the Abyss of Despair

At that, even the Red-robed Cult Master couldn't hold back a snort of laughter.

Everyone looked at Chen Muzi with mocking amusement.

Seeing this, cold sweat poured from Chen Muzi's tense forehead.

Could these guys be teaming up to screw me over?

But there was no way I could find any clues in that guy's question.

There weren't any clues in the question at all, were there?

Why was everyone laughing?

Why were they all laughing...

When Chen Muzi saw Qin Shang's calm expression, he suddenly bared his white teeth in a fierce grin.

"I'm right, aren't I? I'm right, aren't I? I must be right. I must be right, which is why you're trying to play some sort of psychological game..."

At that, Qin Shang's face filled with contempt.

"Guess?"

"Then I'm sorry, but you lost!"

Boom—

Chen Muzi's heart sank.

Wrong?

I guessed wrong?

"Why..."

"You didn't give me any clues at all..."

This time, Qin Shang didn't give him the chance to finish. He said coldly,

"Idiot!"

"Have you never memorized the periodic table? Have you never attended middle school?"

After saying that, he turned directly toward the Red-robed Cult Master and the Old Cheat behind him.

The Red-robed Cult Master understood immediately. To make Chen Muzi lose completely convinced, she said calmly,

"The answer is 3, black."

"I already told you the clues. A chemistry professor was murdered, so those numbers were naturally a death message."

"Following those numbers, the corresponding elements on the periodic table are boron, B; lanthanum, La; carbon, C; and potassium, K. Even if you didn't know the chemical symbol for the relatively obscure element lanthanum, if you had memorized the first twenty elements on the periodic table, you should have been able to deduce the other letters."

"Then all you had to do was look through the options, and you could have determined that the correct answer was 3."

Whoosh!

At those words, Chen Muzi's back turned cold and sweat poured down his body. He felt chilled from head to toe.

I lost. I really lost!

The clues were so obvious. How could I have missed them?

I was pretty good at chemistry when I was in school!

The next moment, Qin Shang licked his lips and sneered,

"Without your little sister helping you pay off your debts, are you really this useless?"

"With such a simple question, you could have easily earned twenty-five million. Wasn't that money easy to make in your eyes?"

"Didn't you think that Divine Path players were a group with an incredible ability to make money?"

"An opportunity was placed right in front of you, and you failed to cherish it. Didn't you fail to earn that money too?"

He made no attempt to hide the mockery in his words.

"The Divine Path game's difficulty is far greater than this simple reasoning question. You couldn't even answer this thing, yet you dared to claim that the Divine Path game was an opportunity to get rich overnight."

"Someone like you would be cannon fodder if thrown into the game. Do you know why Divine Path didn't choose you? Because as far as the game's server is concerned, you're a defective product."

"If this world were a giant game, we would all be save files."

"Then you'd be the account that a paying player had played into the ground. You don't even qualify to become an NPC."

He was attacking Chen Muzi's very soul.

"Your sister risked her life to earn money and pay off your debts, and you treated that as only natural?"

"When Divine Path players enter a dungeon, they're gambling with their lives. They could lose their lives at any moment through one careless mistake. Without the right combination of favorable circumstances, failing to clear a trial dungeon on the first attempt was the norm. Countless people had died in the game because they couldn't clear a trial dungeon."

Don't Touch Me, I'll Turn Green and Heart-to-Heart Sister were living examples!

The next moment, after Qin Shang finished speaking, he crouched down and stared at Chen Muzi's deathly pale face.

"You can't even solve a middle-school reasoning problem. What gives you the confidence to claim that Divine Path players are heaven's chosen, the group with the easiest time making money?"

"Wouldn't it be better to work honestly? Why insist on dreaming of getting rich overnight?"

"The person Grandpa Niu couldn't forget most at the end of his life was actually trash like you. It's truly hard to believe..."

When Qin Shang had set the question and bet with Chen Muzi, he had already guessed that the man would definitely agree.

There was no reason for him not to.

Either the Old Cheat would flay him alive and turn him into a "great organ donor," or he could fight for a chance to turn the tables.

Anyone would choose the latter, but Qin Shang had deliberately been messing with his state of mind.

He was certain that even elementary-school reasoning enthusiasts could solve this question in minutes, yet Chen Muzi, an adult, wouldn't be able to answer it.

The confirmation bias effect...

"People only pay attention to information that matches their expectations and overlook other information, resulting in intuitive errors. If you believe in astrology, once you accept the traits assigned to you by your sign, you'll unconsciously magnify the behaviors you have that match its description."

This rule applied to gamblers too. Why did gamblers lose everything, gamble until their eyes went red, and still continue gambling?

It was the same principle.

He had accepted the psychological expectation that gambling could make someone rich overnight.

He selectively believed in getting something for nothing and in pies falling from the sky.

Thus, Chen Muzi's subconscious mind believed that he was a gambler, a gambling saint, the chosen one among gambling addicts, a rising star destined to turn the tables sooner or later.

When Qin Shang had brought up the concept of "gambling," he had agreed without hesitation, which was proof enough.

The next moment, Qin Shang's words shattered Chen Muzi's defenses. His eyes red, he sprang up from the floor.

"It's not fair! This gambling game you designed isn't fair! I'm not betting with you anymore. I'm not betting with you anymore!"

"You only have to give me money if you lose, but if I lose, I have to risk my life."

"I won't... I won't..."

He now realized what he would have to face after missing this opportunity to turn the tables.

The wild joy brought on by Qin Shang's suggestion of a "bet" vanished in an instant, replaced by a trace of hysterical madness.

Seeing the matter come to an end—and especially watching Qin Shang give Chen Muzi hope with one hand before pushing him back into the abyss of despair and fear with the other—the Red-robed Cult Master's mood suddenly became much lighter.

This was exactly how trash like him should be handled!

Watching him scream himself hoarse as his defenses collapsed, she had to admit that it brought an invigorating sense of satisfaction.

"Then we'll be leaving first, Old Cheat."

Chen Muzi frantically scrambled up from the floor, only to be kicked back inside by the impatient Old Cheat outside the door.

His eyes red, he shouted excitedly,

"Don't leave! Don't leave! Let's play another round! This time, let me set the question..."

Hearing this, Qin Shang, who had only taken a couple of steps, turned his head slightly.

"Sorry, you've already lost all your chips. Go keep 'Grandpa Niu' company!"

At this moment, Qin Shang finally understood what Grandpa Niu had meant at the end of her life when she said, "Brother, I can finally see you."

She had probably been paying off Chen Muzi's debts all along.

Even after becoming a Divine Path player, she had silently shouldered everything and endured it alone.

The "brother" she spoke of wasn't the scumbag standing before them, the beast who blindly believed that Divine Path players were a group favored by heaven.

It was the brother from her memories, from those unforgettable childhood days...

The brother who, even when he was the one being beaten, would still fiercely shield his little sister in his arms.

The majestic brother who, despite his frailty, seemed capable of supporting heaven and earth.

In Grandpa Niu's eyes, her brother had remained in that time from long ago, the time that had moved and touched her most deeply.

The lunatic who had later fallen into gambling wasn't her brother...

Whoosh!

After Qin Shang understood everything, his chest felt strangely heavy.

It was as if something were pressing against his throat.