"Deduction?"
Lin Baici was stunned.
Smile at life, and hardship will go away?
So that was why she'd come up with a smiling face? And you're a Big Bear Woman whom God of Gluttony rated Intelligence D. Do you even have a thing called intelligence?
"Yeah! I watch Sherlock Holmes all the time!"
Xia Hongyao flashed a V sign and rated herself: "I'd say I'm about seventy percent as good as him!"
"..."
Lin Baici had no idea how good Xia Hongyao was at deduction, but her confidence was—
off the charts.
"Enough chatting. Hurry up and carve that smiling face!"
Xia Hongyao urged him on.
"You'd better choose a crying face!"
Lin Baici kindly reminded her.
"Why?"
Xia Hongyao looked up at him, puzzled.
Because if you choose a smiling face, you'll die!
Lin Baici sighed after saying it in his heart. He could only make up an excuse. "What is clay figure-making? It's creating life. Didn't you hear what that Clay Figure Monster said just now?"
"Smash the Mud Embryo 120 times, then raise it above your head—that's a ritual, meant to awaken the embryo and give it life!"
"That proves clay figures are alive!"
"Alive?"
18D was startled.
"Don't interrupt!"
Ma Yuan barked.
"Go on!"
Xia Hongyao listened attentively.
The thirty or so travelers nearby also gathered around.
"Clay figure-making is a traditional craft. And when something is traditional, it inevitably comes with old customs. In ancient times, for instance, people favored boys over girls. If a family had a boy, everyone celebrated. If they had a girl, the daughter-in-law couldn't hold her head up."
Lin Baici was making it up, but he spoke solemnly, as though it were all true.
He kept his voice low and his eyes fixed on the Clay Figure Monster in the distance. If it made any unusual move, he'd stop talking at once.
"Right! I heard that in the old days, some poor families were even crueler. They'd give away newborn baby girls, and if they couldn't, they'd throw them into a river to drown!"
18D nodded vigorously, convinced that Lin Baici made sense.
"Your deduction sounds more reasonable, so I'll choose a crying face!"
Xia Hongyao gave him a thumbs-up and continued carving.
"..."
Lin Baici was speechless.
You believe that just like that?
You're not even going to question it a little more?
Lin Baici had been about to come up with more arguments to make it convincing, but now he didn't have to.
Come to think of it, a girl with Intelligence D wasn't completely useless!
At least she was easy to fool.
Ma Yuan obviously wasn't so easy to mislead. He stared at Lin Baici, puzzled. "Are you sure?"
Why did it feel like you'd just made that up on the spot?
"Then do you have a better answer?"
Lin Baici asked in return.
"No!"
Ma Yuan lowered his head and carved a smiling face.
"Then I'll carve a smiling face too!"
18D made up his mind.
"That does sound kind of reasonable!"
The nearby travelers also believed Lin Baici and made their choices.
In their eyes, there had to be some logic behind which face they chose for this round. None of them had even considered that it might come down to luck.
"Wait! Hold on!"
Seeing everyone start carving, Song Li panicked. "This is a matter of life and death. Shouldn't you think it over more carefully?"
"Little Lin already reasoned it out, didn't he?"
Xia Hongyao smiled, satisfied. "The logic is perfect. It checks out!"
"Th-Then what about an Yin Yang Face?"
Song Li had thought of quite a lot. "Could it be half smiling and half crying?"
"..."
18D was taken aback. He stopped carving and looked at Lin Baici too. "Now that you mention it, that's possible!"
"Exactly!"
Song Li was excited to see someone agree with her. "Maybe the Clay Figure Monster told us to choose one face to mislead us. The real answer might be to make a clay figure just like it, half smiling and half crying!"
"You're quite the clever one!"
Ma Yuan chuckled. "This choice concerns your life. If you don't trust anyone else, then do what you think is right!"
"Exactly. You only get one life, and the decision is yours!"
Xia Hongyao was only twenty, but as a God Hunter, she'd already faced death several times. She took life-or-death decisions in stride.
"Little Lin, don't try to persuade her. Each person's life is their last bargaining chip. It's best to let them decide for themselves. That way, if they lose, they can only blame themselves!"
Lin Baici had been about to persuade Song Li, but Xia Hongyao's words changed his mind.
That was right!
He had no right to make decisions for other people. He'd already told them the right answer. Whether they listened was up to them.
Besides, what if God of Gluttony was wrong?
It was unlikely, but not impossible.
Lin Baici hurriedly carved a smiling face.
After hearing Xia Hongyao, 18D looked at Song Li's flustered expression, then at Lin Baici's calm one. He lowered his head and carved a smiling face.
I trust Brother Lin!
"You people..."
Song Li was so angry when everyone stopped paying attention to her that she could have spat blood.
"We're almost out of time!"
18D kindly reminded her.
"I know! You don't need to tell me!"
Song Li shouted back, staring at the clay figure in her hands, indecisive.
When it came down to it,
she was selfish. At this crucial moment, with their lives on the line, she wanted to decide for herself. As Xia Hongyao had said, even if she chose wrong, it would be her own choice, and she'd have to accept the consequences.
But Song Li also wanted to drag a few others down with her.
That way, if she was wrong, they'd all be wrong together. At least she'd have some company.
The fact that they wouldn't listen to her only made Song Li more annoyed.
"Damn it!"
Cursing, Song Li chose a smiling face.
Holding his carving tool, Lin Baici carefully carved the clay figure's features, hair, even its Adam's apple, the curves of its ears, and its fingerprints...
In short, he did his best to carve every detail a human body should have.
The Clay Figure Monster patrolling the area suddenly stopped and announced loudly:
"Time's up. Stop carving!"
Most of the travelers put down their carving knives, but about twenty were still rushing to finish. They'd wasted too much time agonizing over which face to choose.
The Clay Figure Monster didn't repeat itself. It raised its hands and clapped three times.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
As soon as the monster's claps faded, the clay figures in the hands of those twenty or so people suddenly came to life. Like giant fleas, they sprang onto their owners' faces with a smack.
Thud!
The unlucky twenty were knocked backward by the impact, but worse still, the clay figures melted the instant they struck, forming Red Clay Masks that stuck tightly to their faces.
Their eyes were covered, so they couldn't see, but that wasn't the worst of it. Their mouths and noses were blocked, leaving them unable to breathe.
They clawed at their faces, desperately trying to scrape off the red clay. They tried to cry for help, but their mouths were blocked, and not a sound came out.
The travelers watched the terrifying scene,
trembling with fear.
The punished victims grew increasingly short of breath. One by one, they fell to the ground and writhed in agony. Some clenched their fists and pounded their cheeks, but it was no use.
Gradually, they all stopped moving.
Only after they were dead did the Clay Figure Monster speak again.
"Open the kiln!"
As the Clay Figure Monster chanted the words in a drawn-out voice, openings appeared in the domed kilns on the Earth Platform. Each was more than a meter high and half a meter in diameter, and they bulged like yurts.
"Enter the kiln!"
The Clay Figure Monster raised both hands and scattered a handful of Clay Powder.
The powder drifted in the wind, swirling across the Earth Platform like snowflakes before landing on the clay figures resting on the stone slabs in front of the travelers.
"Look!"
18D cried out.
The clay figures they'd just molded began wriggling all over, making a rustling sound. After only five or six seconds, some of them started moving.
They set off on their stubby legs and headed for the kilns.
"M-My clay figure moved!"
Song Li was panicking. She didn't know whether this was good or bad.
Song Li quickly looked around.
"Why haven't ours moved? Do we need to wait?"
18D was panicking.
The clay figures made by him, Lin Baici, Xia Hongyao, and Ma Yuan hadn't moved.
"Honey, why hasn't your clay figure moved?"
Seeing the Man with Glasses's clay figure standing still, the pregnant woman was terrified. Tears instantly streamed down her cheeks.
That meant one of them was bound to have failed.
"It's okay! It's okay! As long as you survive!"
The Man with Glasses forced a smile and comforted his wife. "That Clay Figure Monster said, 'Enter the kiln.' A clay figure that doesn't move must have something wrong with it!"
"Honey!"
The pregnant woman sobbed uncontrollably.
"It's okay! It's okay! You have to live!"
The Man with Glasses held his wife with one arm and stroked her belly with the other. His expression was tender yet pained. "Honey, you should have the baby aborted!"
"Huh?"
The pregnant woman stared blankly at him, not understanding what nonsense her husband was talking about.
"If you have a child, it'll be harder for you to remarry!"
The Man with Glasses wanted his wife to give birth to their son and carry on the family line. But if she had a child to look after, how could she remarry?
"D-Don't say that!"
The pregnant woman clung tightly to the Man with Glasses.
"I think we passed!"
The Programmer with Dark Circles pushed up his glasses with his index finger and tried to reassure everyone around him.
As the Man with Glasses had said, the Clay Figure Monster had announced that they should enter the kiln. So if someone's clay figure walked into one, that meant they had passed.
After all, common sense said that once a clay figure had been made, it should be fired to set its shape, right?
"I got through this round!"
The programmer breathed a sigh of relief, then looked at Lin Baici.
That Big Male Student had made a deep impression on him.
What a pity!
His clay figure hadn't moved. That meant he was going to die.
sigh!
If he survived, he'd surely become an exceptionally skilled doctor someday!
A commotion broke out.
The Programmer with Dark Circles's explanation quickly spread across the Earth Platform. Players whose clay figures had moved were overjoyed, relief at surviving shining on their faces. The travelers whose clay figures hadn't moved looked utterly devastated.
"Brother Lin, what do we do?"
18D's voice trembled. "We can't just sit here and wait to die, can we?"
"Forget it—let's smash it!"
Xia Hongyao stared at the Clay Figure Monster, preparing to fight.
She would make one final stand.
As for being disqualified because she'd listened to Lin Baici's reasoning, she didn't care at all, nor did she hold it against him.
"Don't be happy! Don't be happy!"
Song Li warned herself not to laugh, or she'd provoke Lin Baici and the others too much. Still, she couldn't help feeling delighted.
I was right, but you wouldn't listen to me. Bet you're regretting it now, huh?
"Lin Baici, if you'd listened to me, you could've survived this!"
Song Li sighed, mourning Lin Baici and the others.
Before you continue