The Altar

Bo Shuo had crossed swords with him, so naturally he knew this could not possibly be the entirety of his strength.

The reason he had been able to easily subdue him was simply because the person before him was indulging him with what could only be called a morbid sense of humor.

Judging by the combat power Xi Guici had displayed, he ought to have gone to a higher-level Exam Venue.

Moreover, the Proctoring System was no pushover either; it was impossible for it to choose a high-end player like Xi Guici for this exam.

Then only a single possibility remained: he had deliberately come to this Exam Venue.

Facing such a sharp interrogation, Xi Guici spread his hands, his slender eyelashes concealing his light-gray pupils, and the cast-down shadows making him appear exceptionally harmless. "Mr. Bo misunderstands, I harbor no malicious intentions whatsoever."

"Let alone when facing you."

He chuckled softly, excitement eager to be tried shining in his eyes. "You ought to already know what happened in this instance."

What happened in this instance?

Bo Shuo's gaze slowly swept across the skeletal remains on the ground.

Preference for sons over daughters, sacrifices, ghost marriages, yet a village with low literacy suddenly featuring a woman who understood how to write.

Bo Shuo was not stupid; he certainly possessed the most basic ability to process information, and naturally could see the root of it all.

Human trafficking.

"Women who died unjustly were casually discarded at the mountain cliff, newborn girls were treated as sacrificial offerings to appease lingering resentment, and from then on it repeated generation after generation, hatred and resentment growing side by side."

Candles were lit inside the cave, their wicks flickering and casting a glow upon the man's handsome face, carrying a sacred yet bizarre temperament.

A slow, deep voice rang out inside the cave, making one's hair stand on end.

The wind around them seemed to blow even harder, slipping through tiny crevices and making it feel as though someone were weeping by their ear, every single word dripping with blood.

At the same time, the task panels of all examinees vibrated once.

The Proctoring System issued a new assessment task.

(Detected that examinee Bo Shuo is approaching key information, Faction War activated)

(Assigning assessment tasks--)

(White Faction: Help the village complete the sacrifice, resolve the female ghost's resentment)

(Black Faction: Help the wronged souls take revenge, stop the sacrifice!)

(Detected tendency of this exam, congratulations on being assigned to the Black Faction.)

(Faction teammates: Bo Shuo, Sang Yu, Zhang Hu, Zhao Yunyi...)

(Assessment score for this task: 50 points)

This completely divided the examinees into two irreconcilable, opposing sides.

This task alone accounted for 50 points, and one had to know that upon the conclusion of the exam, examinees with a failing score would be directly obliterated.

If the task failed, aside from Bo Shuo who had obtained extra bonus question points, the examinees of the entire faction would be wiped out here.

Yet very soon Bo Shuo thought of an even more troublesome matter.

After staring at the names of his faction teammates for two seconds, he turned his head to look at Xi Guici instead.

"The one you've been assigned to is the White Faction."

Not seeing Xi Guici's name within the friendly faction was an all-too-obvious answer, one that didn't even require excessive guessing.

"Yes." Xi Guici nodded. In front of Bo Shuo he seemed to possess an endless supply of patience, pushing the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose while his light-colored pupils looked extremely sincere. "If you don't wish for me to do it, I can also simply give up."

007 lamented, "Such a flexibly shifting bottom line, Host, he's truly devoted to you."

"Is that so?" Bo Shuo was noncommittal. "Right now he's merely interested in the persona I'm projecting."

Anyone who frequently hung out with friends who were perverted madmen knew this.

When a madman displayed an indulgence and pampering toward someone that exceeded ordinary standards, it did not mean he held much favorable regard for that person.

Rather, it was a form of interest.

For the sake of this tiny bit of interest, a madman could even casually discard his own bottom line.

Yet for the person being indulged, this was by no means a good thing.

On the contrary, it was a calamity impossible to gauge.

You could never predict how long his interest in you could be maintained, nor could you be certain whether his attitude toward you would always remain this way.

Perhaps he would treat you gently one second, and lose interest the next, smiling as he stabbed you to death with a single knife.

Such people acted with reckless abandon, entirely dependent on their own moods.

As for why Bo Shuo knew this.

It was because he had roleplayed them inside the Training Space, where every single psychological profile had been taken out and scrutinized one by one.:)

In other words, Bo Shuo was currently the entity who understood this type of person best.

Or perhaps having roleplayed them for too long, his surrounding aura and magnetic field attracted others like them, making it easy to draw in madmen and perverts.

Completely unaware that he had already been labeled a madman, Xi Guici stood at the cave entrance, paying no mind to the youth's cold detachment and obvious defensive hostility.

The peach-blossom eyes beneath Xi Guici's gold-rimmed frames curved slightly, naturally carrying a bewitching quality, while half of his face fell into the shadows, making him look exceptionally bizarre. "Someone's coming from outside."

Someone's coming?

There was not the slightest stir outside; to say nothing of even the faintest rustle of footsteps, even the sound of the wind had quieted, devoid of the slightest anomaly.

Bo Shuo glanced toward the map, and sure enough he saw a green dot approaching their direction.

It was Sang Yu.

Patrolling the perimeter, Sang Yu gripped a dagger, exploring her surroundings with caution and care as she kept her movements extremely light, reducing her presence to near nothingness.

This result did not catch Bo Shuo by surprise, seeing as Sang Yu's skill belonged to the stealth category.

Bo Shuo treated Xi Guici entirely as air, pressing his teeth against a hair tie while his other hand half-tied his long hair back.