Couldn't win, no matter what.
"Do as you please." Xu Huo closed his book. He no longer seemed in a hurry to leave as he had before, though his injuries weren't the only reason.
Without his support, Liang Zong and Ding Xiang were rather disappointed. But with Chi Minghong alongside them, they still couldn't get the better of the players from this zone, the injured player with the lip piercing, and Zhou Yuanzhu. The player with the birthmark could barely move, so they could disregard him for now.
"Three against three. We might not lose," Ding Xiang said. "There's no reason you should get all the benefits. Since you have no intention of negotiating, we might as well make sure we all go down together!"
"Make sure we all go down together?" The player with the lip piercing sneered. "With just the two of you?"
Liang Zong and Ding Xiang froze. Only then did they notice that Chi Minghong had somehow moved away from them and was now watching them alongside the players with the lip piercings.
"Sorry," Chi Minghong said with a bright smile. "I want to go upstairs too."
Four against two. Liang Zong and Ding Xiang had little chance of winning.
Since they couldn't stop anyone, all they could do was leave it to luck. Almost simultaneously, everyone except Teacher Fan, who was tied up, and the player with the birthmark, who could barely move, rushed upstairs as fast as they could.
Before long, the player with the birthmark left too, leaving only Xu Huo and Teacher Fan in the first-floor lobby.
Teacher Fan kept trying to get rid of the artifact binding him, secretly working at it the whole time. Xu Huo pretended not to notice and read his book, until Teacher Fan finally managed to