Some examinees gathered before the children in official robes, asking questions left and right, but no one went in.
Everyone swept their eyes over the other examinees in the square, their expressions changing before a wave of lingering fear washed over them.
More than half the examinees were missing something, more or less.
"Look, that seems to be the second young master of the Duke of Cheng's household. He was quite capable, yet who would have thought he'd lost an eye?" Guan Zhou said quietly.
"Look at those Devil Cultivators. Every last one of them has lost their ears. I wonder whether they can still hear."
"Those are people from Sky-Raising Martial Hall. How miserable—every one of them lost their left foot. Fortunately, they're Martial Cultivators. If they were Literary Cultivators, they'd have had a hard time dodging the jump rope and sandbag."
"Still, everyone's been pretty lucky. No one has lost a hand or an arm. Otherwise, they couldn't even play Shadow Battle. They'd surely die."
"Yeah."
Li Qingxian had thought those words made sense too, but on second thought, a horrifying idea surfaced in his mind, along with a phrase: survivor bias.
It was not that no one had lost a hand or arm. Those who had lost hands or arms had already died because they could not pass Shadow Battle.
Li Qingxian looked toward Song Baige, Wang Buwu, and the others, and found that their expressions were equally grim.
"I said this game wouldn't be simple. Someone was bound to have rotten luck," Song Baige said.
Wang Buwu sighed. "All we can say is that we were lucky."
"Yeah. Good thing Ye Han chose Pin the Nose. If he'd picked something else, we might have vanished without a sound."
"What riddles are you talking in?" Guan Zhou