No matter what the three Cat-Head Children did, they could not catch the four mouse examinees. While they were playing Light the Firecrackers, the four mouse examinees also tried to rush out, but invisible force blocked them every time.
The four mouse examinees also tried singing the mouse song, "Squeak one, squeak two, squeak three," but it was useless.
The people forming the circle began discussing how to break the cat-catching-mice game.
While Li Qingxian and the others were trapped in danger, examinees in the other venues were sinking into different kinds of despair.
A Firecracker Child grinned as he slapped an examinee on the back. "Sss, sss, sss. The firecracker has been lit."
The examinee's face was full of grief and fury. He wanted to say "Bang," wanted to roar, wanted to curse, but he could not open his mouth.
Where his lips should have been, there was only a thin red scar.
He had lost his mouth in an earlier game.
Bang!
The sound of his head exploding replaced his mouth.
His mouthless teammate on the left covered his ears, his eyes filled with sorrow.
On his right stood another teammate who had also lost his mouth. That teammate should have said, "Ow, ow," but his face was stricken with terror, and he could not make a sound.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The firecrackers exploded one after another toward the right. One, two, three...
The mouthless people behind them could no longer endure it. They rose and ran outside, but after running barely a dozen steps, their bodies turned into stone statues and crashed heavily to the ground.
The firecrackers kept going bang, bang, until all seventeen mouthless examinees had exploded. Only then did the examinees from the other teams who could still speak say, "Ow, ow," ending the