A shower of rain

As Qi Xia strained to turn the table, he said, "The positions of 'Ningxia' and 'Shandong' form a horizontal stroke."

"'Inner Mongolia,' 'Sichuan,' and 'Yunnan' form a downward-left stroke."

"And the four points-'Guangxi,' 'Guangdong,' 'Shaanxi,' and 'Jiangsu'-form a square. Together, those strokes make the character '右,' meaning 'right.'"

"No matter where Han Yimo's hometown turns out to be, either Guangxi Province or Taiwan Province would complete the square component, mouth."

Everyone quickened their movements, casting strange looks at him.

Qi Xia's thinking was far too unconventional, yet he had solved the puzzle twice in a row. They couldn't help growing suspicious.

Qi Xia realized this himself, so he told them, "Don't get the wrong idea. If the next game requires me to abandon you to survive, I won't hesitate to save myself."

Hearing this, everyone could only fall silent and grit their teeth as they turned the table.

The nine of them sat around the table, steadily pushing it to the right.

"How many turns?" Qiao Jiajin asked.

"Twenty-six," Lin Qin answered.

"You can actually count them?" Qiao Jiajin blinked. "The table looks the same all the way around."

"I'm counting by the bloodstains on it," Lin Qin said earnestly. "Keeping count is important for us psychological counselors."

Qi Xia frowned. "Not even thirty yet. We need to hurry."

Everyone fell silent and worked faster.

But the farther they got, the harder the table became to move, as though the chain inside was winding tighter and tighter.

"Damn, what's going on?" Qiao Jiajin asked through clenched teeth. "This thing's way too heavy."

"Keep going... Maybe it really is connected to a door!" Tiantian said, her face contorted with effort.

Her words gave everyone a glimmer of hope amid their despair.

A door.

If holes could appear out of nowhere in this room, why couldn't a door?

Their arms were aching, but they kept turning the table, one revolution after another.

"Don't give up! Only five turns left!" Lin Qin shouted.

Everyone gritted their teeth and strained. Not one of them dared ease up.

Clunk, clunk.

As the final turn ended, the table clearly locked into something.

Everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief, the aching in their arms gradually making itself felt.

Only three minutes remained until a quarter past one.

"Where's the door?!" Qiao Jiajin shouted anxiously.

The walls around them remained unchanged. Inside the pitch-black holes, they could still see the cold glint of the harpoons.

"Damn it! There's no door!" A hint of despair crept into Qiao Jiajin's voice.

"We were wrong! We guessed wrong!" Xiao Ran screamed. "We should have turned it left, shouldn't we?! We shouldn't have trusted that liar! We're all going to die here!!"

Qi Xia frowned slightly...

Wrong?

Before anyone could react, something strange happened to the clock in the center of the table.

It trembled slightly, then shot out eight laser beams.

The eight beams extended from the clock, gradually moving toward the edge of the table before stopping.

As everyone watched in bewilderment, the clock sliced the table like a pizza into several equally sized wedges.

Crash!

With a deafening crash, the table fell apart.

The clock at its center now stood on nothing but a small wooden post.

Qi Xia looked carefully. There were nine small wedges and one large one.

No, rather than "wedges," they were better described as "triangles." After all, the outer edge of each piece was straight.

With so little time left, everyone scrambled in a panic.

"What is this?" Han Yimo cried. "Why did the table break apart?"

Officer Li noticed that each wedge of the tabletop actually had a handle on the back. His years of professional experience made him understand at once.

"They're shields!"

He picked up the largest wedge and held it in front of himself.

"We can use these shields to block the harpoons!"

Hearing this, everyone picked up a piece of the tabletop. Unfortunately, there was only one large piece. Everyone else could only take a small triangle, barely enough to cover their body.

But within a dozen seconds, they spotted the problem.

"How are we supposed to block them?!" The lawyer, Zhang Chenze, showed a rare flicker of panic. "If there are harpoons on every side, we can only block one direction."

"We have to work together," Qi Xia said, collecting himself. "Form a circle and cover each other's backs."

Everyone hurried to rearrange themselves, then waited quietly.

They were now so quiet that all they could hear was one another's breathing.

Nine strangers had become teammates, each one indispensable.

Qi Xia happened to glance back at the writer, Han Yimo. His face was covered in fine beads of sweat, and he was trembling all over. He looked exceptionally nervous.

Just then, another bell rang somewhere far outside the room.

"Are you all right?" Qi Xia asked.

"N-nothing's wrong..." Han Yimo shook his head.

"Hey! Doctor Zhao, turn your piece upside down!" Zhang Chenze suddenly said.

"Why?" Doctor Zhao looked at the piece in his hands. Its point faced down, with the broad end at the top.

"You can't cover my legs like that!" Zhang Chenze said nervously. "I'll get hit!"

"If I turn it around, I won't be able to cover my head!" Doctor Zhao shot back. "Which matters more, a head or a pair of legs?"

Some of the others heard their argument and thought Doctor Zhao had a point. They actually began turning their wedges around as well.

Points down, broad ends up.

This created a bizarre situation.

Only the upper half of their bodies would be protected from the harpoons flying in from every direction. Everyone's legs would be injured.

"Is this really right?" Xiao Ran paused. "Even if we can tuck our legs behind the points and protect ourselves from the front, what about the harpoons coming from behind? What about the ones coming from above?"

"I'll cover the top!" Officer Li raised his enormous piece of tabletop. "Everyone move closer. I'll protect you."

Admittedly, this seemed like the best solution available: one person would hold the largest piece overhead while the others covered the sides. But Qi Xia still felt something was wrong.

Lin Qin thought quickly, then said, "The rest of us should alternate between points up and points down. We can stagger the pieces!"

"Right! That makes sense!" Qiao Jiajin agreed.

"No." Qi Xia interrupted them. "If everyone's piece is perpendicular to the harpoons, they'll be too easy to pierce..."

"Then what do you suggest, pretty boy?" Qiao Jiajin asked.

Qi Xia's gaze settled on the sheepskin mask on the floor.

Why aren't spring bamboo shoots afraid of the rain?

The final hint gave Qi Xia something to think about.

"Wait, wait... Give me a little more time." Qi Xia frowned.

Everyone held their breath as the seconds ticked away. Only one minute remained before the harpoons fired.

"Forget about him for now!" Doctor Zhao snapped. "Do what Lin Qin said and stagger them!"

"Shut your damn mouth!" Qiao Jiajin shouted. "I believe the liar."

"You!" Doctor Zhao gritted his teeth and swallowed the rest of his words.

What exactly did the large piece and the small pieces mean...?

"No..." Qi Xia's eyes suddenly widened. "It's a 'lie'! The large piece will get us killed!"

"What?" Officer Li looked at Qi Xia in confusion.

"Officer, throw away the large piece and take the last small one. Everyone, points up!"

Though they had their doubts, most of their minds had gone completely blank. All they could do was follow his instructions for now.

Doctor Zhao thought for a moment, then turned his piece point-up as well.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Officer Li also picked up the last small piece.

"Everyone, crouch down!" Qi Xia continued. "Tilt the points back and bring them together. Officer Li, you don't need to cover the top anymore. Join us!"

Under Qi Xia's direction, they slowly aligned all the wedges side by side, forming a cone.

No one had expected that, once they discarded the large piece, all the small pieces would fit together perfectly into a pyramid, closing the gaps on every side and directly overhead.

From a distance, the cone resembled a spring bamboo shoot, waiting for a downpour.

In the pitch-black enclosure, everyone's heart pounded with tension. Only their breathing echoed among them.

"It's coming..."

Qi Xia calculated the time in his head and quietly warned them.

The next second, they heard the air split, and something they couldn't see slammed into the piece in Qi Xia's hands.

Then noise swept in from every direction like a raging storm.

The harpoons struck with astonishing force. The impacts jarred their arms painfully, and they were on the verge of losing their grip.

Fortunately, all their pieces were now braced against one another, forming a delicate balance.

"Ah!"

A harpoon suddenly pierced the piece in front of Xiao Ran, making her cry out.

Qi Xia turned and saw that the harpoon had stopped only two or three centimeters from Xiao Ran's eye.

Fortunately, the tabletop was sturdy enough. Otherwise, Xiao Ran would already have been dead.