What did it have to do with me?

After the dinner, He Zheng, Zhang Tie, and Hu Jia were dead drunk and fell asleep the moment they lay down.

Knowing Huang Liang had something to discuss, An Ke tactfully said goodbye and left first.

Once he reached Huang Liang's room, Ye Lin asked him directly:

"Go on. What did you find? Or rather, what do you need me for?"

He looked straight at Huang Liang, who hadn't drunk either. Huang Liang hesitated, seemingly considering how to begin.

Seeing this, Ye Lin simply looked around, found a chair, and sat down.

The buzz-cut young man's room was small and had been arranged like a police academy dormitory. Outside the window was a red-and-white sports field.

On the four bunk beds, the quilts had been folded into neat blocks. Apart from the beds, desks, and chairs, there was nothing else in the room.

The national emblem hanging on the wall was old, but it had been cleaned meticulously. The air smelled faintly of disinfectant.

Like him, Huang Liang had chosen the environment he knew best.

"Here's the thing, Ye Lin. I found something."

Huang Liang opened the system's exchange menu and quickly tapped through it.

The image changed, and a bulky phone resembling the brick-style mobile phones of the last century appeared in the middle of the screen.

"This is a Communication Device. It lets you make a one-minute call to anyone whose name you know."

"For just 120 points, we can contact the outside world and tell them what's happening in here."

Huang Liang looked at him nervously.

"Ye Lin, I've done the math. I have fifty-seven points, but if you're willing to lend me some, we'll have enough between us to get it!"

"Of course, you're also the only one authorized to exchange for it, so... I need your help!"

By the time Huang Liang finished, his breathing had grown rapid.

No one knew how excited he had been when he first saw this item. Although they would only have one minute, it would be enough to explain everything to the outside world.

He had thought he would vanish without a trace after entering, just like his comrades before him. Yet not only had he found a way to send out information, he could contact the outside world right now-as long as Ye Lin agreed!

"I figured. I knew you'd bring this up."

To Huang Liang's surprise, Ye Lin nodded without a trace of surprise in his eyes.

"You found it too! Then you..."

Before he could mistake that for agreement, Ye Lin gave a soft laugh.

"What if I said no?"

"Why?!"

Stunned, Huang Liang blurted out the question.

"Is it because I'm asking to borrow too much?"

"Fifty points would work too. I can borrow the rest from the others, as long as you're willing to exchange for it!"

His voice was urgent. As he spoke, Huang Liang hurriedly found a pen and paper in the room, ready to write him an IOU.

"Are you afraid I won't pay you back? I promise! Every point I earn in every exam from now on will go to you until I've paid it off... no, I'll pay you back double, tenfold!"

Watching Huang Liang's flustered behavior, Ye Lin frowned.

"Pay me back? With what?"

"Never mind when you'll be able to repay me. Do you really think you'll survive the next exam after spending all your points? A dead man's promise means nothing."

"Besides, what good would sending out information do? It wouldn't benefit me in the slightest."

He could spare fifty points, but to Ye Lin, Huang Liang's idea was utterly naive.

Huang Liang might be willing to throw his life away, but the difficulty wouldn't decrease just because he had spent all his points.

A "useless person" without any enhancements would only make the next exam harder.

"No, that's not how it is, Ye Lin. Even if the outside world can't help us immediately once we contact them, the country will find a way to save us!"

"And I promise, as long as you're willing to cooperate, not only will all the charges against you be dropped once we get out, we'll do our best to give you whatever you want!"

"Charges? Give me whatever I want?"

Ye Lin scoffed.

"Huang Liang, do you know how cheap money is here? One point only buys a million, but just twenty points will buy the complete blueprints for controlled nuclear fusion."

"How much do you think that technology would be worth in the real world? A hundred billion? A trillion?"

"As for the charges..."

The smile vanished from Ye Lin's face as he enunciated each word.

"As long as I get out, I'll be a god. Everything I want will be within my grasp."

If there truly was something he wanted in the real world, it was probably that answer. But he could obtain it here too.

With that, Ye Lin turned to leave. He really couldn't be bothered to waste time here.

"Wait!"

Huang Liang suddenly grabbed him, a hint of pleading on his face.

"Ye Lin, I'm begging you. Just help me this once. Maybe I haven't explained it clearly. Maybe you don't know what's happening outside. You don't know how badly we need this call!"

"This really matters. It really does..."

"I know. On the way here, I heard about those..."

"No! You don't know!!"

Before Ye Lin could finish, Huang Liang suddenly grew agitated, as though a nerve had been struck. His emotions surged to a breaking point.

"You only heard a little, guessed a little. You haven't seen it with your own eyes or experienced it yourself. You can't possibly understand!!"

"Ye Lin! The situation outside became unsustainable long ago! The Death Exam didn't just appear. It's been around for a long time!"

"People began disappearing across the country a year ago. On March 17 last year, seventy-nine people went missing. On March 28, it was 1,811."

"On April 11, 9,300 people went missing! On June 13, it was 28,000."

"At first, the disappearances were scattered across the country, and the numbers were small. We hadn't realized what kind of disaster this was. But starting on the twenty-eighth, the number passed a thousand. By April, it had reached ten thousand."

"Back then, we were still trying to minimize the impact to avoid social unrest."

"But starting on September 10, the number of missing people passed a hundred thousand, and public sentiment spiraled completely out of control! By June this year, more than thirty million students had vanished, and society collapsed. No, it wasn't even just our country. The whole world collapsed!"

Huang Liang clutched Ye Lin's arm tightly. He would never forget how the world had plunged into the abyss in those few short months.

"Ye Lin, do you know what happened on June 7?!"

As though he couldn't bear to recall it, Huang Liang's eyes suddenly reddened.

"That was when the first day's exam ended. In Linjiang alone, more than three million students' parents crowded outside the school gates. They cried and demanded to know where their children had gone."

"At 3:53 p.m., a vortex appeared. The first batch of dead students fell from the sky, their bodies smashing apart in front of them."

"The crowd broke down. They went mad. They pushed through the army's blockade to see their children's bodies. At that moment, more than a hundred thousand people were forcibly erased by the system for rushing into the school. Their blood flooded the entire campus."

"But the crowd still didn't stop. In their breakdown, those maddened parents even tried using hooks and ropes to pull the bodies out."

"I watched a mother with my own eyes. She clutched her daughter's body like a madwoman and still tried to revive her! But the body had been smashed to pieces! All her internal organs had been crushed!"

"But she acted as though she were blind, as though she couldn't see it! She cried as she stuffed pieces of flesh back into her child's belly. She wanted to give her CPR, but every time she pressed down, blood flowed out of the child's mouth and eyes. She thought her child was coughing up blood, that she was crying."

"She cried and shouted that Mommy was right there. Then she kept wiping the blood off her child's face and breathing into that corpse's mouth, over and over!"

"From that day on, we spared no expense, joining forces with other countries to search the entire world and mount a rescue!"

"To find out what was happening in here, to give everyone an answer, the Security Bureau, the military, teachers... engineers, even senior officials themselves! We kept sending people into the schools!"

Huang Liang struggled to steady his emotions as the scene replayed before his eyes.

To enter the Death Exam, to find out what was happening inside.

Officers and soldiers held hands as they walked into the schools through the blood.

The first group died, and the second went in. The second group died, and the third went in...

They didn't know the age restrictions or the identity restrictions. They didn't even know who could enter. They could only clumsily test it with their lives.

When the officers and soldiers failed, they sent military units. When those failed, they sent firefighters. When the firefighters failed, they sent the Security Bureau! Batch after batch, all to obtain a result. No one knew how many people had died that day.

They lowered the age of those sent to their deaths from forty-five, on and on until someone could enter.

Huang Liang's voice was hoarse. He slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were bloodshot.

"Ye Lin... we've lost... far too many people..."

"So... we really... really need this call."

"Even if we say nothing, even if we only say a few words. As long as we can let the people outside know, let everyone know... that there are still people alive in here, that's enough..."

"Leave the rest to us, to the country. We'll save everyone, whatever it takes...!"

Huang Liang's gaze pleaded with him. If Ye Lin would agree, he would accept any condition, even if the price was his life.

"Just help me. Help everyone outside... even if we tell them a minute earlier, a second earlier, it'll give everyone a little more hope...!"

After a long silence, Ye Lin suddenly pulled free of his grip.

He turned to look at Huang Liang's bloodshot eyes, his voice utterly calm.

"I can understand your pain."

"But."

"What... does it have to do with me?"

With that, Ye Lin turned and left.

Behind him, Huang Liang stood rooted to the spot, as though he couldn't believe his ears.

What... does it have to do with me?

What does it have to do with me?!

Despair, anger, pain, helplessness.

As though realizing something, he suddenly shouted furiously at Ye Lin.

"What does it have to do with you?! How could it have nothing to do with you?! Ye Lin! They cry and laugh! They're living people, just like you!!"

Huang Liang's chest heaved.

He had been too agitated, too desperate to send word outside. So much so that he had actually forgotten who Ye Lin was!

Still, he wanted to try one more time.

"Ye Lin! If you're willing to help me, my life is yours!"

"Even if you want me to die in the next exam, I won't hesitate! I don't have to come back out! I can repay all your points in the next exam!"

Ye Lin remained unmoved. Watching his retreating back without so much as a glance behind him, Huang Liang gave a bitter laugh.

He suddenly remembered the file he had read.

Back then, he had thought Ye Lin had been driven to it by those people, that perhaps he was someone to pity too. But now, that line in the file seemed to be the truest description of him.

"Ye Lin, do you really have no feelings at all?!"

"How can you bear it? How can you stay so indifferent?!"

At the doorway, Ye Lin's steps paused briefly, but a moment later, he opened the door and strode out.

Bang!

The door slammed shut. Standing outside, Ye Lin's gaze was utterly calm.

No feelings?

No. I don't know.

If it had required no effort, he might have made that call. But now, he absolutely wouldn't.

Not choosing to deceive Huang Liang was already the greatest kindness he could offer.

"I did nothing wrong..."

Ye Lin murmured, as though telling himself.

He had done nothing wrong.

Staying alive shouldn't be wrong.

Time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, their three-day break had reached its final day.

In the hall, five of them gathered in silence, while Huang Liang stood off to one side alone.

Although Zhang Tie and He Zheng had tried to speak to him during that time, the formerly cheerful Huang Liang had been like a statue, refusing to answer a single word.

They vaguely suspected some conflict between him and Ye Lin. Though curious, they couldn't really pry.

Right now, their greatest concern was the exam details that would soon be announced.

It felt like the calm before a storm. Watching the constantly spinning vortex, He Zheng's palms grew sweaty with nerves.

Over the past two days, he had hurriedly put Hu Jia and Zhang Tie through "special training." Although An Ke had complained that it was completely unnecessary, he felt it would help at least a little.

It might have been last-minute cramming, but what if it worked a miracle?

"Fuck. Who knows what type it'll be this time."

"Heaven help us. Please let it be something easy. Don't screw me over again!"

Seeing He Zheng's nervousness, the others couldn't help breathing heavily too.

Although, given their progress, they probably wouldn't encounter the three major events in this exam, He Zheng had a chance of encountering those things from his fourth exam onward.

The same applied to An Ke. She was certain her progress had been reset. Otherwise, she couldn't have encountered Ye Lin in the previous exam.

But she couldn't guarantee that the system wouldn't jump the difficulty to the seventh exam, however tiny the chance. If that happened, apart from Ye Lin having a slim chance of survival, the rest could only wait to die.

"He Zheng, nothing's going to go wrong! Maybe this exam will be the easiest one. Besides, we've got Ye Lin here, and everyone has points. Our chances of surviving this one are still pretty good!"

Hu Jia swallowed, his gaze repeatedly flicking toward the vortex as he tried to encourage the others-or rather, himself.

As he spoke, he secretly tucked his hands behind his back, his voice trembling slightly.

Standing in the middle of the group, Ye Lin glanced at Hu Jia from the corner of his eye and noticed that his nervousness seemed somewhat abnormal. Still, he didn't care. At this moment, he too was waiting to find out what type the next exam would be.

As soon as he knew, he could start exchanging for items. Apart from the plan An Ke had given him, he had also found several backup options.

Soon, as the time on their watches changed to 9:00 p.m., the black-and-red vortex abruptly accelerated.

In an instant, a screen of light unfolded, and the system notification switched to a mechanical voice that rang out coldly.

"Beep. The type for the second exam has been selected."

"This exam's type is...!"