"Is everyone ready?"

A familiar voice rang out. Pink Hair struggled for a moment before forcing a smile. "Big sis, my mom told me that kids shouldn’t get addicted to games—they should grow up to be real men! The sea of suffering is boundless, but it's never too late to turn back to the shore! Besides, you don’t really think this can trap me, do you?"

He moved his hands slightly, and the metallic restraints on his body began dissolving into a strange state, dripping down bit by bit.

After freeing himself, he also released Ruan Xing, the woman, and the driver from their restraints.

"Goodbye, big sis! We won’t be staying any longer!"

He pulled open the classroom door to leave but froze before he could do so.

Outside the room, there was no hallway as he had expected. Instead, it connected to another classroom.

Brightly lit, with clean desks and chairs that shimmered with a faint metallic sheen.

His expression darkened. He also opened the door of the room, but outside was still another classroom.

Not willing to give up, they pushed through several more classrooms—until they arrived at a familiar broadcasting station.

Unlike before, when it was covered in dust, the equipment here is brand new. Even the chair that the woman's husband had previously occupied remains completely intact.

A voice came from the red microphone: "You two are quite impressive. I can’t afford to be careless. It wasn’t easy to find three new friends, so of course, I’d like to play a game with everyone."

The woman screamed, "I don’t want to play your game! Please, let me go!"

Her words seemed to trigger the entity’s wrath. This time, Ruan Xing could clearly feel the pollution level rising—even breathing inside the classroom became difficult.

Small black holes had already begun appearing on the woman’s body. A small slit had already opened on the side of her neck, something inside threatening to emerge.

Pink Hair’s breathing pattern changed as well. Ruan Xing noticed something bulging slightly from his neck, about to break through the skin.

But Pink Hair simply rolled up his sleeves, took a deep breath, and maintained his usual cocky demeanor. "Didn’t you say we’re playing a game? What’s it gonna be—high card or rock-paper-scissors?"

Microphone: "A riddle game. If you answer wrong, you’ll be punished."

Yueyue’s voice sounded like it came straight from hell. "Let’s make a guess—how many mouths does this lady have? Odd or even?"

A normal person has only one mouth, making the answer obviously odd.

However—

The woman’s body was covered in countless small black spots, and there were even more hidden beneath her clothes. No one could possibly count them all.

The woman let out a sharp scream as soon as the voice finished speaking. The mouths on her body began to expand, revealing red lips inside.

Fu Gui trembled: [Her pollution is getting worse.]

Pink Hair: "Motherf—this thing is just screwing with us."

"Five, four, three—"

"Odd!"

"Even!"

Ruan Xing and Pink Hair spoke at the same time. The woman, the pink-haired youth, and Ruan Xing all chose even, while the driver chose odd.

The countdown stopped.

"Looks like everyone has made their choice. Now, for the correct answer—the number of mouths on her body is… even."

The driver’s legs started shaking.

"Listener, you lost. Truth or dare?"

"I—I’ll take dare."

Yueyue chuckled eerily. "Alright, now please pick up the knife in front of you and kill that woman."

At some point, a fruit knife had appeared in the air. With a sharp clang, it dropped right in front of the driver.

Everyone’s expressions changed. The driver’s face, in particular, turned deathly pale. "I—I suddenly want to switch to truth!"

Even in an apocalypse, killing someone directly was too much for him.

Yueyue: "No takebacks. You must be punished."

Small black holes started appearing all over the driver’s body. His face turned white, and he let out a pained groan.

"But… I can listen to my players. Since you chose truth, here’s your question—if killing this lady meant you could survive, would you do it?"

The driver collapsed to the ground in pain. "...Yes."

The microphone was pleased. "That was an honest answer. Congratulations, you’ve successfully avoided the next punishment."

The driver let out a sigh of relief.

"Now, let’s start round two."

"For this round’s question—how many mouths does this lady have?"

The moment the voice finished speaking, Pink Hair cursed again. "How the hell are we supposed to know that? It’s not like I can take off her clothes to count!"

"Five, four, three…"

Ignoring their protests, the microphone continued its countdown.

The woman trembled. "Please... I’m begging you, let me go!"

Yueyue’s voice hesitated for a moment. "…One. Time’s up. Now, give your answers."

Ruan Xing: "297."

Pink Hair: "403."

After hesitating for a moment, the driver finally answered, "300."

The woman did not answer. Instead, she kept mumbling under her breath, "Please, just let me go. Wang San is already dead. What more do you want? Even if you kill me, what’s the point…"

Microphone: "This participant has broken the rules. She failed to answer within the time limit and must be punished…"

The woman’s body transformed. The tiny black holes that had been the size of fingernails suddenly expanded at an alarming rate. Her once smooth, fair face was now densely covered, even her forehead growing a mouth. Around her lips, more mouths formed in a ring.

A grotesque fusion of red, black, and white densely covered her entire body.

The fleshy lips opened and closed:

"You should be punished!"

"You should be punished!"

The woman screamed in agony, writhing on the floor. A chair she knocked over fell onto her, crushing some of the grotesque mouths and causing a sticky black liquid to ooze out.

Inside the liquid, something twitched and wriggled—like a tiny fish. But upon closer inspection, they weren’t fish at all.

They were countless tiny mouths.

The driver couldn’t hold it in and turned his head to vomit.

Ruan Xing’s face didn’t look good either.

Pink Hair moved his fingers and stuffed the last remaining pill into the woman’s mouth.

Only then did she stabilize, but the mouths on her body did not disappear.

The pollution level was now stuck at an extremely dangerous level.

The microphone spoke: “Now announcing the correct answer. The number should be 444. You all got it wrong. What a pity. Truth or dare?”

Driver: “Truth! Truth!”

Ruan Xing and Pink Hair exchanged glances. “Truth.”

A laugh echoed from the microphone. “Oh, I forgot to mention—since the truth was chosen in the last round, this time, you can only pick dare.”

“This round’s dare is... to cut off the mouths on this lady's body.”

Everyone froze. The mouths? Which one?

At this point, the woman was covered in them from head to toe. Which one were they supposed to cut?

Obviously, it meant all of them.

Even though she was in unbearable pain, the woman still managed to speak: “You just want me dead! Li Yue, you’re so vicious. No matter how miserable your life is, tormenting me like this won’t change reality.”

A sigh came from the microphone. “Indeed, a script that has already been written cannot be changed. The only way to conceal the truth is to keep patching up the loopholes.”

The woman trembled all over. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A sharp, mocking laugh came from the speakers.

Then, a familiar monster opened the door and appeared before them.

Tentacles covered its entire body, and hanging from one of them was a woman’s head. Her long hair was parted into curtain bangs, and her eyes carried a sharp, hook-like gaze.

“Ruirui!” The woman gasped in horror as she recognized the figure. “What happened to you? Why do you look like this?!”

Rui Rui was one of the woman’s friends. The woman, her husband, Minmin, and Ruirui—four of them had gathered at the school gate. They had encountered different things inside the school, but now Minmin and Wang were both dead, leaving only Ruirui and the woman, who was on the verge of becoming a pollutant.

Ruan Xing suddenly recalled the nightclub hostess mentioned over the broadcast—her name had been Ruirui.

Ruirui’s voice was soft and gentle. “What do you mean? This is what we’ve always looked like. Your appearance, my appearance... In this school, we’ve become our true selves.”

The woman shouted, “Nonsense! You’ve turned into a monster!”

Ruirui licked her lips. “A monster? We’ve always been monsters. You, Wang, Minmin, and I—we were the best Monster Alliance.”

Ruan Xing narrowed his eyes.

Ruirui climbed up the classroom wall, swaying from the light fixture, her posture ready to strike.

Ruirui climbed up the classroom wall and hung from the swaying ceiling light, her posture predatory, ready to strike.

"If you refuse to participate in the dare," the microphone voice chimed in, "then you will face the punishment instead."

The concentration of pollution in the air suddenly soared.

Pink Hair bent over while cold sweat formed on his forehead. The thing wriggling under the skin of his neck burst open, revealing a thin, tentacle-like mouth.

But before it could fully emerge, he swiftly reached out and slashed it off with one decisive motion. The severed tentacle writhed on the ground in agony.

The driver’s body was also covered in black holes. And as for the woman—her countless mouths had already begun biting each other.

Pink Hair had run out of medicine. He looked up at Ruan Xing.

"...Huh?"

Ruan Xing and the crow stood there completely unharmed. Ruan Xing even had the leisure to ask Fu Gui about the current pollution level.

Fu Gui: [It’s at 65%! If that woman doesn’t get out soon, we won’t just be dealing with one pollutant anymore.]

Ruan Xing glanced at the people lying on the ground and sighed inwardly—what a hassle.

Microphone: "I’ll make sure your deaths are painless."

A chair was suddenly hurled forward, knocking over the microphone. Pink Hair clutched his neck and cursed under his breath.

The microphone was broken, but it didn’t stop Yueyue’s voice from emerging out of the countless tiny mouths on the woman’s body.

"You can't escape from here."

The monster named Ruirui leaped down from the ceiling light, lunging straight for Ruan Xing.

But in the next instant, Ruan Xing flicked his wrist. Razor-sharp silk threads formed a net—a perfect combination of offense and defense.

Sharp blades tended to get stuck when slicing through slimy things, affecting the speed. But using fine threads made the process smooth and easy to control—just like how sticky rice cakes were cut on the streets.

Ruirui clearly wasn’t familiar with such a convenient cooking technique—one that diced her into octopus chunks in an instant.

A flood of black flesh rained down, and Ruirui’s severed head stared in disbelief.

Fu Gui: [Looks like fancy private schools don’t teach cooking, huh?]

“Aaaahhhh!!” The woman let out a tortured scream. Realizing that she was about to die, she completely broke down and began pleading, “I was wrong! Please let me go! I beg you! Li Yue!”

The mouths that had been devouring each other suddenly stopped and, in an unbelievable turn, began shrinking.

A mouth at the center of the woman’s forehead spoke:

"Are you… apologizing?"

The woman frantically nodded. “Yes! I was wrong! I shouldn’t have treated you that way!”

Pink Hair was stunned. What the hell? Why was she apologizing to the pollutant?

"How unexpected." Yueyue’s voice carried a hint of amusement. “Since you want to apologize so badly, then... do it in front of the entire school.”

The red microphone hummed ominously.

Outside the classroom windows, a crowd of students in school uniforms had gathered. Their faces were pitch black, and the only visible features were their bright red mouths.

They all stood still, silently waiting for the woman to speak.

The microphone amplified the woman’s trembling voice, broadcasting it across the entire school.

“My ability is called [Script Creation]. Twenty years ago, I wrote a script… and forced everyone to play the roles I assigned them…"