Whether they remained calm was secondary—once the alert sounded, everyone immediately got up and headed outside. They had to avoid getting entangled with the other passengers at the terminal when the bell rang.
As they walked out, the others gave Shen Zhiyi strange looks.
The “Red Light, Green Light” test was about absolute obedience to commands. Besides the role of the “frozen doll,” there had to be another critical figure: the one who gave commands and caught the rule-breakers.
In some ways, it resembled the “Killer” role in previous scenes.
As the person holding the pocket watch, he was clearly the most suspicious.
Around this time, Zhou Qi’an asked Shen Zhiyi a question.
Shen Zhiyi shook his head. “I’m just like you guys—on the run.”
Xia Zhi scoffed. “You say you’re the same, and we’re just supposed to believe that? What if you’re hiding in the group, secretly picking us off one by one?”
Shen Zhiyi’s expression turned cold, and even his voice became icy: “Then go die.”
Xia Zhi was stunned. Suddenly, an image surfaced in her mind—back in the office, Zhou Qi’an had used almost the exact same tone to tell Yuma those very words.
And Yuma had died right after that.
She immediately said, “Even if I’m the killer, you definitely can’t be.”
Zhou Qi’an glanced at her—this girl really knew when to yield and when to press forward.
Once they exited the terminal completely, the highway ahead was shrouded in darkness—no streetlights at all.
Rather than examining the pitch-black surroundings, everyone focused more on themselves.
Xia Zhi retied her double ponytails into a bun to prevent the game from being strict enough to penalize even a stray strand of hair. Wen still wore her rollerblades, seemingly unbothered by the risk of not being able to brake in time. She only slipped a ring onto her finger.
Zhou Qi’an carefully carried the rice cooker.
He checked the time—it was 2 a.m. The ancient city usually saw daylight around 6 a.m. Time was tight.
Ignoring the others, Zhou Qi’an took the lead and started walking down the road.
With someone leading the way, everyone fell into a silent march. No one used any light source along the way—no one wanted to become a human flashlight in the dark and attract danger.
A faint mist filled the air. After walking a short distance, a strange sense of being lost at sea overcame them all.
The moment their feet touched the road, a loud bell suddenly rang out through the sky and earth.
DONG.
The first chime sounded.
The rules of the game hadn’t been fully explained. To be safe, everyone froze in place.
After a while, the second chime echoed out. Each bell toll came with a long, lingering reverberation.
DONG.
Unlike the first two, the third bell was rich and sacred—it had a purifying quality. As it rang out, the tightness in their chests disappeared, replaced by a strange sense of comfort.
Amid the bell’s echo, Zhou Qi’an thought he heard the faint sound of wings flapping.
He silently began timing the intervals, recording each chime.
“Red Light, Green Light!”
The cold mechanical voice had a strangely playful tone, making it all the more spine-chilling. Whatever comfort the bell had offered was instantly wiped away.
“Don’t move, okay?”
As the final syllable fell, the entire scene shifted.
The mist dispersed, visibility drastically improved. The guardrails on either side vanished, replaced by a dense forest of withered trees. Perched on every branch were flocks of crows—each one staring down at them with eerie, glowing red eyes.
Before the players could even process the scene, the crows swarmed down toward them.
Amid the black mass of birds, a white phantom figure was flying against the direction of the crows.
If enough ants can devour an elephant, then crows—at the very least—can consume a human corpse.
The murder of crows swooped in with such ferocity that the flapping of their wings carried a putrid stench of rotting flesh. The players had less than three seconds to decide:
Move—or stay still?
The crew-cut player tried to observe the others, but his view was immediately obscured by the crows.
Wen’s ring activated a glowing circle, forming an automatic shield.
Hesitating, the short-haired girl Wen Xi had a chunk of flesh ripped from her cheek. Instinctively, she bent down and struck back.
“Warning! Someone broke the rules!”
Almost simultaneously, one of Wen Xi’s arms detached cleanly from her body. The severed limb showed no sign of torn flesh or tendon—just like a ripe apple falling naturally from a tree.
Blood sprayed into the air.
Her face turned pale, but she forced herself to stay steady and quickly used a healing item.
Zhou Qi’an stood not far away. Ever since the second bell, he’d been half a step behind the group, walking just behind his mother. Now, her hair fluttered in the wind, slicing through crows with ease—keeping him safe as well.
Crows’ rancid blood splattered onto his face, but Zhou Qi’an held his breath and focused, mind racing: the duration between the three bell tolls was just five minutes.
The voice had clearly said no moving—yet breathing, bleeding, and similar actions didn’t count as “movement.”
That made sense.
But why was it that when his mother shredded crows with her hair, nothing happened to her—yet other players were being penalized?
No—her actions weren’t attacks at all…
Her hair was simply reacting defensively to the wind.
In the game, “Don’t move” seemed more about players being unable to launch active attacks—passive defense appeared to be allowed.
The wind rustling their clothes or hair wasn’t counted as movement either.
While Zhou Qi’an pondered this, more and more crows filled the sky.
Once he confirmed this rule, he looked toward the other players. They had already begun switching to different defensive items.
But all defensive tools had a time limit. High-quality ones often came with cooldown periods and couldn’t be used consecutively—even Wen was beginning to struggle.
The buzz-cut guy cursed under his breath, and the next second—
“Warning! Someone has broken the rules!”
His tongue fell out.
He had proven firsthand that certain personal habits should definitely be dropped in the game.
Zhou Qi’an resisted the urge to shake his head. As he silently hummed “Only Mother Is Good in This World” in his mind, he continued playing the role of a wooden puppet.
Veteran players relied on their gear; the university students leaned on their healing items. Luckily, one of them was close to Shen Zhiyi, so the damage they received was relatively minor.
No one knew how long they had held on when suddenly—
DONG—
The bell rang through the sky once more.
The instant it echoed, the crows vanished completely. If not for the scattered limbs and blood-stained feathers, they might have thought it was all just a dream.
With the crows gone and the view unobstructed, they could now clearly see—a church stood in the distance.
While everyone was still squinting to confirm, Zhou Qi’an’s expression hardened. He lowered his body and sprinted forward, covering several dozen meters in one go.
One thing was now certain: in the “Red Light, Green Light” game, the three bell tolls corresponded to “One, Two, Three”—that time was the players’ free movement period.
Xia Zhi frowned and said with certainty, “There’s absolutely no church on that road.”
She had been chased down the road and into the terminal during the day, and she remembered the surroundings clearly.
This guy was like some lone hero. Was he not afraid it was all an illusion?
Xia Zhi accidentally said that part out loud. A university student timidly corrected her: “Grasshead Mushroom.”
Mushroom Hero, not Lone Hero.
Zhou-ge loves eating mushrooms.
“…?” Are you insane too?
Zhou Qi’an’s confidence in rushing ahead wasn’t unfounded.
Before leaving the terminal, he had anticipated that the game might play tricks using illusions, so he had consumed a “Tumbler Potion”, which granted him preemptive immunity.
That church—was real.
“Run.”
Dong Li and Bertram quickly dashed toward the church too.
Seeing them move, the others followed. There was nothing worth exploring on the open ground anyway.
The church looked close but was actually far.
Zhou Qi’an sprinted full speed for quite a while before finally arriving. It took longer than expected. The massive church doors were shut tight. Without hesitation, he pushed them open with force.
Like daylight breaking through darkness, the world was flooded with light.
Rows of long benches stood neatly in place. A priest dressed in traditional robes stood at the front beneath a painting of the Holy Infant being baptized, radiating peace and holiness.
The moment everyone stepped into the church, their pace instinctively slowed.
The church’s layout was strange. Centered around the Holy Infant painting, there were four tightly shut doors behind the priest. Combined with the priest’s fixed, benevolent smile—it was all quite eerie.
Zhou Qi’an’s eyes flicked to those four doors. As he walked up, he took the initiative: “Hello.”
The priest didn’t respond. He remained still, his kindly gaze unwavering.
Just as Zhou Qi’an was about to say more, three chimes rang again, and the game looped back to the freeze period—
“Red Light, Green Light.”
“Don’t move, okay~”
Sweat that had formed on players’ foreheads while running now mingled with cold sweat after entering the church.
The terrifying crows didn’t return.
However, the motionless priest moved.
His gaze was still gentle. He slowly began to speak:
“A person hears the bell three times in life.”
As he spoke, it was as if the sound of DONG—DONG—DONG echoed faintly in the players’ ears.
“Once at birth and baptism. Once during the confession of adulthood. And the final time—from the heavens above.”
His tone grew softer and softer:
“I can sense that you’ve all missed these important moments. That’s why you’re covered in sin. But today, I can offer you Holy Baptism—to cleanse your soul.”
“After the baptism, you shall sincerely repent and seek forgiveness from the Lord.”
He paused for a moment and then smiled:
“So… who will go first?”
No one answered.
He asked again, “Who will go first?”
Amid the silence, a heavy, sinister gaze fell on Zhou Qi’an first. The other players instantly relaxed just a little.
He was used to being the one to take the hit.
But Zhou Qi’an calmly spoke up:
“I’ll wait for now.”
He spoke!
The players all flinched. He actually spoke during the freeze period.
The last guy who opened his mouth had his tongue fall out—it was still lying there.
But after Zhou Qi’an replied—nothing happened.
A glimmer of realization flashed in Wen’s eyes:
“So that’s it.”
“Red Light, Green Light” didn’t mean the players had to literally freeze like statues. It meant they had to become obedient puppets, following the game’s will, submitting to its rules—not absolute stillness.
During the last round with the crows, they were allowed to defend but not attack—that was a form of obedience too.
Now, while the priest was active, the players were expected to interact with him.
At the very least, they couldn’t just let the NPC talk to himself—or the game couldn’t progress.
The priest seemed to favor the first to speak—his gaze shifted away from Zhou Qi’an momentarily to the others.
Realizing it was safe to move, the group simultaneously stepped back, practically writing “Please, you go first” on their foreheads.
In their desperate display of generosity, the priest’s gaze returned to Zhou Qi’an:
“In life, there is no need to wait.”
Zhou Qi’an: “…”
Why the hell is it always me?
Is the damned Drama King pulling the strings again?
Just as the others’ smug grins were about to bloom—
Shen Zhiyi suddenly said, for no apparent reason:
“A familiar face in a foreign land.”
The priest unconsciously repeated the phrase under his breath, then looked at Bertram:
“Child, when I look at you… I feel a certain closeness.”
If it weren’t for the tense setting, the group would’ve burst out laughing.
The church was Western in design. The priest looked foreign. Of course, he’d feel “familiar” seeing someone from the West.
“Child,” the priest said, “Come—receive the baptism.”
Bertram: “…”
