Chapter 72

Chapter 72

"Ah!"

As the once somewhat adorable giant dolls grabbed the exposed students and twisted them, wrenching off their tiny heads, tearing apart their stitched bodies, and crushing their glass eyes, the live-stream audience was terrified by their sudden brutality.

The students who had acted preemptively fared no better. Their attacks on the doll figures were completely ineffective. The doll figures stood there, allowing the students to attack with their equipment, but not even a single hair was harmed.

Rule number one!

At this point, the students were already in disarray. They chose the worst possible response—turning around and fleeing.

The moment they turned, their fate was sealed.

Fortunately, after transforming into toys, the students seemed to have been endowed with toy-like properties. The parts that were twisted off left only rubber and plastic marks, and what flew were cotton fillings rather than blood, making the scene less gruesome and almost commonplace. Honestly, most people wouldn't find it too "scary" when they see children destroying toys.

However, the effects of this destruction were evident.

289, 288, 287...

Not long after the exam began, the number of students started to drop.

Those toys were easily twisted and torn, discarded in wastebaskets. The doll figures sighed, seemingly regretful that the toys were so easily destroyed, too fragile to play with for long.

"Do the doll figures have a dominant combat advantage over the students? Is this part of the setup?"

Even students with high combat skills were easily killed. In the hands of the doll figures, they were like paper, and their resistance was utterly ineffective, extremely fragile.

"Their combat disparity is too great. The game wouldn't set an unsolvable problem; there must be some detail we're missing. That detail can protect the students."

Meanwhile, Dasha Shanbao, who had been sleeping deeply, suddenly turned over, revealing a white furry face. Its black-bean eyes had been open all along, filled with an indescribable sense of regret.

It had been awake all along.

Perhaps it had been waiting for Ji Xinghai to expose himself, but Ji Xinghai was too patient.

Given the unclear rules, Ji Xinghai chose to maintain his original character, the clown doll.

This was also his further test of the scenario—to see if the toy owner could act against the toy at any time, even when the toy showed no signs of being wrong.

He hadn't tested this yet, but the toy owner seemed dissatisfied with his non-compliance and breaking character.

Its dissatisfaction pleased Ji Xinghai.

"How devious."

"I was just wondering why this guy was sleeping like a dead pig. Why didn't Brother Hai check the surroundings while he was asleep? Good thing Brother Hai wasn't fooled."

"Damn, scary as hell. Isn't this a horror version of 'Red Light, Green Light'? No talking, no moving, whoever moves gets their head twisted off."

"Hmph." The fluffy sheep-headed doll scrutinized the clown doll for a long time, then reached out to grab its hand and shook it. The clown doll remained motionless like a real toy, causing the sheep-headed doll to huff in displeasure, picking it up by one foot and shaking it violently before deliberately slamming it onto the table.

Ji Xinghai silently watched it. He felt no dizziness or discomfort from being shaken, nor any pain or injury from being slammed onto the table.

"Do not look. When you see the controller, you and it will be in different dimensions. All harm to it will be nullified, and its harm to you will also be invalid."

This was the complete rule.

The toy owner enjoys absolute rights over the toy, and confronting them directly would always put one at a disadvantage. That rule appears to protect the toy owner but actually protects the students.

As long as the student looks at the controller, they remain in an unharmed state.

"Do not look" refers not to the students but to the controllers.

The Hungry Academy deliberately played word games.

Not only did Ji Xinghai notice this hidden rule, but other analytical students also discovered it. They stared intently at the doll figures that were beating them, using this method to protect themselves.

Upon realizing this, the doll figures became increasingly violent and monstrous, almost murderous.

The sheep-headed doll was especially agitated, its expression nearly grotesque.

"Bang." The room door was gently pushed open, revealing a crack. The sheep-headed doll jumped in surprise, quickly grabbing Ji Xinghai and stuffing him roughly into a pencil case, covering it with its hand.

The door did not open further, and outside came a voice that sounded routine: "It's six-thirty. Get up for breakfast."

The sheep-headed doll's tense body did not relax at all. It dared not look back, fearing it might meet the gaze through the crack.

"Not awake yet?"

"Wake up, going to mom now."

Through the gaps between the sheep-headed doll's fingers, Ji Xinghai saw the opened door. The black crack looked like a black eye. He noticed that the lock on the door had long been removed, leaving only a round hole—

This room was defenseless against the outside world.

"Absolute and privacy-less control by parents over their children," suddenly all the previously unnoticed details of the room conveyed this terrifying message.

"Mm, hurry up, don't be late." Footsteps were heard again, but this time they were leaving.

The sheep-headed doll waited until the footsteps completely disappeared before daring to express its true emotions—anger and agitation. It suddenly gripped the clown doll's neck tightly, its fingers tensed, skin turning slightly red.

But Ji Xinghai kept staring at it, rendering all harm ineffective.

You cannot harm me, and I cannot harm you. Time ticked away, each second pounding in the sheep-headed doll's heart like a countdown.

In the end, it could only glare at Ji Xinghai resentfully before stuffing him back into the pencil case and zipping it shut.

The live stream suddenly went pitch black.

JiuZhou Black Tower.

"Hiss, even his head is shaking, but Brother Hai's expression doesn't change at all. He shows no instinctive reaction; it's like he's not even alive. If all young actors in the entertainment industry were like this, I wouldn't have stopped watching TV for years."

"In these times, where is there an entertainment industry? It's all AI virtual celebrities... cough, Minister."

"Minister."

As soon as the Black-faced Minister arrived, all casual chatter ceased.

However, he did not reprimand his subordinates. Their ability to joke so freely was precisely because the students' excellence had instilled them with confidence and security.

Through the students' conversations on the shelves, they had already learned the rules and hints, and there was clearly more to these simple sentences.

Their ability to grasp the favorable aspects of the rules and protect themselves demonstrated their excellence.

That said, luck also played a role this time. Players who were alone with 'the child' suffered greatly, while those on the toy shelves escaped unscathed.

"Minister, this is an independent instance," the team leader, who had been studying the background, ran over with a light screen. "We've analyzed all the children's room backgrounds that appeared in the live stream. Twenty-seven rooms show the environment outside the window. From the street scenes and changes in lighting, these children's rooms are not in the same location."

"However, we already knew that the students' survival task is to 'survive until the end,' and the NPCs they face are different. I believe this is a relatively independent instance."

"Hmm? Could it be because in the previous instance, Ji Xinghai and other elite students directly or indirectly helped many ordinary students pass, so the Hungry Academy chose this independent instance where they can't help each other?" the Deputy Minister speculated.

"It's possible, but it could also mean that it's not yet time for them to converge. In the previous instance, the early stages were also individual, but the Hungry Academy cleverly introduced the 'internal student channel,' turning individual instances into group ones."

"How many toy personification works have you found? Are there any similar plots? I remember an animation company once made a movie about toys escaping," the Deputy Minister suddenly turned to ask.

"There are 176 similar or related films, games, and novels globally," an employee raised their hand. "But I think the focus of this instance isn't on the identity swap between humans and toys."

"What do you mean?" the Deputy Minister asked in confusion. From the available information, wasn't this the most likely scenario?

"Look," the analysis team leader opened the light screen, "these are the collected street scenes and adjusted backgrounds of the children's rooms."

The Deputy Minister wiped his glasses and leaned down to look closely, stunned for a second.

When one thinks of a children's room, one naturally imagines fun, lots of toys, and cartoon decorations. And when one thinks of street scenes, one usually envisions greenery, runners, and dog walkers.

But what did he see?

Inside the children's rooms, there were almost no colorful decorations. All necessities were neatly arranged on the shelves. There were no children's books, toys, or cartoon decorations.

Outside the windows of the children's rooms were buildings dominated by black and white, covered with metal and glass factories. The sky in the distance seemed to be covered with something resembling a spider web, giving the entire world a lifeless feel.

At the start of the instance, viewers couldn't immediately suspect the background setting like professionals, but they felt something was off—why did almost all NPCs choose to hide the 'toys' in inconspicuous corners of their backpacks before leaving the room?

Even those who left the toys behind chose to hide them deep in drawers, locking the drawers from the outside.

Indeed, not just Ji Xinghai, but almost all students assigned to NPCs were 'hidden.'

The arrows representing the students were either quietly tucked away in various hidden corners of backpacks or wrapped in layers of plastic bags and pushed to the bottom of drawers, out of sight.

Only the remnants of the destroyed toys could be casually discarded in wastebaskets.

"Come to think of it, I didn't see a second toy in any NPC's room. That's strange."

Even in this era of scarce resources, people still liked to prepare various toys for their children. If they couldn't afford them, parents would make a few toys by hand.

Yet, in this instance, the 'children' with doll heads had no extra toys?

The model-like rooms, the secretive children, the hidden toys, and the sudden footsteps outside the door that made one's heart race—all contributed to an oppressive and suffocating atmosphere.

No wonder those dolls were so irritable.

Apart from this, another issue caught the attention of outsiders: the student allocation.

Two-thirds of the students allocated to NPCs at the start faced immediate death scenarios, and they were mostly elite students who performed well in the previous two instances. Only one-third were random students.

Several of these random students had already perished.

Those sitting on the shelves, chatting and still clueless about what was happening, were mostly ordinary students, with only a few being elite students from various countries.

The Hungry Academy seemed to intentionally place skilled players in high-risk environments.

"This is the Hungry Academy's revenge. You humans insist on sticking together and refuse to eliminate ordinary students, so fine, if you won't eliminate them, I'll eliminate the elite students. That's probably the idea."

The Hungry Academy's intentions were easy to guess, and the countries of several top contenders fell silent.

Indeed, there are no perfect solutions in this world; gains come with losses.

"Random students get a free ride? That's unfair!"

"Is there a possibility?" an ID hesitantly suggested, "that the Hungry Academy wants to deal with the toughest batch first, then tackle the rest who have little fighting power, gradually progressing towards a total wipeout?"

"...Shut up." Everyone knows that!