Chapter 4 Gem Appreciation - A Room Full of Gems

Time was limited, and the space was too vast. The floor here was like crystal ice, seeming as if the slightest touch would produce a clear, crisp sound. Bai Xiao was afraid running would make noise, so she had to move lightly while trying to take as large steps as possible.

Truthfully, she never had the financial means to buy jewelry in daily life and didn't pay attention to such things. How to identify gems was completely beyond her knowledge.

At a glance, every gem looked as real as could be.

There were four pillars and eight display stands here. Each stand had five shelves, and each shelf had five compartments. One type of gem was placed in each compartment, with varying quantities—some had dozens or even hundreds, while others had around ten or twenty.

In other words, there were 200 compartments here, meaning two hundred types of gems, totaling at least tens of thousands...

Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, various diamonds, all kinds of crystals, jade of different textures, and even pearls the size of fists. It was a dazzling array. Bai Xiao could name very few; she hadn't even seen most of these gems before.

Time ticked away. The gems were dazzling, each shining with starlight, completely overwhelming anyone wandering among them. There was simply no way to judge which one was the so-called real gem.

After circling the room once, Bai Xiao still hadn't discovered anything. She finally returned to the center of the four pillars.

She knew time was running out. Only from this position would it be relatively close to any display stand later.

With no leads, she could only return to the game's hints themselves. Besides the appraisal method and staying quiet, what else had the game said?

Right—living beings. There were guardian beings here.

But since entering this room, she hadn't seen a single living creature.

...

[Warning: The treasury's opening time has ended. Please leave immediately.]

The quiet room suddenly rang with an alarm. The bell-like object on the stone door also began flashing red. She didn't know if sounds not made by her counted as breaking the 'stay quiet' game rule.

But at this moment, she didn't dare to stay any longer. Not knowing if this alarm counted down in seconds, Bai Xiao dashed straight for the red diamond display case in the front left. Each round offered only one verification chance—no matter what, she had to take a guess.

While running, it was hard to control the lightness or heaviness of her steps, inevitably making landing sounds. And this specially textured floor now served its purpose—it amplified sound!

Oh no!

At this moment, Bai Xiao was less than two meters away from the red diamond display case. Since she had already made noise, she didn't care anymore. She sped up, aimed for her target, took a sliding step, grabbed the largest red diamond, and ran out.

Whoosh!

The tip of a trident, carrying a piercing whistle through the air, grazed past her heel and was forcefully thrown into the ground. Even through the air, she could feel that killing intent. From the corner of her eye, Bai Xiao glimpsed the trident—made of jade, it was the weapon of the Fish-headed Monster carved on the pillar!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

As if verifying her guess, three jade tridents whistled toward her one after another along her escape route, closely following her footsteps and embedding themselves into the floor with a teeth-grating sound.

"Ah!" Pain suddenly struck—the trident tip had grazed her calf and heel.

The last one came too fast. If she had been a centimeter slower, her calf would have been pierced through.

Her body had no time to linger on the pain. The leg grazed by the sharp weapon suddenly went weak, but the inertia of her frantic run remained. Her whole body stumbled forward uncontrollably. Gritting her teeth, she barely supported herself with her elbows on the ground and used the momentum to tumble forward desperately.

Can't stop!

Stopping means death!

The door was ahead. As soon as she landed from the tumble, Bai Xiao used all her strength to push backward with her feet, throwing herself out the door.

The stone door, which had closed after she entered, was forced open a crack by her impact. After she tumbled out, the stone door slowly closed again, and the jade tridents stopped shooting out.

Bai Xiao lay on the ground, panting heavily in disarray. From the corner of her eye, she glanced at the not-yet-fully-closed door crack and was shocked to see the monster carved on the pillar moving up and down.

A stone carving can move?!

As the alarm and running sounds faded, the fish-headed, snake-bodied monster coiled around the jade pillar finally returned to its original form.

Most miraculous was the jade trident used as a weapon. About a meter long and slender, it had actually pierced a hole in the ice-crystal-like floor and stood firmly undamaged, completely defying jade's fragile nature.

Even more contrary to common sense, a few seconds later, the jade trident vanished into thin air. The hole in the floor made by the trident slowly closed, and a new jade trident 'grew' back into the Fish-headed Monster's hand!

Everything in this game space was too far beyond comprehension.

Although she had received the precious hint that angering the guardian beings would lead to killing, keeping her vigilant all along, she never imagined the guardian beings would be carved stone!

After calming down for a moment, Bai Xiao sat up and checked her calf. Her sleep pants were torn open into a wide bell-bottom, and her calf was cut open with a gash about ten centimeters long. Fortunately, it wasn't deep, but due to the intense movement just now, blood was now flowing everywhere, looking quite frightening at first glance.

Bai Xiao simply tore off the pant leg and bandaged it roughly. She couldn't let the blood keep flowing.

After getting up, she took two steps. It hurt a bit but didn't affect her movement.

After checking her body, Bai Xiao took out the large red diamond she had risked her life to bring out. The reason she chose this red diamond was that she vaguely remembered seeing related news before—an international auction house had sold an African red diamond at a high price, breaking the historical highest transaction record. So, with no clues, she could only pick the expensive one first.

Placing this red diamond on the verification stone platform, one second, two seconds, three seconds passed. The stone platform emitted a red light—not real.

[Verification result: False. Player, please return to Monitoring Room 3 immediately, or you will face game punishment.]

As expected, she failed. Indeed, normal reasoning couldn't be applied here. After verification was complete, the red diamond on the stone platform also vanished into thin air.

Unsuccessful, she could only wait for the next round. Bai Xiao returned the way she came.

As soon as she appeared, the people who had been leaning against walls or squatting on the ground waiting all crowded to their respective cell doors, grabbing the iron bars and asking questions all at once.

"What's inside? Did you get a gem?"

"How does the verification work? Do you know the method now?"

"You're injured? What dangers are inside? Are there traps?"

"..."

The six people fired off many questions like a machine gun. Bai Xiao walked toward her room while looking up, her gaze sweeping over each of their faces. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.

Returning to her room, the cell door closed behind her. She thought about it. Although she really didn't want to share the experience she had gained at the risk of her life with these hypocritical faces, this was only the first round. She didn't know what situations might arise in the next two rounds, so it wasn't wise to completely break relations yet.

The precious hint she obtained couldn't be revealed yet because, assuming the worst-case scenario—that this game had only one real gem—then everyone present was in competition.

After some thought, Bai Xiao picked a few questions everyone had asked, turned around, and responded, "I didn't get the real gem. To be precise, the entire room is full of gems. I couldn't judge, so I randomly grabbed a red diamond, but it was verified as fake."

Before she could finish speaking, the game broadcast sounded again.