243: Chapter 243 Is Li Li's heartbeat that of a living dead?
[Ding! Host detected entering a special game venue!]
[Temporary mission triggered: Host, please leave the Squid Game venue in a way that stuns the world!]
[Mission reward: Unknown. Failure penalty: None.]
A mechanical voice rang out in Li Li's mind.
He didn't even raise his eyelids, and with a backhand motion, he shoved the notification sound into the system's recycle bin.
Leave with a stunning performance? Dismantle a Gundam with bare hands?
He didn't have the spare time to worry about being stunning; this loess pit in front of him was what was truly life-threatening.
The venue was ridiculously large. It was at least two hundred meters wide, with nine hundred and thirty people crowded behind the starting line, a chaotic mess.
The length was even more exaggerated. From the starting point to the red line at the finish, it looked to be a full four hundred meters.
A four-hundred-meter sandy buffer with no leverage points. With Li Li's current non-human physique, a full-speed sprint would take at least fifty seconds.
What about Jiang Rumu? Li Li tilted his head.
Jiang Rumu was looking down, working out her ankles, her sneakers grinding half a pit into the loess. She had broken the record for female soldier weighted cross-country, but the resistance on this terrain was immense; it would take her at least eighty seconds to finish the course.
This meant they had to squeeze every last bit out of the few seconds that the terrifying doll spent with its back turned while singing.
Wasting even a tenth of a second would mean staying in the sand forever.
"When the gates open in a moment, run directly, don't worry about me."
Jiang Rumu spoke, not looking at Li Li, her voice kept very low and her speed of speech extremely fast.
"My physical fitness isn't as good as yours. If you're slowed down by me, the 001 on your chest will definitely be targeted by that NATO group. You rush over yourself and get the highest points."
Li Li reached out, grabbed the zipper of Jiang Rumu's sportswear, pulled it straight to the top, and jammed it against her chin.
"Cut the crap." Li Li brushed the dust off his hands. "First, listen to how the competition organizers recite the rules."
Jiang Rumu's head was forced up by the zipper, and she rolled her eyes at him.
"Do you think this is playing house? Would they be kind enough to recite the rules to you in eight languages?"
Jiang Rumu's intuition was terrifyingly accurate. There were no rules at all.
The nine hundred-plus people in the venue were still whispering to each other, waiting for that No. 01 android in the sky to issue instructions.
Four hundred meters ahead. Behind the twenty-meter-tall, pigtail-wearing terrifying doll, a huge black electronic screen rose without warning.
Blood-red numbers suddenly popped out, stinging everyone's retinas.
[20:00]! Immediately after, the numbers rolled downward. [19:59]! [19:58]! The countdown started immediately!
A burst of electronic synthesized music, cheerful to the point of being hair-raising, accompanied by a Korean nursery rhyme, smashed into the entire venue through the giant surrounding speakers.
"The Mugunghwa... has blossomed..."
At the very first syllable of the singing. Li Li backhanded and gripped Jiang Rumu's wrist.
"Run!"
No hesitation, no preparatory movements. Li Li's calf muscles tightened to the extreme, and his terrifying explosive power directly crushed the loess under his feet. He dragged Jiang Rumu and, in the split second when the vast majority of people were stunned, forcibly tore an opening from the crowd leading straight ahead.
At the same second. To the front left, Marcus of the American team let out a wild roar; that humanoid tyrannosaurus dashed out with his teammate Sarah, his heavy footsteps trampling deep pits into the sand.
To the front right, Anya from Russia darted out single-handedly, her speed extremely fast. Meanwhile, her teammate was still in a daze.
Nine hundred and thirty people in the venue. Only the five of them had rushed out the very first second the music started.
Major global live streaming rooms exploded.
[Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! It's started already?! These NPCs have no sportsmanship! There wasn't even a starting command!]
[Dean Li's reaction speed is insane! Did he turn on a prediction hack? There wasn't even a tenth of a second of delay!]
[Mumu is so fierce! Being dragged by Li Li and still able to keep up with the rhythm! Those long legs are amazing!]
[The American and Russian contestants have reacted too! The intuition of top experts!]
Two seconds later. The main group woke up as if from a dream.
"Fuck! Run!"
"Go, go, go!"
The crowd pushed and cursed as they surged forward. Some were tripped, some jumped forward by stepping on others' shoulders; the scene was out of control.
The main group had barely run ten meters. The cheerful nursery rhyme came to an abrupt halt.
Four hundred meters away, the twenty-meter-tall terrifying doll's huge head turned 180 degrees with a "click," moving at an extremely uncoordinated, mechanical speed.
Its oversized, inorganic motion-capture eyeballs flashed with red light. Scanning the entire venue!
In the crowd, at least fifty contestants from remote small countries who had never watched this Korean drama IP didn't know what the music stopping meant and were still running with their heads down.
Still others had rushed too hard, their feet slipping on the sand, floundering as they tried to steady themselves, completely unable to brake.
At the top of the cliff. Dense, pitch-black gun barrels had their red lights light up simultaneously. Locked on. Firing.
"Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!"
The automatic tranquilizer guns equipped with silencers spat out fine, deadly tongues of fire.
Li Li and Jiang Rumu had already rushed out a full thirty meters. The two of them planted themselves firmly in the loess, not moving a muscle.
They didn't need to look back at all. From behind came waves of bodies hitting the ground, accompanied by screams of extreme terror.
"Ah! My leg!"
"Fuck! What the hell is this thing! I've been shot!"
The effect of the special tranquilizer was extremely potent; those hit didn't even have time to curse a second time before their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed straight into the loess, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Back home. Shen Jue was sprawled out on the leather sofa in his living room, his popcorn bucket overturned.
He stared intently at the huge projector screen in front of him. The screen was divided into four parts: Gu Zeyan, Yin Ruoying, Li Li, and Jiang Rumu.
In Gu Zeyan's perspective, the image shook violently. Just now, in order to maintain his elegant runway walk, his start was a full three seconds slow, and he was directly swept up in the middle of the crowd.
Diagonally ahead, a young African man wearing animal skins took a tranquilizer dart in the shoulder. The young man didn't understand the situation at all, clutching his shoulder and still running forward on instinct.
"Pfft!" Another tranquilizer dart hit him, precisely striking the back of his neck. The African youth's body convulsed, and he fell straight backward.
As luck would have it, he landed right at Gu Zeyan's feet. A dull "thud" sound.
The splashed loess, mixed with gravel, covered Gu Zeyan's head and face. His meticulously styled Korean-style layered hair became an unearthed relic, and his sportswear was covered in mud spots.
Gu Zeyan was stiff all over, his left foot still held in a suspended position, forced to freeze on the spot.
Shen Jue grabbed a handful of popcorn scattered on the sofa and stuffed it into his mouth, his gaze drifting to the heart rate data in the top right corner of the screen.
Gu Zeyan's heart rate monitor was glowing deep red. [185] [189] [192]!
"This kid is about to die of sudden cardiac arrest!" Shen Jue slapped his thigh and laughed wildly, laughing until he coughed. "Keep acting! Keep acting! Where's that energy from walking the red carpet just now? This heartbeat is enough to go to a nightclub and DJ!"
The fans of Gu Zeyan in the barrage were all silenced. With this heart rate and this disheveled look, there was no way to defend him.
Shen Jue turned to look at Yin Ruoying in the bottom right corner. [170].
The short-drama queen had, after all, seen real knives and guns and blood at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Although she had also been slow to start, her foundation was extremely stable. In the footage, the moment the doll turned its head, she even grabbed a Korean contestant next to her who was about to fall, using the other person as a human shield.
This psychological fortitude—ruthless enough.
Looking at Jiang Rumu again. [150]. Normal high-intensity sprinting combined with nervousness, very reasonable data.
Shen Jue's gaze finally fell to the top left corner, the top right corner of Li Li's screen. The action of chewing popcorn stopped.
He rubbed his eyes. Leaned closer to the screen. Rubbed his eyes again. [60].
The red numbers jumped steadily. It changed to [59]. Shen Jue was stunned. Shen Jue scratched his head.
Shen Jue suddenly turned his head and shouted at the camera in his own live streaming room.
"Brothers! Did the competition organizers send Li Li a fake, shoddy watch?! Everyone else is playing a battle royale, nine hundred-plus people are being used as target practice! Is he taking a stroll?!"
"Heart rate fifty-nine?! Is this a heartbeat a living person can have!"
"My Brother Li must be the reincarnation of a cold-blooded animal!"
The barrage completely descended into a frenzy.
[Hahahaha! Dean Li: As long as my heartbeat is slow enough, the Grim Reaper can't catch up to me!]
[Gu Zeyan 192, Li Li 59. If you put these two together, you could compose an electrocardiogram symphony!]
[What the hell with the fake, shoddy watch! That's Fruit's latest generation device! They are probably even more broken down than Shen Jue right now!]
The footage froze on the shot of Jiang Rumu from Li Li's perspective behind him. Li Li had his hands behind his back, his fingers still making a heart shape at Jiang Rumu.
The red numbers in the top right corner jumped quietly. [58].
Shen Yu watched this scene in the live stream, and the cola in his hand didn't taste good anymore.
"Brothers, I want to fall in love."