The Abyssal Garden: No Room for the Idle

?

Su Qi almost wanted to choose directly, but it hadn't started yet.

There were four more figures.

The bearded man wearing a cowboy hat and jacket, he seemed to be called Arthur.

A surgeon in surgical attire, his gaze coldly fixed ahead.

And a priest in his usual attire, holding a cross and praying kindly, "May all children have a bright future."

The last woman lowered her head, her body covered in self-harm marks.

"As you can see, these are the seven people," Nancy squinted her eyes and said, "among them... there are good people and bad people, and you can judge based on their appearances and your own experience."

"Of course... please note that you only need to choose the one with the highest evil value. If you choose wrong, you will suffer a random punishment."

"Punishments vary in severity," Nancy said with a light laugh, "...it all depends on your luck."

The abnormalities disdainfully looked at these seven people.

In terms of evil value, they were the experts; most of these seven looked harmless.

They lacked brains and started choosing based on instinct.

But Su Qi was not in a hurry.

Because a "!" appeared on his screen, displaying,

"If you choose correctly, you will gain an advantage in the next phase."

"Looks like there's some trick to it."

Brother Su nodded, switching to serious mode.

He scrutinized everyone, and although they were holographic images, "?" still existed, but these "?" wouldn't provide any data on evil values.

Su Qi could only judge based on the information.

Tsk tsk tsk.

Wow... at least three individuals had killed more than twenty people.

And that priest, it wasn't murder, but purely more disgusting malevolence...

To Su Qi's surprise... the butcher, who had a fierce appearance, turned out to be a good person. His information was all about good deeds, and he quickly noticed that the less bright contestants were fixating on the butcher.

Young people were still too naïve.

Although each person's selection screen was in front of them, there was no long partition to block the view, allowing direct visibility of everyone's choices.

But even knowing what other contestants chose didn't confirm if it was the correct answer.

"The hardest part here isn't judging who is the evil person, but judging whose evil value is the highest," Su Qi pondered, finding the value hard to determine. His gaze flickered toward a particular figure.

The abnormalities were judging based on instinct; they weren't hesitant or afraid of death. Brother Hai Xing... didn't even look at the seven figures and just picked an option.

"Contestant number nine... now you're the only one who hasn't made a choice yet."

Nancy's voice suddenly came.

Su Qi paused and said, "I request to remove a wrong answer."

Nancy: "..."

"There isn't such an option."

"Then I request outside help."

"Even less so!"

Nancy clenched her teeth and shouted: "Just make a proper choice!"

Su Qi shook his head: "Not even caring about the show's effect, you're too unprofessional as a host."

He finally placed his eyes on the little girl holding a book.

"I'll choose her then."

Although just a holographic image, the little girl's obedient demeanor was very lively; she even seemed to blink at Su Qi, puzzled about why he chose her.

"Contestant number nine, truly an unexpected choice."

Nancy squinted her eyes, holding the microphone, and said:

"Looks like all contestants have made their choices. Now it's time to reveal the answer, and the method of revelation is..."

His tone tinged with excitement, his voice spreading throughout the venue: "The most anticipated random death punishment!"

Everyone shivered, feeling the restraints on their bodies tighten a bit, as if afraid they would escape.

And the next moment.

"Bang!"

The stirring music started, and except for Su Qi and the gambler, everyone's seats rapidly transformed into metal plates, five meters wide and one meter thick! They were chained up, confined within these bounds.

Even the little cat was connected by chains, meowing plaintively.

Around the metal plate, numerous cutting blades were extending one after another.

And at the center of the round table, a cylinder arose, replete with iron spikes stained with copious amounts of blood!

Nancy looked toward the excited audience and declared aloud, "Ladies and gentlemen, the punishment has begun!"

"Who will survive! And who will die!"

At that moment!

A multitude of spikes fiercely shot out, and aside from Su Qi and the gambler, the other abnormalities attempted to dodge.

And the surrounding glinting blades had already begun spinning intensely!

A live meat grinder!

"Bang!"

The power of these iron spikes was absolutely terrifying, brutally embedding themselves into the thick metal plates and even protruding from the other side.

If one were impaled, they would be firmly nailed to the metal plate.

And then, there was no escape, they were ruthlessly killed!

At this moment, someone had already fallen, contestant number one... he didn't even have time to pull out his chainsaw before being nailed to the metal plate! Massive amounts of flesh were sliced! Blood sprayed across the entire surface of the plate.

And at that time,

The gambler in the distance stared at Su Qi and slowly said,

"I didn't expect I wasn't the only one... who chose that little girl."

"You actually gambled too, picking the option that seemed the most normal and harmless out of the seven."

Su Qi gave him a glance, "Gamble?"

Although it wasn't possible to discern the difference in evil values directly from the individuals, the items they possessed were the crucial elements.

The doll held by the little girl was... filled with flesh and stitched together with at least twenty different humans' skins, essentially a man-made horror pollutant.

And that book wasn't any fairytale; its cover strangely resembled the Evil God Totem, and also contained [?] information, a type of blood sacrifice ceremony.

She looked obedient, but in reality, she was the most dangerous evil here.

The punishment ended.

Out of the ten, seven astonishingly survived.

Contestant number one and number five, these two were indeed too frail... and another, number seven, had also been physically eliminated.

The scene was incredibly gory.

But upon seeing such a sight, the audience burst into excited whistles and cheers!

"Hold on!" Nancy raised her hand to signal silence, and she didn't clean up the seats of the three contestants, the horrific scene adding a bit of tension to the atmosphere.

He turned his head towards the remaining people and softly smiled, saying,

"The remaining nine players, up next is the final round of the death choice."

"But rest assured, this round is very simple and not dangerous, it serves as a preparation for the next round."

"This round is... choosing an item of your own."

Nancy squinted her eyes, reminding them somewhat sinisterly, "Choose carefully, if you make a poor judgment, the next theme will be very... gruesome!"

Su Qi paused slightly.

He saw the clown pulling out a balloon, emitting a strange laugh.

The puppet Ah Ji's eyes glowed green as he pulled out a bloodstained long knife.

The Paper Bride held onto a hairpin, looking even more sinister.

The gambler materialized a card in his hand.

Freddy sharpened his claws, eyeing the people behind—Brother Hai Xing, cat... and Su Qi, laughing ominously, "Looks like you're being targeted, tsk tsk tsk, but there's no helping it, the weak... can only become prey."

.....

Su Qi watched the various abnormalities change, gradually revealing dangerous cold smiles, seemingly having designs on the seemingly harmless three of them.

Bullying? Targeting?

Just because we're handsome?

But it seems... a fierce battle awaits next, extremely perilous.

One item seemed insufficient.

At that moment,

The [!] in front of Su Qi slowly disappeared, as prompt boxes appeared.

[You have successfully chosen the correct answer]

[Level has been restored to 16]

[You may additionally choose one item from the Item Slot and Skill Bar to remove the restrictions]

Oh, so that's how it's played.

Then no worries.