She finally understood what had made her excited earlier.
In this tense and terrifying game, she suppressed her racing heart because… because here, she was no longer a disabled person. In a way, she was the same as them, equal.
Even… maybe a little bit higher than them.
Because she already had a vague idea of how to pass the game.
What an irony it was. A poor thing who was discriminated against, ignored, had no sense of existence, couldn't speak, and had no right to express her opinion in reality actually found a sense of belonging in a ridiculous nightmare of a game.
Bai Youwei suddenly understood the madness of those gangsters.
Although she despised and scorned their actions at the time, she had to admit that this feeling of holding power was truly wonderful. Few could resist it.
She looked down at her palm, slowly clenched it, and then slowly opened it again.
There was nothing there. She stared blankly.
While she was lost in thought, Shen Mo and Tan Xiao came back.
Both of them were covered in mud, their hair caked with layers of mud. They looked haggard, exhausted, and solemn.
Even Tan Xiao, the usually carefree one, put away his joking face and said to Shen Mo with a bitter face, "Damn it, the time given is too short. What can we do in 20 seconds? It's not even enough time to pee! I only dug one hole, and the time was up!"
Shen Mo didn't say anything. He lowered his head to check Bai Youwei's leg and made sure she was okay. Then he turned to Tan Xiao and said, "3 minutes."
Tan Xiao blinked his eyes, his face full of confusion. "…Ah? What 3 minutes?"
"He's talking about the frog's time."
Someone else chimed in. It was Zhang Hua, the original leader.
He had just crawled out of the shell and was leaning against the snail, panting slightly. He said expressionlessly, "From the moment the frog appeared to the moment it left, it was a total of 3 minutes and 15 seconds. If you exclude the time it spent digging, it was only 3 minutes."
It seemed that those who could pass the game once all had something extraordinary about them. This Zhang Hua seemed to be particularly sharp with numbers and time.
Tan Xiao understood and suddenly realized, "So we just have to hold out for 3 minutes, and we can last until the next round?"
Shen Mo glanced at him and corrected him, "It's meaningless to hold out until the next round. But we have 3 minutes to kill the frog."
Tan Xiao's eyes widened. "Kill… kill… kill… kill the frog?"
Zhang Hua also looked astonished.
"Brother, you're not kidding, are you?" Tan Xiao couldn't believe it. He widened his eyes in shock and said, "That thing is almost as big as a small building. How can we kill it?!"
Shen Mo had a folding fruit knife in his hand. He opened it, calmly wiped the mud off it, and said calmly, "20 seconds is too short. Even if we can determine the range of the falling ball, 20 seconds is not enough to find the golden ball in a dozen holes. This time limit is determined by the frog. If we can kill the frog, we can extend the time to find the golden ball."
The fact before them was cruel and straightforward: time was not enough.
The ball was in the hole.
But it was too much of a waste of time to walk in the mud or bend down to dig in the mud.
Shen Mo's train of thought, though seemingly absurd, was undoubtedly correct. 20 seconds flew by in a flash. They had to buy more time.
Tan Xiao opened and closed his mouth, closed and opened it again, repeatedly struggling. After a while, he finally took a deep breath and seemed to have made up his mind. He said with a vicious expression, "Okay! Let's do it! I'm not afraid of it!"
Hearing this, Shen Mo gave him a strange look. "You're bare-handed. Just focus on finding the ball. I'll deal with the frog."
Tan Xiao: "…"
Oh, he got excited for nothing.
At this moment, the golden ball popped out again and floated in mid-air, giggling and saying, "The current game has failed. There are 19 players surviving. Now entering the third round of 'The Frog's Golden Ball'. Please get ready, players! The preparation time is one minute. The countdown begins. 59, 58, 57…"