An Ling glanced at the Compound Bow in her hand.
She wanted to shoot an arrow through the madman downstairs, but that would expose her own strength, so she decided to wait and watch for now.
If Qin Xiao really couldn’t handle the situation, it wouldn’t be too late for her to step in.
The two-meter wide spiral staircase became crowded as people frantically fled upwards.
Qin Xiao grabbed the handrail with one hand, leaped from the outside of the stairs, and landed steadily on the ground.
The madman in front of him stared, stunned, at the man wielding a Tang Sword who had just jumped down from the staircase.
Although these survivors were crazy, they weren’t fools. When faced with fear, they would still choose to run away. It was just that this madman, unlike the uncle An Ling had encountered before, didn’t run.
Perhaps he knew that there was no way to escape from this manor.
He held a dagger and took up a defensive stance, seeming prepared for a life-and-death struggle with Qin Xiao.
Qin Xiao, holding the Tang Sword, looked cold and indifferent, as if he didn’t regard the opponent as a threat at all. Without saying a word, he stepped forward and slashed at him.
But the madman’s insanity exceeded his expectations. Even if it meant taking Qin Xiao’s sword head-on, he still tried to stab the dagger into Qin Xiao’s body.
Bang! Qin Xiao grabbed the opponent’s wrist as the dagger thrust at him, twisted his sword, and struck the madman’s side with the hilt.
A straight kick sent the man flying.
Clang!
The bloodied dagger fell to the ground as Qin Xiao slowly walked toward him.
The man coughed as he climbed back up, looking at Qin Xiao in horror. Clearly, he had underestimated Qin Xiao’s strength.
But a madman is still a madman. Even without a weapon, he rushed toward Qin Xiao, intent on killing him.
It was pointless. Qin Xiao directly pinned him to the ground and restrained him.
“Why did you kill?”
The man lying on the floor twisted his head, trying hard to look at the person holding him down, then grinned and said, “You lunatics, all of you deserve to die!”
“What do you mean by that? Explain clearly—are you saying we’re the lunatics? What does you being trapped here have to do with us?” An Ling also came over and questioned the man at her feet.
“It’s because of you! If you hadn’t come, I could have left!” He stopped smiling, staring fiercely at An Ling as if he might kill her at any moment.
The other survivors nearby, seeing that Qin Xiao had subdued the madman, stopped fleeing and crowded downstairs to watch.
“What’s the point of talking to this lunatic? Just finish him off already.”
“Yeah, he’s not one of us survivors, he has nothing to do with us. Besides, his mental state is off—who knows if anything he says is true!”
“Hmph, too bad I couldn’t kill you all!” The man spat on the ground, cursing at the onlookers, completely unconcerned about his own fate.
Just as An Ling had judged, these survivors only appeared normal on the surface. In reality, they were all mentally unstable and could go insane at any moment.
Qin Xiao didn’t bother to ask any further. He dragged the man out toward the manor’s entrance. As for what would happen next, everyone could easily guess.
A short while later, Qin Xiao returned from outside, the Tang Sword in his hand still stained with fresh blood, making him look especially menacing.
A figure flashed past An Ling—it was that girl.
She walked over to Qin Xiao, “Thank you for saving everyone.”
But Qin Xiao, his face indifferent, ignored the girl in front of him and instead looked toward An Ling in the distance. “How do you tell who the survivors are?”
“Their backpacks. Their backpacks are old. And according to the first survivor I met on my first day, they’ve been trapped here for ten days.” As for any other methods of identification, An Ling didn’t know.
What if a survivor had already killed a participant before arriving and swapped gear? In that case, there was no way to distinguish them.
The other participants around seemed to realize this too. They immediately started backing away, unconsciously putting distance between themselves and others. Former allies fell apart in an instant.
No one could be sure whether there was a madman among their teammates.
The unknown monsters had already put everyone on edge. They thought that gathering together would prevent tragedy, but who would have guessed that such madmen were hiding among them?
At this point, the best solution was to fend for themselves and heed the warning by hiding back in their own rooms.
At least during the day, the monster might not appear, making it somewhat safer.
“So this is the task of the novice island—to survive ten days…”
A gloom hung over everyone’s heads. The first to react quickly retreated to their own room alone.
At this stage, no one wanted to interact with strangers anymore.
An Ling ignored the others and pushed open the manor’s main doors, stepping outside. She wanted to see if there was any way to leave this place.
If it was possible, she could store enough food to survive the remaining seven days outside.
The whole manor looked brand new, but the black iron fence surrounding it did not.
There were at least eight gates around the manor’s perimeter, and without a doubt, each was locked with a strange black lock.
The shackle of this kind of lock was extremely thick, about as thick as a finger. It would be hard to break even with a gun.
[Please do not attempt to escape the manor. It is very dangerous!]
A red warning was written clearly on the railing. Outside the manor, a strange mist enveloped everything, with dark green-black treetops barely visible in the fog, creating a terrifying atmosphere.
The entire manor was completely sealed off, with no exits at all. Even the iron gate facing the forest had no visible paths leading out.
“That’s strange. Could the hidden mission be to open these black locks and leave the manor?” An Ling was puzzled. By now, she was starting to accept these supernatural occurrences.
The possibility of returning to the ancient tree from here was basically zero.
“It seems all the clues are hidden inside the manor.” An Ling muttered as she turned back inside.
By now, there were very few people left in the main hall. Most had used up all three of their shopping opportunities at once and were hiding in their own rooms.
“Why are you still here?” An Ling looked at the girl in front of her, asking warily.
“You seem to be pretty close with that handsome guy from earlier. Could you introduce me?” The girl wore a faint smile, looking extremely cute.
An Ling raised her brows slightly. “I don’t really know him. You can go ask him yourself.” With that, she ignored the girl and headed straight upstairs.
This girl’s behavior was odd. An Ling didn’t want any unnecessary interaction with her.