Everyone now knew the conditions for death on the carousel. Compared to the thrilling battles with ghosts and the intensity of the roller coaster, this just seemed a bit bumpy, making it feel a little more manageable.
Owen Dong quickly stepped forward and said, “Count me in!”
He had to give it his all now; if he didn’t, his popularity might really hit rock bottom.
Out of the remaining four people, Li Zhi asked, “Who else wants to go?”
You Jingmeng thought for a moment and said, “This ride seems to require a lot of arm strength and physical stamina. I’m not going. Stamina is my weakness. If I can’t hold on and get thrown off, I’m done for.”
In terms of arm strength, Li Zhi and Qi Yongyi were definitely the best. Chi Yi agreed, “You two should go. Mengmeng and I will sit this one out.”
Earlier, the two of them had performed well enough on the roller coaster to win over the crowd, especially You Jingmeng, who had fallen off the roller coaster and survived. That twist was so thrilling that skipping one amusement ride wouldn’t hurt their popularity too much.
Li Zhi nodded, and the three of them headed to the entrance. After showing their tickets, a staff member took out a stamp and marked a small carousel stamp on the grid at the back of their tickets.
As soon as the three entered, the carousel, which had been spinning, came to a stop. The staff member smiled and reminded them from behind, “Please choose a horse you like, hold on tight, and we’ll be ready to start.”
The carousel looked just like the ones Li Zhi had ridden before at amusement parks. Each row had three horses, with their sizes ranging from large to small from the outside in.
She recalled how, when she used to go to amusement parks with Li Feng and Li Shuang, Li Shuang always insisted on riding the largest horse on the outside, while she took the middle one, and Li Feng, being tall, would squeeze onto the smallest horse on the inside.
Li Zhi wasn’t sure if the bumpy rides on these differently sized horses would be the same, so to be safe, she chose the middle horse.
The three of them didn’t sit far apart. Qi Yongyi chose the large horse at the outer edge of the row in front of Li Zhi, and Owen Dong picked the small horse in the back row on the innermost side.
After they were all seated, the start bell rang through the speakers, and cheerful nursery rhymes began to play around them. The carousel started moving. At first, the ride was calm, as if lulling the players into a false sense of security.
However, none of the three dared to let their guard down and held tightly onto the safety bars. Sure enough, after one leisurely rotation, the ride suddenly became wildly turbulent. If they hadn’t been prepared in advance, the near 90-degree tilt backward would have certainly thrown them off the horses.
Li Zhi heard the sound of real horses galloping, and the horse she was sitting on seemed to come alive, galloping across rough terrain, doing everything it could to shake her off.
The violent jolts and vibrations directly impacted their fragile human bodies. Several times, Li Zhi was thrown off the horse and into the air, only to crash back down heavily. She felt like her organs had been knocked out of place.
If she stayed seated any longer, she thought her tailbone might crack.
In a split second, she made a decisive move. Li Zhi released her feet from the stirrups on either side, bent forward, and instead of stepping, hooked her feet under the horse’s belly. She pressed her whole body firmly against the horse’s back.
Her core strength and muscle power were already strong, so no matter how much the horse bucked, her body stayed glued to the saddle in a completely prone position.
Owen Dong, seeing her move, hurriedly imitated it, finally stabilizing his precarious body. After several more turbulent rotations, when the carousel finally came to a stop, all three of them nearly fell off their horses.
In unison, the three of them staggered to the side railing and threw up.
Li Zhi dry heaved twice but couldn’t actually vomit. Still, her stomach churned violently, and she stood still for a long while before feeling her internal organs settle back into place.
Qi Yongyi, his face pale, muttered, “This is worse than the pilot’s three-axis rotation training I did before!”
Chi Yi and You Jingmeng rushed over from the other side, asking worriedly through the railing, “Why are you all throwing up? Can you handle the next round?”
Owen Dong wiped his mouth. “I feel like my bile’s been shaken loose! My whole body aches!”
Chi Yi looked at him wobbling unsteadily and said, “Why don’t you sit this one out? I’ll take your place.”
Owen Dong gritted his teeth, tears welling up as he refused her offer, “No, I can still make it through another round.”
After resting for a moment, Li Zhi walked up to the staff member, who smiled and handed over a small black box. “Congratulations on completing the first round of the carousel challenge. Here’s your reward.”
She took the box, opened it, glanced inside, then turned back to inform her teammates, “It’s ‘Together We Walk.’”
Just as Wei Xiao and the others had mentioned.
You Jingmeng expressed her concern, “It looks like the second clue is probably the same as theirs—’Soul Binding.’ That means we’ll have to go through the third round. In the second round, the safety bars disappear. By the third round, the horses might disappear too, right?”
No one knew what would happen until they reached the third round.
The three of them stood to the side for a few minutes to rest before Li Zhi asked the other two, “Ready?”
Qi Yongyi rolled up his sleeves, “Let’s do it!”
Owen Dong gritted his teeth and followed.
Li Zhi softly instructed her teammates, “This time, everyone chooses a small horse. Tie your jackets around the horse’s head by the sleeves. I checked earlier—the small horse’s size makes it possible for the jacket sleeves to form a strong knot.”
Owen Dong suddenly realized her strategy and nodded repeatedly.
Li Zhi turned to the nearby staff member and said, “We’re ready for the second round.”
The staff member nodded with a smile, “Of course, please enter from this side.”
Once again, the group approached the carousel, but instead of immediately sitting down, they first took off their jackets, pulled the sleeves over the horse’s head from behind, and tied the sleeves tightly in front. Only after securing everything did they crawl onto the horses, laying flat against them.
The staff member’s smile became a bit stiff as they watched.
Without the riders on the horses, the carousel wouldn’t start.
Once the three of them were ready, they mounted the horses, immediately pressing their bodies down and pulling the jacket sleeves tight to secure themselves to the horse’s back with a firm knot. As soon as the bell rang, they were already tightly bound to their horses, adding an extra layer of safety.
When the carousel started up again, the safety bars instantly vanished, just as expected. At that moment, the horses suddenly reared up. Had they not known about the disappearing bars and clung to them, they would have been flung off.
But this time, none of them bothered with the safety bars. They held tightly to the horses’ heads, and thanks to the jackets securing them, they made it through without major mishaps.
Owen Dong did slip at one point, but because the jacket was holding him in place, he managed to keep his upper body pressed to the horse’s back and frantically climbed back up. At one point, something stepped on the heel of his shoe, and if he hadn’t quickly kicked it off and pulled his foot up, it wouldn’t have just been his shoe that got crushed.
Li Zhi, hugging the horse’s head, noticed something strange—the previously rigid surface of the wooden horse had started to soften. She could now feel a texture that belonged to a living creature beneath her fingers.
The horses were coming to life, though not entirely.
In their half-wooden, half-living state, they completed the second round.
When the carousel finally came to a stop, Li Zhi slid smoothly out from under the jacket, her slim waist twisting gracefully as she dismounted. Afterward, she untied the knots securing the jackets to the horses and helped her companions do the same.
Then, all three of them clung to the railing and started vomiting again.
Chi Yi and You Jingmeng: “…”
After throwing up, Owen Dong plopped down on the ground, one shoe missing, and said miserably, “I’m done. I can’t do another round. Someone else has to take over for the third.”
If he went again, he felt like his body would completely break apart!
Chi Yi was already gearing up from the other side of the railing, “I’m in!”
Li Zhi leaned against the railing to catch her breath, “The horses in the third round are likely to become real horses. Real horses are harder to control, and there could be other dangers too.”
She wiped the corner of her mouth. “Let’s check out the clue for this round first.”
She walked over to the staff member, who smiled and handed her another black box. “Congratulations on completing the second round of the carousel challenge. Here is your clue.”
Li Zhi opened the box, pulled out the card, and was momentarily stunned when she saw the clue.
Meanwhile, Chi Yi was already preparing to swipe her ticket for entry.
Li Zhi turned and stopped her, “No need to go in.” Everyone looked over as she said, “We got a different clue.”
She walked back to the railing and showed them the card from this round.
There were no words on it, just a purple image.
Chi Yi took the card and held it up under the spotlight above, but found nothing else on it—just a solid purple background.
Everyone exchanged confused glances. “What does this mean?”
You Jingmeng frowned. “Why did Wei Xiao’s group get the ‘Soul Binding’ clue for their second round, but ours is just this purple picture? Why are the clues different?”
Li Zhi explained, “It means that different players experiencing the same challenge may get random clues in each round. The three clues are distributed randomly—sometimes they’re the same, sometimes they’re not. It’s all based on luck.”
This time, they were fortunate. They had received a different clue from Wei Xiao’s group, so they didn’t have to go through the third round.
However…
Owen Dong’s voice trembled slightly. “So… does this mean that when Wei Xiao’s team voted for the ghost earlier, they made the wrong choice? Purple has nothing to do with Black and White Impermanence.”
“’Together We Walk’ and ‘Soul Binding’ clearly point to Black and White Impermanence,” Li Zhi agreed. “But purple doesn’t connect to them at all.”
If Wei Xiao’s group had also received the purple clue in their second round, they definitely wouldn’t have voted for Black and White Impermanence.
But they hadn’t gotten that purple clue.
The rules for this challenge required all nine rounds to be voted correctly in order to pass safely. They had already voted wrong in the first round. No matter how hard they tried from here on out, it wouldn’t matter anymore.
A cold, despairing chill ran through everyone. Li Zhi made a quick decision, her voice low and firm, “Don’t tell them about this.”
Her gaze swept over the group, and everyone immediately understood what she meant.
They couldn’t let Wei Xiao and Han Wenlin find out that they’d made a fatal mistake in the first round. They were already in a doomed situation, and human nature couldn’t be trusted in such dire straits. Once the truth came out, no one could guarantee they wouldn’t turn on their teammates in a desperate, self-destructive bid—just like Shin Zhijian had done in the last game.
Everyone shuddered at the thought and nodded heavily in agreement.
The three of them walked out of the entrance, and the two cards Li Zhi had been holding turned to ash.
Knowing their teammates’ inevitable fate cast a heavy gloom over the group. You Jingmeng, still shaken, whispered, “It’s a good thing Cheng Jiayue followed Big Boss Li’s advice and voted for the ghost. At least we saved one person.”
Li Zhi looked into the distance, at the darkening sky. “It’s still early. Let’s take on the Ferris wheel next.”