Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Song Xue’s real profession was teaching acting at a training center. She had attended film school as an acting major and was formally trained.

The story she had just told was a script she had spent more than a day crafting. Drawing on everything she had learned in her career, she had performed a deeply moving tale.

In reality, she and Zhao Bo had been married for ten years, and their feelings for each other had faded. Like many middle-aged couples, they had long since lost their attraction to one another. Their marriage and household were mostly a partnership of convenience. In their free time, they each did as they pleased. Zhao Bo liked drinking or playing cards with friends, then sleeping in the spare bedroom when he returned late. Song Xue liked going to bed early and running in the morning. Despite living under the same roof, their different routines and schedules often meant they went days without seeing each other. Over time, they had grown accustomed to the arrangement. Neither thought it was bad; in fact, it made life easier and more comfortable for both of them. Calling them strangers would have been an exaggeration. Calling them a couple united in appearance but divided at heart was exactly right.

Of course, they still maintained the most basic duties of a marriage. Otherwise, they might have reached the tragic point where one fell ill and the other would not even bring them a cup of water. This year marked their tenth anniversary. To commemorate it, they had planned a trip and eventually settled on Xiangji Island in Country T.

Instead, their ceremonial anniversary trip became a nightmare. Zhao Bo died violently before the vacation had even begun.

When Song Xue had cursed Tina for being inhuman and declared that she no longer wanted to live, she had not been acting. Nor had it been a display of undying devotion. She had just watched her husband’s head explode before her eyes. Overwhelmed by fear and despair, she had assumed she would probably die too and decided she might as well attack the organizers and take someone down with her.

Then, only minutes later, everything changed. Tina told the group that the winner of the game would receive an enormous reward. Song Xue had immediately thought, Thank goodness someone stopped me from attacking that brat, or I would have thrown my life away.

Why hadn’t they said sooner that the winner would receive a fortune? Earning money was difficult enough already, and the training center was doing worse by the day. If the decline continued, she might lose her job. Zhao Bo was dead, and the first prize had been purchased with his life. No matter what else was true, he had still been her husband. How could she let someone else take the death benefit his life had bought? She had to fight for it. If she won, at least the trip would not have been entirely wasted.

That thought seemed rather cruel to her dead husband. But Old Zhao, we were husband and wife, after all. You wouldn’t want to have died for nothing or see me follow you into the grave, would you? If I win this game, you’ll be pleased for me, won’t you?

With those thoughts, her state of mind changed completely. Song Xue began preparing for her own game a day or two in advance.

When it came to her greatest strength, acting was the obvious answer. But she could hardly propose that everyone put on a play and judge whose performance was best. Acting was subjective and could not be evaluated with precision.

What else did she do well?

After thinking for a long time, Song Xue realized that she had a fairly high alcohol tolerance. She had often visited bars and KTV lounges with friends while attending film school and was familiar with many kinds of liquor.

The problem was that her tolerance was merely good, not exceptional. The most she remembered drinking was during a late-night meal with friends that lasted until three or four in the morning. Five of them finished six bottles of baijiu, which meant her share had probably been a little over one jin.

That was impressive for an average woman. But Song Xue knew there were countless people who could drink more than she could. This tour group alone had plenty of young men, many of whom were probably strong drinkers. The crude man named Hong Long practically had the words bottomless tolerance written across his face.

She could not win by relying on alcohol tolerance alone. She needed a strategy.

Acting, drinking, and the persona of an utterly devoted wife she had accidentally established… When Song Xue put those elements together, an idea came to her.
First, she needed to test and practice her method.

Song Xue took an overnight sanitary pad from her suitcase, unfolded it, and poured water onto it from a bottle. She discovered that a single pad could absorb between two hundred and fifty and three hundred milliliters at most.

Using double-sided tape, she attached the pad to the skin on the back of her neck and concealed it beneath her collar. Then she practiced cheating with a glass filled with water. The trick was to tilt her head back as if she were drinking while discreetly using her thumb to divert the liquid. She held her thumb as close to the back of her neck as possible, making the water flow onto the sanitary pad and soak into it.

After practicing repeatedly, Song Xue mastered the technique. She could divert most of the water onto the pad behind her neck without leaving any obvious sign. Once she finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. In reality, she was removing the trails of water on her neck and neatly covering her tracks.

The day before the contest, she put a series of plans into motion. First, she told Tina that her chosen event would be a drinking contest. She specifically requested a bar with “the right atmosphere.” She never said it outright, but bars with atmosphere were usually dimly lit.

The haunting on the night before the game had been entirely unexpected. Although it frightened her, it did not interfere with the next day’s contest.

After spending most of the night on a sofa in the hotel lobby, Song Xue returned to her room. On the day of the game, she made two preparations: one sanitary pad on the back of her neck and another strapped to her right forearm.

Together, the two pads could absorb at least five hundred milliliters, the equivalent of one jin of baijiu.

Besides concealing them beneath her collar and sleeve, she deliberately wore her long hair loose. With it covering both ears, the subtle motion of her thumb diverting the liquid would be even harder to detect.

Once the game began, Song Xue put her strategy into action. First, she intimidated the other players. She deliberately called sixty-five-percent Red Star Erguotou “weak liquor” and demanded that they drink half a jin in one go. This created the impression that her alcohol tolerance was unfathomable, while the sheer quantity frightened some players away. The tactic worked perfectly. Four people surrendered without taking a single drink.

Song Xue did not cheat during the first round. She truly drank the half jin of erguotou. The effects of alcohol were not easy to imitate, and the flush on her cheeks would convince everyone that she had actually finished the glass.

People usually fell into habitual patterns of thought. If she truly drank the first glass, they would naturally assume she could not be cheating later. The technique had another advantage. No matter how strong a person’s tolerance, half a jin of liquor would leave them less than fully sober. With their heads spinning and their eyes glazed, they were even less likely to notice how Song Xue cheated afterward.

Then it was time for her performance.

Half a jin of baijiu had made Song Xue genuinely dizzy, so she did not need to pretend to be drunk. She merely recited the lines she had rehearsed from the script she had prepared, then added a subtle and authentic performance to create the image of a grieving wife who deeply loved her husband. The story had moved even a crude man like Hong Long.

The scene served at least two purposes.

First, it established her as a former nightclub drinking hostess and pressured the others into believing they could never outdrink a woman with years of experience, encouraging them to withdraw.

Second, she delivered two critical lines: “Winning isn’t that important to me,” and, “If I drink myself to death, I can join my husband in the next world.” Those words made the others believe that she had lost her reason and no longer cared whether she lived or died. Who would dare keep drinking against someone with a death wish? Once they thought that way, they would inevitably lose their nerve and abandon the contest.

The result proved her right. When Tina asked who would drink in the third round, not one person dared raise a hand.