Chapter 43
Chapter 43
Tina swallowed, fear showing on her face. Then she looked at the server and nodded.
The male server replaced Lv Chao’s glass with a larger one. He poured the two hundred milliliters of vodka from the original glass into it, measured out another three hundred milliliters, and added that too.
Without another word, Lv Chao lifted the enormous glass and drank one full jin of the strongest liquor in the world as though it were cold water.
Everyone stared, dumbfounded.
Hey… Don’t do this! Song Xue screamed inwardly. I was acting! I don’t truly want to die! Drinking like that is practically suicide. Worse, you raised the amount. Does that mean I have to drink as much as you? No! That will kill me! Damn it, I should have known when to stop. I shouldn’t have made my performance so convincing! I only wanted to frighten all of you into backing down. I put so much emotion into it that I inspired this man instead! Why didn’t I notice he was suicidal? If you want to die, fine, but don’t drag me down with you! Stop drinking! I can’t exactly tell him I was only acting. What am I supposed to do now?
The muscles in Song Xue’s face twitched. Her mouth hung open, but no sound emerged. This “performance” was utterly authentic. Unfortunately, it could only play out as an internal monologue.
Lv Chao lifted the glass and swallowed the last mouthful. The overwhelming concentration of alcohol cut through his final thread of consciousness like a sword, and perhaps took his life with it. The glass slipped from his hand, struck the floor, and shattered. He toppled stiffly backward. The twin sisters tried to catch him but could not hold his weight. With a heavy thud, Lv Chao hit the floor and lost consciousness.
“Oh my God! He drank so much. Take him for emergency treatment, or he’ll die!” Bie Shuiyin cried anxiously.
“We will, but only after the game ends,” Tina said.
Her answer reminded everyone that the game was still in progress. They all turned toward Song Xue. Tina did too.
“Ms. Song Xue, under the rules, if another player raises the amount, you must drink the same quantity.”
“But… he collapsed. That means he withdrew, doesn’t it?” Song Xue asked, trembling.
“Here is the current situation. Mr. Lv Chao raised the amount, drank first, and collapsed from intoxication. He may be unable to continue, but because he raised the amount, you must drink as much as he did. If you refuse, your result for this round will be invalid.”
“I can choose not to drink! I’d still have the highest total among everyone who’s conscious!” Song Xue protested.
“That’s not how it works, Ms. Song Xue. As I explained, a round counts only if you finish all the liquor for that round. Once someone raises the amount, everyone must drink the same total. If you don’t drink the additional three hundred milliliters of vodka, the first two hundred you drank in this round will count for nothing.
“Of course, you’ll still keep your total from the second round. But Mr. Zhang, Ms. Ruirui, and Mr. Thomas Feng also have the same second-round total. Are you certain you want to begin the sobriety test under those conditions? Since all four of you are tied, you lose if any one of them passes the test.”
Song Xue looked at the round-faced Zhang, Ruirui, and Thomas Feng. The first two were both still sufficiently sober. She would have no advantage at all.
If she wanted to survive, she had no other choice. She would have to force down another three hundred milliliters of vodka.
The server measured the liquor and handed her the glass. Song Xue accepted it with trembling hands.
What could she do? The sanitary pads behind her neck and inside her sleeve were already saturated. Did she really have to drink three hundred milliliters of ninety-six-percent vodka?
So far, the only liquor she had actually swallowed was the half jin of erguotou from the first round. Adding these six liang of vodka would bring the total to one jin and one liang. Her tolerance should be enough to handle that, shouldn’t it?
No. She might have drunk more than one jin before, but that was ten years ago, and she had consumed it over several hours, not in a single gulp. It had not been nearly this strong either.
Hong Long had claimed he could drink two or three jin, yet he had collapsed and vomited immediately after drinking two hundred milliliters of this vodka. Song Xue could not possibly have a higher tolerance. If she honestly finished the glass, she would meet the same fate.
“Ms. Song Xue, you can’t delay any longer,” Tina reminded her.
All right. She would gamble everything.
Song Xue gritted her teeth, raised the glass, and began to drink. She had no choice but to attempt a compromise: divert more than half the vodka into the sanitary pad behind her neck and swallow the smaller portion.
By extraordinary luck, the sanitary pad barely held. At least Song Xue felt no obvious leaking. Somehow, it had contained three hundred and fifty milliliters of liquor.
But when she tested it in her room, it had held only three hundred milliliters at most. Could her body heat have evaporated some of the alcohol? Yes. Alcohol had a lower boiling point than water and evaporated more easily.
Thank heavens. Lady Luck had ultimately sided with her. No, she should thank Dionysus. She had proposed a drinking game, so the god of wine must be helping her in secret.
Even though Song Xue had swallowed less than one hundred and fifty milliliters of vodka, she still felt the power of the strongest liquor in the world. This time, she truly wanted to vomit. The world spun around her, and she could lose consciousness at any moment. Only her determination to survive kept her upright.
“Wow! Ms. Song Xue really drank the additional three hundred milliliters of vodka! What an incredible tolerance!” Tina clapped excitedly. “At last, we’ve reached the final stage: the sobriety test!”