Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The servers brought over two wooden staircases and placed one beneath each glass walkway. Tina addressed the round-faced Zhang and Song Xue.

“Use these to climb up. Please cross the elevated glass walkways with the utmost care. Good luck!”

Zhang and Song Xue looked at each other. Knowing there was no way back, they exhaled and stepped onto the wooden stairs.

“There are two things to remember while crossing! First, you must remain standing and walk. You may not crouch or crawl. Second, each walkway consists of more than two hundred panes of glass, but a few places in the middle are empty. Watch carefully. Stepping into a gap would be very bad!”

“What? There are gaps? You mean they didn’t install glass in some places?” Zhang shouted.

“That’s right. But each empty section is only eighty centimeters long, so you should be able to step across fairly easily!” Tina said.

“Now that I think about it, I don’t have to take this sobriety test, do I?” Fear was making Zhang retreat from his decision. “Even if I make it across, Song Xue still wins if she does too. Why not let her go first?”

“That’s true, but whoever goes second would possess an advantage. The first person might fall immediately, allowing the second to win without even taking the test. That would clearly be unfair. That’s why the organizers built two walkways and require you to cross simultaneously,” Tina explained.

“All right…”

Zhang could find no reason to refuse. He and Song Xue stepped onto the first panes suspended in the air.

For that instant, it felt as though they were standing among the clouds.

After the second step, both pairs of legs began to tremble. At many tourist attractions, people felt terrified even on glass walkways equipped with handrails. Here, empty space surrounded their bodies. There was nothing above, below, or beside them to grab or hold. They could only stretch out their arms for balance and inch forward one tiny step at a time.

Chen Nuo and the others watching from the terrace were every bit as tense as the two people on the walkways. No one dared breathe loudly, afraid that the slightest sound would distract them and cause a fatal mistake.

“This is the final test. Good luck!” Tina said excitedly, facing the people on the terrace.

No one else paid attention. It was obvious that this was the final test, and they needed no reminder. Only Chen Nuo froze.

Why had Tina said that? More importantly, why had she looked at the people on the terrace instead of Song Xue and Zhang on the glass walkways?

Weren’t Song Xue and Zhang the ones taking the test? What was the point of reminding everyone else?

Chen Nuo’s brows drew tightly together. His mind raced back through all the earlier details. A dozen seconds later, one possibility occurred to him. His lips parted slightly.

Could it be…?

His eyes widened as he stared at Song Xue, who was carefully making her way along the glass walkway.

By then, Song Xue and Zhang had each covered twenty or thirty meters. The sea wind howled around them, growing stronger until it felt as though it might sweep them off. They felt as though they were walking through hell.

One walkway might have been easier. At least they could have stared straight ahead at their destination and walked toward it. But Tina had warned them about missing panes. They had no choice but to keep their eyes on the glass below and watch constantly for gaps.

That was the most terrifying part.

Looking down meant constantly reminding themselves that they stood dozens of meters in the air, and a fall would destroy them utterly.

Terror soaked their palms, faces, and backs with sweat. The wind swept over them, evaporating the alcohol and sobering them somewhat, but it also chilled their bodies and made them shake even harder. Song Xue had no idea how Zhang felt. She only knew that she was close to her limit.

What had she done to deserve this? If she had known, she might as well have surrendered and accepted euthanasia. At least she would not have been trapped in this terror, unable to go forward or back.

Worse, the alcohol struck her again. The final hundred-plus milliliters of vodka she had swallowed began to take effect. Her dizziness intensified. She swayed from side to side and staggered with every step. There was no way she could make it across like this. She wanted to give up, to simply fall and end the torment.

No! She had come this far. If she could just cross this damned glass walkway, she would win. Eighty centimeters was almost a meter, not terribly narrow. Weren’t the floor tiles in her home about eighty centimeters wide? Yes. She only needed to imagine the panes were blue floor tiles. She was standing on solid ground, or walking through a mall. Yes, she was shopping for clothes. Balenciaga must have released a new collection. She had wanted that coat last time but abandoned it because it was too expensive. Once she won, she would buy the entire store and wear new clothes every day. Her life still held so much beauty. All she had to do was walk across. Yes. She could do this.
Song Xue kept finding ways to distract herself and forget how much danger she was in. Imagining herself at home or in a shopping mall did lessen her fear. But as the trick began to work, she overlooked something else.

The next “pane” beneath her feet was actually a gap.

She failed to notice and stepped straight into empty space. Her entire body plunged downward.

Song Xue screamed in terror, setting off a chorus of screams from the terrace. The round-faced Zhang convulsed in fright and looked sideways.

Song Xue did not fall from the sky. The instant her foot went through, she reacted quickly and threw both hands across the pane in front of her. She stretched her other leg as far back as possible, leaving only the leg that had stepped into the gap dangling beneath the walkway. Once she steadied herself, she shifted her weight forward, moved her left leg onto a safe section, then lifted her dangling right leg back onto the glass. She knelt there trembling for several seconds before slowly rising.

When Zhang saw that even this had not sent Song Xue falling, his face showed a complicated mixture of admiration and fear for her. He had already begun feeling dizzy himself. Only the instinct to survive kept him from falling.

At last, they had crossed more than half the distance. Only fifty meters remained between them and the infinity pool.

Both gritted their teeth and pressed on. Then two drones flew past them, shifting between different positions and angles to capture close-up footage of their expressions and movements. The drones had already been circling overhead and had recorded the terrifying moment when Song Xue almost fell.

The dark-web audience sitting at their computers must have been cheering wildly. This was not a movie. It was a live reality show where someone could die at any moment. Viewers who treated other people’s suffering as entertainment might even be chanting, “Fall! Fall!” with the same malice directed at someone poised to jump from a building, desperate to see the “thrilling” image of a body plummeting. Perhaps the drones existed specifically to capture that moment.

Damn you! I won’t give you bastards what you want. No matter what happens, I will survive! Zhang roared inwardly.

The fury blazing in his chest gave him courage and strength. His fear seemed to recede. He quickened his pace over the final stretch while still watching carefully for gaps.

When Song Xue saw the drones circling, another shock struck her. If they recorded the sanitary pad attached behind her neck, her deception would be exposed. The wind roared at this height, tossing her hair into disarray and billowing her clothes. The people behind her were now more than a hundred meters away and could not see clearly, but a drone filming at close range might capture the secret behind her neck.

Song Xue gripped the front of her shirt and pulled it tight so the collar at the back pressed against her neck, keeping the pad concealed. Sustained by sheer willpower, she struggled toward the finish.

On the other walkway, Zhang finally stepped onto safe ground, straight into the infinity pool. His body seemed to lose all strength as he sank beneath the water. More than ten seconds later, his head broke the surface. He waved one fist and shouted,

“Yes! I made it across!”

At the same time, Song Xue reached the end of her nightmare. Perhaps Zhang’s success gave her confidence. She too made it to the pool. With everything below her chest submerged, she covered her mouth with both hands and wept with joy.

“I did it… I won the game!”

The others had run around to the infinity pool as well. After witnessing what had happened, they were filled with admiration for Song Xue and believed she thoroughly deserved to win her game. The outcome was not good for them, but no one could argue with a victory she had earned so convincingly.

“That was an incredible contest. Honestly, I didn’t want you to fall,” Thomas Feng told Song Xue. “Anyone who gives everything they have to win deserves my respect and admiration.”

“I saw the strength of the human will to survive,” Shu Yanjun said with genuine emotion.

Song Xue nodded as she accepted their praise. Pride and exhilaration surged through her.

“Now that Ms. Song Xue has won, does someone else have to face random elimination?” the twin sisters asked anxiously, holding hands.

The question dragged everyone who had been praising Song Xue back to reality. Shu Yanjun looked toward his wife and son, terror crossing his face. The others also realized that the grim reaper would once again leap among the numbers, land before someone, and claim their life.

“No,” Chen Nuo said. “This game isn’t over yet.”