Xun Ji was in a very bad mood today.
If he were given another chance to choose, he absolutely would not have agreed to let Yan Qian participate in the Star-Plucking Championship. But things had already come to this point, with Yu Fangbai’s life and death uncertain, and his choice could not be undone.
The elevator accident was beyond human control, and he was powerless against it. Yet even the plot that should have been under his control had collapsed like a wild horse that had slipped its reins.
Xun Ji truly could not figure out where exactly things had gone wrong.
The Hunting Shadow Game, mockingly called the Killing Game by the students, was something the original host had come up with back in his first year of high school.
Although Yaoxing Academy was a noble academy, every group had its bottom-dwellers—those from fallen families, those drowning in debt, or ones like Yu Fangbai, nameless and powerless.
The original host had gathered these people and forced them to kill each other.
The game spanned two nights. The first night was a warm-up, trapping everyone in a tiny room where they fought like rabid dogs. The young masters and misses watching through the monitors would bet on their favorite players based on their performances.
The second night was the official match, held in the abandoned Botanical Garden. Players wore electric shock Magnetic Collars around their necks; if the Stars on them were plucked off, shocks would trigger. The game ran from midnight until 5 a.m., with hourly settlements of Star counts—the bottom half of the rankings would get shocked. Staying hidden and motionless for too long would also trigger shocks.
These rules forced the players into constant evasion and snatching. For added fun, the audience behind the monitors could airdrop weapons to their bets, making the slaughter even better.
In the end, the player who snatched the most Stars became the sole winner, claiming the “Shadow Crown” specially crafted by the original host for the Hunting Shadow Game.
Corresponding to the “Star Crown” of the daytime Star-Plucking Championship, the Shadow Crown was no less expensive. Additionally, the victor got a share of the betting pool. Faced with such lavish rewards, some cash-strapped students even volunteered to join.
According to Principal Kong, the original host had secretly held this game during the school festival in his first year, driving one student to suicide by jumping off a building from mental strain. The original host was punished and exiled abroad as a result, and the school naturally shut down the Hunting Shadow Game.
In the original text, Xun Ji had restarted the Hunting Shadow Game vengefully during the third-year school festival, forcing Lu Zhou to participate and inflicting both physical and mental harm on him.
But the problem was right here: this year, he had completely ignored the Hunting Shadow Game, yet it had been restarted anyway, and Lu Zhou had joined behind his back.
Who was the person behind this? Who was disrupting his plans?
In the dim Botanical Garden, the air was thick with the damp, rotting scent of plants everywhere.
The eerie green glow of the surveillance cameras stared viciously at their prey like a pack of fearless snakes.
A small handful of silver Stars scattered from a pouch onto the ground, gleaming softly, round and cute. Lu Zhou trembled violently, wanting to squat down to pick them up and hand them to the person before him, but he could not.
He collapsed miserably to the ground and bit his tongue hard to stifle an embarrassing moan.
Xun Ji looked at him coldly. “It seems you don’t just like shocking others—you like shocking yourself too.”
Lu Zhou’s body stiffened, as if a thorny piece of deadwood had been stabbed into his heart, every breath bringing agony.
“No… it’s not…” he murmured lowly.
“Not?” Xun Ji let him shrink on the ground and mocked, “You looked like you were having so much fun, I want to try it myself.”
He reached up and tapped the Collar around his own neck. “How does the shock feel?”
Lu Zhou’s expression changed drastically. “Don’t touch that!”
“Why?” Xun Ji pinched the Star on his Collar. “You can pluck yours, but I can’t?”
“No! Don’t…” Lu Zhou’s body convulsed from the shock, losing balance as he scrambled on hands and knees to Xun Ji’s feet. “Don’t do that, Xun… Xun Ji, you’ll hurt… hurt… don’t…”
His words came out incoherent. He wanted to reach out and touch Xun Ji but feared hurting him, so he only gazed at him piteously with unfocused eyes.
“Are you begging me?” Xun Ji asked leisurely.
“Yes… yes, I’m begging you…” Lu Zhou hurt terribly, his ten fingers digging deep into the mud as he looked up and pleaded mournfully. “Please don’t hurt yourself… Xun Ji, please…”
Xun Ji squatted down and met his gaze expressionlessly.
“Why?” he asked again.
“Why?” Lu Zhou echoed in a murmur, as if not understanding the question.
“Me hurting myself—what does it have to do with you?” Xun Ji said. “Just like you hurting yourself has nothing to do with me.”
Lu Zhou’s body jerked sharply, tears falling unconsciously to the ground and seeping into the mud.
“No… no! It’s not…” His lips quivered, his voice growing louder. “It’s not nothing… it’s not!”
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