The sage was determined to die.

Everyone was screaming in pain, completely unaware of the abnormal changes occurring within their bodies.

Ji Bai frowned slightly. Having been shocked so many times, his perspective had become quite different from that of ordinary people. In other words, he could see the aptitude of these people to some extent, and judging from the current results... their pain tolerance was not even one-thousandth of his.

Ji Bai sighed. The more pain everyone was in, the less pain he could feel.

While everyone was in pain, he still wore that slightly smiling face, which made everyone even more terrified. Even Yan Ming didn't know what this guy was up to.

"You can't even handle this?"

Ji Bai had no intention of killing them. A smile played on his lips, his eyes unfathomable: "You can't even endure this little bit of pain, yet you expect to win Wenxin's heart?"

The words "Wenxin" were like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey, easily increasing their patience.

As soon as he said that, Ji Bai's handsome face was covered with a layer of stone, and his voice became muffled and raspy, as if the stone had come to life, with an inhuman stiffness.

The group, each with an amputated arm, stared blankly at him. The man, who had turned himself into stone, spoke: "The owner of the face I just used obtained the funding to acquire this Wenxin all by himself. All of you combined are not even as good as him alone. I am truly disappointed."

Yan Ming's face was deathly pale as he stammered, "This...this...you are not an examiner, are you?"

"No," Ji Bai immediately denied, saying to him, "Of course I'm not an examiner, just a kind-hearted person."

"The literary heart guarded here is too powerful; someone wants to possess it all by themselves..."

He left his sentence unfinished, then chuckled mysteriously, his voice low and chilling: "The price is these corpses you see here."

These words were like alcohol emboldening a coward, and someone immediately asked, "Why...why?"

"What I just injected into you was just some powder. You couldn't even handle powder, so do you think your bodies could accommodate the real thing?"

The crowd exchanged bewildered glances, none of them speaking for a moment. The man's attitude had changed so quickly that it made him seem untrustworthy.

The person in front of him transformed back into Ji Bai and laughed, "Of course there are solutions, we just need more samples."

He threw some powder at the crowd again, but this time it was to release the truth from their bodies. The moment it was released, everyone felt the excruciating pain. This pain was not physical, but rather a mental shock that directly impacted their brains. If their bodies were not completely out of control, they would have wanted to bang their heads on the ground the next second.

"If these fragments remain within your bodies, you will have the opportunity to obtain this 'Heart of Literature,' but..."

Ji Bai smiled and said, "However, this kind of pain is far beyond what ordinary people can endure. If you cannot bear it, you can transfer it to someone else."

Yan Ming opened his mouth, wanting to recite his lines, but was too in pain to speak.

Ji Bai surveyed the group, as if reading their minds, and said, "If you transfer the call to someone else, you won't lose your eligibility. If you don't transfer, you'll probably..."

He paused, then said in a grotesque voice, "They'll die from the excruciating pain, won't they?"

He patted Yan Ming on the shoulder and said, "What are you afraid of? Aren't there plenty of scapegoats on the shore?"