Everyone's playing hide-and-seek: This crazy beauty has maxed-out third eyes.

The white light dissipated.

Lin Sui'an opened her eyes and looked down at herself. Her black combat suit was close-fitting, and her boots were on the soft ground. Everything in her hidden pocket was still there.

She looked up and saw that she was surrounded by people.

The game announcement sounded on time.

Welcome to round 46, a game of hide-and-seek for everyone.

This instance is: Devil's Forest.

[62 countries participated in this round.]

Lin Sui'an listened, chewing on her lollipop.

The rules have been adjusted for this round.

[Hiding time: 15 minutes.]

Hunting time: 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Those captured will die, and a region of their country will be subjected to a bizarre invasion.

Survivors will receive a reward.

Fifteen minutes.

The previous two rounds were 30 minutes long, so this has been cut in half.

The hunting time was also reduced by half, to one and a half hours.

The time has been compressed, but the proportions haven't changed. So where has the game been adjusted, and what's the difficulty level?

Happy New Year!

A voice squeezed through the crowd, and Lina ran up to her, panting, her eyes filled with excitement and exhilaration.

"You changed your clothes! You look so cool!"

"Of course."

Before Lin Sui'an could say another word, a golden head popped out from behind Lina.

Lydia.

She was wearing a dark-colored training uniform with the cuffs tightly tied, and her hair was braided.

Lydia saw Lin Sui'an and greeted him, "Lin, how are you?"

The pronunciation was so off that Lin Sui'an froze for a second, almost dropping her lollipop.

"Have you learned Mandarin Chinese?"

Lydia nodded, then managed to squeeze out, "I...studied...for three days."

Lina laughed so hard she couldn't stand up straight: "After she went back, she practiced every day, exhausting all the translators in her country."

Lydia puffed out her chest, looking proud.

Lin Sui'an looked at her for two seconds, then gave her a thumbs up: "Sixty points."

A crack appeared in Lydia's pride.

Lina quickly translated, "She said you passed."

Lydia snorted and then blurted out, "I'm a gray cockroach."

This sentence flows much better.

Just as Lin Sui'an was about to speak, a tall figure walked over from the right.

It's Sergei.

He was a little thinner than last time, dressed in camouflage. He walked up to Lin Sui'an, nodded to her first, and then cleared his throat.

"Hello, Lin."

"Okay," he added.

Then he paused for three seconds, his lips moved a few times, as if he were silently reciting something in his mind.

"Can... you take me with you?"

He stretched out one hand and made a "follow" gesture.

"I...I won't hold you back...I promise."

After saying that, he raised his right hand towards Lin Sui'an, clenched his fist and placed it on his chest, which was probably Bai Siguo's promise gesture.

Lin Sui'an chewed on a lollipop and looked him up and down.

"Lina."

"exist."

"Tell him that it's okay, but the rules are the same: listen to me, don't act on your own, don't run around, and I don't guarantee his survival; if he dies, don't blame me."

Lina quickly translated it.

After listening, Sergei placed his fist on his chest again and nodded emphatically.

"good!"

Lin Sui'an nodded in satisfaction: "Okay, it's not a loss to have one more person to do the work."

------

In the Dragon Kingdom's live stream room, the chat exploded with comments.

My idol, An Shen: Fifteen minutes?! Cut in half?!

Never eaten vegetables before: It's definitely an upgrade! I knew I couldn't have waited three days for nothing!

Lydia, a descendant of the Zaunites, is learning Mandarin! Hahahaha! I can't stop laughing at that pronunciation!

Koi Fish: Sergei is here too! Is An Shen bringing three people now?

Another day alive: No, look at the rules. Hiding time is halved, hunting time is also halved, the total duration is shortened. What does this mean?

Go China! This means a faster pace and a lower margin for error!

An Shen, the eternal god: In the last round, An Shen was able to spend time studying the garden layout and testing the location. In this round, is fifteen minutes enough?

------

The atmosphere in the command center was serious.

Chen Zheng stared at the changes in the rules on the screen, the sound of his keyboard clattering loudly.

"The hiding time has been halved, which is about in line with our prediction."

Jiang Lai stood in front of the main screen, her fingers resting on the edge of the table.

"What's the copy type?"

"The Devil's Forest should be a forested area with many obstructions to the view, so there should be plenty of hiding places."

"Don't jump to conclusions," Jiang Lai interrupted him. "The last two rounds of strange occurrences were visual and auditory. This round's hunter hasn't appeared yet."

Old Zhao was also a little worried: "The problem lies in the fact that it 'hasn't come out yet'."

Jiang Lai didn't reply, her gaze fixed on Lin Sui'an on the screen.

------

A door suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of the dungeon entrance.

Behind the door was a dense forest, with tree canopies blocking out the sky, and sunlight filtering through the gaps, illuminating the fallen leaves on the ground.

The crowd began to pour in, more urgently than in the previous two rounds, their footsteps a jumble of noise.

Fifteen minutes—everyone knows what that means.

Lin Sui'an didn't rush to leave. She stood at the entrance and glanced at the forest behind the door.

Tall and short, thick and thin, branches intertwined, leaves layered.

She squinted for a moment, then stepped inside.

Lina, Lydia, and Sergei followed closely behind, along with a few other people.

Lin Sui'an walked a dozen steps on the fallen leaves, which made a rustling sound under his feet, before stopping.

Her gaze swept across a clump of trees on the left, then across a row of tall trees on the right.

She continued walking forward for about thirty steps, then stopped again.

This time, she didn't leave immediately. Instead, she turned her head and stared at a tree to her right for a few seconds.

The tree was very tall, with a gray trunk and branches that stretched out in all directions, twisted in shape.

It's different from the surrounding trees.

The surrounding trees have brown bark with vertical lines, and their branches grow upwards.

The bark of this tree is grayish with horizontal veins, and the branches extend outwards.

Lin Sui'an continued walking.

She counted as she walked.

One tree.

Three trees.

Five trees.

Seven trees.

When she reached the middle of the forest, she counted the tenth tree.

Ten trees with gray bark and horizontal stripes are scattered throughout the forest, evenly distributed and roughly spaced apart.

Other players ran past her, rushing to find hiding places, and no one noticed them.

Lin Sui'an stopped next to a gray-barked tree and looked up.

The tree has a large canopy, with branches stretching outwards like countless hands reaching out in the air.

Her eyes narrowed as she suddenly remembered her dream from last night.

In my dream, the forest was filled with tall trees whose branches twisted and swung in the air.

The same.

Lin Sui'an looked away, a guess forming in his mind.

Lina leaned closer and whispered, "Sui'an, what's wrong? You've been staring at the tree."

"Lina."

"Um?"

"What do you think is different about this tree compared to the one next to it?"

Lina looked at the tree Lin Suian pointed to, and then at the tree next to it.

"Thicker?"

"Anything else?"

Lina looked at it for another two seconds: "The bark's texture... seems to be facing different directions?"

"What's the biggest difference?"