As the flicker of the red candlelight wavered, a mysterious force spread within the dining room. Jerome abruptly looked up, keenly sensing something different about Dr. Sophocles.
The chef's gaze also deepened, seeing more than before. The soul of the man before him had completely changed; it was him, yet it was not him.
Was this his true face? The owner of the head lying on the plate? What would he do next?
In the solemn atmosphere and amidst the astonished gazes of everyone, Shiller sat down, his fingers swiftly tying his napkin around his neck, and he began to eat the food in front of him with his knife and fork.
His eating movements were elegant, devoid of any rush, yet his speed was remarkable. Before anyone else could react, he had cleared the plate of food.
Then he gently wiped his mouth with the napkin and rang the service bell with his finger.
Ding!
The sound echoed in the dining room, identical to that of an elevator.
The first waiter standing by the window approached him with a respectful attitude. Shiller spoke in a low and slow voice, "I have not eaten enough, please bring me another serving of food."
The waiter immediately nodded, walked toward the kitchen, and soon another cold dish was brought to Shiller. He ate it rapidly with the same demeanor as before, then rang the service bell again.
This time, the second waiter approached Shiller, adopting almost the same posture as the first, and asked the same question. Shiller gave the same response.
Then came the third serving, the fourth, the fifth.
Shiller's stomach seemed like a bottomless pit. No matter how much food was served, it vanished into his mouth at an incredible speed, and then he would immediately ring the service bell for another portion, ordering over a dozen dishes without showing any signs of being full.
Although hunger can be terrifying, continuing to eat beyond fullness is also uncomfortable. Just as one cannot disguise their hunger, most people cannot pretend they are full.
But Shiller's immense appetite for the food did not seem like something he could feign. Everyone could see that not only was he not satiated, but he was also extremely hungry.
An elderly man with silver hair cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention. He said, "This round's list has been announced. We need to think about what to do next."
"He wants to kill us all!" a woman screamed, her eyes still intently fixed on Shiller, trying to intimidate him.
The old man displayed an impatient expression but still said, "If you kill him now, he wouldn't even count among those eliminated. It would be meaningless."
"But he has the answer." Another person added, "He committed such a wrongdoing; he should pay the price. Make him say the answer!"
The problem circled back to the beginning. Even if they forced Shiller to reveal the answers, it would still favor those with a stronger memory. Even if he spoke one line and others remembered it, everyone would share the same answers, potentially causing everyone to be eliminated.
Even if not, the chef could simply pick on the ugly handwriting, improper use of punctuation—such meaningless internal competition. Nobody had assurance that their weaknesses would not become the standard for elimination.
This type of elimination game relies on differences, not correctness. If everyone wrote poorly, then the 20 worst entries would need to be picked. If everyone wrote well, then those who wrote relatively worse would have to be chosen. Under circumstances where some people were bound to die creating a gap with others was the only way to survive.
Letting Shiller disclose the answer obviously could not create differences unless he disclosed it only to some, but that was nearly impossible since everyone was in the same space.
What made this rule even more despairing was that outside the rules, those eliminated did not count in the elimination quota, meaning even if they killed 20 people before this round started, once the time was up, another 20 would still have to die.
Thus, killing was pointless—not only that, but they would have to conserve as many lives as possible because the more people there were, the lower the chances of being among the last 20.
At that moment, the chef announced the rules for the third round; 30 people were to be eliminated.
Everyone broke down, as there were only about fifty people left in the entire dining room—the number to be eliminated was no longer a minority but the majority.
Pushed to the brink, someone couldn't hold back anymore. He charged toward Shiller, attempting to grab him while demanding, "Tell me the answer, you bastard. What did that guy say? What's the story with the soup?!"
Although other people inwardly mocked his recklessness, they were also curious. Would Shiller reveal the answer under pressure? If everyone knew the answer, would the chef continue the game?
But the man didn't reach Shiller.
He had just charged halfway when the waiter closest to him came over, pinned him to the ground, and stabbed him in the chest. Other waiters lifted him and carried him away.
The others, noticing the chef's commanding gaze across the room, realized he didn't want things to go this way. They reluctantly abandoned their plans, returned to their seats, and began to recall stories about the soup.
By this stage in the event, the vast majority of people were both desperate and exhausted, some scratching their heads in frustration, and others staring blankly, almost the entire restaurant only hearing the clear sound of Shiller's cutlery clashing against his plate.
Jerome had been staring at the burning red candle, but the table was too large. If he did not leave his seat, he could not possibly reach the candle, so he could only keep staring at it.
Although the chef was watching everyone scratch their heads in embarrassment, his gaze occasionally glanced over at Shiller, but unfortunately, Shiller kept eating, seemingly indifferent to the outside world.
Many people, disheartened, had finished writing their stories about the soup. Even those who were somewhat confident did not look pleased, because, obviously, they did not remember all the answers for the upcoming questions. It was just a matter of dying sooner or later.
But during the process of handing in all the papers, another incident occurred—suddenly, a skinny man crazily snatched a piece of paper from a woman not far from him and shredded it, then burst into insane laughter.
The woman was clearly caught off guard, and after she realized what had just happened to her, she immediately screamed in despair and picked up a fork to kill the man, but the people beside her held her tightly.
At this moment, killing a man in that manner made no sense; it would only decrease their number by one scapegoat.
However, the man's actions also reminded everyone present that if differences were to be made, physical intervention could solve the problem. By simply sabotaging the answers written by others could doom them to elimination.
It seemed the chef had no intention of stopping this, and many people immediately started plotting. More than half the answers had not yet been collected, and if they could protect their answers while destroying others', perhaps they might just make it through this elimination round that would slash their numbers significantly.
People immediately sprang into action. They first tucked their pieces of paper into the innermost pockets of their clothes, then grabbed their knives and forks and began to attack others.
In this fray, it was naturally the young and robust who had the advantage, while the elderly, who evidently lacked the physical strength, were in big trouble, as everyone targeted them.
In fact, not many of the frail had survived until now. Most of the wealthy were well-maintained, so people generally targeted based on age, as the aging of the human body is irreversible; the older, the easier to bully.
The young people teamed up to catch the elderly first. They didn't kill them, but they did snatch away the papers in their hands. Some of the more ruthless even chopped off their fingers to prevent them from writing, robbing them of any chance to redeem themselves.
But there weren't that many elderly people. After handling all of them, they had eliminated only about a dozen people, meaning that another dozen still needed to be cut before they could advance. Everyone's eyes then turned to each other.
At that moment, someone targeted Shiller.
Shiller was still eating.
He seemed like a Taotie who could never be satisfied. The waiters lined up in front of the window had already taken turns serving him, but he remained engrossed in his meal, eating eagerly and voraciously.
A tall, redhead man targeted him. His table was very close to Shiller's, and it seemed that Shiller was unguarded, with the paper casually placed beside him. Shiller was busy eating and had not glanced at it even once.
So, by moving as quickly as possible to snatch the paper, one could ensure that Shiller had no answers to submit, thereby completely eliminating a competitor who was bound to win in the upcoming rounds and securing a spot for survival.
The redhead man made his move.
He crouched like a cheetah and charged towards Shiller's table, reaching out his arm and touching the sheet in exactly the way he had hoped.
At that moment, he was almost ecstatic because before he made his move, he had thought of another possibility.
If he managed to get the sheet, he could peek at its contents before destroying it and add some to his own. This way, he would gain an advantage others didn't have, successfully creating a difference between himself and the others, thus ensuring survival in this round of the game.
Thinking this, the redhead man eagerly pulled his hand back, but he hadn't fully regained his balance yet. In his haste, his elbow bumped directly into Shiller's arm.
Knives and forks require both hands to handle, and with this touch, the fork in Shiller's hand dropped directly onto the table.
At this moment, the closest waiter acted with a speed no one could see clearly. Almost teleporting, he arrived beside Shiller, grabbed the redhead man's neck like picking up a small chicken, and with a snap, twisted his neck, breaking it.
As he made his move towards Shiller, others were also watching this situation. They were indeed interested in the answers Shiller held, but because they were farther away, they couldn't act faster than this man, so they gave up.
This unexpected turn made everyone indignantly silent towards the chef. What was so special about this man named Sophocles? Why wouldn't the chef let him be killed?
But the majority were only silently angry. After all, the selection of answers was done on a named basis. If they angered the chef now, he might deliberately choose them as one of the people to be eliminated next, and that would be a real reason to cry without a place to go.
Gradually, everyone handed in their answers, and the chef took all the sheets to the kitchen. After a while, he came back out to announce the elimination list.
Another dozen people were dead.
The body was dragged away, as everyone began a new game amidst renewed terror. This time, they were to write the story of the main course, but in this round, they had many more ideas.
After the results of the previous elimination were in, they realized that the strategy they had adopted was effective. All those deprived of their slips of paper, who had no ability to write new answers, were all eliminated. In other words, it was indeed possible to determine the winners early by destroying others' answers.
Only 20 people remained on the scene, and this time 10 people were to be eliminated.
It seemed there was no special pattern to the number of people eliminated, sometimes more, sometimes less, seemingly all dependent on the master chef's mood. As such, people couldn't rationally judge whether or not they would be eliminated in the next round.
This time, half of the people were to be cut again, and the remaining 20 had lost almost all sense of reason. They only wanted to quickly destroy each other's answers, as roars, screams, and battle cries were heard nonstop.
The master chef was indifferent to the chaos in the restaurant. Shiller continued eating as if the clamor had nothing to do with him.
Because there were fewer and fewer people, the difficulty of confiscating the slips of paper also decreased. Before long, all the answers had been taken away, and the master chef went backstage again. This time, when he came out, he paused additionally.
"I will now announce the list of the ingredients," said the master chef, starting off with the familiar preamble, but his tone had become heavy. He uttered a name that nobody expected.
"Naog Sophocles."
The others were surprised only for a moment before they quickly understood. Shiller's elimination was to be expected because he wrote nothing in the previous round, he was too busy eating, and didn't even submit his paper. It would have been strange if he wasn't eliminated.
The elimination of persons was done after announcing all the names together. Besides Shiller, there were nine others. The names were read very quickly, and those who didn't hear their names could finally breathe a long sigh of relief.
The elimination of Doctor Sophocles, who knew all the answers, could be considered the first piece of good news since the beginning because he no longer occupied a guaranteed winning spot, increasing the survival chances for others just a bit.
The execution began.
Past executions had always been quick. The spines that hung down from the ceiling would, in an instant upon touching a person, completely extract their spines. The body that fell to the ground would twitch a few times but would soon fall silent.
The spines had already descended.
But just at that moment, something unexpected happened. The spine hanging over Shiller's head was severed by a gleaming dining knife.
It wasn't a knife thrown by Shiller, for he was still eating.
The waiter closest to this location moved to stand behind Shiller. The spine continued to grow downward at an extremely rapid pace, but every time it was about to touch Shiller, the waiter would chop it off with a knife.
The execution was complete, the other nine people were all dead, but Shiller remained unscathed, sitting in his place. Even the dimmest of the remaining ten could tell something was amiss.
It seemed that this was not someone protecting Shiller.
Suddenly, someone realized something and shouted, "Eating! Shiller has been eating the whole time, so no one can hurt him!"
The atmosphere in the restaurant stalled for a moment. The puzzle seemed to have its answer written in the question itself – what else if not to dine in a restaurant?
Everyone was frightened by the anomaly above, and the master chef threatened them very fiercely, so naturally, they assumed that the person standing at the forefront had the power of life and death and obediently followed his orders, engaging in the games.
So, as long as one maintains the posture of eating, they would not be attacked?
Regardless, they decided to try it out. The other ten people picked up their cutlery, but at that moment, the master chef spoke.
"Are you serious? I believe I said that the winners are guests, and the losers are all ingredients," he said.
Everyone paused in their actions as they suddenly realized what the source of the food on their plates was.
But one of them clenched their teeth and said, "They deserve it for not realizing this sooner."
With that, he started to gorge himself without hesitation.
The rest didn't hesitate for too long and began to eat the food on their plates. The dish was cheese, but there was still meat on the plates, which seemed to be marinated roast chunks. Many people avoided the meat as if doing so would allow them to consume everything else without any moral burden.
During the cheese course, the master chef announced that five people would be eliminated.
Some were not at ease, fearing that Shiller's method of avoiding death wouldn't work for them, so they still wrote something and submitted it.
There were only 10 people left in the room, 5 had written something, and 5 had not. Both Shiller and Jerome, who had survived, handed in blank papers.
When the time came, the chef read out the list of those eliminated. None of the five people who failed to write anything down survived; their spines fell and started to attack them.
The other five who had narrowly escaped death were watching intently, wanting to know if eating to avoid being killed was actually a true rule.
Apart from Shiller, four more waiters came out. They cut down the spines that were trying to attack the diners, and the five people lived to see another day.
The other five sighed with relief. The rule was effective after all; indeed, eating could prevent death, and they could finally survive.
It was time for the dessert course, and the chef announced the number to be eliminated. Since the last phase had not successfully eliminated five people, the number to be eliminated this time was still five.
This time, no one handed in their papers.
After all, as long as you kept eating, you wouldn't be killed. The game had only seven rounds, and dessert was already the penultimate round; they just had to endure a bit longer to make it through successfully.
Everyone was quietly eating when a flash of cold light passed through the chef's eyes, but he made no move, just standing there and watching silently.
A young man in glasses, who should have been eliminated during the cheese course, gently rang the service bell beside him. He exhaled and looked at Shiller at the next table, realizing he could order anything on the menu. He decided to order an aperitif, as the dessert was a bit too sweet for his taste. He had never been fond of sweet foods.
The waiter approached him. At just the moment the bespectacled man was going through the motions of perusing the menu, there was a "schlick" as a knife was plunged into his chest. He looked down in disbelief and then fell face-first onto the table.
Now only nine people remained.
Everyone was stunned. Wasn't it said that as long as you kept eating, you would be safe? Was it because this man stopped eating to ring the service bell? But Shiller had done the same without any consequences.
Suddenly someone looked at the man's plate. The lady sitting beside him said loudly, "He didn't finish! He rang the bell before finishing all his dessert; the rules probably don't allow waste."
The others immediately looked at their own plates. Fortunately, the portion size of the dessert was not large, and they could finish it in a few bites. Of the remaining few, no one especially disliked sweets. Even if they did, they would force themselves to finish for the sake of their lives.
One person gobbled up the contents of his plate, sighed with relief, and set down his knife and fork. He paused for a while before intending to ring the bell, but during that pause, a hanging spine attached to his neck.
With a whoosh, his spine was extracted.
He was one of the five who had not submitted answers in the cheese round. Now only three of them were left, and there were a total of eight people remaining in the game.
The others realized that eating too slowly wasn't okay either. It seemed that protection from the waiters was only granted while continually ingesting food. As soon as you stopped, the terrifying creatures on the ceiling would kill you.
At this point, a smart person realized they should eat more slowly because although they weren't eliminated this round, there was still one more round in the game. If they got eliminated but could not eat any more, any pause would mean that the waiters wouldn't protect them.
So eating slowly in this round to save some stomach space could be a preventive measure, making it easier for themselves later on.
Of the five who weren't eliminated, two adopted this strategy. They began to scrape the frosting off the dessert slowly and put it into their mouths, achieving a look of eating without actually eating much.
After they had procrastinated for a little while, the waiter appeared behind one of them and stabbed him in the chest with another knife. Now only seven people were left.
The others were on the verge of breaking down. What was the rule this time?
"Each course has a time limit," Shiller suddenly said. "It's one of the etiquettes of French dining. Because the courses are served one by one, if you eat too slowly, the next course could lose its freshness. Stalling like this is useless."
No one knew how much time they had, but they didn't dare gamble. So they quickly finished their plates and hurriedly rang the service bell to call for the next dish.
Not finishing wasn't okay, eating too slowly wasn't okay either, so the only option was to choose the right dish. To eat something that wasn't too filling or easy to become sick of, the best choice among the first six courses was the aperitif.
Three of the seven chose this dish, but what was served this time was not a "Gotham Sunset," but a blue-purple cocktail.
Among the seven, some connoisseurs immediately realized this was no simple aperitif; it definitely contained hard liquor. But the moment the dish was served, they had no choice but to eat.
Three of them picked up their glasses, the strong scent of alcohol nearly making them retch, but they dared not leave it untouched. Some chose to down it in one go, others to sip it slowly.
The former, upon downing his drink, collapsed onto the table. He too was from the group previously eliminated. Without the act of eating, his spine was virtually extracted immediately.
There were now only Shiller and Jerome left in the eliminated group, with a total of six people remaining.
At that moment, the chef announced the start of the final round, in which five people would still be eliminated.