Fan Jialuo walked back to the lounge and waved to Zhao Wenyan, who was obediently sitting in place. "Let's go. The recording is about to start. You can stand outside and wait for me."

"Okay." Zhao Wenyan quickly stood up and followed closely behind the young man. His expression was full of obedience and trust, showing that he felt completely secure in the other's presence. He seemed to enjoy being with Fan Jialuo very much.

The change in President Zhao's attitude was so astounding that Cao Xiaohui secretly wondered about the kind of magic Fan Jialuo had used on him. Otherwise, how could his boss have become so unwilling to be inseparable from him?

But soon, he saw what it meant to really be hot. He had obviously underestimated the level of Fan Jialuo's charm.

When the man walked into the studio, not only did the contestants turn to watch him, even the majority of the cameras suddenly pivoted in his direction.

There were also two outstanding-looking youngsters who rushed forward towards Fan Jialuo simultaneously from both the left and the right, eager to occupy the positions closest to him.

The young and sturdy boy carelessly pushed Zhao Wenyan aside and directly sat down beside Fan Jialuo. On his other side, the youthful and lovely girl quietly clung onto one of his sleeves while smiling so contentedly that it felt like a bunch of flowers had bloomed within her heart.

Cao Xiaohui looked at the scene before him and his mouth twitched subconsciously. He felt sad for his boss, who couldn't even obtain one of the two vacant seats on either side of Fan Jialuo, but was also surprised by the peerless charm his own artist possessed.

It seemed that the rest of the contestants were already used to this kind of scene, so they soon moved their gazes back to the stage.

Ding Puhang sat in the most crowded place, and kept staring impatiently at his watch.

It was at that moment that Chongming, who was covered in a layer of cold sweat, ran into the room in a hurry, and then chose to sit in the first row, as far away from Fan Jialuo as possible.

Only the place where the brightest lights shone and had the most people crowding around together could offer him the strongest sense of security now.

This abnormality of his did not attract too many people's attention, but Ding Puhang looked at the back of his head before falling into a certain state of meditation.

After spending a few minutes concentrating like this, Ding Puhang became more and more horrified. He had to repeatedly adjust his breath and tell himself to try to stay calm.

It was only by doing so that he was able to restrain the impulse to look back at Fan Jialuo. He placed his hands into his trouser pockets and sat in a relaxed posture, but inside those pockets, his fists were tightly clenched and even trembled slightly.

It was only then that he understood that this show had invited some evil monsters!

The off-site host was holding a card and using it to memorize a few points for the opening speech when a staff member suddenly walked over to her side and whispered, "Xiaxia seems to have gone crazy."

"Ah, crazy?" The off-site host repeated in disbelief.

Ding Puhang also perked up his ears to listen, and an ominous premonition arose in his heart.

"Yes, crazy. She kept barking constantly and didn't even seem to be able to walk anymore, just kept crawling on the ground. Most importantly, she almost peed in Sister Song's dressing room! That too, you know, peeing the way a dog does! Really crazy. Sister Song just sent her to the hospital. I don't know what her condition is like right now."

"Why did she suddenly become like that? She's always behaved normally before."

"I heard it was because her dog died too suddenly and so she must have been stimulated by its death. She had that dog for seven or eight years, and they were really close. She must be feeling very sad."

"Ah, her dog is dead? What's going on?"

"Who knows, there have been so many strange things happening today! Ah, it's almost time. We should work first. After we finish, let's go to the hospital to see Xiaxia together."

The two nodded and separated.

Ding Puhang silently took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the cold sweat that had rolled down from his forehead.

Soon after, the off-site host went up onto the stage to announce the rules for the second phase of the competition.

Unlike the first round, the 16 contestants were required to enter a closed room by themselves for this round. After they finished the test, they would stay and wait in the closed room for the judges to declare their result.

It was evident that the show wanted to increase the difficulty of the test by not allowing the contestants to communicate or share information with one another.

During this period, only the cameras installed in each corner of the room would be recording their performance. Even the cameraman and staff were denied access, thus completely blocking any way for the contestants to obtain information from outside sources.

No one knew what the content of the test was, not even the on-site staff.

"It's so mysterious!" A Huo mumbled, but at the same time appeared to be more interested in this round.

Fan Jialuo looked at his cameraman and asked, "A girl named Xiaxia suddenly went mad?"

The cameraman nodded silently, made a gesture of farewell, and then quietly left.

Fan Jialuo shifted his sight to focus on Chongming, who was sitting in the first row, and his eyes gradually turned cold.

To determine the order in which the contestants would enter the closed room, a draw took place.

Ding Puhang drew the lot for the first position while Fan Jialuo drew the last position. This made the two of them seem just like one was the head and the other the tail.

This kind of arrangement was too much of a coincidence. The show must have carried out some 'shady operation' in the background to ensure that Fan Jialuo was the last one to enter.

However, no one felt the need to protest.

Those with real ability would not care whether they entered first or last.

***

All of the judges stared at Ding Puhang, who became the first contestant to enter the testing room. Even Song Rui reluctantly retracted his gaze from Fan Jialuo and turned to look at this man.

Ding Puhang raised his head and looked at a camera in one of the coners. His smile seemed to be very calm and carefree, but his eyes were trembling very slightly.

Such a performance could deceive Song Wennuan and the others, but not Song Rui.

He's nervous, obviously.

He circled around the tightly covered and sealed boxes a few times, then stretched his arm out above one of them, closed his eyes, and postured his body as if he was making a divination.

Song Rui shook his head and said firmly, "He doesn't know what's in the boxes. He can't feel it."

"He hasn't said anything yet!" Song Wennuan cried out, defending Ding Puhang.

Song Rui curled his lips and made no further comments. He had almost guessed what the man's abilities were.

Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, then twenty minutes passed by...

The 30 minute deadline gradually came closer and closer to the end, while Ding Puhang remained upright and motionless in the same spot, pretending to be in deep thought. There was no movement nor any progress.

Song Rui waved his hand and said to Song Wennuan, "Go and personally remind him that it's almost time. Ask him to submit his answer quickly."

"Why should I go in person? There's an assistant director watching from the next room." Song Wennuan didn't want to move.

Song Rui turned his head and looked directly at her. His dark eyes were like two deep pools.

Subconsciously, Song Wennuan almost drowned in those deep and cold pools that stared at her. She stood up with a bitter expression on her face and walked towards the testing room.

She opened the door, walked right into the middle of the room, raised her voice and said, "Ding Puhang, you only have eight minutes left."

Ding Puhang's eyes immediately locked onto Song Wennuan. His deep anxiety disappeared within an instant, leaving him feeling relaxed and safe now.

The so-called 'heaven never sealed off all the exits' was exactly what this moment could be described as.

He retracted his already stiff-from-hanging-above-the-box arm and said slowly, "I already know the answer. This is an egg, this is a stone, this is a sapling, and this is a chrysalis. Am I right, Miss Song?"

He pointed to the four boxes in turn and laughed with a triumphant smile.

Song Wennuan was stupefied, she had never expected him to guess the contents of each box so accurately.

Did he have an ability along the lines of something like X-ray vision?

The judges who had remained in the observation room inquired about each other's test items and were surprised to discover that all the things they had brought were correctly identified by Ding Puhang.

Only Song Rui felt dissatisfied with Ding Puhang's performance. He moved the microphone close to his mouth and asked, "Second question, which of the items in these boxes contains no breath of life?"

His extremely magnetic voice transmitted into the testing room through the loudspeakers, and made Ding Puhang's smile stiffen slightly.

What kind of silly question is this? I have already guessed the items in the box. Which one has no breath of life? The stone, of course!

Song Wennuan's expression was also somewhat embarrassed. Cousin, is that even a question? How can a stone emit the breath of life?

Did he want to start a discussion with the contestant on whether a stone was a living form of existence or not? This was a reality show, not a philosophical debate show!

Song Wennuan smiled at Ding Puhang and the latter pointed to the second box from the left, saying, "There is no breath of life in this box."

There was no response from the loudspeaker.

Ding Puhang stood there for seven more minutes before he realized that he seemed to have been fooled by the question just now.

So, he pretended to be wronged and turned his gaze towards Song Wennuan.

In reply, Song Wennuan simply helped him by opening the door, and then said with a bright smile, "Mr. Ding, you have passed this test smoothly. Please head this way."

He had only walked four or five meters away from the room when he saw a tall man who was standing at the end of the corridor. This person was wearing a black windbreaker and had his hands folded across his chest.

The man was also very handsome and had a refined temperament. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses covered his dark and sharp eyes, reducing the sense of oppression that his presence exerted on others.

The man nodded slightly and greeted him. His voice seemed to be soft and warm. It seemed that he was also a very warm person himself.

However, Ding Puhang was caught off guard by the deep cold sensation that suddenly enveloped him, and his body started trembling uncontrollably.

The moment he saw this man's eyes, countless images flashed through his mind.

A mountain of corpses and a sea of corpses, a foul wind and a rain of blood, the scattered bones of the dead, the spreading lava, a great flood, and also a grand palace built using countless broken limbs and rotten skeletons.

Pain, despair, anger, hatred...

The most cruel scenarios, ones which were impossible to find in the human world, existed in the man's mind. The extremely dark emotions which were present in the world but rarely appeared also existed in the man's mind.

And they were so clear and true, as if he had experienced such scenes and emotions personally, or had even been there participating in them before.

Ding Puhang almost couldn't help but grab at his head and groan in pain. After just a few seconds, he was thoroughly drenched in cold sweat.

Just as he was about to collapse, those hellish scenes and extremely painful emotions suddenly disappeared, and a cold voice vibrated directly in his mind.

"You are a peeper, am I right?"

With embarrassment, Ding Puhang lowered his head to avoid the man's line of sight, then rushed into the enclosed cubicle and closed the door tightly.

Hearing the sound of the man's footsteps fade away into the distance, he covered his sweaty face and said with a wry smile, "Damn, what kind of show is this? How can everyone have it?! The water here is so deep. I thought I was a big fish, but I didn't expect to find that I was only a small shrimp!"

After Ding Puhang's test finished, Song Rui asked the staff to replace the four fully covered and sealed boxes with boxes that had one transparent side.

The open side faced away from the contestants and was instead in full view of the camera. This was so that the people in the monitoring room could see the contents of the boxes while observing the performances of the contestants.

In the first box was an egg brought by Dr. Lin. The egg had supposedly been placed in an incubator before, and was expected to hatch in three days.

In the second box was a stone brought by Song Rui. He didn't mention anything about it, so no one knew what part of it related to 'life'.

In the third box was a flower pot with a small sapling in it. According to Dr. Ouyang, the sapling would bear kumquats in the future.

In the fourth box was a dark brown pupa cushioned on a flannelette. It was Dr. Qian's pet. He said that it would soon emerge from its chrysalis to become an emperor butterfly.

These objects could be divided into two categories of life: the soon-to-be-born category, and the vigorously alive category, only the heavy stone was an oddity.

The rest of the judges turned to look at Song Rui, with the expressions on their faces currently being hard to describe in words.

Song Rui chuckled but said nothing.

Then, the second contestant entered the test room. He stood in front of the four boxes and waited for the staff to give the prompt to start.

Before Song Wennuan could speak, Song Rui took the microphone and said, "Tell us which boxes have living beings inside and which ones do not."

He had lost all interest after Ding Puhang's performance and so naturally changed the question.

Song Wennuan, whose right to speak had been suddenly snatched away by her cousin, could only look at the screen with indifferent eyes, while pretending that she had known about and planned for all of these arrangements.

By no means am I my cousin's puppet, I definitely am not!

At the same time, the technical producer and the staff around him were observing the testing room through the monitor so that they could also know about the situation inside. They could even clearly see what was placed in each of the four boxes...

One of the staff members wrote down the order of the items in silence and left the room alone after making an excuse of going to the toilet.

This contestant's performance was very average. After more than 20 minutes of silence, the contestant pointed to the box holding the egg and said, "There is no living thing in this box."

But in fact, there was. The chick that was about to hatch was even able to flick its wings and claws lightly inside the egg, and Dr. Lin had already proven this by taking X-rays of the egg before bringing it to the show.

The man's answer was wrong, but he didn't know that he was wrong. He then directed a confident smile towards the camera.

After he finished and left, several other contestants each entered the testing room in turn.

Many of them answered correctly, but they gave vague answers, which were not very comprehensive. Some would say that 'there's no living being' while pointing to one or two of the boxes which actually contained a 'living being'.

Song Wennuan didn't understand her cousin's painstaking efforts in changing the question until that point, and it was only after seeing such scenes that she explained in admiration, "Dr. Song is still the one that had the most consideration.

"If all of us had brought living things, then there would be no twists and turns during the test, naturally, there also wouldn't be any highlights.

"To add a lifeless object into the mix is equivalent to setting up a hurdle, so we can see the contestants display their strength in a more intuitive manner.

"It is not easy to find all the boxes containing living beings, and it is also not easy to find the only boxes without any life.

"Under these arrangements facilitated by Dr. Song, the difficulty level of this test has increased by a few levels. We can see clearly at a glance which contestants are strong and which ones depend on luck."

Song Rui stared at the screen displaying Fan Jialuo's image without saying a word.

This entire arrangement of his was only for that person to see. Whether others understood or not was not even within the scope of his consideration.

Moreover, Song Wennuan was wrong. This stone was not a threshold, nor was it a kind of hurdle in the trial, rather, it was a gift.

The testing was still in process.

To Song Wennuan's surprise, the contestant who had been ranked last in the audition was the first one to give all the correct answers.

With this excellent performance supporting her, she had completely dismissed the danger of being eliminated in this round.

"How did she suddenly become stronger?" Song Wennuan muttered in a puzzled manner.

"I think it's not too surprising to see this kind of outcome because psychics' abilities rely on intuition and insight, which are rather illusory elements. Sometimes they work and sometimes they do not, so it's normal for their performance to be unstable," Dr. Lin explained.

"Well, that's true," Song Wennuan agreed, dispelling her doubts with this.

As time went on, her favorite contestants appeared on the screen one by one. Their performances did not disappoint her in the slightest!

Yuan Zhongzhou shook his bell and said, "The fluctuations of life in these three boxes are very weak. The first one is stronger than the fourth, and the fourth is stronger than the third.

"I would guess that there is a young animal in the first box, one which is not very intelligent, it should be a bird.

"The animal in the fourth box has close to no intelligence, only possessing instinct. I would guess that it's an insect. However, it emits a weaker fluctuation of life than normal insects, which puzzles me.

"In the third box, the fluctuation of life is very stable and gentle, I guess it's a plant.

"There is no fluctuation of life in the second box. I can't receive any feedback, but it must not be empty. There should be something with a higher density inside it, something similar to a stone."

As soon as he finished speaking, a big round of applause resounded in the observation room, while in contrast, Song Rui only raised his eyebrows slightly.