The entire venue fell into dead silence.
This silence did not come from shock, but from pure physical cooling.
It was clearly the height of summer, and the air conditioning in the Penacony Grand Theater wasn't even turned on, yet everyone felt as if they had been thrown into an ice cellar. The breath they exhaled carried faint traces of white mist.
The lethal puns, like an invisible blizzard, swept through the entire live stream.
The bullet comments, which had been refreshing like a waterfall, suddenly froze for several seconds, as if even the server's CPU had been locked in ice.
Backstage.
Su Chen struggled to swallow, feeling as if his vocal cords were about to stiffen.
He looked at Sparkle beside him, who had unconsciously wrapped her arms around herself, and exhaled a clearly visible puff of white breath.
"Cold?"
"It's not about whether it's cold or not!" Sparkle's teeth were chattering lightly. "No way, I need to go find a military coat!"
Su Chen then turned his gaze to Mydei beside him.
The tough guy's lips had already started turning purple, and his muscles were trembling violently beyond his control.
"Do you want one too?"
"Hmph! In the dictionary of Castrum Kremnos... there is no..." Mydei gritted his teeth, his whole body shaking uncontrollably, "no... no such word as 'cold'!"
"Impressive. A true iron-blooded Kremnos warrior," Su Chen said with genuine admiration.
At the same time, on stage.
March 7th's calm, ancient-well-like eyes gazed steadily at Cyno.
Her voice dropped a little lower than before. "My answer... was it correct?"
The corner of Cyno's mouth, for the first time, curved into a slight arc of approval.
"Very correct."
After a full half-minute of dead silence, the bullet comments finally began to flow again, like a thawing glacier moving sluggishly with bits of broken ice.
[Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Is this really March 7th? My ears aren't broken, right?!]
[Even though I understood it, I wish I hadn't. I feel like my skull is emitting cold air!]
[Impossible. March 7th's IQ CPU couldn't possibly handle this kind of calculation! Who upgraded her hardware?]
[Whatever! Even when she's blackened, she's still this good-looking! So cool! I'm even more into it!]
[Agreed on that point.]
— —
Cyno swept his gaze over the three remaining contestants on stage and nodded in satisfaction.
"Given your outstanding performances, I've decided to change the method of determining the winner!"
His voice wasn't loud, but it clearly reached everyone's ears.
"In the next round, there will no longer be a question-and-answer segment."
"Instead, I will continuously tell cold jokes until only one contestant remains on stage!"
The moment he said this, the entire venue erupted in an uproar.
Expressions of confusion and disbelief appeared on both Big Herta's and Little Herta's faces at the same time.
Just listening to jokes?
What kind of competition was this?
What was the elimination criteria?
Whoever froze to death first?
[The production team is doing what now? Listening to jokes? How does that eliminate people?]
[This Cyno guy is way too arrogant. One person challenging three? And two of them are geniuses!]
[I know his jokes are cold, but how cold can they really be? If you get used to them, it should be fine, right?]
[No, the person above... I have a really bad feeling about this... This is definitely a mental attack! Area-of-effect damage!]
The other contestants initially watched with the attitude of enjoying the show, but gradually, they stopped laughing. They only felt a chill rushing from the soles of their feet straight to their heads.
Only Su Chen's face instantly lost all color.
He knew that the real hell had only just begun.
He spun around and rushed back to the backstage area in one swift motion. From the prop box, he pulled out a baseball bat and shoved it into Mydei's hands without hesitation.
"Mydei! Quick! Don't hesitate! Knock me out with one swing! Wake me up after we win!"
Mydei held the cold baseball bat and looked at him with a completely dumbfounded expression. "Su Chen, you... do you have some kind of strange fetish?"
"No! I just don't want to develop the root cause of wearing a military coat in summer!"
Mydei placed the bat aside and shook his head seriously. "No. In the dictionary of Castrum Kremnos, there is no clause about laying hands on teammates."
"I'll do it!"
Sparkle's eyes lit up instantly. She snatched the bat and excitedly weighed it in her hands.
"Don't worry, boss. I guarantee that within ten swings, I'll knock you out completely clear-headed!"
Su Chen looked at her eager, "I can't wait for chaos" expression and had no doubt that she would take the opportunity to settle old and new grudges together. He decisively took a step back.
It was over.
He could only endure it.
The next moment, the final showdown on stage officially began.
Cyno stood in the center of the stage. Under the spotlight, his expressionless face appeared even more cold and stern.
He slowly opened his mouth.
"Optimus Prime was beaten into a pile of parts by Megatron. Bumblebee took the parts and found a master craftsman. In the end, Bumblebee said to the master—"
He paused for a moment.
"'If you are well, then it is a clear day (Optimus).'"
The instant his words fell, the lights above the stage seemed to dim slightly. The moisture in the air felt as if it had condensed into visible ice crystals.
Shush kindly offered, "Everyone, would you like me to explain the core of this joke? 'Clear day' and 'Optimus' are homophones..."
"Shush!"
Big Herta, Little Herta, and March 7th's voices rang out in unison.
The bullet comments in the live stream had already uniformly turned into a string of "...".
Completely unaffected, Cyno began his second round of mental bombardment.
"Cao Cao brought his youngest son to visit Liu Bei's residence. Upon seeing Liu Bei, he said, 'Cao Cao has brought his young son to visit.'"
"Liu Bei replied, 'Just come if you're coming. Why bring fruit?'"
"..."
Shush said, "Do you really not need me to explain the homophone relationship between 'young son' and 'pomelo'?"
"Shush!!!"
This time, even the contestants backstage began unconsciously hugging their arms, teeth chattering.
The comment section was completely silent. All the viewers were frozen in front of their screens.
From the director's position, Mr. Reca rubbed his arms vigorously and asked into the walkie-talkie:
"What's going on? Did the air conditioning go overboard? Why does it look like there's a thin layer of frost on the camera lens?"
On stage, Big Herta tightly wrapped her arms around herself. Her body began to tremble uncontrollably.
She had been wise all her life and never expected to fall to this kind of low-level wordplay.
Little Herta beside her wasn't faring much better. Her face was pale as paper, her lips tightly pressed together, relying purely on stubbornness to hold on.
Only March 7th merely breathed a little heavier. Her gaze remained terrifyingly calm.
Cyno's third cold joke began.
"The black balloon got into a fight with the white balloon. The black balloon lost, so the black balloon decided—"
He looked at the two people on stage who were on the verge of collapse and at March 7th, whose expression hadn't changed at all, then slowly uttered the final, lethal words.
"To confess to the balloon."
"..."
In that moment, time froze.
The faint sound of a crow cawing could still be heard on stage.
Finally, Little Herta's psychological defenses completely collapsed.
Trembling, she slowly raised her hand, wanting to declare her surrender.
However, at that exact moment.
Big Herta, standing beside her, spoke first:
"This is boring. I won't accompany you in this kind of low-level wordplay. I'm withdrawing first!"