The smell of blood from the end of the second game had not yet dissipated. Survivors in the dormitory huddled in their respective corners, and the air was filled with the stench of sweat and fear. At three o'clock in the morning, green light suddenly flooded the room. The men in red pushed open the iron gate, revealing the dark passage behind it—the third game was about to begin.
Everyone was driven to a circular hall. There were ten white lines drawn on the ground, and a thick hemp rope was placed in front of each line. The voice of the big boss came from the loudspeaker: "The third game is tug-of-war. Ten people in a group, with a time limit of ten minutes. The team that pulls the rope over the midline wins." The crowd erupted. The gangster Deok-su immediately kicked over the thin man beside him, beckoned his men to seize the front row, and shouted, "All the strong men come over! Women and old folks get out of the way!"
Gi-hun was in a panic when Sang-woo dragged him to the side of the old man and the black guy. Kang Sae-byeok also stood beside them before they knew it. "Gather ten people," Sang-woo said in a low voice. He scanned the surroundings with his eyes and finally pulled two middle-aged men and a man in a suit who was an office worker into the team. Deok-su sneered at them, "Just these old, weak, sick and disabled? Wait to be dragged down to feed the fish!"
After the grouping was completed, the ten teams were taken to the high platform, and there was a black hole dozens of meters deep under their feet. Opposite Gi-hun's team stood a team of ten muscular men, and the leader was Deok-su's sworn enemy. The old man suddenly squatted down, stared at the knot on the hemp rope and said, "Listen to me. Don't use force at the beginning. Let them drag the rope over by three tenths, and then all of us lean back!" The man in the suit called him crazy, but Sang-woo pinned his teammate and said, "Do as he says."
The whistle sounded, and the other team suddenly exerted force. The hemp rope straightened in an instant, and Gi-hun's team was dragged to stagger forward. Just when they were about to cross the midline, the old man roared, "Fall back!" The ten people leaned back in unison, and the sudden change of center of gravity caught the other team off guard. "Now! Three steps to the left, three steps to the right!" the old man shouted again. The team swayed like a pendulum, and the strong men on the opposite side were in chaos. Kang Sae-byeok suddenly shouted, "The third one on the left is the weak point!" Gi-hun seized the opportunity and led everyone to pull hard—the whole opposite team lost their balance and screamed as they fell into the abyss.
Back in the dormitory, Sang-woo squatted in the corner and counted the number of people: "There are 80 people left now." Gi-hun looked at the small notebook in his hand, which recorded everyone's small movements, and suddenly felt that his childhood friend had become strange. At this time, Deok-su led his men to break open the bathroom door, dragged the man in the suit out and beat him, shouting, "Were you trying to hold us back just now?" No one dared to make a sound until the old man coughed and said, "If you hit him again, there will be no one left to work."
Late at night, the young policeman pretended to be patrolling and sneaked into the rest room of the men in red. There was an iron box locked in the cabinet. He pried it open with a hairpin. Inside were all copies of the game rules, and the last page read "Next game: Glass Bridge". Suddenly, there were footsteps from the next room. He quickly stuffed the box back to its original place. When he turned around, he knocked off the employee list on the wall—the photo on the top was exactly the same as the ID card of his missing brother.
Kang Sae-byeok felt a paper ball under her pillow, which was stuffed by Han Mi-nyeo: "Deok-su wants to grab the knife you hid." She clenched her sleeve and saw Gi-hun staring at the abyss in a daze. "If you want to live, you have to be cruel," Kang Sae-byeok left this sentence, turned around and got into the bed. However, she heard Sang-woo chuckle in the dark, as if he was plotting something.
As dawn was approaching, the loudspeaker suddenly sounded: "Those who voluntarily quit can leave now." Some people cried and rushed to the iron gate, but were stopped by the men in red. "Those who quit need to pay liquidated damages," the big boss's voice was full of smiles, "that is—your lives." The man who rushed to the front was about to curse when he was shot in the head by the square-masked man. The young policeman stood in the team and quietly touched the photo of his brother hidden in his clothes. His palms were full of sweat.