Here,
$p[0] = s[length] = $ '\0'; //compiler puts a '\0' at the end of all string literals
Now, for any string function in C, it checks till the first '\0' to identify the end of string. So, since the first char is '\0', printf %s, will print empty string. If we use printf("%s", p+1); we will get option (C) with some possible garbage until some memory location happens to contain "\0". For the given code, answer is (D).