CH 1.2

The man in the suit was about to go and close the window when the man with the tattooed arm suddenly shouted, “You guys come quickly, there is a signal here!”

His left hand holding up the phone was already sticking out of the window. “Fuck, it’s still a bit short.”

The cigarette was still dangling in his mouth, it was burning brightly under the strong wind.

Then he cursed vaguely, keeping his gaze fixed on the screen.

The man in the suit, the old man, and the veterinarian hurriedly got up behind the man with tattooed arms. They found that the signal was bouncing back and forth between a bar and an ‘x’. Several people’s eyes lit up.

He was right, there really was a signal here!

As long as there was a signal, they could make a distress call to the police, which would find them according to their location.

“Word of advice: don’t get too close to the edge.” Just as everyone was overjoyed, a voice came from behind the group.

The voice was slightly husky and lazy, soft like a Persian cat that had just woken up.

Everyone looked back and saw the stunningly beautiful young man in pajamas standing up and dragging his chair back a few centimeters to avoid the wind. “The system said that leaving the hotel would lead to punishment.”

The tattooed man was still propped up on the edge of the window with one hand, his body already stretching out most of the way.

Although he did not believe the youth’s words, the other party’s beauty still stunned him, and the tattooed man could not help but soften his voice, “Little Beauty, are you worried about brother? Don’t be afraid; brother will protect you.”

The wind was raging outside the window, rolling the man’s clothes around and rattling them.

The man with the tattooed arm held up his mobile phone and grinned as he looked Bai Lixin up and down with a malicious gaze, “You’ll have to thank me properly when we get out. I’m not afraid of these pretend ghosts, and didn’t it say not to leave? It doesn’t count as leaving if my feet are still in the house…”

Before he could finish his sentence, a cold light suddenly flashed past his eyes.

[Ding! A player has been found to have violated the rules of the game and will be punished. Punishment: Beheading.]

A round head fell from mid-air, and then the tattooed man’s body fell headfirst into the outside of the hotel under the effect of gravity.

[Once again, players are reminded to abide by the rules of the game and are forbidden to leave the hotel.]

Everyone stared blankly at the scene before their eyes.

The air was dead silent.

The man with the tattooed arm had a strange expression on his face, half with a lewd smile and half with a fear of death.

The two expressions intertwined together, making his whole face ferocious and twisted.

The body on the ground was neatly severed at the neck by something, and blood was spurting out along it!

The man in the suit was the first to come back to his senses. He quickly closed the window with trembling hands and took the lead in returning to his seat. The others returned to their seats a few moments later in a daze.

Li Cancan finally broke down and threw her head back as she cried, “What the hell is all this?! I hated going to work, but I’d rather go compared to this! ”

Other people’s faces didn’t look too good either.

What happened to the tattooed man had physically shown them that the ghostly voice wasn’t bluffing at all.

It seemed that they had really fallen into some strange game that couldn’t be explained scientifically, and it was even more demanding than they had imagined. It couldn’t tolerate people playing tricks with it by using word loopholes!

So what the system said was true? There really was a murderer lurking among them?

The people who realized this suddenly felt their scalps tingling, and they looked at the people around them again with wary eyes.

“My name is Bai Lixin,” The stunningly beautiful youth spoke just as the crowd was almost in meltdown, “I’m… an administrator, and I was sleeping before coming here.”

The youth’s voice still had that same lazy undertone. His body was leaning on the back of the chair, his dark eyes calm. He seemed to not have the slightest surprise or fear at the bizarre things happening in front of him.

Infected by the youth’s calmness, the panicking group gradually eased their emotions.

Li Cancan stared directly at Bai Lixin’s slender neck, “Your surname is Bai?”

Bai Lixin said, “No, my compound surname is Bai Li, and my single name is Xin. The Xin of King Zhou Di Xin.”

Realization then dawned on the crowd.

Perhaps it was the benefit of having lived long enough. The old teacher was the first to calm down, and he said in a deep voice, “Perhaps the murderer is the man with the tattooed arms who died just now. I seem to remember that his name was Yang Hao. ”

“I only suspected him. He panicked and went to the window. Why was he so panicked if he wasn’t guilty? He said he was looking for a signal, but perhaps he saw that he was almost exposed and used looking for a signal as an excuse to observe the terrain, to find the right time to escape?”

With these words, everyone’s hearts went back to their chests, and Li Cancan even stopped crying.

Li Cancan piped up, “Yes, yes, the old man is right, that Yang Hao was too suspicious. And didn’t the system say that this was just a warm-up game? The difficulty can’t be high, so the murderer should be Yang Hao.”

Several people thought about it and became increasingly convinced that Yang Hao was suspicious.

“But we can’t conclude without direct evidence,” Liang Xi licked the corners of his dry lips nervously and said, “The system said that the one with the most votes and the one who filled in the wrong one will be punished. If… If we fill in the wrong ones, then we’ll end up the same as Yang Hao.”

The scene fell into silence once again, and the sense of oppression squeezed everyone’s nerves in the stiff air.

“Can I see the time on your phone?” A lazy voice came from beside the old teacher, “I didn’t have my phone with me when I went to bed.”

The old teacher broke free from his fear and tilted his head to find that Bai Lixin had stood behind him at some point.

Bai Lixin was about 185 cm tall, and the old man vaguely saw stars in the other party’s gentle jade-like eyes.

Because of Parkinson’s, Shen Gudao’s hands were trembling a little. He opened his phone and raised it upwards, “It’s 20:18 Imperial time.”

Bai Lixin did not move and looked at the phone screen calmly.

It said “China Mobile” in the top left corner and the signal and battery level in the top right corner, while the middle of the screen showed two rows of time displays.

20:18, imperial capital time.

2025/09/16

Bai Lixin asked the others again, “Does it say the same for you guys?”

Several other people looked at their phones and nodded in unison.

Bai Lixin’s long, thick eyelashes trembled slightly in the air, and he collected the look in his pupils. He didn’t say anything else but just walked straight over to the corpse.

The thought of spending 24 hours with this corpse gave everyone goosebumps.

Just when everyone was afraid to move, Shen Gudao stood up tremblingly and walked behind Bai Lixin, “A corpse doesn’t lie. It’s better to first see what clues are there on the corpse. ”

Shen Gudao’s face was pale, but he forced himself to look for a moment, saying, “There are two handprints on the corpse’s neck. The handprints are slightly larger, so we can rule out Li Cancan, who has smaller hands. ”

Li Cancan let out a long breath of relief.

Bai Lixin continued after him, ” The handprints are also very dark in color, and the neck of the deceased is a little deformed, so you can see that the killer should have had a lot of strength.”

Then Zhou Guang, the man in the suit, said, “Then we’ll rule out Mr. Shen.”

Of the seven suspects, only five remained.

Shen Gudao looked at the body for a while longer before returning to his seat. “I’m old and not very observant. That’s all I can tell.”

It wasn’t long before Bai Lixin also left the body. He circled the hotel lobby before sitting back down in his seat.

What had been a lazy gaze that swept over the crowd was now as sharp as a steel knife; “I know who the murderer is!”

Five pairs of eyes looked at Bai Lixin almost at the same time.

…

Outside the window, a bolt of lightning streaked across, and a loud boom followed!

Between the flashes of lightning and thunder, the sky looked like a hole had been broken through. The rainstorm crackled down, knocking on the windows as if countless invisible hands were hammering sharply on the doors and windows, impatiently trying to invade the hotel.

The kerosene lamp flickered a few times, and the room flickered between light and darkness, blending half of Bai Lixin’s body into the darkness.

His index finger drummed lightly against the tabletop, making a rhythmic tapping sound.

Li Cancan glanced at Bai Lixin’s hands. The five fingers were white and well-defined. The length and thickness of each knuckle was just right, making it impossible to take one’s eyes off them.

The flickering light shone down on Bai Lixin’s face, and his long eyelashes cast a shadow that covered the look in his eyes.

Zhou Guang asked eagerly, “Who is the murderer?!”