The crowd was in an uproar.

There was doubt, questioning, and repeated, tangled confusion.

“How did they die?”

“Didn’t they use their items?”

“A-Qiang brought so many items in — how could he be dead?!”

“Right! Even if they died, there’s no reason it should have been this fast!”

Faced with these accusations, the man only weakly shook his head. “That cat was too powerful… It moved too fast. None of them could react in time…”

As he spoke, he coughed softly, as if already very weak.

Several staff members stepped in to manage the situation, took the man away to get more information, and the agitation and chaos on the scene gradually settled.

Bai Youwei watched the man’s retreating figure, a sneer curling her lips. “He’s lying.”

Yu Yaqing was startled, and asked her, “Why do you say that?”

“Game 21 is hide-and-seek. I’ve read the game files — it requires at least ten players to trigger. Once inside, you need to find somewhere to hide and avoid being caught.” Bai Youwei looked at her and asked, “Do you think all the players who went in would have crowded together into one hiding spot?”

Yu Yaqing frowned. “Of course they would have spread out.”

Bai Youwei: “So if they were all scattered, how would he know everyone else was dead?”

Yu Yaqing froze.

“Exactly.” Yan Qingwen nodded thoughtfully. “Using a puzzle piece to escape a game — that can only happen when you’re in extreme danger with no other means of survival. In that kind of moment, there’s no way you’d have the presence of mind to observe what’s happening to everyone else. Unless those ten people were all together the entire time.”

Lu Ang beside them couldn’t help but say, “Maybe when he came out, he saw the other players’ dolls, so he assumed they’d all died inside the game?”

“Even so, there’s still a contradiction.” Shen Mo calmly pointed out to Lu Ang. “He just said the cat’s ‘speed was too fast.’ If ten people were scattered, how would he know the cause of everyone else’s death? With so many people pressing him just now, he showed not a trace of panic — in that kind of situation, the natural response would be to wave it off and say he didn’t know anything.”

Bai Youwei’s lips curved in a look of contempt. “The deaths of those nine people are definitely connected to that man. Either he killed them directly, or he set some kind of trap that led to it indirectly.”

“Why would he do that?!” Yu Yaqing had already half-believed them, and couldn’t help but ask. “Wasting a puzzle piece to kill nine people — what’s the point?!”

Zhu Shu was also puzzled, thinking it over. “If it was just about killing people, there’s no reason it had to happen inside a game…”

“Who knows~” Bai Youwei gave an indifferent shrug. “Here’s a bit of advice for all of you — if you join the evaluation team and run into that man with the white gloves, stay as far away from him as possible. Don’t go into a group with him.”

Yan Qingwen looked at the figure that had long since walked away, eyes narrowing slightly. “…Definitely strange. Being careful never hurts.”

“Yeah, those white gloves are so eerie.” Zhu Shu added.

Almost everyone had noticed the white gloves.

The sense of wrongness was intense.

Yu Yaqing, meanwhile, was worried about something else entirely. “If even gathering this many skilled players can’t clear Game 21, the city zone will turn into a danger zone in seven days. By then, the base will be forced to relocate.”

She bit her lip and turned to the others. “I need to head back to headquarters. I’m going first!”

Yu Yaqing left in a hurry.

Everyone stood at the entrance and watched her go, each lost in their own thoughts.

Lu Ang asked Yan Qingwen, “Are we still signing up for the evaluation team?”

“Let’s wait for news.” Yan Qingwen lit a cigarette, his tone calm and unhurried. “If the base is relocating, there’s no point in joining the evaluation team right now.”

—