This was something Bai Youwei had also considered.

When you encountered someone you knew in a game — even if it was just a passing acquaintance — they were always easier to approach than a complete stranger. When it came to forming alliances or teams, choosing someone familiar was only human nature.

But Fang Yu and Yu Chaohui had, from the very beginning, seemingly never considered allying with her.

At the start of the game, the hulking man had occupied the leadership position in the blue-eyes group, and Fang Yu had refused contact with her to avoid arousing his suspicion — that was just barely plausible as an explanation……

But what if Fang Yu was the X-Guest? What would his calculations look like?

Bai Youwei thought it over, then asked the short-haired woman: “Who’s the second person?”

The short-haired woman pressed her lips together and lowered her voice: “Number 14.”

“Number 14?” Bai Youwei was momentarily taken aback, then realized — the short-haired woman was referring to the blue-eye staying in the red group, the man in the suit who had been tricked into switching sides.

“Don’t you think he’s suspicious?” the short-haired woman frowned. “He’s in the same situation as you — sitting in a group whose color doesn’t match his own. We red-eyes have been careful to avoid voting for number 14 every round so we could use his vote to our advantage. And the blue-eyes group — whether by coincidence or for some other reason — has also never voted for number 14!”

Bai Youwei understood. “You’re saying he deliberately let the blue group know his number, so that neither the reds nor the blues would vote for him, improving his own odds of survival.”

“Exactly!” The short-haired woman gave a firm nod. “If he’s the X-Guest, everything falls into place! He was afraid of being eliminated early, so he set himself up with two layers of protection!”

Bai Youwei mulled it over: “You make a fair point……”

The short-haired woman asked: “Do you have anyone you suspect?”

Bai Youwei thought: the people I suspected have all already hit game over.

One hulking man met his end, and Ogata Kei has been eliminated.

“I still think……the X-Guest is probably someone who takes the initiative in the game,” Bai Youwei said, resting her chin in her hand and thinking aloud. “Otherwise, passively waiting for others to vote while relying on luck — how is that any different from pure chance? Number 14 may be suspicious, but he’s been largely relying on luck in the later stages. Whereas the X-Guest not only has to avoid being voted out, but also needs to guide the other players to vote for different numbers. That’s the only way to guarantee making it to the final round……”

The short-haired woman said awkwardly: “The way you put it, doesn’t that just sound like the doctor?”

Bai Youwei gave a rueful smile: “It does.”

But the doctor was already out, and the game still wasn’t over.

Without any leads, both of them fell silent at the same time.

After a while, Bai Youwei asked: “Why do you think everyone calls Ogata Kei ‘the doctor’?”

“Isn’t he a doctor?” the short-haired woman said offhandedly. “He wears a white coat, looks every bit the doctor, and besides, remembering names is such a hassle — so people just call him that.”

“Is that so……” Bai Youwei said quietly. “Actually, I never thought he seemed like a doctor. He doesn’t have that particular smell……”

“What smell?” The short-haired woman laughed. “Disinfectant? The apocalypse has been going on so long, even if he had any smell, it would’ve faded away long ago!”

Then, unable to resist, she added sarcastically: “Though his team really does have a lot of patients. Good thing they have a doctor around to treat them all — because every single one of them has gone completely insane! Especially that half-blind fellow — rambling and muttering every day, seriously far gone!”

Bai Youwei laughed in spite of herself and nodded: “Those people are a bit unhinged.”

Back in the yellow-eyes group, watching the scarf woman and the glasses-wearing man prostrating themselves before Ogata Kei every single day — she’d nearly burst out laughing more than once.

Jokes aside, after careful consideration the short-haired woman said: “The yellow-eyes have been under the doctor’s control all this time. Now that the doctor’s been eliminated, they’re in complete disarray — no one’s there to manipulate the votes anymore. That’s actually an opportunity. The next voting round eliminates 4 people. Without anyone rigging things, even blind guessing would give us about a 44% shot at winning, right?”

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