Bai Youwei let out a cold scoff. “I truly cannot believe that a battle game could have such a glaring flaw.”

The cartoon figure maintained its composure and explained, “…Luck is also a form of ability. If you recruit subjects of the same ethnicity, you should have factored in the possibility of facing situations like this.”

“Then they are incredibly lucky — they don’t have to worry about skin colour, and they have no trouble with the food.” Bai Youwei poked at the salt pork on her plate. “I genuinely wonder whether eating several consecutive meals like this would deal a severe blow to an Asian person’s cognitive function.”

The cartoon figure held back, once, twice, and replied as steadily as it could manage: “The supplies provided by the game naturally need to match the environment! This has nothing to do with whether the game mechanics are fair…”

Before it had even finished speaking, a furious shout from the Inspector echoed in from outside the dining room: “What is this thing?!”

“Oh, my heavens!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Inspector, this must be the killer’s doing!”

Everyone was startled.

The cartoon figure’s expression returned to calm. It looked at the players before it, a faint, amused smile curling at the corner of its mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen,” it said, “it would be best to direct more of your energy toward the game itself. After all — if you are eliminated here, the only path left open to you will be ‘Battle 1’…”

The players in the dining room rose one by one and headed out to see what had happened.

Bai Youwei stopped bickering with the Commissioner and followed the crowd out of the dining room with a measure of curiosity, making her way to the front lobby.

The Inspector was standing at the foot of the staircase, making a great commotion.

After finishing his conversation with the Doctor, the Inspector had started back toward his room, and on passing the foot of the staircase, he had discovered a most peculiar piece of paper stuck to the wall.

Why peculiar?

Because on the paper was written a series of inexplicable symbols:

【Four·⬜Back·⬜⬜Group·Four⬜⬜Factor⬜Group Garden】

【Daughter·Four⬜⬜⬜·Diagram Back Trapped Encircle·Solid Group Encircle Back·Diagram⬜Circle Group】

Bai Youwei, Su Man, and Zhu Shu exchanged glances immediately.

All three were reminded of the half-torn note in Lu Yuwen’s possession.

On that note, too, there had been similar writing.

But what did these characters actually mean?

The woman holding the baby shrieked: “It wasn’t there when we came downstairs just a moment ago — what’s going on? Who stuck this up here? When?!”

“Does that even need to be said?” the well-dressed businessman said coldly. “Someone among us did it. It was probably put up while everyone was heading to the dining room for breakfast — everyone was walking forward, and unless someone turned around to look, no one would have noticed.”

Zhu Shu stared at the paper, brow furrowed, thoroughly puzzled.

“But why would they put up something like this? What’s the purpose? What information are they trying to convey?… These characters — I can’t make any sense of them.”

“Truly can’t make sense of them? Or is someone putting on an act…” The middle-aged woman from Room 405 let out a soft, sinister laugh. “Even though I can’t read them — I still recognize them… These characters. They’re Chinese…”

The bald man immediately turned to stare at Bai Youwei, Su Man, and Zhu Shu, and let out a heavy, contemptuous snort.

“Exactly! The most suspicious individuals should be these yellow-skinned people! Inspector, you should arrest all of these yellow-skinned women at once! Every last one of them is a suspect!!!”

Zhu Shu’s expression darkened with displeasure. “By that logic, if the paper had been written in the Latin alphabet, every single one of you people would be a suspect — isn’t that right?”

Bai Youwei stepped forward, rose onto her toes, and peeled the paper off the wall. She looked at it.

Then she said, calmly: “The person who put up this paper was most likely a man, at least 175 centimetres tall. Anyone shorter than that would find it very difficult to stick a paper at this height in such a hurry.”

As she spoke, she raised her head, and her gaze drifted slowly across the faces of those present…

Her expression was so unhurried and indifferent, yet it made people inexplicably feel the sharp edge beneath it — a tightening in the chest.

—