An old tungsten filament bulb hung by a black wire in the center of the room, flickering with dim light.

The quiet atmosphere was like ink dripping into clear water, spreading and permeating throughout the room.

In the very center of the room sat a large round table, looking already mottled and dilapidated. At the table’s center stood a small clock with extremely intricate patterns, currently ticking away.

Seated around the table were ten people dressed in various attire. Their clothes appeared somewhat worn, and their faces were stained with considerable dust.

Some were sprawled across the table surface, others leaned back in their chairs—all deeply asleep.

Beside these ten people stood quietly a man wearing a goat-head mask and dressed in a black suit.

His gaze pierced through the shabby goat-head mask, staring at the ten people with great interest.

The clock on the table chimed. The minute hand and hour hand both pointed to twelve simultaneously.

From somewhere very far beyond the room came the sound of deep, resonant bells.

At that same moment, the ten men and women seated around the round table slowly awakened.

After gradually regaining consciousness, they first looked around in bewilderment, then gazed at each other in confusion.

It seemed no one remembered why they had appeared in this place.

“Good morning, nine of you,” Goat Head spoke first. “I’m very pleased to meet you all here. You’ve been sleeping before me for twelve hours now.”

The bizarre appearance of the man before them startled everyone under the dim lighting.

His mask seemed to be made from a real goat’s head. Much of the fur had already yellowed and blackened, matted and stuck together in clumps.

Two hollow holes were carved out at the eyes of the goat mask, revealing his cunning eyes.

His every gesture not only emanated the unique gamey smell particular to goats, but also carried a faint odor of decay.

A man with flowered sleeves tattooed on his arms froze for a few seconds before finally noticing something unreasonable about this situation. He asked Goat Head hesitantly, “Who… are you?”

“I’m sure you all have this question, so let me introduce myself to the nine of you.” Goat Head waved his hands excitedly, looking as though he had prepared this answer long ago.

A young man named Qi Xia sat in the spot farthest from Goat Head. He quickly surveyed the situation inside the room, and moments later, his expression grew grave.

Strange. This room was truly too strange.

There was no door here—all four sides were walls.

In other words, this room’s surroundings, ceiling, and floor were all sealed, yet oddly enough, a table was placed in the room’s center.

If that was the case, how did they come to be here?

Could it be that people were sent in first, and then the walls were built afterward?

Qi Xia looked around again. Whether it was the floor, walls, or ceiling, all of them had crisscrossing lines. These lines divided the walls and floor into many large squares.

Another point that caught Qi Xia’s attention was the phrase “nine of you” that Goat Head had said.

No matter how one counted those seated around the round table, there were clearly ten people. Adding Goat Head himself, there were eleven people in this room altogether.

What did “nine of you” mean?

He reached to feel his pocket. As expected, his phone had long been taken away.

“No need to introduce yourself to us,” a cold woman spoke to Goat Head. “I advise you to stop your behavior immediately. I suspect you’ve detained us for more than twenty-four hours already, which constitutes the crime of illegal detention. Every word you say now will be recorded and will form unfavorable testimony against you.”

As she spoke, she disgustedly brushed the dust from her arms, as if being made dirty bothered her even more than being imprisoned.

The cold woman’s words indeed sobered everyone up considerably. Whoever he was, he had dared to kidnap ten people alone—no matter what, he had already crossed the bottom line of the law.

“Wait…” A middle-aged man wearing a white lab coat interrupted everyone’s train of thought. He slowly looked toward the cold woman and asked, “We all just woke up. How do you know we’ve been detained for ‘twenty-four hours’?”

His tone was steady and forceful, yet it hit the mark precisely.

The cold woman calmly pointed at the clock on the table surface and answered, “The clock here points to twelve o’clock, but I have a habit of sleeping late. The last time I looked at my watch at home, it was already twelve o’clock. This indicates we’ve been detained for at least twelve hours.”

After finishing, she pointed at the surrounding walls with her finger and continued, “You should have noticed as well—this room has no door. This indicates that this person went through considerable trouble to get us into this room. He said we’ve been asleep for twelve hours, and now the clock points to twelve again, meaning it’s made at least two complete rotations. So I suspect it’s been ‘more than twenty-four hours.’ Is there a problem?”

After hearing this answer, White-Lab-Coat looked at the woman coldly, his gaze still carrying suspicion.

After all, in this kind of environment, this woman was far too calm.

Would a normal person facing this kind of kidnapping situation calmly say such things?

At this moment, a strong young man wearing a black T-shirt spoke up, “Goat Head, why are there ten people here, yet you say there are nine?”

Goat Head remained silent and didn’t answer immediately.

“Damn it all, I don’t care how many people are here…” Flower-Arm Man cursed and tried to stand up by pushing against the table, only to discover his legs were weak and powerless. He could only continue pointing at Goat Head and say, “You bastard, I advise you to wise up. You probably don’t know how serious the consequences of provoking me are. I’ll really take your life.”

As soon as these words were spoken, the expressions of the seated men gradually turned serious. This was indeed the time when someone needed to take the lead. If they could subdue this Goat Head together, the situation would still be under control.

But everyone discovered that their legs seemed to have been injected with something and were now completely powerless.

So Flower-Arm Man could only threaten Goat Head verbally, shouting and cursing loudly.

Qi Xia didn’t speak. He reached up to gently stroke his chin, staring at the clock on the table, deep in thought.

Things seemed not as simple as imagined.

He knew that what Goat Head meant was “nine participants.” If there were ten people here, it could only prove that one of them was not a participant.

Then who was he?

Six men and four women sat in this room. Could one of them be a “kidnapper”?

Goat Head said nothing more and slowly walked to Qi Xia’s side, stopping behind a young man.

Everyone followed his gaze and discovered that the young man before them was different from everyone else present. Although his face was also very dirty, it was brimming with a blissful smile.

Goat Head slowly raised his palm and placed it on the back of the young man’s head.

The young man’s smile became increasingly eerie. He looked at everyone with an excited expression, as if he had known something all along.

With a dull thud, the goat-headed man slammed the young man’s head violently onto the table surface.

Pink and white matter spilled out like splattered paint, spreading horizontally across the table surface in an instant. Blood spots splattered onto everyone’s faces.

This young man’s skull had actually been shattered to pieces on the table surface.

Outside the room, the distant sound of bells rang out once more.

Qi Xia was very close to the deceased. He felt an unidentified object stick to his face—warm and viscous.

He thought his psychological fortitude was already strong enough, yet he hadn’t expected to start trembling at this moment.

The girl seated to the right of the deceased froze for three seconds before her face finally twisted in horror, and she let out a piercing scream.

This scream tore through everyone’s psychological defenses.

To be able to shatter the hardest bone in the human body—the skull—with one’s hands on a table surface, was that Goat Head still “human”?

Why could his frail body unleash such tremendous power?

Goat Head spoke slowly, “The reason ten people were prepared was to use one of them to make you all quiet down.”