This time, the silence lasted several full minutes as everyone processed this unbelievable fact.

After a moment, Officer Li was the first to flip over his identity card. Sure enough, it read “Liar.”

Everyone turned over their cards one by one. All of them were “Liar.”

“You’re quite impressive…” Lawyer Zhang cast an approving gaze at Qi Xia. “But how did you discover we’re all already dead?”

Qi Xia pointed at his scratch paper and said, “It’s not difficult. I kept wondering, why is the room sealed? Why are there lines drawn on the walls and floor? Why is there a clock in the center of the table? And why did Goat Head force us to take a ‘halftime break’?”

“A normal person’s air consumption is 0.007 cubic meters per minute, which equals 0.42 cubic meters per hour. There are ten people total in this room, which means the hourly air consumption would reach 4.2 cubic meters.”

“According to what Goat Head said, not only did we sleep in this room for twelve hours, we also played a game for nearly one hour. If you multiply 4.2 cubic meters by thirteen, you get the number ‘54.6.’”

Qi Xia circled “54.6” on the scratch paper with his pen and said, “This is the cubic meters of air we should have consumed.”

He looked around the room again and said, “But how many cubic meters does this room have in total?”

Everyone followed his gaze.

“The organizer left us clues. They drew lines on the walls and floor, dividing the walls and floor into many squares, and each square has sides about one meter long.” Qi Xia pointed at the marks on the wall. “The number of squares on the walls is three by four, and the floor and ceiling are four by four. The room’s length, width, and height are four by four by three, totaling forty-eight cubic meters.”

“So how can a forty-eight cubic meter room contain 54.6 cubic meters of air?” Qi Xia frowned, his expression gloomy. “After all this time, logically the air should be becoming thin, but we don’t feel any lack of oxygen…”

Doctor Zhao pondered for a while, took Qi Xia’s scratch paper, and pointed at “49.14” on it, asking, “What does this number mean?”

Qi Xia looked at Doctor Zhao with a very serious expression and answered, “This is also the air consumption that needs to be calculated, except it’s calculated for ‘nine people.'”

“Nine people?”

Doctor Zhao was stunned. After all, there were clearly ten people consuming air in this room, yet he calculated the quantity for “nine people”?

“I made a bold assumption.” Qi Xia said expressionlessly. “If Goat Head ‘isn’t human,’ would our air supply be enough? Obviously not enough either.”

“What kind of lunatic are you?” Doctor Zhao muttered. “To make such a bizarre assumption?”

“Is it so hard to understand?” Qi Xia pointed at the headless corpse on his right. “Doctor Zhao, you should be very familiar with skulls. Generally speaking, can a human use one hand to shatter a skull?”

Doctor Zhao didn’t answer because he knew it was completely impossible.

Never mind a human skull—even trying to shatter a rabbit’s skull on a table with one hand wouldn’t be a simple task.

Qi Xia withdrew his gaze and looked at everyone again, saying, “Time is running short. I’ve already written down my choice. What happens next is up to you all. But remember, as long as even one person’s answer differs from mine, everyone present will be ‘sanctioned.'”

Everyone felt somewhat timid.

A monster that could kill at will was now about to be “voted out” by them.

Would he accept it willingly?

Qiao Jiajin glanced at Man-Goat from the corner of his eye and found he still made no movement. His deep gaze penetrated through the goat mask, contemplating something unknown.

“Damn it all, I’m going for it!” Qiao Jiajin waved his large hand and also wrote down the two characters “Man-Goat.”

Everyone hesitated for a moment, then also wrote down their answers one after another.

Qi Xia swept his eyes across them. Without exception, all read “Man-Goat.”

The clock pointed to 1 o’clock. The game was over.

Goat Head slowly walked forward and said, “Congratulations everyone. You survived the ‘Liar’ game. Now I will personally carry out ‘sanction’ on the loser.”

Before everyone could react, Goat Head pulled out a pistol from his chest, turned the gun barrel to point at his own heart, and directly pulled the trigger.

An unimaginable loud bang echoed through the narrow room.

In such an enclosed space, sound couldn’t dissipate easily. Everyone felt their ears ringing.

Immediately after, Goat Head clutched his chest and began screaming.

The enormous shouting quickly overpowered the gun’s echo, constantly reverberating within the room, making everyone’s hearts turn cold.

Goat Head screamed while spitting blood. After a full minute or more, the sound finally diminished, turning into painful muffled groans.

“What the… what the hell…” Qiao Jiajin stared blankly at Goat Head. “Is he for real?”

After several more minutes, even the muffled groans could no longer be heard.

The nine seated people suddenly discovered their legs could exert strength again.

Doctor Zhao was the first to stand up. He walked to Goat Head’s side, reached out to feel the artery at his neck, and found it had stopped pulsing.

“Hey!” Doctor Zhao shouted at Goat Head. “The game is over. How do we get out?!”

But a silent corpse couldn’t give Doctor Zhao any answer.

The others also slowly stood up.

The room hadn’t changed at all, except for one additional corpse.

“How strange… are we really dead?” Tiantian seemed to still be struggling with this question. She extended her slender palm and fiercely slapped herself across the face.

“Ow!” Tiantian cried out in surprise. “It still really hurts… Why can I still feel pain after dying?”

Qiao Jiajin shook his head helplessly. “What, have you died before?”

“I…” Tiantian was slightly stunned. “I guess I really haven’t died before…”

“So, who knows what happens after you die? Looking at this situation, maybe this is hell.” Qiao Jiajin looked at the two corpses in the room and felt uncomfortable all over. “Not only can I feel pain, I can also smell the stench.”

“So what are we? Souls?” writer Han Yimo asked.

After hearing this, Doctor Zhao also examined his own body and found his heartbeat, body temperature, and pulse were all normal. He was also breathing normally, yet apparently not consuming oxygen.

It seemed death truly was a mysterious thing that no medical knowledge could explain.

“Regardless of what we are, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days trapped in this little room.” Officer Li said. “Let’s figure out how to get out.”

Officer Li walked to Goat Head’s side and casually picked up the gun that had fallen beside him.

This action startled everyone, and they instinctively moved away from him.

Officer Li skillfully slid open the chamber to look, then ejected the magazine and found this gun had only one bullet, which was now spent.

This was both good news and bad news.

The good was that they didn’t need to worry about someone using this gun to harm others. The bad was that when encountering other dangers, they couldn’t defend themselves either.

Qiao Jiajin was quite bold. He reached out and slowly removed Man-Goat’s mask, discovering beneath it was a man with a completely rotted face.

His eyes were rolled back, and there were no longer any signs of life.

“What a terrifying face…”

Lawyer Zhang echoed from the side.