Both men’s emotions were somewhat out of control. In the midst of the chaos, someone pushed someone—no one knew who—and the knife saw blood.

The man’s knife was embedded in the old man’s chest.

Seeing this scene, the onlooking crowd all took a step back.

The old man also looked down in disbelief, staring at the knife that had appeared in his chest, and coughed lightly.

“You…” The knife-wielding man felt his mind was a bit chaotic. “Who told you to snatch my knife?!”

The old man wanted to argue something, but instead collapsed headfirst to the ground, then fell silent.

Everything had spiraled out of control.

Qi Xia coldly observed the situation on the field, feeling the winds of change.

The knife-wielding man who had always represented the “interests of the poor” had now killed another “poor person” in front of everyone.

His regime had developed cracks before it was even consolidated.

This could only mean the knife-holder wasn’t smart enough. Sometimes the knife didn’t need to be swung—it just needed to be held in hand.

Just as everyone was hesitating, an unexpected figure slowly walked over.

It was the “Earth-Sheep” who had been standing in the center of the room.

Earth-Sheep looked at the dead “poor person” with a grave expression, then raised his head to speak to the knife-wielding man: “Your courage is too great. Who told you to keep killing people?”

“Huh?”

The knife-wielding man was clearly stunned. He thought “violence” was tacitly permitted in this place, but it seemed Earth-Sheep didn’t allow killing?

Earth-Sheep crouched down to look at the stabbed old man, his eyes similarly wavering and uncertain.

If Qi Xia guessed correctly, he was about to start lying.

“He can’t be saved.” Earth-Sheep raised his head to speak to the man. “As punishment, I will impose sanctions on you.”

“Sanc… sanctions?!” The man was so frightened he retreated two steps. “Are… are you kidding?! The rules you stated didn’t include this!”

Earth-Sheep stood up. Without any explanation, he simply swiftly slapped the man across the face.

The man’s body didn’t move, but his head spun a full circle on his neck, and his expression froze.

Earth-Sheep took out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his hands, saying: “I hope everyone understands, this is my game, and you need to follow the rules I’ve set. If anyone dares to do anything out of line again, I absolutely won’t hold back. I’m confiscating this person’s fans. All of you, disperse.”

After these words, Earth-Sheep took out five fans from the man’s pocket, then pushed through the onlooking crowd and returned once more to the center of the room.

At this moment, the onlooking crowd also hurriedly scattered, completely not daring to have any improper thoughts about the “wealthy people” before them.

Qi Xia, seeing Earth-Sheep’s performance, slowly raised his hand to stroke his chin.

Why was Earth-Sheep completely indifferent when a “wealthy person” was killed, but when a “poor person” was killed, Earth-Sheep took action to impose sanctions?

Wasn’t this too strange?

At this moment, Qin Dingdong’s teammate helped her up. Seeing the situation was temporarily safe, the two of them exchanged glances with Qi Xia and hurriedly ran toward the exit.

Right up until Qi Xia watched them leave, no one stepped forward to stop them.

After all, no one knew what rules Earth-Sheep had actually established.

Could fans be snatched or not? Could people be killed or not?

Under these vague rules, everyone’s eyes held some doubt. The sharp knife embedded in the old man’s body still hadn’t been taken by anyone.

“Could it be…”

Qi Xia seemed to know what matter he had overlooked.

The reason these two killed people received differential treatment wasn’t because of their identities as “poor people” or “wealthy people.”

Rather, it was their identities as “escapees” and “non-escapees.”

After all, the number of participants was an even number, and for participants to escape from here, they had to pair up in twos.

So it didn’t matter at all if “escapees” died, because they were already outside the calculation scope of the “remaining number.”

But if one “non-escapee” died… that would make the remaining number odd, ultimately resulting in one person being left alone.

That’s why Earth-Sheep took action.

To make the number even again, the best method for him was to kill one more person.

Although it was a bit strange, Qi Xia felt this line of thinking was fairly reasonable.

Next, he needed to concentrate on his own plan.

Now he had four “Sorrows” in his hand. For everything to go smoothly, he had to calculate the quantity of all “Sorrows” in this game.

Qi Xia came to the center of the room and slowly closed his eyes.

Vast quantities of fans fluttered through his mind, then neatly arranged themselves into four teams.

But after just a few seconds, he felt he had overlooked an important problem.

Earth-Sheep had once said that in the beginning stage, there were equal amounts of all four suits of fans.

But there were a total of fifty people on site, each person starting with three fans, which meant in the first round Earth-Sheep distributed one hundred and fifty fans.

One hundred and fifty fans—how could they be evenly divided among four suits?

37.5 fans each?

Didn’t this contradict itself?

Had Earth-Sheep lied about this issue?

“That shouldn’t be…” Qi Xia frowned, silently speaking in his heart. “Lying about such a crucial issue would be too fatal. This would cause this game’s reputation to deteriorate… there would be no possibility of ‘repeat customers’ appearing here.”

Moreover… if the number of fans could be lied about, then the optimal distribution ratio should be 147:1:1:1.

One suit having one hundred and forty-seven fans, with the remaining suits each having one. This would result in at most only two people being able to escape the entire game. In other words, the settings of fifty people, one hundred and fifty fans, and the fraud game would completely lose their meaning.

This would be no different from having everyone directly draw lots to decide life and death, so Earth-Sheep shouldn’t have lied at such a critical position.

Then where was his lie?

Qi Xia lowered his head to look at the four “Sorrows” in his hand. He knew that if he couldn’t calculate the remaining quantity of “Sorrows” on the field, he couldn’t win this game no matter what.

But the quantity of 37.5 left him unable to advance a single step.

Then there was only one other possibility…

At this moment, Qi Xia stood in the center of the room, perfectly positioned to take in everyone in the room with a single glance.

He slowly opened his eyes, quickly calculated the number of participants in the room, then revealed a peculiar expression.

The participants still standing on the field totaled forty people.

It seemed like there was no problem, but thinking carefully, it didn’t seem quite right.

Among them, one person had clearly died standing—he couldn’t be counted in the remaining number.

Qi Xia closed his eyes again, recalling in his mind all the events that had just occurred.

When the game had just started, four people immediately escaped. At that time, forty-six people should have been standing on the field.

After half an hour, the first pair of “wealthy people” escaped—forty-four people standing.

Next, the person who bought all the “Sorrows” lost his teammate and escaped alone—forty-three people standing.

Finally, Qin Dingdong and the Sichuan man escaped—forty-one people remaining.

Remove one “wealthy person’s” corpse and one old man’s corpse, and thirty-nine people should be standing on the field.

Qi Xia opened his eyes and surveyed all the participants once more.

Why were there forty people remaining here?

Exactly when… had one more participant appeared here?

A strange feeling slowly rose in Qi Xia’s heart.

Were there really fifty participants?

Qi Xia only knew that each person received three fans, but exactly how many people received fans?

A group of fifty people was larger than he had imagined. From beginning to end, everyone had never stood in an orderly line. When you were in the midst of them, you simply couldn’t count the number.

So the most critical problem was right here.

“Earth-Sheep… you can’t deceive me…” Qi Xia slowly curved up the corners of his mouth.

Looking at it this way, everything became clear.

This wasn’t a game with fifty people, but a game with fifty-one people.