“The Liar…”

Qi Xia repeated these three words in his mind several times. After confirming his identity, he calmly turned the card face down.

Just one minute ago, he too had fantasized about the notion of “everyone leaving here alive.”

But now things were different.

Although he didn’t know the eight people before him, this time, it could only be them who died.

“If everyone has no objections, please remember the rules. In this game, ‘there is one and only one liar’…” Goat Head extended his hand and pointed at the sexy girl to Qi Xia’s left. “Then starting from you, take turns clockwise.”

“Ah? Me?” The girl froze, then pouted.

Qi Xia turned his head to look. If they took turns clockwise starting from the girl on his left, this wasn’t very advantageous for him.

He would become the last storyteller.

Under conditions of extreme tension and oppression, people could usually only remember the first storyteller and the last storyteller.

But raising objections now would seem too abrupt. He could only take things one step at a time.

The sexy girl furrowed her brow tightly, her large eyes darting around. Finally, she sighed and said, “Alright… I’ll go first, but I’ve never been good at telling stories since I was little. If I tell it poorly, everyone please don’t blame me…”

At this moment, no one knew what to say and could only listen quietly.

The sexy girl extended her slender fingers, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then said:

“My name is Tiantian. I’m a… uh… I’m a ‘technical worker.’ We earn money with our skills, and I don’t think it’s shameful.”

Only now did everyone notice that this girl named Tiantian was wearing very little—just a dirty low-cut minidress that didn’t cover what should be covered.

But she didn’t seem to care about this matter.

“Most of my stories aren’t convenient to share with everyone… In short, asking me to ‘perform’ is fine, but asking me to ‘describe’ really leaves me at a loss for words. After all, who would do this work if they had any education…”

“Anyway, I was working before I came here. But the client I encountered was really weird… Our establishment clearly provided service premises, but he insisted on going to his car, saying it would be more stimulating… So to earn money, I could only go with him…”

“This was also my first time working in a car. I didn’t expect that what looked like a high-end car would be so cramped inside. After not long at all, I was covered in sweat. I really don’t know what kind of ‘stimulation’ there could be in such a shabby place. During this time, that client’s phone kept ringing. He absolutely refused to answer the phone. I was really annoyed to death…”

Tiantian seemed to want to continue cursing that client a bit more, but her eyes accidentally glanced at the corpse on the table surface. She was immediately frightened, then took a deep breath and said:

“Ah, forget it. This is the industry I chose, I accept it. I just didn’t expect an ‘earthquake’ to suddenly happen. At first, I thought our movements were too vigorous, so it was shaking badly. Who knew it was actually an earthquake.”

As soon as the word “earthquake” was mentioned, everyone’s expressions shifted slightly, as if they remembered something.

“Our car was parked in an alley… directly above was a big billboard… At that time, my head was outside the car, and I happened to see it.” Tiantian gestured with her finger pointing at her head, her voice trembling as she said, “That huge billboard, I don’t know why, made a ‘clang’ sound and then broke off, falling directly onto the car. I lost consciousness…”

She let out another long breath and said, “When I woke up, I appeared here. I’m really scared to death…”

Tiantian revealed an expression of grievance. This expression appeared to have been specially practiced, making men feel somewhat moved upon seeing it.

Flower-Arm Man, seated beside her, froze slightly and said, “Everyone, do we still need to continue speaking?”

White-Lab-Coat was startled and looked at Flower-Arm Man. “What do you mean?”

“This ‘lady’ has already lied. We can vote directly.” Flower-Arm Man said with complete certainty.

“You…! What are you saying?!” Tiantian was shocked. “Where did I lie?”

Flower-Arm Man looked at Tiantian with a cold, stern gaze and said, “Your name. You said you’re called ‘Tiantian,’ but all hostesses use fake names. Names like ‘Tiantian,’ ‘Xiaofang,’ ‘Lili’—such fake names are very common. So you concealed your real name, which means you’ve already lied.”

After this sentence was finished, Tiantian’s face flushed red.

“You… you’re talking nonsense! My name is Tiantian! I haven’t used my real name in many years!” After speaking, she looked around at everyone again and added, “At the place where I work, only if you call me ‘Tiantian’ can you find me. If you use my real name, no one would recognize me!”

Everyone now began to contemplate, and Qi Xia’s expression also became somewhat serious.

From Tiantian’s earlier speech, Qi Xia couldn’t detect any sense of lying. When she described her story, her rhythm was steady and her tone relaxed.

This storytelling method, like chatting with friends, could only prove two outcomes. Either the story she told had been fabricated long ago and she had told it to herself many times, or she was telling the truth.

But now Flower-Arm Man had provided Qi Xia with another line of thinking.

That was “lying about one’s name.”

Lying about one’s name didn’t need to involve logic or reasonability. Ordinary people would find it very difficult to detect the flaw.

After all, all the people present had never met before. Names could only be learned through the other party’s narration.

Qi Xia carefully recalled Goat Head’s words again. He said “among all the people telling stories, one person has lied.” This rule didn’t specify that The Liar must use a “false story” to lie. A “false name” would work equally well.

Seeing herself being suspected, Tiantian’s eyes widened. She looked extremely nervous. “If, if you still don’t believe me, my real name is Zhang Lijuan… I’m from Shaanxi… You can try calling me by my real name. If you call my real name, I won’t respond. I’ll only respond to the name ‘Tiantian’… I, I…”

Hearing this, Qi Xia silently shook his head.

This woman wasn’t as clever as imagined.

In other words, it was impossible for her to have woven this lie in advance, much less to have thought of the stratagem of “lying about one’s name” on the spot.

Goat Head said “there is one and only one liar.” That person could only be Qi Xia himself.

If the others hadn’t noticed the seriousness of the “Tiantian” issue, then he had found a sure-win method.

If he were to fabricate a name, “Qi” wasn’t a good surname. Although this surname wasn’t rare, it wasn’t common either. He needed to avoid such surnames that were easy for people to remember.

In other words, all the content he narrated should be as inconspicuous as possible.

So he planned to call himself “Li Ming.”

He could narrate the rest of the story normally. This way, even the most formidable person couldn’t possibly detect the flaw.

The game was about to end.