“You brat, stop trying to sow discord.” Officer Li glared at Qiao Jiajin and said very sternly, “You’re a loan shark, and I’m a police officer. Who do you think everyone will believe?”

Qi Xia looked at the arguing crowd. He knew Officer Li probably wasn’t lying—he really was a criminal investigator.

But his approach was wrong.

Perhaps due to his professional instincts, or perhaps driven by a sense of justice, he always wanted to organize everyone in an orderly fashion.

The halftime break was already more than halfway over, and the crowd gradually fell silent.

During this time, Qi Xia had already said “my name is Li Ming” countless times in his heart, to the point where even he was getting irritated.

After all, a corpse with a shattered skull had been lying beside him the entire time, making it impossible to calm his mind.

Blood dripped from the table onto the floor with a steady drip-drip-drip. Everyone had been sharing a room with this corpse for nearly an hour now, and a strange, foul smell was beginning to spread.

Qi Xia casually glanced at the corpse beside him. The deceased’s pants were already filthy beyond measure.

After death, within a short period of time, various organs lose the restraint of muscle strength, causing incontinence.

Before the stench of decomposition arrived, a nauseating odor had already assaulted them.

Qi Xia and another woman sat on either side of the corpse. The woman seemed very dissatisfied with the smell and kept covering her mouth and nose with her hand.

After another ten minutes passed, Goat Head finally spoke: “The twenty-minute halftime break is over. The game resumes now.”

The young man called Han Yimo from earlier steadied his nerves, took a deep breath, and then said, “My name is Han Yimo. I’m a web novel author.”

“Before coming here, I was writing the grand finale of a novel in my rented room. Since the book featured over a hundred characters who almost all had to appear in the finale, I was concentrating intensely on writing and completely didn’t hear any commotion outside.”

“I don’t even… I don’t even know when the earthquake happened or when I lost consciousness…”

The story Han Yimo described was different from everyone else’s. From the looks of it, he was completely “independent,” and his account came to an abrupt halt after just three to five sentences.

“That’s it?” The Muscular Man was slightly stunned. “You say ‘I don’t know’ and that counts as finished?”

“Because I can’t lie, I don’t need to fabricate an answer just to cater to everyone.” Though Han Yimo’s voice wasn’t loud, it inexplicably inspired trust.

“Fine… then next.” Officer Li’s expression still carried doubt as he spoke again. “It’s that lady’s turn.”

“Hey, cop.” Qiao Jiajin was somewhat dissatisfied with Officer Li’s attitude. “We’re all ‘Participants’ here. Don’t act like you’re some kind of team leader.”

“Someone has to step up and organize everyone, right?” Officer Li argued. “I already said, only one person among us is the enemy. The remaining eight people must unite.”

“Even so, it’s not your turn to give orders here.” Qiao Jiajin completely disregarded Officer Li’s words. “Outside I might fear you, but in this situation, no one knows if you’re the ‘Liar’ or not.”

“You two, please stop arguing.” The Cold Woman spoke up to interrupt them.

This Cold Woman had pointed out from the very beginning that Goat Head had imprisoned everyone for twenty-four hours. She seemed logical and very calm.

Seeing the two men calm down, she continued: “In this so-called ‘game,’ regardless of who wins in the end, the remaining people could potentially be viewed as ‘indirect murderers.’ After all, it was our collective vote that made the Man-Goat kill him. This is the issue you should be considering.”

Hearing these words, Qi Xia’s expression shifted slightly.

If he really did make it out of this room alive, then he would indeed have “killed” the other eight people.

But what could be done about that?

The card in front of him was a genuine “Liar.” Who would willingly give up their own life to let others survive?

“My name is Zhang Chenze. I’m a lawyer.” The Cold Woman crossed her arms and said expressionlessly, “I regret meeting everyone in such a bizarre place. Otherwise, I would certainly have handed out my business card.”

The crowd simply couldn’t understand Zhang Chenze’s humor, but she herself didn’t seem to care.

“Before coming here, I was organizing court materials. My client had been swindled out of two million yuan—an enormous sum with extremely serious implications.”

When she mentioned the figure “two million,” everyone’s expressions remained normal, but Qiao Jiajin was clearly shocked. He asked, “Two million?”

“That’s right, two million. They say lawyers are the most fair and impartial people, but we also have personal feelings. That man, in order to support his family, went so far as to borrow from loan sharks, which is very worrying. But illegal lending is a separate case and has nothing to do with me.”

“When the earthquake happened, I was driving to meet my client. I was on Qingyang Avenue, had just passed Du Fu Thatched Cottage, and was near Wuhou Temple. I remember… I wasn’t driving fast at the time, about forty miles per hour or so. Suddenly, I saw the ground ahead split open not far away.”

“I immediately braked and stopped steadily in front of the crack, but didn’t expect the cars behind me couldn’t avoid it in time, causing a chain collision.”

“I only heard several loud crashes. My car was pushed into the crack, and then I lost consciousness and came here.”

Another story ended. At this point, only three people had yet to tell their stories.

“Wuhou Temple…” Doctor Zhao pondered for a moment and said, “The Wuhou Temple in Chengdu?”

“Yes, I work in Chengdu.”

It seemed this earthquake had spread across the entire country.

Based solely on these unfamiliar stories one after another, trying to figure out who was lying was truly too difficult.

“It’s my turn next.” Officer Li looked at everyone. “I already mentioned my name earlier. I’m called Li Shangwu, a criminal investigator from Inner Mongolia.”

“Before coming here, I was staking out a fraud suspect. According to reliable intelligence, we had already grasped the exact whereabouts of the criminal suspect.”

“This criminal suspect defrauded an enormous amount of money—as much as two million yuan. It’s the first fraud case involving such a large sum that our city has received this year.”

“My colleague and I were monitoring from inside our car the whole time, just waiting for that fraud suspect to appear.”

“But that suspect was even smarter than we imagined. He seemed to have sensed some dangerous aura and hadn’t shown his face for three days straight.”

“For those three days, we ate, drank, and relieved ourselves all in the car. Our spirits were about to collapse.”

“But you know what’s even more unbearable for an adult man than having no food or drink?”

“It’s having no cigarettes.”

“Neither of us had even a single cigarette left. According to protocol, we absolutely couldn’t leave our post, but the agony of having no cigarettes was too much to bear.”

“So I had my colleague run to buy cigarettes while I kept my eyes firmly fixed on the entrance and exit of the criminal suspect’s residence.”

“But what I didn’t expect was that not long after my colleague left, the entire earth began to shake violently. I was about to get out of the car to see what exactly was happening when suddenly someone strangled my neck from behind with a thin wire.”

“Although we’re all quite skilled at close combat, a thin wire strangling from the back seat of the car is extremely difficult to deal with. Not only could I not touch the person behind me at all, I also couldn’t remove the wire from around my neck.”

At this point, everyone looked at Officer Li and indeed saw a red mark on his neck.

“So I immediately reclined the seat back and restored my breathing, but I couldn’t turn around because my large build meant my legs were stuck under the steering wheel.”

“The person behind me took advantage of the moment when I lay back and struck my head hard with something. I then lost consciousness.”

After hearing Officer Li’s words, everyone couldn’t help but grow suspicious.

He had described a completely different situation. Before him, all the Participants had been injured and knocked unconscious due to accidents.

Only he had been attacked by someone and brought here.

If they had to choose the most suspicious person among everyone, wouldn’t it be him?