After seeing these three characters, everyone’s expressions showed some bewilderment.

“I drew the ‘Liar.'” Qi Xia said slowly. “But whether this card is revealed or not doesn’t matter, because it’s not important at all.”

He picked up the card and casually tossed it into the center of the table.

“If I’m not mistaken, every single one of your cards is also ‘Liar.'”

After hearing this, no one moved. After a while, Officer Li finally spoke up and asked, “So… you’re saying everyone lied just now?”

“That’s right.” Qi Xia nodded. “Everyone here is smarter than I imagined. You all added a small lie into your own stories, making the stories completely work without affecting the plot logic.”

Officer Li pondered for a while, as if he too had thought of something.

“If what you’re saying is correct…” Officer Li sighed meaningfully. “The problem becomes even more troublesome.”

Everyone looked at Officer Li again, not understanding.

Officer Li continued, “According to the rules, only if all of us select the Liar can we survive together, but in that case the Liar loses. So we…”

Doctor Zhao was the first to understand Officer Li’s meaning: “You mean… we can vote randomly, because everyone is lying. This becomes a ‘guaranteed win game,’ and only the person voted for has to die?”

“Exactly.” Officer Li nodded. “Right now, the optimal plan is to concentrate all the votes on one person. This way we can minimize the loss, since the remaining people can survive…”

His words once again suppressed the atmosphere among everyone to the extreme, yet Goat Head made no movement whatsoever.

Did this mean… they were just voting to send one of them to their death?

Qi Xia sighed helplessly and looked at Officer Li, saying, “Officer, is interrupting others when they speak your hobby? Does it give you a sense of accomplishment?”

“What kind of talk is that?” Officer Li answered with a frown. “Aren’t I helping you strategize?”

“I don’t need your help.” Qi Xia said without hesitation. “Your thinking will get everyone killed.”

“What?” Officer Li was stunned. “How would I get everyone killed? Isn’t what I’m saying correct? If everyone is lying, wouldn’t any vote be valid?”

“Officer Li, Goat Head said that ‘the rules are absolute’ and ‘there is one and only one Liar.’ Do you remember?”

“This…” Officer Li pondered slightly and recalled that Goat Head had indeed said these two things.

“Let me organize everyone’s thoughts right now.” Qi Xia said coldly. “In this game, it appears the ‘Liar’ has great winning odds, because everyone feels they’re about to win. But if we vote randomly, in the end all of us will die.”

Qiao Jiajin, sitting beside Qi Xia, touched his flower-arm tattoos and muttered to himself, “Because we broke the ‘rules’…”

“Yes.” Qi Xia nodded. “But the interesting part of this game is that we fundamentally cannot deduce whether the other person is lying. Just as Lawyer Zhang said, we can only deduce based on whether our respective experiences contradict each other. But we’re not even from the same region at all. No matter how contradictory the events that occurred, we have no one-hundred-percent certainty to prove the other person lied.”

Qi Xia looked at everyone who had fallen into deep thought, then continued, “The ‘organizer’ specifically selected us nine to sit here. There must be a purpose—to have us smugly find flaws among stories that seem interconnected.”

“But is that really correct? What certainty do we have to know the other person is definitely lying?” Qi Xia sneered. “In this game, the only ‘Liar’ we can confirm with one-hundred-percent certainty from the known clues is this one person. What he said is completely different from our current predicament.”

Qi Xia took the pen and swiftly wrote two characters on the paper: “Man-Goat.”

“I was curious earlier about why Goat Head would introduce such a strange name as ‘Man-Goat’ to us at the very beginning. It seemed superfluous. Now thinking about it, this is also part of the game.”

Everyone slowly turned their heads to look at “Man-Goat.” He still made no movement whatsoever.

Officer Li was stunned for a moment, then shook his head. “Con artist, I have a question. The rule Goat Head stated was ‘among all those telling stories, there is one and only one Liar,’ but he didn’t tell a story.”

“He didn’t?” Qi Xia shrugged noncommittally. “I clearly remember Goat Head saying he gathered us here to create a ‘god.’ Isn’t that an absurd story?”

Officer Li silently lowered his head. He felt what Qi Xia said made a lot of sense, but always felt something was off.

“But…” Doctor Zhao spoke up. “All your assumptions are built on the premise that ‘everyone is a Liar.’ But why would you conclude we are Liars? What if we flip our cards and you’re the only ‘Liar’? Then what?”

“You couldn’t have told the truth.” Qi Xia gave a bitter laugh, his expression somewhat desperate. “I also spent some time verifying this question. Not only do I know you’re all lying, I also know where you lied.”

He pushed his scratch paper forward, then looked at Tiantian beside him: “Tiantian, when you were ‘working’ in the car with your head outside, did the falling billboard really just hit the car and make you lose consciousness?”

Tiantian pressed her lips together and didn’t dare speak.

“Qiao Jiajin, you fell from such a height onto a billboard. Did you really just ‘lose consciousness’?”

Qiao Jiajin was silent.

“Teacher Xiao Ran, with that child, did you really dodge that speeding car?”

Xiao Ran’s gaze flickered.

“Doctor Zhao, operating rooms are built much sturdier than ordinary rooms to maintain stability. But you said the operating room ceiling collapsed. Were you really just knocked unconscious?”

Doctor Zhao turned his head to the side.

“Han Yimo, you said you completely didn’t know what happened, but when writing intently, one fears disturbance the most. You don’t know how you came to be here?”

Han Yimo sighed slightly.

“Lawyer Zhang, your car was crashed into a crack. How deep was that crack?”

Lawyer Zhang crossed her arms, expressionless.

“Officer Li, what brand of car were you driving? Could it instantly recline the seat and break free from the restraint of the person behind you?”

Officer Li touched the red mark on his neck, hesitating to speak.

“Lin Qin, your ceiling also collapsed, but you said your office was on a high floor. Once a high floor starts collapsing, the entire building wouldn’t exist anymore, would it?”

Lin Qin deeply lowered her head.

Seeing everyone’s expressions, Qi Xia bit his teeth and said:

“Everyone, admit it. Including me, all of us are already dead.”