The chewing gum item was stuck to the very top of the doorframe. If she hadn't already known of its existence and been staring at the door while pondering, she would never have noticed it.
A player who could silently use a chewing gum item to keep tabs on the Madmen had to belong to the Citizen faction.
As far as Bai Ci knew, there were four people who had explicitly stated they wanted to explore the second floor: the overalls man, the man in the suit, the capped man, and the muscular man.
This meant there was a very high probability that one of those four was a player from the Citizen faction.
Of course, it was only a strong possibility. The two players Bai Ci had already identified—Fu Yan and Cheng Xi—had said they were going to check the right corridor, but it wasn't out of the question that they had come up to the second floor after they finished.
Withdrawing her gaze from the chewing gum item, Bai Ci turned around to inspect her room.
The room was very simple, containing only a bed, a desk, and a chair. The lighting was dim, but it was enough to see everything clearly.
Bai Ci walked over to the bed, sat down, and retrieved Grow with Time. Then, she took out her identity card and shook out a syringe of poison stored inside.
The poison was a dark green liquid housed inside a syringe item. With a single prick and a push of the plunger, the toxin could be injected into a participant's body.
Bai Ci placed the poison on Grow with Time. Soon, a faint white light flashed, and an antidote appeared on the item letter.
It was also in the form of a syringe, but it contained a white liquid instead.
Deep into the night, though it was hard to tell how much time had passed, the hands of the grandfather clock at the end of the corridor pointed to twelve. The speed of the hands' rotation gradually slowed down.
At that moment, four doors swung open.
The first floor of the theater was pitch black. Only the corridor lights flickered intermittently, reflecting off the bloodstains left on the floor by the long-haired woman.
The capped man, Sun Hao, leaned against the corridor wall with his arms crossed. His sharp eyes scanned the second-floor corridor, his face filled with impatience. “What's taking them so long to get down here? Are they seriously waiting for me to go up and invite them myself?”
He was extremely competitive, loving only victory and hating defeat. Because of this, his standards for his teammates were exceptionally harsh, and his patience had already worn thin.
Hearing Sun Hao's complaints, footsteps finally echoed from the second-floor landing. Three figures slowly walked down, their outlines appearing incredibly blurry in the dim light.
Sun Hao looked up. The moment he clearly saw who they were, a look of despair washed over his face. He couldn't help but roll his eyes, his voice dripping with dissatisfaction.
“How is it you guys? I must have had the worst luck in eight lifetimes to end up on a team with you. I'd rather have that woman lying dead on the floor as my teammate than you lot!”
His tone was biting, making no attempt to hide his disgust. He stared at the three before him, his brow furrowed deeply, his expression sour to the extreme.
“You don't want to kill anyone?” Sun Hao scoffed, as if he had just heard the funniest joke in the world. His voice was thick with mockery. “Did you guys not read the information on your identity cards carefully?”
“The rules state very clearly that if no participant dies for two consecutive phases, someone will be killed at random. Do you really think you can survive without killing anyone? How naive.”
“Fuck! Are you out of your mind?!” Someone said something, and hearing it, Sun Hao's temper instantly flared.
“What do you mean, 'we're Madmen, so if we die, we die'? Do you not understand the concept of random death? It could be one of us, or it could be one of them. I sure as hell don't want to be the one randomly chosen. If you want to gamble with your lives, go ahead, but I'm not risking mine.”
The other party spoke at length again, and the tense, confrontational atmosphere finally cooled down a bit.
Sun Hao took a deep breath, suppressing the anger in his chest. “Fine,” he said impatiently. “We don't have to kill anyone tonight. If you want to look for a peaceful way out of here, go right ahead and take your sweet time. I won't stop you.”
“But let me make one thing clear. I don't want to get randomly selected. In the next phase, you'll have to make up your minds. Either we kill, or we get killed. There is no third option.”
Looking at their expressions, Sun Hao gritted his teeth in frustration. But there was nothing he could do, so he simply waved his hand in irritation.
“Alright, alright, we'll deal with those ones later. Stop annoying me. If you're not going to kill, then get lost. I'm going to see if there are any new clues during this nighttime phase.”
“And don't follow me. I really don't want to work with you guys.” Sun Hao turned back to warn the sources of his irritation. Even if they weren't all to blame, he was going to hold them all collectively responsible anyway. So what?
As he spoke, he turned and walked toward the stage, muttering under his breath, “How did my luck get this bad? Ending up with a bunch of useless teammates... It's driving me crazy.”
Dong—
A deep, distant chime echoed slowly through the theater, waking Bai Ci from her state of semi-consciousness. The game was about to enter the second day's daytime phase.
She opened her eyes and raised a hand to rub her temples. At some point last night, her consciousness had simply cut off.
There had been no dreams, no thoughts, and not even the slightest sense of rest. Rather than saying she had fallen asleep, it was more like she had blacked out without warning.
It was a bizarre feeling, as if someone had pressed a pause button on her, and by the time they pressed play again, an entire night had already been skipped.
This theater really loved using the forced sleep trick.
Bai Ci sat up, stretched her limbs, and walked over to the door. She gripped the doorknob and gave it a turn. With a click, the lock gave way.
She instinctively looked up at the top of the doorframe. It was completely bare; the hard-to-detect chewing gum item from last night had vanished without a trace.
It seemed there was also a player among the Madmen who had noticed the item and subsequently removed it from everyone's doorframes.
The moment Bai Ci stepped out of her room, a shriek, so shrill it was completely out of tune, suddenly echoed from the other end of the corridor, carrying an unmistakable terror.
“Ah—! Someone's dead! Help!”
The voice and the pitch instantly registered in Bai Ci's mind as belonging to the high-ponytail girl. The poor thing had screamed so many times during this period.
Without a moment's hesitation, she immediately bolted toward the source of the scream.
Fu Liu's door opened almost at the exact same time. Seeing Bai Ci running, he reacted instantly and hurried to keep up, shouting as he ran, “Baby, wait for me! Be careful!”
By now, the other doors along the corridor were opening one after another, and everyone began to gather toward the source of the noise.
The man in the suit rubbed his eyes, his voice filled with panic. “What is it? What happened? Little girl, what's wrong?”
The high-ponytail girl was slumped on the floor at the entrance of one of the dorm rooms, her entire body trembling violently as she pointed inside.
Her lips quivered, but she couldn't even form a coherent sentence, only able to repeat over and over, “He—He's dead... That guy, he's dead...”
Rate on N.U.
