Chapter 724: Chapter 724: Ten Minutes of Killing Ti
Exchanging tickets between two people is still considered safe because there are no other choices; they can only trust each other.
But if three people swap tickets, they have an additional option, and the psychological suspicion and pressure they endure would increase.
“You say you’re a cop, and he’s a fugitive; he says he’s the cop, and you’re the fugitive; only the two of you know the truth, so the one who survives is the cop,” Kuangxiao mused as if talking to himself.
“I don’t know you from Adam; would you cast your vote for ?” The officer didn’t trust Kuangxiao.
“I voted for you because I already had soone else’s ticket; I can ensure my survival. Think carefully before you make your choice,” Kuangxiao returned to his original seat. “If you give your ticket to the screenwriter, then the three of us can establish trust, and you can also get away from that fugitive.”
If the Magician was a despicable little person who enjoyed watching human nature being destroyed, then Kuangxiao was a truly pure Devil, disliking order and rules.
The Magician had told the fugitive that to vote, all one had to do was think of the other person’s na. Kuangxiao further fanned the flas, putting the officer and the fugitive on the fire.
The Black Rain outside the window was getting heavier, and the black tide crashed against the inn, causing the old building to emit sounds of overwhelming burden, and everyone could feel a slight shaking.
“Make your choice quickly,” the Magician urged, looking up at the roof as if worried about leaks.
“No! I think we still need to find the murderer! We have completely fallen into the murderer’s rhythm; do you all really want to beco accomplices to a killer?” Sweat broke out on the officer’s forehead as he approached the Magician. “What were you doing when the victim t with trouble last night? Why was there a playing card in the victim’s sleeve!”
“Are you starting to bite wildly? Don’t lose your composure; you’re a police officer, not a murderous fugitive,” the Magician shifted his gaze, giving the officer a glance.
“Would you let search you? If you have sothing identical to the victim’s, like other playing cards, then you’d be the pri suspect!” The officer was buying ti before voting; he needed to break the balance that had been established by the others, even if it ant “accidentally” killing soone.
“Search ?” The Magician neither agreed nor declined, and the officer directly grabbed his collar and yanked him up.
“I hope you’ll cooperate; I’m doing this for everyone!” The officer reached into the Magician’s pocket, but at that mont, he scread in pain. When he withdrew his hand, two tiny wounds had appeared on his middle finger.
“What are you hiding in your pocket!”
Cradling his own finger, the officer’s expression beca sowhat terrifying.
“My little Pet.” The Magician raised his hands, and an ugly insect crawled out of his pocket. “Don’t worry, it isn’t poisonous. It’s usually very docile; you just frightened it just now.”
While the Magician and the officer faced off, a sound of sothing shattering ca from the roof of the inn. Everyone looked up to see a very obvious crack where water had seeped into the room.
“Make your choice, if he wants to live, he’ll probably still choose you,” the Boss spoke up, his expression worried as he looked at all the guests within the inn.
“Let’s finish this round of choices first, then consider others,” the middle-aged screenwriter also remarked from the side.
“You talk as if it’s easy because you can save yourselves, so you keep hurrying us. But don’t forget, the murderer said only one person can live. Sooner or later, you will face the sa situation as !” The officer’s mood seed off; he walked back to the table and glared fiercely at the fugitive. “Give your vote to , we’ll select each other, and I can ensure you live until the end!”
The fugitive seed to understand what kind of person the officer was; the bleeding from his amputated arm continued, his face as pale as paper; he seed unlikely to live much longer.
“You too, have co to beg , haven’t you?” The fugitive lay on the ground, his eyes filled with mockery as he looked at the officer. “You went to great lengths to turn into this. After revealing your true nature, it turns out you are so stupid and brutal. How are you any different from an animal?”
“Isn’t it better to survive together?”
“Sure, of course no problem.” The fugitive shakily got up from the ground, dipped his finger in his own blood, wrote the officer’s na on a piece of paper, then silently tossed it into the Black Box.
Throughout the process, he didn’t look at the officer once; no one knew whom he had actually chosen.
After the fugitive cast his vote, the officer also walked over to the Black Box with a piece of white paper in hand, but he took a long ti without tossing the paper in.
“I’ve understood now, the ten minutes after each vote isn’t for finding the truth, but for murdering!”
With death creeping closer, those without tickets had no path to life; if they wanted to survive, they had to choose that alternative answer—finding a way to kill everyone else.
Since he was already isolated, since he was already driven into a corner, since he could not live on, why not drag others down with him?
Ti dripped away by the second, but the officer still hadn’t voted. Han Fei seed to understand his intentions; he was just stalling for ti, waiting for the safe rooms to be compromised before looking for a chance to kill and establish a new balance.
Moving quietly towards the middle-aged woman, Han Fei was worried that the officer would attack the seemingly kind woman.
“How much longer do you need to think?” The Magician reached into his pocket, fiddling with the insect.
With the instigation of a few, the officer trying to establish new rules beca the person who was isolated.
From the mont the officer hesitated to vote, he had been tagged as dangerous, all the guests speculating about his inner thoughts, feeling that he might already be envisioning the scenario of the murder.
“There should be other ways to break out of this ga; the murderer might just be taking advantage of the rules here, deliberately creating an atmosphere…” The officer struggled to persuade others, but in the end, he could only convince himself. As the other guests were quickly losing patience, the inn’s roof cracked again, splinters and stones fell, and then the lights dimd before everyone heard a loud bang!
“Bang!”
The giant glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a large chunk of the wall fell at the sa ti!
Black Rain flowed into the hotel through the gap, the electric wires were torn, and the blue electric arcs crackled in the darkness.
“Watch out!”
The mont the lights dimd, two screams were heard from inside the room, followed by the sounds of chaotic footsteps and things being knocked over.
“Everyone, stay where you are! Don’t move!”
About a minute later, a waiter took out a spare lamp from behind the counter, and light returned to the lobby once again.
The dim glow cast upon the faces of several people in the room, the screenwriter who had been standing by the dining table was lying on the ground, a shard of glass had pierced his ribs, aiming for his heart, but perhaps because the screenwriter had dodged in the darkness, the strike went awry.
Blood seeped from his wound, and the screenwriter was in too much pain to speak.
The other person in the room who was injured was the hotel boss, with a wound from his shoulder to his chest.
The assailant was very brutal, apparently planning to slash the boss’s throat, but he also missed.
The hotel boss was already old and frail, not much of a threat by any stretch, but the assailant had targeted him nonetheless.
With the lights off for no more than a minute, two of the ten people were injured, and everyone’s mood beca even more tense.
“Is there more than one killer?” The police officer still stood next to the Black Box, his surprise didn’t seem feigned.
“Is that strange to you? Or could you be one of them?” The Magician stared at the officer’s hands.
“Let’s go vote now! No more delays! The hotel is about to collapse!” The badly wounded boss grabbed the waiter’s arm, his face contorted in pain, all the wrinkles on his face bunching together.
“You can stop trying to delay any further, if you don’t vote, then we will vote for you,” the Magician said with a smile, looking at the officer, “Are you regretting now, not choosing to kill , but opting to kill an old man instead?”
Every word from the Magician seed like a probe, knowing how powerful the officer was, he wanted to eliminate him first.
The few people in the room looked unfriendly towards the officer, cornered, he had no choice but to risk it, to see if the fugitive had indeed given the vote to him.
A slip with the fugitive’s na fell into the Black Box, and the officer felt an increasing unease within him.
The clock’s hands moved slowly, and ten minutes later, the officer suddenly clutched his chest, opened his mouth to vomit, and a thick black fog poured out from his mouth and nose.
“You didn’t write my na!” His veins turned black as the fog expanded his skin, the officer struggled and charged towards the fugitive, wanting to take him down with him, but before reaching him, his body was engulfed in the black fog.
The fog moved towards the Black Box, and when it dispersed, the police officer had vanished from the hotel.
The fugitive sighed in relief and struggled to untie the hemp rope, moving towards Kuangxiao, “Thank you. If you hadn’t given that hint, I wouldn’t have gotten out so easily.”
“Hint?”
“You told the officer to write the screenwriter’s na, wasn’t that a hint for ?” the one-ard fugitive had mistaken the person, “I wrote the screenwriter’s na.”
“But I didn’t write your na, the one who did must have been the officer,” the screenwriter said pale-faced, not daring to pull out the glass shard, stiffening up, “He believed you, and you killed him with your own hands.”
“It wasn’t you?” The fugitive stood frozen, staring at Kuangxiao, and suddenly asked out of nowhere, “I gave you the hidden Slaughter Saber, did you promise to help ?”
Kuangxiao’s expression didn’t fluctuate much, he nodded, “I will help you.”
After the officer died, the Black Rain grew weaker, but only ten minutes passed, and the rain intensified again, as if with each death, despair thickened.
The atmosphere inside the hotel had now beco incredibly heavy. Two had made their moves in the dark, which ant that, even with the officer gone, the killer was still among them.
“Not good! The water is rising.” The masked waiter stood by the window, as the water level outside the hotel kept rising, already flooding over the steps and about to overflow into the house.
“Let’s go up to the second floor, back to our rooms,” the boss tried several tis to stand but couldn’t, seemingly aware that his ti was short, so he wanted to entrust the waiter with so private matters, secrets that couldn’t be overheard by the others.
People gradually headed upstairs, and Han Fei noted that everyone was deliberately avoiding the Black Box, and finally, the mute girl picked up the Black Box, following behind everyone.
“She… has changed a lot.”
Once on the second floor, Han Fei slowed down slightly, and as the fugitive passed by him, he whispered, “Isn’t the Slaughter Saber still in your heart?”
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