Shen Qingqiu finished speaking, and Huang Junfeng quickly kicked Liu Pei lightly under the table.
Liu Pei was rendered speechless by Shen Qingqiu’s words, and those around him were giving him meaningful looks, leaving him no choice but to back down.
Zhang Yangfeng quickly added, “I believe in Miss Xiao. In my progress records, aside from the obvious information, there are indeed two pieces we didn’t know before, but only one added points. As for the child, we did hear about it from Miss Xiao.”
With Zhang Yangfeng’s statement, the others understood and had to believe it.
“May I be so bold as to ask, Miss Shen, what is your piece of information about? Can you give us a hint?” Huang Junfeng asked eagerly with a bright smile.
“Since Mu Yu just said we shouldn’t suspect each other, I can give you a hint. This piece of information is not very crucial, only worth 2 points, and it’s related to what you ate last night.”
Shen Qingqiu lazily replied to Huang Junfeng’s question, then raised her eyebrows and glanced at Xiao Mu Yu.
Mu Yu met her gaze but didn’t respond. Instead, she said in a low voice, “Points are important, but the most urgent thing right now is survival.”
Xiao Mu Yu’s words brought everyone’s fears to the forefront. Even the usually cheerful and carefree Huang Junfeng turned pale.
Clearly, recalling the events of last night and Jia Wenlong’s departure still sent chills down their spines.
“Will this game continue tonight? Only six people went last night. What about tonight? What are the trigger conditions?” Zhang Yangfeng blurted out his most pressing questions, and almost everyone looked at Xiao Mu Yu and Shen Qingqiu. Unconsciously, they had begun to rely on Xiao Mu Yu.
“These are all concerns we share, but unfortunately, as of now, we have no clues. Even if we know something today could trigger an event, whether to do it or not is a big question,” Xiao Mu Yu said, soberly cutting off that line of thought.
Shen Qingqiu never liked participating in such explanatory and reasoning sessions for the whole group. However, if it involved countering Xiao Mu Yu, she didn’t mind speaking up.
So, when everyone else was silent, she said, “Instead of thinking about how to avoid the game, why not think about how to get through it once and for all? Do you really believe last night’s game was purely a matter of fate, surviving by luck?”
Her tone was cold and disdainful, unlike Xiao Mu Yu’s objective calmness, but her words were thought-provoking.
“Do you mean you’ve found a clue?” Liu Pei asked suspiciously.
But before Shen Qingqiu could speak, he shook his head, “Observing and concluding is one thing, but verification is another. It’s just one case. Even if you discover something, how do you verify it? If there’s a game tonight, and someone gets chosen, who would risk their life to test it?”
Xiao Mu Yu glanced at him and said calmly, “We only propose hypotheses and provide reasons. No one is forcing you to choose. If you get chosen and have a better answer, you naturally don’t need to risk your life.”
Then she turned to Shen Qingqiu. She had observed from outside last night, far away and with limited perspective, so she was sure Shen Qingqiu had more detailed insights.
Shen Qingqiu, though appearing indifferent and unconcerned, was incredibly meticulous.
“Well, I’m just here to supplement. For other matters, Mu Yu is the most insightful,” she said, slipping back into laziness, unwilling to say more.
Seeing her lean back in her chair with her still-injured right arm, Xiao Mu Yu, though expressionless, mentally sighed—who’s “her Mu Yu”?
“Do you think the first person chosen for the game is lucky or unlucky?” Xiao Mu Yu asked straightforwardly, posing what seemed like an obvious question.
“Unlucky, of course, terribly unlucky. Isn’t that obvious?” Huang Junfeng responded immediately.
“Why?”
“Well… In the first round, no one knows what’s going on. It came so suddenly, and the rules were terrifying. We couldn’t discuss why he was chosen or what the doll behind him meant. It was purely luck, an eight-to-one chance of survival. The odds were almost certain death!”
After Huang Junfeng finished, Xiao Mu Yu nodded and looked at the others, “So, you all think the first person was extremely unlucky, almost certainly doomed, right?”
Except for Shen Qingqiu, everyone nodded in agreement.
“Why?” Xiao Mu Yu suddenly asked, leaving them all stunned, instantly recalling Jia Wenlong’s cries from last night—why him?
While the others were still in a daze, Yang Rui seemed to catch on. She hesitated and said, “Miss Xiao, you mean this doesn’t make sense and is unfair to Jia Wenlong, right?”
“Yes. Although the game is cruel and unpredictable, since it’s a game, there should be a glimmer of hope.
The system established from the start that even in a supernatural scenario, using one’s brain is crucial for survival. Moreover, while the game is unfair to us, it should be fair between players. Whoever enters, unless there’s a special condition, the first person shouldn’t be doomed without reason.”
She took a breath, her voice lowering, “Yesterday, everyone behaved consistently, leaving no reason for Jia Wenlong to die. Yet someone had to be first, so I suspect there were hints in last night’s game that Jia Wenlong missed due to panic. Additionally, there was a reason he was chosen.”
After speaking, she glanced at Hou Liang and then at Shen Qingqiu, her eyes filled with concern.
Xiao Mu Yu shook her head, “I was too far away to catch some of the details.”
As disappointment settled over the group, Shen Qingqiu interjected, “I know.”
“You know? What is it?” Hou Liang, his face tense and his neck straining forward, couldn’t hide his agitation. Jia Wenlong’s death had deeply affected him, and he was desperate for answers.
Shen Qingqiu remained unaffected by Hou Liang’s agitation, glancing at him before posing a seemingly unrelated question, “Have you thought about why, if no one made a mistake, Jia Wenlong was chosen in the first round? Or why people like him were chosen?”
Hou Liang, following Shen Qingqiu’s gaze and her words, suddenly connected the dots. He collapsed back into his chair, trembling uncontrollably.
“So, you mean the three of us were all targets last night?” he asked.
Shen Qingqiu nodded. Not too dumb after all, she thought, compared to those who failed the beginner’s level.
“You mean the dolls had something wrong with their eyes? The three of us had distinct features that made it easy to match us with the dolls, so we were the first targets?” Huang Junfeng was stunned and quickly recalled Xiao Mu Yu’s words during dinner last night, making his hair stand on end.
“Yes. Eight players, eight children, eight dolls. Even the dullest person would see the connection. Especially since Mu Yu mentioned that injuries, which should reduce combat effectiveness and be unfair, actually made it easier to match with the corresponding child, thereby identifying who would be substituted.
Last night, during the game, the child corresponding to Jia Wenlong wasn’t present. Under the streetlight, if you looked closely, you would see that the doll in the pink dress with blonde hair had one eye lit and the other dark. The other dolls had bright eyes. Unfortunately, I was too far from Jia Wenlong and couldn’t be sure. By the time the doll stood behind him, it was too late to speak.”
Hou Liang’s expression froze. He had suspected the dolls were problematic, which was why he tried to observe their differences despite his fear. But in that terrifying environment, observing living people was hard enough, let alone similar-looking dolls with scary eyes.
Liu Pei, who had been near Jia Wenlong, spoke up with a strange expression, “She’s right. I saw it too. But I only glanced and didn’t think much of it. Now that you mention it, it makes sense.”
“Now we need to solve two things. First: identify the traits of each doll, requiring everyone to describe what they observed. Second: find the doll that corresponds to you,” Xiao Mu Yu summarized decisively.
Everyone looked at Shen Qingqiu and Hou Liang. Zhang Yangfeng said, “So, Hou Liang and Miss Shen have it the easiest. Just observe carefully in the game, and they’ll be safe.”
Hou Liang’s anxious expression relaxed, a glimmer of hope in his eyes, only for Shen Qingqiu to shatter it with a cold dose of reality.
“That sounds too easy. If this level were that simple for us, what does Jia Wenlong’s death mean?” she said, her eyes cold. “According to the principle of fairness, we have the most information. This means that tonight, if someone is pushed forward, it will most likely be one of us. Even if there are clues, they won’t be as obvious as they were for Jia Wenlong.”
Hou Liang’s fingers trembled as he swallowed hard, his face rigid with fear. “If we’re pushed forward without clear hints, what do we do?”
Xiao Mu Yu, fiddling with her fingers, interjected, “The orphanage having eight dolls is strange. So far, we’ve only seen the one in Xiao Jiao’s hands. I remember that doll had ash-blonde hair. Recall, did any of last night’s dolls have such hair?”
Huang Junfeng, Zhang Yangfeng, and Liu Pei looked at each other, and then, in unison, asked, “What color is ash-blonde?”
Huang Junfeng scratched his head, “It’s either yellow or brown, right? What’s ash-blonde?”
The women present silently agreed to drop the topic. Clearly, for these men, hair color came down to yellow, brown, or black unless it was something striking.
“Alright, let’s say it’s brown. Did any doll match this description?”
To avoid influencing others, Xiao Mu Yu refrained from describing the doll in detail.
Only Yang Rui, Zhang Yangfeng, Liu Pei, and Huang Junfeng had seen the doll, and they all strained to recall.
“There were three with brown hair, all dressed alike, with the same color shoes. The dolls’ faces were all identical—peach lips, fair skin, big eyes, and long lashes. In that situation, it was hard enough to observe people, let alone dolls. Those eyes were too creepy to look at,” Zhang Yangfeng said, his brows furrowed.
“I saw it clearly enough. The doll’s clothes were dirty, but its face was clean, and its hair was messy, even knotted,” Zhang Yangfeng added.
“Was there a lock of hair twisted on the left side?” Shen Qingqiu quickly interjected.
Zhang Yangfeng compared directions and confirmed, “No, it was the right side.”
As their hearts sank, Shen Qingqiu smiled, “Yes, there was one with a knot on the right.”
Xiao Muyu glanced at him, her voice flat, “When people seek comfort or desperately try to verify conclusions, their brains can even alter memories, let alone rationalize unclear details. Once information is wrong, the cost is your lives.” This was why Shen Qingqiu deliberately gave the wrong information.
“Why are you talking about Xiao Jiao’s doll again? Do you know who corresponds to Xiao Jiao?” Huang Junfeng was now completely confused.
“No idea.” Xiao Muyu’s straightforward answer left Huang Junfeng at a loss for words. But she quickly added, “But we can verify an important conclusion: the eight dolls in the orphanage are not random ghost dolls. They exist in reality as children’s toys, and it’s reasonable for them to appear in the orphanage. Because they resemble humans so closely, they can carry human resentment.”
“So, we need to find those eight dolls and match each one to a person, right?” Yang Rui, who usually stayed quiet, asked quickly and eagerly, her eyes shining as she looked at Xiao Muyu.
The author notes: Xiao Xiao has always been protecting Xiao Shen, though she doesn’t realize it herself.
Love is when you fall unknowingly, only to discover you are already deeply immersed.
