“Are you done with your questions?” Sandao asked.
Yang Chaoyu shook her head. “Sandao, how many missions have you taken?”
Sandao said, “You should ask it this way: How many interviews have I had?”
“You can have an interview more than once?”
Sandao raised an eyebrow. “You really are a terrible graduate. You’ve been eliminated in the first round of every interview.”
Yang Chaoyu: If only my combat strength were higher, I’d really like to smash his smug face in.
“How many interviews?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“The third.” Sandao sounded unconcerned. “I should be able to pass this time.”
Yang Chaoyu asked, “Were your previous interviews also like this mission? Find clues, then determine the cause of the deceased’s death?”
“NONONO.” Sandao shook a finger. “During my first interview, I participated in a battle royale—the large-scale mission where many people died. The score was based on how many times you escaped the Tiger’s Den.”
Ke Xingyun said, “That brutal? I’ve only participated once. Last time, I also had to find clues, and I thought it was murder, but my deduction turned out to be wrong…”
Yang Chaoyu said, “Continue, Sandao. Tell us about your second interview.”
Sandao said unhappily, “Do you take me for Ke the Puppy? You ask, and I answer? Who do you think you are to me?”
Yang Chaoyu remained expressionless. “Your obedient disciple.”
Sandao froze for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Seriously? I thought you were so tough, but it turns out you’re just shameless and thick-skinned.”
Yang Chaoyu actually hated him.
He had misled and deceived her right from the start, and then even staged “the oriole waiting behind” for her at the end. Although he had indeed given her a great deal of information, she simply couldn’t bring herself to thank him. She didn’t know why, either. The bastard was probably just too pretentious and affected.
Though she thought that inwardly, she said aloud, “master, please teach your disciple.”
Sandao: “……”
Unable to resist a girl’s request, Sandao said, “The second was a rescue mission aboard a train. The setting seemed to be the republican-era period.”
Zou Qing couldn’t help saying, “A Republican-era setting? Are you telling a story?”
Sandao glanced at her. “You don’t still think we’re living in a peaceful, stable, completely materialist world, do you?”
Yang Chaoyu asked, “Your second interview took place at an abandoned railway station.”
Sandao nodded slowly, his words filled with pride. “Your intelligence is improving, disciple. Before the interview, I researched that location. It was a railway station built during the republican-era period. It remained in operation until an accident four or five years ago forced it to close.”
“What accident?” Zou Qing asked.
“Two young girls who were fascinated by Republican-era history wanted to travel back to that period and become concubines, so they committed suicide together at the railway station.”
Zou Qing scoffed. “They had perfectly good peaceful lives, yet they insisted on going to an era where they could be shot, and they even wanted to be concubines. Isn’t a legally protected monogamous marriage better?”
Ke Xingyun said, “Back then, even a cold could kill you.”
“There were antibiotics during World War II, weren’t there?” Zou Qing asked.
“Antibiotics kill bacteria. Colds can be bacterial or viral, so what would you do if it were viral? Besides, antibiotics had only just been invented then, and they were expensive. Everyone was at war, and everyone needed them, so they weren’t something you could simply buy if you had money. I’ve heard that life expectancy during the republican-era period was only around forty-five.”
“Exactly, so why were they so desperate?” Zou Qing couldn’t understand.
Yang Chaoyu brought the sidetracked conversation back on topic. “In other words, the location of each interview changes because of some kind of force?”
Sandao nodded. “That’s possible.”
Yang Chaoyu had asked this to verify her conjecture.
If this wasn’t the real-world Liutang Residential Complex, then which period did this Liutang belong to, and whose memory of Liutang was it?
In the darkness, there stood the main gate that had not been properly closed, the empty Guard Room and property management lobby, the pitch-black buildings, and the lit first floor.
Qi Yang suddenly spoke. “Why insist on choosing sides? Does it really matter whether it was suicide or murder? The evidence on the phone only shows that Wen Shaoqiao suffered domestic violence and sexual molestation. Could it be possible… that her death was an accident?”
The hallway fell silent.
“By your logic, Wen Shaoqiao might not even be dead.” Yang Chaoyu sneered.
“How is that possible? We all saw that wo… girl at the entrance to the hallway.” Ke Xingyun had almost called her a female ghost. “If she isn’t Wen Shaoqiao, who else could she be?”
“Her face was injured so badly. How can you be sure she was Wen Shaoqiao?” Yang Chaoyu countered. “It’s only because we assumed this building had no potential deceased other than Wen Shaoqiao that we concluded she was that young girl.”
“But the news reports all said it was suicide,” Ke Xingyun insisted.
“Can the news be trusted? It reported Wen Shaoqiao’s fall from the building, but did it report her death? Did she have a funeral? Were there any pictures of her family holding one?”
Yang Chaoyu left Ke Xingyun completely dumbfounded.
Zou Qing cut in. “Wen Shaoqiao wasn’t some superstar. If she died, she died. Why would they report it? And if she wasn’t dead, how would you explain her parents stepping forward to say she was?”
“So if her parents say she’s gone, then she’s gone?” Yang Chaoyu transformed into an expert at verbally dismantling people. “What were her parents like to her? Is it impossible that they created the illusion of her death to profit from public sympathy? Is it impossible that they cruelly sold her and squeezed one last payment out of her?”
Qi Yang couldn’t listen any longer and tried to smooth things over. “They’re only possibilities. Everyone, let’s not get so heated.”
Zou Qing snorted but wrapped her arms tightly around herself.
She began shivering uncontrollably. “Does anyone else feel like it’s getting colder and colder?”
Ke Xingyun had a bad feeling. Although he didn’t like Zou Qing, she was still a living person. He couldn’t just watch her disappear.
So he said, “I have a tank top underneath. Want me to take off this T-shirt and give it to you?”
Zou Qing frowned and seemed unwilling.
Ke Xingyun rubbed the tip of his nose.
Fortunately, he hadn’t taken it off directly, or he would have been even more embarrassed.
Zou Qing grew irritated. “What exactly are we discussing, going around in circles like this?”
She couldn’t take it anymore and asked Sandao, “The assessment is to find clues. We’ve found all the clues, so the mission should be over. We can leave now, right?”
As she spoke, she looked toward the elevator.
Actually, when they had been able to go downstairs earlier, she had already wondered about this and asked Sandao. But Sandao had said they hadn’t found all the clues yet and couldn’t leave.
She had believed him then, but Yang Chaoyu had said that Sandao lied.
In that case, perhaps they could all go downstairs and leave now.
Sandao asked calmly, “Then do you dare try?”
Zou Qing glanced at Qi Yang’s bloody severed leg and drew her neck back.
Qi Yang: …Damn, I’ve become a classic negative example, haven’t I?
“It’s not as if we’ve made no progress,” Yang Chaoyu said. “During the third time period, Room 520’s occupant died, while we were all safe. Logically, once the time period ended, we should have automatically completed the mission.”
Sandao: “Correct.”
“But you want the final score of 1,000 points, so you don’t want it to end,” Yang Chaoyu said.
Sandao nodded.
Zou Qing flew into a rage. “So we really are safe now?”
Sandao sneered. “I never stopped you. You can leave right now.”
Zou Qing took two steps forward, but ultimately didn’t dare continue downstairs.
Yang Chaoyu thought for a moment, then asked, “Where did you pick up the phone?”
Sandao said, “In the grass downstairs. I reached down casually and found it.”
Unable to see his expression, Yang Chaoyu didn’t know whether he was lying. She looked toward Zou Qing and Ke Xingyun. Zou Qing ignored her, hugging herself as though she had been stuffed inside a refrigerator. Ke Xingyun indicated that he had been searching too and hadn’t noticed Sandao’s actions at all.
Sandao asked, “You’re done with your questions, right?”
Yang Chaoyu shook her head. “There’s one last question.”
Author’s note:
【Mini-theater】Yang Chaoyu: master, please teach your disciple. Ke Xingyun: Ah, big shot, when did you become such a bootlicker? Yang Chaoyu: Shamelessness is invincible. I’m still far behind you and Sandao. I’ll keep working hard. Ke Xingyun: You really don’t need to work hard at that…