The Cop
"Don't you try to sow discord," Officer Li glared at Qiao Jia Jin, speaking very sternly, "You're a moneylender, and I'm a police officer; who do you think people will believe?"
Qi Xia looked at the people who were arguing noisily. He knew that Officer Li should not be lying; he really was a criminal detective.
But his approach was wrong.
Perhaps due to professional relevance, or perhaps due to a sense of justice, he always wanted to organize the people in an orderly manner.
The intermission time had already passed half, and the people gradually quieted down.
During this time, Qi Xia had already said "My name is Li Ming" countless times in his heart until he was somewhat annoyed.
After all, there had been a body with a crushed skull lying beside him the whole time, making it impossible to calm down.
Blood dripped from the table, ticking onto the ground. The group had been in the same room with the body for nearly an hour, and a strange smell began to waft.
Qi Xia casually glanced at the body beside him; his pants were already extremely dirty.
After death, various organs quickly lose the control of muscle strength, resulting in incontinence.
Before the stench of the corpse, a foul smell had already come rushing forth.
Qi Xia and another girl sat on either side of the body. The girl seemed to be very dissatisfied with the smell and kept covering her nose and mouth with her hand.
Another ten minutes passed, and the goat-headed man finally spoke: "The twenty-minute intermission is over, and the game resumes."
The young man named Han Yimo, who was previously called upon, composed himself, took a deep breath, and said, "My name is Han Yimo, and I am an online novelist."
"Before I came here, I was in my rented apartment writing the grand finale of a novel. Since there are over a hundred characters in the book, and almost all of them need to appear in the grand finale, I was concentrating intently on writing and didn't hear any of the commotion outside."
"Even... I don't even know when the earthquake happened or when I lost consciousness..."
Han Yimo's story was different from everyone else's. So far, it seems that he is completely 'independent,' and his narrative abruptly ends in just a few sentences.
"Is that all?" The storng man was slightly taken aback, "You end it with a 'don't know'?"
"Because I cannot lie, I don't need to fabricate an answer to cater to everyone," Han Yimo's voice wasn't loud, but it was inexplicably convincing.
"Alright... then the next one." Officer Li's face still showed suspicion as he spoke again, "It's the lady's turn."
"Hey, cop," Qiao Jia Jin was somewhat dissatisfied with Officer Li's attitude, "We are all 'participants' here; don't act like you're the leader."
"But someone has to organize everyone, right?" Officer Li argued, "As I said, there is only one enemy among us; the remaining eight must unite."
"That doesn't mean you get to command us here." Qiao Jia Jin completely disregarded Officer Li's words, "Outside, I might be afraid of you, but in this situation, no one knows if you are 'The Liar'."
"Let's stop the arguing, you two," the cold-voiced woman interrupted them.
This cold-voiced woman had been accusing the goat-headed man of detaining everyone for twenty-four hours from the beginning. She seemed to be very clear-headed and calm.
Seeing the two men calm down, she continued, "This so-called 'game,' no matter who wins in the end, the remaining people might be considered 'accessories to murder,' after all, it is we who collectively voted for the 'Goat-Man' to kill him. This is the issue you should be considering."
Hearing this, Qi Xia's expression slightly changed.
If he really did walk out of this room alive, then he indeed 'killed' the other eight people.
But what could he do?
The card in front of him was a genuine 'Liar.' Who would be willing to give up their own life to let others live?
"My name is Zhang Chenze, and I am a lawyer." The cold-voiced woman crossed her arms, speaking without any expression, "It's a pity to meet everyone in such a bizarre place, otherwise, I would definitely hand over my business card."
The crowd didn't understand Zhang Chenze's sense of humor at all, but it seemed she didn't care.
"Before I came here, I was organizing materials for a court hearing. My client was swindled out of two million dollars, involving a huge amount and a very bad nature."
When she mentioned the figure 'two million,' everyone's expression remained the same, but Qiao Jia Jin was visibly shocked and asked, "Two million?"
"Yes, two million. It's said that lawyers are the most impartial and selfless people, but we also have personal feelings. That man, in order to support his family, did not hesitate to borrow from usurious loans, which is very worrying. But illegal lending is another case, and it's not related to me."
"When the earthquake struck, I was driving to meet my client on Qingyang Avenue, just past Du Fu's Thatched Cottage, passing by Wuhou Shrine. I remember that I wasn't driving fast, about forty miles per hour, when I suddenly saw the ground not far ahead crack open."
"I slammed on the brakes and stopped steadily in front of the crack, but the car behind me couldn't avoid it in time, causing a series of rear-end collisions."
"I only heard a few loud noises, and my car was pushed into the crack, and then I lost consciousness and came here."
Another story ended, and at this point, only three people had not yet told their stories.
"Wuhou Shrine..." Dr. Zhao thought for a moment and said, "Is it the Wuhou Shrine in Chengdu?"
"Yes, I work in Chengdu."
It seems that this earthquake has spread across the country.
It's really too difficult to guess who is lying based on these unfamiliar stories one after another.
"It's my turn next." Officer Li looked at everyone, "As I said earlier, my name is Li Shangwu, and I am a criminal detective from Inner Mongolia.
Before I came here, I was staking out a fraudster. According to reliable information, we had obtained the exact whereabouts of the suspect."
"This criminal suspect defrauded a large amount of money, up to two million dollars, which is the first major fraud case our city has received this year."
"Both my colleague and I had been surveilling from the car, just waiting for the fraudster to show up."
"But the suspect was even smarter than we thought. He seemed to sense some danger and didn't show his face for three days."
"We spent three days eating, drinking, and even using the restroom in the car, and our spirits were about to collapse."
"But do you know what's more unbearable for a grown man than having no food or drink?"
"Running out of cigarettes."
"Neither of us had a single cigarette left. In principle, we absolutely couldn't leave our post, but the feeling of no cigarettes was too hard to bear."
"So, I asked my colleague to run to buy cigarettes while I kept a close eye on the entrance and exit of the suspect's residence."
"But what I didn't expect was that not long after my colleague left, the whole world began to shake violently. I wanted to get out of the car to see what was happening when suddenly someone strangled me from behind with a thin wire."
"Although we are all very good at close combat, it was very difficult to deal with the thin wire strangling from the back seat of the car. I couldn't touch the person behind me at all, nor could I remove the wire from my neck."
At this point, everyone looked at Officer Li and noticed that there was indeed a red mark on his neck.
"So, I immediately reclined the seat to regain my breath, but I couldn't turn around because my stature is tall, and my legs were stuck under the steering wheel."
"As soon as I lay down, the person behind me struck me hard on the head with something, and I lost consciousness."
After hearing Officer Li's story, everyone couldn't help but begin to doubt.
He described a completely different situation from everyone else before him. All the participants had been injured and knocked unconscious due to accidents.
Only he had been attacked and brought here.
If one must choose the most suspicious person among the group, wouldn't it be him?