That night, we fell asleep with a sense of unease heavy on our chests...
Another long night passed quietly. I dragged myself up heavily, my exhausted body and starving stomach making my head spin. However, before my feet could even step out of the tent door, my ears sharply caught the sound of panicked whisperings outside.
The bad omen from last night hit my brain like a cold electric shock. I hurriedly pulled aside the tent flap and stepped outside. What met my eyes was the sight of everyone gathered, crowding right in front of Tent No. 5 — Chu Hao Cheng's tent.
My heart pounded continuously, and my legs instinctively ran frantically toward the scene. Swiping through the crowd, I froze before the horrific sight right in front of me.
Chu Hao Cheng's massive body was lying motionless face down on the cold ground.
Yashu was already standing there. Her face was drained of blood, her lips trembling, barely able to squeeze out a few broken words through her tears:
"This... How could this..."
While everyone around was still whispering in confusion, I suddenly noticed an anomaly on Chu Hao Cheng's corpse.
His dying posture made no sense at all.
He wasn't lying on the bed, but lying face down right on the tent floor with both hands pinned underneath his stomach — an extremely awkward and forced posture. If a Werewolf had suddenly burst in and attacked last night, someone as muscular as Chu Hao Cheng, even in death, couldn't possibly have fallen in such a bizarre position. Unless... he was deliberately hiding something from the perpetrator's sight.
A flash of insight lit up my mind, and I suddenly recalled the agreement the three of us made late last night. The secret signal!
I swallowed hard, suppressing the surging fear and sorrow in my chest, walked closer, and used all my strength to roll Chu Hao Cheng's body over. Every movement of mine was cautious so as not to alarm those around us.
Just as expected!
His right hand was spread open with all five fingers. My heart missed a beat when I read the final message from my teammate: Our assumption was wrong; the Game Master is not the Wolf. The direction of suspicion had to be broadened to others.
However, the shock didn't end there. As my eyes quickly darted to Chu Hao Cheng's left hand, I instantly froze.
With the last bit of his strength before drawing his final breath, he had managed to use his finger to trace a character onto his skin. I narrowed my eyes to look closely, trying to compose myself so I wouldn't misread it in the dim darkness of the tent.
It was the letter "C".
"C"? What on earth could this character mean? Was it someone's name, the position of a chair, or some other secret that Chu Hao Cheng had managed to see before he died?
Only then did I fully understand. It turned out that awkward face-down posture wasn't merely to conceal the five-finger secret signal; Chu Hao Cheng was using his very life to protect a secret far more terrifying than that. He had seen something completely beyond imagination. Fearing that Yashu and I wouldn't be able to narrow down the killer based solely on the open five-finger signal, he risked his last remaining strength to trace out this letter before passing away.
A single letter "C", yet heavier than a thousand tons.
I shuddered slightly as I thought of the cruel rules of this game. The rules strictly forbade players from revealing each other's true identities; violators would surely meet a miserable end at the hands of the Game Master. Yet, Chu Hao Cheng was too clever. An incomplete starting letter couldn't be counted as revealing a full identity. He had brilliantly skirted the rules right under the nose of the Grim Reaper, leaving us a slim ray of hope for survival.
With that thought, I acted quickly before anyone could notice. I used my finger to quietly wipe away the letter "C" written in deep red blood on the floor, erasing Chu Hao Cheng's only trace of loophole-finding. Then, I stood up straight, turned around, and pretended to announce to the people around me in a trembling voice:
"Chu Hao Cheng's dying posture is a bit off. Judging by these marks, he must have fought back fiercely against the Werewolf last night before collapsing."
The crowd began to buzz with discussion at my assessment. Taking advantage of the chaos, we started moving toward the voting table area. I intentionally slowed my pace, pulled close to Yashu, tilted my head, and lowered my voice as much as possible, whispering into her ear:
"Five fingers spread out. And he also tried to write an extra letter 'C'."
"What..."
Yashu gasped, almost blurting out loud. Her eyes widened in utter shock, but just a second later, she quickly regained her composure. She frowned, her face deep in thought:
"The letter 'C'? I... I can't think of anything for now. If it's just this single letter, there are too many possibilities. It could be the first letter of someone's name here, an English word, or even referring to wood, or some object in this campsite..."
Yashu walked while pondering deeply, her delicate eyebrows knitting tighter. Suddenly, as if realizing something, she shook her head slightly:
Yashu walked while pondering deeply, her delicate eyebrows knitting tighter. Suddenly, as if realizing something, she shook her head slightly in rebuttal:
"No, that's not right. Among all the surviving players here, there is absolutely no one whose name starts with the letter 'C'."
"You're right," I nodded in agreement, my voice dropping in tension. "So this 'C' definitely isn't meant for a person, but must be an object, or even some kind of plant around here. We can also rule out those hunting dogs of the Game Master; those beasts don't have names."
Yashu's eyes blinked repeatedly, her eyelids twitching as if a crazy hypothesis had just rushed into her mind. She came to a sudden halt, turned to look at me with eyes full of both shock and utter confusion, lowering her voice to the absolute minimum:
"You mean... 'Chair'? The chair we sit on every night? But this... isn't that too absurd?"
While our minds were still in turmoil with a dozen speculations, our feet had walked to the voting area before we even realized it. I quietly headed to my spot and let myself sink into the familiar Chair No. 9.
Yet, my mind didn't stop racing for a single second. The letter 'C'... Chair...
I closed my eyes tightly, forcing myself to turn back time, digging through my memories of that horrific first night. The night the ruthless Game Master murdered Chen Ying Ke — the unfortunate player sitting in Chair No. 1.
After that man fell, what did the Game Master do next?
Right! He leisurely began explaining the rules, and then proceeded to deal cards to everyone.
Wait... Dealing cards?!
A terrifying flash of revelation struck my brain; I suddenly snapped my eyes open, focusing all my vision on the vacant Chair No. 1 opposite me. Every phrase, every word spoken in the Game Master's mocking, icy voice suddenly echoed clearly in my ears like a rewinding tape:
"Since there is currently a player existing in spirit form, we have an extra card left over. So, if you don't mind, I'll pin this card firmly to his chair. Nobody is allowed to touch it! My hunting dogs are very ferocious."
Cold sweat poured down my spine. My heart beat so fast it felt as though it was about to burst out of my chest.
That was it! Chair No. 1! The perpetrator last night... was that very chair! Or more accurately, it was the Wolf card pinned firmly to that chair!
Every scattered puzzle piece from the past suddenly clicked together perfectly in a chilling manner. No wonder on the very first day, the Game Master acted so hot-tempered and extreme as to execute a player right before the game even started. He didn't do it out of anger, but to create a "spirit-form player," thereby having a legitimate reason to pin the surplus Wolf card onto that empty chair!
Furthermore, a core rule of the game immediately surfaced in my mind: "The Wolf was never an outsider; he is one of the names that sat at this round table."
That's right! "Chair No. 1" was clearly a proper noun, a "name" present right at this round table from the very first moment. And most importantly, those damn game rules never had any clause stating that the Werewolf had to be human!
That devious Game Master... He deliberately attached Chen Ying Ke's card to the chair under the perfect pretext of "handling the extra card." At that time, under the immense pressure of extreme fear, all of us were fooled. Not a single person could have imagined that the inanimate Chair No. 1 was assigned to carry out the full role of that card.
And most cruel of all, the extra card pinned tightly to the chair... was the 'Werewolf'.
The Game Master had created a Wolf that defied all conventional rules. He turned Chair No. 1 into an invisible predator at night, borrowing the darkness to claim the lives of one person after another without leaving behind a single human trace. His tactic of "hiding the card right in front of everyone's eyes" had completely manipulated us all!