Chapter 2

(He had shocked Gu Liang.)

After hearing those words, Yang Ye chuckled and said in a low voice: “Against you, who threatened to kill the detective, who would dare to confirm it?”

Gu Liang observed Yang Ye’s expression. In his mind, he thought, Is he pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger, or is he purely trying to make fun of me?

Gu Liang felt that the probability of the latter was more likely.

A short moment later, Gu Liang replied in a careless manner: “I asked the system that question for the sake of testing the game rules, not with the true intention of wanting to kill the detective.

“You can kill the detective, but it’s not necessary. Every person can cast a vote too. The murderer can kill the detective, but it doesn’t mean that the players won’t cast their votes for them, nor can it enable the outcome where they completely evade their punishment. Frankly speaking, there is absolutely no value in doing so. Unless—”

Having spoken to this point, Gu Liang held Yang Ye’s gaze. A deeper meaning belied his next words. “Unless the detective has special skills, like independently holding onto some significant clues for example. Do you have them?”

Yang Ye merely listened before he gave his comment: “Tch, if you want to inveigle someone for information, you should do it in an honest and above-board manner.”

“If you’re not the detective, why would you be afraid of me inveigling you for information?” Gu Liang replied calmly.

Yang Ye could not help but ask, “What was your occupation?”

That mouth of his was quite impressive.

Gu Liang did not acknowledge him. Instead, he retracted his gaze and stared into the blank space again. “It’s fine if you don’t want to admit to it.”

Yang Ye opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something.

At this moment, however, a cry for help resounded from the corridor outside the door.

It was a sharp and clear voice of a youth. “Save me! Please save me!”

Gu Liang did not move, merely shifting his pupils in the direction of the door before he met Yang Ye’s eyes.

Yang Ye used a finger to point at the door like he was trying to confirm Gu Liang’s intent.

Despite the extremely cold and indifferent expression on his visage, Gu Liang nodded slightly.

A glint of surprise slid past Yang Ye’s eyes. Subsequently after, he smiled as he went to open the door with due haste.

Upon seeing someone open their door, the young man, who was approximately seventeen in age and running for his life, darted in immediately.

Yang Ye surveyed the corridor once before he closed the door again.

Once he entered the door, the young man slumped against the wall and he could not stop his heavy panting. It was only after a long while that the fear receded from his eyes, and he looked at the two men. “I… I’m Son Bai. Who are you guys?”

Yang Ye said: “I’m your stepmother.”

Yang Ye had an imposing figure and his appearance was exceedingly fierce.

If it weren’t for his high quality and form fitting suit and the silver-rimmed glasses sitting on his nose bridge, he might even appear to have the temperament of a gangster. All in all, his body reeked of strong male hormones.

Thus, when Yang Ye said “I’m your stepmother”, Gu Liang’s brows wrinkled together, making it evident that he was shocked by his remark.

The young man took a long moment to react. “You… You’re Girlfriend Huang?”

“Yeah, I accidentally received a female role.”

Yang Ye pointed at the physically paralysed Gu Liang, who looked as stable as Mount Tai from his position on the sofa. “He’s Lawyer Zhang.”

Son Bai nodded, conveying that he understood.

He squatted down first, before eventually deciding to sit on the ground and hug his own knees.

Yang Ye asked him, “What happened to you? Who’s trying to kill you?”

“It’s… Boss Bai wants to kill me!” Once Son Bai said that, he seemed to go through some aftershocks as he hugged his knees tighter and lowered his head.

“Why did he want to kill you?” Yang Ye questioned.

Son Bai swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Because he was still in the throes of his terror, he did not raise his head to meet Yang Ye’s eyes.

Yang Ye knelt down to look at him. “Don’t be afraid, speak slowly.”

Head still lowered, Son Bai thought about it before he mumbled in a hoarse voice, “According to my script, I recently discovered that my father, which is Boss Bai, caused the death of my biological mother. Hence, I bought a certain type of poison and was planning to find a chance to poison him during lunch.”

After hearing those words, Gu Liang confirmed two matters.

Firstly, like he had initially suspected, everyone else apart from the detective might have murderous intentions towards Boss Bai, and they should have prepared their own set method to commit the crime.

Secondly, the young man before him was quite intelligent; he did not expose any specific details regarding his timeline or the name of his poison.

Son Bai continued to speak. “I was staying in my room just now. Boss Bai, who is also my father, came to find me. At that moment, I happened to find my poison pillbox and I didn’t manage to stash it away before he entered the room. And he ended up seeing that box of poison. He immediately took out a knife, saying he wanted to kill the murderer first so he wouldn’t have to die.”

Gu Liang roughly grasped the course of events.

After Boss Bai was frightened into a faint downstairs, he had been brought back to his room by the men in black. But upon sobering up completely, he realised that he did not want to wait for his like this, and he even desired to turn the tables.

Among the people present, the person who was the easiest to deal with was probably this seventeen-year-old youth, and this reason might have propelled Boss Bai into finding him first to test if he was the murderer.

And perhaps, he might not have known that a lot of people wanted to kill him today; so when he saw the poison, he immediately assumed that Son Bai was the real murderer in this case.

In order to prevent his own murder, Boss Bai could only counter by killing Son Bai.

But he did not expect that Son Bai would respond in a timely manner, allowing him to slip away.

— Was Boss Bai’s behaviour considered a violation of the rules?

The unmoving, mountain-like Gu Liang finally stood up from the sofa. He walked towards the door and pulled open a small seam to gaze outside.

— Boss Bai was currently being carried back to his room by two men in black. He was not moving at all and it seemed like he had fainted.

Following closely, Gu Liang heard the familiar voice of the broadcast.

“The following is a report concerning an unexpected incident, Boss Bai tried to kill Son Bai and has failed to do so. He has been brought back to his room by the men in black forcibly.”

“The following is the judgement regarding Boss Bai’s actions. Boss Bai’s character design is that of a scum who stops at nothing to do evil, so his actions coincide with his character design. He did not OOC, the system judges his actions as a non-violation. Therefore, Boss Bai will not be punished.”

“In accordance with the script outline, every player’s timeline is about to unfold. In order to prevent Boss Bai from affecting the plot, the men in black will be controlling his actions stringently, to ensure that everything develops in accordance with the script.”

The system’s aforementioned ‘everything develops in accordance with the script’ also meant that it will ensure Boss Bai dies by the method the script ascribes.

Currently, the men in black have appeared twice: the first occurrence was to give the unconscious Boss Bai emergency treatment, while the second time was to truss him up and control his actions strictly, ensuring that he would wait for his death obediently.

In this game, the person who drew the Deceased Card was undoubtedly the unluckiest of them all.

Few would die willingly; naturally, they all chose to stir up some trouble.

Which was why the establishment of the men in black was reasonable.

They would control the “deceased” at the necessary moments to prevent them from influencing the script’s trajectory.

Then, was there a way to intercede these men in black?

Gu Liang shut the door properly and returned back to his sofa. His index finger rapped on the armrest as he contemplated the possibility for a moment, only to belatedly realise that Son Bai was covering his face and crying.

Probably because he could only care about running for his life just now, Son Bai did not have the time to muster the fear and pain he felt.

It was only after he heard the broadcast that he woke up and registered the fact that he had arrived at a terrifying world. Thus, the fear started setting in, and he began to cry in anguish.

After observing Son Bai cry for a long time, Gu Liang’s brows furrowed minutely and he said: “You should be alright after crying for a bit; even if you continue to cry, there’s no meaning to it. Be stronger.”

At the side, Yang Ye felt a little mystified when those words entered his ears— it turns out even sarcastic people like Gu Liang knew how to console people?

In a blink of an eye, Yang Ye was promptly slapped in the face as he heard Gu Liang ask his next question: “Right, when are you planning to poison him?”

The two sentences Gu Liang issued could be considered as an abrupt and unusual turn of events.

In actuality, he did not want to console him; he just wanted to seize the chance to coax some information out of him.

And Son Bai probably saw through his ignoble intentions too.

Hence, Son Bai raised the head he had been keeping down the entire time. Shocked, he looked at Gu Liang before he turned towards Yang Ye with a pleading gaze. “You’re my stepmother, can I trust you?”

Yang Ye smiled in reply. However, that smile made Son Bai’s scalp numb.

After smiling, Yang Ye asked Boss Bai: “How do you plan to poison him? What is your modus operandi? Read your script out loud and let us hear it?”

Son Bai: “……”

Instantaneously, he felt that the two people before him were more frightening than the black clothed NPCs and the broadcast.

“With regards to the timeline, if you don’t say yours, I won’t say mine either. I was inexplicably brought here, made to participate in this dreadful game, and yet I have to meet people like you, people who stick a pin in whenever there’s room for the sake of worming out some information. I… I’m really…”

Dazed, Son Bai sat on the floor, looking somewhat dispirited.

Gu Liang glanced at the clock hanging on the wall before his eyes moved towards Son Bai and Yang Ye. “You should leave. I noticed that there was a room with a ‘Centralised Discussion Room’ plaque on the first floor. If you have anything to say, have your conversation there, I’m not hosting a tea party here.”

Done speaking, Gu Liang rose to his feet and picked up the strawberry shortcake that was on the square table. He took a bite out of it and sipped on his black tea.

Upon seeing his actions, Son Bai’s eyes widened as he jumped up from the ground hastily and looked at him with an unfathomable expression.

His barely concealed astonishment did not go unnoticed by Gu Liang. The older man peered at him. “What’s wrong?”

“No…Nothing…” Son Bai swallowed his saliva, shifting his line of sight away, “You… aren’t you afraid that it’s poisoned?”

Gu Liang said: “And who poisoned it? The system wouldn’t do such a thing since it needs us alive for the time being to play the game. You two? Neither of you have gotten close to food.”

“But… isn’t eating the props a violation of the rules?”

Son Bai frowned as he spoke in a small voice, his worries and misgivings colouring his visage. After a long moment, he revealed a stranger expression, like he was trying to find the correct words before he finally opened his mouth to say: “I keep feeling, this scary house is being controlled by some kind of god or ghost, and everything here should not be touched.”

“You can wait three minutes and see if anything happens to me,” Gu Liang replied leisurely.

In the end, Son Bai chose to stay for three minutes.

After three minutes passed, Gu Liang scowled, revealing a trace of impatience. In response, Son Bai grabbed a few fruits at light speed before taking another slice of cake. “It happens that I’m hungry too, I didn’t get to eat my breakfast before I was brought here.”

Gu Liang: “……”

“Enough, You’re a man; eat some snacks, rest for a short while, and stop being scared. What you should be doing now is straighten out your thoughts and consider how you’re going to ensure that you live on.”

Yang Ye patted Son Bai’s shoulder, finally saying something that resembled human words.

At the very end, he turned his head back to examine Gu Liang one last time before he left the room.

* * *

The room was finally quiet.

Gu Liang remained seated for a short moment before he stood up and walked towards the bedside table. He opened the drawer storing the insulin and contemplated what should be his next course of action.

The script only allowed him to use insulin, but there were a lot of things he was still unaware of. For example, how much he should use and how long it would take for Boss Bai to die after he ingested the insulin.

All these pieces of information were missing and it was affecting Gu Liang’s ability to judge if he was the real murderer or not.

Hence, Gu Liang continued to rummage through his own room.

Very quickly, he found a slip of paper under his pillow, and it seemed to be faxed over.

It wrote: “Lawyer Zhang, what I’m giving you is a new type of insulin that can be taken orally, which I independently researched. People without diabetes will immediately experience headaches, spasms and shocks after consuming 3mg, and they will die after 30 minutes. Please be circumspect about your usage. – From a doctor who is fond of research and development.”

So this is how the game is played.

Not only did they have to find the corresponding clues and evidence by themselves, they had to prevent other people from finding it.

Gu Liang scoured the chests and cupboards. When he found a lighter, he decided he was going to burn the piece of paper.

His burning would not be limited to the paper alone; after he was done poisoning, he had to burn the box with the word “Insulin” on it too.

When the time came, and if Boss Bai was really done in by the insulin, there would be no evidence linking back to him.

But who could have expected that just as Gu Liang started burning a corner of the paper, the broadcast would abruptly sound.

“The following is a report of a sudden incident. Lawyer Zhang is attempting to burn and destroy the evidence—”

Gu Liang’s brows scrunched together and he swiftly reacted by throwing the paper on the ground and stomping on it to put out the fire.

The broadcast stopped for a beat before it continued to say, “Only to fail.”

Gu Liang: “……”

Broadcast: “Lawyer Zhang’s behaviour has triggered a side warning: evidence that might associate yourself as the murderer can be hidden with any sort of method but it cannot be destroyed, or else it will be viewed as a violation of the rules and you will have to receive a terrifying punishment oh!”