Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Everyone froze.
After a long moment, the brown-skinned man snapped indignantly, “What did you say? You! Do you have any humanity at all? You’re asking us to slaughter one another!”
“Exactly. I say killing you would be best. What a vicious man, honestly.” A middle-aged woman in a floral plaid shirt spoke from the back of the carriage.
Accusations immediately rang throughout the compartment.
Only Lu Yuanshi was quietly suppressing a laugh. Xiao Huai noticed but could not be bothered to respond.
He continued leaning against the window. The train emerged from the tunnel, and sunlight spilled across the trees in dazzling reflections.
Xiao Huai narrowed his eyes slightly. To his surprise, Lu Yuanshi chose that moment to sit beside him.
“Did you need something?” Xiao Huai glanced at him.
“I wanted a closer view of you when you die,” Lu Yuanshi answered.
“…Heh.” Xiao Huai laughed. “Don’t worry. They won’t kill me yet.”
In fact, they had already begun considering his proposal.
They were merely using insults to make themselves appear purer and more virtuous.
The more harshly they condemned the first person to voice the idea, the more humane and kind they could pretend to be.
Perhaps because Lu Yuanshi was the tallest person present, his angelic face did little to make his physique look easy to bully.
By sitting beside Xiao Huai, he inadvertently protected him instead.
The two NPCs had fallen silent when the redheaded woman arrived. Now they watched the players argue with obvious delight.
How the tables had turned.
At that moment, an elite-looking man in glasses raised his voice. “Everyone, only fifty minutes remain. If we don’t cooperate, I’m afraid we’ll truly have no choice but to use his method.”
The man had spoken everyone’s real thoughts aloud.
Wasn’t killing someone the simplest solution? Searching for a culprit and a diamond required thought and might still fail. The risk was too high to be worthwhile.
“What do you suggest?” the brown-skinned man asked him.
The bespectacled man looked toward the two NPCs. “Let’s hear what they have to say first. Weren’t they accusing each other of being the thief from the beginning?”
The moment they were mentioned, the NPCs resumed their performance and glared viciously at one another.
“What do you want us to say?”
“First, your names. Why did you board the train, and what happened afterward that made you suspect each other?”
“My name is Jack, and this bitch is Rose. We’re both employees sent by the diamond factory. She was holding the rough diamond the whole time. I went to the bathroom, and when I returned, it was gone. Then she had the nerve to claim I had moved it.”
Furious, Rose looked ready to slap him. Instead, she drove the pointed toe of her high heel down hard on his dress shoe.
Jack’s face instantly turned blue. He endured the pain, veins bulging across his forehead.
“There you go barking again! I was the one who went to the bathroom. Besides, didn’t I hand the rough diamond to you?”
“You! What did you say?”
When it looked as though they were about to fight again, the brown-skinned man rushed forward and pulled them apart.
Their lives depended on this investigation. If the two NPCs were allowed to keep arguing, ten hours would not be enough.
The bespectacled man joined them and adjusted his glasses. “So both of you came back from the bathroom and concluded that the other person was the culprit?”
“What else? I never received the rough diamond. This woman must be lying. She stole the Count’s rough diamond! You’re even worse than a diamond fiend!” Jack shouted abuse at her.
Rose glared at him furiously. “You’re the diamond fiend! Your entire family is made up of diamond fiends!”
Xiao Huai had been dozing nearby with narrowed eyes, but the noise finally drove away any hope of sleep. When he opened his eyes, he found Lu Yuanshi still staring at him.
“What are you looking at? Still waiting for me to die?”
Lu Yuanshi smiled. “No. This time, I simply think you’re beautiful.”
Xiao Huai did not respond. He quietly studied Lu Yuanshi’s eyes. The man’s voice possessed a cool clarity, like a blade weathered by frost.
“You aren’t worried at all that you’ll be the one who dies in the end.” Lu Yuanshi rested his chin on one hand and held Xiao Huai’s gaze.
He meant that if the players still failed to find the rough diamond, they would eventually have to decide whom to kill.
Xiao Huai replied calmly, “There are two female players and five male players in this carriage.”
He pointed casually toward an elderly man asleep in the last row. “That old gentleman has slept through the entire trip. He looks over sixty. If they choose to kill me and I resist, how long would it take the other four men to subdue me?
“Killing an adult man isn’t easy. It consumes tremendous physical and mental energy. A cornered beast is also the most dangerous. If I were them, with so many uncertainties, I wouldn’t waste my strength participating in that murder. Women, the elderly, the weak, and the sick would all be easier targets. Finally, killing another player carries a high chance of being cursed, especially if the victim is someone like me.”
Lu Yuanshi raised the end of one eyebrow and shifted a little closer. “Then I’m doomed.”
“Why are you doomed?” Xiao Huai had even less room now, their bodies pressed close together.
“I’m part of a vulnerable group.”
Xiao Huai: “…”
Hearing an adult man a full head taller than him describe himself as vulnerable was truly absurd.
Xiao Huai patted Lu Yuanshi’s thigh to signal that he wanted to get out.
Lu Yuanshi arched a brow. “What? Are you going to break up the fight too?”
Xiao Huai could not be bothered to answer. He simply stood and squeezed past Lu Yuanshi into the aisle.
As they brushed against each other, Xiao Huai caught a faint fragrance on him.
It resembled morning dew, cold and crystalline.
Xiao Huai looked toward the bathroom. “Both of their accounts mentioned a bathroom. Won’t one look inside tell us everything we need to know?”
Every player heard him. The compartment fell silent as they all turned toward Xiao Huai.
The bathroom stood at the rear of the carriage. From the beginning, everyone had been watching the two NPCs argue, and no one had paid attention to what lay around it.
They followed Xiao Huai, with even the elderly man and the NPCs crowding after him.
Only Lu Yuanshi remained in his seat, watching from a distance.
Opposite the bathroom stood a mirrored door bearing a sign that read [Storage Room].
A storage-room door made of mirror was already strange. When Xiao Huai reached out and removed the sign, everyone was even more surprised.
It had been attached with glue.
As he tore it away, thin strands of adhesive stretched behind it.
Without hesitation, Xiao Huai pushed open the supposed storage-room door. When everyone saw what lay inside, they were astonished yet again.
It was not a storage room at all. It was another bathroom.
In other words, the carriage had two bathrooms.
Someone had placed the storage-room sign on the door. Since the glue still stretched in strands, it could not have been attached long ago.
Xiao Huai approached the two NPCs. Leaning slightly forward, he drew a very soft breath through his nose.
Every player: “?!”