Chapter 32

Chapter 32

The two NPCs looked confused as well. Then Xiao Huai’s lips curved slightly.

“You both smell like alcohol.”

Everyone else’s eyes widened. “What? Why can’t I smell anything?”

The two NPCs, however, immediately panicked and backed away.

“What are you doing…? Don’t… don’t sniff us! We didn’t…”

“There’s nothing shameful about drinking, but your reaction is rather telling.” Xiao Huai smiled.

Alcohol was not the only thing he had smelled. There was another, more distinctive odor.

Xiao Huai pointed at his nose. “I’ve always had an excellent sense of smell. You don’t smell only of alcohol. There’s also…”

Something he could not say aloud.

Xiao Huai left the sentence unfinished, and Rose’s face instantly turned red.

She shoved Jack aside and stepped into the middle of the group. “We only had a little to drink and… did something together. After all, we were both in the mood.”

The other players fell even more silent, complicated expressions spreading across their faces.

Even the elite-looking man coughed awkwardly twice.

Everyone understood.

The brown-skinned man spoke irritably. “So that’s the kind of relationship you two have. You put on such a convincing show earlier that I thought you were mortal enemies.”

“Then everything you said before was a lie?” the bespectacled man added. “The part about it disappearing while you were in the bathroom wasn’t true at all, was it?”

Jack’s expression darkened. “The diamond… We left it in the storage room, but then it disappeared.”

He opened the door marked [Bathroom]. Behind it, they discovered a storage room.

There were not two bathrooms in the carriage. There was one bathroom and one storage room.

The NPCs had been lying from beginning to end. Only first-floor NPCs were forbidden from lying. On every higher floor, NPCs could lie and perform however they pleased.

Xiao Huai naturally understood why the two NPCs had initially pretended to hate each other so bitterly. They wanted the players to assume one of them was the culprit.

If time ran out and the players selected an NPC as the criminal, then lost, the players themselves would die.

Fortunately, the second floor was not especially difficult. The two NPCs’ stories were riddled with holes.

“Now it’s time for introductions. After all, they aren’t the only suspects. We are too.” A smile blossomed on Xiao Huai’s lips.

The girl in the short-sleeved shirt looked puzzled. “We’re suspects too? But we’re players.”

The players had awakened one by one aboard the train. How could any of them have stolen the diamond?

Xiao Huai looked at the girl and parted his lips, but a voice came from in front of him first.

Lu Yuanshi slowly approached. “We’ve been suspects all along. Why else would the redheaded lady specifically say she hoped neither of us was the thief? Isn’t that right, Xiao Huai?”

He deliberately drew out the final syllable of Xiao Huai’s name. Somehow… it sounded tinged with an indefinable intimacy.

Xiao Huai met Lu Yuanshi’s eyes and nodded. “Mm. The system never defined the pool of suspects either. NPCs can lie starting on the second floor, but humans are, by nature, creatures even fonder of lies.”

He looked at the other players. “The order in which you regained consciousness may be connected to when the crime occurred. Therefore, the person who woke first is the most suspicious.”

Old Mo immediately grew angry. He had told Xiao Huai that he was the first to wake. To prove his innocence, he decided to introduce himself first.
“You can call me Old Mo. I sell fish. Well, there’s no need to say much about real life, is there? I believe I was the first to wake. These two NPCs were already arguing. At first, I tried to calm them down, but once I realized they wouldn’t listen, I sat back down and waited for all of you to wake up.”

The bespectacled man nodded. He had awakened after Old Mo. “My name is Tang Weiqi. I used to work for a securities firm. I woke after him. Unlike Old Mo, I didn’t try to stop the NPCs from arguing. I was thinking about how to clear the game.”

“The game hadn’t even started, and you were already thinking about clearing it?” Old Mo asked.

Tang Weiqi nodded. “Yes. I obtained a clue about the game. Is that a problem?”

Old Mo fell silent at Tang Weiqi’s answer.

Plenty of people entered games with clues and immediately began reasoning from them.

The more someone revealed during these introductions, the more likely they were to attract suspicion. And Old Mo was already the first person known to have awakened.

Lu Yuanshi yawned. “Lu Yuanshi. Third to wake. Afterward, I spent the whole time admiring the sleeping beauty beside me. That’s all.”

Xiao Huai, the “sleeping beauty”: “…”

The middle-aged woman in the floral shirt spoke next. “My turn, right? I was fourth. You can call me Aunt Wang. I used to work as a housekeeper. I had nothing to do after I woke, so I chatted with the young lady beside me. Later, she became too cold to bear it, so I stopped bothering her.”

The girl in short sleeves nodded. “Mm-hmm. I woke after Aunt Wang. My name is Liu Tongtong.”

The elderly man spoke with a strong Beijing accent. “My surname is Li, given name Batian. I used to live off collecting rent. Ah, I’m not trying to show off. Anyway, I’ve been asleep ever since I woke.”

Xiao Huai went last. “Xiao Huai. Ordinary player. No identity card.”

When he finished, the others arched their brows. “An identity card? You suspect one of us has a hidden identity?” Tang Weiqi asked.

Xiao Huai smiled. “I don’t suspect it. I’m certain. We can’t rule out the possibility that everything the NPCs said was a lie. If someone stole the rough diamond, where would they hide it?”

He glanced casually around the carriage. “This is a locked room. Besides, from the beginning, all of you have been saying who woke first, second, and so on. Did none of you consider that if the first person to wake simply pretended to remain unconscious, no one would ever know?”

His words brought instant clarity.

Old Mo might not have been the first person awake at all.

The actual first person could be hiding among them.

A player who did such a thing was unlikely to lack a hidden identity.

Lu Yuanshi silently moved to Xiao Huai’s side. Bending his head, he spoke beside Xiao Huai’s ear in a deliberately teasing murmur, almost as if blowing against it. “So you already suspect someone?”

Xiao Huai instinctively turned his head aside. The more distance he tried to keep, the more shamelessly this man crowded closer.

In the end, Xiao Huai stopped bothering. He stood still and nodded. “Mm. I have one suspect.”

The instant he said that, everyone turned toward him in unison.

Xiao Huai raised his eyes slightly, his gaze landing directly on Lu Yuanshi.

A muffled laugh sounded in Lu Yuanshi’s throat. For a moment, everyone assumed he was the culprit.

But Xiao Huai walked straight past Lu Yuanshi and slowly approached the person standing behind him.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”