Chapter 11

Jiang Mingran was stunned.

Why? Hadn’t every loop begun with the woman coming in?

Why was she in the bathroom this time?

She seemed about to step forward. But the moment an embroidered shoe shifted, Shao Lan pressed the blade a centimeter into the man’s neck.

Blood immediately ran down. The man cried out in pain, and the woman stopped.

Jiang Mingran moved beside Shao Lan. There was blood on Shao Lan’s forehead and limbs, clearly from the struggle. Shao Lan was trembling slightly, almost out of strength.

Jiang Mingran quickly helped hold the man. He reached to take the knife as well, but Shao Lan shook his head. “You’ve never killed anyone, have you?”

Jiang Mingran paused. Of course he hadn’t.

“Then leave this to me.” Shao Lan looked coldly at the woman.

His knife hand was perfectly steady. The murderous intent coming off him left no room for doubt: he really would kill.

The woman sensed it and stayed where she was.

“Uncle Bing. Call the police. Apartment 1301,” Shao Lan said.

He’d learned the apartment number just before dying in the last loop.

Uncle Bing hurried to the landline and lifted the receiver, looking fearfully at the woman. In the second loop, he’d watched her kill Shao Lan while he was on the phone.

But this time she didn’t move. Her body was turned toward Shao Lan and Jiang Mingran, utterly still.

Not once during Uncle Bing’s call did she come over to stop him.

Holding the man in place, Jiang Mingran stared at the woman in the bathroom, bewildered.

“Lan…” he said. “Why was the fake cop inside this time? And why was that monster in the bathroom?”

Holding the knife, Shao Lan said calmly, “Not just this time. Every time.”

“What…?” Shock flickered in Jiang Mingran’s eyes.

“Remember the rules that appeared on the floor?”

Jiang Mingran nodded dazedly.

Since the second loop, rules had appeared on the floor each time.

The first was, “Those who have not ventured deep into the fog cannot leave it.” It meant they couldn’t simply leave the game area without solving the mystery.

The second was, “Owls are birds skilled at disguise. Do not trust the owl.”

The owl clock was the only thing in the apartment displaying the time. They’d wondered whether something was wrong with the time, but hadn’t got anywhere with it.

Shao Lan said quietly, “The owl clock has only two functions. One, announcing the start of the game. Two, telling the time.”

“The time has no effect on this game. There’s no reason for it to lie about that. So by elimination, the part we can’t trust has to be…”

Jiang Mingran’s eyes flew wide.

“The game begins!”

The moment the owl announced the start wasn’t when the game really began!

“The game doesn’t begin at four. It begins at three fifty-eight, right at the start.”

3:58 a.m. was the beginning of the loop, and the true start of the game.

Who would have thought the way to beat it was hidden in those first two minutes?

“We all made the same mistake,” Shao Lan said. “At four, the owl announces the start. The security door makes a sound. Then the woman crosses the living room to the kitchen.”

“All of that creates the impression that four is when the killer comes in.”

“But in fact…” Shao Lan looked at the fake policeman. “The killer has been inside all along. That sound isn’t her coming in. It’s someone going out.”

“During those two minutes, from three fifty-eight to four, there are five people in the apartment. The three of us, the killer, and the fake policeman.”

“He’s beside the security door, getting ready to leave,” Shao Lan said. “As for the killer? At the start of every loop, we hear dripping water, as though a tap has just been turned off.”

“There are only two places in this apartment with plumbing. One is the kitchen. The other is…”

The bathroom.

So for the first two minutes of every loop, the killer was in the bathroom.

It was the room closest to the security door, and the only room they’d overlooked throughout the game so far.

A chill spread through Jiang Mingran.

Those two minutes before the fake policeman left were when the players had the greatest opportunity to take control.

Unlike the monstrous killer, the fake policeman had the physical abilities of an ordinary man. At that point, all the players were alive. Three against one, they could easily take him hostage.

But if Shao Lan hadn’t thought of it, they’d have been doomed.

After all, during those first two minutes, they were either bewildered at having just arrived, or fresh from an excruciatingly real and brutal death. Two minutes wasn’t even enough to steady their hearts and pull themselves together. How were they supposed to think of acting immediately?

Besides, they’d had very little information about the fake policeman. How could Shao Lan be sure holding him hostage would control the woman?

Shao Lan saw the question in Jiang Mingran’s face.

“Remember the newspapers? The police found partial bodies all over the city. That means the killer was disposing of the remains afterward. And it was done very carefully and methodically, so the police couldn’t find any leads.”

“The woman isn’t capable of that. Someone else was disposing of the bodies for her.” Shao Lan pointed to the man. “Him.”

That was why this man went out in the small hours, and why so many black garbage bags had piled up by the door: to conceal his disposal of the bodies.

At 3:58 a.m., the killer and the fake policeman were both home. The killer was washing off blood. The fake policeman was gathering garbage bags by the entrance, preparing to go out and dispose of the remains.

At four, he finished and went out, shutting the security door with the sound they heard each loop. At the same time, the woman left the bathroom, crossed the living room, and went into the kitchen to cook the bodies.

In the second and third loops, they’d managed to call the police. The fake policeman had spotted the approaching police car and hurried home ahead of them.

But…

Jiang Mingran looked at him.

There was one last thing he didn’t understand.

Why would a human help a monster?

Who was he?

“He’s the diarist,” Shao Lan said quietly.

“We thought the diarist never got to call the police because he’d been killed… But there was another possibility. In the end, he chose to become the monster’s accomplice.”

He was both the killer’s accomplice and her weakness.