Chapter 317
Chapter 317
Hearing Lin Junruo, Mu Xin immediately counted the bells.
The others crowded around as well.
Except Xia Zeqin.
Qin Weiyi counted them too.
Then he sucked in a sharp breath.
“One is missing. Ten–there are only ten left,” Qin Weiyi said.
The others had reached the same answer.
When they found the wind chime, it held eleven bells and only one empty string. Now just ten bells remained, leaving two strings empty.
“Could one have fallen off by accident?” Lin Junruo knew it was unlikely, but voiced the possibility anyway.
If these were ordinary bells, losing one would be perfectly normal and unimportant.
But–
They suspected the bells represented the number of living people among them. Would that not mean only ten of their group remained alive?
How was that possible?
They had stayed together without separating. How could anyone have died?
Confused, everyone began scanning the companions around them.
Had a dead person already infiltrated their group?
They could not understand it.
They struggled to recall everything that had happened.
Yesterday, they encountered the ghosts and were trapped inside the Xie Residence. No one suffered an accident or came into close contact with a ghost. Everyone had been safe.
If anything unusual had happened to one of them…
Shi Chen.
The sole of Shi Chen’s shoe had rotted.
But there had still been eleven bells then, meaning Shi Chen had still been alive at that point. Apart from him…
As everyone thought it over, their gazes gradually settled on Jian Fan.
Not long ago, Jian Fan had thrown the pebble at those chairs.
If Fang Kang had died in that area as they suspected, then although Jian Fan had not touched anything with his own body, he was the one who disturbed the ghosts. Could it be…?
The thought weighed heavily on everyone.
Jian Fan was their Big Shot, the brains of the group. Losing him… None of them dared imagine it.
Qin Nan found the idea even harder to accept.
If something had happened to Jian Fan… No, no. Qin Nan immediately rejected the thought.
“He’s standing here perfectly well. How does he look dead?” Qin Nan put a hand on Jian Fan’s shoulder. “See? Solid. A real, living person.” Then he touched Jian Fan’s face. “Warm and alive!”
Jian Fan fell silent.
Qin Weiyi also found it unlikely.
If Jian Fan were dead, something unusual would surely show in his behavior. Yet there was nothing strange about him.
“Perhaps our theory is wrong,” Qin Weiyi finally concluded.
The others considered it and agreed.
All eleven of them were perfectly fine. How could one already be dead?
If all eleven were alive, then the problem lay with the bells.
Or their theory was simply wrong.
“Maybe they don’t represent the number of survivors. Could they represent the number of repetitions?” Yellow Hair suggested.
The others thought it over and found that possible too.
“Maybe this world can repeat only a fixed number of times, represented by the bells–twelve in total. We’ve gone through two cycles, so two bells are gone. One disappeared yesterday, right? We lose one after each cycle. If all twelve repetitions end before we escape, the world will erase us.”
The more Yellow Hair spoke, the more convinced he became. He clapped his hands. “That has to be it.”
Qin Nan nodded. “I think Yellow Hair is right. That should be the answer.”
“It’s easy to confirm. Once today’s cycle ends, we can check how many bells remain,” Yang Zhen said indifferently.
Everyone seemed to accept the explanation.
But Jian Fan–
He stared at the bells with a slight frown.
He did not think that was the answer.
They did not represent the cycles.
Their original theory was correct. Yet after looking at the group, Jian Fan kept that conclusion to himself.
When they did not know who had a problem, telling everyone that one of them was compromised would instantly destroy their already fragile trust. Suspicion would spread in every direction, which would only hinder their cooperation.
Therefore…
Jian Fan decided to identify the compromised person himself.
With that thought, his gaze passed over them one by one.
There were quite a few possible suspects.
He himself was one, though Jian Fan naturally knew he was still alive. Then there was Shi Chen, whose shoe had rotted. They still did not know what had caused that, which made him a possibility. Besides Shi Chen, there was–Yellow Hair.
Yellow Hair had been controlled by the stone statue yesterday. He was the only one among them who had fallen under its control, so there was a strong possibility something had happened to him.
Then there was Zhou Jingying.
Zhou Jingying had found the wooden carving. If the stone statue was dangerous, the carving might be as well. She had kept it on her person, which made her another plausible suspect.
As for Qin Weiyi… Qin Weiyi had touched the bells too. However, he had taken them out voluntarily, so the possibility that he was compromised was somewhat lower, though not nonexistent.
And the others?
Lu Jing?
He was possible too, since he had the highest Favorability with Miss Xie among them. Perhaps Miss Xie had directly selected the person with the highest Favorability as her groom, causing Lu Jing to die.
Still, Lu Jing did not look as though anything had happened to him. The possibility was small, but it remained.
Jian Fan pondered while slowly surveying everyone, countless possibilities rising in his mind.
Strictly speaking, any one of them could have been affected.
They had remained together, but someone might have touched or encountered something through a tiny movement no one noticed.
That made the situation rather bad.
Jian Fan sighed inwardly.
Having too many people in a group was not necessarily good. Once a spy or traitor appeared, there were so many possibilities that eliminating suspects became difficult.
The others felt uneasy too.
Yellow Hair’s theory had reassured them considerably, but they still could not completely suppress their concern. No one wanted to mention it now.
Qin Weiyi put the bells away. “We’ll know next time. There’s no point in making baseless guesses now.”
Since speculation was pointless, there was no reason to leave the troubling bells in view.
No one stopped him.
Zhou Jingying then took out the wooden carving she had found and placed it on the table. “Since we can’t determine what’s wrong with the bells yet, why don’t we investigate this carving?”
Everyone agreed.
The trouble was that no one knew where to begin with the wooden carving either.