An old tungsten lamp, suspended from the center of the room by a black electrical wire, flickered with a dim light. The tranquil atmosphere was like ink dropped into clear water, spreading and blooming throughout the room. In the center of the room was a round table, looking mottled and worn.
A small mantel clock with intricate patterns stood in the middle of the table, ticking away. Ten people in varied attire sat around the table. Their clothes looked somewhat tattered, and their faces were stained with a good deal of dust.
Some were slumped over the tabletop, others leaned back in their chairs, all deep in sleep. Beside these ten people stood a man in a goat-head mask and a black suit, watching them quietly. His gaze pierced through the dilapidated goat-head mask, staring at the ten people with great interest.
The mantel clock on the table chimed, its minute and hour hands both pointing to 'twelve'. From a distant place far outside the room, the low toll of a bell could be heard. At that very moment, the ten men and women sitting around the round table slowly began to awaken.
As they gradually came to, they first looked around in a daze, then at each other in confusion. It seemed no one could remember why they were here.
“Good morning, you nine,” the goat-head man spoke first.
“It is a pleasure to meet you here. You have been slumbering before me for twelve hours.”
The man's attire was truly bizarre, giving everyone a fright in the dim light. His mask looked as if it were made from a real goat's head. Much of the fur had yellowed and blackened, matted and stuck together.
Two empty holes were carved out for the eyes of the goat mask, revealing his cunning gaze. With every move he made, he not only exuded the unique gamy smell of a goat, but also a faint stench of decay.
A man with a tattooed arm was stunned for a few seconds before he finally realized how absurd the situation was. He hesitated before asking the goat-head man, “Who… are you?”
“I believe you all have this question. In that case, I shall introduce myself to the nine of you.”
The goat-head man waved his hands happily; it looked like he had prepared his answer long ago. A young man named Qi Xia, sitting farthest from the goat-head man, quickly surveyed the room. A moment later, his expression grew grave.
Strange.
This room was just too strange. There were no doors here, only four walls. In other words, the room was sealed on all four sides, including the ceiling and floor, yet a table was placed right in the center.
If that was the case, how had they gotten here? Could it be that they were brought in first, and then the walls were built? Qi Xia looked around again.
The floor, walls, and ceiling were all covered in a crisscrossing grid of lines, dividing the surfaces into many squares. Another point that concerned Qi Xia was the goat-head man’s mention of “you nine”. No matter how he counted, there were ten people sitting around the round table.
Including the goat-head man himself, there were a total of eleven people in the room. What did “you nine” mean? He reached into his pocket.
As expected, his phone was long gone.
“There’s no need for introductions,” a cold-voiced woman said to the goat-head man.
“I advise you to cease your actions at once. I suspect you have detained us for over twenty-four hours, which constitutes the crime of ‘unlawful detention.’ Every word you say now will be recorded and become testimony against you.”
As she spoke, she disdainfully rubbed the dust from her arms, as if she found being dirty more repulsive than being held captive. The cold woman's words did indeed sober everyone up. No matter who this person was, to dare kidnap ten people single-handedly, he had, in any case, crossed the bottom line of the law.
“Wait…”
A middle-aged man in a white coat interrupted everyone’s train of thought. He slowly turned to the cold woman and asked, “We all just woke up. How do you know we’ve been held captive for ‘twenty-four hours’?”
His tone was steady and forceful, yet his question was sharp and to the point. The cold woman unhurriedly pointed at the mantel clock on the table and answered, “The clock here points to twelve. But I have a habit of staying up late, and it was already twelve o’clock the last time I checked the time at home.
This proves we’ve been held captive for at least twelve hours.” After she finished, she pointed to the surrounding walls and continued, “You should have also noticed that there are no doors in this room. This means this person went to great lengths to get us in here.
He said we have been asleep for twelve hours, and now the clock points to twelve again. This indicates it has made at least two full rotations. Therefore, I suspect it’s been ‘over twenty-four hours.’
Is there a problem with that?” After hearing her answer, the man in the white coat gave the woman a cold glance, his eyes still filled with suspicion. After all, in this kind of environment, this woman was far too calm.
Would a normal person facing such a kidnapping react so calmly and say such things? At this moment, a sturdy young man in a black T-shirt asked, “Goat Head, why are there ten people here, yet you said there were nine?” The goat-head man remained silent and did not answer immediately.
“Damn you to hell, I don't care how many people are here…” the tattooed man cursed.
He pushed against the table, trying to stand, but found his legs were limp and powerless. He could only continue pointing at the goat-head man and say, “You little punk, I suggest you wise up. You probably have no idea what the consequences are for messing with me.
I’ll seriously take your life.” As soon as he said this, the expressions of the men present gradually turned stern. This was indeed a time when they needed someone to take the lead.
If they could subdue this goat-head man together, then the situation would still be under control. However, everyone discovered that their legs felt as if they had been injected with something; they were completely powerless at this moment. And so, the tattooed man could only resort to threatening the goat-head man with words, cursing loudly.
Qi Xia did not speak. He raised a hand to stroke his chin slightly, his eyes fixed on the mantel clock on the table, lost in thought. Things seemed to be not as simple as he had imagined.
He knew the goat-head man had said “nine participants.” If there were ten people here, it could only mean that one of them was not a participant. Who was it?
There were six men and four women sitting in the room. Could it be that one of them was a “kidnapper”? The goat-head man said no more.
He slowly walked over to Qi Xia’s side and stood behind a young man. Everyone followed his gaze and only then discovered that the young man before them was different from everyone else present. Although his face was also dirty, it was suffused with a blissful smile.
The goat-head man slowly raised his palm and placed it on the back of the young man’s head. The young man’s smile grew even more bizarre. He gave everyone an excited look; it seemed he had known something all along.
With only a muffled thud, the goat-head man brutally slammed the young man’s head onto the tabletop. A pinkish-white substance, like spilled paint, spread horizontally across the table in an instant. Droplets of blood splattered beside everyone's faces.
The young man’s skull had actually been smashed to pieces on the tabletop. Outside the room, the distant toll of a bell rang out once more. Qi Xia was very close to the deceased.
He felt an unidentified object stick to his face—it was warm and sticky. He had always thought of himself as mentally strong enough, but he never expected to find himself trembling at this moment.
The girl sitting to the right of the dead man was stunned for three seconds before her face finally contorted, and she let out a piercing scream. This scream tore through everyone’s psychological defenses. To be able to smash the hardest bone in the human body on a table with his bare hands—was that goat-head man still “human”?
How could his slender body erupt with such immense strength? The goat-head man slowly spoke, “The reason I prepared ten people is that I needed to use one of them to make you all quiet down.”