The woman's scream stopped, and everyone's thoughts came to an abrupt halt. The few men who had just been clamoring and cursing now fell silent. This was no longer a matter of being "illegal"; the strange man before them would actually kill someone.
After a full minute of silence, the goat-head man nodded slightly.
"Very good, the nine of you. It seems you've all quieted down."
The faces of the crowd changed, but no one dared to speak. Just as he said, there were now truly "nine" of them. Qi Xia stretched out a trembling hand and picked a pinkish-yellow object off his face.
That piece of shattered brain, still warm from the body, was twitching slightly. But after a few seconds, it lost all signs of life, like a deflated ball.
"Next, please allow me to introduce myself..."
The goat-head man extended a blood-soaked finger, pointed at his own mask, and said, "I am the 'Goat-Head Man', and you are the 'participants'." Hearing this, everyone was stunned, then a little confused. The 'Goat-Head Man', 'participants'?
"I have gathered you all here today to participate in a game, and ultimately, to create a 'God'," the goat-head man said in a flat tone.
These two consecutive sentences made everyone frown. After these few minutes together, everyone had a rough understanding that the man before them was a madman, yet this madman claimed he wanted to create a 'God'?
"Create... what kind of god?" the sturdy young man asked, a little nervously.
"A god just like 'Nuwa'!" the goat-head man said, gesticulating wildly.
He reeked of a rank, bloody smell, and his voice carried a savage tone.
"How wonderful! You will witness history along with us! The Nuwa of the past created humanity, but turned into a rainbow when mending the heavens... We cannot lose Nuwa, so we must create a Nuwa! There is a great task waiting for the 'God' to perform!"
His voice grew progressively louder, and his whole body seemed to be pumped full of adrenaline.
"Nuwa..."
The sturdy young man's brow furrowed tightly. He felt this whole affair was simply too hard to accept. He paused, then asked, "Are you some kind of religion?"
"Religion?"
The goat-head man paused slightly, turning to the young man.
"We are far more magnificent than a 'religion'. We have a 'World'!"
Hearing this, the crowd fell silent again. The sturdy man's question had been very pointed. The goat-head man's actions were no different from those of an evil cult, but most evil cults tended to invent a new god, rather than using a heroic figure like Nuwa.
"In that case..." the sturdy man continued to ask, "what do you want us to come here and 'participate' in?"
"I've already told you, it's just a game," the goat-head man replied without a second thought.
"If you win, one of you will become a 'God'."
"Damn it all..."
The tattooed man seemed to have calmed down. He cursed under his breath and said, "The 'Investiture of the Gods', is it? What if we can't win?"
"Can't win..."
The goat-head man looked at the bloodstains on his hands and said with some disappointment, "If you can't win, that would be such a pity..." Although he didn't say it directly, everyone understood his meaning. If you can't win, you die.
Among the options he gave, "getting out alive" was not one of them. Either become his so-called 'God', or die here like the young man with his head blown open.
"If everyone understands... then this 'game' officially begins. The name of this game is 'The Liar'."
The goat-head man slowly pulled a stack of paper from his pocket, then casually walked over to each person and placed a sheet down. Then he took out several pens and distributed them to the crowd. There were many bloodstains on the table.
When each person's white paper landed on the table, it was stained red. Flipping the paper over and wiping it with a hand, the blood-red spread out like paint, making the white paper even redder.
"Next, I want each of you to tell a story about the last thing that happened before you came here," the goat-head man continued.
"But you must pay attention. Among all the storytellers, one person has told a lie. When all nine of you have finished your stories, you will begin to vote. If every single person chooses 'The Liar', the liar is eliminated, and everyone else survives. If even one person chooses incorrectly, the liar survives, and everyone else is eliminated."
"The Liar...?"
Everyone was a bit confused. Would someone really lie at a time like this, with life and death on the line?
"Wait, can we discuss 'tactics'?" the sturdy man suddenly asked.
"As you wish."
The goat-head man nodded.
"Before the game starts, you have one minute to discuss tactics among yourselves. Would you like to use it now... or later?"
"I want to use it now," the sturdy man said without hesitation.
"Be my guest."
The goat-head man took a step back, away from the table. The sturdy man pursed his lips, then scanned the crowd, his gaze trying its best to avoid the headless corpse slumped on the table. He began to speak, "I don't know which one of you is going to lie later, but this 'rule' sounds far too arbitrary.
If just one person votes incorrectly, all of us will die. And even if we choose correctly, that liar will also die. It seems that no matter what, someone will die.
I've now thought of a way for everyone to survive..." Hearing this, the crowd turned to look at the sturdy man. Letting everyone survive, was such a thing possible?
"And that is for none of us to lie."
Before everyone could figure it out, the sturdy man immediately announced the answer.
"All nine of us will tell the truth. In the end, we'll write on this paper 'No one lied'. This way, we don't violate the rules, and we can all survive."
The middle-aged man in a white coat tapped the table lightly with his fingers, then spoke after a moment.
"Your plan is very good, but there's a prerequisite, which is that 'you yourself are not the liar'. But how can we trust you? If you were the liar to begin with, and we all write 'No one lied', then in the end, you would be the only one to survive."
"What kind of talk is that?"
The sturdy man's face flushed with a bit of anger.
"If I were the liar, why would I suggest something like this? I would only need to protect myself."
The goat-head man waved his hand slightly and said, "One minute is up. Please stop communicating." The two men both snorted coldly and said no more.
"Next, please draw a card, everyone."
The goat-head man pulled another deck of cards from his pants pocket. The cards looked to be about the size of playing cards, and on the back were written the four words "Nuwa Game". The sturdy man was taken aback and asked, "What is this?"
"This is an 'Identity Card'," the goat-head man said with a broad smile.
"If you draw 'The Liar', you must lie."
The sturdy man bit his lip hard.
"Are you messing with us?! If there was a rule like this, why didn't you say so beforehand?!"
"This is to teach you a lesson," the goat-head man said with a cold sneer.
"I hadn't even finished explaining the rules when you asked me if you could discuss tactics. You were the ones who wasted a precious minute, not me for failing to tell you in advance."
The sturdy man's expression turned ugly, but thinking of the goat-head man's methods of killing, he swallowed his anger. Within a minute, all nine people had drawn a card from the goat-head man's hand, but no one dared to flip it over to look.
If the card said "The Liar", then it would become a question of whether they lived or everyone else lived. The hands of the four women were trembling slightly, and the men's faces weren't looking much better. This wasn't drawing an "identity", but "life or death".
Qi Xia took a deep breath, casually covered his card with his hand, and then moved it in front of his eyes. He gently flipped it over for a look. On it were written, clear as day, the three words "The Liar".