At this time, the tattooed man raised his hand and looked at the goat-head man.
"Hey, referee, what about someone with an alias? Does that count as lying?"
The goat-head man neither nodded nor shook his head, only saying faintly, "I will not be involved in any part of the process from here on out. You need only write down the name you believe is correct. You only need to remember, 'the rules are absolute'.
In the end, I will personally carry out the 'punishment' on the loser." The word "punishment" resounded with force, sending an involuntary shiver through the crowd.
"Th-this proves I wasn't lying!"
Tian Tian shouted anxiously.
"If I were lying, I'd be dead by now, right? Even if it's an alias, my alias really is 'Tian Tian'!"
No one answered her. This was now a critical stage of life and death; no point of suspicion could be overlooked.
"Then it's my turn to talk," the tattooed man said, curling his lip with a look of reluctance.
"If this young lady's story doesn't count as a lie, then mine definitely won't either."
"My name is Qiao Jiajin. I live in Guangdong, and I don't really have a profession. Before coming here, I was collecting debts."
Qiao Jiajin's Mandarin was rather poor, so everyone had to listen carefully.
"People these days are really something. They'll promise you anything when they're borrowing money, but the moment it's time to pay it back, they start crying about how miserable they are."
"Damned bastards, they curse us debt collectors, call us devils, call us cold-blooded."
"But that punk should try to see it from another perspective. When he was at his most helpless, when he needed money the most, it was me who extended a helping hand. When no institution would lend him money, it was me who lent it to him. To him, I wasn't a devil, but a savior."
"But how did he treat me, his savior?"
"He went around crying about how hard his life was, how he was scammed out of two million. Then he furiously condemned us debt collectors for being so cold-blooded, actually trying to use the sympathy of his neighbors to solve his own predicament. But we signed a contract when he borrowed the money, and all the interest rates were clearly explained to him. If he can't pay it back, is that our problem?"
"Last night, I was preparing to teach him a lesson. I took him to the rooftop of a tall building, but I never expected an earthquake to suddenly hit. I never wanted his life, but that punk actually took advantage of the chaos to pull out a knife and try to kill me!"
"In the midst of the chaos, he pushed me off the rooftop, and I crashed into an advertising billboard. As for what happened after... I can't remember any of it."
After hearing the man's story, everyone frowned. But Tian Tian, as if she had discovered something, said with a furious laugh, "See! I knew you were trying to throw mud at me!
It turns out you're the one who's The Liar!"
"What? On what grounds do you say I'm lying?"
Qiao Jiajin said viciously.
"I was in Shaanxi, you were in Guangdong!"
Tian Tian pointed at him and said, "You basically just made up your story by copying mine! There was an earthquake where I was, and suddenly you had an earthquake too. I was hit by a billboard, and you just happened to crash into a billboard too!
If that isn't lying, what is?"
"I don't care where you were. I just happened to run into an earthquake," the tattooed man said, his eyes wide.
"If I concealed it and didn't say anything, now that would be lying! As for the billboard, it's not like there's only one billboard in the entire world, is there?"
"In short, you're the one who's lying!"
Tian Tian said, pointing at Qiao Jiajin.
"Your profession is the kind of work bad guys do, so it's not strange for you to lie!"
"Heh, and how is your profession any better than mine?"
Qi Xia looked at the two arguing fiercely and felt that this matter was indeed a bit strange. It wasn't because one of them was lying, but because he, too, had encountered an earthquake. He wasn't in Shaanxi, nor was he in Guangdong.
He was in Shandong. Could an earthquake of such a scale exist in this World? This earthquake spanned half the country and involved four provinces.
If what they were all saying was true, wouldn't this be an unprecedented disaster?
"Stop arguing. Let's just end this quickly," the sturdy man sitting opposite them cut them off, then looked at the next woman.
"It's your turn. If we really have to judge who's lying, we might as well wait until everyone has finished speaking."
Hearing this, the two of them let out a cold snort and fell silent. The woman next to Qiao Jiajin nodded timidly and began to speak, "Um... I-I'm Xiao Ran, a kindergarten teacher."
It seemed this girl named Xiao Ran was quite frightened. Her voice was very soft and trembled as she spoke.
"Before I came here, I was with a child, waiting for his parents. It used to be his mother who picked him up, but later I heard she got seriously ill, that something grew in her brain and she needed surgery... so for the past few days, his father has been picking him up instead, but it seems his father often forgets to come..."
"Yesterday, it was already past six in the evening. I was actually long past my work hours, but for some reason, the child's father still wouldn't answer his phone..."
"I didn't know the child's home address, so I couldn't take him home. I could only stand with him at the intersection and wait."
"Actually, I had something to do that night too... I had an appointment with a therapist. I felt like I wasn't very fond of my current job, and I was hoping the therapist could help me sort things out."
"But I never imagined I'd end up waiting for several hours. My evening appointment fell through."
"Just as my mind was wandering, the whole ground suddenly began to shake. I was terrified... It took a few seconds for me to realize it was an earthquake..."
"The feeling of an earthquake wasn't like what you hear about... The ground wasn't jumping up and down, but swaying from side to side. It felt like I was standing on a table, and someone was continuously shaking it..."
"The first thing I did was hold the child next to me in my arms, but I didn't know what to do either. I saw the Three Pagodas of Sacred Temple in the distance start to crack... Luckily, we were standing in an open area."
"Right after that, I saw a small car that was out of control rushing towards us... I could only stagger away, holding the child, but the swaying ground made me fall with every step I took."
"The last time I fell, I hit my head... and passed out right away. When I woke up, I was already here."
This was a rather unremarkable account. The only thing that Qi Xia found strange was the 'Three Pagodas of Sacred Temple'. Those three pagodas were in Dali, Yunnan.
Qi Xia gently caressed the card on the table. Although his hand covered the three words, he knew that what was written there was 'The Liar'. So, could there be multiple liars?
If 'the rules are absolute', then what the goat-head man had just said—'there is one and only one liar'—was absolute. Since he had drawn 'The Liar', it proved that no one else could be The Liar. There was only one.
They were all telling the truth. But these stories, spanning four provinces, were faintly connected. It wasn't just the earthquake; even the contents of their stories were linked.
Wasn't that too strange? At this moment, everyone's gaze turned to the next person, the middle-aged man in a white coat.