Chapter 1975: The Mystery of the Ghost Skull 36

The fire grew larger and larger, thick black smoke shooting up into the sky.

From a distance, the ignited building looked like a red-hot smokestack, so conspicuous in the city that even the sky was turned red.

"Brother Lin, are we really letting them go?"

Standing behind Lin An, watching Lin An continuously drawing maps on the ground, Gao Tian couldn't help but ask in a low voice.

He simply couldn't understand why Brother Lin would let Qing Kai go, not to mention that guy's hostility toward them; Qing Kai himself might be an important "prop" for completing their cognition.

If worse comes to worst, even killing him and leaving a corpse would do...

"It's unnecessary.. and I have my own plan."

Lin An lifted his head, dropped the charcoal in his hand, and looked calmly at Gao Tian:

"Qing Kai's understanding is the same as ours; even if he hid something, we couldn't get it out of him, and what we did get might not be correct."

"Rather than keep him here, it's better to let him scout ahead."

With a tap of the charcoal in his hand, Lin An lowered his head and gestured for Gao Tian to look at the map he had drawn:

"Look, this is the mission exit, located due north of the city."

"The point below the mission exit is the apartment we entered; going down leads to the studio where we found the camera. And we are currently near this spot."

"This point.."

Lin An slowly moved the charcoal to the lower right of the studio, drawing a circle:

"This is where you entered."

"Do you see it? Actually we're not far away; the straight-line distance is about ten kilometers."

"Whoosh"

Lin An drew a circle with his bare hands, directly enclosing the apartment and the art gallery.

"We are mostly in the city's northeast; the rest of the area is completely unknown. If we calculate by explored area, we've covered roughly ten percent of the city."

After his words fell, Lin An lifted his head and asked softly:

"Have you thought of anything? Gao Tian?"

"Thought of what?"

Gao Tian froze, then frowned tightly, and after a few seconds hesitantly spoke:

"Brother Lin, you mean the city is huge, and everyone else is in the remaining 90% area; you want Qing Kai and them to go find the rest of the people? Anyway, in the end they'll have to pass through here again to finish the mission."

"I can't think of anything more.."

With a bitter laugh, since entering the mission, Gao Tian has been unable to find a clue.

To be honest, aside from Brother Zhang's offhand remark that enlightened him, giving him some ideas, up to now he still hasn't figured out what this mission is really about or what he needs to do.

However, contrary to Gao Tian's expectations, Lin An stood up and shook his head:

"No, I never thought of letting Qing Kai go find others, then lie in ambush to capture their cognition."

"I let him leave for another reason."

Without explaining the reason, Lin An paused briefly, then simply skipped this point:

"Gao Tian, haven't you noticed that whether it's the red robes, Guldan, or the people I've come into contact with, they all know each other? If there are any other teams nearby, they would be the Hai Yao and the God Archers' clan."

"Why is this such a coincidence?"

Before Gao Tian could blink in confusion, Lin An shifted his tone and spoke again:

"The mission has now entered the second level; unexpectedly, we must face the ghosts' attack. This means the clues have been found, and all that remains is to solve the combination."

"We found two clues, you found one. This shows that each person's system hints are different, and the system entered the second level after we obtained the camera."

"What does this mean? It means that before I got the camera, everyone else's clues had already been found!"

"That's wrong! The time is too short, too rushed! Could it be that no team delayed time, and no one failed to crack the information?"

Turning around, Lin An's eyes flickered, as if he had thought of an extremely absurd idea:

"Even if we concede that others only need to find one piece of information, once the second level begins they must cross the entire city toward the exit!"

"Along the way, do you think they'll encounter ghost pursuits? They definitely will! Moreover, most will die on the road! Their difficulty will only be greater than ours!"

"The more they walk, the more likely they'll run into ghosts!"

"Is this fair!?"

Gao Tian blinked, then hesitated to speak:

"Brother Lin, you mean because the mission entered the second level too quickly, others are far from the exit, so their risk is much greater than ours. But the system wouldn't be that unfair."

"Could it be... that the remaining over a hundred people are actually nearby as well?"

"For example..."

Mid-sentence, Gao Tian suddenly stopped, realizing this logic doesn't hold.

"No..!"

"If they were all nearby, we should have run into them on the road! And the city is so big; if the clues are all concentrated in this circle, what's the point of the other areas!?"

"So...!?"

Gao Tian's heart jolted, and he instantly realized what Lin An had thought of.

"So the teleportation isn't random; it's deliberately allocated by the system!"

Lin An nodded and directly stated the conclusion:

"1: The system wouldn't be that unfair, making others cross the city while we only need to wait at the exit."

"2: The remaining over a hundred people must be distributed across other parts of the city, at various distances!"

"3: The second level was entered too quickly, yet our two teams can both understand the clues, each with our own approach."

"In summary!"

"I suspect the members of other teams never found any clues, or rather, the system never released information to them!"

Combined, as long as someone can complete the task, everyone will be resurrected to see...

Then no matter how impossible the answer is, it's still an answer!

Taking a deep breath, Lin An looked toward the distance with a solemn gaze, word by word:

There is only one explanation!

That is, everyone else is dead! They died at the start of the mission!

Only this way would there be no need to cross the city, no need for them to look for clues!