Chapter 328: The Formalized Process and Result (3)

"Liar-Slayer: Eternal Kingdom!"

As Chen Ran spoke the password, the Secret Room instantly went pitch-black. In the darkness, Chen Ran's eyes widened, his face full of disbelief.

When the light returned.

The 12th floor was completely empty. Both Lin Xuan and Chen Ran were nowhere to be found.

…

The elevator was running and eventually stopped at the second floor. The elevator doors opened automatically. Qiu Hua stood inside, pressed the button for the first floor, and walked out of the elevator.

Not long after.

Four people successively came down from upstairs to the second floor.

Without exception, these four people were either Ye Qian or Qiu Hua.

The elevator that had gone down to the first floor was ascending, and eventually also stopped at the second floor. Two people walked out of it: Qiu Hua and Ye Qian.

When the Qiu Hua walking out of the elevator saw so many Qiu Huas and Ye Qians on the second floor, he froze for a moment but didn't say anything, simply finding a random spot to sit down. The same went for Ye Qian.

At this moment, there were already seven people on the second floor: three Ye Qians and four Qiu Huas. They were all waiting for the eighth person to appear.

Step, step, step.

Footsteps came from upstairs; someone seemed to be walking downstairs slowly. Soon, Gao Lan appeared on the staircase between the second and third floors.

When he saw the faces of the seven people clearly, he cried out "Oh no" in his heart and sprinted back upstairs.

No one went to chase him.

The corners of the seven people's mouths twitched. Although they didn't say anything, they were definitely cursing in their hearts:

'Idiot!'

The logic here was very simple. If the Gao Lan just now was the real Gao Lan, and Gao Lan was a mouse, then the true cats among the seven people would definitely touch him. If Gao Lan was not the real Gao Lan, but only mice could transform, then the Gao Lan who wasn't Gao Lan was also a mouse, and the true cats would still touch him to clear the stage.

In other words, if the mice wanted to avoid having their identities confirmed by the true cats, their only option was to transform into the true cats' appearances and Fish in Murky Waters.

And that was indeed the case. At this moment, among the seven cats on the second floor, five of them must be mice in disguise. If the true cats wanted to clear the stage, they had to determine which of the other six were true cats and which were fake cats.

(Here, let's designate Qiu Hua and Ye Qian with letters: A, B, C, D.)

At this moment, Qiu Hua A—who was the Qiu Hua that first took the elevator—spoke solemnly: "I have a question. According to the rules, two mice cannot hide on the second floor. There were eight people left in the Secret Room we were previously in, which means only six people should be able to appear on the second floor. Yet we have seven people here. Why?"

These two mice were naturally Lin Xuan and Gao Lan. They had been caught multiple times and couldn't possibly appear on the second floor.

Qiu Hua D—who was the Qiu Hua that took the elevator up to the second floor with Ye Qian C—seized the loophole in Qiu Hua A's words and retorted:

"How are you certain there are eight people left?"

Hearing this, everyone looked at Qiu Hua A suspiciously.

That's right, the players upstairs and on the first floor from before all had Wallfacer attributes. They didn't know each other's numbers.

Simply put, the players on the first floor didn't know that Guan Xiong upstairs had already cleared the stage.

The players upstairs also didn't know that the Three-Star female player had already cleared the stage.

Although they could deduce it, they would never dare to say with a certain tone...

There are eight people left in the Secret Room!

Of course, with one exception...

And that was the Five-Star Youth!

The reason was simple. After the Five-Star Youth was touched by the Three-Star female player, he entered the Ghost State and quickly went upstairs. At that time, Guan Xiong on the sixth floor hadn't cleared the stage yet. The Five-Star Youth could have used the Ghost State to peek at the process of Guan Xiong clearing the stage upstairs.

Whether Qiu Hua A accidentally let it slip or deliberately exposed a flaw, no one knew.

But the possibility of Qiu Hua A being the Five-Star Youth was very high. After all, only he could be certain of the exact number of people in the Secret Room.

Qiu Hua A blew a smoke ring, looked around at everyone, and revealed two rows of white teeth:

"The reason we chose the second floor, isn't it because we thought that there are two mice who cannot come down to the second floor, while the Five-Star Youth can come down to the second floor?"

"Since this is a layout targeting the Five-Star Youth, then Lin Xuan should have cleared the field in advance. Namely, the Three-Star female player and Gao Lan's three teammates would be made to clear the stage."

"Therefore, it's not surprising that I deduced there are eight people left in the Secret Room, right?"

Saying this, he pointed at Qiu Hua D and Ye Qian C, continuing his output: "The two of you took the elevator up from the first floor. I'm very curious as to why you just now thought the first floor was everyone's gathering place, and not the second floor?"

Actually, everyone knew very well in their hearts that the Five-Star Youth, Lin Xuan, and Gao Lan couldn't possibly appear on the first floor. If the remaining five people converged on the first floor first, they could confirm that the Five-Star Youth was not among them. Then the Five-Star Youth must be among the other three, narrowing the search scope from seven people down to three.

But clearly, only two people thought of this layer, while the other three didn't.

Qiu Hua A's words seemed like an interrogation, but in reality, they were meant to let the others rule out Qiu Hua D and Ye Qian C as the Five-Star Youth.

Seeing his goal achieved, Qiu Hua A outputted again: "If the true cat Qiu Hua is among us, he could touch the other Qiu Huas and possibly clear the stage, but he didn't do that."

The key point of this sentence was...

【Possibly.】

Logically speaking, if the true cat Qiu Hua was really among them, then the other Qiu Huas would be mice in disguise, and the true Qiu Hua would definitely be able to clear the Secret Room by touching them.

But he said 【Possibly】.

He chose to Avoid Lying regarding an event that was guaranteed to succeed, indicating that in Qiu Hua A's deduction: touching the other Qiu Huas was not 【Guaranteed to succeed】, and there were other possibilities.

The others took a deep look at Qiu Hua A.

Qiu Hua A didn't speak much, but every sentence contained hidden information.

To summarize:

One: The number of people was problematic.

Two: Qiu Hua D and Ye Qian C could not possibly be the Five-Star Youth.

Three: Why didn't the two true cats dare to touch the mice disguised as them?

…

Seeing this, the youth snapped his fingers lightly, and the seven people in the scene seemed to be frozen.

This bizarre scene was like hitting pause while watching a TV show because something came up.

The youth asked with a smile: "Why don't you guess who Qiu Hua A is in disguise?"

Chen Ran shook his head. Based on the current situation, it was simply impossible to determine who Qiu Hua A was.

"Then let me change the question. At most six people can appear on the second floor. Why did seven people appear on the second floor in the scene?"

Chen Ran pondered and said:

"There is only one possibility. Among the seven people in the scene, at least two of them are the exact same person from different spaces."

"Reason?" the youth continued to ask.

This question...

Stumped Chen Ran!

Because in his deduction, Lin Xuan had used his skill a total of two times.

The first time: when Gao Lan used his skill to summon the Senior, Lin Xuan stealthily used a spatial skill once, transferring Chen Ran to another space, and transferring the Chen Ran from that other space over.

The second time: The Chen Ran in the scene was the Chen Ran from the other space and couldn't use Eternal Kingdom, but the Secret Room went dark, indicating that Lin Xuan was the one using a skill.

The key lay in the second time.

When the Chen Ran in the scene spoke the skill password, the other players would mistakenly think that Lin Xuan's skill had already been broken by Chen Ran.

But in reality, the person using the skill was actually Lin Xuan.

This trap was targeting the Five-Star Youth. Therefore, the person he transferred when he used his skill the second time could only be the Five-Star Youth, and the Five-Star Youth would think the Secret Room going dark was Chen Ran using his skill.

He did this because he wanted to make the Five-Star Youth formulate an erroneous judgment, believing that Eternal Kingdom had already broken Lin Xuan's spatial skill, and that the current space was the original space.

But the second floor in the scene, which should have had at most six people, had seven. The Five-Star Youth would immediately realize that Chen Ran hadn't used Eternal Kingdom just now.

Then, Lin Xuan having the Chen Ran in the scene use his skill, as well as his second use of a skill, would become completely meaningless.

Seeing this, the youth smiled: "You still underestimate the power of spatial skills. The fact that Lin Xuan caught the eye of the Nine-Star Floor Master already explains the problem. It's simply because his skill is extremely perfect. Theoretically, he can cross Star Ratings to kill people. However many stars there are, he can cross that many; there is no upper limit."