Chapter 101: The Dead [Silence] Believer

The Dead 【Silence】 Believer

"So, you call this nature?"

Qin Chaoge looked at the tight, spaghetti-strap dress that barely covered Hu Xuan's skin with a sneer; she might as well have pointed at her forehead and said, "You're just being a slut."

Hu Xuan remained indifferent to her attitude, even reaching out a hand to beckon Qin Chaoge.

"Come, let me lead you to experience nature."

"Do you think I'm afraid of you?"

Qin Chaoge sneered, extended her own muscular arm—which made Cheng Shi feel ashamed just looking at it—and grabbed the soft little hand in front of her.

The brutal force even turned Hu Xuan's palm bright red.

Yet Hu Xuan kept her smile; she seemed unable to feel pain, instead closing her eyes and whispering:

"May anger dissolve, may divisions mend, may you and I be of one heart. Relax, He is watching you."

As soon as she finished speaking, Qin Chaoge threw Hu Xuan's hand away in shock, stepped back twice with a frown, and asked in a deep, uncertain voice:

"What did you do!?"

Hu Xuan smiled, pulled her hand back to touch her rapidly swelling belly, and said gently:

"Look, our child."

Just like that, everyone present was stunned.

"Huh? No... wait, huh?"

Cheng Shi's jaw was about to hit the floor.

His gaze darted repeatedly between Hu Xuan and Qin Chaoge, occasionally glancing at Hu Xuan's belly.

His eyes grew wider and wider, while the corners of his mouth curled up more and more noticeably.

Is it this stimulating?

Getting this far?

Speaking of which, since she's already pregnant, does that count as the end of the mission?

Li Bola, standing to the side, was also examining the newborn in Hu Xuan's belly with great interest, while Ji Ran, who had been blown away, crawled back on all fours, sighing incessantly as he looked at the already slightly protruding belly:

"Impressive, sister, how did you do it?"

Hu Xuan nodded with a smile and reached out to Ji Ran:

"Come."

"..."

Cheng Shi had never felt this word "come" to be so demonic; he instinctively retreated a step, only to find Ji Ran running faster than him.

"Forget it, forget it. You're already pregnant with one, I won't add to your burden."

"..."

Everyone was watching the show, except for Qin Chaoge, whose face was as gloomy as if she had eaten shit.

She couldn't be sure what exactly the newborn in Hu Xuan's belly was, nor could she be sure if Hu Xuan had any "special" means to influence her through this newborn. Leaving such a flaw right at the start would be frustrating for anyone.

But frustration was useless; this Life Sage was clearly stronger than the others.

At the very least, Cheng Shi had never heard of someone getting pregnant just by touching hands.

"Alright, the introductions are done, and the crystallization of love has been witnessed. We should get down to business."

Li Bola finally spoke to end this incredibly chaotic situation; she suppressed a laugh as she looked at Qin Chaoge and asked meaningfully:

"Miss Voice of the Storm, can you tell us now where the last teammate is?"

The group looked at Qin Chaoge with some surprise, only to see her gnash her teeth in anger, then lower her voice with a complex expression:

"Dead. Right next door to my room. They're already dead."

"???"

Cheng Shi blinked in shock, seemingly unable to grasp the current situation.

"Dead?"

"That's right. Before I woke up, they were already dead."

Saying this, Qin Chaoge walked toward the dead teammate's room with a dark face.

The group followed behind, bewildered, with a thousand thoughts racing through their minds.

Cheng Shi's head was buzzing even more.

No way, a teammate died next door, and you could still be here acting all hot and bothered with us?

Sister, you really have a big heart.

Then again, if your heart wasn't big, you wouldn't be having a baby with a girl you just met.

The Hunter sister is also a bit fierce; how did she figure that out?

"..."

When the players arrived in front of the room next to Qin Chaoge's, their sightseeing assistant followed them again. Qin Chaoge clearly didn't want these people to know a murder had occurred inside, so she stopped the assistants again, telling them to stay aside and not disturb her.

The group pushed the door open and filed in, seeing two corpses lying at opposite ends of the room as soon as they entered.

One was clearly a sightseeing assistant from the hotel.

And the other...

"That's him, the 【Silence】 believer."

?

No wonder you dared to declare your faith directly; you already knew your opponent was dead, didn't you?

Cheng Shi chuckled inwardly, very much wanting to ask if Qin Chaoge was the one who killed them.

"I didn't kill them. After I woke up, I heard not even the sound of wind next door, so I highly suspected that this match had paired me with someone of an opposing faith.

So I climbed in from the window, wanting to get to know them beforehand."

"..."

This statement left everyone speechless.

Only a fool would believe you. "Wanting to get to know them beforehand," my ass; you were probably just wanting to have a fight first to test this person's strength.

"Then I saw their corpse.

They... had already committed suicide.

When I came in, I broke the original silence domain. The assistant outside heard the commotion and pushed the door open to check. I was afraid of alerting others, so I killed them."

The group's eyes narrowed as they looked at the other corpse.

She said she killed someone, but she killed someone from Yuanmu Town.

Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow in surprise upon hearing this.

The death pose of this sightseeing assistant also clearly looked like suicide. If Qin Chaoge hadn't confessed beforehand, the group might have analyzed it in other directions.

But what was her purpose in confessing?

Hearing is false, seeing is believing. The players didn't fully trust Qin Chaoge's words and began to look around.

Li Bola was a Hunter and very skilled at checking traces. After looking around the room, she gave her conclusion directly:

"What she said is true.

All traces match the Singer's description. As for this dead teammate..."

She walked up to the corpse, crouched slightly, and pulled open the 【Silence】 believer's collar.

"Male, between 40-50 years old. Calluses on the hands from a bow, string marks on the shoulder; he's an old hunter.

The wound is on the chest. Based on the traces, he should have used his right hand to hold the dagger in reverse and stabbed it into his heart.

The strike was decisive, without any hesitation, and the position was precise, consistent with the usual style of those who 【Silence】.

However...

He did not commit suicide!

Just like this unlucky sightseeing assistant, although they both look like suicides, neither of them is!"

As soon as Li Bola finished speaking, everyone in the room looked at Qin Chaoge, and the atmosphere became tense.

Indeed, if Qin Chaoge could stage one suicide scene, she could naturally stage a second. Her confessing beforehand might just be to play a reverse-psychology game with everyone.

Qin Chaoge's face turned gloomy upon hearing this; she stared fixedly at Li Bola and said word by word:

"Reason."

Li Bola did not fear Qin Chaoge's scrutinizing gaze; she pointed to the corpse's left hand and said:

"The murderer was too hurried in faking the scene, to the point of ignoring a most critical issue, which is:

This 【Silence】 believer's left-hand bow callus is clearly thicker than the right, and the left arm is also slightly thicker than the right. All of this indicates that he is left-handed.

I cannot imagine why a left-handed hunter would use their right hand to hold a knife and commit suicide.

Also, his chest and the floor are covered in spray-pattern blood, except for the inside of his right hand;

his right hand has pressed bloodstains, and the finger bones are broken. Clearly, they were forcibly snapped after death.

So... this is an extremely failed forgery.

Conversely, the forgery of this sightseeing assistant's scene is more meticulous.

If Miss Singer hadn't confessed beforehand, perhaps we would have wasted more time.

Sigh, what a pity...

The fate of a hunter is probably to become the prey of other hunters."

Cheng Shi frowned as he listened to Li Bola's analysis.

Indeed, this was a very rough suicide forgery, so rough that it was almost entirely flaws.

No matter the tier, this kind of clumsy cover-up couldn't fool teammates, so why would the murderer go to such unnecessary trouble?

Could it really be a 【War】 believer using reverse psychology to exploit a logic gap?

Isn't that a bit too risky?

The eerie atmosphere at the scene made everyone fall silent. Cheng Shi pondered for a moment, still feeling a bit strange.

Logically speaking, although 【Fate】's trials are stimulating, they shouldn't result in deaths right at the start.

His trials test the human heart and toy with human nature, but they never covet life.

In the game of Fate, the players' goal is to understand everything that happened, clarify the threads of fate, and at the final decision point of fate, choose whether to maintain the status quo of fate or change its direction.

Then, offer the entire fate scene as an answer to Him.

However, whether these choices are right or wrong depends on the specific trial requirements and cannot be generalized.

But in any case, regardless of whether the final choice is right or wrong, the only thing that should decrease is the ladder score, not the number of players.

Unless the fate influenced by the choice, in turn, influences the players—only then would a tragedy that no one wants to encounter occur.

But now, losing a teammate at the start is not a good omen.

Could death be the answer this time too?

The choice of fate will appear before every player simultaneously. Since Cheng Shi did not receive a prompt for a choice, it means that the death of this 【Silence】 believer was truly an "accident"!

"What now?"

In the past, the person who asked this was mostly Cheng Shi.

But today, someone was faster than him.

Ji Ran had sat lazily on the stool by the table as soon as he entered. Seeing everyone looking troubled, he had to offer a reminder, after all, the assistants were still waiting outside.

He frowned and voiced the doubt in everyone's hearts.

"Don't you think this town is weird? Just a few ordinary travelers, yet everyone is assigned a sightseeing assistant.

What kind of scenery requires such close care?"

No one responded to him, or rather, no one could respond to him.

The trial had just begun, and what secrets this town hid still required time to investigate.

Just as everyone was silent, Hu Xuan stroked her belly and suddenly said:

"I felt His power on these sightseeing assistants."

"!?"

Cheng Shi was stunned: "【Birth】?"

"Yes, 【Birth】."

"【Eternal Sun】 is His messenger?"

Hu Xuan said with great interest:

"I do not know His name, but we can go and search for it.

Perhaps sightseeing is not sightseeing, and surveillance is not surveillance. We don't understand this town yet, why be in such a hurry to draw conclusions?

Perceive it, understand it, know it, and then, evaluate it.

This is the way of nature.

So I suggest we leave here and go for a walk in town."

Qin Chaoge snorted coldly.

"What about the corpses? Just leave them here?"

"Why not? They both committed suicide, didn't they?

The attitude of the law enforcers toward the corpses is also useful information we need to know. So, since they died by suicide, what does it have to do with us?"

Hu Xuan, with her slightly protruding belly, knelt on her knees beside the dead teammate and gently touched the corpse's hand.

She whispered again:

"May pain pass, may confusion be no more, may you and I meet again. Relax, He is watching you."

"???"

Just as the others were dumbfounded, not knowing what this sister was doing, she smoothed her skirt, which barely covered her thighs, and slowly stood up.

Stroking her belly, which had grown a circle larger, she smiled at the group and said:

"Look, the continuation of life."

"..."

The expressions of the group turned extremely ugly in an instant.

Cheng Shi lowered his head, a solemn light flashing in his eyes.

A slacker, a brute, a madman.

This round is going to be interesting.