Chapter 26 ~ Third Game Pt.8 ~
Gu Yian’s eyes were locked on the two words “drunk driving” in the text message.
She instantly remembered that, when Brother Yong had just been leaving, Lu Zize told Brother Yong that the wine he bought for him was in the passenger seat.
He expected Brother Yong to drink and drive.
Everything was within his expectations.
The other players had just breathed a sigh of relief because Gu Yian mentioned a breakthrough with Brother Yong but who knew that, in the blink of an eye, this breakthrough would be gone.
“Did he do it?” One female player asked this sentence.
Now, in the Investigation Bureau, apart from the players there was only Lu Zize, the sole senior investigator.
If it wasn’t Lu Zize, who else could it have been?
Everything was within Lu Zize’s calculations.
A sense of hopelessness that couldn’t be guarded against began to gnaw at the players.
The new male player, whose sleepiness had mostly flown away, looked at Gu Yian’s complexion in this moment and carefully asked, “Um… Brother Yong is dead, so what are we going to do?”
Gu Yian’s hand swept over the sage card she had placed on the table.
She said, “Go to the second floor. There’s evidence on the second floor.”
Gu Yian remembered there were items that had been taken out by Brother Yong at the time. Those items were most likely evidence.
When Brother Yong was here, it wasn’t convenient for her to move them.
Brother Yong was already gone, so she had to go and flip through them no matter what she said, regardless of Lu Zize.
Just as Gu Yian thought this, a figure that all the players present didn’t want to see appeared at the door of the conference room.
Lu Zize, wearing his black-rimmed glasses, smiled. “I realized it was time for dinner and came to call everyone. Was everyone planning on going to call me? I didn’t expect us all to have such tacit understanding.”
The players had just stood up from their seats, preparing to go to the second floor to find evidence of Lu Zize’s crimes, but now the result was that Lu Zize said they were going to call him to dinner.
There were players who couldn’t conceal their expressions and they quickly looked elsewhere, so that they wouldn’t meet Lu Zize’s eyes.
Lu Zize said, “Because of today’s investigation mission, no one probably wants to enter the kitchen. I’ll treat you all to seafood.”
It would have been better if he didn’t bring it up. Once he brought it up, the players who went with Lu Zize to the market yesterday remembered how they had even taken quality meat from that butcher.
In particular, the two remaining male players were the main force in fiddling with the meat dish yesterday and, immediately, they scrunched up their faces into a ball.
Gu Yian heard Lu Zize’s words and realized straightaway that he probably brought the players to the market on purpose yesterday.
He foresaw that the players would want to follow him.
It was just that Gu Yian could read expressions and didn’t copy the other players into going with him.
Originally, in her circumstance of being alone in the room, she would have had more than enough time to collect evidence in the room but, regrettably, Brother Yong was in the Investigation Bureau.
Now that Brother Yong was dead, no one would know what he had been thinking at the time.
But Lu Zize knew that Brother Yong wouldn’t allow Gu Yian to flip through the items in that room.
Thus, he didn’t need to worry about his evidence being discovered.
Thinking this, Gu Yian became even more certain there was evidence concealed in that room.
In the conference room, the players and Lu Zize seemed to be standing off against each other.
Lu Zize no longer hid some things.
The players also knew about his evilness.
However, Lu Zize still acted as if nothing was the matter and asked with a slight smile, “What’s wrong? Why are you staring at me like that?”
Which one of the players still dared to talk to him?
Lu Zize said, “Let’s go. People can’t skip meals.”
He spoke with a smile and he used a tone of discussion like usual, but this time none of the players dared to refuse him with the attitude they had on the first day.
Who knew what would happen if they refused him.
The last person who refused him, Brother Yong, already died from drunk driving.
Gu Yian took the lead to leave her seat.
She wanted to see what sort of trick Lu Zize would use.
Tang Jiu followed close behind.
The other players naturally did the same.
When everyone got into the cars, Gu Yian and Tang Jiu sat in the car that Lu Zize drove.
The other four players hid far, far away from Lu Zize and went to another car.
In the course of getting into the car, the new male player had dragged his feet, saying that because of his psychological trauma of last night he was afraid of getting into a car at night and felt that there would be ghosts. He was shoved into the car by a veteran player.
While driving, Lu Zize seemed to know Gu Yian and Tang Jiu weren’t willing to speak to him and so he concentrated on driving and didn’t talk either. He took everyone to the vicinity of the local market on East Ring Road.
There was a shopping mall close to the market and Gu Yian and the others also looked for a restaurant in the mall today.
Tang Jiu saw the candy shop she liked through the car window; its large sign was particularly eye-catching.
Her eyes lit up and she pulled Gu Yian’s sleeve, saying, “I want to buy candy.”
Gu Yian took out the candy, which Tang Jiu had shoved to her before, from her pocket.
Tang Jiu shook her head. “That’s for you. You eat it.”
Lu Zize noticed Tang Jiu’s actions while he was parking the car and said, “We can go after dinner.”
Tang Jiu glanced at him and then suddenly grinned. “Brother Lu, why can’t we go now?”
Lu Zize patiently answered, “We’re about to have dinner.”
“Oh.” Tang Jiu glanced at him again and then stopped speaking.
Lu Zize took everyone into a seafood restaurant.
The seafood restaurant’s business was booming, with people coming and going. Nothing seemed to be unusual.
When the owner saw them in uniform, he quickly asked whether they wanted a box or the lobby.
The players naturally wished for the lobby, which was crowded with people, so that Lu Zize wouldn’t dare to act on them.
Lu Zize stood at one side without saying anything, letting the players decide.
Gu Yian couldn’t find anything wrong during all of this and so she just quietly flipped through the menu.
The other players couldn’t help but size up what was peculiar about this seafood restaurant.
Out of their extreme distrust towards Lu Zize, they all looked at the waiters with suspicious eyes.
Lu Zize said with a smile, “Order whatever you want to eat.”
The players exchanged glances and simply picked the expensive ones, such as lobsters, scallops, abalones, and whatever was more expensive. They ordered until they thought about how they had to have something to eat themselves and so they added some home-cooked dishes of fish and shrimp.
Gu Yian suddenly remembered that Lu Zize’s card was still in her hands.
She was about to return it to Lu Zize.
But he said, “I’ll use facial recognition.”
Gu Yian: “……”
While they were busy ordering dishes, at some point in time, the noisy voices of customers at other tables had disappeared.
For a while, the loudest sound came from the speakers hanging on the support column in the middle of the seafood restaurant’s lobby, and there was a large TV screen below the speakers.
Gu Yian and the others unconsciously looked at the TV screen.
A man pledged in sincerity on the screen, “I didn’t break the law. I ate their meat and they all agreed to it. I have their letter of undertaking. I just have pica. I couldn’t finish it all and so I sold it to everyone. This is friendly sharing. That person from the Investigation Bureau who trespassed into my house is the one who broke the law!”
He spoke with conviction and there was no repentance in his eyes.
His face was familiar to Gu Yian and the other players.
This was the street vendor who sold quality meat and was linked to many disappearance cases.
Lu Zize’s voice rose at this time.
“Brother Yong broke into his house this afternoon, found several pieces of corpses on the spot, and posted the whole thing online. Later, Brother Yong died from drunk driving. Because he didn’t want to implicate us.”
He calmly narrated matters that had already happened.
When the players heard his words, the majority of them were surprised and uncertain.
Could it be that they wrongly blamed Lu Zize?
The force behind the butcher who sold premium meat was immense, which could be inferred from the notification of the conclusion of their investigation mission issued by God’s Eye.
Tang Jiu pulled Gu Yian’s sleeve. “I want to buy candy.”
Gu Yian tugged back her clothes and slightly shook her head.
She had no money.
Lu Zize told them, “Go ahead.”
The implication was that he agreed to pay out of his account.
“Thank you, Brother Lu!”
Tang Jiu thanked him loudly, stood up immediately, and pulled Gu Yian towards the door.
The other players watched anxiously but Lu Zize said, “If you all go, then how will the owner see us?”
The players ordered thousands of dollars worth of food and, if they all left now, the owner would probably call law enforcement and charge them with fraud.
Everyone could only watch the departing backs of Gu Yian and Tang Jiu.
The sky had turned dark.
The fluorescent lights of the shops were set against the dim yellow street lights.
Pitch-black cameras were hidden in the dark.
There were few pedestrians on the road during meal time, only people in twos and threes.
Even the cool breeze couldn’t stabilize Gu Yian’s messy thoughts.
She walked for a while and then asked Tang Jiu, “What did you pull me out to say?”
Tang Jiu looked at the cars driving on the road, looked at the pavement, and then looked at the candy shop they were about to reach.
Her gaze didn’t have a precise point.
“I feel like we’ve already fallen into his net,” Tang Jiu said.
She looked at Gu Yian and then seriously asked, “Do you believe what he just said?”
“You mean the cause of Brother Yong’s death?”
Gu Yian recalled the Brother Yong that she knew and said, “He didn’t lie.”
Lu Zize shouldn’t have lied about this point.
“Wake up! You actually trust him?” Tang Jiu asked incredulously.
“You’re playing a game; a game where you could die at any moment!”
Tang Jiu looked at Gu Yian as if she was looking at a fool.
“I know.”
Gu Yian said helplessly, “I think he only concealed some things about Brother Yong’s matter.”
Tang Jiu heard this and calmed down. “Right now, I just can’t figure out why he wants players to die. Our identity is rookie investigators, so do we have any conflicts with him? Is it just because we’re players and this is God’s Game that we have to die? It’s clear us newcomers will become his helpers.”
During their conversation, they stepped into the candy shop.
Tang Jiu no longer mentioned the topic just now. She adjusted her emotions quickly and began to excitedly select candy.
Gu Yian looked at the colorful candies and couldn’t bring up the same interest as Tang Jiu in the slightest.
Why did players like them have to die?
Why did Lu Zize want them new investigators to die?
What was his purpose?
Was it just for fun?
While Gu Yian thought, Tang Jiu finished choosing her candies and she pressed Gu Yian to settle the bill.
After Gu Yian settled the bill, Tang Jiu picked up the candy bag the cashier handed over and took out a few candies from inside to shove into Gu Yian’s pocket.
“Don’t think anymore. At any rate, be careful. You’re the one being targeted.”
Tang Jiu didn’t give Gu Yian the chance to refuse the candy. She nimbly jumped a few times, stood outside the door, and turned her head to smile at Gu Yian. “You should eat some candy t—”
A huge sign crashed down.
Right onto her head.
Chapter 26 ~ Third Game Pt.8 ~
Gu Yian’s eyes were locked on the two words “drunk driving” in the text message.
She instantly remembered that, when Brother Yong had just been leaving, Lu Zize told Brother Yong that the wine he bought for him was in the passenger seat.
He expected Brother Yong to drink and drive.
Everything was within his expectations.
The other players had just breathed a sigh of relief because Gu Yian mentioned a breakthrough with Brother Yong but who knew that, in the blink of an eye, this breakthrough would be gone.
“Did he do it?” One female player asked this sentence.
Now, in the Investigation Bureau, apart from the players there was only Lu Zize, the sole senior investigator.
If it wasn’t Lu Zize, who else could it have been?
Everything was within Lu Zize’s calculations.
A sense of hopelessness that couldn’t be guarded against began to gnaw at the players.
The new male player, whose sleepiness had mostly flown away, looked at Gu Yian’s complexion in this moment and carefully asked, “Um… Brother Yong is dead, so what are we going to do?”
Gu Yian’s hand swept over the sage card she had placed on the table.
She said, “Go to the second floor. There’s evidence on the second floor.”
Gu Yian remembered there were items that had been taken out by Brother Yong at the time. Those items were most likely evidence.
When Brother Yong was here, it wasn’t convenient for her to move them.
Brother Yong was already gone, so she had to go and flip through them no matter what she said, regardless of Lu Zize.
Just as Gu Yian thought this, a figure that all the players present didn’t want to see appeared at the door of the conference room.
Lu Zize, wearing his black-rimmed glasses, smiled. “I realized it was time for dinner and came to call everyone. Was everyone planning on going to call me? I didn’t expect us all to have such tacit understanding.”
The players had just stood up from their seats, preparing to go to the second floor to find evidence of Lu Zize’s crimes, but now the result was that Lu Zize said they were going to call him to dinner.
There were players who couldn’t conceal their expressions and they quickly looked elsewhere, so that they wouldn’t meet Lu Zize’s eyes.
Lu Zize said, “Because of today’s investigation mission, no one probably wants to enter the kitchen. I’ll treat you all to seafood.”
It would have been better if he didn’t bring it up. Once he brought it up, the players who went with Lu Zize to the market yesterday remembered how they had even taken quality meat from that butcher.
In particular, the two remaining male players were the main force in fiddling with the meat dish yesterday and, immediately, they scrunched up their faces into a ball.
Gu Yian heard Lu Zize’s words and realized straightaway that he probably brought the players to the market on purpose yesterday.
He foresaw that the players would want to follow him.
It was just that Gu Yian could read expressions and didn’t copy the other players into going with him.
Originally, in her circumstance of being alone in the room, she would have had more than enough time to collect evidence in the room but, regrettably, Brother Yong was in the Investigation Bureau.
Now that Brother Yong was dead, no one would know what he had been thinking at the time.
But Lu Zize knew that Brother Yong wouldn’t allow Gu Yian to flip through the items in that room.
Thus, he didn’t need to worry about his evidence being discovered.
Thinking this, Gu Yian became even more certain there was evidence concealed in that room.
In the conference room, the players and Lu Zize seemed to be standing off against each other.
Lu Zize no longer hid some things.
The players also knew about his evilness.
However, Lu Zize still acted as if nothing was the matter and asked with a slight smile, “What’s wrong? Why are you staring at me like that?”
Which one of the players still dared to talk to him?
Lu Zize said, “Let’s go. People can’t skip meals.”
He spoke with a smile and he used a tone of discussion like usual, but this time none of the players dared to refuse him with the attitude they had on the first day.
Who knew what would happen if they refused him.
The last person who refused him, Brother Yong, already died from drunk driving.
Gu Yian took the lead to leave her seat.
She wanted to see what sort of trick Lu Zize would use.
Tang Jiu followed close behind.
The other players naturally did the same.
When everyone got into the cars, Gu Yian and Tang Jiu sat in the car that Lu Zize drove.
The other four players hid far, far away from Lu Zize and went to another car.
In the course of getting into the car, the new male player had dragged his feet, saying that because of his psychological trauma of last night he was afraid of getting into a car at night and felt that there would be ghosts. He was shoved into the car by a veteran player.
While driving, Lu Zize seemed to know Gu Yian and Tang Jiu weren’t willing to speak to him and so he concentrated on driving and didn’t talk either. He took everyone to the vicinity of the local market on East Ring Road.
There was a shopping mall close to the market and Gu Yian and the others also looked for a restaurant in the mall today.
Tang Jiu saw the candy shop she liked through the car window; its large sign was particularly eye-catching.
Her eyes lit up and she pulled Gu Yian’s sleeve, saying, “I want to buy candy.”
Gu Yian took out the candy, which Tang Jiu had shoved to her before, from her pocket.
Tang Jiu shook her head. “That’s for you. You eat it.”
Lu Zize noticed Tang Jiu’s actions while he was parking the car and said, “We can go after dinner.”
Tang Jiu glanced at him and then suddenly grinned. “Brother Lu, why can’t we go now?”
Lu Zize patiently answered, “We’re about to have dinner.”
“Oh.” Tang Jiu glanced at him again and then stopped speaking.
Lu Zize took everyone into a seafood restaurant.
The seafood restaurant’s business was booming, with people coming and going. Nothing seemed to be unusual.
When the owner saw them in uniform, he quickly asked whether they wanted a box or the lobby.
The players naturally wished for the lobby, which was crowded with people, so that Lu Zize wouldn’t dare to act on them.
Lu Zize stood at one side without saying anything, letting the players decide.
Gu Yian couldn’t find anything wrong during all of this and so she just quietly flipped through the menu.
The other players couldn’t help but size up what was peculiar about this seafood restaurant.
Out of their extreme distrust towards Lu Zize, they all looked at the waiters with suspicious eyes.
Lu Zize said with a smile, “Order whatever you want to eat.”
The players exchanged glances and simply picked the expensive ones, such as lobsters, scallops, abalones, and whatever was more expensive. They ordered until they thought about how they had to have something to eat themselves and so they added some home-cooked dishes of fish and shrimp.
Gu Yian suddenly remembered that Lu Zize’s card was still in her hands.
She was about to return it to Lu Zize.
But he said, “I’ll use facial recognition.”
Gu Yian: “……”
While they were busy ordering dishes, at some point in time, the noisy voices of customers at other tables had disappeared.
For a while, the loudest sound came from the speakers hanging on the support column in the middle of the seafood restaurant’s lobby, and there was a large TV screen below the speakers.
Gu Yian and the others unconsciously looked at the TV screen.
A man pledged in sincerity on the screen, “I didn’t break the law. I ate their meat and they all agreed to it. I have their letter of undertaking. I just have pica. I couldn’t finish it all and so I sold it to everyone. This is friendly sharing. That person from the Investigation Bureau who trespassed into my house is the one who broke the law!”
He spoke with conviction and there was no repentance in his eyes.
His face was familiar to Gu Yian and the other players.
This was the street vendor who sold quality meat and was linked to many disappearance cases.
Lu Zize’s voice rose at this time.
“Brother Yong broke into his house this afternoon, found several pieces of corpses on the spot, and posted the whole thing online. Later, Brother Yong died from drunk driving. Because he didn’t want to implicate us.”
He calmly narrated matters that had already happened.
When the players heard his words, the majority of them were surprised and uncertain.
Could it be that they wrongly blamed Lu Zize?
The force behind the butcher who sold premium meat was immense, which could be inferred from the notification of the conclusion of their investigation mission issued by God’s Eye.
Tang Jiu pulled Gu Yian’s sleeve. “I want to buy candy.”
Gu Yian tugged back her clothes and slightly shook her head.
She had no money.
Lu Zize told them, “Go ahead.”
The implication was that he agreed to pay out of his account.
“Thank you, Brother Lu!”
Tang Jiu thanked him loudly, stood up immediately, and pulled Gu Yian towards the door.
The other players watched anxiously but Lu Zize said, “If you all go, then how will the owner see us?”
The players ordered thousands of dollars worth of food and, if they all left now, the owner would probably call law enforcement and charge them with fraud.
Everyone could only watch the departing backs of Gu Yian and Tang Jiu.
The sky had turned dark.
The fluorescent lights of the shops were set against the dim yellow street lights.
Pitch-black cameras were hidden in the dark.
There were few pedestrians on the road during meal time, only people in twos and threes.
Even the cool breeze couldn’t stabilize Gu Yian’s messy thoughts.
She walked for a while and then asked Tang Jiu, “What did you pull me out to say?”
Tang Jiu looked at the cars driving on the road, looked at the pavement, and then looked at the candy shop they were about to reach.
Her gaze didn’t have a precise point.
“I feel like we’ve already fallen into his net,” Tang Jiu said.
She looked at Gu Yian and then seriously asked, “Do you believe what he just said?”
“You mean the cause of Brother Yong’s death?”
Gu Yian recalled the Brother Yong that she knew and said, “He didn’t lie.”
Lu Zize shouldn’t have lied about this point.
“Wake up! You actually trust him?” Tang Jiu asked incredulously.
“You’re playing a game; a game where you could die at any moment!”
Tang Jiu looked at Gu Yian as if she was looking at a fool.
“I know.”
Gu Yian said helplessly, “I think he only concealed some things about Brother Yong’s matter.”
Tang Jiu heard this and calmed down. “Right now, I just can’t figure out why he wants players to die. Our identity is rookie investigators, so do we have any conflicts with him? Is it just because we’re players and this is God’s Game that we have to die? It’s clear us newcomers will become his helpers.”
During their conversation, they stepped into the candy shop.
Tang Jiu no longer mentioned the topic just now. She adjusted her emotions quickly and began to excitedly select candy.
Gu Yian looked at the colorful candies and couldn’t bring up the same interest as Tang Jiu in the slightest.
Why did players like them have to die?
Why did Lu Zize want them new investigators to die?
What was his purpose?
Was it just for fun?
While Gu Yian thought, Tang Jiu finished choosing her candies and she pressed Gu Yian to settle the bill.
After Gu Yian settled the bill, Tang Jiu picked up the candy bag the cashier handed over and took out a few candies from inside to shove into Gu Yian’s pocket.
“Don’t think anymore. At any rate, be careful. You’re the one being targeted.”
Tang Jiu didn’t give Gu Yian the chance to refuse the candy. She nimbly jumped a few times, stood outside the door, and turned her head to smile at Gu Yian. “You should eat some candy t—”
A huge sign crashed down.
Right onto her head.
