Deceitful Game

Chapter 3 The Story of the Bear

—Execution.

The scarlet text hung before their eyes, captivating the attention of every player.

Compared to the other characters, these two characters stood out as becoming more grotesque and blurry, as if they had been rendered in italics or bold...

It's like blood written on a window, as if someone smeared it before it congealed.

After Mingpo understood the rules, he narrowed his eyes slightly and looked up at the stone pillars hanging from the ceiling.

"This is……"

He feigned panic, muttering in a suppressed voice.

Seeing him like this, the others also looked up at him.

After seeing those massive stone swords hanging precariously, like the Sword of Damocles.

People quickly realized... how the game's "execution" would be carried out.

It's like staring intently at the tip of a needle as it approaches, or sitting in a dilapidated house with a creaking ceiling and dust falling everywhere.

Or perhaps you're walking along a mountain path, watching with your own eyes as the giant rock overhead gently shifts and gradually slides down—

Even someone as composed as Attorney Chen couldn't stop trembling.

He instinctively straightened his back, as if he were about to be called on by name.

His pupils trembled, his breathing became rapid, cold sweat poured from his palms, and a chilling, tingling sensation ran through the back of his head.

He even felt... that the giant sword hanging in the sky had begun to sway slightly.

It looks like it might fall at any moment!

I don't know if it's just my imagination from staring at them for so long, or if they really have started to loosen and sway.

Finally, someone let out an extremely terrifying scream.

"I...I'm not playing anymore!"

That was the player at table number 1, a silent boy wearing a "cat" mask.

He suddenly jumped off his chair as if he were possessed, startling Lin Ya who was next to him.

His legs buckled as soon as he landed, and he collapsed to his knees with a thud, his knees making a dull, teeth-grinding sound.

"Ah...ah ah..."

Fragmented, meaningless sounds mixed with sobs squeezed out of his throat. Fear prevented him from standing up immediately, and he crawled forward on his knees.

He reached out, seemingly wanting to hold onto someone's chair or pull someone's hand to help him get up. But Lin Ya was startled and quickly shrank back, avoiding the boy's hand.

The boy paid no attention to her—he didn't even try to grab Lin Ya again, but focused on the door, using his hands and feet, tumbling and crawling, trying to escape outside.

But just then—

The stone sword that had been hanging above his head suddenly fell off.

Amidst the brief screams of the crowd, the gleaming greatsword drew an extremely strange arc in the air, chased after him, and smashed him into a bloody pulp!

Lin Ya was already closest to the boy.

The moment she felt a gust of wind, she instinctively closed her eyes and curled up.

But just then, a warm, impactful substance splashed onto Lin Ya's rabbit mask.

That feeling was like being hit with a chalk knife by the teacher during class.

A persistent, foreign sensation made her subconsciously wipe it, only to feel a sticky, wet sensation.

……This is?

Realizing what had hit her, Lin Ya's pupils constricted sharply.

Her body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Because it was a section of a finger.

It didn't bounce off, but instead hit her mask and landed inside the collar of her pajamas.

She couldn't stop screaming!

As if it weren't a finger but a lit firecracker, he trembled all over and frantically pulled it out and threw it far away.

All the knowledge she had learned in the past seemed to turn into meaningless waste paper in an instant, offering no help to her current helplessness, fear, and hysteria.

However, they are not entirely meaningless—

In the midst of extreme fear, a sudden flash of inspiration struck her.

She looked at "Mr. Ai" beside her with a face full of astonishment.

Mingpo had just turned around with her to look at Number Two, who was trying to escape from behind them. His face was stained with several bloodstains as a result.

But he looked so calm, as if the death of the second boy had been expected all along.

Even the clear, transparent eyes beneath the mask seemed to have become even brighter!

Noticing Lin Ya's shocked and frightened gaze, Ming Po slightly turned her head. Beneath the mask, a smile that she couldn't see surfaced.

This girl may not seem very bright, but her intuition is quite accurate.

But having the right intuition isn't necessarily a good thing.

Lin Ya stammered in a low voice, "You...you couldn't possibly...?"

"—Since you've already put on the mask..."

Before Lin Ya could finish speaking, a deep, magnetic voice rang out again from the center of the round table: "Then don't even think about escaping halfway."

That was the host's voice.

The "mouth" hanging on the cat's back did not continue its madness at this moment.

It became incredibly serious and unusually indifferent.

It even gave Lin Ya a slight illusion.

It's as if the teacher has arrived at the classroom early, chatting and laughing with the students, excitedly recounting recent funny stories; but the moment the bell rings, the teacher's expression suddenly turns cold, and they solemnly announce, "Class, class is now in session..."

The right hand hanging around the cat's neck was slowly stroking the black cat's head and rubbing its ears.

As black as a black hole, the long, soft black cat purred contentedly and nuzzled its head against the host's palm.

The host's eyes, however, were fixed on Mingpo with great interest.

—This guy is something else.

The host was quite certain that Mingpo had already sensed the sword of Damocles hanging over his head, but he hadn't said a word. Only when the game officially began did he act as if he had just discovered it…

I see, so they were testing the rules.

Whether leaving one's seat will result in immediate execution, or whether escaping will lead to premature punishment... these are indeed pieces of information that need to be determined in advance to seize the initiative.

But if you ask directly, it's tantamount to revealing the information to everyone.

In addition, death is used to pressure others, making everyone take it seriously—the more serious people are, the more controllable their behavior becomes.

"That's interesting," the host thought to himself.

If he wins, let's label him a "seeded player".

The host completely ignored Number Two, who was suppressed by the stone pillar and left only a pool of blood.

The cat's right hand, hanging around its neck, pointed directly at the old man at twelve o'clock.

"—Starting from 'zero point'. Bear, you're the first."

"what……"

The old man looked somewhat bewildered when he was suddenly called out.

But when he saw the corpse, he was surprisingly not very frightened, and the giant sword above his head did not seem to frighten him either.

Among the twelve people at the table, this dark-skinned, unassuming old man was one of the few who remained relatively calm.

"What should we talk about...?"

"Bear" hesitated for a moment, his voice becoming somewhat muffled behind the mask: "Well... I'll tell you a story. A... story about a bear."

As he spoke, his voice became lower and calmer.

There used to be a saying in our village. I heard that there was a bear spirit living in the mountains! It had black fur and red eyes, and it was terrifying. It ate people at night, and it especially liked to eat young men and women with tender skin!

"Everyone in the village is scared, they all take a detour. They even tell their children not to go out at night. But I'm not afraid—I've never believed in superstitions!"

"I specifically chose a winter night to go into the mountains to chop firewood. And guess what?"

At this point, Old Man Xiong's eyes suddenly lit up.

A strange unease and chill made Lin Ya suddenly shiver.

"Oh dear! We really ran into that beast!"

At this point, the old man's voice became extremely loud.

He slammed his hand on the table, his emotions rising: "It ran into me, but it didn't seem to care about eating... it was like it was full and didn't want to move, but I won't let it get away with it!"

"I haven't left any descendants in my entire life. In the end, I even got a terminal illness. If I can take a vicious bear with me when I go, then I've done my ancestors a favor!"

"I swung my axe and chopped at the bear's head! But... I couldn't, I'm too old. My eyesight is failing and my hands are weak, so I missed and chopped at the beast's shoulder instead."

"That beast cried out and turned around to kill me, it was terrifying! But I'm not afraid of death, so I went up to it and swung my axe again, right on the bear's head! Then three, five more blows, and I chopped the bear's big face to pieces! Finally, I chopped off its head and threw it into the ditch. If I didn't treat it that way, I wouldn't have been able to kill it."

At this point, Old Man Xiong smiled, seemingly both relieved and somewhat bewildered.

He tilted his head to look at the others at the table and asked, "Do you think I did the right thing?"

"The first narrative phase is over; we now move on to the discussion phase."

After the story of "The Bear" was finished, the host said calmly, "The discussion phase will end when everyone votes or when time runs out."

Mingpo noticed that two colored blocks had quietly appeared on the left and right armrests of her chair.

The one on the left is blue and says "Correct"; the one on the right is red and says "Incorrect".

He first pressed "Correct" with great interest, and then saw the blue light suddenly illuminate. Immediately afterwards, he subtly used his right middle finger to gently touch the right armrest—unlike the first action, this level of force was completely imperceptible to others in the dim light.

The blue light on the left went out, and the red light on the right lit up.

Mingpo then pressed the left button again using the same method, and saw the red light go out and the blue light come on.

At the same time, he found that he couldn't see the light next to other people's chairs at all; and other people couldn't tell what button they had pressed.

...a secret vote.

So Mingpo had a general idea in mind.

He smiled and calmly lowered his hands, crossing them over his chest and no longer touching the sides of the seat.

Lin Ya was a little confused at this moment.

She has roughly figured out the rules of this game—the so-called "death of the minority" rule is to avoid becoming a minority.

In other words, it's about guessing what other people are thinking.

If you guess what most people want to vote for, then vote for that too... and you'll be punished if you guess wrong.

—Without a doubt, this is a game that tests one's ability to read between the lines.

This is precisely Lin Ya's area of ​​expertise.

but……

This is completely unreasonable!

Because a "narrator" needs to provoke disagreements and conflicts among others in order to survive!

If everyone chooses the same answer, then the narrator will be eliminated. From this perspective, the narrator has the greatest advantage—because while people may not be able to determine whether they are in the majority or the minority, it is much easier to raise a topic that is bound to be controversial.

But isn't the story told by "Bear" only one-sided?

"...Leaving aside whether 'bear spirits' actually exist, shouldn't these man-eating bears be killed?"

The girl wearing a raccoon mask, standing at ten o'clock, spoke timidly.

"Or is it that," Yang Shuang, wearing a sparrow mask at the five o'clock position, asked, "that the point of contention is animal protection? I remember that Asiatic black bears are protected animals."

"That's right, killing a bear is illegal!"

The "dog" at the eleven o'clock position shouted loudly, "He should be sentenced, otherwise why is it so hard to buy bear paws!"

The "raccoon" girl argued, "When people are dying, who cares about protecting animals!"

"Sir," Lawyer Chen, wearing a fox mask, cautiously asked, "does the concept of 'right or wrong'... refer to whether this behavior is illegal or not?"

If that's the case, then it's simply a legal issue.

The bear didn't answer, but instead looked at the host: "Am I required to answer?"

"No need."

The host calmly stated, "Even the answers don't have to be the truth. This game has no extra rules, so the rules are exactly as stated on the surface."

...No, something's still not right.

Lin Ya shook her head, feeling somewhat confused.

She felt something was off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"winter……"

Suddenly, the "red panda" at the seven o'clock position spoke up and asked, "Shouldn't bears hibernate?"

His words brought a slight silence to the table.

The fox suddenly realized something and opened its eyes wide.

But just then...

Mingpo suddenly spoke, slowly saying, "Grandpa..."

"—Was the 'bear spirit' you killed even human?"