Because of Zong Jiu's flagrant statement, a hush descended upon the dim corridor.
[Wtf, A'Jiu-gege's too sauve!]
[Hot damn, this is my first time seeing a newcomer daring to speak with a veteran in this tone.]
In Zong Jiu's live broadcast room, the bullet chat roared with laughter.
[Hahahah look at the complexion of the trainees that got disused. They were all scheming to find out more about the S-rank clue; little did they expect that they'd get mocked right back instead hahaha.]
[Ah, this feels refreshing. An E-rank newcomer outright challenging a B-rank trainee. Don't bully my poor E-rank!]
The face of the veteran contender who started it, Jiang Yiuan, flushed heavily. "You're just a lowly E-rank, how can you speak to your seniors like this?"
"Still calling yourselves seniors. You keep flaunting your seniority like you expect to get special treatment."
"Fine!" Jiang Yuan plucked up his volume in annoyance. "I knew that Senior He had a point. If you aren't even willing to share S-rank clues, you have to be the mole who took a different identity card!"
Woah—!
At this, the crowd instantly exploded.
The other veterans who were also salivating over the S-rank clue echoed after him.
"That's right. Senior He said earlier tha5 he saw you sneak arounf everyone's wards all bright and early in the morning. Why else would you do something so redundant if you aren't hiding a mole card."
"Yeah yeah yeah. That doctor earlier too. He directly called you out. It must be that he knew about your secret mole identity and was in cahoots with you!"
Since the veterans all got on the same battlefront, those newcomers who had just comprehended what a clue to an S-rank prop entailed also sailed with the wind.
After all, they didn't possess any ability in the least to survive this instance. It was only by riding on the coattails of the veterans that they could. Whether or not they could survive still depended on whether the veterans were willing to give them a lift. They were at the end of their tethers; if they didn't flatter and fawn over them, they would just be waiting for their deaths.
Just as Zong Jiu was about to turn on his heels and leave, Messiah spoke up with his eyebrows tightly furrowed.
"Quiet."
As if pressing a stop button, everyone fell silent.
"I've long said this; don't baselessly cast doubt on anyone in the absence of conclusive evidence."
The golden-haired Holy Son's expression was austere, and his blue eyes, which used to be as warm as the Aegean Sea, were as cold as ice at this moment.
"That's the greatest taboo in a team. Without basic trust between people, how can we still talk of cooperation?"
The crowd was pindrop silent.
Messiah continued, "Although S-rank clues have the rule of being shared amongst everyone, since Dr. Chu has chosen to tell Zong Jiu alone, he has the privilege of not telling it to anyone. This is his freedom. No one has any right to say anything otherwise."
Under the powerful temptation of the S-rank clue, there were still veterans who were reluctant to let go. "But we have evidence. All those that we just said were things that he had done."
"Ask He Jianlan. He saw it with his own eyes."
Called out, He Jianlan grit his teeth. "That's right. I did see that."
He spoke up in spite of Messiah's disapproving gaze. "Your Holiness, I had long noticed this E-rank since the very first day the instance opened. He sat alone in the dining room, without displaying a shred of unfamiliarity or abnormality towards this environment. Even the segment where we were made to eat the pills was handled by him with ease. And this morning, I had personally witnessed him sneaking around, walking in and out of the empty wards. Based on this, if he isn't hiding some clue or other from us, then he must have a different identity card from all of us, carrying out a different main task."
Seeing that more and more veterans and newcomers were starting to sway, He Jianlan tossed out his trump card.
"If that isn't enough, when that F-rank newcomer died last light, he was also on the scene!"
Sheng Yu, whose neck had flushed red from arguing with newcomers on the side that Zong Jiu was a good person, instantly burst out with expletives at this. "You motherf*cker, it's all bullsh*t! I was on the scene last night too, so why aren't you saying that I was the damned one who killed Glasses-ge?!"
"Ho ho."
He Jianlan nudged the black-framed glasses on his face and sneered. "I haven't said anything yet; why are you in such a hurry to jump out? That's right, that was what I wanted to say next... the two of you must be accomplices."
"The original words of the system back then were 'find out the trainees with different identity cards', it didn't say how many moles there are amongst the trainees in this venue. It's possible that there may be only one in the venue, but it's also possible that there may be two. But calculating based on the number of people here, I guess that the probability of this number exceeding three isn't high."
His tongue was glib, and he spoke with fervour and assurance. "Compared to people like me who have taken ordinary identity cards, the moles certainly wouldn't have an advantage in numbers. Based on the rules of the system, it definitely wouldn't allow the different fraction to have too large a disparity in strength. So compared to us, you moles must have a unique signal for finding out who your accomplices are. Only by banding up can you guys content against us ordinary people and have a possibility of completing your main quest."
"This would explain why the F-rank died so miserably without a single clue or trace left behind at the crime scene last night.
You guys basically ganged up to commit this crime, colluding from the inside, and waited to finish setting up the scene before doming to find us."
Comprehension dawned on the rest of them.
"Don't you want to know how you were exposed?"
He Jianlan gave a triumphant smile. "The most important lead is that we had let Meng Tia's sound out the bathroom when we were checking."
Meng Tianlu was the B-rank psychic. Hearing He Jianlan say this, he also nodded from the sidelines. "I used my psychic abilities in the washroom. I didn't sense any residual aura of resentment."
A psychic's senses were able to detect the presence of the supernatural. If the guy in glasses was really killed by such entities, there was no way that the psychic could not even sense the slightest scent.
Meng Tianlu's implication was simple.
He suspected that the guy in glasses had not been killed by any ghosts or misters, but murdered by a person.
"Your Holiness is esteemed for your wisdom and righteousness. But you shouldn't be too gullible and be deceived by villains with sinister intentions."
He Jianlan's speech was sincere. "We all believe in your leadership and judgment. But the situation now is difficult to understand, why not consult our opinions as well?"
Hearing this, everyone followed suit. "Yeah, that's right. Your Holiness, what Senior He said is within reason."
"The inferences are logical and sensible. Senior He's repute as an intellectual I'd well-deserved. If it weren't for Senior's discernment, we would've been fooled by this white-haired guy."
"Senior is really incredible!"
Not only them, the bullet chat in He Jianlan's and the ther's live broadcast rooms were also busy speculating.
[His words are really reasonable. After all, only two people knew about the whole crime scene last night. I'd they worked well together, then whether something was dead and alive, black or white, they could turn it and subvert it as they pleases.]
[Indeed. Senior He's speculations are interesting and well-grounded. Every link had ample workable leeway.]
[Am I the only one thinking about how the hell could an E-rank and an F-rank have carried out that miserable scene last night?]
[Replying to upstairs: generally in these instances, the mole surely can't win by numbers. So either the moles would be more powerful that the ordinary identity cards, or the system would surely give special jurisdiction to them.]
[Oh, so that's how it is. Thank your kind soul for explaining. I'm that case, then the suspicion on this E-rank is definitely the biggest;he can't wash it off anymore.]
Messiah's frown deepened.
Everyone was waiting for his final verdict.
The golden-haired Holy Son contemplated for a good, long while. But he still shook his head in the end. "Although your words aren't without reason, I still choose to believe in this little brother Zong. I trust that he isn't what you say he is."
"Furthermore, that ironclad proof you had raised as an example earlier doesn't hold in an S-rank instance."
Messiah's words carried an implication.
Meng Tianlu was startled. His face flushed liver-red.
He was indeed a psychic. But the psychic constriction had ranks, too.
There was a popular saying in the infinite loop: 'the collective meditation of ten novice psychics can't hold a candle to the perception of a single intermediate psychic.'
Novice psychics could be produced by a number of initiation paths in various D-rank instances.
Novice psychics weren't much stronger than ordinary people at all. Worse still, when facing 'good friends', their unique constitution made them more vulnerable to the resentment entering their bodies. So the only contenders who would choose to accept a novice psychic constitution were those who truly lacked any special props or were at the end of their ropes. Generally, after these contenders gained enough survival points, if they didn't plan to develop the pathway of a psychic, they would spend points to erase this constitution.
It was only at the intermediate ranks that a psychic constitution could come into play, and that was when a psychic was good enough to truly be hailed as a psychic.
There were also advanced and top-notch psychics above those intermediate ranks; and within the S-ranks, there was one top-notch psychic.
However, due to the rarity of obtaining a psychic constitution, there were very few ways to obtain an intermediate constitution in B-rank instances. Climbing the ranks, A-rank instances produced advanced psychic constitution, S-rank instances produced top-notch psychic constitutions, and the existence of these could only be found by luck, not by deliberate search. A large team without insider information couldn't simply cultivate one.
Meng Tianlu was a low B-rank. Naturally, that was only an intermediate psychic.
With the increasing difficulty level of an instance, a psychic's ability would also receive a corresponding suppression.
Purportedly, in the most terrifying S-rank instances, unless one was a top-notch psychic, the psychic would be unable to sense any supernatural presence in the instance.
This was exactly what Messiah meant.
Earlier, He Jianlan and Meng Tianlu were complacent, believing that they had found a clink in Zong Jiu's narrative.
Little sis they expect that a clue to an S-rank prop would appear in the operating theatre, allowing the other trainees to deduce the exact rank of this one-man show instance and also side-step the omission in He Jianlan's reasoning.
Whereas Zong Jiu just watched it all unfold from the sidelines with his arms crossed, apathetic.
All else aside, Zong Jiu found it laughable that He Jianlan could be called an intellectual with just this.
"Are you guys done?"
He shrugged. "Put bluntly, you just want us to part ways because you suspect me to be a mole, no?"
This was indeed the case. The system strictly forbade infighting amongst the contenders or trainees, so even if those veterans had their suspicions of him written all over their face, they were also helpless to do anything about him for now.
This was also a scheme that Zong Jiu had worked out from the beginning. Only now, because of that quack doctor, this plan had to be brought forward ahead of time. But it wasn't really anything he was afraid of.
The young white-haired man carelessly smiled. "Why bother beating around the bush? We all understand each other, so why not be frank and talk about it? The next two days, you can stroll down the wide open road, and I'll weather the single-plank bridge. As for that clue... heh, don't even think about it."
These words were unforgiving, and could be described as a barbed taunt. Rage flared in the eyes of each of the veterans opposing him.
Zong Jiu really couldn't care less.
He unfolded his arms and turned to look towards Messiah.
"Thank you for watching over me the past half day, and thank you for choosing to believe in me. But I don't want to put you in a tight spot. Leaving is my choice and has nothing to do with you. Take care."
Finally, Zong Jiu gave him a very subtle nod, and brushed past them without a turn of his head back.
[WHOAAA! A'Jiu, savage! Go A'Jiu! Mama loves you!]
[Great! So be it, go solo then! I respect you for being a man! I'm sold, I'm a solid fan now.]
[Sigh... This isn't too good, no? The Holy Son is obviously on his side, why the heck does he have to leave so directly? There's clearly still room to salvage the situation.]
[That's what I think too. I mean it feels good to talk tough and show off, but he's just an E-rank... this instance is an S-rank, after all. I have no words.]
The young man's back was straight and firm, his silhouette long, and he walked with unparalleled grace.
The long, loose white hair resembled a ray of heavenly light soon vanished in the far-off darkness.
Standing behind the crowd, Sheng Yu's face flushed with anger. "Jiu-ge isn't what you say he is, you vicious slanders!"
The high school student stomped the ground hard and chased him down the corridor in a small jog.
He Jianlan pushed his glasses. "Look. They're most likely together."
"Pfft, an E-rank and an F-rank still have the nerve to strut their stuff here. God knows if they can even survive past today."
Jiang Yuan gave a fierce snort at their retreating backs before turning his head to see the ugly expression in the golden-haired Holy Son's face. He was silenced immediately.
Messiah stood in pace, his long golden hair framing the two sides of his face, yet there wasn't the characteristic smile on his face.
When the Holy Son smiled, he truly looked like the biblical description of the saviour; that smile always gave people a sense of closeness and mercifulness.
But when this smile faded away and his face turned serious, for some reason, everyone's heart filled with inexplicable dread.
After a very time, Messiah exhaled deeply from his chest.
His azure eyes scanned over every trainee in the room, incisive as a blade. He spoke slowly.
"Since you're willing to trust me and chose me to be the leader of the temporary team for this instance, then you should also follow my instructions and arrangements. In the absence of conclusive evidence, you shouldn't be making such statements in this type of scene."
"This time, it may be little brother Zong. What about the next? Who will be the victim of your baseless suspicions next time?"
"I'm very disappointed."
He Jianlan's heart thumped. He clenched his fists and averted his eyes. "Your Holi—"
"Say no more."
Messiah waved a hand wearily. "There won't be a next time."
Under the Holy Son's ire, even if the others still had thoughts of the clue to the S-rank prop lingering in their hearts, they froze and didn't dare to say a word more. They hastily packed up and followed the groupings that were arranged in the morning, continuing to search the ground and basement 1 floors for the missing information.
On the other hand, however, Zong Jiu was confronted with something not so trivial.
The white-haired young man narrowed his eyes, silently surveying the worn-down staircase by his feet.
This was a very dilapidated concrete staircase, still pockmarked with potholes as well as clearly visible remnants of bullet crates, full of the decaying aura of history.
He very clearly remembered. From the ground floor to basement 1 there were only 21 steps.
And just now, he had walked down a full 23 steps.
Zong Jiu stopped and looked up pensively.
A rusted, antique clock hung from the stairwell not far off.
The hour hand steadily pointed at the tenth position, the minute hand stopped at the twelfth.