"That really was an extraordinary backstory. An unemployed drifter living on the fringes, and he wasn't even the protagonist of his own story." Clark covered his mouth and snickered. "I can't help wondering whether you lied."
Fan Daoyi wore an exceptionally sincere expression. "I'd have a hard time making up a story about an unemployed drifter on such short notice. After all, that identity never appeared in any of the guides."
Sun Ruijie went back over the story Fan Daoyi had told, muttering to himself with his brows tightly knitted. "If things really happened the way you said, then this is a new game. We already know we're all killers. Wouldn't that mean we all have to die?"
Chu Yue sat there quietly. After a moment, she slowly spoke. "There's one more person."
Chu Yue singled out Mo Chengyuan, who was still lying by the table. "What role did he play in the story?"
For a moment, no one knew how to answer.
"The doctor." Chen Yang's voice broke the brief silence. His tone was even, but carried a note of certainty. "The doctor who pronounced the duke dead at the end of the story was also involved in the murder."
"In every guide, the troublemaker was someone trying to kill the duke. After hearing the unemployed drifter's story, we all look suspicious." Clark rose from his seat. "Why don't we just kill someone at random?"
Chen Yang's gaze instantly turned cold, and he stared hard at Clark. "What do you mean by that?"
He leaned forward slightly, ready to respond to any potential conflict.
"Isn't it obvious?" Clark said, still smiling. "Any of us could be the killer anyway. What if we guess right?"
Chu Yue sneered, her tone mocking. "Then how can you be sure you won't be the first to die? I think you're the odd one out among us, an outsider from another country."
Clark swept back his long, wavy curls and gave Sun Ruijie a flirtatious wink. "Because someone will protect me."
Sun Ruijie scratched his scalp, looking guileless. "There's still time anyway. We might as well look around the castle. Maybe we'll find some clues."
"I have another thought." Chu Yue spoke up again.
Everyone looked at her curiously, waiting for her to continue.
Chu Yue tapped her fingers on the table, slowly sweeping her gaze over everyone present before speaking. "Since the game has changed, why should the troublemaker have to be one of the players? The butler said the troublemaker had already infiltrated the castle, and there were plenty of guests here before us."
She spoke at an unhurried pace, every word reaching everyone's ears clearly.
After hearing her out, everyone looked thoughtful. The idea had indeed caught them somewhat off guard, but it also seemed to make a certain amount of sense.
"The troublemaker being an NPC has never happened before. After all, the game has quite a nasty sense of humor when it comes to players." Chen Yang frowned and rejected Chu Yue's idea with some skepticism.
"Throw out that fixed way of thinking. What if Guixu wants to play something different this time?" Chu Yue's gaze settled on Fan Daoyi alone. "After all, we also have an extra unemployed drifter this time."
Feeling Chu Yue's gaze on him, Fan Daoyi froze for a moment, but a helpless smile soon appeared on his face. "Then I really am lucky."
At the same time, he concocted a lie in his mind specifically for Chu Yue.
Why would the unemployed drifter know about things that haven't happened yet? Could this be a plan everyone came up with together? But their fragments might not be as continuous as the unemployed drifter's. That identity was the scapegoat throughout the entire story.
Once Chu Yue learned of this thought, she carefully reread her own identity's story.
The story was just as it had been in the guide. After going through those events, she too had come to hate the duke. The duke wanted her to deliver flowers, and naturally she was unwilling to take them to him herself.
That matches... She listened in on the others.
She began to half believe and half doubt Fan Daoyi's story. The hallucinogenic pollen from the very beginning took effect. Because the thought was so strong, it fabricated a hallucination that fit it.
In the end, she arrived at an answer: Fan Daoyi really hadn't lied.
"Forget it." Chu Yue couldn't make sense of it, and a trace of weariness showed in her eyes.
She had always believed that with her ability to read minds, she should be able to handle this kind of game of finding the infiltrator with ease and see through everything. Only once she actually played did she discover that reality was far more complicated than she had imagined. The thoughts in these people's minds were like a tangled skein, full of all sorts of trivial, inconsequential, and even contradictory information, with almost nothing that could materially help her uncover the truth.
She patted her head to keep herself clearheaded and avoid being thrown into confusion by the inner voices, then sighed. "Let's look around for now and meet back here later."
Everyone nodded in agreement, each wearing a different degree of bewilderment.
Before leaving, Fan Daoyi's gaze fell on Mo Chengyuan, who was still lying on the floor. A sly glint flashed in his eyes, and the corners of his mouth rose slightly. Then, without hesitation, he raised the shovel in his hand and gave Mo Chengyuan another smack on the forehead.
The force was just right: enough to leave him dazed without hurting his brain.
Mo Chengyuan merely let out a muffled groan and trembled slightly. He suffered no serious injury, only sinking into a deeper sleep.
Fan Daoyi smiled in satisfaction. This shovel really was quite good.
After wandering around for a while, he came upon Chu Yue at a corner, stopping the butler in the corridor to ask him questions.
"How do you define a troublemaker?" Chu Yue asked directly, her eyes fixed on the butler as she hoped to find some useful information in his answer.
The butler answered her. "The duke put a great deal of care into preparing for his birthday. Anyone who ruins the duke's birthday is considered a troublemaker."
Chu Yue fell into thought after hearing the butler's answer. A moment later, she asked, "If a whole group of people ruins it, wouldn't they all be troublemakers?"
The butler shook his head, his words vague. "No, the damned troublemaker is the mastermind behind everything."
Chu Yue's doubts only deepened as she listened to him.
It was as if he had said a whole lot of useless nonsense.
Suddenly, Chu Yue heard an inner voice that did not belong to the butler: That information is pretty important. The troublemaker is the mastermind behind everything, which means there's a good chance the others' actions were engineered by the troublemaker.
Chu Yue looked back in the direction of the inner voice and saw the hem of Fan Daoyi's clothes behind the corner.
"Oh, it's you," Chu Yue said. "Mr. Unemployed Drifter."
Fan Daoyi looked up in feigned surprise, his face instantly breaking into a smile. Then he stepped calmly out from behind the corner and said with a gentlemanly air, "I'd rather you called me by my name. After all, I'm not really an unemployed drifter."
The butler, standing nearby, bowed slightly to Fan Daoyi.
"What do you make of this?" Chu Yue asked.
Fan Daoyi answered, "There should be only one troublemaker. All the coincidences could have been orchestrated by someone behind the scenes."