The Empty Room

An old tungsten bulb hung from a black wire in the middle of the room, flickering with dim light.

The silence spread through the room like ink bleeding into clear water.

A large round table stood in the very center of the room, its surface battered and worn. A small mantel clock with an intricate design sat in the middle of the table, ticking away.

Ten people in assorted outfits sat around the table. Their clothes looked shabby, and their faces were smeared with dust.

Some lay slumped over the tabletop, while others leaned back in their chairs. All were sound asleep.

Beside the ten people stood a silent man wearing a goat-head mask and a black suit.

His gaze peered out through the worn goat-head mask, studying the ten people with interest.

The clock on the table chimed, its minute and hour hands both pointing to twelve.

From somewhere far beyond the room came the low toll of a bell.

At that same moment, the ten men and women seated around the table slowly woke.

As they came to their senses, they first looked around in bewilderment, then glanced at one another in confusion.

Apparently, none of them remembered why they were here.

"Good morning, all nine of you," Goat Head said first. "It's a pleasure to meet you here. You've been sleeping in front of me for twelve hours."

The man's appearance was so bizarre that it startled everyone in the dim light.

His mask looked as though it had been made from an actual goat's head. Much of the fur had yellowed or blackened, matting into tangled clumps.

Two holes had been cut where the goat mask's eyes should have been, exposing his cunning eyes.

Every movement he made gave off not only the distinctive rank odor of a goat, but also a faint stench of decay.

A man with a full sleeve of tattoos froze for several seconds before finally realizing something was wrong. Hesitantly, he asked Goat Head, "Who... are you?"

"I'm sure you're all wondering that, so allow me to introduce myself to the nine of you." Goat Head waved his hands gleefully, as though he had prepared his answer long ago.

A young man named Qi Xia sat farthest from Goat Head. He quickly surveyed the room, and moments later, his expression grew grave.

Strange. This room was far too strange.

There was no door, only walls on all four sides.

In other words, the room was sealed on every side, including the ceiling and floor, yet a table stood in its center.

If that was the case, how had they gotten here?

Had someone brought them in first, then built the walls around them?

Qi Xia looked around again. Crisscrossing lines covered the floor, walls, and ceiling, dividing the walls and floor into large squares.

Another thing that bothered Qi Xia was Goat Head's reference to "the nine of you."

No matter how he counted, there were ten people seated around the round table. Including Goat Head himself, there were eleven people in the room.

What did he mean by "the nine of you"?

He reached into his pocket. As expected, his phone had already been taken.

"There's no need to introduce yourself," a cool, aloof woman told Goat Head. "I suggest you stop what you're doing immediately. I suspect you've held us captive for more than twenty-four hours, which constitutes unlawful imprisonment. Every word you say now will be recorded and used as testimony against you."

As she spoke, she rubbed at the dust on her arms in disgust, as though being dirty bothered her more than being held captive.

The aloof woman's words did bring everyone back to their senses somewhat. Whoever this man was, he had dared to kidnap ten people single-handedly. No matter how they looked at it, he had already crossed the line of the law.

"Wait..." A middle-aged man in a white coat interrupted their thoughts. He slowly turned toward the aloof woman and asked, "We've only just woken up. How do you know we've been held captive for 'twenty-four hours'?"

His voice was steady and firm, but his question cut straight to the point.

Unhurriedly, the aloof woman pointed at the clock on the table and replied, "The clock here says twelve. I tend to stay up late, and the last time I checked the time at home, it was already twelve. That means we've been held captive for at least twelve hours."

After that, she pointed at the walls around them and continued, "You must have noticed there's no door in this room. That means this man went to some trouble to get us inside. He said we've been asleep for twelve hours, and now the clock is pointing to twelve again, which means it's gone around at least twice. That's why I suspect it's been 'more than twenty-four hours.' Is there a problem?"

After hearing her answer, the man in the white coat gave her a cold look, suspicion still lingering in his eyes.

After all, the woman was far too calm in a situation like this.

Would an ordinary person facing a kidnapping calmly say what she had just said?

At that moment, a muscular young man in a black T-shirt asked, "Goat Head, why do you say there are nine of us when there are ten people here?"

Goat Head remained silent, offering no immediate reply.

"Fucking hell, I don't care how many people are here..." the tattooed man cursed. He pushed against the table to stand, only to discover that his legs were limp and powerless. All he could do was keep pointing at Goat Head. "You little shit, you'd better wise up. You probably have no idea how serious the consequences of messing with me are. I really will kill you."

At those words, the men seated around the table gradually grew serious. They did need someone to take the lead right now. If they could subdue Goat Head together, the situation would still be under control.

But they all discovered that their legs were completely powerless, as though someone had injected them with something.

The tattooed man could only threaten Goat Head verbally, shouting curses at him.

Qi Xia said nothing. He lightly stroked his chin, staring thoughtfully at the clock on the table.

Things did not seem as simple as they had imagined.

He knew Goat Head meant "nine participants." If there were ten people here, that could only mean one of them was not a participant.

Then who was he?

Six men and four women sat in this room. Was one of them a kidnapper?

Without another word, Goat Head slowly walked over to Qi Xia and stood behind a young man.

Everyone followed his gaze, only then noticing that this young man was different from everyone else at the table. Though his face was dirty too, it glowed with a happy smile.

Goat Head slowly raised his hand and placed it against the back of the young man's head.

The young man's smile grew stranger. He glanced at everyone excitedly, looking as though he had known something all along.

With a dull thud, Goat Head slammed the young man's head hard into the tabletop.

Pinkish-white matter spread across the table in an instant like spilled paint, and blood spattered every face.

The young man's skull had actually been smashed to pieces against the table.

Outside the room, a distant bell tolled once more.

Qi Xia sat very close to the dead man. He felt an unidentified lump stick to his face, warm and slick.

He had considered himself mentally resilient enough, yet even he began to tremble.

The girl sitting to the dead man's right froze for three seconds before her face finally contorted and she let out a piercing scream.

That scream shattered everyone's psychological defenses.

Was Goat Head even human, if he could use his hand to smash a human skull-the hardest bone in the body-to pieces against a table?

How could his scrawny body unleash such tremendous strength?

Goat Head slowly spoke. "The reason I prepared ten people was to use one of them to make the rest of you quiet down."