God tallied the votes in an even tone:
"Player 1 voted for Player 5."
"Player 2 abstained."
"Player 4 voted for Player 5."
"Player 5 abstained."
"Player 6 voted for Player 5."
"Player 7 voted for Player 5."
"Player 8 voted for Player 5."
"Player 9 abstained."
"Player 5 received the most votes and will be executed today."
God rose and slowly walked toward the chubby boy.
Tears and snot streaming down his face, the chubby boy knelt on the floor and pleaded.
"Please, spare me!"
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"
He turned to the others.
"I really am just a villager! I'm not a werewolf!"
"Why won't any of you believe me?!"
"Li Xin, say something! You're not a werewolf either, right?! You really are the seer! Tell them!"
But everyone kept their heads down, refusing to look at him. No one even gave him a pitying glance.
The chubby boy watched God slowly approach in despair and stopped struggling.
Death was drawing near.
He stopped pleading with the others, his expression becoming resigned.
He wiped away his tears, calmed down, and spoke the last words of his life in an even tone:
"How ironic."
"I told so many lies before, and you believed every word."
"And now, when I tell the truth, no one believes me."
With a calm expression, he closed his eyes and quietly awaited death.
God came up to him and seized his left hand.
Lin Jie noticed that the chubby boy was wearing a ring too.
It was the same as the ring that had appeared on Lin Jie's finger.
God grabbed the ring and yanked hard.
Unfortunately, Zhu Lun was too fat, and his fingers were swollen too. That pull failed to remove the ring cleanly.
"Tch." God curled his lip and pulled in another direction.
"Aaaah!!!" The chubby boy suddenly squealed like a pig being slaughtered.
The others watched God's actions in horror too.
God was actually going to snap the chubby boy's finger off!
With a crack, the chubby boy's finger, ring and all, was in God's palm in an instant.
Bone was faintly visible at the base of the severed finger, with fresh blood seeping from it.
Deprived of his ring, the chubby boy immediately stopped screaming. As though he had lost his soul, he remained motionless, his eyes empty.
Then his body suddenly burst open down the middle, spilling blood across the floor.
He had died in exactly the same way as the crazy old man.
The others let out startled cries and scrambled to either side.
Still, having witnessed the crazy old man's death, they had been somewhat prepared.
In the end, no one screamed.
Just like that, Player 5, Zhu Lun, was dead.
After witnessing the entire execution, Lin Jie could not help feeling a wave of lingering fear.
He gently stroked the ring on his left finger, belatedly realizing the danger.
So anyone who lost their ring would die on the spot!
If he had handed his ring to Fox back then, he would have died on the spot too!
"All right, everyone." God returned to his seat, expressionless. "The execution is over. The game continues."
"Night has fallen. Close your eyes."
With a wave of his large hand, everyone's vision went dark again.
In the final second before his vision vanished, Lin Jie looked toward Li Xin.
Li Xin closed her eyes and slumped over the table, burying her head in her arms.
Lin Jie committed that posture to memory.
Then he closed his eyes.
In the nighttime setting, his thoughts were particularly clear.
He kept recalling the chubby boy's last words.
Intuition.
Intuition had told the chubby boy that Li Xin was not a werewolf and Lin Jie was not a good guy.
He had not been wrong about Lin Jie's role.
A blank role did not really count as a good guy.
Intuition also told Lin Jie that every word the chubby boy had spoken before dying was true.
This was not a wild guess. Lin Jie had always been able to get a vague sense of whether someone was lying from their microexpressions, movements, expressions, tone, and emotions.
The look on the chubby boy's face before his death had been genuine.
A dying man's words were sincere. With his life about to end, was there any point in lying?
So the chubby boy had been telling the truth. He really was a villager, and he truly believed Li Xin was a good guy.
But that raised another crucial contradiction.
Li Xin could not possibly be the seer.
Her speech had already been proven a lie.
The real seer could never have gotten the method for checking players at night wrong.
The chubby boy had firmly believed Li Xin was a good guy, yet Li Xin could not be the seer.
This was an irresolvable contradiction.
Unless...
A shudder ran through Lin Jie's mind.
Could Li Xin also be a good guy pretending to be the seer?
Why?
Lin Jie could not understand it. There was clearly nothing for a good guy to gain by pretending to be the seer!
A good guy pretending to be the seer would only confuse everyone's reads and draw the real seer's hostility.
But no other explanation made sense.
Still, even if he believed Li Xin was a good guy, that raised another question.
Where was the real seer?
There had to be a seer among these nine people, right?
Back during the day, while Li Xin and Zhu Lun were pretending to be the seer, Lin Jie had been secretly observing everyone's reactions.
If the real seer was among them, someone would surely have given those two a hostile look.
But Lin Jie had seen no such person.
Nor did he believe a seer could be patient enough to let two werewolves make a scene right in front of them.
Thinking it over carefully, who else could be the seer?
[I will assign your roles based on how impressive your introductions are.]
Right, God had said that!
Whose introduction was more likely to earn them the seer role?
God's exact words had been [how impressive your introductions are].
If they were truly comparing how impressive the introductions were, one person's had outshone all the rest.
A legendary phantom thief's earth-shattering plan.
Lin Jie himself.
Ultimately, Lin Jie had given that introduction precisely because he had hoped to receive the seer role.
Instead, he had received a blank piece of paper.
What exactly did this blank role represent?
God had explained the rules very clearly from the start: there were only two factions, good guys and werewolves.
And there were only these roles: werewolf, seer, witch, and guard.
So the blank role card should not represent another faction, nor should it be some other nonexistent role.
A bold conjecture gradually emerged.
Since Li Xin was not the seer, Zhu Lun was not the seer, the dead crazy old man was not the seer, and the others seemed even less like the seer...
Then there had to be a seer who had yet to appear.
Why couldn't that person-
Be me?
Lin Jie suddenly felt a surge of excitement.
Once every possibility had been eliminated, whatever remained, however unbelievable, had to be the truth.
"Seer, open your eyes." God's emotionless voice rang out.
Lin Jie made up his mind.
Do or die!
He snapped his eyes open.
Light filled his vision.
He could see again.
Lin Jie picked up the role card on his table and took a deep breath.
Then he slowly turned it over.
The role card, previously completely blank, now bore a single unmistakable word-
Seer.