Chapter 11

Gu Yi’an did her best to maintain her smile and said, “Thank you for your affection.”
Thank you for your mischief, you truly are a demon.
She shifted her focus to the Thief card in her hand.
Though she fell silent, the other six players continued to glance back and forth between Gu Yi’an and Mr. Demon.
After all, gossip was always entertaining, and drama was best enjoyed live. Moreover, with the two parties involved, one a young, beautiful woman with an ethereal aura, the other a mysterious and extraordinary figure, the other six players were more than happy to witness any interesting developments between them.
However, as Gu Yi’an quietly toyed with her card and the others hesitated to speak up, the round table fell into silence.
The quiet did not last long before Mr. Demon rapped on the table through his black robe.
The robe concealed him entirely.
“Well, it seems no one else has questions.”
Hearing this, the players exchanged glances.
After witnessing Gu Yi’an’s exchange with Mr. Demon, they all understood one thing clearly.
Mr. Demon would not give them straightforward answers. Like a deity, he seemed content to merely watch the show.
"It is now the first day, and the game will end on the eighth night. When the first night arrives, let us witness the Butcher's death."
Mr. Demon's voice carried a tone of delight.
At that moment, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor suddenly came from the Butcher's seat.
The Butcher, his face covered in rough, fleshy features, abruptly stood up.
"I want to see exactly what you are!"
His seat was the closest to Mr. Demon, less than a meter away.
The Butcher threw a swift, powerful punch straight at Mr. Demon's head.
What happened next was astonishing.
The Butcher's fist passed through Mr. Demon's body without any resistance. It was as if the figure in that spot was nothing more than a perfect projection, with no physical form.
Yet, just moments ago, Mr. Demon had tapped on the table through his black robe.
The Butcher's expression stiffened. He withdrew his hand, his tone turning humble. "I deeply apologize for offending you. I hold the divine in such high regard that I feared someone might falsely claim its name."
No one could see Mr. Demon's expression at that moment.
The mask on his face only allowed others to see his eyes.
They were a pair of eyes with starkly contrasting black and white.
He glanced at the Butcher, His tone tinged with annoyance. "There are too many people here. I don't want to see anyone who offends my sight."
Mr. Demon sighed and said, "It will only be interesting after a few have died."
The players present wisely remained silent.
Then, everyone watched as the Butcher, like a marionette, stiffly turned in place.
The moment he turned, Gu Yi'an saw the tension and panic on the Butcher's face.
The Butcher was being controlled, moving forward step by step against his will.
Ahead of him was a window.
Under the gaze of several players and Mr. Demon, the Butcher collided with the window.
"Crash!"
The windowpane shattered upon impact, and the Butcher tumbled out through the broken window.
With that fall, the Butcher's fate was all but sealed.
"The Butcher is dead. The first night has ended." Mr. Demon announced the Butcher's death in His gentle voice.
His tone was filled with delight. "Do you understand how the death list works now?"
The players' attention returned to Mr. Demon.
This time, everyone's eyes held a shared trace of wariness toward Mr. Demon.
A being of unpredictable moods, yet capable of controlling life and death, was someone they had to be wary of.
Gu Yi'an listened to Mr. Demon's words while twirling the Thief card in her right hand.
This Death List game should be understood this way:
Mr. Demon plays the game.
The seven players, no, six players now, are being played by the game.
Mr. Demon sets their death times and watches them die one by one according to the schedule on the Death List.
How to avoid the deaths listed has become a problem all players must now face.
Gu Yi'an was under considerable pressure because she was the second to die on the Death List.
The Thief dies on the second night.
With her life at stake, Gu Yi'an had no choice but to speak up and ask again.
"Mr. Demon, when will the second night arrive?"
Since Mr. Demon was running this game, the passage of time within it should still be under his control.
Gu Yi'an wanted to know how much time she had left to survive.
"Lovely Thief, why not ask me how to avoid death instead?"
Mr. Demon's tone was full of concern.
But Gu Yi'an wouldn't be fooled by his words.
She remembered that Mr. Demon hadn't directly answered her previous question.
The fact that he was speaking to her like this might just be because he found it amusing. Gu Yi'an had enough self-awareness to recognize that.
Since Mr. Demon dared to ask, Gu Yi'an had no reason to hold back.
Gu Yi'an said, "Then may I ask, Mr. Demon, how can I avoid death?"
"Simple."
Contrary to Gu Yi'an's expectations, Mr. Demon answered this question with unusual seriousness.
"Let them die in your place, or fulfill my wish."
Hearing this answer, Gu Yi'an was left speechless.
The malice in Mr. Demon's words was overwhelming.
There were two methods in his answer.
The first was to incite infighting among the players, making them turn on each other.
The second was undoubtedly a dead end.
How could a player possibly fulfill the wish of a being who dared to call himself a god and a demon, an existence even he couldn't achieve?
Gu Yi'an would choose neither of these methods.
Since Gu Yi'an remained silent, and the other players' death times were after hers, they were even less likely to act rashly.
They were waiting to see Gu Yi'an die so they could better understand the game's rules.
Mr. Demon, seemingly disappointed by Gu Yi'an's lack of response, announced in a perfunctory tone, "Free time. Do as you please."
As soon as Mr. Demon finished speaking, he vanished into thin air before the seven players' eyes, leaving behind only an ornate chair in his place.
The moment the demon was gone, Gu Yi'an stood up decisively and left her seat.
"Hey, Thief, where are you going? Aren't we going to discuss things?" one player called out.
"To find a way to survive."
Before the second night arrived, Gu Yi'an had to find a way to escape the Death List.
Whether intentionally or not, Mr. Demon hadn't told her when the second night would come.
Gu Yi'an had to make the most of every second.
She had no time for discussions with other players that would inevitably waste a lot of time building trust.
Mr. Demon said it was free time and they could do as they pleased, so logically, they should be able to leave this room.
Well, logically.
Although their interaction had been brief, Gu Yi'an had noticed that Mr. Demon rarely followed conventional patterns.
This left her deeply conflicted.
She was a bit intimidated by Mr. Demon. She couldn't shake the feeling that even if she guessed the right answer, Mr. Demon would mercilessly overturn it the next second.
Gu Yi'an walked straight toward the large broken window where the butcher had crashed through and looked down.
She saw the butcher's corpse.
Gu Yi'an then scanned the surrounding area.
There were dilapidated buildings nearby, five stories high.
Gu Yi'an happened to be level with the windows on the fifth floor of one of these buildings.
This suggested that she was also on the fifth floor of a building.
Directly in front of Gu Yi'an's building was a playground, with a flag-raising platform very close to her side, facing the butcher's corpse.
Was this an abandoned school?
Perhaps it was similar to her last game, she needed to leave this space to trigger events.
Mr. Demon wouldn't let them move around without a reason.
Gu Yi'an turned and walked to the right.
She had noticed a door in the room from the start.
She walked quickly.
The player who had asked Gu Yi'an what she was doing earlier spoke up again, "Thief, thief! Come discuss with us. Holy crap, this door can open?"
The player stared wide-eyed as Gu Yi'an effortlessly turned the doorknob and opened the door.
Ignoring the commotion behind her, Gu Yi'an glanced outside.
Unlike the cleanliness inside the room, the hallway outside was covered in dust, and the tiled walls were stained with grime.
The inside and outside of the room felt like two different worlds.
Gu Yi'an then looked at the front of the door she had just opened.
Due to age and lack of maintenance, much of the paint on the lower part of the wooden door had peeled off, revealing cracks along the grain of the wood. However, the number on the plaque nailed above was still legible.
503.
Gu Yi'an stepped out of the room.
The moment her foot touched the ground outside, eerie music began to play across the area.
Something unusual had occurred.
Gu Yi'an felt somewhat relieved at this.
If events could be triggered, it meant there was a way out.
The music seemed to be a piano piece.
But its rhythm was too strange, looping a few notes over and over, drifting through the silent, empty, and deserted abandoned school.
Gu Yi'an noticed birds in the distance flapping their wings, avoiding this part of the sky entirely.
Gradually, innocent children's laughter began to mix into the music.
In a place like this, the laughter was clearly eerie.
A little girl’s voice followed.
“Hehehe, let’s play a game.”
“Today is the second day.”
Countless overlapping children’s voices echoed, “Today is the second day.”
Among the players following Gu Yi’an, one shuddered upon hearing these sounds.
He muttered to himself, “What is this? What kind of game are we even playing?”
The other players ignored him.
Everyone tacitly stood in place, quietly listening.
What resounded next across the space was the little girl’s cheerful voice, “Someone else is going to die.”
The childlike voice paired with the deeply unsettling words, along with the joy in her tone, sent a chill down the spines of the players present.
Immediately after, countless children’s voices cheered, “Finally, someone else is going to die.”
The little girl sounded delighted and curious, “Let me see who’s going to die.”
Countless children’s chattering voices rose.
“Who is it?”
“Who is it?”
“Who is it?”
Their voices grew louder and louder, shifting from merely being audible to the players to feeling as if their eardrums were about to shatter.
It was as though the children were getting closer and closer, ever nearer.