Chapter 16

Gu Yi'an stepped forward upon hearing this, took the Sage card from the Merchant's hand, and calmly stated, "Mr. Demon killed according to the death list."
"The Thief card's ability: swap cards."
She produced her own Thief card, bent down, and used it to cover the wide-open eyes of the sharp-faced man who had died with a grievance.
"In the last game, I was fortunate enough to achieve a perfect clearance. When the cards were dealt, the Demon already mentioned that we should be able to guess which card we would receive."
"He swapped my card."
"He was the Thief, and I am the Sage."
Gu Yi'an observed the Witch and the Merchant's unconcealed astonishment.
She said, "After all, this is just a card representing a character. I am not truly a master strategist."
Gu Yi'an knew her limits. Her perfect clearance in the previous game was largely thanks to the little boy, Xiao Ze. She had gambled correctly on the hidden meaning behind the phrase "kindness is a sin."
The Merchant reacted quickly, realizing that Gu Yi'an was the true Sage. "So, that means he swapped your card right from the start."
Gu Yi'an nodded. "Yes. That's why I asked Mr. Demon a question back then."
At this point, Gu Yi'an recalled how she had questioned Mr. Demon but was brushed off.
She had asked twice, and Mr. Demon had dismissed her both times. She wondered if it was due to game rules preventing a response.
Gu Yi'an said, "Do you think Mr. Demon might hold some resentment toward me?"
"Why would you think that?"
The Swindler had approached unnoticed and chimed in.
Gu Yi'an felt somewhat suspicious of him but wasn't entirely sure.
Still mindful of the help the Swindler had given her, she replied cautiously, "Mr. Demon always avoids answering my questions."
The Swindler said, "Maybe it's because he doesn't like how you address him."
Gu Yi'an fell silent.
If the Swindler's answer hadn't been so specific, even if he had said Mr. Demon dislikes people, she might not have doubted him.
But he answered with such precision.
Memories of the Swindler flashed through Gu Yi'an's mind.
The Swindler had been particularly lively at the start, calling out to her during the round table discussion to collaborate, and he wasn't shy about using profanity.
Nowadays, even the Swindler seemed to have stopped cursing.
When exactly had he changed?
Was it after leaving that room?
Gu Yi'an couldn't be sure.
The Merchant pondered, "It seems we still need to return to the round table."
The Witch agreed, "Waiting around won't help. We need to find a breakthrough from the demon."
"Then let's go now," Gu Yi'an concluded decisively.
The Student, who hadn't spoken yet, was a bit confused, unsure how they had decided to return to the round table again.
But seeing Gu Yi'an, the Swindler, and the other two about to leave, he quickly hurried to catch up.
On their way back to the round table, Gu Yi'an, the Witch, and the Merchant began exchanging the information they had gathered.
A story began to take shape.
A female student had been bullied to death by her classmates. After her death, the bullies showed no remorse, insisting they were just playing games with her and had no idea she would suddenly die during the process.
The Witch elaborated on the "games" the bullies played with the victim.
They would smear glue on her chair, deliberately splash her with dirty water from cleaning buckets, trip her while she was going down the stairs, and engage in adult games.
The Witch added, "At the time of her death, she was already one month pregnant."
Gu Yi'an glanced at the school name on the journal cover, which indicated it was the junior high school division.
Meaning, these students were between twelve and fifteen years old.
Minors whose values and morals aren't fully formed, when they go astray, they become one demon after another.
They passed by the Butcher's corpse where most of the blood on the ground had dried, leaving a dark red stain.
The Merchant said, "The materials I found didn't go into much detail about this death incident. It mentioned that shortly after the female student's death, a ritual to summon demons began circulating on campus, and over a hundred people died one after another."
Gu Yi'an nodded, "The journal I found mentioned these deaths. After the first victim died, her parents tried to seek justice for their daughter, but were blocked outside the school gates by the influential families of the bullies and had to give up. When the death toll reached over a hundred students in a short time, the journal's author speculated it was the vengeful spirit of the deceased at work. The school was urgently closed, and all surviving students were transferred. They evacuated in such a hurry that some materials were left behind."
They slowly made their way up the stairs.
The Student, who hadn't participated in the discussion, glanced at Gu Yi'an and the other two talking ahead, then looked at the Swindler, who also hadn't joined in. He assumed the Swindler was on the same page as him.
Trying to bridge the gap between them, he quietly asked, "Swindler, were things this easy for you before? I was running for my life earlier, almost got drowned in the toilet by those ghosts. I thought it would be like my last game, where I had to keep running until the very end."
The Swindler gave him a cold, unreadable look.
The Student didn't notice anything unusual, his impression of the Swindler still stuck on the earlier enthusiasm when he invited everyone to share their game experiences.
The Student said proudly, "I think I have pretty good luck. Even though I struggle through each escape, I always end up with good teammates who carry me to victory."
The Swindler replied, "Next time, you might not be so lucky."
Finally realizing the Swindler didn't want to talk to him, the Student awkwardly fell silent.
Gu Yi'an and the others arrived back on the fifth floor.
The Merchant pushed open the door to Room 503.
The round table from their memories appeared before them.
Seven wooden chairs were arranged in a row, all empty.
Similarly, the luxurious seat belonging to the demon was also vacant.
The Merchant suggested, "Shall we return to our seats first? He will probably appear after we take our places."
Gu Yi'an shook her head.
She glanced at the Swindler as if unintentionally.
The Swindler looked back at her, his gaze clear and innocent.
Gu Yi'an said, "Let's flip the table over."
As soon as she spoke, the Merchant looked at her as if she were insane.
The Witch took a moment to process it but understood Gu Yi'an's meaning faster than the Merchant.
The Witch declared firmly, "Flip the table."
The Merchant finally caught on, there must be something under the table.
He had jumped to conclusions too quickly, initially thinking Gu Yi'an's actions were a provocation against the demon, but he had forgotten that what lay beneath the table was far more important.
The Merchant and the Student stepped forward, first moving the players' chairs aside.
Once the chairs were shifted, everyone could see a shadowy, human-like figure beneath the round table.
When the Merchant and the Student flipped the entire table over, the shadow beneath revealed its true form.
It was unmistakably a man curled up, with a face identical to the Swindler's!
The Student was stunned on the spot.
The Merchant and the Witch turned their gazes to the Swindler standing beside Gu Yi'an, their astonishment impossible to conceal.
The only person who remained completely calm was Gu Yi'an.
She had already suspected something like this, and the scene before her undoubtedly confirmed her speculation.
On the second night, one player had to die.
The original, genuine player, the Swindler, had his identity replaced by Mr. Demon when he left this place. He himself had been stuffed under the round table, slowly awaiting death.
Gu Yi'an looked at the Swindler beside her, or more accurately, Mr. Demon.
The one who had helped her repeatedly and told her not to be afraid was him.
Gu Yi'an pressed her lips together, her emotions complex.
Suppressing those feelings, she smiled and said, "Mr. Demon, the Swindler card suits you perfectly. Are you enjoying this role-playing game?"
The Swindler, or rather, Mr. Demon, was enveloped in a dark mist the moment Gu Yi'an exposed his identity.
In an instant, what appeared before the players' eyes was Mr. Demon, clad in a black robe and wearing a ghostly mask.
He chuckled softly, his voice as gentle as Gu Yi'an had first heard it.
"It's quite interesting," He said.
Gu Yi'an smiled. "Then can you tell us your wish? We will fulfill it for you."
After going around in circles and searching for clues, they had returned to the topic of fulfilling the wish for Mr. Demon.
The Merchant and the Witch immediately held their breath.
The demon had previously presented Gu Yi'an with two paths.
Gu Yi'an had chosen neither.
Moreover, this time, Gu Yi'an had deliberately returned to this place to expose the demon's identity.
They were afraid the demon would refuse to answer.
Mr. Demon seemed to be in a good mood, Gu Yi'an asked, and He answered.
His response was, "Kill the demon."
The Merchant and the Witch's expressions immediately turned grim.
The Student was still dazed, not yet grasping what the demon had requested.
Mr. Demon's voice was filled with delight. "Fulfill it for me."
His figure vanished into thin air, leaving nothing behind.
Gu Yi'an stared at the spot where Mr. Demon had disappeared for a second or two before snapping back to reality and withdrawing her gaze.
"Let's go," Gu Yi'an said. "We need to find the demon."
The Student blurted out, "The demon just left. How are we supposed to find him?"
Gu Yi'an glanced at the Student. "Who said the demon refers to Mr. Demon?"
"Huh?" The Student was confused.
Gu Yi'an explained, "If you can't distinguish, then use 'God' to refer to this Mr. Demon who is playing games with us and just left."
"The demon He mentioned refers to the little girl. The child's voice we heard in the piano piece."
The Student hadn't been part of Gu Yi'an's earlier discussion with the other two and was only half-understanding why the little girl had become the demon.
The Merchant and the Witch, still looking troubled, came over to join Gu Yi'an.
Gu Yi'an asked, puzzled, "Did you misunderstand as well?"
The Merchant denied it. "No. It's because we had a conversation earlier about God."
The Witch sighed. "Our words were inappropriate at the time. God has always been merciful to us, and the game's difficulty isn't high."
The Merchant agreed. "Yes, God has always been tolerant of us. It's us who were ungrateful..."
Hearing this, Gu Yi'an's previously bad mood lightened, amused by the Merchant and the Witch's words.
Back then, they had been tricked by Mr. Demon disguised as a Swindler into sharing their opinions about God.
Now that his disguise had been exposed, and considering how He had indirectly inquired about the players' views on God...
Wasn't the demon just another guise of God?
Realizing the potential danger, the Merchant and the Witch quickly sent a wave of praise to the petty-minded God.
"Let's discuss as we walk," Gu Yi'an suggested.
The Merchant and the Witch had no objections.
The three of them, followed closely by the still bewildered Student, headed toward the office building.
Gu Yi'an said, "There should be no disagreement that the little girl is the victim of school bullying from back then."
The Student raised his hand to ask, "Um, what we heard was a child's voice, probably no more than seven or eight years old, right?"
Gu Yi'an hadn't expected the Student to ask questions. She paused, intending to explain.
The Witch interjected, "A ghost's appearance is how it wishes to present itself. Generally, those with weaker power can only maintain the form they had at the time of death."
Hearing it was the Witch who spoke, the Student immediately believed it and obediently fell silent.
After this interlude, Gu Yi'an continued, "The little girl summoned a demon and gained power from it. After killing hundreds of people, she transformed from a victim into a true demon in every sense. Once I obtained the security guard's log, she sensed that I intended to find her and went into hiding."
Gu Yi'an's tone was calm.
"This is what we must do now: find her, and then, kill her."