Chapter 27

Gu Yi’an had just smiled helplessly at Tang Jiu’s cheeky behavior, but the next second, she saw Tang Jiu and the massive signboard fall to the ground with a loud "thud."
The scene froze in that moment.
Gu Yi’an was momentarily stunned, then rushed over.
Customers inside the candy shop began to scream.
The cashier couldn’t stay behind the counter any longer and stepped out.
Several people hurried over to check on the person lying at the entrance.
The signboard was lifted aside by hand.
Under the bright lights of the candy shop, Gu Yi’an saw crimson blood pooling on the ground.
Tang Jiu lay with her eyes closed, lifeless.
Someone nearby shook their head and said there was no saving her.
Another person had already called for an ambulance. Gu Yi'an, hearing the commotion, put away her phone.
Her movement caught the attention of those standing closest to her.
"Who is this girl? Taking photos at a time like this? Have some decency!"
To avoid misunderstanding, Gu Yi'an had no choice but to explain truthfully, "I was about to call for an ambulance."
Someone else chimed in, "Looks like she's friends with the person on the ground. The girl's lips have turned pale."
In reality, the sky was dark, and Gu Yi'an stood with her back to the candy shop. The dim streetlights made it impossible to clearly see the color of her lips.
But they could sense that although her expression was calm, her mood was far from it.
Someone advised her, "Hey, girl, just stay put for now. Don't touch her before the doctors arrive. What if there's still a chance?"
Let's hope so.
Gu Yi'an replied, "Okay, I won't move."
She glanced at Tang Jiu, closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again.
It was only then that the bystanders belatedly noticed Gu Yi'an and the uniform Tang Jiu was wearing.
The black uniform, though inconspicuous in the night, still stood out in its own way.
They began whispering in front of Gu Yi'an.
"No wonder it's such a coincidence, a huge sign falling out of nowhere and hitting someone. So she's an investigator. The enforcement team doesn't have such pretty girls. I heard many investigators have died in accidents these past few days. The previous ones are all gone."
"Tsk, they say it's an accident, but who knows? It might be murder."
"The Divine Eye already issued a statement saying it was an accident. And you're still calling it murder?"
"So many people have died, I heard around fifty or sixty? In just over a month, so many deaths. If you tell me they were all accidents, I don't buy it. The Divine Eye is just an AI, how would it know how to analyze this? I think this so-called high-tech stuff is unreliable!”
Their discussions reached Gu Yi'an's ears, and a wild guess suddenly crossed her mind.
Lu Zize's goal, the purpose behind creating so many accidental deaths perhaps was just to make everyone aware of the flaws in the Divine system.
When you cannot overthrow evil, you can become evil itself.
The thought was too absurd.
Even Gu Yi'an felt her idea had come out of nowhere.
Involuntarily, she reached into her pocket to retrieve an item to calm her nerves but accidentally touched the candies inside.
The outermost one was the candy Tang Jiu had stuffed into her hand just before the incident.
At that time, Tang Jiu had told her to be careful, saying Lu Zize's target was her.
Gu Yi'an's heart stirred slightly, and she took out the candy.
A pink wrapper encased a round candy bead.
There was a small pattern on the wrapper.
A little deer.
"Deer" sounded like "Lu."
Was Tang Jiu warning her to be cautious of Lu Zize?
But she had been wary of Lu Zize from the start, why emphasize it again?
Unless... Lu Zize had already made his move.
"Are you okay?" A gentle male voice suddenly sounded beside Gu Yi'an.
Gu Yi'an abruptly turned to look at her side.
Lu Zize, without his black-framed glasses, had appeared beside her at some point.
Without the glasses to conceal his features, he seemed more imposing.
Especially under the dim streetlights, with the bright lights from the candy shop casting half his face in light and the other half in shadow, he resembled a lone traveler in the darkness.
He calmly glanced at the ground, then looked at her with a hint of concern.
At that moment, Gu Yi'an's mind quickly replayed the scene from earlier in the day when Lu Zize had described Sister Man to her and Tang Jiu, finally settling on the cup of tea Lu Zize had brewed for her.
Gu Yi'an asked, "Was there something wrong with the cup? Or the tea?"
"Hmm?"
Lu Zize seemed not to understand Gu Yi'an's abrupt question.
Suddenly, the siren of an ambulance pierced the sky, and the surroundings instantly grew noisy.
"The ambulance is here."
"The police is efficient."
"Such a shame, there's no saving them now."
The crowd surged.
People began pushing and shoving to make way.
Lu Zize immediately grabbed Gu Yi'an's wrist, shielding her as they moved away from the crowd.
Outside the throng, Gu Yi'an could only see the doctors carrying a stretcher making their way into the crowd.
A few minutes later the doctors left with an empty stretcher.
Gu Yi'an faintly overheard passersby saying that the person had already died and that the funeral home had been called.
The onlookers didn't want to see a corpse either so they scattered in an instant.
Gu Yi'an was about to head in that direction when, after just one step, a firm grip tightened around her wrist.
She realized then that Lu Zize was still there.
The warmth on her wrist was distinctly human, a stark contrast to the cold touch of the demon masquerading as a fraudster.
Lu Zize glanced at the distant body, his gentle voice uttering unusually harsh words.
He said, "Don't look. If you do, you won't be able to eat later."
Gu Yi'an had no desire to see Lu Zize feigning gentleness and consideration.
She decided to confront him directly, asking, "Why do you act so concerned about us?"
Even though Lu Zize was secretly orchestrating accidents to kill players, he consistently portrayed himself as caring and thoughtful, a kind of concern that sent chills down one's spine.
Upon hearing this, Lu Zize corrected one point in Gu Yi'an's statement.
"Not 'us.' It's you."
At this, he smiled slightly, softening the intensity in his demeanor.
He said, "You were the first person to believe in me."
Gu Yi'an had no recollection of ever trusting him.
She thought for a moment and asked, "Because yesterday, I was the first to follow you into the office building?"
Was that really all it took?
Lu Zize replied, "I said I was scared too. And you believed me."
What kind of twisted logic was Lu Zize operating on?
Gu Yi’an couldn’t recall how she had responded to Lu Zize’s claim that he was afraid too. She had probably just played along to fish for information, she certainly hadn’t believed him.
If she followed Lu Zize’s reasoning, then didn’t her later actions, voluntarily handing over her work badge for him to register, obediently waiting in the room for their return, all count as trust in him?
And in return for her trust, had Lu Zize deliberately instructed the female staff to wash vegetables during dinner last night just so she could avoid handling that premium cut of meat?
Gu Yi’an connected many small details in her mind.
She wasn’t oblivious.
It was just that Lu Zize’s methods of killing players had completely overshadowed any good in him.
He was a good person, but he was also a genuine murderer.
The two were not mutually exclusive.
Gu Yi’an would never harbor any genuine fondness for a criminal.
Lu Zize released his grip on Gu Yi’an’s wrist.
As if he had seen right through her thoughts, he spoke earnestly, "You’ve always trusted me. I didn’t kill them."
"Brother Yong chose to sacrifice himself. The two new investigators today trespassed into the weapons storage. And her, the sign fell for some unknown reason. Her death was an accident."
"Please believe me, okay?"
Lu Zize was sincere, his gaze filled with hope.
His words sounded far too convincing.
But there were no accidents in this world, no coincidences, only meticulously crafted designs.
Gu Yi’an fell silent for a moment before turning to walk toward Tang Jiu.
The ground was too cold; she would keep her company.
Over ten minutes later, Tang Jiu’s body was taken away.
Lu Zize’s voice sounded beside Gu Yi’an.
He suggested, "If we go back now, the food will be cold. Let’s go somewhere else and order a few more dishes."
Gu Yi’an replied, "No need."
She asked suspiciously, "Did you cause something else to happen?"
Lu Zize looked helpless. "I didn’t. You’ve been out for too long, so I came to check on you. Can you trust me like you did before?"
The problem was, Gu Yi’an had never trusted Lu Zize in the first place.
Gu Yi’an paused before asking again, "That cup of tea you gave me in the office today, what was really in it?"
This time, she was determined to get an answer.
Passersby mistook the bloodstains on the ground for dirt and avoided them from a distance.
They glanced at Gu Yi’an and Lu Zize standing near the stains, a flicker of confusion in their eyes before moving on.
Everyone had their own lives to live.
The evening breeze drifted gently, carrying the dust of the day and the chill of the night.
Lu Zize seemed to sense Gu Yi’an’s resolve and knew he couldn’t evade the question this time.
He said, "It was just a cup of calming tea."
Gu Yi’an repeated the words "calming tea" silently to herself, her tone eerily calm.
She asked, "Did you put sleeping pills in it?"
Lu Zize replied, "I only added something to help you relax. You’ve been too anxious lately. You haven’t smiled in a long time."
His gaze was filled with concern.
A concern that sent chills down Gu Yi’an’s spine.
Her hand had long since tightened around her prop, the small coffin.
She remained composed as she asked, "Do you want to kill me?"
"Yi’an, why would you think that?"
Lu Zize laughed as if he had heard something absurd, his gentle voice dripping with concern. "Look at you, after encountering all these incidents today, do you think you’ll be able to sleep well tonight?"
"You didn’t even drink the tea."
At this, his voice carried a hint of grievance.
"I just hope you can get a good night's sleep."
Is that really the case?
Gu Yi'an didn't know.
Who was behind the cases she had encountered these past two days?
It was all Lu Zize! All him!
Not a single one was unrelated to him.
Two candy shop employees carried buckets of water to the front of the store.
Spotting Gu Yi'an and Lu Zize, one employee called out, "Hey, handsome, miss, could you please step aside? Make way."
Lu Zize looked at Gu Yi'an and said softly, "Let's go."
The person lying on the ground had been taken away.
Gu Yi'an no longer felt like staying.
She headed toward the seafood shop.
This time, the person accompanying her had changed from Tang Jiu to Lu Zize.
Behind them, the water the employees splashed out hit the ground with a "splash," spreading everywhere but unable to wash away the long-dried bloodstains.
"It won't wash away. It's dried, we'll need a brush."
"And some laundry detergent!"
Thus, the crime was concealed.
Gu Yi'an glanced back.
Lu Zize said, "Don't look. Let's just go into this restaurant and grab a bite."
He gestured toward a restaurant a few meters away.
Gu Yi'an calmly refused, "No need. I'm not hungry. Let's go back and meet up with the others."
Hearing this, Lu Zize's expression was full of helplessness.
The two of them continued toward the seafood shop.
Suddenly, the sound of an ambulance pierced the sky once again.
Gu Yi'an instinctively paused and looked toward the roadside, where the ambulance sped past one private car after another, screeching to a halt in front of a store.
That store was exactly the seafood shop Gu Yi'an was heading to.
Gu Yi'an immediately turned to look at Lu Zize beside her.
"You did this," Gu Yi'an stated with certainty.
Upon hearing this, Lu Zize looked helpless, as if unable to comprehend why Gu Yi'an would suspect him, but he responded tolerantly, "I know you suspect me. I didn't do it. Believe me, I've never lied to you."
Gu Yi'an gave him a glance, then ignored him and ran straight toward the seafood shop.
Outside the seafood shop, two female players held hands, huddled close together to overcome their fear, while the sole male player tried to squeeze in beside them but was mercilessly pushed away.
The male player who was pushed aside inadvertently spotted Gu Yi'an approaching, and his panicked eyes immediately found a pillar of support.
The male player shouted, "Sister Gu, over here! You're finally here. What should we do?"
Gu Yi'an glanced at the entrance of the seafood restaurant, where a crowd had gathered to watch the commotion. However, upon seeing those inside trying to exit, they quickly dispersed.
On a stretcher, a person in a black uniform lay foaming at the mouth as they were loaded into an ambulance.
The doctor didn’t wait for Gu Yi'an and the others in similar uniforms to follow, calling out, "Investigators don’t need to come along. If there’s any update, the Divine Eye will relay it to you promptly."
The ambulance door slammed shut.
With a sharp siren blaring, the ambulance vanished into the sky.
Watching it disappear from view, Gu Yi'an turned to the other players and asked, "What exactly happened?"
The three players had been waiting for her to ask. They immediately began speaking over each other, explaining the situation.
"We ordered a bunch of dishes, shrimp, fish, scallops. When the food came, we just started eating. There was a lot of shrimp."
"He ate a ton of shrimp by himself."
"He had a mouth ulcer, so after eating the shrimp, he took some vitamin C."
"Then he said his throat hurt and started vomiting violently. The restaurant owner came over and said you can’t eat shrimp and vitamin C together, it causes poisoning. So they called an ambulance right away."
A female player suddenly remembered something and said, "I recall, yesterday it was that Lu Zize..."
Just then, Lu Zize slowly walked up to the group of players.
The female player quickly corrected herself, "Brother Lu was the one who told him to take vitamins for his mouth ulcer and bought them for him."
Lu Zize seemed not to have heard the earlier part of the conversation. His expression unchanged, he asked, "What happened?"
The other players exchanged glances.
One female player glanced in the direction Lu Zize had come from and asked Gu Yi'an, "Sister Gu, where’s Sister Tang?"
"Died unexpectedly."
Lu Zize answered the question on Gu Yi'an’s behalf.
The three players fell silent.
In just a few hours, eight players had become six, and now only four remained.
If they didn’t suspect Lu Zize was behind this, they wouldn’t believe it themselves.
And it was Lu Zize who had bought the vitamins for that player. Taking everyone to a seafood dinner tonight was clearly calculated.
The three players now regarded Lu Zize with intense wariness.
Around the seafood restaurant, people were still chatting.
Their discussions revolved around an unlucky investigator who had eaten shrimp and vitamins together, accidentally poisoned himself, and probably wouldn’t survive.
These onlookers immediately recognized Gu Yi'an and the others as investigators, not law enforcement.
Even though they deliberately avoided speaking directly to Gu Yi'an’s group, their voices carried on the wind, reaching the ears of Lu Zize, Gu Yi'an, and the players.
Lu Zize’s gaze showed understanding, as if he had realized why the players were wary of him.
As for the players, their focus was on the word "accident."
They didn’t believe it was an accident at all.
This was clearly premeditated murder!
What was most infuriating was that they couldn’t find a shred of evidence!
The mouth ulcer belonged to the male player himself, and they were the ones who had ordered the food.
As for why they had ended up at a seafood restaurant instead of somewhere else, they couldn’t even blame that on Lu Zize.
This was Lu Zize's thoughtful suggestion, considering everyone's daytime investigation tasks, to treat them to seafood.
And that investigation task had been assigned by the Divine Eye system.
Who was to blame?
The Divine Eye system?
If they really wanted to trace it back, it was because the players had crowded around a fight at the vegetable market during the day, escalating the conflict between two meat vendors, which led to the death of another vendor.
Lu Zize himself bore no responsibility at all.
Gu Yi'an sorted out the sequence of events.
She took out her phone, which was low on battery, and searched online for information about food poisoning related to shrimp and vitamin C.
The search results appeared instantly.
After browsing the page, Gu Yi'an said to the group, "Eating shrimp and vitamin C together can cause poisoning, but only in extremely large doses. With a normal amount of food, the worst that could happen is diarrhea."
Hearing this, Lu Zize's eyes lit up as he looked at Gu Yi'an.
The other players were skeptical and uneasy.
They glanced at Lu Zize, then at Gu Yi'an, and asked incredulously, "Are you two in cahoots?"
From the perspective of the three players, Lu Zize had clearly intended no good when he asked the male player to buy vitamin C earlier. Gu Yi'an's words seemed more like an attempt to exonerate him.
Gu Yi'an replied, "Not at all."
She continued, "My point is that someone is using food poisoning as an excuse to cover up the fact that they deliberately poisoned the food. We all assumed it was just food poisoning. But in reality, to reach that level of poisoning, it could only have been done intentionally. Among us, the newcomers have no motive to poison anyone. The only possible suspect is you, Brother Lu."
Lu Zize showed no change in expression at Gu Yi'an's suspicion; instead, a faint smile lingered in his eyes.
He waited quietly for Gu Yi'an to finish speaking and then said, "You suspected me because of the vitamin C. Now that the cause of poisoning isn't the vitamin C, you still suspect me. Is it just because I'm the only experienced investigator still alive?"
His tone carried a note of resignation as he added, "I'm just an investigator who arrived a few days earlier than you."
Passersby outside the seafood restaurant noticed the investigators confronting each other and eavesdropped on their conversation, either openly or discreetly.
Gu Yi'an noticed their gazes and glanced over unintentionally. Immediately, those people lowered their heads to play with their phones, rummaged through their bags, or pretended to strike up conversations with others around them.
Lu Zize's focus was on Gu Yi'an, but he soon noticed the onlookers as well.
Seeing the crowd, Lu Zize said in his usual consultative tone, "Let's return to the investigation bureau and have an open and honest discussion."
The players had no choice but to accept Lu Zize's actions. What else could they do?
They couldn’t just stab him and make a run for it.
The eyes of the Divine Eye System were everywhere in this city.
As newcomers unfamiliar with the place, the players couldn’t possibly escape as effortlessly as Sister Man, who was still on the wanted list and even dared to snatch targets right out of the enforcement team’s hands.
There were still two cars heading back to the Investigation Bureau.
One carried Gu Yi'an and Lu Zize, while the other held three players, two women and one man.
A minor incident occurred along the way. The car carrying the three players was initially driven by the novice male player who had foolishly stayed up all night with Lu Zize and the others.
At first, he was too afraid to get in the car, saying he was scared that ghosts might suddenly appear. Lu Zize had even reassured him, saying, "If there’s a ghost, we’ll just kill it."
The female players thought the novice male player didn’t trust their driving skills, which was why he made such an excuse.
So, the two female players forced him into the driver’s seat.
However, the novice male player was extremely tired and, due to exhaustion, nearly caused an accident while driving.
Fortunately, both female players had driver’s licenses and took over midway.
Although Lu Zize and Gu Yi'an’s car was ahead, Gu Yi'an vaguely saw from the rearview mirror that the players’ car had swerved strangely.
Lu Zize seemed to have noticed it too.
He said, "It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything."
Gu Yi'an remained silent in the passenger seat. She remembered that the drowsy male player was the one driving, so it wasn’t surprising that he’d had an accident.
The incident was entirely plausible, causing a flicker of doubt in her heart. Could it be that she really shouldn’t have suspected Lu Zize?
The car arrived at the entrance of the Investigation Bureau.
The electric retractable gate automatically recognized the vehicle carrying Gu Yi'an and the others.
The gate slowly opened.
At that moment, as Gu Yi'an gazed at the office building ahead, it felt as if a corner of her thoughts had been unlocked.
Last night, the enforcement team had insisted that they could only enter the Investigation Bureau if led by an investigator, no unauthorized entry was allowed. Yet, the funeral parlor staff had come and gone without any issues.
The Investigation Bureau also had an armory and several areas that couldn’t be accessed without the proper permissions.
Even if investigators obtained the director’s authorization, they still couldn’t enter the armory. By extension, perhaps those restricted areas were also off-limits to investigators.
Did that mean the investigators were merely a front, meant to conceal something else within the Investigation Bureau?
Moreover, the Investigation Bureau had never had a director, yet the investigators could obtain the director’s authorization through specific methods.
Did that imply that the so-called director wasn’t a fixed position?
Because there was no such person as the director.
If anyone could be called the director, it could only be that hidden entity.
All these thoughts swirled in Gu Yi'an’s mind.
Gradually, they pointed toward an omnipresent, all-pervasive existence that she had overlooked until now.
The Divine Eye System.
The Divine Eye System, which governed everything in the Sinless City, its true form was right here in the Investigation Bureau.
The car stopped.
Lu Zize unbuckled his seatbelt and glanced at Gu Yi'an, who remained motionless in her seat.
"Yi'an?"
Gu Yi'an turned to look at him.
She asked, "You said you’ve never lied to me?"
Lu Zize looked at her, puzzled.
Then he nodded, his expression completely calm.
Gu Yi'an pointed at the camera in the car and asked, "Then, is it right here beneath us?"
Lu Zize looked at her, a hint of appreciation in his eyes.
He nodded again.
Gu Yi'an asked, "Then what are you? The controller, or the rebel?"
Lu Zize smiled, "Aren't we all trying to overthrow it?"
In that instant, Gu Yi'an thought of Tang Jiu's words.
Tang Jiu had said his target was her.
She was in the midst of the situation, so her perspective was actually less clear than Tang Jiu's.
His target really was her.
"Do you think I'm your companion, while they are just pawns?" Gu Yi'an voiced the question.
"No," Lu Zize denied with a smile.
Gu Yi'an could roughly guess Lu Zize's thoughts by now. She changed her question, "Is it because they aren't qualified enough?"
The smile in Lu Zize's eyes deepened slightly, but he didn't answer.
Gu Yi'an didn't need his reply anymore. His silence was confirmation of what she had just said.
Gu Yi'an unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed the car door open.
In an instant, the sounds from outside flooded into her ears.
She froze for a moment.
Because right before her eyes, the driver's side of another car was half-open. Through that gap, under the dim yellow light inside the car, she could see a male player in the back seat leaning forward, his knife frantically stabbing into the body of the female player in the passenger seat.
That female player was already completely silent.
But the male player was raving, "I'm going to kill the ghost! Kill the ghost!"
Was he hypnotized?