Chapter 1: The Empty Room
An old tungsten bulb, suspended by a black wire from the center of the ceiling, flickered with a dim, yellowish light.
A tranquil atmosphere, like ink dripping into clear water, slowly diffused and spread throughout the room.
In the very center of the room stood a large, round table, which appeared stained and worn with age. At the center of the table sat a small, ornate chiming clock, its intricate patterns covering its surface, ticking away steadily.
Seated around the table were ten people of various appearances, their clothes somewhat shabby, their faces smudged with dust.
Some lay slumped over the tabletop, others leaned back in their chairs, all of them sound asleep.
Standing silently beside these ten individuals was a man wearing a goat-head mask and a black suit.
His eyes peered out from the worn goat-head mask, observing the ten people with keen interest.
The chime of the clock on the table rang out as the minute hand and hour hand both pointed to "twelve."
From somewhere far beyond the room, a deep, resonant bell tolled.
At that same moment, the ten men and women sitting around the round table slowly awoke.
As they gradually regained consciousness, they first looked around in confusion, then glanced at each other with bewilderment.
It seemed no one remembered how they had come to be here.
"Good morning, nine of you," the goat-head spoke first. "I am very pleased to meet you here. You have been sleeping before me for twelve hours."
The man's attire was truly eerie, startling everyone under the dim light.
His mask appeared to be made from a real goat's head, much of its hair yellowed, darkened, matted, and clumped together.
Two hollow holes were cut out at the eyes of the goat mask, revealing his cunning eyes.
His every movement not only emitted the unique goaty smell of a goat but also carried a faint, rotting odor.
A man with tattooed arms froze for a few seconds before finally realizing the strangeness of the situation. He asked the goat-head hesitantly, "You... who are you?"
"I believe you all share this question, so let me introduce myself to the nine of you." The goat-head waved his hands cheerfully, looking as though he had been preparing this answer for a long time.
A young man named Qi Xia, sitting farthest from the goat-head, quickly surveyed the room. A moment later, his expression grew serious.
Strange. This room was truly strange.
There were no doors, only walls on all four sides.
In other words, the walls, ceiling, and floor around this room were all sealed, yet a table stood in the center.
If so, how had they gotten here?
Had they been brought in first, and then the walls were built afterward?
Qi Xia looked around again. The floor, walls, and ceiling all had crisscrossing lines, dividing the surfaces and ground into many large squares.
Another thing that bothered Qi Xia was the goat-head's mention of "nine of you."
No matter how you counted, there were ten people sitting around the round table. Adding the goat-head himself, there were eleven people in the room.
What did "nine of you" mean?
He reached into his pocket and, as expected, found his phone was gone.
"There's no need to introduce yourself," a cool-toned woman said to the goat-head. "I advise you to stop your actions immediately. I suspect you have detained us for over twenty-four hours, constituting the crime of 'unlawful detention.' Every word you say now will be recorded and will form testimony unfavorable to you."
As she spoke, she disdainfully brushed the dust off her arm, as if she hated being dirtied even more than being imprisoned.
The cool woman's words indeed sobered everyone up. Whoever this was, daring to kidnap ten people alone had already crossed the legal line.
"Wait..." A middle-aged man in a white coat interrupted everyone's train of thought. He slowly looked at the cool woman and asked, "We've all just woken up. How do you know we've been imprisoned for 'twenty-four hours'?"
His tone was steady and forceful, hitting the nail on the head.
The cool woman calmly pointed to the clock on the table and replied, "The clock here points to twelve, but I have a habit of staying up late. The last time I checked the clock at home, it was also twelve. This means we have been imprisoned for at least twelve hours."
After speaking, she pointed to the surrounding walls and continued, "You must have noticed there are no doors in this room. This means this person went to some trouble to get us in here. He said we have been sleeping for twelve hours, and now the clock points to twelve again, meaning at least two full rotations have passed. So I suspect 'over twenty-four hours.' Is there a problem?"
After hearing this answer, the man in the white coat gave the woman a cold, suspicious look.
After all, in this environment, this woman was far too calm.
Would a normal person, facing this kind of kidnapping, calmly utter such words?
At this moment, a sturdy young man in a black T-shirt asked, "Goat-head, why are there ten people here, but you say there are nine?"
The goat-head remained silent, not answering immediately.
"F*** off, I don't care how many people are here..." The tattooed-arm man cursed, pushing against the table to stand up, but found his legs weak and useless. So he could only continue pointing at the goat-head and say, "You bastard, I suggest you wise up. You might not know how serious the consequences are if you mess with me. I'll really kill you."
At these words, the expressions of the men present grew serious. This was indeed a time when someone needed to take the lead. If they could subdue the goat-head together, the situation might still be under control.
But everyone found that their legs, as if injected with something, were completely powerless.
So the tattooed-arm man could only threaten the goat-head with words, shouting and cursing loudly.
Qi Xia remained silent, gently stroking his chin. He stared at the clock on the table, lost in thought.
Things seemed not so simple.
He knew the goat-head had said "nine participants." If there were ten people here, it could only mean that one of them was not a participant.
Who was that?
Seated here were six men and four women. Could one of them be the "kidnapper"?
The goat-head stopped speaking, slowly walked over to Qi Xia, and stood behind a young man.
Everyone followed his gaze and noticed that this young man was different from all the others. His face was also dirty, but it radiated a blissful smile.
The goat-head slowly raised his hand and placed it on the back of the young man's head.
The young man's smile grew more eerie. He looked at everyone with excitement, as if he already knew something.
With a dull thud, the goat-head slammed the young man's head forcefully against the tabletop.
Pinkish-white matter, like spilled paint, instantly spread horizontally across the table. Drops of blood splattered beside everyone's face.
This young man's head had been completely crushed against the table.
From outside the room, another distant bell tolled.
Qi Xia was very close to the deceased. He felt something unidentified stick to his face—warm, sticky.
He prided himself on having strong psychological resilience, but even he couldn't help trembling at this moment.
The girl sitting to the right of the deceased froze for three seconds, then her face twisted in horror as she let out a piercing scream.
That scream shattered everyone's psychological defenses.
To be able to crush the hardest human skull against a table with bare hands—was the goat-head still "human"?
How could his frail body unleash such immense power?
The goat-head slowly spoke: "The reason I prepared ten people was to use one of them to quiet the rest of you down."