Chapter 4: Disaster?
At this moment, the tattooed-arm man raised his hand and looked at Shanyang Tou: "Hey, referee, how do you count someone using a pseudonym like that? Does it count as lying?"
Shanyang Tou neither nodded nor shook his head, but simply said calmly: "I will no longer participate in any of the process. You just need to write down your names according to your own thoughts. Just remember that 'the rules are absolute.' In the end, I will personally carry out the 'judgment' on the loser."
The word "judgment" landed with weight, causing everyone to shudder involuntarily.
"Th-this means I didn't lie!" Tiantian shouted anxiously. "If I were lying, I'd be dead by now, right? Even if it's a nickname, my nickname really is 'Tiantian'!"
No one answered her. Now was a critical life-or-death stage, and no suspicion could be overlooked.
"Then it's my turn to speak." The tattooed-arm man curled his lips, looking reluctant. "If that young lady's story isn't considered a lie, then mine definitely shouldn't be either."
"My name is Qiao Jiajin. I live in Guangdong. No occupation. Before I came here, I was collecting debts."
Qiao Jiajin's Mandarin was poor, so everyone had to listen carefully.
"You know, people these days are really amusing. When they borrow money, they agree to anything. When it's time to pay back, they start crying about how miserable they are."
"Goddamn. They call us debt collectors devils, cold-blooded."
"But that fool should think from another angle. When he was most helpless and needed money the most, I was the one who lent a hand. When no institution would lend him a cent, I did. To him, I wasn't a devil, but a savior."
"But how did he treat me, his savior?"
"He cried everywhere about how hard his life was, how he was cheated out of two million. Then he railed against how cold-blooded we debt collectors were, trying to use sympathy from neighbors to solve his own problems. But when he borrowed the money, we signed a contract. All the interest was clearly explained to him. Now that he can't repay, is that my fault?"
"Last night, I decided to teach him a lesson. I took him to the rooftop of a tall building. But then an earthquake suddenly hit. I didn't originally want to kill him, but that fool actually took advantage of the chaos to pull out a knife and try to kill me!"
"In the middle of all that chaos, he pushed me off the rooftop. I hit a billboard. After that... I can't remember anything."
After hearing this man's story, everyone furrowed their brows.
Tiantian seemed to have found something, and said with a furious laugh: "See! I told you why you were throwing mud at me! Turns out you're the liar!"
"What? What makes you say I'm lying?" Qiao Jiajin said fiercely.
"I'm in Shaanxi, you're in Guangdong!" Tiantian pointed at him. "Your story is clearly copied from mine! There was an earthquake where I was, and you have an earthquake too. I got hit by a billboard, and you hit one too! If that's not lying, what is?"
"What do I care where you are? I really did encounter an earthquake." The tattooed-arm man glared. "If I kept it hidden, that would be lying! As for the billboard, there can't be only one billboard in the whole world, right?"
"You're lying anyway!" Tiantian pointed at Qiao Jiajin. "With a job like yours, only scumbags do that. Lying isn't surprising!"
"Heh, your job is any better than mine?"
Qi Xia watched the two arguing heatedly and felt something was indeed suspicious.
It wasn't about which of them was lying—it was because he had also experienced an earthquake.
He wasn't in Shaanxi or Guangdong, but in Shandong.
Did an earthquake of such a vast scale exist in this world?
This earthquake spanned half the country, covering three provinces.
If they were all telling the truth, wasn't this an unprecedented disaster?
"Stop arguing. Let's get this over with." The burly man sitting opposite stopped the two, then looked at the next woman. "Your turn. If we really need to judge who's lying, it's better for everyone to finish speaking first."
Upon hearing this, the two snorted coldly and fell silent.
The woman next to Qiao Jiajin nodded timidly and began to speak: "Um... I-I'm called Xiao Ran. I'm a kindergarten teacher."
The girl named Xiao Ran seemed terrified. Her voice was very soft, trembling.
"Before I came here, I was waiting with a child for a parent. The child used to be picked up by his mother. Then I heard she got seriously ill, something growing in her brain, needed surgery... So in recent days, the father came to pick him up instead. But it seems the father often forgets to show up..."
"Yesterday, it was already past six in the evening. I was actually off duty by then, but for some reason, the child's father wouldn't answer his phone..."
"I didn't know the child's home address, so I couldn't take him back. I had no choice but to stand at the intersection with him and wait."
"Actually, I had something to do that night too... I had made an appointment with a psychological counselor. I felt I didn't really like my current job, and I hoped the counselor could help guide me."
"But I didn't expect to wait for several hours. The evening appointment fell through."
"Just as I was distracted, the ground suddenly started shaking. I was terrified... It took me a few seconds to realize it was an earthquake..."
"The feeling of an earthquake was different from what I'd heard... The ground wasn't bouncing up and down, but swaying left and right. It felt like I was standing on a table, and someone kept shaking that table..."
"I immediately hugged the child beside me. But I didn't know what to do. I saw the three pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in the distance cracking... Luckily we were standing in an open space."
"Then I saw an out-of-control car speeding straight toward us... I had no choice but to stagger, holding the child, and run to the side. But the shaking ground made me fall with every step."
"In the end, I hit my head when I fell... and passed out. When I woke up, I was already here."
This was an unremarkable account.
The only thing that struck Qi Xia as odd was the "Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple."
Those three pagodas are in Dali, Yunnan.
Qi Xia gently stroked the card on the table. Though he covered the three characters with his hand, he knew it read "Liar."
So, could there be multiple liars?
If "the rules are absolute," then what Shanyang Tou had just said—"there is one and only one liar"—must be absolute.
Since he had drawn the "Liar," it proved no one else could be one. There was only one liar.
They were all telling the truth.
Yet these stories, spanning three provinces, faintly connected.
It wasn't just the earthquake—even the content of their accounts linked together. Wasn't that too strange?
At this moment, everyone's eyes shifted to the next person: a middle-aged man in a white lab coat.