Chapter 111: Ten People
"Pretending...?" Chu Tianqiu forced a faint smile. "Are you saying I'm pretending?"
"I don't care if you're the leader of 'Heaven's Gate' or the god ruling this place. Why did you have to provoke me?" Qi Xia said coldly.
"I..." Chu Tianqiu's expression was clearly strained. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't have imagined Qi Xia would have this kind of personality. "How did I provoke you...?"
"Last time I came to see you, you wasted half an hour of my time with your mystifying nonsense. Do you have any idea how crucial that half hour was to me? Couldn’t you have just said what you needed to say directly?" Qi Xia turned his head and grabbed a brick-sized stone from the ground. "This time, I trusted you and brought everyone here together, and you tied up my teammate without a word. Chu Tianqiu, why did you have to provoke me?"
Qi Xia weighed the stone in his hand, feeling it was heavy enough to crack someone's skull open.
"You—wait, wait..." Chu Tianqiu was genuinely scared now. He quickly waved his hands. "Listen to me. I did all this for a reason!"
"Too bad you didn't tell me the reason beforehand," Qi Xia said expressionlessly. "The thing I hate most in my life is anything that exceeds my expectations. You might think acting mysterious makes you seem powerful, but to me, it's just childish. No matter what shocking 'truth' you're about to tell me, I'm ready to smash your head open."
"Qi... Qi Xia, wait!" Yun Yao rushed over and grabbed Qi Xia's hand. "What are you doing? You can't kill Chu Tianqiu here!"
"Then where *can* I kill him?" Qi Xia asked. "Do I need to drag him out to the hallway specifically?"
"You..." Yun Yao's face flickered with uncertainty, looking flustered. "Qi Xia, I'll apologize on Chu Tianqiu's behalf... But if you kill him now, we'll lose any hope of getting out..."
"It doesn't matter. We can come back to life anyway if we die," Qi Xia said with a cold laugh. "This time, I'll shatter your head and teach you a lesson—don't provoke me in your 'next life.'"
"Don't..." Chu Tianqiu's eyes went wide. "I can't die yet..."
Qi Xia's gaze was icy, showing no sign of bluffing.
As Chu Tianqiu and Yun Yao watched in panic, Qi Xia raised the stone high and brought it down with brutal force.
A loud thud rang out, and dust kicked up from the ground.
Yun Yao quickly shut her eyes and turned her head away.
But the gruesome image of brains splattering never came. The stone landed on the ground right next to Chu Tianqiu.
Staring at Chu Tianqiu's panicked expression, Qi Xia asked slowly, "Did you remember what I just said?"
"Y-Yes... I remember," Chu Tianqiu stammered.
"What do you remember?"
"N-Never provoke you..."
"Good." Qi Xia clapped his hands, stood up, found a chair, and sat down. "Why did you kidnap Qiao Jiajin?"
Still shaken, Yun Yao hurried over to help Chu Tianqiu up.
Chu Tianqiu gave an awkward smile, picked up his knocked-off glasses from the floor, and slowly put them on.
"You really are a formidable person..." Chu Tianqiu said with a grim laugh. "I thought I'd give you a 'show of force' today, but I nearly got trampled by your horse."
"Chu Tianqiu, if you want me to be a reliable teammate, drop your 'tricks' and be genuine with me," Qi Xia replied coldly. "I'm not an ordinary person. If you keep playing mind games with me, you'll only make me angry."
"Alright, I've learned my lesson now." Chu Tianqiu spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground and sat down on another chair, looking much more subdued. "Just now, from the look in your eyes, I thought you were really going to kill me..."
"But I'm a liar," Qi Xia said. "You can only believe half of what I say."
The three of them sat facing different directions, the atmosphere heavy with silence.
"You haven't answered me yet," Qi Xia said. "Why did you kidnap Qiao Jiajin? Where are the others?"
"Qi Xia, you're in a very dangerous situation," Chu Tianqiu said, steadying himself and looking up. "There's a serious problem with your team."
"A serious problem?" Qi Xia frowned. "In what regard?"
"The numbers don't add up," Chu Tianqiu said pointedly. "The male-to-female ratio of the people who came out of your room is off."
"Oh?" Qi Xia looked at the refined man before him. "The male-to-female ratio is off?"
"That's right." Chu Tianqiu nodded gravely. "To be honest, the people who walked out of your room should have been 'six men and three women,' but instead it's 'five men and four women.'"
"Hmm." Qi Xia nodded. "I see. And then?"
"Then... then?" Chu Tianqiu was taken aback. "Qi Xia, don't you understand what I'm saying? There's a high chance that 'extremists' have infiltrated your team. I wasn't sure how many intruders there were, so I locked everyone down."
"I said I understand," Qi Xia said. "Any other reasons?"
"I..." Chu Tianqiu hadn't expected this reaction from Qi Xia at all. His eyes widened. "So that's it... You're terrifying. Did you already know about this?"
Qi Xia nodded silently. "Chu Tianqiu, I'm starting to have my doubts."
"Doubts?"
"Are you really as clever as you make yourself out to be, getting so worked up over something like this?" Qi Xia slowly stood up, his unfathomable eyes filled with suspicion. "If you found out that someone in our team was an 'extremist,' wouldn't the smart move be to quietly root them out? Instead, you made a huge scene and scared them off—that's not something a smart person would do."
"You..." Chu Tianqiu gave Qi Xia a meaningful look. "I miscalculated. I didn't expect you to already know about this."
"I've known for a while that there's most likely an 'extremist' in my team, but this person is strange," Qi Xia said. "I've teamed up with most of them before and exposed myself as defenseless in front of many, but no one has hurt me or tried to seize the 'Dao.' So I've been debating whether to spend a few days dealing with this issue."
Qi Xia knew that the only woman in his team who had never teamed up with him was Xiao Ran.
Was she the 'extremist'?
Looking at her performance, she might as well have had the word "suspicious" carved on her face.
Would the 'extremists' really send someone so foolish to infiltrate his team?
"Since no one has actually tried anything, how do you know there's an 'extremist' in your team?" Yun Yao asked from the side.
"It's a simple but strange logic," Qi Xia said, scratching his head. "If I'm not mistaken, your interview rooms at the start all had 'nine people,' right?"
"Yes," Yun Yao nodded. "Was yours not 'nine people'?"
"That's right. There were 'ten people' in our room."
Qi Xia's words left both of them momentarily stunned.
"Ten people?!"