Chapter 226: Threat
What should they do next?
Everyone exchanged glances. Attorney Zhang and Tiantian, standing off to the side, were utterly terrified.
What the hell was going on? What were these people doing?
"I'm screwed..." Qiao Jiajin was completely at a loss as well. "What now? Are we just going to sit here and wait to die?"
Lin Qin and Officer Li both looked at Qi Xia at the same time.
Things had reached such a dire point that they could only hope Qi Xia had a plan.
But right now, Qi Xia's expression was somewhat dazed as he held Yu Nian'an's hand, quietly gazing at her.
"An... your hand is so cold. Are you cold?"
"No, I'm not."
"Yu Nian'an..." Lin Qin furrowed her brow. She had a feeling that the root of all this trouble lay with the Yu Nian'an before her.
"Give me the gun," she said to Officer Li, turning her head. "There's only one way left..."
Seeing the look in Lin Qin's eyes, Qiao Jiajin immediately sensed something was wrong.
"Psychiatrist... are you about to play with fire?" he murmured in a worried tone. "If you kill that pretty lady... the conman will never forgive you. I've got a feeling that what comes after will be even harder to deal with than this..."
"But he's losing his mind!" Lin Qin said. "I don't care if he ends up hating me. The most important thing right now is to snap him out of it! Otherwise, he'll live here forever with this Yu Nian'an and turn into an original resident!"
Officer Li exchanged a look with Han Yimo as they both realized the gravity of the situation.
Han Yimo and Dr. Zhao tossed the gun barrel and magazine back to Officer Li. He reassembled the weapon, deftly released the safety, and threw it to Lin Qin.
Lin Qin took a deep breath, slowly raised the pistol, and aimed it at Yu Nian'an, who stood not far away.
No matter what this Yu Nian'an really was, at least she looked like a normal person.
If a normal person was killed, they would naturally revive in the next cycle.
"I'm sorry, Yu Nian'an..."
Just as Lin Qin raised the gun and prepared to fire, a voice slowly rang out from beside Yu Nian'an.
"Lin Qin, put the gun down."
Everyone was startled, and they realized the speaker was Qi Xia.
"What?"
Qi Xia turned his head, staring at Lin Qin with icy eyes.
"I said put the gun down."
"You..."
Everyone also noticed that something felt off about Qi Xia. Usually, everything he did had its own logic, but now he seemed to be acting on impulse.
"Qi Xia, if we don't kill her, you'll—"
"Killing my Yu Nian'an won't accomplish a damn thing," Qi Xia said coldly, turning to glance at the human-sheep on the ground. "You're pointing a gun at Yu Nian'an just to make me come up with a plan, aren't you?"
Lin Qin knew Qi Xia was right.
She was about to kill the most important person to him, all to borrow his intellect.
"You bunch of selfish bastards," Qi Xia said, sweeping a displeased gaze across everyone in the room. "To get a plan out of me, you'd actually dare to threaten me by pointing a gun at Yu Nian'an, right?"
Qiao Jiajin felt pretty uncomfortable hearing that. "Conman, how can you think of us like that?"
"You're right. That's exactly the situation," Lin Qin said without pretense. "If pointing a gun at Yu Nian'an gets us a solution, then communicating with you just becomes a whole lot easier."
Qi Xia stared into Lin Qin's eyes for a moment, then said slowly, "Don't point the gun at Yu Nian'an. Put it down, and I'll tell you the plan."
Lin Qin hesitated, then slowly lowered her raised hand.
"Good," Qi Xia nodded. "Like I said, killing my An won't do any good. What we need to do now is make the human-sheep die."
"What?" Lin Qin was taken aback.
"Throw the gun to the human-sheep," Qi Xia said. "Like he himself just said, according to the contract, if he fails to kill himself, a higher-up will show up to personally execute him. And when that happens, we'll be in danger."
This statement offered everyone a new line of thought.
Qi Xia continued his explanation. "Yu Nian'an has appeared in this room. Our room might be considered a 'foul.' If some high-level being kills us here, we'll suffer a much greater loss."
Hearing this, everyone exchanged glances again. They all knew how deep Qi Xia's schemes could run. Though his words sounded reasonable, there was absolutely no way to tell if he was telling the truth.
"I'm not trying to deceive anyone," Qi Xia said. "Every time the human-sheep dies, we can move freely. If you use your last bullet to kill Yu Nian'an, we'll still be trapped in these chairs, just sitting here waiting for the harpoons to come."
Though his gaze was somewhat vacant, the logic in his words was still very clear, forcing people to trust him.
"He's right," Officer Li nodded. "I've seen that contract too..."
Though no one knew exactly what "contract" Officer Li was referring to, it did seem like the human-sheep was acting according to its terms.
Lin Qin thought it over several times before finally deciding to adopt Qi Xia's strategy. Under everyone's watchful eyes, she tossed the pistol to the human-sheep.
Though the human-sheep couldn't hear or see, he could clearly feel a heavy object drop into his arms.
He felt it—it was the pistol.
"G-Great!!" The human-sheep lifted his head, staring with his two tear-and-blood-soaked eyes, shouting excitedly. "I can die now!! I can finally die!!"
The next second, he raised the pistol, aimed it at his own heart, and pulled the trigger without any hesitation.
The loud gunshot echoed repeatedly in the sealed room, gradually fading away along with the human-sheep's dying screams.
Now they could all stand up.
Attorney Zhang scrambled to her feet, stumbled back a few steps, and crashed hard onto the floor.
Seeing this, Tiantian quickly went over to help her up.
"Are you okay?" Tiantian asked.
"What—what is this place?" Attorney Zhang looked around at the others, flustered. "What are you all doing?! Do you know each other? Why isn't anyone shocked by someone committing suicide right in front of them?"
Officer Li slowly walked over to Zhang Chenze and said, "Attorney Zhang, calm down first. I'll explain everything to you in a moment."
"How do you know my last name...?"
Qiao Jiajin also came over to Tiantian, speaking in a gentle tone. "Pretty lady, it's about to get dangerous. You should hide behind me. Once we're out of this room, I'll tell you everything."
Tiantian eyed Qiao Jiajin warily. The man before her had a thuggish look, with tattooed arms, and his first words to her were "pretty lady." It was hard to believe he wasn't a bad guy.
Lin Qin walked over to the human-sheep's corpse, rifled through his pockets, and sure enough, found a stack of A4 paper and several pens. Not long after, she also pulled out an "identity badge" from his pocket.
She thought for a moment, then turned and distributed the badges, paper, and pens to everyone. "I know this is the first time we've seen a situation like this, but let's play it safe and write down the human-sheep's name first."
Each person received a "Liar" badge, and then they all wrote "human-sheep" on their slips of paper.
By now, Han Yimo was nervously staring at the "tenth person" in the room, only relaxing once he saw the man write down "human-sheep."
The next moment, the room began to change.
Numerous holes appeared in the walls and ceiling. The second round had begun.