Chapter 1018: You Know Too Much
Xu Huo reluctantly accepted the three items, then let him leave.
As he was leaving, the other player was still a bit uncertain, constantly looking back warily at him.
Xu Huo waved his hand to signal him to leave decisively, and the male player finally climbed out the window.
After confirming he had left, Xu Huo returned to the desk and looked at the note placed on it.
The instance information was insignificant; hearing the inside news about District 002 here was the real surprise.
Logically, Snow City's purchase of a large-scale space channel instrument should be top secret. Even if leaked, it wouldn't reach the ears of an outer zone player here for an instance—unless someone deliberately spread it.
The people of Snow City certainly wouldn't do this; it would bring them no benefit. So someone else had overheard this information and wanted to make a move while Snow City was pulling players away. To maximize their gains, they deliberately spread the news to drag other players into it.
In fact, upon hearing this news, it was hard for any player not to be tempted. Even minor disturbances would be enough to give Snow City a headache.
Of course, this wasn't the most important thing. The most important thing was whether the part about invading the new district was true.
Just then, Xu Huo sensed movement upstairs. He pulled open the door, entered the corridor, and directly blasted through the floor with his sword, leaping up to block Teacher Fan and Miss Ding, who were in the middle of a fight, inside the room.
Teacher Fan saw him and his face lit up. "Mr. Xu, come help me quickly! Miss Ding wants to kill me. She must have gotten..."
Before he could finish, Miss Ding struck him with a palm, sending him crashing into the wall. Teacher Fan spat out blood, stumbled upon landing, and seemed unable to dodge Miss Ding's second attack. But at that moment, Xu Huo flashed in front of him, raised his sword, and forced Miss Ding back.
Miss Ding's face turned cold, while Teacher Fan, standing behind Xu Huo, coughed and thanked him. But before he could finish, the "Eye of the Dead" was pressed against his neck. Then Teacher Fan saw this man, who had spoken little and seemed inconspicuous since entering the instance, now staring at him with sharp eyes and a fierce demeanor. "Hand over the note."
Teacher Fan was stunned. "What note... no, it was Miss Ding who suddenly attacked me..."
"The fourth note shouldn't have appeared yet. The one who killed last night was you. Are you handing it over voluntarily, or do I have to do it myself?" Xu Huo interrupted him.
The commotion he made when he came up would have inevitably alerted the other players. Now everyone, including the male player who had just ambushed him, had arrived. Hearing these familiar words, a flash of pain crossed the latter's face, and he quickly said, "He was the first killer! I saw bloodstains heading toward your room. Who else could it be?"
Teacher Fan's face was no longer pale, and he stopped spitting blood. He hurriedly said, "What bloodstains? I don't know anything about that!"
"Why say so much!" Miss Ding stepped forward, gripping a short sword. "Kill him, and everything will be clear. If he was the first to get a note, it must still be on him."
"What gives you the right to say that!" Teacher Fan shouted. "How can you just randomly accuse people!"
"Because our fists are harder." Miss Ding sneered. "Do you see anyone else here helping you?"
Not to mention the others, even the lip-piercing player, who usually had a tendency to argue, didn't speak up. So what if there was no note? Who cared who they killed?
"What's going on?" Chi Minghong walked over and asked.
"He should be the first to get a note. The second to get one was the female player who died this morning, but she was killed, and the note might be in someone else's hands. The third to get one is him." Xu Huo pointed at the male player who had ambushed him.
The male player was suddenly singled out but didn't dare to refute, so he had to silently accept it with a look of frustration.
Seeing his miserable expression, everyone knew he had tried to kill but ended up being pinned down and rubbed into the ground instead.
"No, how did the plot suddenly develop so fast?" the glasses-wearing man said in surprise. "I feel like I'm still watching the first episode. Why are you all already at the climax?"
Most of the players present remained expressionless, but in reality, they were in the same boat—at most, they had only suspected the person who killed the short-haired female player last night.
"Mr. Xu, you're a hidden master," the muscular man said with a smile, then took out a set of needles and said to Teacher Fan, "Don't waste everyone's time. You can't leave the instance. I have specialized torture interrogation items here, guaranteed to keep you fully conscious of every bit of pain."
Teacher Fan's expression shifted between uncertainty and gloom, but in the end, he shed his honest-man facade and sullenly pulled out a note.
It was the same as the one Xu Huo had gotten, with a drawn pattern and the number "3" marked on it.
Xu Huo handed the person over to Miss Ding and placed the two notes on the table.
"So these '3' and '13' are the serial numbers, right?" Chi Minghong said. "Was the female player who died last night the third to arrive?"
She was the fifth and wasn't clear about the order before her.
"She was the third," said the local zone player. "I was the first to arrive."
"I was second," said the lip-piercing player.
The fourth was the male player with a spot on his face, the fifth was Chi Minghong, the sixth was the long-haired female player who died this morning, the seventh was the muscular man, the eighth was Teacher Fan, the ninth was the hat-wearing player, the tenth was the male player who ambushed Xu Huo, the eleventh was Miss Ding, the twelfth was Zhou Yuanzhu, who arrived a step later than Xu Huo but entered the hall first, and the fourteenth was the last to arrive, the glasses-wearing man.
Thus, everyone's order was clear.
"Then the second note probably has the number six on it," Zhou Yuanzhu said, looking at Xu Huo.
"This morning, she came to ask me about the players who arrived earlier," Chi Minghong explained, pointing at the lip-piercing player and the local zone player.
The lip-piercing player's face darkened. "Are you saying the second note is in my hands?"
"Not necessarily," Chi Minghong said without anger. "She was just asking about the order of your arrival. Maybe she was trying to figure out the order of others?"
"Anyway, she definitely knew the serial numbers of those who came later. The only ones she wouldn't know are the first five," she added preemptively.
That left only four people as targets.
"He can be ruled out," Xu Huo said, pointing at the man who had ambushed him.
"Why rule him out?" Miss Ding said. "Whether he's the target or not, he could still have gotten two notes in a row."
Xu Huo gave a simple and convincing reason. "He's not strong enough."
"Also," he looked around at everyone, his gaze landing on the hat-wearing player, "the second to get a note was the long-haired female player, but the person who killed her might not have been her target... You were the one who handled the body disposal in the second step. Do you have any clues?"
The hat-wearing player's expression shifted slightly but quickly returned to normal. He looked at Xu Huo with suspicion. "Don't you think you know too much?"
Xu Huo tapped the notes on the table. "I'm just speeding up the instance process. Since everyone has gained something, there's no need to waste time, right?"
Speeding up the instance process? Your style of revealing information and stirring up trouble, dragging everyone into the mud—it doesn't look like you're trying to benefit anyone but yourself!