# Chapter 459: Reversal
The crimson sword had sunk more than a finger's width into Tong Qi's neck, but this strike failed to sever his head because at the moment of impact, he tilted his head and blocked with his dagger!
Even at such close range, he had dodged it. Xu Huo's brow furrowed as he whipped out the kite string, embedding it into the other man's heart, and took the opportunity to kick him away!
Tong Qi blocked with his leg and retreated backward, simultaneously reaching for the string in his chest, but the next second his expression changed—because the string had pierced his heart and couldn't be pulled out at all!
"Kite string." Xu Huo lifted the line to chest level and smiled. "Mao Wei's prop. You're allies, so you should recognize it, shouldn't you?"
Aside from the Kong siblings, the other players were also temporarily assembled. At most, they'd reveal their profession and primary traits. Items weren't casually mentioned until they were needed.
Seeing Tong Qi raise his hand, Xu Huo pulled the line inward as a warning. "Don't try anything."
Tong Qi had no choice but to spread his hands and return the dagger to his item slot. "My right hand is bleeding. At least let me stop the bleeding."
"You won't die anytime soon." Xu Huo turned to Miao Yu and said, "They might have other players lying in ambush on the island. Help keep watch."
This made Miao Yu, who had been walking toward him, stop in her tracks and simply leap up into a tree.
On the other side, the original group of three had become two. Chu Yuan, who had finally managed to clear the glue and sand from his face, walked over and said, "Gan Qing is gone. He probably ran."
"In that situation just now, I almost couldn't resist running myself." Dr. Deng's hands were still stuck together. Xu Huo hadn't kept the desert windmill going for long, so he'd only eaten a bit of sand.
Xu Huo glanced at the two of them but said nothing.
"Brother Xu, why keep him alive?" Chu Yuan looked at Tong Qi.
"Just curious why they won't leave Deep Blue Island." Xu Huo asked Tong Qi, "It doesn't seem like you plan to notify the Bolen Clan either. Is there another secret on this island?"
Hearing this, the others present turned to look at Tong Qi. But Tong Qi just smiled. "I didn't leave because you didn't leave."
"Damn, he was planning to kill us all to silence us." Chu Yuan spat. "He was waiting here, figuring we were all injured and couldn't leave for now!"
"Is that so?" Xu Huo didn't believe it. "Wouldn't it be more convenient for you to wait for other players to arrive? Even taking a boat from Saiel Coast to Deep Blue Island wouldn't take much time. Why take this risk?"
"The Kong siblings are dead. The instance is over. Whether you participate in the subsequent matters or not isn't important. But you chose to stay, and you might not even have notified anyone outside. Apart from profit, I can't think of another reason."
"There must be something about the laboratory that you know but others don't."
Dr. Deng looked at Tong Qi in surprise. "You mean you're not a member of the Bolen Clan?"
Tong Qi didn't answer the question but countered, "Speaking of things others don't know, last night Qiu Xiangdong and I went back to check the third underground level. We found a false wall on the periphery of the laboratory. The place where the hatch was supposed to be built had been blown open. There were clear signs that something had been stored there, but the thing was already gone."
"It was taken by someone here in advance, wasn't it?"
His words put the others on alert. Dr. Deng couldn't help asking, "Are you telling the truth?"
"If you don't believe me, send someone to check." Tong Qi stared coldly at them. "Maybe the potion was hidden in that false wall."
"When the explosion happened, Dr. Deng, Gan Qing, and I were thrown directly into the sea. We didn't have time for that. So the remaining ones..." Chu Yuan didn't finish his sentence, but a simple process of elimination showed that the most likely people to have taken the item from the false wall were Miao Yu, who killed Kong Cheng; Xu Huo, who killed Kong Hui; Tong Qi, who went back to the third underground level; and Qiu Xiangdong, who escaped.
"They couldn't have taken the potion." Dr. Deng said. "Otherwise, they would have left as soon as they found it."
"We can't rule out the possibility that they deliberately stayed to kill us all." Miao Yu said. "The third underground level was blown up. The Bolen Clan will eventually discover the false wall and lock onto their targets."
"Isn't that ridiculous?" Tong Qi retorted. "The Bolen Clan knows the list of participants in this instance. What use would killing you all be to me? I'd be better off escaping to another game district as fast as possible. Can the Bolen Clan search every single game district?"
Miao Yu was silent for a few seconds before saying to Xu Huo and the others, "He has a point."
That left only Xu Huo and Miao Yu.
Chu Yuan looked at them and said, "That's not necessarily true either. If they found the potion, why would they stay instead of running? Qiu Xiangdong seems more suspicious to me. When the explosion happened, Xu Zhi and Miao Yu were tied up by the Kong siblings. Only he came out unscathed."
"Doesn't that kind of talk treat everyone else like fools?" Xu Huo said casually. "If Qiu Xiangdong got the potion right after yesterday's explosion and wasn't injured, would he stay to drink the wind or wait to be killed?"
Chu Yuan rolled his eyes. "So that means the thing in the false wall was definitely taken by one of you two."
"It wasn't me." Miao Yu immediately cleared herself and said, "The last one to come up yesterday was you, Xu Zhi."
"It's true that I was the last one up," Xu Huo tugged the kite string and glanced at Tong Qi, who was showing signs of pain. He smiled. "But at this point, you two can stop putting on an act."
"What do you mean?" Tong Qi was in pain but didn't dare pull at the kite string.
"I mean, since you two are companions, there's no need to keep clearing each other's names." Xu Huo gestured for Miao Yu to stand farther away. "False wall, something hidden—your only reason for not leaving is to kill people to silence them. To kill Dr. Deng to silence him."
Dr. Deng was startled. "Are you saying Miao Yu and Tong Qi are working together?"
Chu Yuan was also stunned. "What kind of reversal is this? I'm a bit lost."
"Leaving Qiu Xiangdong aside for now, Wu Xiaonan indeed, as Miao Yu said, probably boarded the Kong siblings' ship later." Xu Huo looked at Miao Yu. "But here's a big flaw: as a hostage, you were way too lively. If it were me, I would at least have disabled your combat ability before capturing you, otherwise I'd just kill you directly."
"And taking a hostage in the first place was completely unnecessary. There are no friends in an instance, only temporary allies. The Kong siblings, who have been through many instances, wouldn't do something so superfluous."
"With that reasoning, things become very clear. You did injure Wu Xiaonan, but you also switched sides temporarily."
"The reason you did this was that you didn't trust Dr. Deng and wanted to find out whether he really knew where the potion was hidden."
"Later, after Qiu Xiangdong's repeated confirmations, the Kong siblings determined that Dr. Deng indeed had no more leads, so they came downstairs to finish things."
"At that point, still bringing you along as a hostage was even more abnormal. Why not just deal with you on the spot?"
(Chapter End)