Showdown

This speech almost woke everyone up, and it also woke up Qi Xia.

Indeed, the "Liar" had a huge advantage.

Qi Xia frowned for a moment, wondering why his chances of winning were so high.

Lying to a group of strangers who didn't know or understand him was easy—any random lie would be hard to detect.

But could using a fake name really cost eight lives?

Or is it that… the person who draws "Liar" is the chosen one? Is this inherently an unfair game?

"No, wait..." Qi Xia thought to himself. "If drawing a card guarantees survival, then why not just write 'life' and 'death' on the cards? That would be a much simpler way to achieve the goal. Otherwise, what's the point of this game that's been going on for almost an hour?"

A deep sense of discomfort began to spread in his mind.

Qi Xia kept recalling everything the Goathead had said.

Could it be…

"Hey, it's your turn," Qiao Jiajin said, patting Qi Xia on the shoulder.

Qi Xia snapped back to reality and noticed everyone was looking at him with odd expressions.

By now, there was no time for deep thought; otherwise, he'd become even more suspicious.

He took a deep breath, cleared his mind, and refocused.

His mind kept repeating the phrase, "My name is Li Ming, and I'm from Shandong..."

But at this moment, he absolutely couldn't use that answer. To find the "solution" to this game, he had to take a gamble.

Qi Xia opened his eyes and said to everyone: "Everyone, my name is Qi Xia, I'm from Shandong, and I'm a professional liar."

"Liar?"

At this, the others gasped in surprise. After all, the role of a "liar" had appeared in many people's stories.

This liar also subtly linked everyone's stories together.

Ironically, they now had to judge whether a "liar" was telling the truth.

"Before I came here, I was trying to launder two million yuan."

"Anyway, I worked hard and managed to clean up 1.4 million. That was the cheapest method I could come up with."

"But on my way back with the money, I suddenly encountered an earthquake. I saw my house shaking."

"Normally, at a time like this, you should never enter a building because it could collapse at any moment. But I was worried about the people inside, so I rushed in anyway."

"Sure enough, as soon as I entered the room, the porch collapsed, and I was trapped and lost consciousness."

Qi Xia told the story in a calm tone, using just a few sentences, but everyone was watching him cautiously.

He knew what he was doing was a huge risk, but it was the only way to test if his theory was correct.

If the Goathead spoke up now, it would mean that his guess was very close to the truth.

Just as Qi Xia expected, the Goathead slowly walked up and said, "Good, everyone has told their story. Next, we have twenty minutes of free discussion time. After twenty minutes, each person must write a name on the paper in front of them."

"Just as I thought!" Qi Xia's brow raised. "There really are twenty minutes!"

This explained everything!

At this point, people started to panic, because only twenty minutes remained to decide their fate.

Qiao Jiajin and Li Shangwu wanted to vote for each other, possibly due to their professional rivalry, filled with hostility.

Dr. Zhao began questioning the writer Han Yimo, as Han Yimo's story had no connection to the others.

Lawyer Zhang and Xiao Ran seemed to be suspicious of Qi Xia, while Lin Qing, Han Yimo, and Tian Tian were still hesitating.

According to the surface rules, the "Liar" was about to win.

Because the votes were not unified.

The rules were clear: only if everyone identified the liar could all eight people survive.

Qi Xia remained silent, not participating in any discussions, and closed his eyes.

Countless clues were swirling in his mind.

The Goathead had said, "There is exactly one liar among the storytellers."

The Goathead had said, "The rules are absolute."

The Goathead had said, "You've all been asleep for twelve hours."

Qi Xia opened his eyes. Now only one more piece of information was needed, and this "puzzle" could be solved.

But where was that information?

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in his mind.

The lines on the wall and the floor instantly made him realize. He looked at the clock on the table—it was almost 1 o'clock.

"Now I see..." Qi Xia's eyes widened. "That was close… I'm a liar, but I almost got tricked by you all."

The others seemed to notice Qi Xia's strange behavior, but this liar had barely spoken from the start, and no one knew what he was really thinking.

"Hey, can I get another sheet of paper?" Qi Xia asked the Goathead.

The Goathead looked surprised and asked cautiously, "You... want another sheet of paper?"

"Yes," Qi Xia nodded. "I need a piece of scrap paper."

The Goathead was silent for a while, then took out another piece of paper from his suit pocket and handed it to Qi Xia.

Qi Xia didn't hesitate; he took the paper and started calculating.

He counted the squares on the wall—there were nine of them—and the floor and ceiling had sixteen squares.

"If I'm not wrong..." Qi Xia quickly scribbled something. "Each square represents one square meter, so we are currently in a room that's three meters high, with a length and width of four meters..."

"Four times four times three... forty-eight cubic meters."

Qi Xia's hand trembled slightly. "Not enough... completely insufficient..."

The others stared at Qi Xia in confusion. This was supposed to be a puzzle about figuring out who was lying, but he was doing math.

He then wrote out a series of calculations and came up with the numbers "54.6" and "49.14."

When he saw those two numbers, Qi Xia's face turned ashen, as if trying to accept something.

If his guess was correct, then the situation was truly terrifying.

His eyes kept flickering, and his thoughts had already flown far away.

The debates among the others grew quieter.

This man had not joined any discussions, and had just been calculating something. Could it be that he had really found the "answer" to the puzzle?

After a long while, he finally looked up at everyone.

His eyes contained fear, hesitation, doubt, and confusion.

"Everyone," Qi Xia cleared his throat and spoke softly, "I didn't want to save you all, but if you make the wrong choice, I'll die too. I absolutely can't die here, someone is waiting for me outside. So no matter what, I have to find a way out. I'll give you the answer now, but please listen carefully."

"Handsome guy, what do you mean by 'answer'?" Qiao Jiajin, who was closest to Qi Xia, froze. "Do you know who's lying?"

Qi Xia didn't respond. Instead, he reached for his "identity card" and slowly peeled it open in front of everyone.

"This is the identity I drew."

The others leaned in to look. The words "Liar" were especially eye-catching on the card.