Liar or liars？

The woman beside Barrett nodded timidly and spoke up, "Um... I-I'm Emma, a preschool teacher."

The girl named Emma appeared thoroughly shaken, her voice quivering like a plucked violin string.

"Before coming here, I was waiting with a child for their parent. The mother usually picked them up, but I heard she's gravely ill - something growing in her brain requiring surgery... These past few days it's been the father, though he keeps forgetting..."

Her fingers twisted the hem of her sweater. "Yesterday dragged past six. I'd stayed hours overtime, but the father wouldn't answer his phone. Without knowing their address, we just kept waiting at the intersection."

A bitter laugh escaped her. "I'd actually scheduled a counseling session that evening. Lately I've been... questioning if teaching is right for me. But the appointment got swallowed by those endless hours."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "When the ground started moving, it took me whole seconds to realize - earthquake. Nothing like they describe. Not bouncing, but swaying side to side like... like standing on a table someone keeps shaking."

She mimed clutching an invisible child. "I grabbed the boy, but what could I do? The Chongsheng Three Pagodas were crumbling in the distance. Thank God we were in open space. Then this car came careening..." Her hands flew up defensively. "I tried running but kept falling. Last thing I remember is hitting my head..."

Jack Li's fingers stilled on the card before him. Though his palm covered the text, he knew the crimson letters spelled "Liar."

Chongsheng Three Pagodas. Those stood in Dali, Yunnan Province. Yet the earthquake stories spanned multiple regions. If the rules were absolute - only one liar among them - how did these accounts interlock like puzzle pieces?

All eyes now turned to the man in the stained lab coat.

"I..." The doctor's voice cut through the tension like a scalpel. "Am Dr. Zhao. As evident." He plucked at his soiled garment. "Prior to this farce, I was performing craniotomy on a woman with rapidly growing intraventricular tumor. The mass had already caused mild hydrocephalus - every second mattered."

His clinical tone sharpened. "I'd chosen frontal lobe approach, CT-guided ventricular puncture. High risk, but she insisted - wanted more time with her young son."

A muscle twitched near his eye. "The earthquake struck as I removed her skull flap. Imagine attempting microsurgery while the world convulses. I tried replacing the bone fragment, but..." His hands sketched futile motions. "Nurses collided with me. A medication cart took out my legs. Then the ceiling..."

The group shifted uncomfortably. His barrage of medical jargon formed an impenetrable shield - any fabrication would go undetected.

"Dr. Lee," the burly man interjected, "where are you from?"

"I don't recall residency being part of the rules," the doctor snapped.

"More you share, more credible you become," the muscular man pressed. "We're eight against one liar. Withholding makes you suspect."

A dangerous glint entered Dr. Zhao's eyes. "Before demanding my credentials, why don't you share yours... officer?"

The room stilled.

"Fair enough." The man squared his shoulders. "Smith. Homicide detective."

Murmurs rippled through the group. The dynamic shifted - here stood potential salvation in a badge.

Barrett's tattooed fingers drummed the table. "Easy there, cop. Anyone can lie during break time."

"Enough!" The sharp-featured woman who'd earlier challenged the goat-headed master slammed her palms down. "Whether we survive this or not, we're all accomplices now. Voting someone to die makes us murderers."

Jack Li's gaze drifted to the congealing blood pooling beneath the corpse's shattered skull. The metallic tang mixed with fecal stench from voided bowels. Twenty minutes of "recess" had felt like eternity with death's perfume thickening the air.

As arguments swirled, he repeated the mantra in his mind: My name is Li Ming. From Shandong. My name is Li Ming. From Shandong. The words etched themselves into his synapses, ready to spill forth when the grotesque game resumed.

When the goat-headed master finally clapped its hooves, the writer Tony jumped like a startled rabbit. His account proved brief and unsatisfying - claimed to have been absorbed in novel-writing when disaster struck.

The detective's skepticism hung thick, but Barrett's sneer cut through: "Who made you captain, pig?"

As tensions escalated, Jack Li studied the human chessboard. The doctor's defensive posture. The detective's performative authority. Emma's white-knuckled grip on her chair. Each player's truth formed threads in a tapestry too coherent for random chance.

Yet the card beneath his palm remained - bright crimson lie among eight truths. Unless...

His nails bit into flesh. The game master's words echoed: "There is exactly one liar." Absolute. Infallible.

Then why did these stories from Yunnan preschools to Shanghai operating theaters weave together so seamlessly? What pattern emerged when you connected seismic destruction across provinces?

The cold realization slithered into his mind: perhaps the lie wasn't in the stories, but in their very presence here. If all accounts were true... then the impossible connective tissue binding them revealed a larger falsehood.

But the corpse's empty eye sockets offered no answers. Jack Li closed his eyes, repeating the incantation that might yet save him:

My name is Li Ming.

From Shandong.

My name...

"My name is Luck, I'm an attorney." The aloof woman crossed her arms, her expression glacial. "Under different circumstances, I'd be handing out business cards instead of meeting you all in this godforsaken place."

Her dry humor fell flat, though she seemed unfazed by the lack of response.

"Before arriving here, I was preparing court documents for a fraud case involving two million yuan." When she emphasized "two million," most faces remained impassive except Barrett, whose eyebrows shot up. "Two million?"

"Correct. While lawyers are supposed to be impartial, we're still human. My client resorted to loan sharks to support his family - though that's another illegal matter entirely, unrelated to my case."

Her manicured nails tapped the table. "The earthquake struck while I was driving to meet my client near Wuhou Shrine on Qingyang Avenue. I wasn't speeding - maybe 40 km/h - when the road split open before me."

"I braked hard, stopping inches from the fissure. Then came the sickening crunch of metal as cars piled into me from behind. My Mercedes got shoved into the crevasse. Next thing I knew, I woke up here."

As her narrative concluded, three participants remained silent.

"Wuhou Shrine..." Dr. Lee adjusted his glasses. "The one in Chengdu?"

"Yes. I practice there."

The revelation confirmed the earthquake's nationwide reach. With each conflicting account, identifying the liar became increasingly complex.

"My turn." Officer Liu's calloused hands flexed. "As mentioned earlier, I'm Smith Liu from Inner Mongolia, criminal police."

"Prior to this nightmare, my partner and I were staking out a fraud suspect involved in a two-million-yuan case - the largest this year in our jurisdiction."

"For three days we lived in that surveillance van, surviving on gas station food and caffeine. But here's the thing..." His throat bobbed. "Running out of cigarettes? That's worse than hunger for grown men."

"I sent my partner to restock while I maintained watch. Then the ground started heaving. Before I could react, something thin and vicious snaked around my neck from the backseat."

His finger traced the angry welt beneath his collar. "Even with combat training, I couldn't reach my attacker. Slamming the seat backward gave me breathing room, but my legs got pinned under the steering column. Then something hard connected with my skull."

The room tensed. Unlike others' accident narratives, his involved deliberate violence. Suspicion thickened the air.

"Bullshit." Barrett's chair screeched as he leaned forward. "Your story contradicts the lawyer's. She's prepping for trial - meaning her perp's caught. Yours is still at large. One of you's lying."

Officer Liu's jaw tightened. "Different cities, different cases. This 'game' wants us paranoid, jumping at shadows."

Jack Li observed silently, willing the conflict to escalate. Every misplaced accusation brought him closer to victory.

As the tension peaked, a timid voice interrupted. "I... I'm Taylor." The心理咨询师's hands fluttered like wounded birds. "From Ningxia. I was awaiting a client - a kindergarten teacher struggling with..."

Her gaze flicked toward Emma. "Surveillance cameras in every classroom. Parents monitoring teachers like prison guards. She needed help setting boundaries."

Barrett's smirk returned. "Convenient. Another crossover story. Your 'client' wouldn't be our dear Emma here?"

"Impossible!" Officer Liu cut in. "They're from different provinces!"

"Coincidence?" Luck's polished nails drummed a staccato rhythm. "Why else would nine strangers' stories interconnect? The liar's hiding in these overlaps."

Her accusation hung like a guillotine blade. Jack Li's pulse quickened. Had they unraveled his advantage?

The game's balance teetered. One wrong vote would cascade into catastrophe.