How many player?

"What the hell?" Barrett muttered, reading in his halting Mandarin:

"I am 'Ren Gou.'You are cursed.I hope that you all live.The clock never stops; death lurks on all sides.If you wish to survive, turn one hundred times in the direction of your hometown.By the way, they say that after the rain, bamboo shoots spring up—why aren't the shoots afraid of the rain?See you after the rain."

"The clock can't move… Could it be the chairs?"

He looked down at the old, moldy chair he was sitting on—a plain chair casually placed on the floor with no hidden mechanisms.

Then, there was only one possibility left…

Jack Li turned his attention to the table at the center of the room—a table that wasn't truly round, but rather a many-sided polygon that, at first glance, appeared circular. He reached out and rotated the tabletop slightly; sure enough, a faint clanking of chains emanated from within. Yet the table was heavy, and despite his best efforts, he could only shift it a few centimeters.

"One hundred rotations…" he muttered.

This number certainly couldn't be achieved by just a couple of people; all nine of them needed to work together to rotate the table if there was any hope of survival.

Noticing Jack Li's movements, Taylor called out, "Stop, everyone!"

The group gathered around the table and discovered that it indeed could be turned.

"Alright, swindler, you've got some nerve," Barrett remarked approvingly. "If we can turn this table a hundred times, it should unlock that invisible door."

Jack Li glanced at the clock once more. Although time was short, the problem had become even clearer. Turning this table one hundred times in the direction of our hometown essentially boiled down to one of two choices: left or right.

But since everyone's hometown lay in different directions—northeast, southeast, northwest, and so on—how could they decide whether to turn left or right?

"Jack Li, do you already know when the harpoons will fire?" Taylor asked, still covering his mouth and nose.

"The clue says 'the clock never stops'; I reckon it'll be at 1:15," Jack Li murmured.

At that, Barrett's face fell. "That means we have less than ten minutes left! Let's get turning, quick!"

Dr.Lee moved the corpse lying on the table to the side, then sat down and tested the table's weight. "But we only have one chance. If we turn this heavy table one hundred times in the wrong direction, what then?" he asked.

"Even so, there's a fifty percent chance of survival!" Barrett exclaimed anxiously. "If we do nothing, we're all doomed; if we turn it, we might just have a fifty percent shot at living. Hurry up!"

With that, Barrett summoned every ounce of strength and began turning the table to the left. Though Barrett appeared slight, his strength was formidable—he alone managed to turn the table half a rotation.

"What are you waiting for?! For crying out loud, help me out!" Barrett shouted at the others.

Realizing the urgency in his words, the others joined in. There was no correct answer now—only a gamble. Yet Jack Li remained motionless. He couldn't decide: left or right? Why was the keyword "hometown" used…?

Were they all Chinese, meaning it should be "east"? With north at the top, south at the bottom, left as west and right as east—does that imply "right"? But what about those whose hometowns lay to the west? Or, perhaps, if everyone's hometown was linked to the ancient "Zuo Zhuan," would the answer be "left"?

Jack Li closed his eyes briefly, originally planning to shield himself behind the two corpses. But if everyone else died, what would he do when the next game came?

"Now is not the time to abandon them," Jack Li murmured to himself. Then he reached for a blank sheet of paper from the rotating table, grabbed a pen, and stepped aside. Finding an open space, he sat down and began scribbling furiously.

Though the others were puzzled, they continued to turn the table—by now, it had completed over a dozen rotations.

"Had he not introduced himself as 'Swindler,' I would have thought that guy was a mathematician," Barrett remarked to Candy, who, still a bit dizzy from her spinning, could only nod vaguely.

This time, Jack Li didn't work out long division on paper; instead, he roughly sketched a map of the country.

"Hometown…?" he murmured. His mind raced, and suddenly an idea struck him.

"Hold on—if the organizer's powers are so vast that he can pick out people with similar experiences from among so many provinces, could the province itself be a clue?" Jack Li's eyes widened as he turned to the group, asking seriously, "Did anyone lie about their hometown just now?"

Everyone shook their heads. After all, a person's hometown is intertwined with their accent and manner of speech—lying would easily be exposed.

"Very good," Jack Li nodded. "Now, please take turns telling me your hometown once more."

Officer Liu was the first: "I'm from Inner Mongolia." Jack Li marked a black dot on the map for Inner Mongolia.

"I'm from Sichuan," said Lawyer Zhang Chenze coldly.

"I'm from Shaanxi…" Candy added.

"Dali, Yunnan," said Emma, the kindergarten teacher.

"Guangdong," Barrett stated.

"I'm from Ningxia," said psychological counselor Taylor.

"I work in Jiangsu," Dr.Lee announced.

Jack Li then marked everyone's hometown on the map and added his own: "Shandong."

At that moment, all eyes turned to writer Tony, who had not mentioned his hometown at all.

"Tony, are you from Guangxi or Taiwan?" Jack Li asked.

Tony blinked in surprise. "How do you know?" he asked.

"Time is short—answer me first."

"I'm from Guangxi…" Tony replied.

Jack Li nodded; Tony now had only two options—Guangxi Autonomous Region or Taiwan Province. If his answer wasn't one of these, he'd be telling a monumental lie. Fortunately, he told the truth. Jack Li then marked the final province on the map—the rough sketch now showed nine black dots.

"So it is," Jack Li murmured, "Now, stop and turn right."

"Right?" the group echoed.

Jack Li hurried to the table, tossed the paper onto it, and began turning the tabletop in the opposite direction. Though confused, the others joined him.

Dr.Lee glanced at the map on the table and the nine black dots. "Why right?" he asked.

As he exerted himself turning the table, Jack Li explained, "The positions of Ningxia and Shandong line up horizontally; Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, and Yunnan form a slanted stroke; and the four points of Guangxi, Guangdong, Shaanxi, and Jiangsu form a square—that is precisely the character '右' (right)."

"No matter which province Tony's from—if it's either Guangxi or Taiwan—the pattern forms a '口' (mouth), so the answer was determined from the start."

As the others increased their pace, exchanging astonished glances, Jack Li's unorthodox reasoning, which had twice uncovered the mystery, made them begin to doubt. Even Jack Li knew his logic was eccentric, so he addressed them, "Don't misunderstand me—if the next game forces you to sacrifice yourselves to survive, I will, without hesitation, ensure my own survival."

Hearing this, the others fell silent, gritting their teeth as they continued turning the table.

The nine of them sat around the table, persistently shifting it to the right.

"How many rotations?" Barrett asked.

"Twenty-six," Taylor replied.

"You can really count them?" Barrett blinked. "This table looks the same from every angle."

"I counted by the bloodstains on the table," Taylor said earnestly. "Counting is crucial for a psychological counselor like me."

Jack Li frowned, "We're not at thirty rotations yet. We need to hurry."

The group fell silent and accelerated their efforts. But as the table continued to turn, it became increasingly difficult to move—the internal chains seemed to be tightening.

"D*mn it, what's happening? This is way too heavy," Barrett gritted his teeth.

"Come on…maybe it really is connected to a door!" Candy exclaimed with a hopeful grin. Her words gave them a glimmer of hope amid their despair.

A door.

If this room could conjure holes out of thin air, why couldn't it also produce a door?

Though everyone's arms ached, they continued to rotate the table, turn after turn.

"Everyone, don't give up! Only five rotations left!" Taylor shouted.

At that moment, everyone gritted their teeth and strained with all their might—no one dared to relax.

"Clang, clang…"

As the final rotation completed, it became evident that the table had wedged itself against something. Everyone exhaled in relief, though the soreness in their arms began to intensify. Now, there were only three minutes left until 1:15.

"Where's the door?!" Barrett shouted in desperation.

The walls remained unchanged, and in the pitch-black holes, the cold glint of harpoons shimmered ominously.

"Oh my God! There's no door!" Barrett's voice trembled with despair.

"Wrong! We guessed wrong!" Emma screamed, "Shouldn't we have turned left?! We shouldn't have trusted that swindler! We're all doomed!"

Jack Li furrowed his brow…

Wrong?

Before anyone could react further, the clock at the center of the table began to behave strangely. It trembled briefly and then shot out eight beams of laser. The eight beams emanated from the clock and slowly moved toward the edge of the table, coming to rest there.

To everyone's astonishment, the clock then precisely divided the table into several equally sized sectors, much like slicing a pizza.

"Crash!"

With a tremendous noise, the table shattered into pieces. The central clock now stood on a small wooden peg.

Jack Li examined the fragments closely—there were nine small triangular pieces and one larger piece. Rather than sectors, they resembled triangles, each with a flat base.

Time was running out, and chaos reigned.

"What is this thing?" Tony exclaimed. "Why is the table shattered?"

Officer Liu noticed that each triangular piece had a handle on its back—a detail his long experience immediately revealed.

"It's a shield!" he declared, picking up the largest triangular piece and holding it in front of him.

"We can use this shield to block the harpoons!" he added.

Hearing this, the others also lifted their pieces. Unfortunately, only one large piece was available; the rest only had small triangles that barely covered their bodies.

Within mere seconds, a problem became evident.

"How are we supposed to block them?!" Lawyer Zhang Chenze, uncharacteristically panicked, cried, "With harpoons coming from all sides, we can only cover one direction!"

"Cooperate," Jack Li said, regaining his composure. "Let's form a circle and cover each other's backs."

The group quickly rearranged themselves, silently waiting. At that moment, the only sound was the steady rhythm of their collective breathing. Nine strangers had become allies, each one indispensable.