NFM Chapter 10

Lin Huai: …

He pressed his lips together, silently retreating, and once again doubted his judgment of Chu Tian.

“Alright, just now, I found the reason for Feng Yao’s death, and I also know which rule she violated.” In the next moment, the harmful waste, Chu Tian, concluded with an unusual calm tone.

A stone stirred up a thousand layers of waves, and everyone looked at Chu Tian.

He still held the wrench, wearing a somewhat worn plaid shirt and jeans, leaning against the wall. His tall figure bore a hint of indifference and a cynical smile.

That smile was like a casually wielded sharp knife, piercing through essence, yet also like a lion lurking in the shadows.

The fingers behind his back moved slightly, and Lin Huai’s breath caught in his throat, feeling as if the blood in his body had quickened due to the rare sharpness displayed by this person.

“…Actually, I really don’t want to be the one making this deduction; after all, it’s troublesome to waste words. However, I am still quite afraid that someone will continue to court death, leading to the Game ending prematurely… oh no, dragging others down with them.” Chu Tian said, glancing at Zhang Lu, “By the way, do you need to step aside?”

“What?”

“Actually, it’s not a big deal, it’s just that if you start crying, it will be difficult for me.” A rare look of distress appeared on Chu Tian’s face, “I might even be blamed by others… Of course, there’s also the possibility that you won’t know what’s good for you and angrily accuse me of sowing discord.”

Zhang Lu sat on the bed, looking at the man leaning against the wall, her pale fingers gripping the blanket.

She vaguely knew what he wanted to say… ever since she discovered that her phone was not in its usual place but had been moved, she sensed something.

No matter how pampered she was in her daily life, she was, after all, an Experienced Player who had gone through a game. Even though the shock from Feng Yao’s death far exceeded her rationality at the moment she opened the door, at this moment… she still guessed the content.

“…You can say it.” She said.

“You seem a bit reluctant, but whatever, we’ve come this far…” Chu Tian said, “However, in a certain sense, this is also a good thing.”

Then, he revealed the despairing deduction to her.

“As Zhang Lu said, Feng Yao did not have the habit of getting up at night, so her getting up was not due to physiological needs but psychological needs. She entered the bathroom to make a transfer.” As he spoke, Chu Tian picked up his phone and opened the transfer page on the app, “I wonder if everyone has noticed this place?”

“I tried to explore this module; the message it prompts is that the transfer requires confirmation from both parties. In other words, it requires two phones to operate together. Just as Miss Zhang Lu said, the two people had a very good relationship, sharing even passwords and sleeping habits. Therefore, Feng Yao knew Miss Zhang’s phone unlock password and had the ability to complete this operation. You could say she was the only one present who had this capability.”

“But,” Huang Lu raised a question, “why did she have to choose last night? Last night was the first night of the Game; isn’t it too foolish to act like this on the first night?”

“Because of that empty bottle.” Chu Tian added, “Zhang Lu has a light sleep; last night was her last two pills, and it was the only opportunity for Feng Yao to catch her in a deep sleep. Otherwise, in the last two nights, it wouldn’t have been so easy to get the phone. Clearly, for Feng Yao, the bathroom was a very safe place. So she chose to take both phones into the bathroom and execute the operation.”

“Then… according to you, there should be two phones found at the scene.” Ye Xian pondered, “But why was there only one phone at the scene?”

“That would be a question for the mole.” Chu Tian shrugged, “Just now, I noticed that Miss Zhang Lu had a movement when she was looking for her phone; she subconsciously felt around the pillow, and when she couldn’t find it there, she chose the bedside table. And indeed, there were signs of a phone indentation next to Miss Zhang Lu’s pillow.”

“Perhaps it was the mole, or perhaps the one who committed the murder, who after the crime returned the phone to Miss Zhang Lu’s bedside table.” As he spoke, Chu Tian walked to the bedside table and picked up Zhang Lu’s iPhone, “Look.”

In the gap of the phone case’s power button, there were dark red traces: “This is evidence that it once appeared at the crime scene.”

Lin Huai: … This is really physical evidence.

“So what about the motive?” Ye Xian was a bit anxious, looking at Zhang Lu’s pale face, arguing, “On what basis do you say—”

“Motive? Does killing require a motive?” Chu Tian shrugged, “In daily life, there are already numerous cases of murder over trivial matters, let alone in the Game, a place where one can satisfy their desire for performance and selfishness by appropriately using the rules… And I also don’t want to understand what special motive someone who wants to kill would have.”

After saying this, he stopped speaking. He looked at Zhang Lu on the bed, who was holding her phone, her head lowered.

“Turns out, Yao Yao wanted to kill me.” She murmured.

Even at this moment, she did not change her habit of referring to the other person with a nickname.

“Perhaps she didn’t have the intention to kill you. She just wanted to survive—being able to survive was enough for her. To her, you were just a stepping stone.”

Becoming a victim of premeditated murder, or becoming a stepping stone, which one is more comforting? Zhang Lu did not understand; all she could perceive was that she had been used by her best friend, and this friend even wanted to watch her die.

“Turns out, this transfer button has such a use.” Huang Lu flipped through her phone, somewhat shaken, “We almost… this is really a trap.”

“Rather than a trap, it’s more of a protection. At least from this rule that prohibits mutual transfers, we can see that this time the Game rules do not allow self-harm. Feng Yao’s death is less of a punishment and more of a warning to us.” Chu Tian said, “Follow the rules, and then survive.”

“Protection?!” Scene Kid screamed, “You call this protection? Feng Yao’s death, and the deaths of more people, you call this protection…”

His eyes were bloodshot, clearly furious: “What kind of joke is this? This Game just wants us to die…”

Chu Tian shrugged, placing the wrench on that person, leaning close to his ear and saying, “Of course it’s protection; otherwise, it would be very simple to get through this Game. We just need to vote out a doomed scapegoat and transfer all the excess money to him… Who do you think would die first then?”

Scene Kid’s breath caught: “You…”

Then, he heard Chu Tian whisper, “I don’t think that person would be me.”

After saying this, he smiled and withdrew the wrench.

“The essence of the Game is rules. We play the designated roles according to the rules given by the Game to satisfy ‘the Game.’ At the same time, we look for loopholes in the rules within the Game, seeking a glimmer of survival.” Chu Tian smirked, “In the past, ghosts were hard to control; now, they are also difficult to completely eliminate. And as weak humans, the only thing we can do is use the curse as our protection to scientifically limit ghosts and eliminate them. To survive, we must play the roles assigned by the Game well and manipulate the rules reasonably, rather than being manipulated by the rules. Even a second-rate youth who plays King of Glory should understand this principle, right?”

After saying this, he ruffled Scene Kid’s hair and added, “We’re still just in the elimination stage of the low-level arena; when we reach the mid to high-level arena and experience the various twisted tastes of those examiners, if you are still this impulsive, it will be very hard to survive.”

He left the room alone, pausing at the door to look back at the girl with her head down.

“Sometimes, discovering such things early on isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s better than discovering the betrayal of those around you long after….” He tilted his head, “This is for you.”

Saying this, he tossed a lollipop to the girl, who failed to catch it.

Lin Huai stood in place, thought for a moment, and ultimately decided to follow him.

Before leaving the room, he took one last look at the girl on the bed. The girl on the bed held her phone, her fingers desperately rubbing the blood-stained power button.

It won’t come off.

He didn’t know if she was acting out of fear, disgust, or something else?

He found it oddly interesting, and what intrigued him the most was that guy who played deduction in the infinite flow Game.

Lin Huai found Chu Tian in the hall. The young man in the plaid shirt stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, silently gazing outside.

Outside, the rain poured down.

“…From the gray transfer button, to the relationship between the two, and then to the motive for the crime, it’s truly a brilliant deduction.” Lin Huai stood behind Chu Tian, clapping somewhat insincerely.

“Actually,” the latter said in a deep voice. From this angle, Lin Huai could only see his profile. Chu Tian slightly raised his head, seemingly smoking.

Until he turned around, Lin Huai noticed he was holding a lollipop.

Chu Tian pinched the lollipop between his fingers and exhaled a breath of fresh air.

Lin Huai: …

“I only did a little bit of minor work,” Chu Tian said, “For the sake of the team’s survival, how could I avoid the calamity…”

“So how did you do it?” Lin Huai interrupted his rant, “During that time before breakfast, were you looking for new evidence?”

“Yes.” Chu Tian’s eyes sparkled, “Through a rigorous chain of evidence and meticulous reasoning, I successfully found the breakthrough of this incident—”

Lin Huai perked up his ears.

“The phone.”

“After we separated, I returned to the bathroom and found an idle hairdryer in there. After half an hour of using the hairdryer, I finally managed to repair the water-damaged phone and restored the transfer records within it.” As he spoke, Chu Tian pulled out the phone that originally belonged to Feng Yao, “And the good performance of this phone is the absolute key to this deduction.”

“…So you spent that half hour fixing the phone?”

“Yes.” Chu Tian shook his hair, “Even for ghosts, using phone apps must follow basic laws. There are no records that can be completely deleted in this world, nor are there truths that cannot be discovered…”

“So this is your deduction?” Lin Huai said with a blank expression.

“Yes,” Chu Tian said, “Finding hidden clues through science and technology, is there anything wrong with that?”

Lin Huai: …

“You really are a…” he pondered his words, “materialist.”

He paused and added, “You… never mind, I shouldn’t have any expectations of you.”

The author has something to say:

*The use of the joke that was ○ed out:

Baidu: A well-known advertising browsing software

Huawei: A well-known conscientious enterprise

Ren Zhengfei: The big boss of Huawei