In the dark living room.

Yue Nu suddenly furrowed her brows.

"What happened? There are still three ghosts left even after Li Wentao was voted out?"

This meant Li Wentao wasn't a ghost.

Eight people had voted, and three had abstained. Out of the eight who voted, seven had chosen Li Wentao, yet this was the result.

Those seven votes hadn't hit the real ghost at all; they had voted for the wrong person!

"What a group of fools, those seven people."

She wearily rubbed her forehead and hung up the phone.

Yue Nu got up and headed to her bedroom.

The ghosts' killing window was between 8:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. the next day. It was already past three, so she didn't have to worry about a ghost suddenly crawling out from under her bed to kill her.

"I still need to rest. Only by resting well can I make the right judgments," she muttered to herself as she lay on the bed and pulled the blanket over her. "Tomorrow, I'll ask which seven people voted, and also which player was killed by a ghost last night..."

The night in the instance was always extraordinarily long.

Gu Mian and the others also spent the long night searching for their school's location.

The two buildings were not too far from their school, only about a half-hour walk away.

They had nowhere to hide Fatty's body, so they had to leave him there.

Thankfully, the two buildings were located in what seemed to be a development zone—remote and seldom visited, so a body inside would hardly be discovered.

Otherwise, if the police caught them, this game would be over.

Last night, after realizing they had voted for the wrong person, Pan Yue had left in a state of agitation. Li Yibai had gone after her but failed to catch up.

When Gu Mian and the others ran out, Pan Yue was nowhere to be seen.

They didn't have the energy to look for the missing Pan Yue and could only return to the school first.

Guided by road signs, they eventually found the school. Although it was only about a half-hour walk between the buildings and the school, they weren't familiar with the route, so they didn't reach the school gates until around six in the morning.

The sky was beginning to brighten.

Although they had stayed up all night, none of them felt sleepy.

Li Yibai was crouching by the school gates, looking dejected.

He had appeared downcast the entire way and hadn't said a word since the vote. Yet, he still stuck close to 007; it was evident he and Lin Qi were indeed childhood friends.

It was a cool September morning, and a chilly wind blew intermittently, causing Keke, who was standing nearby, to shiver.

The street was empty; only the five of them were gathered by the school gate, looking at each other in silence.

As silence spread among the five of them, 007 suddenly spoke, "There were eight of us when we first went. Now, there are only five."

Two dead, one ran away.

Keke quietly nodded. "But we still haven't found any clues about the ghosts..."

The person killed last night and the one voted out were both civilians.

The failure of the first round's bloc voting had put the civilians in a passive position. There were now ten people left in total: three ghosts and seven civilians.

Moreover, they had no clues about who the ghosts were.

Another gust of cold wind swept past, accompanied by the sound of its whistling. Li Yibai, still crouched on the ground, suddenly lifted his head as if he'd found a burst of courage.

His expression was agitated. "Listen! Whether there are really ghosts or something else, we should call the police! Two people are dead! Two people! We have to call the police!"

As he spoke, he tried to stand up agitatedly, looking as if he might rush off to call the police at any second, but 007 firmly held him back.

Of course, she couldn't let Li Yibai call the police. If the police intervened, all of them would be called in for questioning and might even be detained for twenty-four hours. The success of their mission was at stake; they absolutely couldn't afford any mistakes at this juncture.

Just then, Keke, who was nearby, also suddenly spoke up, "Don't forget, we all voted for Li Wentao together! We're all implicated in his death. If you call the police now, we'll all be arrested!"

Li Yibai blurted out, his words tumbling quickly, "How could it be our fault? It was clearly the ghosts who killed people! And it was this game that made us vote! If we didn't vote, were we supposed to just stand by and watch Pan Yue get killed?"

It was true. Given the situation last night, if they hadn't voted for Li Wentao, Pan Yue would most likely have died.

007's voice was grave. "Do you think the police will believe you about ghosts? You'll just be locked up as a lunatic. Then, one day, you'll die in your room, just like Li Wentao and Wang Pan."

At her words, Li Yibai abruptly fell silent. He dropped his head and slumped to the ground, saying nothing more.

But Keke, who was nearby, sounded hesitant. "But I have a question... I remember rule four states that 'civilians' can't kill other players, while 'ghosts' can kill any player, right? Since Li Wentao wasn't a ghost, why was he able to attack Pan Yue in front of us yesterday?"

"My guess is that the game's definition of 'killing' versus 'harming' isn't the same," Chu Changge, who had been silent until now, suddenly interjected. "The game probably determined that Li Wentao's actions last night didn't pose a substantial life-threatening risk to Pan Yue. If Pan Yue had truly been on the verge of death, the game would have intervened."

Keke glanced cautiously at Chu Changge. "You're really impressive; you seem to know everything."

Chu Changge said nothing.

Nearby, 007 suddenly looked up, giving Chu Changge and Keke a strange glance. She felt Keke's words carried a hidden meaning, an indescribable strangeness. Something was off.

By now, the sun had fully risen, its rays bringing a measure of warmth.

Students had begun to trickle through the school gates.

Gu Mian and the others blended in with them and slipped into the school.

"Why did we come back...?" Li Yibai mumbled. Although he had followed the others back to school, he still didn't seem to understand why. "Why don't we just go home? Mom and Dad are there. We'll definitely be safe!"

Gu Mian looked at Li Yibai, who was sticking close to 007. "Don't you understand yet? The only way to resolve this is to find all the ghosts and vote them out. As long as even one ghost remains alive, the deaths won't stop, and the game will continue."

Hearing this, Li Yibai shivered violently.

007 also spoke up, "That's right. We came back to meet up with the others."

Only eight of them had been transported to the buildings last night.

The other four, who hadn't been there at all, were Zhang Pingfan, Yuan Qinghua, Guo Jimei, and Yue Nu.

Zhang Pingfan, who had been missing for two days, could be set aside for the moment. But they definitely needed to find out what the other three had been doing last night.

"Oh, right," Keke said, suddenly turning to Chu Changge. "Didn't you say before that the ghosts gathered the eight of us there to make it easier to observe us?"

Chu Changge nodded slightly.

Keke continued, "Well, if it was to make observation easier, then there must be a ghost among us eight who has been watching us this whole time, right?"

Hearing this, Li Yibai froze.

Eight people. Now only six survived.

And a ghost was hiding among these six...

Hiding right there, among them.