The emotions of both men were a little out of control, and in the chaos, it was unclear who pushed whom—but the knife drew blood.
The big man’s blade sank into the old man’s chest.
The onlookers took a collective step back at the sight.
The old man lowered his head in disbelief, staring at the knife now protruding from his chest, and coughed lightly.
“You—” The knife-wielding man felt his thoughts jumble. “Who told you to snatch my damn knife?!”
The old man tried to say something in response, but instead, he toppled forward and collapsed, then lay completely still.
Everything had spiraled out of control.
Qi Xia coldly observed the scene, sensing a shift in the wind.
The big man, who had once been the self-proclaimed champion of the “poor,” had just killed another “poor” man in front of everyone.
His authority, not yet solidified, was already cracking.
It just proved that the knife-wielder wasn’t clever enough. Sometimes, you didn’t need to swing the blade—just holding it was enough.
Just as the crowd hesitated, an unexpected figure slowly approached.
It was the “Earth Goat,” who had been standing at the center of the room all along.
Earth Goat’s gaze darkened as he glanced at the dead “poor” man, then looked up at the knife-wielding man and said, “You’ve got some nerve. Who told you to keep killing people?”
“Huh?”
The big man froze. He had assumed that “violence” was tacitly allowed here—but Earth Goat seemed to forbid murder?
Earth Goat crouched down to examine the stabbed old man, his expression equally unreadable.
If Qi Xia’s guess was right, he was about to start lying.
“He’s beyond saving,” Earth Goat said, standing up to address the big man. “As punishment, I will sanction you.”
“Sanction?!” The man stumbled back in fear. “Y-you’re joking! That wasn’t in the rules you laid out!”
Earth Goat rose without explanation and swiftly slapped the man across the face.
The big man’s body didn’t move—but his head spun a full circle on his neck, his expression frozen in shock.
Earth Goat pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his hands, and said, “I hope you all understand: this is my game. You follow my rules. If anyone else steps out of line, I won’t hold back. I’m confiscating this man’s fans. Now, disperse.”
With that, he retrieved five fans from the dead man’s pocket, pushed past the stunned onlookers, and returned to the center of the room.
The crowd quickly scattered, no longer daring to even think about targeting the “rich.”
Watching Earth Goat’s actions, Qi Xia slowly stroked his chin.
Why had Earth Goat remained indifferent when a “rich” man was killed, yet intervened when a “poor” man died?
Wasn’t that strange?
At that moment, Qin Dingdong’s teammate helped her up. Seeing that the situation was temporarily safe, the two exchanged a glance with Qi Xia and hurried toward the exit.
No one tried to stop them as Qi Xia watched them leave.
After all, no one was sure what rules Earth Goat had actually set.
Were they allowed to steal fans? Were they allowed to kill?
Under these ambiguous rules, confusion flickered in everyone’s eyes—and the knife embedded in the old man’s body remained untouched.
“Unless…”
Qi Xia realized what he had overlooked.
The difference in treatment wasn’t due to whether the victims were “poor” or “rich.”
It was whether they were “escaped” or “remaining.”
Since the number of participants was even, and everyone needed to pair up to escape, the death of an “escaped” person didn’t matter—they were no longer counted in the remaining numbers.
But if a “remaining” person died… it would leave an odd number, meaning someone would be left without a partner.
That was why Earth Goat had intervened.
To restore the balance, the simplest solution was to kill one more person.
It was a strange logic, but Qi Xia found it plausible.
Now, he needed to focus on his own plan.
He currently held four “Sorrow” fans. To ensure everything went smoothly, he had to calculate the total number of “Sorrow” fans in the game.
Qi Xia walked to the center of the room and closed his eyes.
In his mind, countless fans fluttered past, neatly arranging themselves into four groups.
But within seconds, he realized he’d overlooked a critical detail.
Earth Goat had said that, at the start, the four fan types were equally distributed.
But with fifty participants, each holding three fans, that meant Earth Goat had distributed 150 fans in the first round.
How could 150 fans be evenly split among four types?
37.5 fans per type?
That didn’t add up.
Had Earth Goat lied about this?
“He wouldn’t have…” Qi Xia frowned. “Lying about something so fundamental would be fatal—it would ruin the game’s reputation. There’d be no ‘repeat customers.'”
Besides, if fan quantities could be falsified, the most efficient distribution would be 147:1:1:1—one type with 147 fans and the others with just one each. That would mean at most two people could escape, rendering the entire setup of fifty participants, 150 fans, and a game of deception meaningless.
At that point, they might as well have drawn lots to decide who lived or died. So Earth Goat couldn’t have lied about something so crucial.
Then where was the lie?
Qi Xia glanced at the four “Sorrow” fans in his hand. Without knowing how many remained in play, he couldn’t win this game.
But the number 37.5 made it impossible to proceed.
That left only one other possibility…
Standing at the center of the room, Qi Xia had a clear view of all remaining participants.
He opened his eyes and quickly counted—then his expression shifted.
Forty people still stood in the room.
That seemed normal at first glance, but something felt off.
One of them was a corpse—it shouldn’t count toward the remaining number.
Qi Xia closed his eyes again, replaying everything that had happened so far.
At the start of the game, four people escaped immediately, leaving 46 standing.
Half an hour later, the first pair of “rich” escaped, leaving 44.
Then, the man who bought all the “Sorrow” lost his partner and escaped alone, leaving 43.
Finally, Qin Dingdong and the Sichuan man escaped, leaving 41.
Subtracting the bodies of the “rich” man and the old man, there should be 39 people left.
Qi Xia’s eyes snapped open as he scanned the room again.
Then why were there 40?
Since when had an extra participant appeared?
A strange unease crept into Qi Xia’s heart.
Had there really been fifty participants to begin with?
He only knew that everyone had received three fans—but how many people had actually taken them?
A group of fifty was far larger than he’d imagined. They had never lined up neatly, making it impossible to count while standing among them.
That was the key.
“Earth Goat… you can’t fool me…” Qi Xia’s lips curled slightly.
Now, everything made sense.
This wasn’t a game for fifty people.
It was a game for fifty-one.
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