DYUTVOBGA Chapter 109

‘A location update?’

The three looked at each other, then simultaneously took out their phones.

Although only the cat team could check the location, the three of them were walking together. Regardless of whether they were cat team members or not, they had to pretend to be cats.

If others looked and they didn’t, wouldn’t that be a confession?

Quentin unlocked his phone. There was no notification message. He thought calmly, ‘I wonder whose location was updated. How am I going to act later… Having more people is troublesome. It would be better to hide alone.’

He clicked his phone a couple of times nonchalantly, using the shooting lens to quietly observe the reactions of the other two.

Ji Xu frowned. Ji Sheng’s pupils dilated. They both looked quite surprised. What had they seen?

Quentin’s thoughts raced, and he thought to himself: ‘I might as well gamble once.’

He took a step back, creating distance from the two, and glanced a few times at the name tags on their backs: “Stop acting. Which one of you is the mouse, or are you both?”

Ji Xu also stepped back, standing closer to Quentin. He stared at Ji Sheng, and laughed: “Brother Ji, what are you surprised about? So you’re the mouse after all.”

He turned his head to look at Quentin: “Two against one. How about we team up and tear his tag off?”

The young man looked young, with a rounder face shape. He had a sunny and cheerful disposition, yet he spoke harsh words with a smile: “But the game has only been going on for twenty minutes. Would it be bad to tear off Brother Ji’s tag so early?”

Quentin followed his lead, putting on an expression of understanding: “So it’s Brother Ji after all…”

Quentin’s acting was average, and his performance was quite perfunctory, but fortunately, his impression on others was that of a calm young man. So no matter how perfunctory he was, it wasn’t easy to arouse suspicion.

“You two… are really something.”

The corner of Ji Sheng’s mouth twitched. He repeatedly checked the location on his phone to confirm: “Who’s acting? If you have the guts, come tear my tag off directly. Ji Xu, come here. I’ll let you tear it. Let’s see if you dare.”

The man spoke as he turned around, revealing the name tag on his back: “If a mouse team member tears off a cat team member, it’s you who gets eliminated. If you dare to tear it off, I’ll call you ‘brother’!”

“Quentin, don’t believe him. He’s deliberately saying that to go along with your words. Teaming up to tear my tag off? Tsk. He definitely wants you to tear my tag off, thus eliminating two cat team members in one go. Newcomers these days are really getting more and more cunning.”

Upon hearing this, Quentin also followed Ji Sheng’s lead and created distance from Ji Xu. He stepped back two paces, his indifferent expression looking quite bewildered and innocent: “Which one of you… is lying?”

Before the other two could answer, he continued backing away on his own: “I can’t tell the difference, and I don’t want to start tearing tags this early. You two say what you want. I’m leaving first.”

Having said that, he turned around and ran, quickly disappearing into the entrance of a nearby fire escape.

Ji Sheng: “…”

Ji Xu: “…”

You couldn’t tell, but Quentin ran pretty fast. At that speed, they couldn’t catch up even if they tried.

Ji Sheng withdrew his gaze and advanced step by step towards Ji Xu: “I don’t mind starting the tearing early. What do you say? Are you in or not?”

But Ji Xu didn’t back away anymore. After thinking for a few seconds, he looked at Ji Sheng earnestly: “Senior brother, I suspect we made a mistake. Believe me, I am definitely on the cat team. If you rip my tag, we’ll both be eliminated together.”

He analyzed seriously: “Think back. Although Quentin spoke first, he didn’t reveal what the location content specifically was. He just threw out a suspicion. I didn’t think too much at the time and took the bait immediately. Looking back now, he was completely fishing!”

Ji Sheng’s steps faltered. He looked at the young man in front of him suspiciously but didn’t say anything.

Ji Xu persisted in defending himself: “From my perspective, after the location update, I saw that the random location of a certain mouse team member overlapped with mine. That means one of you two must be a mouse. It’s even possible you both are!”

“So, after Quentin was the first to raise a doubt, what he said coincided with my thoughts. My first reaction was of course to believe him.”

Ji Sheng narrowed his eyes: “So why don’t you believe him now?”

Ji Xu shook his head: “It’s not that I don’t believe him, but your reaction just now was more believable, Senior Brother. A mouse team member shouldn’t be that bold, showing their name tag in front of two other people. That’s equivalent to gambling twice, very risky.”

“Also, if Quentin is a cat, why would he run? Only mice need to avoid others. Cats have no reason to be afraid.”

He said confidently: “Especially since neither of us suspected him just now, yet he left first. There’s definitely a problem!”

Ji Sheng crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow: “You’re quite eloquent… Fine, I won’t tear your tag for now, but I retain my suspicion.”

With that, he explained on Quentin’s behalf: “It’s very normal that Quentin wanted to leave. When I first met him, he wasn’t too keen on walking with others. He’s a lone wolf, a ‘stealth path’ type of person. It’s understandable. Many newbies are like that. On the contrary, you… are a bit too skilled.”

Ji Xu widened his eyes, looking very wronged and pitiful: “Senior brother! Whose senior brother are you? Don’t be so biased! Quentin is definitely playing dumb. Why are you making excuses for him!”

Ji Sheng coughed twice: “Alright, what do you mean ‘playing dumb’? Stop slinging mud.”

Ji Xu: “I’ve been wronged!”

*

On the other side, Quentin went up to the fifth floor via the stairwell.

He stood by the elevator, took out his phone, and took a picture of the fifth-floor map on the wall: “This floor is all restaurants… There’s a food street, and there’s also an arcade here.”

Mm…he decided to go to the arcade. There are many things there, good for hiding. And there might be mouse dolls in the claw machines. He still needed five more photos for his personal task, so he had to finish it quickly.

Quentin made his decision and turned to walk out. However, just as he passed a corner, he saw a few figures standing by the elevator entrance on the other side. He took a quick glance, and the distance was no more than 20 meters.

It was three people from uncertain alliances, plus Yan Qiao.

How could someone be this unlucky? Had he activated some kind of encounter field tonight? There were only twelve guests in total!

Quentin was still thinking about how to find an excuse to leave. Turning around and leaving immediately would be too obvious.

But before he could even think of it, he noticed Yan Qiao’s hand hanging by his side flicking outward several times, as if hinting something to him.

Quentin was startled. He moved his gaze to the other three young men’s faces. They were smiling brightly and waving at him, shouting with surprised delight: “Quentin?! What a coincidence! We’re discussing clues. Do you want to join us?”

As they spoke, they also moved closer to Quentin.

Had his identity been exposed? Had someone guessed he was a mouse team member through clues? Were all three of these Inferno members on the cat team?

These thoughts flashed quickly through Quentin’s mind but didn’t delay his action of turning around to leave.

He had only run a few steps when he heard the overlapping sound of footsteps behind him, along with the young men’s loud shouts.

“Quentin… What are you running for? Are you a mouse team member?”

“Don’t run! It’s still early. We won’t tear off your tag. Let’s just chat!”

“Someone! Catch a mouse!”

“Huff! Huff! Why is he getting faster? How can he run so much?!”

The group chased relentlessly after Quentin. The mall’s terrain was open, and the only people on the entire floor were their group. There was no cover in sight.

Quentin couldn’t shake them off for the time being, so he could only run in circles on the fifth floor.

Unlucky, too unlucky. His identity was exposed in just twenty minutes, and he happened to run right into this group. Who was as unlucky as him? He only wanted to play hide-and-seek and survive until the end…

No, running in circles like this would eventually lead to him being surrounded. There were too many of them. Although Yan Qiao was his teammate, he couldn’t help him without exposing his own identity. Even if he did help, he wouldn’t be of much use. Three against two, the advantage was still with the cat team.

The most important thing was, the mall had poor soundproofing. Their shouting on the fifth floor would definitely be heard by people downstairs. If everyone came upstairs, he would be a sitting duck!

He hadn’t finished his personal task yet. He absolutely could not be eliminated. If he was eliminated, how could the mouse team fight back?

Quentin ran faster and faster. The physical fitness he had built up through persistent exercise over the past month came in handy at this moment, but he knew he only had strong short-term explosive power. Long-distance running was still his weakness.

… Let’s take another gamble. Take the stairs here. Gamble that no one is coming up this stairwell right now!

He decided to head for the second floor. He remembered there was a children’s playground on the second floor with a ball pit. He would go hide there for now.

The young men chasing behind Quentin were panting heavily, watching helplessly as the distance between them and Quentin grew larger. The silhouette of the young man in the peaked cap disappeared around the corner ahead.

By the time they reached the corner, what they saw was the fork leading to the food street on the other side of the fifth floor, as well as the elevator and stairwell against the wall.

“Huff! Huff! Which way did he go?”

“Who can tell? He probably went downstairs.”

“Not necessarily. He came to the fifth floor probably to hide somewhere. Could it be the food street?”

“Let’s check the food street first…”

Yan Qiao followed beside them, glanced at the green-lit fire exit sign in the stairwell, said nothing, and silently prayed that Quentin could find a hidden spot and survive until the game ended.

He also hadn’t expected Quentin to be exposed so quickly. The three Inferno members he had encountered hadn’t found their correct targets in the previous round, so he was certain they didn’t have the two cat team members who had successfully made contact among them.

But they inexplicably trusted each other, skipped the stage of mutual suspicion, took out their respective clues to discuss, and had even enthusiastically invited him to join.

Yan Qiao didn’t refuse. He had originally planned to infiltrate the enemy’s ranks, pretending to be a cat as long as he wasn’t exposed.

Unexpectedly, one of these three had a clue pointing to Quentin. It was a photo. The photo showed a cluster of purple roses, a girl carrying a basket picking flowers, butterflies and dragonflies flying among the flowers, and a windmill and a wooden house in the distance.

Yan Qiao had guessed it at first glance upon seeing the clue.

Excluding other distracting elements, the key points were the purple roses and the dragonflies.

The purple roses referred to the floral shirt Quentin wore in his first performance. The dragonflies (qingting) were a homophone for Quentin’s name (Kunting). Could it be any more obvious? Why was his own clue so difficult!

The person who had brought out this photo hadn’t guessed it was Quentin, but the others had watched NS. After a brief discussion, they associated it with Quentin.

And Quentin had to come upstairs at that very moment. What a disaster, walking right into the line of fire.