Chapter 387: I Am the Killer

Just as I was about to say something, the boat suddenly rocked. It felt like something had bumped into the stern.

"Don't move," Du Yu said from the bow, pointing casually at the surrounding water. "Have you noticed the floating corpses are multiplying?"

Patches of dark silhouettes surfaced beneath the murky river water, barely outlining human shapes.

"Why are they all drifting toward us?" The corpses had black ropes tied around their waists with stones anchoring the other end; they couldn't float up on their own. "Did the ropes snap? Or did they come back to life?"

The more I thought about it, the more creeped out I felt. I plunged the wooden oar into the water, paddling hard to push our small boat away.

Despite all my effort, the wooden boat only moved forward a few inches. The problem still lay with the dead girl at the stern.

"Jin Zhouzhe," I said, "when we talked privately in the cell, you said you started killing to punish evil and promote good, but you eventually got addicted. Was this girl one of your former targets?"

"So what if she was?" Jin Zhouzhe paddled the water with his bare hands, trying to speed the boat up. "I always disguised my acts as random killings, but this girl happened to see me in the act. I couldn't let her live! I am the Death Penalty Doctor. I am a criminal psychology mentor. My life is just beginning—how could it end because of a little girl? I've killed so many villains the law couldn't touch. Consider this girl a reward from heaven."

"You really think of yourself as a hero, don't you? As far as I'm concerned, you're no Death Penalty Doctor. You're a sick patient yourself. Your mind is completely twisted!" I stared at the clothes on the girl's corpse. "The wounds on her wrists and ankles show she was secretly imprisoned for a long time. Her clothes are torn. Is it hard to guess what you did to her? If you had only killed those evildoers, I'd have nothing to say, even if it broke the law. That was the path you chose. But doing whatever you wanted to an innocent girl and calling her a reward from heaven? That makes you no different from the scum you despise."

Jin Zhouzhe's face darkened like storm clouds. "I didn't want to kill her. She tried to run. She saw me kill someone! If I let her go, my entire life would be ruined!"

"I'm not listening to your life story, nor do I want to hear your excuses for murder. If you truly want to repent, go say it to her corpse." I tilted my chin toward the stern. An unseen force was lifting the girl's body out of the water. The black rope tied around her waist was now pulled completely taut.

"Thump!"

A sound like someone knocking on a door came from beneath the boat. Swaying black silhouettes surged in from all directions. The murky depths looked like another, frenzied world.

The girl's corpse had surfaced completely. Her face was bloated beyond recognition, but the moment she emerged, Jin Zhouzhe let out a shriek. No longer daring to sit at the stern, he dropped all his psychological analysis, grabbed the gunwales, and squeezed toward Du Yu and me.

The wooden boat was cramped. His frantic scrambling nearly flipped the entire vessel.

"What are you doing? Apologize! Hurry up and repent!"

The knocking against the bottom of the boat grew louder, like a torrential downpour hammering a window. Just hearing it made my scalp tingle with dread.

"I won't! She'll never forgive me! Hurry, get us out of here! Give me the oar, I'll row!" The participants dying one after another and this continuous stream of trauma had pushed Jin Zhouzhe to the brink of collapse. "It's all an illusion! The chronic neurotoxin is acting up! I read about it in the files. You two don't need to be afraid—these are all hallucinations!"

I didn't hand him the oar. The small boat was already wedged in the middle of a mass of corpses. Peering into the water with my Judging Eye, I saw they were densely packed beneath the surface, leaving only an inescapable terror.

"This isn't an illusion," I said. "Your sins are far graver than you realize. If you don't leave, these water ghosts won't let us go."

"What are you trying to do?" Catching the shift in my tone, Jin Zhouzhe quickly realized something was wrong, but his reaction was a step too slow compared to mine.

A sharp knife pierced Jin Zhouzhe's abdomen. To prevent him from struggling and flipping the boat, I drove my body forward as I thrust the blade.

Watching Number Seven, Jin Zhouzhe, lose his balance and tumble into the water, watching his bewildered and furious glare persist right to the very end, I hid the blade I had taken from Number Six back in my pocket. "Just to let you know, you guessed wrong. I'm not the host. My identity is the killer!"

Back at the Anxin Hotel, I had swallowed the red candy. There had been three rounds of killer accusations. Every time, my heart had been in my throat, terrified of keeping too low a profile but also of provoking public outrage.

The reason I decisively attacked and injured Number Six during the final round of accusations was quite simple.

I didn't want to waste time arguing with them. Rather than hesitating between Number One and Number Six, it was better to cut the knot and arbitrarily grab a scapegoat to serve up.

To be honest, my plan from the very beginning was to kill everyone except Du Yu. Underworld Live Show points and money were exactly what I desperately needed right now.

Jin Zhouzhe's curses rang out from the murky water. The female corpse that had been trailing the boat, along with the floating bodies crowding beneath our hull, all dispersed. Swarms of dark, human-shaped silhouettes dragged Jin Zhouzhe down into the water.

With a stroke of the oar, the small boat surged forward without another hint of resistance.

The sound of the wind in our ears grew clearer, and the air began to circulate freely. It took Du Yu a few seconds to let out a bitter smile. "So you were the killer. That's a bit unexpected."

"Was it that hard to guess? By the way, what kind of agreement did you make with Wang Shi? Why were you willing to step up and help him?" This was a point I couldn't figure out. For Wang Shi to persuade Du Yu, he must have promised some serious benefits.

"It was nothing much. He said he'd give me five million as a reward once we got out. Also, he proved to me that his identity was the police officer," Du Yu said mildly. "The person playing the police officer not only has to maintain order but also control the progression of the game. And the power the police officer holds is two chances to verify identities. If you went to his room, you'd know. There are three envelopes hidden under his bed. As long as you write a number on them, the envelope reveals the corresponding color."

"According to what you're saying, he left halfway through just to fetch the envelopes for verification?"

"Exactly. The first one he checked was Number Eleven, and the second was me. It turned out we were both prisoners; the killer was someone else." Du Yu chuckled self-deprecatingly. "Originally, I was trying to figure out how to protect you, but facts have proven that you're far better at this game than I am."

The number of floating corpses beneath the murky surface dwindled; we must be getting close to the exit. I thought for a moment before asking my final question. "Tell me the truth. Did you show up here tonight because of my text message, or for some other reason?"

"Text message?" Du Yu looked even more surprised than I was. He pulled out his phone and let me flip through his inbox. "I never received a text from you. When I got home, I found my house completely ransacked. I thought I'd been burgled, but the moment I stepped inside, I was knocked out. I woke up in a daze halfway through and vaguely remember someone feeding me a green candy. By the time I fully regained consciousness, I was already inside the cell."

"So you were one of the game's participants yourself?" A bad premonition suddenly washed over me. "Neither you nor I am the extra person. That means that guy just faked his death, and he should be hiding somewhere right now, watching us."

"It doesn't matter to me anymore. I came here to participate in your broadcast mainly to..." Du Yu suddenly trailed off. His eyes darted to the stern of the boat, and a trace of panic flashed across his normally unruffled face.

After knocking Jin Zhouzhe out of the boat, I had taken a seat at the stern. Noticing Du Yu's expression, I instantly went on high alert.

The sound of water trickled into my ears. I brushed my fingers over the seat beside me—it was soaking wet. Turning my head, I saw a scrawny boy sitting right next to me. I had no idea when he had climbed aboard.

His clothes were drenched, water steadily dripping from them, and his body reeked of a pungent stench. However, his skin bore no signs of ulceration or bloating; he simply looked like an ordinary middle schooler.

"Wang Xian..." Du Yu's expression was complicated. His voice betrayed a hint of dread, but also a sense of overwhelming relief. "You've haunted me for over six years. You're finally willing to see me?"

The boy kept his head lowered. From my angle, I couldn't see his face.

He didn't speak. A continuous, rattling clack-clack sound echoed from within his body.

My right hand gripped a talisman tightly, ready to form a hand seal at any moment, but Du Yu shook his head at me. With a heavy sigh, he looked at the boy.

"I am the one who ruined you. Just as I said in my confession, all the suffering you experienced was caused by my hands. I've done countless unconscionable things in my life, but you are the only one I owe these words—I'm sorry."