"No one survives."
"We can't just sit and wait for the killer to come and harm us," Liang Fang suddenly spoke up. "I think he must still be in the villa. Let's act together and expose him."
"Better late than never. Why didn't you speak up earlier?" Qin Wenguang sarcastically retorted, clearly still resentful of Liang Fang for revealing his secrets.
"Even being late is better than being a hypocrite like you," Liang Fang frowned and said disdainfully.
"Can you two ancestors stop arguing? It's almost three o'clock in half an hour. Let's think about how to please Lord Yanwang, maybe if he's happy, we can be reincarnated earlier," Qiu Yanping suddenly interrupted, breaking the tension between the two. But it was undeniable that Qiu Yanping's words added a touch of horror to the already heavy atmosphere. The passing time was like a group of ants gnawing on a rope on a guillotine. As soon as the rope broke, the merciless blade above them would cut off their heads, ruthlessly taking away their small and fragile lives. This fear of the unknown and death seemed to have lowered the temperature in the room significantly. Even with the doors and windows closed, everyone still felt a chill. And even more eerie was the fact that although they knew someone would die in the villa, no one knew who would be so unfortunate.
"What's wrong, Teacher Chen!" Zhang Jing saw Chen Jun suddenly clutching his chest in pain and quickly rushed to the bedside.
"Help... help me..." Chen Jun gasped heavily, intermittently speaking, his voice weak.
"Could it be a heart attack? Who can help him..." Qiu Yanping said, unintentionally taking a few steps back.
"I brought nitroglycerin, I'll go get it!" Zhang Jing said and rushed out of the room.
"It's almost three o'clock, maybe the next one to die will be him," Qiu Yanping muttered quietly.
Although Ye Shu didn't have a good impression of Chen Jun, hearing Qiu Yanping say that, a wave of anger surged within him.
"Qiu Teacher, you have no humanity. He is your colleague!" Ye Shu scolded.
"I..." Qiu Yanping obviously didn't expect a junior to dare to confront her like this, looking somewhat surprised, but quickly regained her composure and coldly said to Ye Shu, "You uncultured brat, you're unlucky to have Zhang Jing as your teacher."
While speaking, Zhang Jing returned to the room with a small bottle of medicine and fed it to Chen Jun. Although Chen Jun's breathing had stabilized somewhat, he still appeared disoriented, his lips moving but devoid of color. With less than ten minutes left until three o'clock, although Qiu Yanping's words were harsh, at this moment, Chen Jun's sudden heart attack made everyone start to doubt. And amidst this doubt, the thoughts of everyone present subtly changed.
"Should I make a phone call and see if I can contact someone outside?" Xu Xin suddenly spoke up after a long silence.
Everyone's eyes lit up, and Yu Hang and Liu Wenying's mysterious disappearance had made them all forget about the possibility of making a phone call.
"Then please, Mr. Xu," Qin Wenguang said politely, feeling slightly relieved.
After receiving a positive response, Xu Xin turned and left the room.
"I need to go back to my room and get my blood pressure medication," Qin Wenguang muttered to himself, using the armrest of the chair to help himself stand up.
"Brother-in-law, wait for me!" Qiu Yanping also quickly got up, as she had become the target of everyone's criticism because of her thoughtless words earlier. Moreover, in this situation, only her brother-in-law could be trusted.
Qin Wenguang's face showed a difficult expression, but in the end, he didn't say anything.
Zhang Jing, on the other hand, watched as the three of them left and hesitated to speak. Although he didn't want to admit it, he was gradually starting to believe that Chen Jun was the next unlucky one. But at the same time, a question arose in his mind: how did the killer manage to kill Chen Jun in the presence of everyone, especially since there were no witnesses to Yu Hang and Liu Wenying's disappearance? He even wondered if all of this was just a poorly executed prank, designed by someone with ill intentions to mock them.
"It's unlikely, it doesn't make sense at all," Zhang Jing shook his head, thinking to himself.
"Ye Shu, where did you put that hand, and the pregnancy test report for Liu Wenying? Let me see if I can find any connections," Zhang Jing turned to Ye Shu and said.
"It's in the wardrobe over there, wrapped in a towel. The report is in my..." Ye Shu said, preparing to take out the report from his pocket, but unexpectedly found it empty. He was puzzled and began to recall if he had put it somewhere else.
"It's gone," Zhang Jing opened the wardrobe and found that the severed hand had disappeared, leaving only a towel behind.
"It's impossible, I clearly put it here. President Qin also saw it," Ye Shu said in astonishment.
Just as the two were puzzled, Chen Jun opened his eyes and weakly coughed. The three people in the room who stayed behind heard the sound and gathered around Chen Jun's bed.
"How are you, Teacher Chen? Are you feeling better?" Zhang Jing asked with concern.
"My heart has never been good, and tonight it was startled, so I had an attack," Chen Jun said, although he resented Zhang Jing in his heart, he couldn't lose face at this moment and reluctantly spoke.
"It's no good to have a life of luxury, only getting luxurious diseases. Just causing trouble for everyone," Liang Fang frowned, still maintaining a superior and sarcastic attitude.
Chen Jun's face turned angry. He had always disliked Liang Fang's domineering attitude, and now that everyone was in danger, he no longer had any reservations. He directly confronted Liang Fang and said,
"I used to see you in a high position, and I had to ask for your help. But if you continue to act superior, believe me, you will be the next one to die!"
Liang Fang knew she was in the wrong and just snorted, not continuing to argue. On the other hand, although Zhang Jing and Ye Shu had their conflicts with Chen Jun in the past, seeing Chen Jun safe and sound, Zhang Jing felt relieved. Seeing this, Ye Shu couldn't help but smile, but in an instant, he realized a terrifying problem:
The person who died at three o'clock was not Chen Jun.
The others also seemed to sense something unusual, and the room fell silent.
"Why are you following us?" Qin Wenguang looked disdainfully at his sister-in-law.
"Brother-in-law, I didn't know you had high blood pressure. Where did you get the blood pressure medication?" Qiu Yanping wasn't stupid, she knew Qin Wenguang must be hiding something from her.
"Don't be sarcastic. Just sit outside and wait for me. We'll go back as soon as I get what I need," Qin Wenguang adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and a fierce light shot out from behind the lenses.
"Even at this point, you still have something you don't dare to let me know. Could it be that you are the killer?" Qiu Yanping intentionally raised her voice by an octave.
Qin Wenguang quickly covered her mouth, afraid of alarming others. Although he harbored resentment, he couldn't do anything to Qiu Yanping. He clenched his fists and turned back into the room, locking the door behind him. Seeing Yu Hang and Liu Wenying die, a strange sense of relief surged within Qin Wenguang. Qiu Yanping was right, there were things he couldn't let others know, and his excuse to return to the room was to destroy some things.
"It's better that he's dead, so I don't have to worry anymore," Qin Wenguang sneered, taking out two pages of paper folded together from the inside of his jacket and lighting them with a lighter. Qin Wenguang was satisfied, watching the flickering flames with a trance-like expression. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and the flame went out abruptly.
Outside the room, Qiu Yanping grew impatient. Qin Wenguang had been inside for seven or eight minutes, but showed no signs of coming out. She got up and walked towards the room, knocking on the door impatiently, "President Qin, are you okay? You're not asleep, are you?"
After knocking for a while, there was no response from inside. She twisted the doorknob and found that the door wasn't locked.
"Qin..." Qiu Yanping froze. Qin Wenguang was gone, his gold-rimmed glasses fell to the ground, and the shattered lenses seemed to silently tell the story of their owner's fate. In the ashtray, there were still the two pages of paper that had been burned halfway. Qiu Yanping was filled with terror, cold sweat instantly soaked her back, and just as she was about to scream, a figure appeared behind the door. The figure held a sharp knife in their hand, silently stabbing towards her throat.
Outside the door, footsteps could be heard, it was Zhang Jing and Ye Shu. They had realized something was wrong and hurriedly came to find Qin Wenguang and Qiu Yanping. After entering the room, they found that Qin Wenguang and Qiu Yanping had mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind only Qin Wenguang's beloved gold-rimmed glasses and a broken jade bracelet.
"Dang... Dang... Dang..." The two heard the sound and saw the scene in front of them, feeling as if the sound was like a funeral bell, terrifying.
On the other side, shortly after Zhang Jing and Ye Shu left, Xu Xin returned to the room.
"Damn it, the phone couldn't get through at all. The rain was too heavy, so I..." Seeing that there were only Liang Fang and Chen Jun in the room, Xu Xin realized something was wrong and cautiously asked Liang Fang, "Where are the other two teachers? Could it be..."
"They went to find President Qin, just left," Liang Fang, although still maintaining a cold demeanor, felt a chill down her spine when she heard the sound of the clock, her body trembling slightly.
"We shouldn't have any problems, right?" Chen Jun lay on the bed, feeling that his heart was hurting again.
At this tense moment, Zhang Jing and Ye Shu returned,
"President Qin and Teacher Qiu are gone, leaving only a pair of glasses and a bracelet," Zhang Jing took out these two items from his pocket and placed them in front of everyone. "But the severed hand and the pregnancy test report seem to have been taken by someone. Now we only have these left." Zhang Jing's face became serious as he spoke, one word at a time.
The severed hand, the blood-stained pregnancy test report, the broken glasses, and the cracked jade bracelet were all personal or private items of the four people. Now, they were openly displayed, and even though they hadn't seen any bodies, in the eyes of the remaining people, death was the only possibility.
"I think there must be some kind of pattern that hasn't been discovered yet. But it's strange that two people disappeared together at three o'clock," Ye Shu suddenly asked, this was also the common confusion in everyone's mind.
"There must be some clue that hasn't been found yet," Zhang Jing looked at the glasses and bracelet in front of him, pondering deeply.
"Dang... Dang... Dang... Dang..." The clock unexpectedly rang, startling everyone, they quickly looked towards the door, tightly gripping the knives in their hands. The door slowly opened, making a creaking sound, and a long shadow was cast inside...
...
Deng deng deng!
The police knocked on the table in the interrogation room and said to the man behind the iron door, "Wake up! Stop pretending!" The man raised his head, the light was too bright for him to open his eyes. He instinctively wanted to shield his eyes from the light but found that his hands were already fixed to the chair, and there were two police officers sitting across from him.
"Oh no, did I end up here?" The man's heart trembled, then put on a flattering smile, "Comrades, did you arrest the wrong person? I am a law-abiding citizen, I haven't done anything wrong."
"Still pretending? Weren't you just scaring us earlier? Law-abiding citizen, I think you're shameless. Since you can't remember what you did wrong, let me remind you, your wife."
"I... I was just fooling around with her, her pregnancy has nothing to do with me. Besides, she's just a slut, I don't even know whose child it is. Why are you arresting me..." The man had a look of grievance, as if he was about to cry. But then suddenly his eyes widened, and he fell back onto the chair.
The two police officers sitting across from him had uncertain expressions, unable to determine whether the man in front of them was truly foolish or pretending to be.
"Xiao Liu, let the doctor in," one of the police officers shouted outside the door.
Under the pale light, the clock pointed to three o'clock.
(To be continued)