The weapon by the pillow

Chapter 45 This scheme... is a scheme within a scheme!

"I won!"

The white-haired old man coldly pushed the cards in front of him, and the cards made a crisp clinking sound.

The two words are even colder, like a lump of ice falling into a warm room.

The room suddenly turned cold.

A suffocating sense of oppression swept over everyone's back like a cold wind.

The other three people at the card table—the slightly overweight man, the fourth brother with gold-rimmed glasses, and the still charming Afang—all stopped what they were doing and stared in horror at the white-haired old man.

The wrinkles on the old man's face seemed to stand up at that moment, each fold resembling a steep and treacherous cliff.

Something was churning violently deep within his cloudy eyes.

A surge of offended anger, and a barely perceptible hint of... surprise and doubt.

"This is a trap within a trap! This kid..." The old man's voice was still hoarse, but each word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, "A tattered bed sheet, and he's broken the trap!"

His gaze was fixed on the tablet computer on the coffee table.

On the screen, the live stream had turned completely black—the cameras and listening devices in the room had been discovered.

After a long time, the old man slowly exhaled.

"What happened next," the bespectacled fourth brother reported promptly, his voice lower than usual, "According to our people observing nearby... they broke down the wall! It was a huge commotion! All eight people should be in room 402 now. Liu Li... is indeed dead."

"I want to know..." The old man shook his head, not finishing his sentence, but instead reached into the deck, pulled out a card, and threw it into the center of the table without even looking at it.

"Snapped!"

The card landed precisely on the standing mahjong tile.

"Splash—!"

Like dominoes, all the mahjong tiles standing on the table fell over and scattered with a clatter, the crisp sound particularly jarring in the quiet tea room.

The group was startled again, and even Ah Fang dropped the cigarette she was holding.

"They've left!" The fourth brother paused for a moment, then quickly picked up the conversation. He knew what the old man was really concerned about. "Those three people in Building 5, they took away all their tools and traces. You have to say they did a great job this time, almost completely escaping unscathed. The thermal imaging signal disappeared because they used a portable cooling shield tent and rappelled out of the window. The Wrangler downstairs was there to meet them and has already left the surveillance range."

"Escape unscathed?" The old man sneered, his fingers tracing the card he had tossed aside—a "Fa" (发) card, standing out starkly among the scattered tiles. "But they didn't truly escape, did they?"

The fourth brother was taken aback.

Afang picked up the cigarette and replied, "You mean... they're still using other methods to continue controlling the people in the room?"

"I suspect..." the old man raised his eyelids, "that they are very likely using tonight as an opportunity to kill someone."

"Murder?" the slightly overweight man blurted out. "Murder who? The people in the room? Or..."

"Liu Li is dead." The old man said calmly, as if to say, "The tea tonight is good." "The wire, the second one. The time, around three in the morning. It perfectly matches the sequence of Cheng Tan's nightmares and the time of Li Wan's death. This is no coincidence."

"And next..." A cold glint flashed behind the fourth brother's glasses, "A wrench? A utility knife? A paperweight? Pliers? Four more nightmares, corresponding to four targets? Jin Dafu? Zhang Zhiqiang? Who else?"

The old man didn't answer directly, but looked at Afang: "Why don't you ask the inspectors to put in more effort and make sure that policewoman gets out of the way? She's getting in the way too much."

Afang nodded and picked up her phone: "I'll call Yang Hong myself. We can exaggerate procedural issues. If necessary... we can use other forms of pressure."

"But it has to be natural," the old man added. "Don't let her realize it's deliberately targeting her. She's a smart woman. Her master is even smarter!"

"Understood." Afang got up and went to the corner of the tea room to make a phone call.

The old man leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and tapped his fingers lightly on the armrest.

The rhythm was very light, exactly the same as when striking the "North Wind" tile before.

"Fourth brother," he suddenly spoke up, "tell me, what exactly does '3D' on that die mean?"

The fourth brother pushed up his glasses: "Judging from their analysis, it seems to point to a location, the shared wall between 403 and 402. But I think... it's not that simple. '3D,' a cube, a missing corner... if it really is a location, why is that corner specifically cut off? Why is it engraved on the cut surface? It's more like a... mark. Or rather, a 'signature.'"

"A signature..." The old man opened his eyes, a glint of light flashing deep within them. "You mean, the person who set this up is using this method... to announce their existence? Or, to announce their 'work'?"

"Possibly," the fourth brother analyzed. "The whole scheme, from Cheng Tan's nightmare to the old newspaper, to the online lottery, to trapping eight people, that's the first level of the scheme, orchestrated by Li Kai... The second level should be the real scheme, where the schemer manipulated Li Kai, to the live broadcast, to the discovery of the secret room and the box, to the dice and the broken wall... Every step is as exquisite as a work of art. This person has a strong desire for self-expression and control. He not only wants revenge, not only wants to reveal the truth, he also wants to... make the whole process full of ritual and symbolism. The missing corner and engraved words on the dice are a manifestation of this mentality."

"A sense of ritual..." the old man repeated the word. "That 'ritual' from thirteen years ago, now, someone wants to reenact it. In a more dramatic way."

He looked at the black live stream screen on the tablet. Although the screen was black, the live stream signal had not been interrupted, and the number of viewers had exceeded 700,000, with the comments still scrolling wildly.

"The online trial has begun," the old man said slowly. "Those onlookers are starting to think they're the judges. How interesting."

The slightly chubby man leaned closer, looking at the scrolling voting results and comments on the tablet, and whispered, "Should we... stir things up online too? The votes are pointing to the people in the room right now, we can guide them to suspect specific people, like that shadow, or Lin Qian, or even Cheng Tan himself... make their infighting even fiercer."

The old man was silent for a moment, then shook his head: "No need. The person who organized this should have already considered the online public opinion aspect. If we get involved, we might expose ourselves. Now... we only need to do two things."

He held up two fingers.

"First, make sure Cheng Jing leaves the scene. Her mentor is too perceptive; we can't let them continue to dominate."

"Second," the old man's gaze deepened, "investigate. Use all our channels to find out two things: First, besides Jin Dafu, Zhang Zhiqiang, Zhao Jianguo, Wang Bin, Wu Guodong, Liu Li... who else was involved in that matter back then? Or rather, who else knew about it? Second, who exactly is the person who set this up? How much do they know that we don't?"

The fourth brother and the slightly overweight man nodded at the same time.

"And another thing," the old man added, "that good-for-nothing Jin Dafu has been hiding for so many years, it's time for him to come out... and get some fresh air. Find him. We need to see him alive or dead."

The murderous intent in those words caused the temperature in the tea room to drop even further.

"Yes!" the fourth brother replied.

The old man sat up straight again and began to slowly and methodically tidy up the scattered mahjong tiles, placing them neatly one by one.

His movements were steady, as if his anger had never existed.

"The game isn't over yet," he said calmly. "Someone's just trying to flip the table. Let's see... who has the better hand in the end."