Chapter 7 • The Blackout Night
1523 Words
The atmosphere in the room had grown far more oppressive than before. Ji Yuan still leaned against the wall, pen and paper untouched in his hands, but his sharp gaze swept over every single person present.
He had already noticed that some were getting restless. Under one bed, someone had hidden a steel shard.
A man lurking behind the table grew increasingly fidgety with every passing second. And the man in gray—he had edged even closer, almost blending into their loose circle of vigilance.
The gray-clad man's movements froze abruptly, his face darkening in an instant.
Xie Chuan pretended to be asleep, his breathing steady and even, but his fingertips still brushed slowly against the seam of his trousers. He had never truly let his guard down.
Cui Xun sat against the wall, seemingly dozing with his eyes closed, yet his peripheral vision darted constantly to several key spots in the room.
He and Shen Zheng—the man who leaned in the corner, watching the chaos unfold with cold amusement—seemed to maintain an unspoken synchronization at all times.
Meanwhile, Yi Ran finally mustered the courage to draw near, whispering to Ji Yuan:
"I've counted it several times now… the rhythm of the red dot's blinking is changing. It doesn't seem to be on a timer. It's… trigger-based."
At her words, Lu Xu immediately flipped to a page in his notebook and showed it to them:I've noticed it too. It might correlate with noise levels or the magnitude of movements.
Yi Ran nodded, her soft voice carrying unshakable conviction: "Or it could be triggered by group behavior—like people getting too close, or talking for too long."
She spoke quietly, but with certainty. Ji Yuan nodded. Her observations were sharp. Every single member of their small group… had already been marked by the system.
Just as the fragile silence was about to shatter, the system's voice blared out without warning:
[Excessive resource consumption detected. Supply distribution suspended proportionally during lockdown period.][Do not tamper with lockers not assigned to you. Repeat violations will be classified as order disruption.]
The air turned to ice in an instant.
Everyone remembered the man who had been lingering by others' lockers earlier. He had just snuck another peek inside someone's cabinet.
"Dammit! You were the one rummaging through lockers, weren't you?!""Don't accuse me of things! I was just checking if there was any extra water!""That's not your assigned spot!"
The crowd erupted into chaos once more. But the system only delivered one final warning:
[Warning: Further acts of disruption will prompt the system to initiate Minimum Intervention Protocol.]
Minimum intervention? It didn't mean safer. It meant no more protection.
Ji Yuan understood. So did Shen Zheng. A smile tugged at Shen Zheng's lips—a smile that looked almost like applause for the system.
He murmured under his breath: "The real selection… has already begun."
Deep into the night, the lights flickered suddenly—not out, but a split-second voltage dip that sent a jolt through the room. Several people jumped in alarm.
"Is the power… glitching?""What's wrong with the lights? Who touched something?!""Don't get so close to me!" someone yelped."Who… who just touched me?!" another demanded sharply.
The tension snapped. People began to back away instinctively, shoving and shouting. That brief flicker of darkness had ignited the primal fear lurking in every heart.
Suddenly, the lights flickered again—
Fizz—
And went out completely.
Darkness surged in like a tide, and every heartbeat thundered in the silence.
In the moment the lights died, even the system fell silent. Breaths echoed loudly in the blackness, ragged and panicked.
A scream tore through the dark, only to be smothered abruptly by an invisible hand.
Soft footsteps padded across the floor, then halted just as quickly. One step… two steps… the sound slid across the metal and cut off short. It was the sound of a hunter testing his prey, of prey holding its breath.
Time seemed to stand still for a heartbeat. Then, a dull thud! rang out. The crash of a falling chair mingled with the faint sound of tearing fabric in the darkness.
And then—a short, sharp cry of agony sliced through the quiet.
Seconds later, the lights blazed back on. Everyone froze in place.
Some leaned against the walls, gasping for air; others trembled as they scanned the room wildly. But a strange, metallic tang had begun to hang in the air.
"…What's that smell?""On the floor… there's blood."
The crowd followed the voice's gaze. Lying crumpled between two beds was the man who had been rummaging through lockers earlier.
His throat had been sl*t open. The bleeding had stopped. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. The room fell deathly silent.
Without hesitation, Lu Xu rushed over and pulled a bedsheet over the body.
Ji Yuan knelt down to examine the corpse's posture and the wound. This was no impulsive attack. Someone had struck in the dark, delivering a single, lethal blow.
"This was premeditated," he said quietly.
"Exactly," Lu Xu nodded, his voice steady despite the horror of the scene."No one could have landed such a precise kill in such a short time without preparation."
"It wasn't a crime of passion," Yi Ran said, her voice trembling as she bit her lip."He was waiting for the perfect moment."
Just as the room teetered on the brink of another explosion, the system finally spoke up:
[No intervention triggered by individual actions.][Collective trust score: -12%.][Current phase: Uncontrolled Test Segment.][System intervention level: Withdrawing.]
"What the hell does that mean?!""You said this was a 'secure lockdown zone'! What a lie!""We… we're not even safe here anymore?!"
Panic spread like wildfire.
Shen Zheng still stood in the corner, saying nothing.
Cui Xun shot him a glance, then shook his head almost imperceptibly. Xie Chuan stood up, feigning shock as he asked:
"Could that thud we heard… have been him?"
He moved closer to Ji Yuan and Lu Xu, then lowered his voice to a whisper:
"I saw the man in gray creeping this way during the blackout… unfortunately, I was too far away to catch up." He rubbed the edge of his shirt nervously.
"You were trying to chase him?" Yi Ran asked, confused.
Xie Chuan scratched his head, grinning sheepishly.
"The three of you were all in on it. If I didn't do something, I'd look like a total freeloader, wouldn't I?"
His tone was lighthearted as ever, but the three of them understood. He had made his choice.
It might have been nothing more than an act of banding together for survival. Or it might have been something more. But for now, at least, he had chosen to stand with them.
Just then, Lu Xu frowned, his voice sharp with realization: "Wait a minute… that's not right."
Ji Yuan's eyes swept the room instantly—but no one was missing. Every bed, every shadow, every person was accounted for.
"No one left the room," Cui Xun said flatly. "The door's still locked."
"Then where is he?" Yi Ran asked, her eyes darting warily around the room.
Xie Chuan knelt down and checked the corners around the corpse.
"He didn't leave… he never left. He must still be here."
Lu Xu suddenly dropped to his knees and pulled back the bed frame of one of the nearby beds.
Beneath it lay a crumpled gray jacket stained with blood, alongside a facial mask—one of the skin-tight kind that clung perfectly to the face.
"He didn't leave," Lu Xu said, his voice cold with dread. "He just changed his clothes… and his face."
The words hung in the air like a bucket of ice water, dousing everyone in a wave of terror.
"Who? Who switched identities? Which one of us isn't who they appear to be?!"
The red dot swiveled slowly across the room. The system remained silent.
"Congratulations," Shen Zheng laughed, his voice ringing out clearly. "Hunters and prey, now playing on the same field."
The air tightened into a vise. A bone-chilling fear spread through the room. The hunter was among them—and no one knew who it was.
And the gray jacket and mask, still crumpled under that bed, were spotted with blood and strands of hair.
Clearly, they had been hastily discarded during a quick costume change.
Shen Zheng spoke up slowly, savoring the tension in the air:
"I told you, didn't I? In a place like this, there's no real difference between hunters and prey—except that the prey haven't woken up yet."
"And the truly smart ones? They've already slipped into the hunters' ranks."
He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over every single person in the room:
"Now… it's time to guess. Which one of you isn't who you claim to be?"
The room fell silent once more.
The red dot suddenly locked onto a spot in front of one of the beds, beeping softly as it flickered once. As if recording. As if selecting.
The lights trembled faintly.
The darkness had never really gone away.
End of Chapter 7
- Writer
