Ten Days End Revised Edition

Chapter 4: Disaster?

At that moment, the tattooed man raised his hand and looked at the goat-head man. “Hey, referee, how should we count people using aliases? Does that count as lying?”

The goat-head man neither nodded nor shook his head; he simply said coolly, “I will no longer participate in any part of this process. All you need to do is write down your names as you see fit. Remember, ‘the rules are absolute.’ In the end, I will personally administer ‘punishment’ to the loser.”

The word “punishment” landed like a thunderclap, sending a shiver through everyone.

“This... this proves I haven’t lied!” Tian Tian cried out anxiously. “If I were lying, I’d be dead by now, right? Even if it’s an alias, my alias truly is ‘Tian Tian’!”

No one answered her. Now, in this life-or-death critical stage, no doubt can be overlooked.

“Then it’s my turn,” the tattooed man said with a sneer and an expression of reluctance. “If this lady’s story doesn’t count as a lie, then mine surely won’t either.”

“My name is Qiao Jiajin. I live in Guangdong and have no particular occupation. Before coming here, I was in debt collection,” he began. His Mandarin was rather poor, so everyone listened carefully.

“People nowadays are really something—when they borrow money, they agree to everything, but when it’s time to repay, they start crying pitifully.”

“D*mn it, they call us debt collectors demons—cold-blooded!”

“But you have to look at it another way. When that wimp was at his lowest and needed money the most, I was the one who lent him a hand. When no institution would lend him money, I stepped in. To him, I wasn’t a demon, but a savior.”

“But how did he treat his savior?”

“He wailed everywhere, complaining about how hard life was, that he’d been swindled out of two million. He also berated us debt collectors for being so cold-blooded, accusing us of using neighborhood sympathy to solve his problems. Yet when he borrowed money, we signed a contract and made every interest charge clear. Now that he can’t repay, is that really our fault?”

“Last night, I planned to teach him a lesson. I took him to the rooftop of a tall building—but then, out of nowhere, an earthquake struck. I originally didn’t want his life, but that wimp actually pulled out a knife amidst the chaos, trying to kill me!”

“In the ensuing chaos, he pushed me off the rooftop and I crashed into a billboard. The rest… I can’t remember.”

After hearing this man’s account, everyone furrowed their brows. Then, as if noticing something, Tian Tian sneered and said, “See? I told you that’s why you keep throwing dirt on me! It turns out you’re the liar!”

“What? On what grounds do you say I’m lying?” Qiao Jiajin snapped fiercely.

“I’m in Shaanxi, and you’re in Guangdong!” Tian Tian pointed at him. “Your story is clearly copied from mine! I experienced an earthquake, and so did you. I was hit by a billboard, and you also claim to have hit a billboard! Isn’t that lying?”

“I don’t care where you are; I just experienced an earthquake,” the tattooed man retorted, glaring. “If I withheld the truth, that would be lying! And as for the billboard—there can’t be only one billboard in the entire world, right?”

“In any case, you’re the liar!” Tian Tian accused, pointing at Qiao Jiajin. “Your profession is one for scoundrels; lying is hardly surprising!”

“Hah, and what about your profession? How much better is it than mine?”

Qi Xia watched the intense argument between the two and found the matter rather suspicious. It wasn’t that one of them was obviously lying—it was that he himself had experienced an earthquake. He wasn’t in Shaanxi or Guangdong; he was in Shandong.

Could an earthquake really span such a vast area? This earthquake reportedly covered half the country, affecting three provinces. If what they were saying was true, wouldn’t it be an unprecedented disaster?

“Enough arguing—let’s end this quickly,” commanded a muscular man sitting opposite them. He then looked at the next woman and said, “It’s your turn. If we’re really going to judge who’s lying, why don’t we wait until everyone has spoken?”

Both of the arguing men snorted coldly and fell silent. The woman beside Qiao Jiajin timidly nodded and began, “Um… my name is Xiao Ran, and I’m a kindergarten teacher.” Her voice was soft and trembling, and she looked visibly frightened.

“Before coming here, I was waiting with a child for his parents. That child was originally picked up by his mother, but then I heard that his mother had fallen seriously ill, something had grown in her brain, and she needed surgery… so for a few days, his father took over picking him up, though he seemed to always forget.”

“Yesterday evening, it was already past six—and I had technically finished work—but for some reason, the child’s father never answered his phone.”

“I didn’t know the child’s home address, so I couldn’t send him home; we had to stand at the crossroads waiting.”

“Actually, that night I also had plans… I had an appointment with a psychological counselor. I felt that I wasn’t really happy with my current job, and I hoped the counselor could help guide me.”

“But I never expected to wait for several hours—the evening meeting was ruined.”

“As I was lost in thought, the ground suddenly began to shake. I was terrified… it took several seconds before I realized it was an earthquake.”

“The feeling of an earthquake is different from what you hear about… the ground doesn’t jump; it sways from side to side, like I was standing on a table that someone kept shaking.”

“I immediately grabbed the child next to me, but I didn’t know what to do. I saw in the distance that the three towers of Chongsheng Temple were cracking… luckily, we were standing in an open space.”

“Then, I saw a small car out of control, barreling toward us… I could only stagger, holding the child and trying to run aside, but the shaking ground made me fall with every step.”

“In the end, when I fell, I hit my head… then I blacked out, and when I came to, I was here.”

This account was rather unremarkable. The only detail that struck Qi Xia as odd was the mention of the “three towers of Chongsheng Temple.” Those towers are in Dali, Yunnan.

Qi Xia gently caressed the card on the table. Though his hand concealed those three characters, he knew it read “Liar.” So, could there be more than one liar? If “the rules are absolute,” then the goat-head man’s statement—that “there is one and only one liar”—must be absolute.

Since he had drawn “Liar,” it proves that no one else could be the liar; there is only one liar. That means everyone else is telling the truth.

But the fact that these accounts, spanning three provinces, seem to interlock—where not only the earthquake but even the details of their stories match up—doesn’t that seem too strange?

At that moment, everyone’s gaze turned toward the next person: the middle-aged man in the white lab coat.