THE END OF THE TEN DAYS

Chapter 3: The Skilled

“The Liar…”

Zachary repeated the words silently in his mind, confirming his identity as he discreetly held onto his card.

Just a minute ago, he had entertained the thought of “everyone making it out alive.” But now, that thought had vanished.

Although he didn’t know the eight people before him, this time, they were the ones who would have to die.

“If everyone understands, please remember the rule: there is only one Liar in this game,” the man in the goat mask stated, pointing to the sultry-looking girl to Zachary’s left. “We’ll start with you and go clockwise.”

“Me?!” The girl froze, then pursed her lips.

Zachary glanced at her and noted that if they started clockwise from the girl on his left, he would end up being the last one to tell his story. Under such tense, oppressive circumstances, people usually only remember the first and last storytellers. Raising an objection now would seem too conspicuous, so he decided to proceed as planned.

The girl frowned, her large eyes darting nervously. Finally, she sighed and said, “Alright… I’ll go first, but I’ve never been good at telling stories, so if I mess it up, don’t blame me…”

The others remained silent, ready to listen.

The girl tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and began, “My name is Titi, and I’m, well... a ‘technical worker.’ We earn our living by our skills, and I’m not ashamed of it.”

Everyone then noticed that Titi, as she called herself, was wearing very little—a dirty, low-cut dress that barely covered her, though she seemed unconcerned.

“My stories aren’t exactly fit to share… Let’s just say I can ‘take action,’ but ‘describing’ it isn’t really my thing. I mean, anyone with a bit of culture wouldn’t be doing what I do…”

“So, before I came here, I was at work. The client I met was really weird… Our place has rooms, but he insisted on doing it in his car, said it was ‘more exciting’… I needed the money, so I went along with it.”

“It was my first time working in a car. It looked fancy from the outside, but inside it was cramped and stuffy. I was sweating buckets before long. I couldn’t understand what he found so ‘exciting’ about it. His phone kept buzzing too, and he wouldn’t answer. It was driving me crazy.”

Titi seemed ready to curse her client a bit more, but her gaze drifted to the corpse on the table, and she shuddered, taking a deep breath before continuing.

“Anyway, it’s my choice of job, and I’ve accepted that. But I didn’t expect there to be an earthquake. At first, I thought we’d just been moving too much and that’s why the car was shaking. But it turned out to be a real quake.”

At the mention of “earthquake,” everyone’s expressions shifted slightly, as if recalling something.

“Our car was parked in an alley, right under a big billboard… I had my head out of the car window and could see it clearly.” She pointed above her head, voice trembling. “The giant billboard snapped with a loud crash and fell right onto the car. After that, I blacked out…”

She let out a deep breath and added, “When I woke up, I was here. Scared me half to death…”

Titi put on a pitiful expression that seemed well-practiced, an expression that could make any man feel a tug of sympathy.

The tattooed man beside her raised an eyebrow and said, “Do we really need to keep telling stories?”

The man in the white coat looked at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“This ‘lady’ already lied. We can just vote now,” the tattooed man said confidently.

“What?!” Titi gasped. “How did I lie?”

The tattooed man gave her a cold look and said, “Your name. You said it’s ‘Titi,’ but every escort uses an alias. Names like ‘Titi,’ ‘Xiao Fang,’ or ‘Lili’ are all fake. So, you’ve hidden your real name, which means you’re lying.”

With that, Titi’s face flushed red.

“You… you’re spouting nonsense! My name really is Titi! I haven’t used my real name in years!” She glanced around and added, “Where I work, people only know me as ‘Titi.’ Nobody would recognize me by my real name!”

Everyone fell into contemplation, and Zachary’s expression grew serious.

From Titi’s story, Zachary couldn’t detect any hint of deception. Her narration was smooth, as though chatting with friends, which indicated one of two possibilities: either she’d practiced this story long ago or she was telling the truth.

But the tattooed man’s point offered another angle to consider—the concept of a “name lie.”

Lying about one’s name wouldn’t require logic or coherence, making it hard to detect flaws. After all, none of them knew each other, so names could only be taken at face value.

Recalling the goat-masked man’s words, Zachary thought carefully. He had said, “among those telling their stories, one person is lying.” The rule didn’t specify that the Liar must tell a false story—using a false name would qualify too.

Realizing she was under suspicion, Titi’s eyes widened nervously. “If you don’t believe me, my real name is Zhang Lijuan… I’m from Shaanxi… But you can call me by my real name if you want; no one here would respond to me by it. I’ll only answer to ‘Titi’…”

Hearing this, Zachary shook his head slightly.

This woman wasn’t as clever as he’d thought.

In other words, she couldn’t have prepared this lie in advance, nor could she have thought up the “name deception” strategy on the spot.

The goat-masked man had said, “there is only one Liar.” That Liar could only be Zachary himself.

If no one noticed the issue with “Titi,” he had a sure-win strategy.

When fabricating a name, “Qian” wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t rare but wasn’t very common either, making it memorable. He needed a name that drew as little attention as possible.

So he decided to call himself “Li Ming.”

The rest of his story could be told normally, and even the most perceptive person wouldn’t notice anything amiss.

The game was almost over.