Chapter 27

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Chapter 27: Star Death Reality Show (X)

Lara’s words drew silence from everyone.

That afternoon, after the search for Mark and He Yi failed, Dr. Lu had complained casually that the snow was too slippery, and he accidentally fell—he had fallen three times in one afternoon, and the number of times he fell might have doubled if Du Yue hadn’t been watching him the whole time. This had reminded everyone that they would be living here for the next six days, and they couldn’t travel on the snow every time.

So the five of them, together with Xue Jiahui, Janet, and Alex, who were present to help search at that time, eight people in total, had carried the necessary snow-shovelling equipment to each house and swept out a snow-free road near their houses, leading to the church in the middle of the village. And Jing Siyu, Jing Sixue, and Annie, although not missing, had not cleared their paths, nor had the missing Mark and He Yi.

Lara’s thinking was very clear. If someone had knocked Xue Jiahui out and taken her away, unless he went to the church first along the snow-free path Xue Jiahui had cleared and then gone to someone’s house to hide her along the seven snow-free paths connected to the church, his footprints would otherwise be left in the snow.

“But in the afternoon, we walked around and left many footprints on the ground, which are difficult to distinguish now,” Qi Leren countered.

“Let’s look for it along the way,” Lara said.

This search went on throughout the night, but there were no extra suspicious footprints on the ground and there were no clues in the people’s houses. By dawn, Dr. Lu was too sleepy to keep his eyes open. He followed the crowd with a yawn and walked into the church with them to have a rest.

“The Best of the Day will be broadcast in two hours. Let’s just wait for it before we rest,” Lara said.

Dr. Lu said, “I can’t do it. Let me take a nap and just… call me when it’s time.”

Giving a look of being exhausted, he yawned hard enough that tears almost fell. Qi Leren patted him on the shoulder: “You might as well go back so you can sleep. Have Du Yue accompany you.”

“Aren’t you sleepy?” Dr. Lu muttered.

“Not too much.” Qi Leren also felt a little tired, but it was probably because he was tortured by Chen Baiqi. His energy was better than before, so he could stay up all night.

“Forget it, I’ll take a nap on a couch here for a while, just for two hours, I’m too tired to leave,” Dr. Lu murmured and yawned again.

Seeing that he was so sleepy, Lara smiled and said, “You can’t sleep on the couch either. It would be bad if you caught a cold.”

Qi Leren suddenly remembered the glowing stone: “Lara, do you remember that glowing stone? You and Francis found it in a cave yesterday.”

“Oh, what’s wrong?” Lara wondered.

“Before going to Xue Jiahui’s, we passed the church to look at the stone. It turned out that… It was a bit strange, you should also have a look,” Qi Leren solemnly said.

Lara nodded and walked with Francis towards the back room of the church.

Pushing open the unlocked door, the old room was illuminated by the polar daylight outside the broken window. But the first thing the people who walked into this room saw would never be the stone that had broken into two pieces and lost its luster in the corner, but Xue Jiahui lying on the ground.

“Xue Jiahui!” Qi Leren let out a low cry, and Dr. Lu, who was about to fall asleep, hurried up to check her condition.

“Still alive, breathing and heartbeat are normal.” Dr. Lu touched her neck and let out a long sigh of relief.

“Why is she here?” Du Yue wondered.

“We’ll know when she wakes up,” Qi Leren said, and looked at the stone that was no longer shining.

Before, when he was busy performing for the audience, he hadn’t noticed that there was dried blood on the stone’s surface that penetrated into the crevice. When he thought of the bloodstained bandage found in Annie’s room, he inevitably linked these two things together.

Was it because of Annie’s blood that the monster in this stone was awakened? It made sense. As a member of Deep Sea Religion, Annie would recognize this stone as a natural thing. Although she was resting in the house because she was feeling unwell that day, Mark had seen the stone, and it was likely that he had told Annie.

But this guess wouldn’t be recognized even if it was spoken aloud. After all, this group of contestants still didn’t know that a terrible monster had appeared here… After Xue Jiahui woke up, he would look for an opportunity to let her identify the pictures of the octopus so that the chain of logic could be made. Qi Leren was going to do this.

After more than an hour, the contestants came to the church one after another, waiting for the announcement at 8 o'clock. Jing Siyu was much better. She came with her sister Jing Sixue, and Annie also came. When she saw Xue Jiahui, she raised her eyebrows: “Didn’t you say she was missing?”

“She was found more than an hour ago in the room behind the church hall. Also, the glowing stone we found on the first day has been broken… Something is wrong,” Lara said in a dignified way.

Janet, who had just arrived, smiled mockingly and said nothing.

Xue Jiahui, who had been placed on the couch, let out a loud groan, and everyone looked at her. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around in confusion.

“Are you alright?” Lara sat down beside her and asked softly.

Xue Jiahui opened her mouth and asked hoarsely, “Who are you?”

When she said this, Qi Leren screamed in his heart. The important clue-NPC fell off the chain at the critical moment via the ridiculous method of amnesia, which simply cut off the possibility of obtaining intelligence across the board. He had a faint feeling that there was a 90% chance that this boss-enemy was the “octopus” mentioned during their discussion before, but he knew nothing about it except that the octopus was a parasitic cosmic alien. He didn’t know its habits, fighting capacity, or whether it would reproduce rapidly.

While Qi Leren was struggling, Lara had already asked about Xue Jiahui’s condition. She had really lost her memory and even forgotten who she was. Obviously, it was impossible to remember that she had done a program about “amphioctopus”.

Janet held her forehead and sighed in an ostentatious manner: “I am really fed up with cooperating with the performance, even a memory loss scenario has come out. I think Miss Xue won yesterday’s Best without any problem.”

As soon as she spoke, the speaker started: “Now broadcasting the voting results. The winner for the Best of the Day is: Qi Leren.”

The people present uniformly turned their attention to Qi Leren. Janet, who had been beaten on the spot, looked at Qi Leren in a particularly bad way. Dr. Lu was more excited than he was that he got the Best. He said happily: “Congratulations, please come have dinner with me and Du Yue later to celebrate!”

“Thank you… Well, thank you all for your support and love.” When Qi Leren remembered that there was an audience, he had to smile and pretend that he was very happy, but his brain was spinning: How could he be rated as the best yesterday? Was it because he’d found that the glowing stone was broken? Or for some other reason?

On the second day of this reality show, many things had happened: Jing Siyu fell into the basement, Mark and He Yi disappeared, they searched the basement, Xue Jiahui disappeared and lost her memory…

He had participated in almost every one of these events. It was probably because of his positive performance and occasional “flash of light” discovery that he had gotten so many votes, Qi Leren thought.

“It’s a pity, I thought Miss Xue could get the Best, but it turned out to be Qi. It seems that the audience is more fond of conscientious and obedient actors.” Janet looked at Xue Jiahui with a playful mockery.

Xue Jiahui looked confused and overwhelmed, and Qi Leren could not see the sense of recognition in her face. He was now not sure what had happened to Xue Jiahui. If someone had really knocked her out, who could it be?

“It’s still strange. The three of us came to the church at eleven o'clock in the evening. At that time, there was no one in the room. After that, we went to Xue Jiahui’s, and the journey took only ten minutes at most. Why was Xue Jiahui hidden in this room? Who brought her here? How did the perpetrator avoid other people?” Dr. Lu murmured, his brow wrinkling more and more tightly as he looked very distressed.

“I’m afraid that only the audience will know this,” Lara smiled bitterly. “After all, we can’t check these cameras.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t get help from the audience outside the stadium,” Francis said.

“Actually, it shouldn’t be impossible,” Qi Leren suddenly said.

“Do you have a communicator?” Janet looked at Qi Leren with suspicious eyes.

“No. Like you, I have no other tools except a knife. The fixed cameras are installed inside and outside the church. The audience watching the screen clearly knows who brought Xue Jiahui here while she was knocked out. As long as they tell us the name of the person, everything will be understood,” Qi Leren said slowly, looking at the speaker.

Lara’s eyes brightened. “You mean…”

Qi Leren smiled and nodded.

Although this speaker would only broadcast the names of the Best, even if it was just a name, it would play a great role in cracking the current puzzle.

“Qianbei is too powerful!” Du Yue actually clapped his hands on the spot, and his admiration was beyond words. Dr. Lu on the side covered his face with one hand and his mouth with the other. It was a shame that this fanboy gave exaggerated praise regardless of the occasion!

“This is also an idea, but will the audience cooperate?” Francis asked.

“Let’s try it. Will you ask them?” Qi Leren invited Lara.

Lara nodded and took a deep breath before solemnly saying, “Hello, audience and friends, welcome to our program. Today is the third day of the program, and many unexpected accidents have happened, especially the accident to Xue Jiahui. We can’t figure out who knocked her out and brought her to the back room in this church, and we don’t know what the motive is. We hereby implore the audience who have watched this program to vote for the man who committed the crime when they vote for today’s Best of the Day. This is very important to us, please help us. Thank you!”

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