At this moment, the tattooed man raised his hand and looked at the goat-headed figure, "Hey, referee, how do we handle someone with a pseudonym like this? Does it count as lying?"
The goat-headed figure neither nodded nor shook his head; he simply said, "I will not participate in any of the proceedings from now on. You just need to write down the names according to your own thoughts. Just remember, 'the rules are absolute.' In the end, I will personally administer 'punishment' to the loser."
The words "punishment" resonated with a heavy finality, causing everyone to shudder involuntarily.
"This, this means I didn't lie!" Tian exclaimed anxiously. "If I were lying, I would be dead by now, right? Even if it's a pseudonym, my pseudonym really is 'Tiantian'!"
No one answered her. It was now a critical stage of life and death, and no doubts could be overlooked.
"Now it's my turn to speak," the tattooed man said with a disdainful curl of his lips, clearly reluctant. "If this lady's story doesn't count as lying, then I certainly don't either."
"My name is Qiao Jiajin, I live in Guangdong, and I don't have a job. Before coming here, I was collecting debts."
Qiao Jiajin's Mandarin was quite poor, so everyone had to listen carefully.
"People nowadays are really interesting. When borrowing money, they promise everything, but when it comes time to repay, they start crying and complaining."
"Those bastards, they call us debt collectors devils, cold-blooded."
"But that guy should think from a different perspective. When he was at his most helpless and needed money the most, it was I who extended a helping hand. When no institution would lend him money, it was I who lent it to him. To him, I am not a devil but a savior."
"But how does he treat me, the savior?"
"He goes around crying about how hard his life is, how he was cheated out of two million. He scorns us debt collectors, saying how cold-blooded we are for trying to use the sympathy of neighbors to solve his predicament. But when he borrowed the money, we signed a contract, and all the interest was clearly explained to him. Now that he can't repay it, is it our problem?"
"Last night, I intended to teach him a lesson. I took him to the rooftop of a tall building, but unexpectedly, there was an earthquake. I didn't want to take his life, but this guy suddenly pulled out a knife and tried to kill me in the chaos!"
"In the midst of the confusion, he pushed me off the rooftop, and I hit an advertising billboard. The rest of the events... I can't remember."
After hearing this man's story, everyone frowned.
Tiantian seemed to have realized something and said with an angry laugh, "See! I told you why you were trying to tarnish my reputation! It turns out you are the liar!"
"What? On what basis do you say I'm lying?" Qiao Jiajin replied fiercely.
"I was in Shaanxi, and you were in Guangdong!" Tiansweet pointed at him and said, "Your story is just a copy of mine! There was an earthquake where I was, and you had one too. I got hit by an advertising billboard, and you also crashed into one! How is this not lying?"
"I don't care where you are! I just happened to experience an earthquake," the tattooed man said, glaring. "If I were to hide it and not say anything, that would be lying! As for the billboard, there can't be just one billboard in the whole world, right?"
"Anyway, you're lying!" Tiantian pointed at Qiao Jiajin and said, "Your profession is something that only bad people do, so it's not surprising that you lie!"
"Hah, how is your profession any better than mine?"
Qi Xia looked at the two who were arguing fiercely and felt that something was indeed odd.
It wasn't because either of them was necessarily lying, but because he had also experienced an earthquake.
He was neither in Shaanxi nor in Guangdong, but in Shandong.
Is there really an earthquake that spans such a large area?
This earthquake crossed half the country and involved three provinces.
If what they said was true, wouldn't that be an unprecedented disaster?
"Enough arguing, let's wrap this up," said the burly man sitting opposite them, stopping the two. He then looked at the next girl, "It's your turn. If we're really going to judge who is lying, why not let everyone finish speaking first?"
Upon hearing this, both of them snorted coldly and fell silent.
The woman next to Qiao Jiajin timidly nodded and spoke, "Um... my name is Xiao Ran, and I am a kindergarten teacher."
It seemed that the girl named Xiao Ran was quite frightened; her voice was very soft and trembled slightly.
"Before I came here, I was waiting with a child for their parents. The child was usually picked up by their mother, but I heard that the mother fell seriously ill and had something growing in her brain, so she needed surgery... That's why the father has been picking him up these days, but it seems like he often forgets to come..."
"Yesterday, it was already past six in the evening. I had actually finished my work a long time ago, but for some reason, the child's father never answered the phone..."
"I didn't know the child's home address, so I couldn't take him home. I could only stand at the intersection and wait with him."
"Actually, I had something going on that night as well... I had an appointment with a psychologist because I felt that I wasn't very happy with my current job, and I hoped the psychologist could help me sort things out."
"But I didn't expect to wait for several hours, and my evening appointment ended up being canceled."
"Just when I was lost in thought, the entire ground suddenly started shaking, and I was so scared... It took me several seconds to realize it was an earthquake..."
"The feeling of the earthquake was different from what I had heard... The ground wasn't bouncing; it was swaying side to side. It felt like I was standing on a table, and someone kept shaking that table..."
"I immediately hugged the child beside me, but I didn't know what to do. I saw the three pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in the distance cracking... Thankfully, we were standing in an open area."
"Then I saw an out-of-control car speeding toward us... I could only stumble and run to the side while holding the child, but the shaking ground made me fall with every step I took."
"Finally, when I fell, I hit my head... and then I passed out. When I woke up, I was already here."
This was a rather unremarkable account.
What puzzled Qi Xia was the mention of the "Chongsheng Temple Pagodas."
These three pagodas are located in Dali, Yunnan.
Qi Xia gently touched the card on the table; although his hand covered those three characters, he knew they read "Liar."
So, could there be multiple liars?
If "the rules are absolute," then what the goat-headed figure just said—that "there is exactly one liar"—must be absolute.
Since he drew the "Liar" card, it proved that the others could not be liars; there could be only one liar among them.
What they said must be the truth.
However, the story that spanned three provinces seemed to be subtly connected.
Not just the earthquake, but even the content of their narratives intertwined—wasn't that a bit strange?
At this moment, everyone's gaze shifted to the next person, the middle-aged man in a white coat.