At this moment, the tattooed man raised his hand and looked at the goat-headed man.
"Hey, judge, how do we deal with people who use aliases? Does that count as lying?"
The goat-headed man neither nodded nor shook his head. He simply said in a flat tone, "I will not interfere with the process any further. You just need to write down the name according to your own judgment. Remember, the rules are absolute. In the end, I will personally administer the 'punishment' to the losers."
The word punishment fell with a heavy finality, making everyone shiver.
"This… this means I didn't lie!" Tiantian shouted anxiously. "If I had lied, I'd be dead by now, right? Even if it's an alias, my alias really is 'Tiantian'!"
No one responded to her. At this critical life-and-death stage, no detail could be overlooked.
"Then it's my turn to tell my story," the tattooed man said with a reluctant shrug. "If her story doesn't count as a lie, then mine definitely doesn't either."
"My name is Qiao Jiajin. I live in Guangdong and don't have a steady job. Before coming here, I was out collecting debts."
Qiao Jiajin's Mandarin was heavily accented, and the others had to focus to understand him.
"You know, people these days are so funny. When they borrow money, they agree to anything. But when it's time to pay it back, they start playing the victim."
"Those bastards curse us debt collectors, calling us devils, saying we're heartless."
"But those losers should look at it from another angle. When they were desperate and needed money, who helped them? When no institution would lend to them, it was me who stepped in. To them, I wasn't a devil—I was their savior."
"And how do they treat their savior?"
"They cry and whine about how hard life is, how they were cheated out of two million, and then paint us as cold-blooded villains just for trying to collect what's owed. But we had a contract—every bit of interest was made crystal clear. If they can't repay it, how is that our fault?"
"Last night, I decided to teach one of these losers a lesson. I took him up to the rooftop of a tall building. But just as I was about to scare him, an earthquake hit. I didn't want to kill him, but that bastard took advantage of the chaos, pulled out a knife, and tried to kill me!"
"In the confusion, he pushed me off the rooftop, and I smashed into a billboard. I don't remember anything after that."
After hearing Qiao Jiajin's story, everyone frowned.
Tiantian, however, seemed to have found something and sneered. "See? I knew why you were throwing dirt on me! It's because you're the liar!"
"What? Why do you think I'm lying?" Qiao Jiajin growled.
"I'm in Shaanxi, and you're in Guangdong!" Tiantian pointed at him accusingly. "Your story is just a copy of mine! I had an earthquake; you also had an earthquake. I got hit by a billboard; you also got hit by a billboard! How is that not lying?"
"I don't care where you are. I experienced an earthquake too," Qiao Jiajin retorted. "If I kept it a secret, that would be lying! And as for billboards, do you think there's only one billboard in the whole world?"
"You're lying, plain and simple!" Tiantian snapped. "You're the kind of person who makes a living doing bad things, so it's no surprise you'd lie!"
"Hah, and your job is so much better than mine?"
Qi Xia watched the two argue heatedly, finding the situation strange—not because he thought either of them was lying, but because he had also experienced an earthquake.
He wasn't in Shaanxi or Guangdong; he was in Shandong.
Was it possible for an earthquake to affect such a wide area, spanning three provinces?
If what they were saying was true, this would be an unprecedented disaster.
"Stop arguing and let's get this over with," a muscular man across the table interrupted. He glanced at the next person in line, a young woman, and said, "It's your turn. If we really want to figure out who's lying, let everyone finish telling their stories first."
The two begrudgingly fell silent.
The woman beside Qiao Jiajin nodded timidly and began to speak. "Uh… my name is Xiao Ran. I'm a kindergarten teacher."
She looked utterly terrified, her voice trembling and barely audible.
"Before coming here, I was waiting with a child for his parent to pick him up. His mother used to come for him, but I heard she recently fell ill and needed brain surgery. So, his father had been picking him up instead… though he often forgot to come."
"Last night, it was already past six. I was supposed to be off hours ago, but for some reason, the father still wasn't answering his phone…"
"I didn't know their address, so I couldn't take the child home. We just stood by the road, waiting."
"I actually had plans last night… I was supposed to meet with a therapist. I've been feeling like I don't really enjoy my job anymore, and I was hoping the therapist could help me."
"But I waited for hours, and the appointment was ruined."
"Just as I was lost in thought, the ground started shaking. I was terrified… It took me a few seconds to realize it was an earthquake."
"The ground didn't jump like I imagined it would. Instead, it swayed side to side, like standing on a table that someone was shaking."
"My first instinct was to grab the child and hold him close, but I had no idea what to do. I saw the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple in the distance, and they were cracking open… Thankfully, we were standing in an open area."
"Then, I saw a car lose control and speed toward us. I tried to run, holding the child, but the swaying ground made me trip with every step."
"On my last fall, I hit my head and blacked out. When I woke up, I was already here."
It was an unremarkable story, except for one strange detail that stood out to Qi Xia: the Three Pagodas of Chongsheng Temple.
Those towers are in Dali, Yunnan.
Qi Xia gently touched the card on the table. Though he had it covered with his hand, he knew the words on it read Liar.
Could there really be multiple liars?
If "the rules are absolute," as the goat-headed man had emphasized, then his claim of "exactly one liar" must also be true.
Since Qi Xia had drawn the Liar card, no one else could be the liar. Everyone else must be telling the truth.
Yet, their stories spanned three provinces and somehow linked together—not just with the earthquake, but also with their content. It was all too strange.
As everyone's attention turned to the next person in line—a middle-aged man in a white coat—Qi Xia couldn't shake the feeling that something much larger was at play.