An old tungsten filament light hung in the center of the room, suspended by black wires, flickering with dim light.
The tranquil atmosphere spread like ink drops into clear water, slowly diffusing throughout the room.
In the center of the room, there was a large round table, looking worn and faded, with a small, intricately patterned clock standing at its center, ticking softly.
Around the table sat ten people dressed in various ways. Their clothes looked worn, and their faces were covered in dust.
Some of them were slumped over the table, others reclined in their chairs, all deeply asleep.
Standing quietly beside them was a man wearing a goat head mask and a black suit.
His gaze pierced through the hollow eyes of the mask, watching the ten individuals with interest.
The clock on the table chimed, and both the minute and hour hands pointed to "twelve."
From somewhere far outside the room, a deep bell sounded.
At the same moment, the ten men and women sitting around the round table slowly began to wake up.
As they became conscious, they looked around in confusion and then glanced at each other in puzzlement.
It seemed none of them remembered how they ended up here.
"Good morning, nine of you." The Goat Head spoke first, "I am pleased to meet you all. You've been asleep in front of me for twelve hours."
The appearance of this man was strange. In the dim light, it startled everyone.
His mask looked as if it were made from an actual goat's head, its fur yellowed and clumped together in tangles.
The eyes of the goat mask were hollow, revealing his cunning eyes.
Every movement he made not only carried the distinct odor of goat but also a faint, rotten scent.
A man with a floral tattoo on his arm paused for a moment, before finally realizing something was off. Hesitantly, he asked the Goat Head, "Who... who are you?"
"I'm sure you all have this question, so let me introduce myself," the Goat Head replied cheerfully, as if he had been waiting for this moment.
A young man named Qi Xia, sitting at the farthest point from the Goat Head, quickly scanned the room. After a brief moment, his expression became serious.
This room was too strange.
There were no doors, only walls on all sides.
In other words, the room was fully enclosed, and yet, in the center stood a table.
If that was the case, how had they all gotten here?
Could it be that they were brought here first, and the walls were built afterward?
Qi Xia looked around again. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling all had intersecting lines, dividing the surfaces into large grids.
Another thing that caught Qi Xia's attention was the phrase "nine of you" that the Goat Head had mentioned.
No matter how they counted, there were clearly ten people around the table. Including the Goat Head, there were eleven people in total.
What did "nine of you" mean?
He reached into his pocket and, as expected, his phone was gone.
"No need to introduce yourselves," a cold woman said, addressing the Goat Head, "I advise you to stop your actions. I suspect you've been holding us captive for more than twenty-four hours, which constitutes 'illegal detention.' Every word you say will be recorded and could serve as testimony against you."
As she spoke, she absentmindedly rubbed her arm as if she were annoyed by the dust, as though being trapped wasn't as bothersome as getting dirty.
Her words did seem to wake up the others. No matter who the Goat Head was, kidnapping ten people was crossing a serious legal line.
"Wait a minute..." A middle-aged man in a white lab coat interrupted, looking steadily at the cold woman. "We just woke up. How do you know we've been held for 'twenty-four hours'?"
His tone was calm and firm, but it struck right at the heart of the matter.
The cold woman pointed to the clock on the table and answered, "The clock shows twelve o'clock. I have a habit of staying up late, and the last time I checked the clock at home, it was already twelve. That means we've been held for at least twelve hours."
She then gestured to the walls around them, continuing, "You must have noticed that this room has no doors, meaning someone must have put in effort to bring us here. The Goat Head said we've been asleep for twelve hours. Now the clock is pointing at twelve again, which means at least two full rotations have passed. So, I suspect 'over twenty-four hours.' Am I wrong?"
The man in the white lab coat looked at her coldly, still skeptical.
After all, in this situation, her composure seemed too unnatural.
Normally, wouldn't someone panic if they were being kidnapped?
At that moment, a young man in a black t-shirt asked, "Goat Head, why are there ten of us, yet you say there are nine?"
The Goat Head remained silent and didn't immediately respond.
"Bloody hell, I don't care how many people are here..." the tattooed man cursed. He slammed his hands on the table, attempting to stand, but his legs felt weak and useless. He couldn't muster any strength and fell back into his seat, still shouting at the Goat Head, "You better be smart, you don't know the consequences of crossing me. I swear, I'll take your life."
Upon hearing this, the expressions of the men around the table grew serious. Now, a leader was needed. If they could all work together to overpower the Goat Head, they could still regain control.
But they soon realized that their legs felt as if they had been injected with something, leaving them completely powerless.
All they could do was threaten the Goat Head, shouting louder.
Qi Xia remained silent, gently stroking his chin as he observed the clock on the table, deep in thought.
Things were not as simple as they seemed.
He knew that the Goat Head referred to "nine participants." If there were ten people in the room, that could only mean one of them was not a participant.
Who was that person?
There were five men and five women in the room. Could one of them be the "kidnapper"?
The Goat Head stopped speaking and slowly walked over to stand behind a young man.
Everyone followed his gaze and saw the young man was different from the rest. Though his face was dirty, he wore an oddly blissful smile.
The Goat Head slowly raised his hand and placed it on the young man's head.
The young man's smile grew more and more eerie as he looked around at the others, as if he had already figured something out.
With a dull thud, the Goat Head slammed the young man's head into the table.
Pinkish-white matter splattered out like spilled paint, spreading across the surface of the table. Blood began to pool at everyone's sides.
The young man's skull had been shattered on the table.
A distant bell tolled again outside the room.
Qi Xia, sitting closest to the deceased, felt something sticky and warm stick to his face.
He considered himself mentally tough, but he found himself shuddering at the sensation.
The girl sitting beside the dead man froze for three seconds before her face contorted in horror, and she screamed.
The scream shattered the mental defenses of everyone present.
Could a human truly possess the strength to crush a skull with their hands on a table?
Was the Goat Head even human?
His frail body seemed to defy logic with such immense strength.
The Goat Head spoke slowly: "The reason I prepared ten people is because one of you will be needed to quiet the others."