Iris 2

Mu Qin noticed that all three people in the office were dressed exactly like him and Cheng Guoxu, in gray shirts and pants. Their clothing was practically a uniform.

"I don't have time to waste explaining everything to you, newcomer." The tall man wore his hair in a crew cut and had a brisk, capable air. His voice was loud and methodical, completely unlike Cheng Guoxu's low rasp.

The tall man said, "We're playing a Death Game right now. You've seen that kind of thing in novels and movies, haven't you? A group of people get trapped in an enclosed place and are forced to kill one another, or else a killer is set loose to hunt them down... Stories like that."

"You mean we're filming Saw?" That was the first thing that came to Mu Qin's mind. He had watched the horror movie many years ago, and it had left a deep impression on him. He could no longer remember most of the plot, only the ending, when the corpse lying on the floor got up and locked the protagonist behind the door.

The tall man replied, "It's something like that. We've been locked inside an enclosed place, too. We have to find the exit key before we can get out."

"I don't really understand." Mu Qin could not absorb such an enormous amount of information all at once. "You're saying someone locked us in a... This is an orphanage, isn't it? And we have to find the key to the front gate to get out?"

"That's right," the tall man said. "You catch on quickly."

"Who locked us in here?" Mu Qin asked.

The tall man continued, "I don't know. Maybe some terrifying organization, some supernatural species, or even aliens."

"Then who are you?" Mu Qin raised his head and studied the tall man before him.

The man had bright, keen black eyes. He looked powerful and dependable, with the commanding presence of an upstanding man. And yet he answered, "My name is Xu Fu. I used to be... a prisoner jailed for murder."

At his words, the two people beside him instinctively edged a little farther away. Xu Fu himself did not seem to care. "Not everyone is here yet. There should be six of us in total, but never mind that. I'll give you a quick explanation of the situation first."

Xu Fu then launched into a lengthy account. He was a fairly good communicator, and by the time he finished explaining, Mu Qin finally understood the basics.

In short, this was a Death Game.

It was similar to certain popular online games. Several players, who might or might not know one another, entered an enclosed map. The game system would place a "killer" among them, and the players had to figure out who the killer was. While avoiding being murdered, they also had to find a way out of the map.

Those were the basic rules. In a computer game, it might actually have been fun. Translated into reality, however, it became rather horrifying.

"I think you're joking." Once Xu Fu had finished laying out the situation, one of the five people spoke up—a woman.

Yes, there was a woman among them: the woman who had been standing silently beside Xu Fu all this time, leaning against the wall.

Mu Qin studied her in the office's dim light. She was somewhere between thirty and forty, a slender woman with shoulder-length hair that had been permed into loose waves and dyed flaxen brown. She was reasonably attractive, with an oval face, though her cheekbones were a little high and the outer corners of her eyes slanted upward, giving her a rather severe appearance.

"A Death Game? What kind of ridiculous fantasy is that? You've been reading too many fantasy novels!" The woman did not believe a word Xu Fu said. "This lunatic is obviously trying to fool us. The last thing I remember is going to a student's home for a parent-teacher visit, then somehow losing consciousness and waking up here. That student must have gotten all of you to help pull this prank on me!"

So the woman was a teacher.

Hearing what she said, Mu Qin formed a rough hypothesis.

It was an easy deduction, and Xu Fu had reached the same conclusion. He said to the woman, "You're a teacher, aren't you? Middle school or high school?"

The woman narrowed her eyes at him. "I teach middle school. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No, of course not. I only wanted to ask: when you lost consciousness during that visit, did your student do anything to you?" Xu Fu asked a seemingly irrelevant question.

"I don't care to answer a murderer's questions," the female teacher said stiffly.

Xu Fu answered for her. "Did he give you anything to drink? Tea, a soft drink, something like that? Did you start feeling sleepy after you drank it, then fall asleep without meaning to and wake up here?"

"Ha! I knew you were working with that student!" His words only made the female teacher more certain. Pointing a finger in Xu Fu's face, she said, "You drugged me with sleeping pills and brought me here, then made up some ridiculous game to deceive me. Don't think these childish tricks will scare me. This is a crime! Let me out now and I won't call the police, but I will certainly be telling the parents!"

Xu Fu ignored her accusations and replied with a touch of coldness, "You misunderstand me, ma'am... I was merely reconstructing the circumstances of your death."

That single sentence stopped the female teacher short. Her face went visibly blank, with a trace of fear beneath her stupefaction. But she soon forced herself to calm down and snapped, "Stop trying to spook me! Do you really think you can frighten me with this act?"

Xu Fu did not continue the conversation with her. Instead, he looked around at the others, his gaze passing over Cheng Guoxu, Mu Qin, the female teacher, and finally the bespectacled man who stood silently in the corner.

"I'm going to tell everyone standing here the truth," Xu Fu said. "All of you are already dead."

"The fact that you can still stand here after dying may be strange and frightening, but I imagine you all remember the moment of your death. It doesn't matter if you don't. The memory will return soon enough. You may have died in any number of ways—by accident, murder, or suicide. But no matter who killed you, you must all face the same truth... the truth of your death."

Xu Fu spoke with remarkable calm. Although he claimed to be a murderer, he appeared mature, capable, steady, and dependable—not at all like someone prone to extremes.

"You may have come from different backgrounds and led different lives, but none of that matters here anymore." Xu Fu spoke slowly and evenly. "Here, your only task is to escape. Escape the killer. Escape this enclosed map. Stay alive and find the exit. That is your one and only task."

Xu Fu went on, "I'm not like you. I'm not a newcomer. I've already been through one ‘game.' In the last game, the killer stayed hidden until the very end and slaughtered everyone around me. I was the only one who managed to find the exit and escape."

At that moment, the bespectacled man, who had not said a word until now, suddenly spoke. "How are we supposed to believe any of this is true? If you expect us to accept such a preposterous story, you'll have to offer some proof."

Mu Qin could not resist sneaking a glance at him. He was a gloomy-looking man. His hair, unusually long, hung past his ears and looked greasy and neglected. A pair of black-framed glasses nearly obscured half his pale face.

He was thin and appeared to stand about five foot seven, and his gloomy air seemed to emanate from his very bones.

"I don't have any proof, and I won't offer any," Xu Fu said as if that should have been obvious. "You can decide for yourselves whether to believe me. I'm only responsible for explaining the situation... In fact, I don't even have to do that. The first time I entered this damned game, the ‘veteran' didn't tell me the truth until three people were already dead. The other newcomers who arrived with me were killed before they had any idea what was happening."

Mu Qin felt he had grasped the general situation, so he cut in. "Since you called it the ‘last game,' does that mean this Death Game repeats endlessly? Like the infinite-flow stories in some online novels, where escaping one map only sends you to the next?"

Xu Fu nodded. "Exactly. You do get some breathing room after escaping each map. The game system will send you to a safe house. You can find out what it's like for yourselves once you escape."

"Then who's the killer?" the bespectacled man abruptly asked.

Xu Fu looked at him. The man's eyes were almost impossible to see, completely hidden by the glare on his enormous black-framed lenses.

"The killer is among us," Xu Fu said. "I don't know who it is. It could be anyone."

The bespectacled man appeared to stare at Xu Fu. "Meaning it could be you. Is that right?"

Xu Fu laughed. He was rather handsome, and even more so when he smiled. "Yes, of course it could be me. It could also be you. I suggest you don't start turning on one another too soon. That's a good way to die quickly."

The bespectacled man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "The way you say that... it's almost as if you know when I'm going to die. And since you just introduced yourself as a murderer, doesn't that make you even more likely to be the killer?"

"You're welcome to keep guessing," Xu Fu said. "I don't mind."

"Every game has six participants: five escapees and one killer. You can call that person the killer, but I prefer ‘It,' as in a game of tag. We can remain on each map indefinitely. Whether people die or escape, the game won't end as long as even one escapee remains on the map."

"But it's still best not to waste too much time," Xu Fu continued. "I'm going to start looking for a way out of this orphanage. Does anyone want to come with me? One word of warning: don't go off on your own. Either stay together as a group, or let just one person split off."

The bespectacled man was the first to respond. "I'm not going anywhere with a murderer."

"Neither am I!" the female teacher seconded.

Xu Fu then looked at Mu Qin and Cheng Guoxu.

Mu Qin hesitated. On the one hand, he felt that Xu Fu was probably the person who understood their situation best, and he wanted to learn more from him. On the other, he also thought the bespectacled man had made a good point.

While Mu Qin was still torn, Cheng Guoxu had already made his choice. The man did not seem to have much of a mind of his own. He decided to follow the majority and moved to stand beside the bespectacled man and the female teacher.

That left Mu Qin as the only one who had not chosen a side.

But then Xu Fu took the choice away from him. "Like I just said, either everyone stays together, or only one person goes off alone."

"Since none of you want to come with me, I'd be happier on my own." Xu Fu seemed to have intended this from the start, and he smiled. "I'll explore the orphanage by myself. You can conduct your own search, but I strongly suggest that you do not split up."

"One last thing. There's still one person among us who hasn't been found. They may be dangerous, or they may be perfectly safe. You'll have to judge for yourselves!"

With that, Xu Fu seemed to consider his duty done. He stood and left the modest office without a care. As Mu Qin watched him go, an indistinct unease stirred inside him. His instincts told him he would be safer following Xu Fu, but judging by Xu Fu's behavior, the man did not actually want anyone coming along.

Mu Qin could hardly force his company on someone who did not want it, so he remained where he was. After Xu Fu left, the others looked at one another, all of them bewildered and unsure what to do. At last, the bespectacled man was the first to step forward and speak. "Why don't we introduce ourselves?"