Chapter 582: Other Players |
Obviously, the moment Jiang Ye pressed down on the back of this guy's hand, the man visibly stiffened from head to toe.
When he heard Jiang Ye lower his voice and speak those four words, the shock in his eyes was like seeing a ghost.
With wide, glossy eyes, he gave Jiang Ye a once-over, then frowned as if about to speak.
But before he could open his mouth, Jiang Ye already guessed he intended to play dumb.
With a thought, Jiang Ye lowered his voice again and explained in a gentle tone:
"My current physical condition has its reasons. But fundamentally, my identity is not a fixed juror. You can see that from the information at your station."
Indeed, the data clearly detailed the twelve fixed jurors.
Information on the six alternating jurors was scant.
Still, it clearly indicated that Jiang Ye's identity was an alternating juror.
He didn't answer directly, and instead probed:
"What do you think of this defendant?"
Jiang Ye didn't hesitate: "I don't really have any feelings."
The moment those words left his mouth, rejection flashed in the man's eyes.
But immediately Jiang Ye added: "However—he has reasons that make his death unavoidable."
The man's pupils rolled as he probed again: "What reasons? Are you connected to the many victims? Or did some relative entrust you with this?"
Jiang Ye offered a small smile, intending to give a hint with his eyes.
But he quickly remembered his current red eyes meant he couldn't signal subtly with a glance.
On the contrary, any casual eye signal might frighten people.
So he suppressed even the smile at the corner of his mouth, cleared his throat, and said plainly:
"The specifics are inconvenient to explain, but I want to live. For that to happen, this defendant must die."
"And the jurors' opinions must be unanimous."
After that line, Jiang Ye clearly saw shock and delight flash in the normal juror's eyes!
Yet after the shock and delight came hesitation.
He still retained some doubt about Jiang Ye's words.
Jiang Ye glanced at the clearance countdown in the upper right of his view—under ten minutes—and urged inwardly: "My time is a little tight."
The remark sounded offhand, but it made the man's pupils contract sharply!
After a short silence, he finally reached out to Jiang Ye and quietly said, "Then... let's add each other as friends."
[Ding!]
[Player Shao Qingyun has sent you a friend request. Accept?]
[Yes/No?]
So he really was a player!
Jiang Ye felt a jolt inside but kept his face neutral and selected [Yes].
Immediately another prompt sounded in his mind:
[Ding!]
[Shao Qingyun invites you to join the group chat "Avengers Alliance". Accept?]
[Yes/No?]
Jiang Ye, experienced at this, chose [Yes] again.
Pulling up his Data Panel, he indeed saw a group chat named [Avengers Alliance].
He had assumed Shao Qingyun's chat would only contain the five people in this jury room...
But unexpectedly, there were nearly a hundred members inside!
The group owner was not Shao Qingyun but a player named "Yu Yuewan".
Besides that, among the near-hundred members, a dozen or so names had already turned dim gray...
That should mean... death.
If these players had all died like he did, how could they have died ahead of time?
So...
Jiang Ye realized he had joined some serious organization.
While thinking this, he quickly received a private message from Shao Qingyun:
[You're actually a real player! What are your clearance conditions?]
[Is it the two you just mentioned—the defendant must die, and the jurors must be unanimous?]
Jiang Ye didn't hesitate and replied: [Correct. So the five of us alternating jurors should have the same clearance conditions, right?]
Shao Qingyun did not answer directly; his eyes were vacant as if he was still chatting privately with others.
In the [Avengers Alliance] group, the owner Yu Yuewan directly tagged him:
[How did you get this juror identity? @Ji Zixuan]
Juror identity...
Hearing that, Jiang Ye instantly realized—
His situation must be somewhat unusual.
That black smoke had somehow made him directly enter this Face Court as a juror.
For Shao Qingyun and the other five, their routes to becoming jurors seemed different.
Jiang Ye considered it and did not lie, giving a brief explanation:
[I accidentally wandered into a very strange Burial Ground and accidentally revived a very odd existence.]
[That odd existence thanked me for reviving him, then insisted on granting me a wish.]
[But his idea of granting a wish didn't match mine at all; he just dumped me into this jury room...]
[To be honest, I have no idea about this place. Can any seniors enlighten me?]
The group was rather aloof; hardly anyone replied.
Jiang Ye had just joined and couldn't view previous chat logs.
He was about to ask Shao Qingyun for more when the owner asked him another question:
[Was your body, similar to the red-eyed puppet body, also caused by the odd existence you revived? @Ji Zixuan]
Jiang Ye thought about it; in truth, he didn't know.
His red-eye state had three layered causes.
Initially, the nursery cries in the apartment caused the Guiwen to lose control. That was the origin of the red eyes.
Later, it merged with Guan Ce's Guan Gong Eyes. That was the first mutation of the red eyes.
In the infinite grave mound zone, he spawned many red eyes, and personally killed the red-eyed puppets that had fused with the red eyes...
That accounted for the second mutation.
So Jiang Ye couldn't clearly say who had caused his current red eyes.
After a moment of thought, he did not give a definitive answer:
[My current state is indeed related to the strange Burial Ground I wandered into, but I'm not sure if the entity I revived caused it.]
After that message, the group fell silent for a moment, then the owner tossed out: [Come find me after you clear this stage.]
Jiang Ye immediately replied: [But senior, how do I clear it?]
He felt his response reasonable.
However, Shao Qingyun and the other normal jurors nearby looked at him strangely.
Shao Qingyun was about to say something when another message popped up.
Yu Yuewan (owner): [If you can clear it, clear it. If you can't, nothing serious happens—you'll just lose juror status.]
What the hell! What kind of senior is that? That was pure indifference!
Knowing you wouldn't die even if you failed to clear it eased Jiang Ye's mind.
Still, he felt the opportunity the black smoke gave him was precious.
And though it hadn't consulted him, Jiang Ye had a hunch...
The black smoke was indeed helping to grant his wish!
This Face Court likely hid clues related to his original body!
So even if failure didn't mean death, Jiang Ye still hoped to clear it.
He thought for a moment and messaged Shao Qingyun:
[Our identity is only alternating jurors...]
[So only by clearing this can we gain fixed juror status?]
[And if we fail to clear, we lose juror status?]
Shao Qingyun didn't answer verbally but nodded to him.
Jiang Ye then asked bluntly: [Can the other people in the group help us kill the defendant?]
After sending that, Shao Qingyun's gaze toward him turned stranger.
But time was pressing, and he quickly replied: [Of course not!]
[They are not part of our case. How could they possibly help us?]
Case...
For some reason, that word triggered a fleeting image in Jiang Ye's mind of a certain room.
The flash was too quick to catch.
He vaguely felt it resembled... what was it?
Oh right! It was like the Baker Street scene in The Hound of the Baskervilles—Holmes at 221B Baker Street!
Yes! In that split-second image there was a fireplace, a Memory Wall covered with case drafts, and the scent of Holmes!
Jiang Ye moved his mind and mentally asked: "Since you claim to be Jiang Ye, should you have my memories?"
"Do any of your memories contain the image I just thought of?"
The inner voices seemed unwilling to respond.
After a long silence, a reluctant voice said: "That was the appearance of the Guiwen clone in Apartment 4869's Room 2218."
"Above the fireplace in that room, there was indeed a Memory Wall related to the case."
"Before Guiwen lost control, he returned to that room, saw the burned Memory Wall, and discovered a hidden passage in the fireplace."
This reveal shocked Jiang Ye again!
If so, Guiwen's amnesia might be tied to secrets hidden in that room?!
Then the "case" Shao Qingyun mentioned...
Could it also be connected to Guiwen's room secret?
Jiang Ye couldn't be certain, but instinctively he grew even more focused on the Face Court that the black smoke had delivered him to!
By now, the Face Court's clearance time was shrinking rapidly.
Jiang Ye took a deep breath and asked Shao Qingyun directly:
[The group owner doesn't care about us. What about the five of you? Don't you want to clear it?]
Shao Qingyun knew time was tight and promptly replied:
[When we were at our stations, our plan was to use legal statutes to persuade the fixed jurors.]
[But now it looks like that approach won't work.]
[However, what you said just now gave us a new idea, although it's hopeless to execute.]
[We could all cast death-penalty votes to satisfy the second clearance condition...]
[But if we don't sentence him to death, how do we actually make the defendant die?]
[I have some thoughts, but the risk to implement them is too high!]
[The key is time. There's simply not enough...]
On that last line, Jiang Ye faintly detected resignation in the man's tone.
Indeed, for the five of them, failure to clear only meant they wouldn't obtain fixed juror status.
Jiang Ye still had many doubts, but for now all his energy had to be spent on clearing the stage.
So the unsettling red eyeballs that made the other players uneasy turned toward the two red-eyed puppets at the head of the table.
At the same time, Jiang Ye sent Shao Qingyun another message:
[Using items in this jury room should be okay, right?]
At that, Shao Qingyun was startled again: [Items??]
[You actually can use items?]
Jiang Ye offered no verbal reply and quietly triggered his eyeball ability.
In the eerie red eyes, a faint ice-blue cold flame flickered.
Of course Jiang Ye himself could not see the change in his own eyes.
He only felt the faint refreshing sensation that had risen when he killed monsters and red-eyed puppets in the grave mound zone return slightly.
When his red eyes successfully split and produced a new pair of red eyeballs...
he felt a chill being drawn out from his body!
With a hiss, the just-formed eyeballs shot straight toward the eye of one of the red-eyed puppets at the head of the table!
Red eye to red eye, they fused quickly!
On the surface that red-eyed puppet didn't change much.
Only that pair of red eyes seemed to gain an extra, subtle oppressive aura.
When Shao Qingyun received Jiang Ye's private message, he was already shocked at the possibility that Jiang Ye carried some item.
So he naturally did not miss the pair of red lights that flew from Jiang Ye...
but the pair flashed too fast.
Shao Qingyun could only register the color, unable to identify the exact item.
But he could tell this strange red-eyed fellow had indeed done something to the red-eyed puppet!
And... not just one!
Shao Qingyun quickly noticed another pair of red lights rapidly launched into the eye of the other red-eyed puppet at the head!
With sharp observation, Shao Qingyun perceived that the two puppets Jiang Ye tampered with seemed different from the other ten red-eyed puppets!
They really were different.
Jiang Ye could feel the resonance between the red eyeballs.
This resonance was similar to clone consciousness resonance, but not the same.
Time was short, so Jiang Ye asked inwardly:
"The method you use to send out your clone consciousness is like this, right?"
The inner voice did not reply, so he looked meaningfully at the two altered red-eyed puppets at the head and said:
"Now, will you fulfill your promise to me?"
"Or are you going to band together against me?"
Hearing this, Shao Qingyun and the other normal players looked puzzled, their gazes flicking between Jiang Ye and the two head puppets.
The next second, much to their shock—
The two puppets at the head moved almost simultaneously with identical actions!
Their right hands curled the index and middle fingers; the nails blackened, sharpened, and lengthened, and they viciously jabbed at each other's eyes!
The posture...
Clearly both intended to gouge out the other's eyes!
Their speeds were extreme; while attacking, they dodged with their heads.
But the puppet on the head's right side seemed stronger and quicker—
He seemed to predict the left puppet's dodge and curved his eye-gouging strike with brutal finesse!
In an instant, the sudden fierce clash between the two puppets reached a result.