Global Collapse

Chapter 376 NPCs on the verge of extinction and the endless stream of dungeons
There are 8 players remaining.

Six civilians.

Two ghosts.

The number of ghosts has decreased from three to two, which can be described as a qualitative breakthrough.

However, none of the people present seemed happy about this breakthrough.

Li Yibai squatted down, his head buried in his arms, emitting soft sobs.

Guo Jimei lowered her head, her face obscured by the darkness, making it impossible to discern her expression. Gu Mian sensed a sorrowful atmosphere surrounding her.

Yuan Qinghua's tears hadn't dried yet, and her face still bore the fear she hadn't had time to hide.

Coco looked a little awkward; she couldn't fit into the sad atmosphere at all, so she felt out of place.

Chu Changge glanced at the Yuan blue-and-white porcelain, then looked away.

After a long while, Pan Yue, who was still next to Li Yibai, suddenly stammered, "I knew it... I knew Lin Qi was definitely a ghost..."

"Stop talking!" Guo Jimei suddenly shouted, seemingly unwilling to discuss the matter any further.

Gu Mian understood perfectly.

We've known each other for a long time, and now this situation is like suddenly discovering that your roommate of several years is a murderer. Anyone would find it unbelievable.

This was even worse for Li Yibai, whose friend of over ten years suddenly turned into a ghost and had just been killed by him.

Gu Mian tried to empathize with Li Yibai.

But then he realized that most of the friends he had known for more than a decade were either dead or had run away, and the only one still alive was Chu Changge.

If Chu Changge were a ghost right now… Gu Mian stroked her chin and looked at Chu Changge. No, there’s no need to say “if”, he is very likely a ghost right now.

After all, Chu Changge had inexplicably voted for Yuan Qinghua earlier.

It's never too late to settle accounts; otherwise, how could the idiom "settling accounts after the autumn harvest" have been passed down in the profound Chinese culture?
At this moment, Guo Jimei raised her head and looked directly at Chu Changge: "Why did you just throw Yuan Qinghua?"

Gu Mian stroked her chin: "Look, weren't you just crying and shouting for people to vote for Yuan Qinghua? How come you're turning around and biting them now?"

Yuan Qinghua looked at Chu Changge with red and swollen eyes, her gaze full of confusion.

"That's...that's because Chu Meiren's timing for voting was too perfect!" Guo Jimei hurriedly explained, "Don't you all think it's a coincidence? At that time, I was the only one who voted for Yuan Qinghua..."

"At that time, Pan Yue and Yuan Qinghua voted for Lin Qi, so Lin Qi had two votes; Ke Ke and Gu Mian, you abstained. Only Li Yibai and Chu Meiren didn't vote."

"No matter how I voted, Lin Qi would have been eliminated. But then, for some inexplicable reason, Chu Meiren suddenly gave her vote to Yuan Qinghua, which resulted in a tie between the two of them. Because of Chu Meiren's sudden vote, the final decision fell to Li Yibai!"

"It's like deliberately voting for someone else at a crucial moment, forcing Li Yibai to make a choice!"

Coco looked at Guo Jimei beside her, then at Chu Changge on the other side: "Judging from what Guo Jimei said... it seems that this is indeed the case."

Upon hearing this, Pan Yue also looked at Chu Changge with a puzzled expression: "But what good would this do for him?"

As Pan Yue spoke, she glanced down at Li Yibai beside her. Was she crying because she wanted to see Li Yibai?

Surely no one could be so heartless as to be that insane.

Gu Mian lowered her hand from her chin and glanced at Li Yibai, who was still squatting on the ground: "Although you all say that, I think Li Yibai's vote is actually useless."

"Useless? How could it be useless?" Pan Yue looked at Gu Mian with some confusion.

At this moment, Chu Changge finally spoke up: "First, I did vote for Yuan Qinghua because I thought it was suspicious, and what you think is none of my business; second, Li Yibai's vote was indeed useless."

“Yes,” Gu Mian nodded, “Didn’t you hear the announcement just now?”

Pan Yue looked somewhat bewildered. During the broadcast, everyone was focused on whether Lin Qi was a ghost or not, so they hadn't paid attention to anything else: "Was there a problem with the broadcast just now?"

Gu Mian nodded: "Since you didn't hear it, I'll repeat it again..."

"The second round of voting has ended. Six players voted in this round, and three abstained. The player with the most votes in the second round is—"

"Lin Qi, 4 votes." This time, unlike the first round of voting, there wasn't an extra vote, but...

Guo Jimei frowned: "What's wrong with that... wait a minute! How come Lin Qi has four votes!"

Gu Mian looked at Guo Jimei: "You just summarized it. You and Chu Meiren cast two votes for Yuan Qinghua, and Pan Yue, Li Yibai, and Yuan Qinghua cast three votes for Lin Qi. That means that besides the few of us here, there was another person who voted for Lin Qi."

"Currently, only Lin Qi and Zhang Pingfan are not here. Based on this calculation, one of them voted for Lin Qi, and the other abstained."

"Let's not dwell on how the votes were cast for now. Lin Qi got four votes, while Yuan Qinghua only got two. Even if Li Yibai didn't cast that vote, it wouldn't matter."

Coco paused for a moment before speaking, "Lin Qi definitely won't vote for me, so this vote can only be cast by Zhang Pingfan."

Guo Jimei frowned and expressed a different opinion: "If it was Zhang Pingfan who voted, how could he have voted so accurately for Lin Qi? I think that's unlikely."

At this moment, Pan Yue continued, "But none of us knew that Lin Qi would end up with two more votes than Yuan Qinghua, so it did seem like Chu Meiren was pressuring Li Yibai just now... although I personally think it's pointless to do so."

As she spoke, she looked at Chu Changge and asked, "Did you do this on purpose?"

Seeing this, Guo Jimei gave a strange look: "Even if it was intentional, you wouldn't say it out loud..."

Chu Changge remained silent.

Gu Mian stepped forward: "Alright, there are six civilians and two ghosts now, so there are seven of us here. Therefore, at least one ghost is mixed in with us. We might as well think about how to find out the ghost among us."

“Alright, I don’t want to dwell on this either. If Lady Chu is really a ghost, there’s no benefit in doing this. I just hope that Lady Chu can tell us why you think Yuan Qinghua is a ghost.” As Pan Yue spoke, she quickly walked to the corridor and looked down through the window.

After looking at it, she turned back and said, "My phone was thrown down by Guo Jimei. Let's go down together to pick it up."

"What time is it and you still care about your phone?" Guo Jimei couldn't help but ask.

"Are you stupid?" Pan Yue glared at Guo Jimei. "There's a video that Yue Nu gave me. I haven't even finished watching it yet. There might be some clues in the middle that I haven't looked at, and you've already thrown it away. I really want to throw you out right now."

Although the phone may have been broken.

It turns out that splitting up is not a good thing.

So this time everyone went downstairs together to pick up their phones, except for Li Yibai, who remained squatting in place, seemingly unwilling to move.

Gu Mian decided to stay there and wait for them to retrieve their phones.

Coco looked wary: "You need to be careful if you and Li Yibai are left alone here."

Gu Mian nodded: "Although it's not dawn yet, it's not within the time when ghosts are active."

As long as Li Yibai next to him doesn't suddenly and inexplicably try to take him down with him, it'll be fine.

“Then let’s go down first.” Pan Yue took the lead and started walking.

Yuan blue and white porcelain immediately followed suit.

Guo Jimei clearly still didn't want to be with Yuan Qinghua, so she deliberately pulled Keke away from Yuan Qinghua.

Chu Changge walked neither in front nor behind the two groups of women.

Just then, Coco suddenly remembered something and ran back: "Guo Jimei, wait for me."

Gu Mian saw that Keke ran back after saying those words, as if she wanted to say something to her.

Just as Gu Mian saw Coco running up to her breathlessly, Guo Jimei, who was not far ahead, seemed to have seen something on the ground and quickly bent down to pick it up.

Gu Mian had good eyesight; even in the dark corridor, he saw what Guo Jimei had picked up.

He watched as Guo Jimei bent down, looked at the item clearly, and immediately hid it in her pocket. Then she quickly turned her head to look around to see if anyone else had seen it.

Gu Mian lowered her head and pretended not to see anything.

But Guo Jimei's behavior told him that there seemed to be a big problem with this copy.

(End of this chapter)