Jiang Jiaying thought it was amazing. Even though the beauty had told him that there were actually many more people in the world who carried the virus without knowing it than he thought, shouldn't those immunocompromised patients have all mutated within the few minutes of the solar eclipse? How come he picked three people at random in the safe zone and all of them were infected?

The surveillance camera could not find any direct footage of the crime, and the blood test could not detect a unique target. The victim had been completely alienated and died from the bullet. There were no witnesses or eyewitnesses, only three suspects.

How to describe it?

Jiang Jiaying recalled a certain 2D suspense anime that he was particularly obsessed with when he was a child. In the anime, no matter when, where, or what the background environment, the number of suspects in the end can always be miraculously narrowed down to three choices. He felt that he was now trapped in this three-choice cycle, which was fucking ridiculous: "Medical staff have already drawn new blood from them. This time they are going to test for the new virus directly, but it will probably take some time to get the results. The municipal government originally had no intention of interrogating them. After all, as long as they test whether there is a virus in their bodies, they will know everything, but looking at the current situation, they still have to interrogate them."

Shi Yu finished a glass of water and had another one.

Jiang Jiaying blocked the mouth of the glass in his hand: "Don't drink so much water at once."

Shi Yu was silent for a while, then put the cup down.

Jiang Jiaying took his temperature again. It had been less than three hours since he had just entered the room with the porridge bucket, but his temperature was rising again. He didn't dare to bother him anymore, so he took the blanket out of the room and threw it on him: "Don't sleep after just eating, don't think about things, and have a good rest."

※

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Yu Zhiyi was completely dazed when he was called out of the room. He was taken to the blood collection room in the safe area in a daze. There were two other people next to him who were just as lost as he was. Then the medical staff came over and drew a tube of blood from each of them.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, medical staff came in again and drew a second tube of blood from each of them.

The first blood test only tested the immunodeficiency virus, but the second test tested TG7788, which is a mutant strain that is the result of the combined action of the virus and the immune system.

After the blood was drawn this time, the guards came in and separated them. The three were locked in three different rooms. The guards told them that they could move around on their own inside, but they could not leave.

It's called a room, but at this point everyone knows it's a confinement room.

One side of the detention room is equipped with one-way glass.

Bai Jiwei was sitting on a bench outside the solitary confinement room, casually watching the situation inside, while Ling Zhao was standing in front of another solitary confinement room facing away from this one.

"I've said everything I need to say. What exactly do you want to do by locking me up?" Unlike Yu Zhiyi, the female player in the other confinement room seemed much more anxious. Even though she tried her best to suppress her temper, she still couldn't hide the anxiety in her tone. "When can you let me out?"

The solitary confinement room was well soundproofed, and the guard outside the door stood there dutifully, so naturally he wouldn't answer.

Tao Jin walked around the confinement room three times, and finally sat down on the sofa with his arms folded across his chest, tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and began to rest.

The two of them stood guard outside the confinement rooms of the two players respectively. Only one suspect, a native of the game dimension, was left unclaimed, so he was guarded by people from the military zone.

At five o'clock in the afternoon, Da Zhu, the strongest member of the three-person group led by Yu Zhiyi in the mountain cabin, came to the isolation room and asked to meet his leader.

"no."

Da Zhu was anxious: "Why?"

Bai Jiwei sat in front of the confinement room and began to dismantle the gun again: "No reason."

"What happened to Brother Yu that you keep him locked up like this?" Da Zhu said sternly, "I don't know what you suspect he did, but you refuse to let him go without sentencing him, taking action, or torturing him. Isn't it because you are not sure whether he did it or not?"

Bai Jiwei finally looked up at him.

"You don't have the ability to investigate the truth, so why are you locking him up?" Da Zhu approached him, "Besides, what crime can Tian..."

The voice suddenly paused.

Bai Jiwei loaded the magazine, but the hand holding the gun did not move at all, pressing against the other person's chest. He smiled and said, "Go on."

Da Zhu was on edge.

The air fell into silence for a moment until the communicator beeped.

Bai Jiwei took it with one hand: "What?"

Jiang Jiaying had just left the suite and closed the door. "I'm going to check the surveillance. His fever hasn't subsided yet. There's no one watching him. Are you coming over?"

Bai Jiwei stood up suddenly: "I'll be right there."

There was one less person in front of the one-way glass, but there were still guards from the City Hall standing there.

Da Zhu watched him leave, and after a while he looked at the two guards. Suddenly, he knocked them out with lightning speed. Just as he was about to squat down to touch the key, he heard a knocking sound.

"Brother Yu."

Yu Zhiyi turned off the lights in the detention room and covered the camera with his clothes. The one-way glass instantly became ordinary glass. He looked at the team members outside and said, "You are too impulsive."

Da Zhu clenched his fists, his mouth was bruised, his eyes were bloodshot, and he said nothing.

Yu Zhiyi couldn't scold him anymore when he saw him like this. He sighed and said, "Okay, didn't I promise you that I won't follow Xiao Mao's old path, and I won't get into trouble before you, and I won't leave you alone."

Xiao Mao is the completely mutated player who suddenly pounced on the barbed wire after the riot at entrance No. 7 ended. He became an infected person because he was bitten by a monster.

Da Zhu lowered his head and sniffed.

She should be comforted, but she should not be stopped: "I can't leave here now."

Da Zhu looked up suddenly: "Why?!"

"Didn't you analyze everything clearly just now?" Yu Zhiyi looked at him helplessly, "I am still charged with poisoning. They will definitely not let me go before they find out the truth."

Da Zhu said hurriedly: "I can take you out..."

"Of course you can. It's easy for you to destroy this mirror, and even for me. But what will happen after you get out? Right now the authorities are only suspects. There are two other suspects besides me. If you let me out now, wouldn't that be indirectly admitting that I'm the one who committed the crime? Otherwise, why would we run away? By then, the whole city will be wanted. Now there are monsters everywhere outside, and traffic is paralyzed. Where can we run to?" Yu Zhiyi's hand was tightened, and he couldn't help but remind him, "It's going to bleed."

Da Zhu loosened his hand and wiped it randomly: "It stopped a long time ago."

As he looked up, he noticed that the other person had his sleeves rolled up: "Your arms..."

"It's just a blood draw." Yu Zhiyi pulled down his sleeves. "I've played too many games, and my blood is clotting too fast, so I told them to make the incision a little bigger."

Da Zhu put his hands on the glass, staring at the gauze on his arm: "Why did they draw your blood?"

Yu Zhiyi didn't say much to him: "Go back and wait, don't interfere in this matter."

Then he added: "Be obedient."

The lights in the room came back on, the clothes in front of the camera were lifted up, and the two-way perspective glass turned back to one-way.

This is what it means to refuse to continue communicating.

Da Zhu stood in the corridor for a long time, but finally left. After turning the corner, he looked up inadvertently and suddenly saw another guarded confinement room.

The walls blocked out most of the noise very well, and the people guarding outside were chatting idly, not knowing whether they were annoyed by the noise inside that had lasted for too long or were equally concerned about this bizarre case.

Da Zhu did not come here through the formal channels, and it was impossible for a person like him to come into the confinement room of such a place. Therefore, the guards probably did not expect that there was an ordinary outsider standing here, and they did not avoid the content of the conversation.

He listened for a long time, his fists clenched tighter as he listened, until he finally understood the whole story from the two guards' words and turned the corner.

The guard who was talking didn't expect that someone would suddenly appear next to him when they were chatting enthusiastically. He was so scared that his heart almost stopped beating. He stood up straight subconsciously. Unexpectedly, the big guy who passed by didn't even look at them and ran away directly.

※

"Tao Jin?"

"Yes." Bai Jiwei unplugged the kettle. "The results of the second round of blood tests have come out from the laboratory. She is the only one whose blood contained the TG7788 virus."

She was the only one who could have injected the poisonous blood into the safe zone guards.

Bai Jiwei put the glass on the coffee table and turned on the TV: "You seem a little surprised."

Shi Yu picked up the cup: "She admitted it?"

"How is that possible?" Bai Jiwei smiled and projected the image onto the TV. "It's under review."

In the confinement room.

There were interrogators specially hired from the city police station to conduct the interrogation, and someone was taking notes. Jiang Jiaying, a non-staff member, somehow managed to sneak in. He seemed to be just there, but in fact he was secretly using the communicator to open a split screen for someone else.

The matter was a foregone conclusion, and the authorities were no longer hiding anything from her. They told her everything, including the cause and effect and the charges: "Do you admit it?"

Tao Jin's face was filled with shock and anger: "I didn't!"

The interrogator was not in a hurry. The evidence was irrefutable. "Then how do you explain the virus in your blood?"

Tao Jin naturally couldn't answer that she had only been in this world for less than a week, so how could she know? She forced herself to calm down: "I didn't know I had this virus in my body. If you hadn't forced me to take a blood test, I wouldn't even know I had this disease."

The interrogator asked, "You said you didn't know you were sick, do you believe it?"

"Didn't you say that the new virus is a mutation of the immunodeficiency virus?" Tao Jin answered in an orderly manner. "The incubation period of HIV is so long, and HIV itself is so fragile that many people may never know that they once had it in their bodies and then died. Naturally, many people don't know they have the disease before they get sick. Otherwise, when they find out, they take medicine to block it immediately. How can there be so many AIDS patients who die in vain in this world? I don't know, at least I didn't know before you told me. What's the problem?"

She needs to refute, and also needs to fit in the role and character at the right time: "You called me here just to tell me that I have a terminal illness and put the blame on me?"

The interrogator asked, "What were you doing at 11 o'clock this morning when the riots broke out?"

"I heard that the monsters outside had evolved, so I was curious and wanted to go and take a look." Tao Jin reminded calmly, "And I remember that I was not the only one who went to join in the fun."

This is the truth.

At that time, the monsters evolved and even began to gather in the outer safety zone and crash into the electric fence. The huge noise caused was noticeable by anyone who passed by unless they were blind. Therefore, many ordinary people hiding in the safety zone went over to watch out of curiosity. Later, when the guards mutated and bit others, they had no shortage of targets to attack, and the range spread so quickly.

Tao Jin spoke word by word: "If the only evidence you have against me is a blood test report, then I suggest that you get all the people who were present at the time to come and test them. Among the three of us suspects, only my blood has the new virus, right? Then why don't you suspect that the other two people drew my blood, or drew blood from other people who also carry the virus?"

Bai Jiwei couldn't tell whether she was lying or not. The psychological quality of human beings is a very mysterious thing, not to mention that the person being interrogated is a player. He asked, "Why hasn't she mutated yet even though she clearly has the virus in her body?"

"The high-risk period is 72 hours." Shi Yu said, "If she happened to be injected with blood within 72 hours before the solar eclipse, the virus had not yet spread to various parts of the body, and the alienation effect of the solar eclipse might just not work on her, but now she is still considered an immunodeficiency virus infected person."

"It also happened right before entering the game, so she, a player, wouldn't know about it." Bai Jiwei asked, "Why is it such a coincidence?"

"It's a coincidence." Shi Yu said, "If she didn't lie and she didn't happen to arrive at that time, then that's another possibility."

Bai Jiwei said he was all ears.

Shi Yu looked at him: "There is something wrong with the blood being tested."

Bai Jiwei's eyes suddenly widened and he made a phone call.

Jiang Jiaying stood in the interrogation room and answered with a confused look on her face: "Hello?"

"Find a way to adjust the laboratory's surveillance to detect the entire process of the virus in these three people's bodies!"

Ten minutes later.

Jiang Jiaying answered the phone while standing in the monitoring room: "There is no camera in the testing room, but I just found that the surveillance camera facing the door of the testing room was missing for about a few minutes. I suspect someone deliberately replaced it."