Shi Yu ignored him and walked to the side of the corpse. He first looked at the other's severely disfigured face, then looked at the other's player bracelet which showed no fluctuations, and left the house with an umbrella.
This is an empty house that has been abandoned for unknown reasons. There are already other residents outside the door who were attracted by the noise.
He Weiyou was always careful to avoid other people's sight: "Are you done watching this?"
"Um."
When he was leaving, soldiers were coming in. Shi Yu lowered his umbrella and walked around to the yard. He heard the group of people talking as they passed by the threshold:
"How many times has this happened today?"
"This is the fourth time, right? Even the way they died was the same, all of them were burned to death."
"Who on earth has the power to set fires everywhere in the capital? It can't be like what those people reported, that a divine bird sent down a punishment from heaven, right?"
"The death of a person in the capital is not a big deal. The important thing is that such a corpse appeared even in the imperial palace."
"The palace? Where?"
"Outside the hunting ground, in the chicken pen."
"Why did I hear it was on the southern palace wall?"
"Where did you hear the news about the palace wall?"
"A friend of mine works in the palace as a guard. He told me that this afternoon, a divine bird seemed to be trying to attack one of their colleagues. Fortunately, the other one arrived in time and rescued the person. He just fainted for a while, but nothing serious happened."
"So many people died after being attacked by the divine bird. That guy is really lucky."
“…”
He Weiyu remembered the guard who was knocked unconscious by Jiang Jiaying because he accidentally saw him.
After all this time, the other party asked the two of them to leave quickly, but he stayed because he came up with this excuse on a sudden inspiration, because he felt it would be difficult to lie if they stayed at the scene... Fortunately, he was touched for a second.
"who?!"
He Wei's thoughts were interrupted and he quickly looked up.
The police officers in official uniforms were walking towards them. They were about to surround the house and prohibit ordinary people from entering, but they saw them in the yard and asked, "Who are you?"
Shi Yu stopped and held the umbrella handle motionlessly.
He Weiyou watched the constable approaching, then looked at the man next to him who said nothing, stepped forward and walked out of the range of the parachute, grinning at the constable: "Sir, we saw the movement over here, so we came over to take a look out of curiosity."
The constable said sharply, "What's going on? What did you see?!"
"A divine bird, we saw a divine bird." He Wei tried his best to block the sight of the constable. "It's this big, with fire on its wings and feathers, and it can..."
Shi Yu raised the handle of his umbrella and smashed it on the back of the constable's head.
"Bang--"
He Weiyou stopped talking abruptly: "Why did you hit him?"
Shi Yu dragged the constable under the eaves and said, "So you want to just stand here with him and wait for the other officers and soldiers to come?"
“…”
Shi Yu settled the constable and opened his umbrella again: "Let's go."
※
Let’s talk about the imperial palace that recently appeared in the gossips of officers and soldiers.
Jiang Jiaying suddenly had an idea and found the perfect excuse to explain why the guards were knocked unconscious, the assassins escaped, and even the wall collapsed. After dealing with the imperial guards who heard the noise and came to check the situation, he thought the matter was over.
But he didn't expect that the guard he had knocked out would come to him again at night. He bowed earnestly and then said, "Brother Jiang, thank you for saving me, but I have to be transferred to another place."
Jiang Jiaying was stunned: "Why?"
Because of Shi Yu's reminder, he did originally plan to separate from the other party. It would be best to get the other party to a place where the line segment from here occupied the longest distance from the palace. After all, he was the one who knocked the other party unconscious.
But now he hasn't figured out what reason to use to apply to the commander of the imperial guards, and the other party has already written the last stroke for him before he even starts writing?
The guard scratched his head and said, "Well... I was attacked by a divine bird near this wall before. It doesn't seem right to stay here to guard it."
Jiang Jiaying understood.
Simply put, there are psychological shadows, so I choose to follow my heart.
The guard was still trying to think: "I told the commander about this, and the commander told him..."
Jiang Jiaying looked at the other general who was scratching his head over the wording and said with great understanding: "Okay, I understand."
The guard was stunned: "You know?"
Jiang Jiaying nodded.
I was originally worrying about what excuse I could come up with to stop partnering with him in the future, but now it's right there at my doorstep.
Don’t miss it.
The guard bowed again, expressing his gratitude for the other party's rescue and his willingness to help him in the future if he is in trouble.
Jiang Jiaying, the culprit, accepted the order without any guilt and asked casually, "By the way, where did the commander transfer you to?"
"Yuting Palace," the guard said, "is in the north of the palace, quite far from here. But there happened to be fewer guards there, so they transferred me there."
※
After He Weiyou returned to the inn, he didn't even enter his own room, but went straight into Shi Yu's room: "Those soldiers said this was the fourth time someone was burned to death. Were all those four times done by Chongming?"
Shi Yu closed the umbrella, and the raindrops slid down along the lines of the umbrella ribs: "Yeah."
He Weiyou watched him hang the umbrella on the wooden pole by the door: "I got up so early today, but I didn't see it once."
Shi Yu pulled out a chair: "It could have happened last night or this afternoon."
He Weiyou then remembered that they had spent most of this afternoon in the prison cell and the palace.
Shi Yu sat down at the table, took out a white porcelain bottle, took out a tube of lamp oil with tools, dripped it into the lamp, lit it with a lighter, and then said, "Do you remember what time it was when Chongming appeared on the palace wall before?"
He Weiyou racked his brains: "The sky was dark and full of dark clouds at that time, so it was at least night."
Shi Yu took out his sketchbook and flipped to a new page: "What if we need to set a specific time?"
He Weiyou felt like a student being called by the teacher to answer a question: "Six o'clock? Seven o'clock?"
Shi Yu put the cap of the pen back to the end and looked up at him.
"Let's call it seven o'clock." He Weiyou swallowed his saliva, "The sun was about to set when I ran out of the cell."
Shi Yu: "So what time was it this afternoon when Chongming suddenly attacked the players?"
"Wei Shi? Didn't an eyewitness say so at that time? I looked at the clepsydra and it was exactly one o'clock in the afternoon."
"When you attacked me last night?"
He Wei had a vague sense of something: "When the waiter came to deliver the hot water, it was at 9 o'clock in the evening. I spent a long time chatting with you in bed afterwards, so Chongming appeared at about 11 o'clock?"
He suddenly came to his senses: "Also, just now, the pirate captain died at the hour of Hai, so the time when Chongming attacks the player is not random, but regular? Once every hour?!"
Shi Yu shook his head: "Once every two hours."
"Why?"
"There are only twelve players."
He Weiyu suddenly felt a chill on his back.
There are only twelve players, but there are twenty-four hours in a day, which means on average one person is attacked every two hours.
If you can escape, you will survive the disaster; if you can't, you will become a pile of charred corpse on the street.
He calmed down and said, "Zhongming kills a player every two hours. We just need to pay attention to the time and prepare for defense when the time node of every two hours is almost up, right?"
Shi Yu lowered his head and drew a big circle on the paper: "No need to defend every time."
"Why?"
"Just be prepared to defend yourself when Chongming attacks you."
He Weiyou understood the meaning of his words: "Are you saying that there are rules on who the Chongming Bird can attack?!"
"You were attacked this afternoon at the time of Xu." Shi Yu began to draw small circles in the big circle one by one, "Then why didn't Chongming attack you last night?"
"Isn't it because Chongming's attacks are random? It just so happened that he didn't pick me last night."
"Then why was there no sign of a Chongming bird falling above the chicken farm for more than ten hours yesterday when I first entered the game?"
He Weiyou looked at him blankly.
"There are twelve players, each in charge of a chicken farm. Although there are trees outside the building that block your view, since you can move freely between different chicken farms, it means that the emperor has not restricted the chicken farmers from communicating with each other. The distance between each chicken farm is not too far, and most players will not act rashly and move too far when they first enter the game. If there is a Chongming bird attacking, they should not be able to see the natural light nearby when it is completely dark. Why didn't you see it?"
After Shi Yu drew twelve small circles, he gave a direct answer: "I tend to think that the Chongming Bird had not yet started to attack the player at that time, just like in general supernatural movies and TV shows, there is always a period of safety at the beginning."
He Wei asked subconsciously: "So the beginning was..."
"I'm leaning towards starting with me last night."
"Why?"
"Because you were not attacked at the hour of Xu yesterday, and I didn't hear anyone outside talking about the shadow of a Chongming bird appearing in the sky above the abandoned house a hundred meters away at the hour of Hai." Shi Yu wrote his name in one of the circles. "Of course, there is one more thing. I was attacked at the hour of Zi, which is also the beginning of a new day."
He Weiyu swallowed his saliva.
"As for the order of attack, it is obviously based on time. If each player is attacked by Chongming at a specific time, I don't think it is a random arrangement. It means that Chongming has fixed the order of the players' deaths based on some conditions before the game started."
He Weiyou subconsciously asked: "According to what?"
"Chicken circle position." Shi Yu wrote the names of the twelve players in a small circle, and used one, two, and three for those who didn't know the names. Then he wrote the twelve Earthly Branches in order outside the large circle, and then there was a "swish".
He Weiyou took the piece of white paper he tore off.
It would be more accurate to say that there is a clock drawn on the paper rather than a circle. The 360 degrees are evenly divided into twelve scales, corresponding to the twelve numbers on the clock, and each scale is marked with a time symbol of an earthly branch.
Like a neatly carved sundial.
Zi hour is north, Wu hour is south, You hour is west, Mao hour is east.
The tip of the pen landed on the midnight position at the top of the sundial, and then moved clockwise: "If we follow the order of time, Chongming's attack should be on me first, then you, and finally on the person who just died."
Shi Yu was attacked by Chongming at the hour of Zi, He Weiyu at the hour of Xu, and the player who just died at the hour of Hai.
"You said before that the chicken coop you were in was southwest of me. When you followed the compass to find me, you passed by the chicken coop of the player with the birthmark on his face."
The hour of Zi is due north on the sundial, while the hour of Xu is due northwest.
He Weiyou's position is exactly southwest of Shi Yu.
The only earthly branch between the two of them, the hour of Hai, corresponds to the player with the birthmark on his face.
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