When Xiao Cheng and Fang He entered the kitchen, they found that the atmosphere inside was not as suffocating as they had imagined. On the contrary, it was even peaceful and serene.
The mute girl was eating bread without any regard for her image. Number One looked at her impatiently, while Number Two held a cup of warm milk and said to her gently, "No rush, eat slowly."
"...What's going on?" Xiao Cheng asked.
In any case, the mute girl's current condition is definitely not normal.
“She can’t speak, she’s just been eating.” Number One condescended to explain to her personally, “Since we came in, Number Five’s food, I mean a total of seven days’ worth, has almost been finished by her.”
Xiao Cheng stared at the bread crumbs scattered on the floor, speechless: "Is this how you turn grief into appetite? To stuff yourself to death and then die for love, so you can both transform into butterflies and fly away?"
The mute girl paused in her act of eating bread, then licked her scarlet lips, raised her finger, and began to slowly write in the air.
"Hungry."
The four people recognized her handwriting.
The mute girl knew they understood, so she nodded gently and then resumed eating.
When she finally finished the last two pieces of bread, she slowly brushed the crumbs off her clothes, stood there silently, and gestured that they could ask questions.
"How did he die? Did you see it?" Number One asked bluntly.
The mute girl shook her head awkwardly, indicating that she knew nothing.
"When did he die? You should know that by now, right?" Number One frowned and continued to press. Number Two, unable to bear it any longer, reached out and gently tugged at her arm, only to be forcefully shaken off.
The mute girl kept her head down, her slightly long bangs falling down to conceal all her expressions. Her shoulders were trembling slightly, as if she were sobbing silently.
"Stop asking. Do you expect a mute like her to write an 800-word essay for you?" Xiao Cheng couldn't help but retort. Just as he was about to suggest going downstairs to check on the two brothers' progress, he heard a flurry of footsteps in the corridor.
"No, this is completely wrong!" Number Three, panting, burst into the kitchen, holding a strange handheld device. He pointed warily at the mute girl in front of him. "Look at this! Come and look at this!"
He pulled up the usage record on the machine's screen and showed it to everyone present, explaining in a serious tone: "This thing popped out of the game console. It's called a Soul Converter. It can only be used once. It belongs to Number Five, and the last usage record was last night."
The matter seems quite clear now.
Xiao Cheng suddenly looked up, scrutinizing the mute girl from head to toe: "So you're number five?" Her voice sounded somewhat cold, as if she was forcibly suppressing her emotions.
The mute girl didn't react at all; she just stood there, enveloped in a sorrow that seemed almost tangible.
"Who exactly are you? Number Five or Number Six? Who is the real core inside this body?!" Number One deliberately raised her voice. She couldn't stand that she had almost been fooled by a mute.
The mute girl's body trembled slightly, then she slowly raised her face, biting her lower lip as she began to write in the air.
The word "five".
Xiao Cheng felt a sudden jolt in her heart.
However, before she could say anything, Number Four rushed in.
"She's lying! I saw it!" He was wearing a pair of elegant monocles, and as he finished speaking, the lens suddenly shattered with a cracking sound, scattering pieces all over the floor.
Number Four removed the last frame of his glasses from his nose, pointed at the mute girl, and said with absolute certainty, "I saw it. She is a woman, a woman from body to soul, through and through."
All eyes instantly turned to the mute girl. Her body trembled violently, and then she closed her eyes tightly in despair.
"What do you mean?" Number One asked, frowning.
"She is the real Number Six, inside and out, not some Number Five in a shell. In other words, the one who died was Number Five, not Number Six whose soul was swapped into his body." Number Four spoke as if he were reciting a tongue twister, but Xiao Cheng and the others understood his explanation.
"Putting aside the limited number of uses for the Soul Converter, you exchanged souls at least twice last night, is that right?" Xiao Cheng pressed on, "Is it related to that game?"
The mute girl seemed to recall something, and a pained expression appeared on her face as she silently nodded.
"So what exactly happened in the game?" Fang He asked indifferently. "No, it shouldn't be in the game. At least when the game just ended, you all acted normally. At least we didn't find anything wrong."
The mute girl did not respond; instead, she looked at the crowd with pleading eyes, signaling them to stop asking questions.
Unfortunately, there was no one present who knew how to cherish a woman.
"Alright, regardless of whether my guess is right or wrong," Fang He continued, "I'm just unilaterally believing that your acting skills aren't quite there yet. Further guesses based on this are a reward."
“You received a reward in the game. Number Six’s reward was the Soul Converter, which he used voluntarily to complete your first exchange.” Xiao Cheng’s thoughts raced. “This seems completely unnecessary, unless you’re planning to do something exciting here, but that’s obviously not logical at all.”
“So we can boldly speculate that your reward… needs to be used with the body of Number Six to truly take effect? Excluding the most obvious factor, which is related to gender, then only…” Fang He lightly tapped the corner of his lips with his index finger, “You’re a mute.”
"So it's a reward related to speaking? A proverb? A curse? Or something similar? Never mind, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that you used Number Six's body to use this reward. But—"
Xiao Cheng deliberately dragged out his words, and then spoke almost simultaneously with Fang He: "The price."
"The price is death." Xiao Cheng suddenly scoffed, "But being cut in half doesn't immediately lead to death, right?"
Guided by the two, the others more or less guessed what had happened. The mute girl almost collapsed, crouching down with her head in her hands, emitting silent sobs and screams.
"You were the one inside body number five at the time. In your near-death experience, you used that reward again." Fang He looked down at the mute girl, dissecting her with extreme coldness.
"Please let us switch bodies back." A gentle smile appeared on Xiao Cheng's face. She tried to recall the mute girl's possible tone of voice and said this in a soft voice.
“Of course, how could there be no side effects from frequently using such a bug-like ability?” Fang He continued, “So…”
“You were hungry,” Xiao Cheng continued, “and then you ate all of Number Five’s food.”
Everyone fell silent.
The mute girl squatted there, huddled up in a tiny position, her slightly thin shoulders trembling constantly.
She cried very sadly.
"...We've found all seven reward coins, but the clown hasn't appeared yet. Let's go down and look for him," Number Three suggested.
This time, even Number One didn't refute it, so they went downstairs one after another.
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