Death Game: Starting as a fraudster, pretending to be a god.

Chapter 1428 A Chaotic Dispute

For a "player" in a "death game," killing nine people doesn't seem to be considered a heinous crime in a certain sense.

Especially considering that the nine people killed were all confirmed to have some kind of obvious "moral flaws" and were considered "deeply sinful" in the public's context, many people found it even more justifiable for "Paper Kite" to do this.

As a member of "Order," he violated the organization's discipline by launching a vigilante attack on a guilty player in real life without any direct conflict.

If we were to ask "Dionysus" and "Good Night" to set aside organizational discipline and rules and evaluate "Paper Kite," they certainly wouldn't think of "Paper Kite" as a bad person.

Even in private, "Good Night" had whispered to Lin Yu that Paper Kite had been a player for a year and a half, and killing nine people wasn't considered too many or too frequent.

but……

Lin Yu knew perfectly well that Zhiyuan, the former inspector of the East China region, might indeed have a natural-born serial killer side, or even be called a "murder maniac," in addition to her almost obsessive sense of justice.

Aside from the specific, ritualistic "execution process" he used when killing people, the frequency of "nine people" is actually not low.

Because the execution of these nine people was not carried out over a period of one and a half years.

Paper Kite began carrying out executions only after he advanced to the 'Third Rank'.

The first person was executed nine months ago.

The second person... was five months ago.

Meanwhile, three months prior, just before Lin Yu was about to join the "Death Game," was the time when Zhi Yuan's affair was exposed and he was removed from his post by "Order."

This means that the executions and murders of the remaining six people were all carried out by Zhiyuan within two months.

To some extent... Paper Kite might be showing signs of bad luck, but most importantly, he's becoming increasingly unable to control himself.

This loss of control likely began with his first execution—because during the nearly year-long "Death Game" prior to that, he must have carried out numerous executions within the "copy" without violating the "order" rules.

The fact that he was able to awaken the "killer" also means that in the twenty years before "Kite" joined the "Death Game," and before he intervened in this environment where "death" and "murder" were relatively trivialized, he already had an unusual "view of death."

Therefore, although Lin Yu said he trusted "Paper Kite", he was completely different from "God of Wine" and "Good Night". He did not genuinely believe that "Paper Kite" would not kill "Redwood" and the other two.

Dionysus and Ryouya probably felt that even if Zhiyuan did it, she wouldn't deny it, so they chose to believe Zhiyuan's explanation. They believed Zhiyuan's words because they trusted her character—because just listening to Zhiyuan's words would make it seem like she was just trying to exonerate herself and deceive them.

The kite's escape even caused a slight doubt in their hearts.

But Lin Yu was quite the opposite.

From the very beginning, Lin Yu was full of doubts about the kite.

But after Zhiyuan explained, Lin Yu began to believe him.

Those seemingly absurd claims actually seemed quite credible to Lin Yu.

After the kite escaped, Lin Yu became even more certain that... the kite was most likely telling the truth.

Because... if he wanted to frame Paper Kite and sow discord between "Order" and "Player Mutual Aid Association," he would do the same.

Just like the situation right now...

The deaths of "Redwood" and two other members of the "Player Mutual Aid Association," "Sorrowful Cloud" and "Fried Tofu," were temporarily concealed by the senior and core members of the "Player Mutual Aid Association," namely the "Third Tier" who mainly consisted of the candidates.

All the campaign teams are already aware of this... but no one outside of the campaign teams knows about it.

Because "Redwood" is almost the only "Tier 3" member in the "Player Mutual Aid Association" who has maintained neutrality, after his death, almost all the senior members and "experts" in the entire "Player Mutual Aid Association," except for "Nioh," have their own factions.

Therefore... there isn't even a single 'Tier 3' who can now represent the 'Player Mutual Aid Association' to handle the death of 'Redwood' and negotiate with 'Order'.

They all had to be present.

Furthermore, it wasn't until after the last candidate finished speaking that the members of the "Player Mutual Aid Association" began communicating and negotiating with the official and "Order" members.

Inside the largest multimedia conference room on the top floor of the convention center, members of "Order" and "Player Mutual Aid Association" sat on either side of a long conference table.

Lin Yu, Yin Lan, Liang Ye, and Ren Gu, who had just returned from catching up on sleep, sat on one side.

On the other side... were more than thirty people from fourteen different candidate factions of the "Player Mutual Aid Association".

Half an hour has passed since this "negotiation" began, and yet no one in the entire "Player Mutual Aid Association" has formally communicated with the people on the "Order" side.

After Yin Lan briefly explained the situation they had, the group of over thirty people on the other side immediately erupted into a heated argument.

In particular, the five most likely candidates to be elected—Shang Gen, Migan, Monica, Xi Chen, and Yu Linling—are now purely attacking each other.

"So, 'Yu Linling,' as a suspect named by 'Order,' shouldn't you temporarily cease your activities until you prove your innocence?"

“I’ve already said that I’ve never seen ‘Paper Kite’; that was an imposter—besides, this isn’t ‘Order’ suspecting me at all. Don’t try to twist my words!”

"To be honest, that 'Kite's' testimony is completely unreliable. Not only was he the prime suspect, but he also managed to escape!"

Are you questioning the innocence of members of "Order"?

"I'm not questioning 'order,' I'm only questioning 'the kite'!"

"Your so-called 'order' seems to be beyond question... In my opinion, perhaps this 'order' really has ulterior motives. If you dare not say it, I will say it—from the very beginning, I felt that it was a mistake for us to let 'order' intervene in this election!"

"Are you kidding me? Are you openly opposing 'order'?"

"How could I dare—it's just that our organizational philosophy isn't entirely aligned with 'Order' anyway—otherwise, why don't we just all join 'Order'?"

"Stop arguing. I think you're just feeling guilty—what legitimate player would be afraid of 'Order'?"

"I see that all you're arguing about doesn't really care about 'Redwood's' death. You're just using this opportunity to eliminate your rivals, aren't you?"

"What nonsense are you spouting? When I was running dungeons with 'Redwood' and 'Sorrowful Clouds,' you weren't even a member of the 'Player Mutual Aid Association' yet. I wanted to know more than anyone else who killed those three. Who gave you the right to chatter on like that?"

"Are you not saying 'fried tofu' because you're afraid people will know you've had a long-standing feud with him?"

"Are you accusing me? Stop being sarcastic, just say it—you're saying I'm the murderer, do you dare to say it directly? Who's using this opportunity to eliminate dissidents?!"

What's the rush?

"First it was 'Iced Americano,' then 'Redwood'... I think it's best not to oversimplify things."

"The 'Iced Americano' was definitely killed by that 'Schreber,' what are you trying to imply?"

"I'll say it again: don't be superstitious about 'order'!"

The noise was incessant, like a bustling market.

Although they talked about "order" almost every three sentences and mentioned "kite" every few paragraphs, no one actually came to directly question the four "order" members who were just across the table.

The four members of "Order" didn't bother to interrupt, and simply watched quietly as these people argued incessantly.

Yin Lan gently rubbed her temples and sighed, "When will this argument ever end?"

When Yin Lan first heard some of them attacking and questioning "order," she was a little unhappy and almost joined the fray.

However, after being pulled away by Ren Gu and Lin Yu, Yin Lan listened for a while and realized that... these people seemed to be using the attack or maintenance of "order" to attack others rather than actually attacking "order".

"Order" is more like a weapon, a stance.

Just like the dead 'Redwood'.

Ren Gu remained expressionless and spoke in a low voice: "This is the alienation of people by 'power'. After the election officially started, they probably already saw from the reactions in the audience today that no one is guaranteed to win if the 'normal election process' continues."

“The ‘Iced Americano’ died too quickly and too early, and we quickly identified the killer and stabilized the situation, so they didn’t have a chance to ‘make a fuss’.”

"But 'Redwood'... he was originally recognized as a 'neutral' faction by all parties. After being elected, he existed as a person of 'restraint' and balance. Even if he hadn't died from murder, many people would probably have had the opportunity to exploit the situation..."

As Ren Gu finished speaking, Liang Ye also spoke in a low voice.

"Damn it, now I understand why you didn't let us say 'Paper Kite' went to find 'Rainy Bell' earlier—it was because you suspected him of being 'guilty'..."

Under Lin Yu's instructions, although Yin Lan mentioned in her statement that "Zhiyuan" said he went to find "Hongmu" with "Yulinling" and that "Zhiyuan" claimed that "Yulinling" was the murderer of "Hongmu", she did not tell the members of the "Player Mutual Aid Association" that "Zhiyuan" attacked "Yulinling" or suspected "Yulinling" of being guilty. She only said that the two were acting together.

Lin Yu nodded.

“If we were to release that information… it wouldn’t just be a matter of factions attacking each other anymore. Those factions would immediately see this as an opportunity to kick ‘Yu Linling’ out of the game and unite to confirm his identity as the murderer. In that case, it would be even more impossible for us to get the truth.”