Rainy Night Theater (18)

“Is she really asleep?” the second Madman muttered, his tone a mix of doubt and disbelief.

Sun Hao knocked on the door again, much harder this time, and raised his voice. “Liu Siwei, open up! Do you hear me?”

Still, there was only dead silence.

“Something's wrong,” Sun Hao said. He pulled his Madman identity card from his pocket and pressed it against the keyhole. With a soft click, the lock released.

A Madman's identity card naturally had the authority to unlock any dormitory door.

“I'm not doing this on purpose,” Sun Hao added as a disclaimer before pushing the door open.

“Are you guys kidding me?” Once he saw the state of the room, Sun Hao turned around and glared at his two Madman teammates.

The high-ponytail girl was lying on the bed, her eyes tightly shut, looking completely peaceful.

She wasn't asleep; she was dead.

Her face had turned the same purplish-blue color as the overalls man's, her lips were black, and her chest was no longer rising and falling. It was a clear sign she had died from a Madman's poison.

“How... how did she get poisoned?” The first Madman took a step back instinctively, his voice laced with doubt. “Could it be that the antidote from today didn't work? But she had clearly recovered back then.”

“Why would you doubt the Doctor's antidote? Even if there was an issue, it would be because of the class settings—a problem with the game itself,” the second Madman retorted, his tone thick with hostility.

Ignoring their personal feud, Sun Hao quickly walked over to the bed and leaned down to examine the high-ponytail girl's corpse.

Muttering a quick “excuse me,” he carefully pulled up her sleeve and parted the collar at her neck.

Soon, he noticed that on Liu Siwei's wrist, besides the two needle marks left from her suicide attempt and subsequent rescue during the day, there was a brand-new needle mark.

“A third needle mark.” Sun Hao was furious. He had never seen a match with such deadweight teammates. “Which of you did this? She was our teammate. Even if you have grievances, you shouldn't turn on one of our own, right?”

“Why are you accusing us?” The first Madman immediately flared up, his face flushing red as he retorted sharply. “Why don't you look in the mirror?”

“Your door was unlocked first. Who's to say you didn't poison her while our doors were still locked? When all is said and done, you're just playing the thief crying thief.”

“Me, playing the thief crying thief?” Sun Hao sneered. “I went straight downstairs to wait for you guys. I didn't leave the stage area the entire time.”

“Let's be real. With the doors unlocking at intervals like this, any of us could have had the time to do it. None of us can wash our hands of this,” the first Madman insisted, refusing to back down.

Sun Hao was momentarily at a loss for words. He was right.

Although the rules stated that Madmen could gather at night, in reality, the times their dormitory doors unlocked differed.

This meant any of the three could have snuck into the high-ponytail girl's room to kill her before the next person's door unlocked.

Just then, the second Madman, who had been silent, spoke up. “Stop arguing. Tomorrow, we'll compare our items. Once we see whose poison is still there and whose is missing, everything will be clear.”

The rules of the Madman faction dictated that once someone used their poison, everyone else's poison would be temporarily locked until the next phase began.

If someone had secretly used their poison to kill the high-ponytail girl, their poison would have vanished. Come the daytime phase tomorrow, a quick comparison of their items would reveal the truth.

“Fine by me. Let's see who's so black-hearted they'd kill someone on the very first night,” the first Madman agreed immediately.

“Sure, I have no objections,” Sun Hao agreed as well, confident that he had nothing to hide. “Anyway, nothing we say now matters. The poisons are all locked, so we can't check who did it anyway.”

The current situation was that all three Madmen distrusted their other two teammates.

Sun Hao looked up at the grandfather clock at the end of the hallway. The hands were already nearing the end of the nighttime phase. The night phase wasn't long to begin with, and they had wasted most of it waiting for everyone to gather. Searching for clues was out of the question now.

Although as Madmen they could keep their eyes open until the daytime phase, none of them intended to expose their identity just yet. They still needed to return to their rooms and play the part of Citizens.

“No clues found, and we even lost a teammate...” Sun Hao waved his hand, his voice full of helplessness. “Forget it, let's just head back. We can't find anything in this little time anyway. Staying here is just a waste of time.”

A bell rang, announcing the arrival of the third daytime phase.

Everyone filed out of their dormitories. Filament was the first to sense something was wrong. The high-ponytail girl's dorm was right next to hers, and the door was wide open now, with no sound coming from inside.

Her heart tightened, and she quickly walked over.

“Weiwei... Weiwei, are you awake?”

Filament walked to the bedside and reached out with a trembling hand to feel the high-ponytail girl's carotid artery. There was no pulse.

The high-ponytail girl's pale face and dark lips were incredibly stark. Following this clue, Filament soon discovered the third needle mark on her wrist.

She broke down instantly, tears pouring out. “Who? Who killed her? We clearly had a chance to resolve this peacefully! We agreed to search for clues together, so why did you still kill her?”

Filament's weeping drew everyone's attention, and they quickly gathered around. Upon seeing the high-ponytail girl's corpse, regardless of what they were thinking inside, everyone's expressions turned grim.

“A third needle mark, and poisoned again. Same symptoms as Wang Er,” Fu Yan said, crouching down to examine the corpse.

“There's no need to think. It was definitely done by a Madman!” Filament stood up abruptly, wiping away her tears. Her eyes were filled with fury and hatred as her gaze swept over everyone present.

“Only Madmen can act at night, and only Madmen have poison. If it wasn't you, then who? You Madmen, stand up and explain! What on earth happened? Why did you kill her?”

Everyone remained silent; no one stepped forward to admit to being a Madman.

Just then, the muscular man suddenly spoke up, his tone somewhat tentative. “Is it possible... it wasn't a Madman? Doesn't the Doctor have poison too?”

“Do you have water in your brain?” Sun Hao sneered. “Setting aside the fact that Bai Jiu clearly saved someone yesterday, the Doctor is part of the Citizen faction and can't leave their dorm at night. Can't you even remember a simple rule like that?”

Dumbfounded by Sun Hao's retort, the muscular man could only shut his mouth in embarrassment.

Fu Liu, who had been about to step forward to protect his girlfriend, was cut off before he could act and stepped back again.

Filament's gaze remained sharp as she swept it across everyone present, the fury in her voice mounting. “So, is no one in the Madman faction willing to stand up and explain? Don't you feel any guilt at all for killing your own teammate?”

Still, there was only silence.

To Filament, this silence was an admission of guilt—a sign of a bad conscience.