The seeds of suspicion were frantically taking root and sprouting in everyone’s hearts.
Fu Songcheng leaned back against the chair, his long legs crossed, his gaze deep and calm.
He even deliberately made his posture look relaxed.
[Third round mission preparation.]
[Rotating captain transferred.]
[Third round captain: the middle-aged man.]
[Players required to board this round: 4.]
All eyes instantly converged on the middle-aged man who had been so unremarkable all along.
Startled by the sudden attention, the man instinctively shrank his neck. Fine beads of sweat seeped onto his forehead, and his hands rubbed uneasily against his pant legs.
He took a deep breath, his gaze wandering over everyone’s faces.
In the first two rounds, two people succeeded in the first, three in the second. That meant the three who’d boarded were highly likely good.
If there were an evil player among those three, it was unlikely they’d have failed to act two rounds in a row.
They were entering an instance, after all—not doing charity.
The middle-aged man’s gaze gradually firmed up. He looked at Brother Dao, at Fu Songcheng, and then quietly at Yu Huaiting.
He swallowed, his voice rising a notch. “The first two rounds, Brother Dao, Brother Fu, and this one here—all your missions succeeded. That proves you’re reliable!”
The short-haired girl spoke up, cutting off his statement. “I think—even though the first two rounds succeeded, maybe the bad guys are deliberately lying low?”
Fu Songcheng lifted his eyelids slightly. His deep eyes looked especially cool in the dim light and shadow.
He didn’t refute immediately. Instead, he quietly stared at the short-haired girl with an almost appraising gaze, until she unconsciously averted her eyes under his invisible pressure.
Fu Songcheng shifted to a more comfortable position, his fingertips tapping rhythmically on his knee, and spoke slowly: “True. Within the rules, to gain long-term trust, ‘bad guys’ very likely choose to lie low early on.”
Fu Songcheng paused, his gaze circling the room before finally landing on the middle-aged man’s face. His voice dropped very low, yet carried an unquestionable authority: “But the victory condition for the third round is inherently strict, so the choice needs to be even more cautious. Choosing this way might not guarantee mission success, but it can help us rule out wrong options.”
Fu Songcheng spoke with great skill.
If he was to impersonate Merlin, he couldn’t be too obvious—because Merlin needed to prevent his identity from being discovered by the Assassin.
But this round he had to board and make the mission fail. So he could only give vague hints—that Merlin felt there was a bad guy among these four, but that these four could still board.
In fact, he was Morgana, the core of the Evil faction.
Fu Songcheng finally looked at the middle-aged man. “Brother Dao and I have the first two rounds’ track record to vouch for us. Yu Huaiting only boarded once, but that round’s rhythm was driven by him. As for you—as captain, if you’re good, you’ll definitely choose yourself to board.”
The middle-aged man nodded thoughtfully and posted the boarding list.
[All players, please vote on this round’s lineup.]
The cold system notification sounded.
[Voting result: 5 Approve, 1 Reject.]
[Lineup approved.]
The reject vote came from the short-haired girl.
Fu Songcheng walked over to Yu Huaiting and said quietly, “Let’s go.”
Yu Huaiting glanced at him, then huffily turned his head away and ignored him, walking ahead of Fu Songcheng on his own.
He hadn’t forgotten the grudge of Fu Songcheng choking his neck!
The four boarded the black business car representing the “mission” in turn.
The moment the car door closed, all the noise from outside was sealed away.
[Third round mission begins.]
[Players on board, please submit a “Mission Success” or “Mission Failure” card.]
[The Good faction may only submit “Mission Success”; the Evil faction may choose either. If even one “Mission Failure” appears, this round’s mission fails.]
Inside the solo mission compartment, Fu Songcheng was locked in a mental game.
As Morgana, his task was to make three missions fail—or, at the final moment, conceal his identity well enough to mislead “Percival” and let the Evil faction win the final assassination opportunity.
This round’s mission had to fail.
Otherwise, he and Yu Huaiting would have to wait for the Good faction to complete their missions, and then find the hidden Merlin themselves. Fortunately, Fu Songcheng already had a candidate for Merlin in mind.
But he still wanted to observe a couple more rounds. If the short-haired girl really was Merlin, her performance was far too obvious.
More than Merlin, she seemed like a Loyal Servant acting as a shield for Merlin.
But if she were a Loyal Servant, how could she judge the identities of others?
Fu Songcheng’s fingertip rubbed at the edge of the “Fail” button.
He couldn’t pin his hopes on Yu Huaiting—yet he couldn’t help but factor Yu Huaiting’s choice into his calculations.
The greatest brilliance of Avalon was that you didn’t just play against the opposing faction—you also played against your own teammates.
In the end, he still pressed the [Mission Failure] button.
He still couldn’t be sure whether the short-haired girl was truly Merlin. The game couldn’t end here.
…
Leaving the solo mission compartment, Fu Songcheng’s breathing was somewhat heavy.
Suddenly, Fu Songcheng seemed to sense something.
He turned in the corridor. Yu Huaiting happened to look up, and their gazes collided in the narrow space.
Yu Huaiting even had the mood to throw him a flirtatious wink.
Fu Songcheng could get no useful information out of his teammate at all. He clenched his fists to suppress the urge to beat Yu Huaiting up, then left the mission carriage.
The four returned to the station one after another, reuniting with the two who hadn’t boarded.
…
[All members have submitted.]
The carriage lights flickered, turning dark red.
The middle-aged man froze, looking at the change in his surroundings. “What does this mean? Why did the lights turn red?”
Brother Dao snapped his eyes open, his gaze sharply sweeping over the three who had just done the mission with him.
Fu Songcheng maintained his posture leaning against the chair back, his hand even resting on the armrest beside Yu Huaiting.
He looked toward Yu Huaiting and found Yu Huaiting looking at him too.
The corner of Yu Huaiting’s lips curved into a tiny arc—as if mocking, or as if admiring.
That smile vanished in an instant, so fast that Fu Songcheng wondered if he’d imagined it.
[Calculating the third round’s mission result…]
[Mission result: Failure.]
[Tally: 1 Mission Failure, 3 Mission Success.]
Bang!
The middle-aged man slammed the table hard. “At least one of you three is evil.”
His gaze swept across Brother Dao’s and Yu Huaiting’s faces, then fixed dead on Fu Songcheng.
“I remember—before the mission, you said this train might not make it.”
Fu Songcheng lowered his head slightly, the fringe before his forehead hiding his eyes, making his expression unreadable.
He let out a low sigh, his whole posture one of helplessness, and glanced at Brother Dao with a hidden meaning.
“I only said ‘the mission might fail’—it’s not like I cast the fail vote. I think there’s an evil player among the four of us. Is there a problem with that?”
Fu Songcheng and Brother Dao exchanged a look, and Brother Dao began speaking up for Fu Songcheng too. “The newcomers on the train are the most suspicious, aren’t they?”
Brother Dao stared at the middle-aged man, as if trying to see right through him with his gaze.
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