“Watch your tongue,” Detective Li Shangwu snapped at Qiao Jiajing. “You’re a loan shark. I’m a homicide detective. Who do you think they’ll trust?”Qi Xia watched the tension simmer. Li’s story checked out—he was a cop. But his approach was wrong.The twenty-minute break dragged. The stench of the corpse worsened.“Back to the game,” the Man-Goat announced.The bespectacled man, Han Yimo, cleared his throat. “I’m a novelist. I was writing my novel’s climax when… nothing. No memory of the earthquake.”“Is that all?” Detective Li pressed.“If I can’t lie, I won’t embellish.” Han’s quiet confidence unnerved the room.Next, Zhang Chenze, the sharp-tongued wyer. “My client lost two million in a scam. I was driving to meet him near Wuhou Temple in Chengdu when the quake hit. My car skidded into a crack in the road. Next thing I know, here.”The mention of Chengdu’s ndmarks sent ripples through the group.Finally, Detective Li’s turn.“I’m from Inner Mongolia. I was staking out a fraud suspect. Two million swindled. We’d been tailing him for days, but he vanished. My partner and I were exhausted. No cigarettes. Starving. Then the earthquake—”His voice dropped. “A man strangled me with a wire. I colpsed, hit my head…”He gestured to the red mark around his neck.The room buzzed.Only he’d been attacked.Only he seemed “guilty.”