The Sorcerer's Handbook

Chapter 228: A Game That Exposes Inner Darkness

Iger caught on quickly. So this is her way of making a show of force...

Annan’s words were practically a declaration: ”I know all of you want to seize it, but no matter what schemes you have, I will be the final winner.”

Compared to empty threats, her confidence, as if she had everything in her grasp, was far more intimidating.

Annan thought for a moment, then said, ”But if it goes on like this, everyone will guess correctly and end up with the same score. That’s no fun. And if you ask your own questions, there might be things you’d be too embarrassed to say out loud... Ah, I’ve got it!”

She pulled a stack of note paper from a nearby drawer. ”This is a Thought-Writing Paper. It automatically writes down whatever is on your mind in a standard typeface so that no one can identify the writer. In other words, it’s an anonymous note.”

Then she took out a black box. ”Each of you writes one question and drops it in here. We’ll draw three at random to ask. That way, no one knows who asked what. With all these safeguards, you can ask anything you’re curious about without fear.”

Seeing the thorough preparation, Iger realized Annan had likely planned this long in advance. She had probably been waiting for them to lose their tempers and make demands, only to propose the game at the perfect moment. But why this game? What was she trying to achieve?

The moment Iger picked up the note paper, it clicked. The game was brilliant. Everyone had to answer truthfully. The questions were random, and no one knew who asked them.

That meant he could ask something daring, like, ”If given the chance, would you murder Iguer, Ashe, Archibald, and Lys to seize the Divine Lord’s wish?”

He could learn whether Annan planned to eliminate them after the Woven Festival, and as just one participant among many, he wouldn’t draw suspicion.

No... I’ll be wasting such a rare opportunity if I use it only on Annan.

Since everyone else also had to answer truthfully, he could design the perfect question and draw out everyone’s true thoughts.

At that, Iger froze. He finally understood Annan’s intention. This was a shameless but unavoidable open scheme. Even after seeing through it, he had no choice but to step into it.

No wonder the game was called Guessing True Feelings. The key wasn’t the feelings themselves, but the guessing. When you tried to peer into the darkness of human nature, you’d see only the answers you wanted to believe. People couldn’t withstand such scrutiny, and true feelings could never be reliably guessed.

Lys suddenly piped up. ”Pankey, do you have a small mirror? I want to see if Aunt Perskin braided my hair nicely.”

Pankey casually took out a small mirror from who knows where. ”Of course, Miss Lys.”

After everyone dropped their notes into the box, Annan lightly clapped her hands. ”Since all the questions have been collected... Mr. Iger, please host the next question-and-answer and guessing rounds. After all, the box and paper came from me. If I hosted, you might suspect I’d set something up.”

Iger couldn’t refuse such a reasonable request. He drew a slip of paper from the box, and his pupils dilated slightly.

”Question. If given the chance, would you murder the other five people here to seize the Divine Lord’s wish?”

Annan smiled. ”Oh. What an exciting question.”

Everyone placed their Gold Coins beneath the handkerchief, then moved on to the guessing phase.

”I think the number of Yes is zero,” Annan said.

Harvey placed a Silver Coin. ”I disagree. One.”

Iger followed. ”Same here. One.”

Ashe spread his hands. ”I choose zero.”

Pankey also chose zero.

Lys, however, placed two Silver Coins. Everyone paused for a moment, then quickly understood. Perhaps, in her eyes, both Annan and Pankey were bad people trying to control her. Naturally, she assumed they might even kill.

Nevertheless, it was unlikely. At least, Pankey would never do it. The option ”murder the other five” included killing Annan herself.

Ashe and the others might not know how long Pankey had lived with her, but he was over sixty, and to him, Annan was almost like a daughter. Having no offspring of his own, how could he possibly harm the only person in his life who mattered?

The situation was different in reverse. If Annan’s greed ran deep enough, she might be willing to kill Pankey for her own desire.

This was why Iger had chosen to bet on one person. Among those present, the most likely candidate to answer yes was Annan.

Yet when the handkerchief was lifted, everyone froze.

There were four No, and two Yes. Out of the six of them, two people had decided they could murder the others without hesitation for the sake of the Divine Lord’s wish.

Iger scanned the group. He and Lys were obviously no, and Pankey was almost certainly no as well. That left Annan, Ashe, or Harvey as the possible yes. Even if Annan accounted for one, one of Ashe or Harvey had to already harbor the mindset of a killer.

Harvey was a given. Since escaping Shattered Lake Prison, he had been walking toward destruction, and Iger suspected he had only survived to orchestrate the most tragic death for himself.

Ashe, however, was different. His faint sympathy toward Lys, his past actions, all suggested he hadn’t lost his humanity. But could that be a façade? Even if his past behavior was genuine, it didn’t prove his heart wasn’t harboring darkness now. He could show compassion to a little girl, vent anger over Ronald, strike at Everlasting Doom to protect himself, but just as easily, he could allow the Divine Lord’s wish to awaken murderous intent.

According to the Fraudster’s Third Law, everything in the world had a price. With a high enough price, even sunlight could betray the sun. Faced with an immeasurable reward like the Divine Lord’s wish, any choice Ashe made could be considered rational. Even a truly kind person could act cruelly under the right circumstances.

Moreover, Annan wasn’t necessarily the second yes. Compared with former death row inmates, she had always been a law-abiding worker in a gray zone. Her ranking reflected that. Criminal acts would have lowered her standing. She likely hadn’t killed many, if any; someone with her clean hands couldn’t possibly resolve to murder Pankey, who had followed her for years, or the innocent Lys.

So was it just one of them, or could it be both?

Meanwhile, Ashe had reached a similar conclusion. At most, there would be one yes among Pankey and Annan. He was no, Lys was no, which meant either Iger or Harvey had to be the yes. In Ashe’s view, one of them had to be a murderer, willing to kill anyone to seize the Divine Lord’s wish.

When Ashe looked up, he caught Iger staring at him.

This was the terror of Guessing True Feelings. You guessed at others’ hearts, and they guessed at yours. Seeds of doubt sank into the darkest corners, sprouting in each quarrel, growing with every suspicion, until eventually the tree of distrust ignited like a torch, painting the heart’s darkness in the color of blood.

Ashe sighed. ”This is troublesome... Lys, I didn’t expect there to be two villains here.”

He spoke to Lys, deliberately avoiding Iger’s gaze, but she returned a cold glance, showing none of her previous warmth. She looked like a weed, her eyes stripped of innocence, almost cruel in their indifference.

Ashe froze. Is she really already in rebellion?

Annan said calmly, ”Only Lys guessed correctly. Lys earns one point; everyone else stays at zero. Next question.”

Even with sunlight streaming through the windows, the living room felt suffocating. Ashe let out a sigh. The first question had already planted seeds of suspicion in everyone’s mind. Iger couldn’t imagine what the second would bring.

He drew the next slip of paper from the box, raised an eyebrow, and lunged at Ashe, wrestling him to the ground. ”Ashe!!”

”How did you know it was me who wrote it?!”

”Who else would be so bored besides you?”

Harvey picked up the slip Iger had dropped and couldn’t help snickering. ”Ha, question, question. Do you think Iger should wear pretty girls’ clothes?”