I Want To Play A Game

An incandescent bulb hung from a black wire in the center of the room, flickering dim light. 

The tranquil atmosphere spread through the room like ink diffusing in clear water. 

At the exact center stood a large round table, its surface mottled with age. A small ornate clock ticked rhythmically atop it. Ten people in worn, dust-stained clothes sat around the table - some slumped forward, others leaned back in chairs - all deep in slumber.

Beside them stood a black-suited man wearing a goat skull mask. His gaze pierced through the mask's hollow eye sockets, observing the sleepers with keen interest.

As the clock hands aligned at twelve, distant chimes resonated through the walls. Simultaneously, the ten figures stirred awake. They blinked in confusion, exchanging bewildered glances. None remembered how they'd arrived.

"Good morning, nine." The goat-masked man spoke first, his voice muffled by the aged mask emitting traces of decay. "You've slept twelve hours before me."

The grotesque figure startled the group. His mask appeared crafted from an actual goat's head - yellowed hairs matted with dark clots. Two hollowed eyes revealed cunning pupils that glinted in the dim light. A musky animal odor mixed with putrescence clung to his movements.

A tattooed man finally broke the silence: "Who...are you?"

"Ah, the inevitable question!" The goat head spread his arms theatrically. "Let me introduce-"

"Save it." A sharp-faced woman interrupted, brushing dust off her sleeves. "You've committed unlawful detention. Every word will be used against you."

Her legalistic rebuke galvanized the group. A white-coated man countered: "How do you know it's been twenty-four hours?"

The woman pointed at the clock. "It struck twelve when I last saw my watch at home. No doors here - he needed time to construct this prison. Two full rotations makes twenty-four."

Their debate halted when a muscular youth noted the numerical discrepancy: "Why say 'nine' when there's ten of us?"

Before the goat mask could answer, the tattooed man slammed the table, legs suddenly failing. "Fuck your entire family! You've no idea who you're messing with!"

As threats erupted, Jack Li - seated farthest from the host - silently observed the windowless cube-like room. Grid patterns covered every surface. Ten captives plus their jailer made eleven. Why "nine"?

His probing thoughts shattered by a wet crunch. The goat mask had smashed a smiling youth's skull against the table. Brain matter splattered across stunned faces as distant chimes reverberated.

Screams died when the host purred: "Ten were prepared so one could...quiet you." He licked bloodied fingers. "I am Human-Goat. You're Participants here to play a game...to birth a god."

"Like Nuwa?" someone choked out.

"Exactly!" The mask trembled with fervor. "As Nuwa created humans then became rainbow, we'll forge a new deity through trial!"

When challenged about religious motives, the goat head sneered: "We're vaster than religion - we have a World."

After distributing bloodstained paper and pens, he announced rules: "Write your last memory before arriving. One lies. If all nine identify the liar, they die. If one errs...you all die."

A tactical discussion erupted. The muscular man proposed: "If we all tell truth, write 'no liar'!"

The white-coated skeptic countered: "Unless you're the liar."

As the clock ticked, Jack Li stared at brain matter sliding down his cheek, still faintly pulsating. The warm residue of extinguished consciousness.

The two men snorted coldly and fell silent. 

"Now, please draw your cards." The Goat Head produced a small stack of cards from his trouser pocket, each the size of playing cards with the words "Nuwa's Game" printed on the back. 

The muscular man frowned. "What's this?" 

"These are *role cards*," the Goat Head chuckled. "If you draw the *Liar*, you must lie." 

"You're fucking with us?!" The muscular man bared his teeth. "Why didn't you mention this rule earlier?!" 

"This is your punishment." The Goat Head's voice turned icy. "You interrupted my rules explanation to discuss tactics. You wasted your own minute." 

The muscular man swallowed his rage, eyeing the bloodstains on the table. 

Within a minute, all nine drew cards, though none dared flip theirs immediately. These weren't roles—they were death warrants. The women's hands trembled; the men's faces hardened. 

Jack Li exhaled slowly, shielding his card as he peeked. Three characters glared back: *Liar*. 

*Liar.* 

He repeated the word internally, confirming his role before casually covering the card. Just moments ago, he'd naively hoped for collective survival. Now, eight strangers would die so he could live. 

"If there are no objections, remember the absolute rule: *there is exactly one Liar.*" The Goat Head pointed at the busty girl beside Jack Li. "You begin. Clockwise order." 

"Me?" The girl pouted, her low-cut dress shifting as she fidgeted. 

Jack Li noted the disadvantage—being last to speak meant fading from memories. But protesting would raise suspicion. 

"I'm Candy," the girl began, tucking dyed hair behind her ear. "A... companionship worker. No shame in honest work." Her grimy outfit left little to imagination. 

"My client insisted on using his car instead of our parlor. Said it'd be *exciting*. Fancy car, but cramped as hell. His phone kept ringing—he wouldn't answer. Then..." She shuddered, pointing upward. "The billboard above us snapped. Crushed the car. Woke up here." 

The tattooed man snorted. "She's lying." 

"W-what?!" Candy flushed. 

"*Candy*?" He sneered. "Whores all use fake names—Sugar, Sweet, Candy. You hid your real name. That's a lie." 

"You bastard!" Candy's voice cracked. "My real name's Joe! Call me that and I won't respond! At work, I'm only Candy!" 

Jack Li observed coldly. Her panic felt genuine—too artless for calculated deception. The real Liar would be subtler. 

The Goat Head intervened: "Names hold no weight here. Only *stories* matter. Proceed." 

The tattooed man shrugged. "Name's Barrett. Debt collector in Guangdong. Last night, some deadbeat tried stabbing me during the earthquake. We crashed through a billboard. Next thing I know..." He gestured at the sealed room. 

"Liar!" Candy jabbed a finger. "You copied my story! Earthquake? Billboard? Same details!" 

"Fuck your ancestors!" Barrett slammed the table. "Can't two people experience earthquakes?!" 

Jack Li's mind raced. Three provinces—Shaanxi, Guangdong, Shandong—all hit by quakes simultaneously? A nationwide catastrophe? 

"Enough." The muscular man cut in. "Next speaker." 

A mousy woman beside Barrett spoke timidly: "I'm Luck. Kindergarten teacher. Yesterday... a child's father forgot pickup. We waited hours. Then the earthquake..." Her voice broke. "I hugged the boy, but a car... everything went black." 

Jack Li noted the recurring motifs—earthquakes, falling objects, loss of consciousness. Either mass delusion... or something far darker connected their fates.

Jack Li's fingers drummed rhythmically against his role card bearing the damning "Liar" designation as Luck concluded her account. The kindergarten teacher's mention of Chongsheng Temple's Three Pagodas sent silent alarm bells ringing through his mind. Those iconic structures stood in Dali, Yunnan Province - over 1,500 kilometers southwest of Shandong where he'd experienced his own seismic nightmare. 

Three provinces. Three earthquakes. Three stories connected by collapsing infrastructure. This wasn't coincidence - it was continental-scale catastrophe.

His analysis shattered as attention shifted to the white-coated man. Dr. Lee adjusted his glasses with trembling hands. "I was supervising an archaeological dig near Jinan's Yellow River basin when the tremors began. Our team discovered Warring States period bamboo slips detailing-"

"Cut the academic bullshit," the muscular man snapped. "Get to the point."

The researcher swallowed hard. "The earthquake liquefied the riverbank. Our excavation site became quicksand. I watched three graduate students sink into the mud before losing consciousness myself." He gestured at his dirt-caked clothes. "This isn't dust - it's dried sediment from that burial."

Jack Li's mind raced. Shandong's capital. Another earthquake epicenter. The geographical spread defied all natural disaster patterns. Before he could voice this anomaly, commotion erupted across the table.

Emma, the sharp-tongued woman who'd earlier cited legal statutes, suddenly lunged at Dr. Lee. "You bastard! Those bamboo slips mentioned 'Dao'! You knew this was coming!"

As the two grappled, Jack Li's gaze locked onto their flailing hands. Emma's manicured nails tore at the researcher's collar, revealing strange lacerations on his neck - precise surgical incisions forming hexagrams from the I Ching.

The Goat Head's rasping laughter cut through the chaos. "How delightful! The Liar needn't lift a finger when truth-seekers turn on each other!"

Jack Li's thumb unconsciously traced the raised characters on his hidden card. Every instinct screamed to exploit this bedlam, to let these confused souls destroy themselves. Yet the scientist in him recoiled - these weren't random victims. They'd been chosen. Sculpted. Arranged like ritual components.

His internal debate crystallized into action when Emma pulled a shiv crafted from chair splinters. As she swung at Dr. Lee's throat, Jack Li's palm smacked the table hard enough to splatter congealing brain matter.

"Enough!" His command froze the room. "The earthquake spanned Shaanxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, and Shandong simultaneously. Either we're lying about locations..." He let the implication hang, blood-smeared fingers splaying across his story card. "...or something reshaped China's tectonic plates overnight."

A stunned silence descended. Even the Goat Head's breathing stilled.

The kindergarten teacher whispered what they all feared: "This isn't a game to find a liar... It's a test to identify the only truth-teller." Her trembling finger pointed at Jack Li. "And you're the only one who noticed."

The woman beside Barrett nodded timidly and spoke up, "Um... I-I'm Emma, a preschool teacher."

The girl named Emma appeared thoroughly shaken, her voice quivering like a plucked violin string.

"Before coming here, I was waiting with a child for their parent. The mother usually picked them up, but I heard she's gravely ill - something growing in her brain requiring surgery... These past few days it's been the father, though he keeps forgetting..."

Her fingers twisted the hem of her sweater. "Yesterday dragged past six. I'd stayed hours overtime, but the father wouldn't answer his phone. Without knowing their address, we just kept waiting at the intersection."

A bitter laugh escaped her. "I'd actually scheduled a counseling session that evening. Lately I've been... questioning if teaching is right for me. But the appointment got swallowed by those endless hours."

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "When the ground started moving, it took me whole seconds to realize - earthquake. Nothing like they describe. Not bouncing, but swaying side to side like... like standing on a table someone keeps shaking."

She mimed clutching an invisible child. "I grabbed the boy, but what could I do? The Chongsheng Three Pagodas were crumbling in the distance. Thank God we were in open space. Then this car came careening..." Her hands flew up defensively. "I tried running but kept falling. Last thing I remember is hitting my head..."

Jack Li's fingers stilled on the card before him. Though his palm covered the text, he knew the crimson letters spelled "Liar."

Chongsheng Three Pagodas. Those stood in Dali, Yunnan Province. Yet the earthquake stories spanned multiple regions. If the rules were absolute - only one liar among them - how did these accounts interlock like puzzle pieces?

All eyes now turned to the man in the stained lab coat.

"I..." The doctor's voice cut through the tension like a scalpel. "Am Dr. Zhao. As evident." He plucked at his soiled garment. "Prior to this farce, I was performing craniotomy on a woman with rapidly growing intraventricular tumor. The mass had already caused mild hydrocephalus - every second mattered."

His clinical tone sharpened. "I'd chosen frontal lobe approach, CT-guided ventricular puncture. High risk, but she insisted - wanted more time with her young son."

A muscle twitched near his eye. "The earthquake struck as I removed her skull flap. Imagine attempting microsurgery while the world convulses. I tried replacing the bone fragment, but..." His hands sketched futile motions. "Nurses collided with me. A medication cart took out my legs. Then the ceiling..."

The group shifted uncomfortably. His barrage of medical jargon formed an impenetrable shield - any fabrication would go undetected.

"Dr. Lee," the burly man interjected, "where are you from?"

"I don't recall residency being part of the rules," the doctor snapped.

"More you share, more credible you become," the muscular man pressed. "We're eight against one liar. Withholding makes you suspect."

A dangerous glint entered Dr. Zhao's eyes. "Before demanding my credentials, why don't you share yours... officer?"

The room stilled.

"Fair enough." The man squared his shoulders. "Smith. Homicide detective."

Murmurs rippled through the group. The dynamic shifted - here stood potential salvation in a badge.

Barrett's tattooed fingers drummed the table. "Easy there, cop. Anyone can lie during break time."

"Enough!" The sharp-featured woman who'd earlier challenged the goat-headed master slammed her palms down. "Whether we survive this or not, we're all accomplices now. Voting someone to die makes us murderers."

Jack Li's gaze drifted to the congealing blood pooling beneath the corpse's shattered skull. The metallic tang mixed with fecal stench from voided bowels. Twenty minutes of "recess" had felt like eternity with death's perfume thickening the air.

As arguments swirled, he repeated the mantra in his mind: My name is Li Ming. From Shandong. My name is Li Ming. From Shandong. The words etched themselves into his synapses, ready to spill forth when the grotesque game resumed.

When the goat-headed master finally clapped its hooves, the writer Tony jumped like a startled rabbit. His account proved brief and unsatisfying - claimed to have been absorbed in novel-writing when disaster struck.

The detective's skepticism hung thick, but Barrett's sneer cut through: "Who made you captain, pig?"

As tensions escalated, Jack Li studied the human chessboard. The doctor's defensive posture. The detective's performative authority. Emma's white-knuckled grip on her chair. Each player's truth formed threads in a tapestry too coherent for random chance.

Yet the card beneath his palm remained - bright crimson lie among eight truths. Unless...

His nails bit into flesh. The game master's words echoed: "There is exactly one liar." Absolute. Infallible.

Then why did these stories from Yunnan preschools to Shanghai operating theaters weave together so seamlessly? What pattern emerged when you connected seismic destruction across provinces?

The cold realization slithered into his mind: perhaps the lie wasn't in the stories, but in their very presence here. If all accounts were true... then the impossible connective tissue binding them revealed a larger falsehood.

But the corpse's empty eye sockets offered no answers. Jack Li closed his eyes, repeating the incantation that might yet save him:

My name is Li Ming.

From Shandong.

My name...

"My name is Luck, I'm an attorney." The aloof woman crossed her arms, her expression glacial. "Under different circumstances, I'd be handing out business cards instead of meeting you all in this godforsaken place."

Her dry humor fell flat, though she seemed unfazed by the lack of response.

"Before arriving here, I was preparing court documents for a fraud case involving two million yuan." When she emphasized "two million," most faces remained impassive except Barrett, whose eyebrows shot up. "Two million?"

"Correct. While lawyers are supposed to be impartial, we're still human. My client resorted to loan sharks to support his family - though that's another illegal matter entirely, unrelated to my case."

Her manicured nails tapped the table. "The earthquake struck while I was driving to meet my client near Wuhou Shrine on Qingyang Avenue. I wasn't speeding - maybe 40 km/h - when the road split open before me."

"I braked hard, stopping inches from the fissure. Then came the sickening crunch of metal as cars piled into me from behind. My Mercedes got shoved into the crevasse. Next thing I knew, I woke up here."

As her narrative concluded, three participants remained silent.

"Wuhou Shrine..." Dr. Lee adjusted his glasses. "The one in Chengdu?"

"Yes. I practice there."

The revelation confirmed the earthquake's nationwide reach. With each conflicting account, identifying the liar became increasingly complex.

"My turn." Officer Liu's calloused hands flexed. "As mentioned earlier, I'm Smith Liu from Inner Mongolia, criminal police."

"Prior to this nightmare, my partner and I were staking out a fraud suspect involved in a two-million-yuan case - the largest this year in our jurisdiction."

"For three days we lived in that surveillance van, surviving on gas station food and caffeine. But here's the thing..." His throat bobbed. "Running out of cigarettes? That's worse than hunger for grown men."

"I sent my partner to restock while I maintained watch. Then the ground started heaving. Before I could react, something thin and vicious snaked around my neck from the backseat."

His finger traced the angry welt beneath his collar. "Even with combat training, I couldn't reach my attacker. Slamming the seat backward gave me breathing room, but my legs got pinned under the steering column. Then something hard connected with my skull."

The room tensed. Unlike others' accident narratives, his involved deliberate violence. Suspicion thickened the air.

"Bullshit." Barrett's chair screeched as he leaned forward. "Your story contradicts the lawyer's. She's prepping for trial - meaning her perp's caught. Yours is still at large. One of you's lying."

Officer Liu's jaw tightened. "Different cities, different cases. This 'game' wants us paranoid, jumping at shadows."

Jack Li observed silently, willing the conflict to escalate. Every misplaced accusation brought him closer to victory.

As the tension peaked, a timid voice interrupted. "I... I'm Taylor." The心理咨询师's hands fluttered like wounded birds. "From Ningxia. I was awaiting a client - a kindergarten teacher struggling with..."

Her gaze flicked toward Emma. "Surveillance cameras in every classroom. Parents monitoring teachers like prison guards. She needed help setting boundaries."

Barrett's smirk returned. "Convenient. Another crossover story. Your 'client' wouldn't be our dear Emma here?"

"Impossible!" Officer Liu cut in. "They're from different provinces!"

"Coincidence?" Luck's polished nails drummed a staccato rhythm. "Why else would nine strangers' stories interconnect? The liar's hiding in these overlaps."

Her accusation hung like a guillotine blade. Jack Li's pulse quickened. Had they unraveled his advantage?

The game's balance teetered. One wrong vote would cascade into catastrophe.