Two verdicts appeared at the same time, the first was encouragement, and the second was a judgment of despair.

The blood on the stairs of the Naihe Bridge slowly dispersed, revealing the steps again.

At the same time, Yu Xing heard a woman's scream, a scream of fear that seemed to pierce the soul.

Yu Xing took off his mask and seemed to sense something in the eyes of the surrounding specters, looking towards the stairs.

"It's him! He's the waiter!"

"We've been deceived!"

Although the specters were surprised and angry, none of them attacked him.

Yu Xing stared at the stairs without speaking.

A few seconds later, a woman appeared at the end of the stairs, it was Little Yan.

She was covered in blood, as if she had just been pulled out of a pool of blood. When she saw Yu Xing, she screamed, "Help! Help—!"

Little Yan's leg seemed to be broken, and she stumbled and crawled down. Just as she was about to fall directly from the gap in the stairs to the first floor, a black hand reached out from behind her, grabbed her hair, and dragged her into the darkness.

Her fingers clung to the steps, leaving only a few bloody marks on them.

"Ah—"

A scream echoed in the darkness, and no one knew how Little Yan was doing now.

"..." Zhao Yijiu also took off his mask and witnessed a short segment of the "erasure" with Yu Xing.

They also didn't know what was behind that black hand, but it was something that could take Little Yan's life. Even if Little Yan tried to escape and survive with all her might, she couldn't escape the fate of erasure.

"If you can't save her, at least try to avoid the same fate." Yu Xing said to the silent Zhao Yijiu, then saw a wisp of green smoke drifting in from a distance.

The green smoke paused in front of him for a moment, then seeped into his body.

Yu Xing had a gut feeling that Yi Qing had entered the Green-Capturing Dream.

The deduction system's prompt sounded at this moment.

【Exiting Deduction Imminent】

...

After a moment of distortion, Yu Xing heard the settlement from the darkness.

【Deduction Prompt: Confrontation-type deduction game "Haunted Bar" has ended】

【Ranking: 1】

【Obtained additional reward for first place: "Evil Ghost Mask"】

【Due to the deduction being a non-positive conflict-type confrontation deduction, in order to ensure fairness, the system has retrieved the shattered personality masks of the deceased deductionists】

【Degree of Personality Alienation Growth: 0】

【Rating: a】

【Obtained Deduction Points: 850 (Rating Bonus) (Ranking Bonus) (Specter Slayer) (Green-Capturing Ghost Infiltration Bonus)】

【Mainline Completed: 4/4】

【All mainline tasks completed, can now choose any type of deduction】

【Obtained Offering: Green-Capturing Dream】

【Exiting Deduction】

...

The daylight brightened, and the clock on the wall started ticking again. Yu Xing opened his eyes, accustomed to the dim light of the bar, and felt a sense of openness in this bright space.

After regaining full awareness of his body, he poured a pot of water from the electric kettle, turned it on, and looked at himself amidst the sudden noise.

Good, there was no hole in his head.

The pain had disappeared, leaving only a lingering sense of unease from not wanting to experience it again.

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the deduction prompt panel that suddenly had a lot more information, and read it carefully.

【You have reached the requirements for promotion to the Divergent Level. The next deduction will be forcibly initiated in three days, as a special solo deduction. Surviving will complete the promotion】

"Hmm... the points are indeed enough. I've never had a special deduction after being promoted to intermediate or advanced, so there should be a lot of differences after the Divergent Level." Yu Xing squinted his eyes and thought, feeling that it was similar to downloading an update in an online game.

A special solo deduction was like the process of downloading an update package.

"The deduction is forced to start in three days, is it to give the deductionist time to prepare? I can ask Little Ququ about what to watch out for in this deduction." He quickly decided to freeload some information and was very much looking forward to this deduction.

Then, he looked at his current personality mask template.

【Personality Mask? Xing】

【Owner: Yu Xing】

【Basic Information: Male, 185cm tall, 65kg, Age*#€*# (Error Occurred)】

【Identity: Advanced Deductionist (5002/5000)】

【Mask Composition: Calm 18%, Madness 21%, Kindness 9%, Gentleness 9%, Indifference 10%, Evil 8%, Spontaneity 2%, Laziness 1%, Tenacity 7%, Chaos 14%】

【Owner Description: After observing several deductions, I finally understand what's wrong with you. This is an unkillable person, and the degree of personality alienation has exceeded the limit of human rational thinking. So why can you remain rational? Or rather... you don't actually have rationality at all. Hiss, it's terrifying to think about.】

【Personality Offering: &#*|*^ (Data Error), Candle Tears, Unsettling Doll, Green-Capturing Dream (Worn 4/6)】【Personality alienation degree: 51% (Personality alienation degree exceeding 20% will have a negative impact on the deductionist's personality. Your personality alienation degree is too high, please suppress the evil)】

【Deduction Mall: Selectable】

【Wish List: 1 item entered】

Discover the complete story on pawread dot com.

【Deduction Game Direction Selection Market: Selectable】

In the previous few deductions, Yu Xing didn't pay much attention to the data other than points and offerings. Today, he took a good look and found that many things had changed.

The most obvious change was in the holder's description. The system was no longer just a simple "you're not right."

Looking at the new description, Yu Xing let out a laugh from his throat, without denying it to himself.

In addition, there was another change in the data, which was the proportion of his personality mask.

The percentages of madness and chaos each increased by one percent, while kindness and gentleness each decreased by one percent.

Yu Xing recalled and found that there didn't seem to be any problem.

After entering the absurd deduction game, he encountered ghosts more frequently, and most of them were ghosts and people burdened with guilt. Dealing with these things would indeed have a subtle influence on him.

However...

Why is the total percentage of his personality weight 99%? Who took the remaining 1%?

He was very interested in this, because based on his past experiences, there were too many possibilities for the missing one percent.

Quite interesting, isn't it?

Yu Xing looked ahead, his gaze unfocused, as if he was casually looking at a certain point in the void.

After a while, he came to his senses and let out a sigh.

The Haunted Bar rewarded him with a prop called the Evil Ghost Mask, which he studied and found it was used for disguise.

【Evil Ghost Mask: When worn on the face, it can disguise the appearance as a specter in the current deduction game. However, the mask is visible, and it becomes ineffective when removed. Usable 5/5 times】

It was a fairly useful item. Coupled with the 【Meng Po Soup (Fake)】 to restore the personality alienation degree, the 【Alice's Ruby】 that could activate Alice's Hell deduction game, and the 【Time Seal】 whose function he was completely unaware of, he now had four items.

It's worth mentioning that with his current level, the items could not be embedded in the personality mask, so he always carried these items with him. He glanced at the Meng Po Soup, which was packaged in a blue box. Fortunately, this thing wasn't really a bowl of soup, but a semi-transparent pill of a different color.

Yu Xing estimated that before long, Zhao Mou would come to him to buy the Meng Po Soup. At that time, it would depend on how much the Zhao Family was willing to offer in exchange for it, if the items offered for exchange were sincere enough, he wouldn't mind parting with it.

The Zhao Family should be able to find out about his current situation. He wasn't short of money, so the Zhao Family shouldn't do something as foolish as using money as a bargaining chip. Otherwise, it would be a disgrace to one of the three major families.

After organizing this information, Yu Xing poured the boiled water into a cup, and waited for a while until it was cool enough to drink. He took a sip to moisten his throat.

Hmm... it didn't taste as good as Yi Qing's hot tea.

He rubbed his clean hair, feeling comfortable without the sticky feeling of blood in the bar. Yu Xing was about to take the dagger off the personality mask and let Yi Qing come out for a walk to see the new world, when he heard a light tapping sound coming from the window.

The sound was neither loud nor soft, enough for him to hear, but it didn't seem to have any aggressiveness or destructive power.

He was taken aback and looked towards the window, only to see the glass, without any figure.

Then he chuckled lightly to himself. He didn't live on the ground floor, so how could he see anyone outside?

If he really did see someone, it would be a horror movie. But it was broad daylight now, and even if it were a horror movie, it wouldn't cause much of a stir.

"Thud, thud, thud."

The tapping sound continued, as if it wouldn't stop until he looked. The rhythmic sound couldn't have been caused by a bird accidentally hitting the window.

Yu Xing squinted, walked over, and opened one side of the window glass and screen against the sunlight.

There was naturally no one outside, no ghost either. But on the outer window frame, there was a card pressed down by a stone, along with a black rose.

The moment he saw these two things, Yu Xing's face changed, as if he had seen a ghost in broad daylight, and decisively closed the window.

"Damn..." he muttered, his expression strange. A rare sense of being at a loss and unwilling to face it appeared in his narrow, phoenix-like eyes. After more than a minute, he opened the window again.

The wind blew in, bringing a comfortable warmth over Yu Xing's usually pale face. He picked up the card and weighed the options between throwing away the black rose and the stone or taking them back inside.

"I can't harm innocent people..." he murmured softly to himself. Yu Xing still picked up the black rose and the stone, closed the window, and then immediately turned around and threw the rose into the trash can, before opening the card.

There was only one sentence on the card, written in beautiful brushstrokes, with the ink still wet. It was clearly written not long ago, with a hint of familiarity in the tone."It's been a while, found you again, little Yu Xing. Next time, don't throw away the flowers I give you so quickly~"

"If I don't throw them away, am I waiting to be trapped?" Yu Xing glanced out of the window again.

He was very curious about how this person managed to place things on his windowsill. To be honest, he had never been so reluctant to interact with someone.

And he would never "accept" any flowers from them again.