Chapter 2: Death Arrives
Captain!
I couldn’t believe that I was the captain!
This meant that after each round of voting, I had a chance to check a person’s ident.i.ty!
If I found the Howler, I could tell everyone by the second voting, a.s.semble all our votes, and kill the Howler!
But if I exposed myself too early, when we fell asleep, the Howlers would definitely prioritize me as their target.
The instructions for viewing other people’s ident.i.ties were written on the role card. There were photos on my phone. If I clicked on the person’s picture, the special app on my phone would display the person’s ident.i.ty accordingly. I could only use it once after each voting.
Did the people who kidnapped us install this special app onto my phone?
I didn’t know. I put away my role card, and observed other people’s facial expressions.
Shock, fear, indifference, excitement; I really couldn’t tell who were the Howlers.
The cold, handsome looking guy, Shang Zhiyuan, spoke again,
“Doesn’t matter if we believe the announcement or not, we should all take out our phones and see if we can contact anyone. After that, we should examine the plane cabin and the cabin doors to see if we can find the real captain and flight attendants. If nothing works and we find a parachute, we could leave on our own.”
Shang Zhiyuan was not the leader, but he made a lot of sense. Everyone took out their phones, but none of them had signals so we couldn’t contact anyone.
Someone checked out the flight cabin and the cabin doors, but besides the food storage and the bathroom, all the cabin doors were locked. We couldn’t find the captain and the flight attendants anywhere. On this entire plane, there were only the fifteen of us.
(If you’re not reading this on fakeftranslations.com then it was most likely stolen!)
Was there no other way besides following the orders of that sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d from the announcement and having the fifteen of us kill each other?
Who is that sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d? And why is he doing this?
I couldn’t figure it out, but my stomach was rumbling, so I followed other people’s lead and took a tray of airline meal to fill myself up.
When everyone was done eating, it was already 12 o’clock, and the harsh flight announcement sounded once again,
“It will soon be 1300 hours, everyone please vote as soon as possible. Pick a Howler to kill, or the plane will crash and everyone will die!”
Everyone became silent. After all, the announcement was forcing us to murder. No one wanted to speak up first.
Once again, the cold, handsome guy Shang Zhiyuan broke the silence,
“Let’s not talk about killing now. How about we vote first?”
With Shang Zhiyuan having spoken up, people finally started responding. Out of my expectations, it was the Fuerdai Qian Duoduo.
“But who should we choose? It seems like the role cards were randomly distributed, so anyone could be the Howler. Even if we vote out a person, are we really going to commit murder? And who should do it?”
I wasn’t expecting the person responding to be Qian Duoduo. You really can’t judge a person by how they look. Even though Qian Duoduo looked like a braindead Fuerdai, what he said was actually profound.
But what surprised me even more was the next person who spoke up: the little girl who burst into tears earlier.
“But… But if we don’t kill anyone, everyone is going to die. I don’t want to die. I still want to go to Nanking to look for my mom.”
The girl cried even harder as she spoke. Shang Zhiyuan walked beside the girl, patted her on her tiny head and said,
“Don’t be afraid. For the first voting, no one knows anyone’s role. Just pick whoever you don’t like, and see who’s unlucky.”
Shang Zhiyuan’s suggestion didn’t do him any good, because as soon as he finished talking, the middle-aged official stood up and said,
“Gelaozi! The sight of you bothers me somethin’ fierce. Ever since this s.h.i.t happened, you seem ta fancy yourself the leader. You got somethin’ ta say ‘bout errything, don’tcha? The way I see it, if you’re not in with the kidnappers, you’re one of the f.u.c.king Howlers. If we all pick him, problem solved!”
Seems like the middle-aged official was taking it all out on Shang Zhiyuan who stood out the most because he couldn’t find the leader of this kidnapping to talk to.
Shang Zhiyuan just responded with a cold smile,
“I told you, I’m only a pa.s.senger.”
This irritated the middle-aged official even more,
“Hmph! Any Howler worth his salt would say they ain’t no Howler!”
The electronic watch in the plane cabin was almost at 1300 hours. Qian Duoduo also stood up and said,
“How about this, I count to three, and everyone point at the person who you think is the Howler.”
“One…two…three!”
Everyone pointed at someone except for me.
Out of the fifteen people, seven were pointing at Shang Zhiyuan. I wasn’t surprised. Honestly, I wanted to point at him too, but for some reason I wasn’t able to reach out my arm.
What surprised me was, including Shang Zhiyuan, seven people were pointing at the middle-aged official.
All of the sudden, I had the most critical vote.
The middle-aged official who was used to being on the top looked at the seven people who were pointing at him with amazement.
“Gelaozi! What in tarnation are y’all thinking? How you gon’ go and pick me! Imma leader! So you believe him just cuz he said he’s a pa.s.senger? What if he’s a Howler?”
Unfortunately, his yelling didn’t change anyone’s decision. No one on this plane seemed to care if he was the district chief or the mayor.
At this moment, the middle-aged official pathetically realized that the vote was up to me.
Usually, the district chief would never look at me even once, but now he looked at me with the same face he had on when he was with the governor.
“Now boy, you listen to me – pick him. One look and you know he’s up to no good. Pick him, and once we get off the plane, I’ll make you the chief of bureau.”
I looked at Shang Zhiyuan. He looked like he has great ambitions and seemed like someone who we could depend on. However, if he was a Howler, he could be a dangerous enemy.
But when I looked at the middle-aged official, I felt disgusted from the bottom of my heart.
I gave him a cold smile and said,
“Your suit pants are Armani right?”
As soon as he heard me ask about the price of his suit pants, his face broke into a smile, as he thought to himself that youngsters are just suckas, he can handle them easily with just a pair of pants.
“That is correct. Buddy you got good eyes. These pants are Armani, it cost about thirty thousand. If you like, I’ll git you a dozen of these!”
These officials are so f.u.c.king generous.
I gave him a cold smile and kept asking,
“But I heard that the salary for the district chief each month is not even worth ten thousand.”
As soon as he heard what I said, his face turned green. Everyone around him was looking at him in contempt. A few of them even laughed out loud.
I raised my arm, and pointed my finger straight at him.
“Sorry, but I don’t like corrupted officials.”
Seven votes for Shang Zhiyuan, and eight votes for the middle-aged official. The middle-aged official was the first one out!
We choose our guy, but do we kill him or not? Who was going to kill him? This became the issue.
After voting, everyone kept their distance from the middle-aged official. Even him raised his guards, glared at the crowd and started yelling,
“Gelaozi! The h.e.l.l is wrong witchu? You gonna commit murder? It’s against the law ta murder people! I’m the district chief, if you kill me, y’all never gunna git away with this! Once you get off the plane, every single one of you are going ta jail!”
Maybe his yelling was having some effect. At least no one seemed to want to kill him. Even Shang Zhiyuan was only glaring at him coldly.
Suddenly, the plane cabin started shaking violently. It seemed like the plane was crashing at full speed.
All the pa.s.sengers couldn’t even stand straight now, and they just then remembered, if we don’t kill him, the plane will crash and everyone will die!
“Hurry! Hurry up and kill him! Or else we’re all gonna die!”
Shang Zhiyuan fell on one of the seats with me. He grabbed onto the seat, stood up and yelled, but he wasn’t planning on finishing the job himself.
Like most of the people, I didn’t want to kill anyone. But if we don’t, everyone was going to die. What should we do?
The middle-aged official was terrified by the shaking plane, but was more alert against us, the living people. His whole face turned red, and he kept screaming at us.
“Who dares to kill me?”
“Who dares to kill me?”
“Who dares to kill me?”
Just as the middle-aged official finished yelling “Who dares to kill me?” for the third time, finally someone made a move.
But I couldn’t imagine who, not even in my dreams. That person was…