Chapter 101: The Speech That Drives One Mad

The classroom was almost entirely filled with little creatures of the same sort, all with whimsically adorable, foolishly cute faces, so even Chen Fan couldn’t help himself from wanting to run up and pinch one.

“Wow, are you that Four-Fur Dragoncat?” Wu Qiqi asked curiously, catching hold of a catlike creature about her own size.

“Mm… mm… am I not ridiculously cute?” a playful female voice replied.

Chen Fan, a raccoon, tugged Li Peijun and dropped into an empty seat. By the time he caught himself, the two were already fondling each other’s tails.

“Your tail feels nicer than mine.”

“Your tail is bigger; it’ll keep you warm in winter.”

“Can you control your tail to move?”

The Dragoncat nodded and its pointed ears trembled slightly as it said, “I can’t. Can you? I can only control my ears.”

“I can’t either.” Wu Qiqi bobbed her own round ears in reply.

The crisp sound of high heels echoed down the corridor, and Chen Fan’s eyes were drawn there too.

“I didn’t expect the instructor to be a duck.” He sat with crossed arms, awkwardly trying to make himself comfortable in a chair that was far too small, half his backside hanging over the edge.

“Quack~ Before class, attendance. Today we have a pop quiz. No one absent, right?” Duck Teacher said, pushing her old-fashioned spectacles up onto her flat beared nose and trying to make out each student.

“Four-Fur Dragoncat.”

“Here!”

“Psyduck.”

“Here!”

“Little Lucky Cat.”

“Here!”

“Raccoon Cuteness Two.”

“Here!”

“Melancholy Bear.”

“Here!”

…

After one round, Chen Fan realized there were only two boys in this game: himself and Li Peijun. The rest were all girls.

“Drowsy Sloth.”

Duck Teacher lifted her eyes from the roster, scanned the room, and called again, “Is Drowsy Sloth here?”

“Here…”

“Next time, answer ‘here’ faster. Quack~”

Li Peijun, usually the noisiest talker, seemed oddly subdued, clumsy with nerves. He had barely begun to raise his hand when the teacher finished calling everyone, and had to let it drop back from midair.

“Today’s quiz is a team game. We’ll use the Green Prairie as the scene. Quack~ Now let me explain the rules in detail, quack~”

Chen Fan had no desire to tie his identity to anything as obvious as a frying pan, so he let himself drift into daydreaming.

The other endearing creatures were pinching one another’s faces, comparing whose fur felt softest. Chen Fan wanted in, but they were all girls, so it felt wrong to start with them.

Then he looked at Li Peijun. The chaos-maker who usually caused trouble was, this time, listening with startling seriousness, not even blinking.

“All right, rules understood? Come up and draw identities, quack~”

With casual ease, Chen Fan’s small hand slid, gently lifting the corner of a card and slipping it into his pocket without any sign.

“Hey, I don’t even have a pocket.” He rubbed at himself, checking his plush fur, and found no place to store anything.

“Drowsy Sloth, quack~ come up and take your card. You’re the last one.”

“I’ll get him. I don’t know what’s wrong with this guy.” Chen Fan turned slightly, carefully handing the card to Li Peijun.

He still took his old seat, number six. Familiarity had become a kind of rhythm.

“Game on. Quack~ Night has fallen; close your eyes.”

The Devil strikes.

As soon as his eyes opened that first night, Chen Fan eagerly announced his identity to his teammates and confirmed their positions: Psyduck at seat five, Cold Bunny at seat seven, and raccoon Wu Qiqi at seat one.

“Three wolves in a row… better choose the knife near seat one.” he reasoned, then, after weighing the signs once more, held up two fingers.

The four cute players exchanged glances and finally chose to target seat two. They assigned seat seven to make a bold jump, and told Chen Fan at six and Wu Qiqi at one—both raccoons—to execute the counterclaim.

After the others closed their eyes, Chen Fan, as the Devil, could verify whether one player was divine. He fixed on seat twelve, Li Peijun, and a faint smile tugged at his mouth…

“It’s dawn, quack~ Now we elect the sheriff. Raise your hands if you want to run, quack~”

A Devil in the lineup gives the wolf side a slight edge from the start, especially if a divine role is verified the first night. As planned, the wolf side broke convention and all four raised their hands for sheriff.

“Start with seat twelve.”

“I… am… the… seer… last… night…” Li Peijun spoke like toothpaste from a tube. By the end, he could barely hold himself in and mixed spoken lines with signs—hardly fifteen words in a full minute.

A little twitch ran across Chen Fan’s face; only then did he fully understand. “No wonder the average game runs seventy-odd minutes. With a few more sloths in it, it’d be three days and three nights of attrition.”

“Time. Seat eleven, your turn.” Duck Teacher checked her watch, looking a little awkward.

Through Li’s fragmented explanation, Chen Fan understood the core: he hadn’t managed a full three-minute sheriff speech, but he had delivered one crucial verification.
Seat one is wolf-checked.

He didn’t know whether anyone else had caught it, but the bombshell had completely disrupted last night’s plan. Since seat one had been marked, even a counterclaim would probably never stick.

Now Chen Fan only hoped seat one understood twelve and wouldn’t foolishly counterclaim, or he’d be riding a rocket out of the game immediately.

Seat eleven was Four-Fur Dragoncat. Moments before, to hear twelve clearly, she had even pricked up her delicate ears.

“Seat eleven is a good-card. Twelve’s speech is… well, too messy, but in short it says raccoon seat one is wolf-checked. I personally lean toward trusting twelve. Wolves wouldn’t send someone who can barely speak to make a hard jump, right? So I’ll just wait to see if anyone else jumps first.”

That kind of reversal is possible in theory, but most wolves usually send their best to jump. Some may feign weakness on purpose, but they wouldn’t send someone who can barely communicate with words; that’s too pathetic.

Especially among girls, they tend to believe the weaker side, and sometimes instinct is more useful than logic.

Seeing the plan collapse, Chen Fan had to hope his front-position teammates could improvise. Letting one stay low would be fine, anyway. The seer was a three-minute speaker who couldn’t even complete a proper sheriff pitch. Two more nights of suffocating quietly isn’t too bad; there’s still some margin if one wolf is lost.

Then it was seat seven’s turn, the wolf teammate Cold Bunny. The girl nevertheless jumped up boldly.

“I’m the seer. Last night I checked seat eight and found good. Sheriff flow: six first, then nine. I prefer to check neighboring seats. Seat twelve’s speech is unclear, but so many people before you have supported him that I think this is an organized wolf plot. Give me the badge. Eight is solid; bottom-seat speech, over.”

Now a major dilemma faced Chen Fan. His lead teammate, following the original tactic, was still moving on as planned, and with the situation turning unpredictable, Chen Fan started to wrestle with what he should do.

I have a Devil card. What should I do right now?