Controlled Experiment Chapter 54

Two Missing One – 4

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"Do you know why I went to the crime scene that day?"

Du Yusheng stared fixedly at Li Yao, fumbling to turn off his phone and slipping it under his butt.

"... It's a game of death."

Li Yao stood leaning against the door, he clearly hadn't yet recovered from the shock just now. His eyes kept roaming over every part of Du Yusheng, though Du Yusheng, of course, had no idea what was going through his mind. From his perspective, Li Yao simply looked puzzled.

Still uneasy, Li Yao took a few steps forward, leaning in close to Du Yusheng's head. He pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shone it on the bandage wrapped around Du Yusheng's head. There was no seepage, and the bandage was decently applied. Li Yao lowered his gaze to examine Du Yusheng's body, pressing on several key areas repeatedly, asking over and over again, "Does it hurt?"

Du Yusheng chuckled, frowned, and pushed Li Yao's hand away, teasing, "Didn't you just check? What's wrong? Forget after going out for a bit..."

Sniffing slightly, Du Yusheng paused, suddenly noticing that the scent of perfume from earlier was gone. Reflexively, Du Yusheng looked up at Li Yao's face. Not only was the perfume scent missing, but the glasses he'd had on just now were gone too. What struck Du Yusheng as even stranger was that Li Yao had changed his clothes.

There was a subtle bit of detail at the collar of this outfit, beautiful yet quite understated.

Without thinking, Du Yusheng reached out and hooked his index finger under Li Yao's collar. He wanted to confirm his suspicion, leaning in slightly to sniff around the neckline.

"... You changed your clothes?" Du Yusheng suddenly realised how overly intimate the gesture was and awkwardly withdrew his finger, laughing dryly. "Or did you have a shower? Do doctors always wash that fast?"

Li Yao gave Du Yusheng's shoulder a firm squeeze and lowered his head slightly. Though he didn't say anything, Du Yusheng still heard him let out a heavy sigh.

As Du Yusheng looked at Li Yao, it felt as if that sense of wrongness had once again faded away.

He saw Li Yao nod, as if admitting it. It was a very complicated emotion, one Du Yusheng couldn't quite understand, he only felt that the comfort he found in being around Li Yao had returned.

Why does it sometimes feel like Li Yao isn't Li Yao? Du Yusheng rubbed his fingers together under the covers, and a troubling thought suddenly came to him.

... Maybe, sometimes, Li Yao really isn't Li Yao.

Maybe there are, in fact, two of them.

=========

Li Yao leaned against the window for a while before walking over and touching Du Yusheng's forehead.

The temperature was normal and there were no signs of fever or infection.

Only then did Li Yao pour a glass of hot water and hand it to him, asking, "What did you just say?"

"I said you changed clothes..."

"The sentence before that."

Du Yusheng paused, taken aback.

He pulled his phone out from under his butt. His body still ached too much to move properly, so he waved Li Yao over instead.

Du Yusheng placed the phone into Li Yao's hand.

"Starting from Luo Daheng, to Chen Xin, and all the others in that photograph who've died, they're all connected to this game," Du Yusheng pulled up several text messages for Li Yao to read. "Just like Luo Yang said, it's a game of death. Whether you're the killer or the victim, you die either way."

Li Yao gripped the phone tighter and lifted his head to look at Du Yusheng.

"Why do you say that?"

Du Yusheng gave a helpless smile and brought up the message containing the coordinates.

"I was lured to the crime scene by this message," Du Yusheng watched the changes in Li Yao's expression and continued, "Someone held a gun to me and forced me to change clothes. By the time the hood was pulled off my head, I saw Zhao Liang kneeling on the ground. Before I could say anything to Zhao Liang, right in front of me..."

Du Yusheng couldn't go on, what had happened at the crime scene still felt vividly present, like it was happening before his eyes. The visual shock was real, but what weighed more heavily was the crushing sense of defeat, a frustration that had been bottled up for far too long.

Starting with Luo Yang, the case had been cracked, but not at its root. It still felt like they were being toyed with.

They had gone to every length to find Zhao Liang, only for him to be so easily killed right in front of their eyes.

It felt as though he had finally found the beginning of it all, only to be suspended, treated as a suspect, and dragged into a killing game of unknown design.

Like a complete fool.

Led along, played like bait.

Du Yusheng pulled up the last two messages he had received.

"Welcome to room 4."

"This one came after I replied using the number you just chose," Du Yusheng said with a bitter smile. "I think it's like a series of coded boxes. When you choose different numbers, you see different things, do different things, and kill different people."

Li Yao didn't take in the latter half of the sentence, he only caught the first part of Du Yusheng's words.

I replied using the number you just chose.

"I chose it?" Li Yao repeated, clenching his fist in his coat pocket. "I chose it."

Du Yusheng nodded and said, "Right, why do you think I asked you what your favourite number was?"

Li Yao knew exactly how ruthless Jing Mo could be, his obsession was frightening. This man, who looked exactly like him, never left himself a way out, and never gave anyone else one either. He always followed a path straight into darkness, to the bitter end.

Li Yao watched as Du Yusheng frowned over his phone, deep in thought. He realised that blowing up Zhao Liang was never Jing Mo's real aim. Whether Zhao Liang died or not, and how he died, didn't matter. Jing Mo wouldn't bother wasting his energy. The one he truly wanted dead was Du Yusheng.

Once Jing Mo discovered that the user behind that account name was Du Yusheng, he would never allow him any other escape.

In a round of the game, there will only be one number corresponding to that unique joker card, and now, this number is the one Jing Mo chose. This joker card is undoubtedly in Du Yusheng's hand.

Li Yao thought that Jing Mo was probably trying to push Du Yusheng to the edge.

With that thought, Li Yao walked over and covered the phone Du Yusheng had been poring over.

"You've already been suspended," Li Yao emphasised, "These things have nothing to do with you any more. Just focus on getting better, someone else will handle the rest."

"Someone else will handle it? Who?" Du Yusheng gave a puzzled laugh. "Being suspended means nothing, I'll just treat it like a holiday. The point now is that I have to keep going if I want to find out what happens next. I've been strung along for so long and I'm this close to the answer, you think I'm just going to let it go now? No chance."

Li Yao tightened his grip on the phone and said, "Even if the next person to die is you?"

Du Yusheng froze for a few seconds, then quickly shook his head with a smile.

"... You think..."

The vibration of the phone cut him off.

It was Du Yusheng's phone.

Just as he'd suspected, the new message was a string of letters and numbers, another code.

If it was anything like last time, it pointed to a set of coordinates.

Du Yusheng suddenly laughed and said, "That's exactly how I got lured there last time. What do you think this time..."

Suddenly, Du Yusheng let out a cry and collapsed back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what he ought to do next.

"... I'll go in your place."

Du Yusheng froze.

"I'll go in your place," Li Yao said again.

This time, Du Yusheng was sure it wasn't a hallucination. He violently shot upright and stared at Li Yao in disbelief.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

It was, as far as he could recall, the first time Du Yusheng had ever sworn at Li Yao.

Li Yao looked at Du Yusheng but didn't give him a chance to say anything else. He turned around and opened the door to the hospital room.

"You've been suspended, so take a good rest. If there's anything, I'll check it out for you. I'm going to request leave now." There wasn't the slightest hint of a joke in Li Yao's eyes. Just before he left, he even smiled and said, "I've got seven days of annual leave, that should be enough."

Du Yusheng's mind buzzed.

He stared at the closed door for several seconds, unable to react.

Li Yao is going to go to those coordinates in my place?

He knows exactly what happened at the last set of coordinates, so why is he still insisting on going? Is the man out of his mind? Du Yusheng looked down at his empty hands, suddenly not knowing what to do. Li Yao is a smart man, why would he make such a stupid decision?

It couldn't be for me, could it?

Du Yusheng hardly dared to think about it.

Coughing twice, Du Yusheng made to get out of bed and bring him back.

But the first thing he saw after getting off the bed was the phone Li Yao had left behind on the accompanying bed.

It must have slipped off his white coat without him noticing. Du Yusheng walked over and picked up the phone.

Using the fingerprints on it, Du Yusheng tried a few times and finally unlocked Li Yao's phone.

Much like Li Yao himself, the phone was minimalistic, there were very few apps, just the essentials. Apart from the necessary social apps, there was nothing else, not even a music app. It was like a freshly reset phone.

Du Yusheng bit his lower lip and tapped open Li Yao's message inbox.

There was something he had to confirm.

He remembered that night, when he saw a reflection in the glass, a message that he and Li Yao had received at almost the exact same time.

Thankfully, Li Yao didn't seem to have the habit of deleting messages, every single one was still there.

Du Yusheng began sifting through them one by one according to the time.

That night, the string of code he'd mistaken for coordinates because it looked the same length turned out to be just a page code from a literature database.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Du Yusheng put the phone back where it had been and fell heavily onto the bed.

Fortunately it wasn't, fortunately it wasn't.

Du Yusheng drew in a deep breath.

Fortunately it wasn't Li Yao.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: June 18, 2025 by Angel

Edited: July 29, 2025 by Angel