Brian Carter touched the angel wing pattern on the back of his hand. “I like playing games too. One of the games I play often can be considered one of the fairest card games in the world. In some games, skill can outweigh luck, like bridge, which I play a lot; in others, luck can outweigh skill, like stud poker. But these games have one thing in common: they are absolutely fair to both sides. Once the game begins, luck is also a kind of strength. No matter who has better or worse luck, it’s all part of the difference in ability. The game itself is fair.”

Logan Reed understood what he meant. “What does this have to do with our game?”

Brian Carter looked up at him. “Don’t you think this game is extremely unfair?”

“What?”

“The game has only three rules. First, no violence is allowed. There’s a deeper meaning to this, but let’s set it aside for now. Second, the angel can receive a message during the day; third, the demon can burn a bookshelf at night. It seems like the angel has to find a single book among hundreds of thousands, making the game very difficult; but the demon has a twenty-three out of thirty chance to win the game.”

Logan Reed suddenly understood. “You mean this game is unfair to the angel?”

“No.” Brian Carter shook his head with a smile. “It’s unfair to the demon.”

Logan Reed was dumbfounded.

“For the angel, this game has a way to solve the puzzle. He just needs to follow the clues and find the book. But for the demon, he only does one thing: burn books. No one gives him any hints, and no one tells him where the book is. So the game becomes like this—the angel is playing a puzzle-solving game, while the demon is purely gambling. The angel can rely on skill and luck to complete the game; the demon can only rely on luck.”

Logan Reed argued, “But the angel’s chance of finding the right book is much lower than the demon’s.”

“I said, once the game starts, luck becomes a kind of strength. If the demon doesn’t burn the right book, his luck is zero, no different from the angel. And the ‘no violence’ rule completely kills the demon’s chance to force clues, so the demon must get clues from somewhere else.”

Logan Reed said nothing. His face turned pale and then flushed. After a long time, he let out a heavy sigh and smiled helplessly. “I haven’t played enough games. Brian Carter, is that bridge game you play often fun? Maybe I should try it more in the future.”

Brian Carter said, “If there’s a chance, I’ll play with you.”

Logan Reed nodded with a smile.

Brian Carter’s eyes narrowed slightly. “If the person playing the game with me was him, maybe the outcome of this game would be completely different.”

“Who is he?”

Brian Carter laughed. “He’s a friend I often play bridge with. He’s very skilled. If it were him, he would definitely think of all the things I’ve considered, and then use perfect reasoning to trick me. At the very least, he wouldn’t make several of the mistakes you did.”

Logan Reed didn’t feel embarrassed. Instead, he humbly asked for advice. “I made mistakes? I thought I acted pretty well. When I first met you, I pretended to be very scared so you wouldn’t notice my flaws. Later, I tried to talk and act as little as possible, and just followed your instructions.”

“But you still made mistakes. For example, when I said there was no one else in the library except us and the demon didn’t know where we were, you said, ‘he’s hiding.’ If you were reacting normally, since our angel team has two people, you’d subconsciously think the demon team also has two, and would have said ‘they’ instead of ‘he.’”

Logan Reed’s mouth twitched. “I’m suddenly very interested in this bridge game.”

“But I originally thought I could expose you the first night, but I didn’t expect the bookshelf to actually catch fire. I thought you had an accomplice. But that’s not realistic. If the demon had two people and the angel only one, that would also be unfair to the angel.” Unless the Black Tower thinks the two of you together are on the same level as me.

Brian Carter coughed twice and didn’t say the rest. “On the second day, I kept thinking about who helped you set the fire. There were only two possible answers. First, you can start the fire just by thinking about it, without anyone else’s help. Second, someone helped you. The only people in the library were you, me, and the little girl. Besides the Black Tower, only she could have helped you.”

Logan Reed said, “But even I didn’t know she helped me set the fire.”

“That’s easy to understand. Don’t you remember? The little girl hates reading. If you wanted to burn a bookshelf, she’d be happy to help you. That makes sense. By the way, when she came over just now, I glanced at her hair. Unfortunately, the ends were a bit singed. Maybe she accidentally touched the fire when she was setting it earlier.”

Logan Reed slumped in his chair. “I admit defeat.”

Brian Carter was about to say more, but seeing Logan Reed like this, he shook his head and smiled, saying nothing further.

There were still many things Logan Reed hadn’t noticed, like how he tested Logan Reed and tricked Logan Reed into burning the H-section bookshelf. Or how the three hints from the little girl had already exposed Logan Reed’s identity.

Those three hints had a lot of useless information, but boiled down to just three points.