Why it never ends

Chapter 1251 Victory or Loss
Kiki sat down next to Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus glanced at her, and the two smiled at each other without saying anything.

After a while, another person ran up and sat down next to Kiki—it was Stella.

"What kind of sauce did you guys have?" Stella looked curiously into the other two's arms and quickly noticed that their sauce cups contained the same dark brown barbecue sauce as hers. She sighed, lifted the lid, and poured all the sauce onto the salad.

Kiki belatedly realized that the person sitting next to her was Stella, and she suddenly blushed and became flustered in the night breeze.

"Are you alright?" Stella's gaze fell on Eucalyptus. "I haven't seen you say much on the way here—where's your friend? Why isn't she here?"

“She went to find the toilet,” Eucalyptus said. “She should be back soon.”

Stella let out a soft hum.

Looking at the tranquil river before her, Eucalyptus suddenly realized that perhaps the two people beside her had come to her because they saw she was alone. This touched her, but also made her a little nervous.

Stella didn't say anything more, but quickly finished what she was eating. She crumpled all the lunchboxes, put them all into a paper bag, rolled them up a few times, and casually put them aside.

"And you?" Stella asked Kiki. "Did you have fun tonight?"

“…Happy.” Qiqi said shyly.

"Yes, I'd be happy too! You're awesome!" Stella casually placed her hand on Kiki's shoulder. "That was a beautiful win!"

Kiki felt a bubble of happiness bubbling in her heart, but only a faint smile appeared on her face. She understood Stella's words, but didn't know how to respond, so she asked Eucalyptus to translate for her.

“She said she wished she hadn’t been so harsh on Gabrielle,” Eucalyptus said softly. “The girl named Gabrielle seemed very sad.”

“That’s normal. We almost lost back then.” Stella shrugged matter-of-factly. “That’s how people who are very competitive are.”

"Maybe this isn't good," Qiqi whispered.

"Huh? Why?"

As Stella leaned down to look at her, Kiki blushed again. She glanced at Stella cautiously, gathered her thoughts, and spoke slowly but steadily, "Because... winning or losing isn't the most important thing."

"Why?" Stella asked again.

Qiqi was stumped – she hadn’t expected that this seemingly self-evident truth would require explanation, so she couldn’t say anything for a moment.

“Kiki probably thinks that Gabrielle’s feelings are more important than winning or losing,” Yuga said in the Third District language. Although Kiki couldn’t express it, she understood Yuga’s explanation and nodded repeatedly in agreement.

"Huh?" Stella straightened up, placed her hands on her hips, and asked the same question she had already asked several times before—

"why?"

Now it was Eucalyptus's turn to laugh. She looked at Stella with some surprise: "It's just a game." "So the outcome is what matters most."

Kiki and Eucalyptus were both stunned.

“…But what’s the point of such a victory or defeat?” Eucalyptus murmured. “It’s just…it’s just a game—”

“If that’s the case, then it’s meaningless,” Stella said. “What’s the point of a game, who’s playing, when it starts, when it ends, what the rules are, what the punishments are, what the rewards are…?”

What's the point of a group of people huddling together to grab a ball? What's the point of two people sitting together marking out a spot with small black and white stones? What's the point of six children standing on a stage answering twenty scientific questions that already have definitive answers?

“You have to take these rules seriously for the game to have any meaning,” Stella said, pulling another bag of chicken wraps from her bag. “These rules trap you in an extremely limited world where everything is ordered by winning or losing, and then we take action until the game ends and the meaning evaporates… Otherwise, what’s the fun in the game?”

Kiki listened curiously as Eucalyptus relayed Stella's words. She watched Stella chewing and let out a confused "Ah..."
"Before the game ends, victory or defeat is everything. After it ends, everything about it—including victory or defeat—becomes meaningless. After all, the game is finite, so let's respect its finiteness first."

Qiqi suddenly stood up.

Stella and Eucalyptus both looked at her.

“…Ah, I, I—” Qiqi pointed to herself, then pointed in the direction where the night fishermen were gathered in the distance, “I want to go find Eleven…See you later!”

"See you in a bit!" Eucalyptus and Stella said in unison.

……

Under the same sky, Clara, Slay, Simona, and Zoe sat together in Mrs. Brownbo's drawing room.

The process was roughly the same as last time; everyone started with a dinner where no one touched their knives or forks.

However, unlike last time, everyone wore masks from the moment they entered the reception hall.

Zoe didn't think the mask was very useful, because she could almost instantly recognize who had participated in the last game from everyone's attire and voices. However, this time the name tags on the table had been taken away, and there were several people she only vaguely remembered, unable to recall their names at all.

As the four of them ate together in the square in the evening, she and Simoya recounted everything that had happened last time to Sire and Clara. Halfway through the story, Clara suddenly started analyzing some game details with Sire and provided a considerable amount of off-field information. It was then that Zoe suddenly realized a fact again—the two people they had brought with them were both police officers.

She had known for a long time that Si Lei and Clara were police officers, but only now did she realize how perfectly their professions matched.

On their taxi ride to Lady Blancboe's house, Clare shared a list of guests from the official archives who attended the banquet on the night the Duke was poisoned—there was indeed a salon held at the villa that night, with many guests, including several who were close friends of the Duke of Blancboe.

However, the theme of the party that night had nothing to do with the Duke. He neither came out to greet anyone, nor did anyone seem interested in seeing him. After careful investigation, the police had essentially ruled out all the guests as suspects. They speculated that the murderer chose this particular night because the salon would have captured most people's attention, increasing the probability of a successful crime.

Judging from the results, this seems to be the case.