Ke Shaobin’s question made the students psychologically uncomfortable. After all, they were still cooking and eating in the kitchen yesterday. If the kitchen was full of corpses, they really could not vomit even if they wanted to.
Jiang Pingce said, “The muscle and bones of the human body can only be completely turned into ashes under a high temperature furnace, ordinary fire can only scorch the human body. I mean, there was some ash in the kitchen, not necessarily cremation ashes, but possibly ashes left over from burning other things.”
Yue Xingwen simply turned and walked towards the kitchen. “Just go check it out.”
Everyone went to the kitchen to re-examine the clues. The sharp kitchen knife still had obvious dried blood on it. Yesterday, Liu Zhaoqing was worried that it was the blood left by the murderer after killing someone, and did not dare to use the kitchen knife when cooking, but used his scalpel to cut the vegetables.
Yue Xingwen picked up the kitchen knife and carefully observed it for a moment and said, “It’s most likely to be human blood. There are no chickens, ducks, cows, or sheep nearby, and there are no fish in the pond.”
Qin Lu stared at the bloody kitchen knife and asked in a low voice, “But how could he kill so many adults by himself? There were also men among the eight players, and everyone still had complete limbs, how could they not resist?”
Gao Xiaoxin also said, “If he pursued and killed those eight people, shouldn’t the blood flow all the way from the inn to the kitchen? But there was no blood found inside the inn…”
Jiang Pingce interrupted her. “You forgot the sleeping pills.”
Yesterday, they had found a large amount of sleeping pills in the basement. Yue Xingwen had suspected then that the murderer had probably added sleeping pills to the players’ meal and committed the crime while the players were asleep.
Yue Xingwen said, “He could sneak back to his quarters under the dining table when no one was looking, and add a large amount of sleeping pills to their drinking water or meal. The players took a sleeping pill and fell into a deep sleep, he then dragged the people from the room to the outside of the inn and killed them one by one… Those people died in their sleep, and there was no time to resist.”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “So, instead of directly confronting eight people by himself, he dragged each one who was sleeping heavily out separately and killed them. The ones who were killed in their sleep didn’t even scream, so it was easy for him to kill eight people in a row.”
Hearing this, the girls’ whole bodies fell into the ice cellar—— They only went out to play a murder mystery game, only to have their meal was drugged. Who would have thought that they would not wake up again?
Yue Xingwen simply picked up the shovel and raked out all the ash under the stove, and suddenly, his sharp eyes noticed that there were some shredded paper shapes in the ashes. Jiang Pingce also noticed this and took a branch from the side and plucked it in the ash a few times, saying, “Shredded paper that didn’t burn cleanly.”
He picked out the remnant of the shredded paper and laid it out aside.
Since most of the paper had been burned off, the writing on it was blurred. Yue Xingwen picked it up and carefully identified it for a moment, saying, “This paper is made of a special material, a bit like the kind of hard paper used to make playing cards.” He handed a shredded piece of paper to Jiang Pingce, “What do you think it looks like?”
Jiang Pingce took a closer look at it and frowned, “The ID card for the murder mystery game?”
He saw the word ‘Chun Lan’ on this piece of paper and remembered that Miss Su’s maidservant was named Chun Lan.
Yue Xingwen took a closer look at all the remaining pieces of shredded paper and said, “They are indeed props for murder mystery game. THe ones with names written on them are script ID cards, and some of the others are supposed to be script introduction and plot clue cards.”
Qin Miao said, “I used to play murder mystery game where the player would read the identity profile and plot line, after receiving the ID card, and then play as their character. Everyone only knew the identity of their character, and whether they were the murderer, and knew nothing about the backgrounds and experiences of the others.”
Yue Xingwen nodded. “That’s why, for this game, the ID card the murderer got is crucial.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Since most of the script material was burned, it was difficult to tell what ID card the murderer had obtained from the ashes left behind, and the fragmented script description could only vaguely see ‘the wedding night… mysterious death…’ such words.
Pa vlv cba tfiq wemt klat qiba gfjrbclcu, yea ja ifjra la qgbnfv atfs kfgf bc atf gluta agjmx.
Ke Shaobin adjusted his glasses and said, “Xingwen guessed the murder mystery game in advance. If it is a team with weak reasoning ability to take this course, as long as they pull out the ashes in the kitchen to find the ID card, they should also be able to think of <Murder Mystery Game>, right?”
Tef Wlcukfc cbvvfv. “Sc. Ktlr lr atf xfs mief ab mbcolgw atf wegvfg wsrafgs ujwf.”
Ktf jrtfr lc atf xlamtfc kfgf jmaejiis ifoa yftlcv ys atf wegvfgfg joafg tf yegcfv atf ujwf wjafgljir, rb ktfgf kfgf atf ybvlfr bo atf qijsfgr tf xliifv tlvvfc? Tef Wlcukfc jcv Aljcu Ulcumf ibbxfv ja fjmt batfg, atf ijaafg rjlv lc j ibk nblmf, “Xb ab atf qbcv jcv ibbx obg la.”
Ke Shaobin: “……”
If the pond was soaked with corpses, he would have a psychological shadow on the sugar lotus roots.
Liu Zhaoqing took the bamboo pole and rummaged around in the pond, while Ke Shaobin stood next to him with a tense back. However, senior brother did not find anything after searching for a long time. Ke Shaobin froze and said, “Not in the pond either?”
Yue Xingwen said, “It wasn’t burned or thrown in the pond, then most likely it was buried. Let’s look a little more carefully around the forest.”
Eight people immediately moved, carpet-searching the entire forest.
The whole day was spent looking for the bodies inch by inch, and finally at dusk a large pit was found in the corner of the forest.
The pit was more than two meters deep, the surface was covered with weeds and leaves, not much different from the surrounding area. Yue Xingwen almost fell in when he stepped on it, Jiang Pingce hurriedly reached out and grabbed him. Yue Xingwen stood still in fear, and turned back, only to see several corpses piled up in the pit, all of which already turned into gnarled white bones.
Yue Xingwen looked at Qin Lu. “Move them up.”
Qin Lu took out her globe and used plate movement to move the bones in the pit to the ground instantly. Jiang Pingce walked over and counted them, frowning, “There are only seven bodies.”
Yue Xingwen asked, “Does senior brother Liu distinguish between men and women?”
Liu Zaoqing smiled. “Although I’m not a forensic, I’m still very good at distinguishing between men and women, just look at the pelvis.” He pointed to a corpse at his feet. “Men have a narrow lower pelvis, like a funnel, and the angle between the pubic bones is sharp, usually less than 90 degrees; Because women can have children, the pelvis is wide and the lower angle is about 120 degrees.”
He quickly counted the corpses at the scene and said, “These seven bodies, two male and five female.”
Yue Xingwen and Jiang Pingce looked at each other, and the latter said, “The ten players were three boys and seven girls. The girl who played the bride also died, which means that two boys and six girls died?”
Yue Xingwen said, “There’s still one boy and one girl missing. As we analyzed before, the one who left the clue should be a girl, and that ancient romance novel is hers. Then, the remaining one boy is the murderer.”
Ke Shaobin sorted it out carefully and said, “Out of ten players, one male is the murderer, and there are nine left. The body of the bride who fell into the lake was found in the morning, seven bodies were found in the pit, and one girl is missing… Did the girl who left the clue escape?”
The murderer concentrated on his killing and buried the bodies in a pit would not deliberately leave anyone behind.
The most logical explanation was that one of the players had escaped. The girl had sensed something was wrong and used the rag doll to leave clues, and now that she had noticed the problem, she would not carelessly eat the meal here.
It was likely that when the murderer put sleeping pills in the meal, the girl was alert enough not to eat them, but slipping through it. When the murderer starting killing at night, she took the opportunity to escape? When she escaped, of course, she could not run with her suitcase, so her suitcase was left behind and her body was not there.
Thinking of this possibility, Yue Xingwen felt quite relieved in his heart. “One escaped, perhaps that’s why the murderer gave up on continuing the crime and burned the game materials and left. If the players were wiped out, he could continue the crime by killing another bride and completing the seven sacrifice formation. But, he didn’t finish it, burned the materials and left. Did he afraid of a runaway girl to report it to the police?
Jiang Pingce said, “Summarize the clues so far and see if we’ve missed anything.”
Yue Xingwen nodded and said, “The murderer and Su Wanxin were once a couple. Su Wanxin was forced to marry the Zhao family due to her parents’ pressure. The murderer loved Su Wanxin but he couldn’t have her, so he killed Su Wanxin, chose a place based on feng shui to bury her, engraved the word ‘My Beloved Wife Su Wanxin’ on the tombstone, and designed an inn to do murder, wrote an ancient version of Murder Mystery Game based on Su Wanxin’s experience, mixed into the group of the Murder Mystery Game’s enthusiasts, and tricked batch after batch of players into coming here ot carry out his plan.”
Jiang Pingce continued. “He used the Murder Mystery Game’s setup to kill the bride in horrible ways on her wedding night in her wedding chamber and hide the body without arousing anyone else’s suspicion. After a few days, he used the bride’s phone to send messages to players and family members, pretend that the bride is still alive, and then arrange for her to disappear in another city.”
Yue Xingwen said, “His seamless plan had been successful six times in a row, but on his seventh time, he met an alert girl, who sensed something was wrong and used a rag doll and the romance novel she carried to leave a three-section secret code, hoping to be seen. The murderer found traces of the rag doll being dismantled and, suspecting that his actions were exposed, decided to kill everyone to silence them; He added sleeping pills to the meal, but the girl was alert enough not to eat the meal and took the opportunity to escape during his nighttime killing.”
Seeing the other students listening intently, Yue Xingwen paused and said, “This is the complete logic of the inn murder case.”
Ke Shaobin said, “That girl would have called the police after she escaped, right?”
Yue Xingwen said, “She would definitely call the police. But the library removed that part of the plot and restored the crime scene to us, leaving us to solve the case. The content of the burned script for the game is presented in the form of a dream.”
That night, everyone slept in their own rooms as they had been assigned yesterday.
Yue Xingwen had another dream.
In the dream, the grown-up Xiao You sewed a pair of rag dolls, pierced the needle on the rag doll, and wrote on a cloth strip—— He finally read the words on the white cloth, which was Miss Su’s birthday.
She placed the rag doll in the wedding chamber, the face imprinted in the brass mirror was pale and distorted, and the pink dress became more and more eerie under the illumination of the red candle. There was a sound of ‘sent the bride into the wedding chamber outside’ outside. She pushed open the window to take a look, wanted to run through the window, but hesitated. She did not jump out of the window, but secretly hid under the bed.
With a creak, the door was pushed open and the bride was helped in by her two maidservants.
After the matchmaker and the others left, one of them said grievously, “Miss, I heard that Mr. Zhao is a sickly man and he is about to die of illness, your old father sent you here to do a warding-off wedding. Isn’t this pushing you into the fire?”
Chun Yu whispered, “That is, Miss, why did you agree to…”
A soft voice sounded. “Stop it, what is done cannot be undone. You guys can retire first, and leave me alone for a while.”
The two maidservants opened the door and left.
The bride sat on the bed and was silent for a long time.
About half an hour later, someone suddenly pushed the door open and came in. The sound of heavy footsteps ran in his ears, and Yue Xingwen was at this time hiding under the bed from Xiao You’s viewpoint, so he could not even see who the visitor was. He only heard the bride ask, “Why did you come?”
A low male voice sounded. “I come to see you.”
The bride was stunned and her voice was a little lost. “I have already married someone, and in the future we will go our separate ways, and we will not meet again.” The next moment, a piercing scream suddenly sounded in the room. “Ah!”
The dazzling blade flashed as the bride pushed the door open in horror and ran out, “Help——”
Xiao You shivered under the bed, and her vision was shaking the whole time. She saw a pair of feet stopped by the bed, and the man was wearing a pair of black boots, which were embellished with a fine silver cloud pattern.
Yue Xingwen was awakened by the dream.
He sat up from the bed suddenly, and there was another female ghost in red standing beside the bed, staring at him with an expressionless face.
Yue Xingwen: “……”
Being scared and frightened, he rushed out in several steps and shouted, “Gather!”
The group fled out of the forest in fear, Qin Lu exhaled and said with a bitter smile, “There is a female ghost standing by my bed everyday when I’m waking up in the middle of the night, I won’t dare to sleep alone in the future…”
Yue Xingwen quickly adjusted his heartbeat and said, “Summarize the clues.”
He recalled the dream fragment carefully and said, “I dreamt that on the wedding night, Xiao You had also entered the wedding chamber, and she was there to put the curse doll. There was something strange about my dream; She was supposed to escape from the window, but she hesitated and then hid under the bed.”
Upon hearing this, Jiang Pingce said, “This should be a replay of the plot in the murder mystery game. The player who played Xiao You, the girl who left the clue, was under the bride’s bed when she witnessed a man coming to kill the bride and the bride fleeing out the door in panic.”
Yue Xingwen nodded. “I think so too. According to the setting of the murder mystery game, the script that Xiao You’s character got was supposed to escape from the window, and there were ladders outside the window for her to go down. However, in this game, the person playing Xiao You was probably afraid of heights and instead of escaping from the window, she deviated from the script and hid under the bed.”
The next day, the bride was gone. The player who played Xiao You was not sure who the murderer was, and did not dare to tell others, so she used the rag doll to leave clues. The plot of the murder mystery game was scrambled, a witness appeared, and the murderer began to slaughter all the players; and the cautious Xiao You did not take sleeping pills and escaped from here.
Yue Xingwen took a deep breath and said, “Black boots with silver cloud patterns. And the last man who came to the wedding chamber—— was it the doctor or the guard?”
Jiang Pingce said in a low voice. “It’s the guard.”
Yue Xingwen looked sideways at him, Jiang Pingce continued. “In my dream on the first night, the painting drawn by the guard, the belt Miss Su tied, had a silver cloud pattern on it, and that detail would match up. The cloud embroidery thread should have been their couple’s outfit when they were together.”
Yue Xingwen gave a thumbs up. “Your observation is very detailed.” Fortunately, Jiang Pingce noticed this detail.
The murderer of the murder mystery game had finally surfaced, and the puzzle of ‘drama within a drama’ could finally be completely solved.
Thanks for the chapter!!
thank you for this beautiful novel
Ghosts, they are like villains from the animated series of the 90s, waiting for the protagonists to get all the clues and pass the “Reincarnation” before attacking
Thank you very much for the translation 🤍🤍🤍
I forgot the right word, sorry, “Transformation”, of course
“Blak boots with silver cloud patterns”, the black is missing a C🙈
Thank you for the chapter! 😍