Ping Jie proactively took charge of the situation. “Let’s account for the clues then, or should I start first?”
But Sheng Canyang said, “Let’s go according to sequence, from room 1.”
Ping Jie smiled, “What difference does that make? It’s the same whoever goes first.”
Sheng Canyang: “There’s no difference, that’s why we’re starting from room 1.”
Ping Jie couldn’t make heads nor tails of his resistance. Losing interest, he responded, “I’m okay with anything, it’s not like I’m the murderer anyway.”
Hai Ri stared blankly for a moment before recalling, “Was room 1 searched by me?”
Xue Chuan laughed. “Yup, that’s my room. What did you find?”
Hai Ri got right to the point. “Are you human? Jie.”
Xue Chuan: ?
Hai Ri explained, “The smell of cherry blossoms in your room is abnormally strong. If it’s not for the sake of masking odor, then that’s how you naturally smell. The mirror in your room reflects a crooked image of a human’s face; it’s not meant for reflecting the images of people, but rather the cherry blossom tree outside the window. Jie, are you a ghost or a yao?”
Xue Chuan was dumbfounded. Glancing at everyone, she said, “Questioning me like this right after starting?”
Hai Ri: “Since I’ve asked about this, then talk about it. The quicker our progress, the lower the number of deaths.”
Xue Chuan: “I’m human, just that I prefer the scent of cherry blossoms. I’m not sure about the mirror, is it crooked? Aren’t you being too sensitive?”
“Where’s the aroma diffuser then?” Hai Ri questioned. “Since you like it, then why is there no aroma diffuser in your room?”
Xue Chuan: “Maybe the clue wasn’t placed in the room.”
Hai Ri was ecstatic. Everyone knew that there was no such possibility.
No matter what the task, strange smells were always key pieces of evidence that would certainly point towards a clue.
Hai Ri didn’t continue speaking and merely lightly touched on this topic. He said politely, “I don’t have any other clues, you guys continue.”
Sheng Canyang was surprised. “Just this much?”
Hai Ri: “Yup, it was very clean.”
It wasn’t impossible to insist on making an analysis of this – Xue Chuan wasn’t human, and definitely had some link to the cherry blossom tree outside. The story in the nursery rhyme had occurred under the cherry blossom tree. The cherry blossom tree could be seen in the mirror just by opening the windows in her room.
Hai Ri didn’t want to speak ill of someone right after stepping forward and stir up drama publicly. He was naturally respectful of women and thus only touched lightly on the topic. It wouldn’t be too late to bring it up again after everyone offered up their evidence and matched their timelines.
Shan Xing hesitated for a moment before raising her hand. “I searched room 2, the room belonging to Chang Ze, Apricot’s fiancé.”
That was the female counterpart of the lovers. Ping Jie asked, “What clues were there?”
Shan Xing: “A letter written to Apricot, saying that she wanted to bring Apricot onto a cruise ship that night so they could escape. Chang Ze, why did you want to escape? Did you kill someone?”
Chang Ze: “The deceased mistreated my fiancée, so I wanted to leave with her. My fiancée can testify to that.”
Fiancée Sheng Canyang spoke up, “Yes, hubby.”
Everyone burst into laughter. Sheng Canyang said, “I wasn’t intending to leave, she was the one who wanted to bring me away. Because of this, we argued and broke off the relationship.”
Xue Chuan asked, “Why didn’t you leave?”
Sheng Canyang: “I love my younger sister very much and didn’t want to leave her.”
Hai Ri was suddenly struck by inspiration. “Where is your younger sister buried?”
Sheng Canyang smiled. “Underneath the cherry blossom tree.”
Hai Ri: …
Hai Ri cast a glance at Xue Chuan. She was looking at him too.
Hai Ri wondered what that meant.
What was the meaning behind Xue Chuan’s look at him, and what was the link between the deceased and Xue Chuan?
Hai Ri wasn’t fond of playing stories with restrictions. The role of lovers was very frequently seen in tasks; the two people would mutually carry the pot and generally act in tandem. One would be the murderer, and the other the accomplice, creating disruptions till no one could determine which one of the two was the murderer. In such cases, the game experience was very poor.
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.
There was a very high chance that Sheng Canyang’s role, as well as Chang Ze, was in such a situation.
Ca atlr qblca, Ljl El wbgf bg ifrr tjv rbwf gfugfa. Po tf’v xcbkc fjgilfg, tf kbeiv tjnf mtbrfc atf gbif bo Jtjcu If. Ca ifjra tf kbeiv yf jyif ab mbbgvlcjaf klat Vtfcu Jjcsjcu. Yatfgklrf, lc atf meggfca rlaejalbc ktfgf la kjr ecxcbkc ktfatfg Jtjcu If xcfk tbk ab qijs, kbeiv tlr rbc yf vgjuufv vbkc ab vfjat?
Hai Ri had already experienced the pain of losing his son once, he really had no desire to experience it again.
Shan Xing: “There’s also rope in Chang Ze’s room. You guys know that the deceased died from hanging.”
Xue Chuan: “Not necessarily, little sister.”
“The deceased may not have died from hanging,” Xue Chuan stated. “The rope marks on her neck were horizontal, it’s impossible for marks left from hanging to be so even. They should be slanted.”
Chang Ze explained, “The rope was prepared for Apricot, along with knockout drugs that you should have found as well. I’d planned to knock Apricot out tonight and take him away regardless of whether or not he agrees.”
How touching, Hai Ri thought inwardly.
Shan Xing: “But you already used the rope, the cuts aren’t neat.”
Chang Ze: “And how do you know that? You can tell whether or not it’s used? It was already like that when I bought it.”
Sensing the stirrings of a fight between the two, Hai Ri cut in, “Any other clues?”
Shan Xing said in a huff, “There’s only half the knockout drug left, she must have used it for the deceased. Apricot, did you lose consciousness?”
“Yes,” Sheng Canyang nodded. His expression was cold, his gaze merciless. “She drugged me. I slept for three hours and when I woke up, my mom was gone.”
Shan Xing had nothing more to say. Chang Ze asked, “Any more questions?”
Shan Xing remained silent.
Hai Ri was worried the two ladies would end up in a fight and hurriedly asked, “Who searched room 3?”
“Me,” Ping Jie said. “There’s nothing much to say about the reporter’s room I searched. He has a newspaper dated one year ago, the time when Yu Shang died.”
The reporter Fu Yuan was the man who pointed out that Hai Ri and Sheng Canyang knew each other. He said calmly, “I’m the reporter who wrote the news that year and blew up in popularity because of that. I received a letter yesterday asking me to come here, for there’ll be a big scoop that can give me another wave of popularity. That’s why I came.”
Fu Yuan continued, “I’m not involved in this round, you guys can actually give me the ‘sheriff badge’ to avoid being set up.”
Shan Xing: “But your girlfriend is suspicious.”
Dissatisfaction colored Fu Yuan’s voice. “Suspicious? Are you not suspicious as well?”
Ping Jie: “Ai, what sheriff badge? It’s not like we’re playing sheriff flow. Who searched room 4? The sky’s going to turn dark if we keep arguing at this rate.”
Xue Chuan: “I searched room 4. That’s Apricot’s room, right?”
Sheng Canyang sat cross-legged in front of the meal table and took a bite of the fish, nodding.
Xue Chuan asked, “You have a doll?”
Sheng Canyang answered while shoveling rice into his mouth. “Isn’t that very normal? I’m a pitiful little girl.”
In good spirits, Hai Ri picked up his bowl and started eating as well.
Xue Chuan: “The doll looks very similar to your role.”
Sheng Canyang said, “It was made by my mother based on my older sister’s appearance. I was very upset after my sister’s death and cried every day because I couldn’t accept it, so she made it and gifted it to me.”
Xue Chuan nodded. “Then why did you tear up your engagement contract with Jin Tian? You hate her?”
Sheng Canyang drank a mouthful of soup and swallowed a bite of rice. Feeling like the taste was not bad, he drank yet another mouthful. “I just don’t like her. She’s always forcing me to do things I dislike. I want to stay and accompany my elder sister, but she insists on forcing me to leave.”
Everyone felt that this was very reasonable.
Sheng Canyang placed his bowl down. “I searched room 5, general Ping Jie’s room. He lives with the deceased, and this is also the room the deceased died in. The medicine the deceased drank contains poison. After discovering the poison, another clue appeared in my phone – the deceased perished two hours after the poisoning took place.”
Hai Ri asked, “Did the deceased drink the medicine?”
“There was less of it,” Sheng Canyang said as he drank his soup. “She probably drank it.”
Hai Ri scanned everyone’s expressions. Everyone had their heads lowered in silence. No one had as good an appetite as Sheng Canyang; practically everyone had left their plates untouched. Hai Ri had already eaten quite a bit.
There would definitely be a tough fight tonight, he’d better eat something.
It was a certainty that nobody would admit to the poisoning in this round. It was also possible that they weren’t sure whether or not the deceased had died under their hands, so before more clues surfaced, no one would take the initiative to admit to having done the poisoning.
Sheng Canyang: “There were many traces of dried blood along the sides and corners of Ping Jie’s room. They were probably present even before today, was there family violence?”
Ping Jie nodded with a bitter smile. “You guessed right. I don’t intend to lie either – there were indeed a few conflicts between me and the deceased. She just couldn’t forget about her dead daughter and was always going on and on about her. I couldn’t stand it.”
“That can’t be right,” Sheng Canyang looked up, shooting him a glance in the midst of his meal. “You wanted to kill her, right? You knew she was having an affair.”
Ping Jie: “You have evidence of that?”
Sheng Canyang: “The deceased’s diary is in the room. It was opened by force, have you seen it?”
Ping Jie: “But I didn’t want to kill her, I just wanted to kill him–”
Ping Jie stretched out a hand, pointing at Hai Ri.
He uttered, “The wounds on his body were caused by me. There’s no need for me to say anything more either – I have feelings for my wife and don’t want to kill her. It’s fine as long as I kill her lover so she can give up on him.”
Hai Ri admitted, “It was him who beat me up.”
Admitting to the injuries would conversely make him appear even more innocent. At the least, there was no link between him and the deceased.”
Chang Ze said, “Lover, there’s a knife with blood on it in your room.”
Ping Jie was taken by surprise. “Only one knife?”
Chang Ze nodded. “Nothing else, or maybe I just didn’t discover it. It’s my second time playing this game, so I’m not very adept at it.”
“This lover is really very clean,” Ping Jie pointed at Hai Ri with a smiling face. “I know of this knife. When I failed at killing him, he reacted and snatched the knife. That knife belongs to me.”
Sheng Canyang found this unexpected. He glanced at Hai Ri, his brows knitting slightly. “There are no other clues in your room?”
Hai Ri smiled. “Yup, I’m leeching this round.”
Sheng Canyang didn’t smile back. He turned around and put down his chopsticks. He still looked as bored and dull as before, but Hai Ri understood him very well and intuitively felt that he wasn’t very happy.
Hai Ri felt like he was upset.
He didn’t understand how him being free of suspicion this round had offended Sheng Canyang.
The last room belonged to Shan Xing, in which an extremely expensive gemstone necklace and leather gloves were found.
Everyone sunk into a state of silence for a long time. This type of silence was present in every round – with a great number of clues displayed before everyone, the good people would need to sort out their thoughts while the murderer would have to fabricate a good lie in response. Roughly half an hour later, everyone was still silent. Some were listening to the audio recording just now and others were taking down notes.
Ping Jie uttered, “Eat some food everyone, think while eating. The night won’t be easy to get through… the sky’s about to turn dark, everyone should straighten out their thoughts.”
Sheng Canyang had already finished eating. With a hand placed on his knee, he gave a small nod. “Jin Tian, you don’t have a motive?”
Hai Ri stared blankly.
Sheng Canyang asked very calmly, “You really don’t have one?”
Meeting Hai Ri’s gaze, Sheng Canyang said slowly, “When was the last time you saw the deceased?”
Hai Ri: ?
Nobody was questioning the timeline at the moment, so Sheng Canyang’s abrupt interrogation seemed like an insistence on finding a loophole. Hai Ri glanced at the people around him who had fixed their eyes on him. “I went to find her at 10pm. She said she wasn’t feeling well and asked me to go over.”
Sheng Canyang asked, “Was anyone later than him?”
Their surroundings turned quiet instantly.
There was actually no one!
Hai Ri was struck dumb. Other than the murderer, he was the last person to see the deceased?
All of a sudden, Hai Ri was no longer so clean. If not for his mom-tinted lenses being too strong, he would think that Sheng Canyang was deliberately setting him up.
Ping Jie said, “I went into my room to rest at 10.15pm and saw her corpse hanging from the ceiling.”
Hai Ri glanced at Sheng Canyang in bewilderment.
Hai Ri: “I don’t have a reason to kill her, there’s no motive.”
Chang Ze: “What use is there in saying you don’t have a motive? Many motives are hidden and can’t be made out. The timeline is the most convincing.”
Hai Ri shrugged. “Whatever, why not match up our timelines then?”
At this moment, there was a knock on the door. The deceased walked in and stretched out half her head. “There’s still ten minutes to 8.30pm.”
Everyone: …
Hai Ri stood up resolutely, not intending to do anything else. Patting his buttocks, he prepared to go back in advance. “Let’s talk again tomorrow.”
Ping Jie smiled. “Be honest if you’re scared, handsome.”
Hai Ri pushed open the door. Seeing the deceased standing in front of him, he exclaimed, “I’m leaving, 886!”
Sheng Canyang stood up as well. In his skintight sundress and beach shorts, his long legs strode forward, leisurely following behind Hai Ri. It was only a mere few steps before Hai Ri reached the door. He still couldn’t resist glancing back. Sheng Canyang directly made his way over. “How about making a bet with me?”
Hai Ri: “What bet, ancestor?”
“The sheriff will die tonight,” Sheng Canyang whispered into his ear.
Hai Ri shot a glance at him. Sheng Canyang turned and left, not paying any heed to everyone’s gazes.
Hai Ri looked at Fu Yuan. He was talking to his girlfriend at the end of the corridor in a low voice. Sensing Hai Ri’s line of sight, his gaze swept towards him, his eyes unkind.
Hai Ri directly opened the door and entered his room.
Actually, it didn’t matter who died as long as it wasn’t Sheng Canyang.
That night, Hai Ri connected his phone to the charger and hid under the covers with his earphones plugged in to watch a livestream. Amidst the sincere calls to the streamers ‘brothers’, Hai Ri tapped both fingers on the screen, sending out countless small hearts. And then, he heard the sound of footsteps echoing along the corridor.
Hai Ri turned down the volume and heard the person walking along the corridor humming the nursery rhyme they heard during the day, while shuffling between the doors of every room.
The ghost crooned softly, “Daddy got drunk one day. Picking up his ax, he walked to mommy–”
They walked all the way to the end of the corridor, to Hai Ri’s door.
The streamer’s bold and fervent voice sounded in Hai Ri’s earphones in a timely manner. “Brothers, move your tiny hands and send me a wave of free red hearts, thank you brothers!”
The ghost hummed, “Red blood stained the wall red… mommy’s head rolled under the bed.”
A head seemed to be bouncing along the corridor.
In his earphones: “Thank you, I Am The Cloud-Piercing Arrow Sent By Your Daddy! Good daddy.”
The ghost knocked on his door lightly.
Hai Ri tapped on the screen with both fingers, madly sending out little hearts as if it was the apocalypse.
The door didn’t move. The head bounced a few times in front of Hai Ri’s door. An eyeball appeared at the crack of light along the door, peeping into the room. Hai Ri covered himself with the quilt. The streamer’s voice came through his earphones, “Many thanks to ‘No 1, No Support’ for the little hearts. Are you using a hack? You tap so fast, ‘No 1, No Support’? I’m a 1, which district are you in?”
Hai Ri typed out, “Northern Hua 9.”
The streamer said, “Aiya, that’s not far. I’m in Northern Hua 7. I’ve followed you, let’s have a meal when you’re free.”
Hai Ri hadn’t even posted a single video on this account; this streamer was his first follower. He replied with a ‘sure’ and then went to listen to the sound at the door.
The sound of the nursery rhyme was very far in the distance, no longer at his door.
In his earphones, the streamer was yelling, “The brothers coming in, give this streamer a follow!”
Ilyz: now that everyone’s roles have been mentioned, here’s a brief outline of the roles they’re playing~
Ping Jie: deceased’s husband, a general
Hai Ri: Jin Tian – deceased’s lover
Sheng Canyang: Apricot – deceased’s daughter
Shan Xing: family maid
Xue Chuan: mistress
Chang Ze: Apricot’s fiancé
Fu Yuan: reporter
thanks for the chapter! ♡
Thank you for the chapter
Hai Ri: let mom show you how to achieve 520 clicks per minute ^_^
Thank you for the chapter!
Thank you for the chapter ( ◜‿◝ )
You can throw as many clues as you like into my face… it’s still useless, my brain just says no xDD
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶
Oh, forgot to say this, thank you for the chapter! The translation flows well and gives me a much needed break after mtl-ing a novel.
I had the same thought it didn’t seem like he had I’ll intentions but MC doesn’t care even if he did 😂
I’m totally wigging out man y am I reading this in the dark ಥ‿ಥ