Chapter 264
The front hall wasn't too far from the entrance. A player sitting in a carriage outside heard the shouts from inside the courtyard and nervously jumped out, looking around. Seeing no detectives passing by, she hurried back to the carriage and sent messages for help both on the forum and in the local spam group.
Fumina: Can someone get a constable to come to Baifu on Jixiang Street right away? I heard someone inside yelling for help, it sounds like someone's been murdered.
Catch the scammers: This is bad! They're screaming for help! Someone's killing me! Is anyone calling the police or coming to help? I can't fight! It's urgent! This is Baifu, Jixiang Street!
By the time the message was sent, some of the players in the courtyard had already rushed out. A few more skilled and daring players remained, saying they wanted to keep an eye on the scammers to prevent them from destroying the evidence. "No matter what, the body is there. You must explain this clearly."
"What are you trying to explain?! We took over this house from someone else. Who knew there was a secret compartment in the front hall, with a body hidden inside?" The man rushed out just as fast as the players. If he hadn't been surrounded by the players, he would have even wanted to rush out the door and leave: "God damn it, this is none of my business! Don't come looking for me!"
"What are you arguing about here?" The little girl who had been guarding not far outside the house walked towards the gate with an angry look on her face, pointing at the gate with one hand: "Since asking you to witness it with your own eyes cannot change your prejudice against us, then please leave! You are no longer welcome here!" What a useless thing, they can even ruin the show after setting up the stage!
"Leave? Ha! Now it's not a question of whether we leave or not!" The players in the courtyard quickly walked over and blocked the gate: "If you don't explain everything clearly, neither of you brothers and sisters can leave!"
The natives who still didn't understand the situation said: "Don't block the door!" And it's a bit counter-intuitive, this is in someone else's home... Never mind, what if they really killed someone? The murderer's emotions are not important.
There were still quite a few local players waiting in the spam group and on the thread. After the message was sent out, players quickly arrived with constables, and within a short period of time, five constables had gathered. By the time the girl realized there was a body hidden in the front hall, the gate had been blocked by constables and other onlookers, making it impossible to leave.
"We didn't know! This wasn't us!" The little girl's face turned pale in an instant. "Before these people came, I had no idea there was a trap here!" Damn it, could it be them who did it? What kind of hatred and grudge is this!
"This is your home. Who would believe you if you said you didn't know anything?" This time, even the natives didn't dare to stand on her side. The fact that she cheated people out of their money might still be debatable, but the body was real! No matter if she was rich or not, life was priceless!
"I really don't know anything..." The place where the corpse was hanging in the front hall was very close to the seat where the man had been sitting before. The man, who was almost face to face with the corpse, was frightened and looked dazed. He ran out with the crowd completely subconsciously, and his brain had not yet recovered its normal logical thinking ability.
"Why are you playing dumb? The body's hanging right there! Who would come all the way to your house, kill someone, and then hide it?" The natives and the players refused to accept this apparently perfunctory explanation. "Just tell the truth!"
"That's right, leniency to those who confess, severity to those who resist!" With the official around, there's no need to panic.
"We don't have..."
"We've all seen what's left... Wait, you invited us to your house so you could choose your next prey, didn't you?"
"Fuck, is this true? Sir, help me!"
"Sir!"
"What do you mean 'our house'? This is what we rented!" The man's head was buzzing with the noise coming from all directions by the indigenous players. He was already in a trance and felt dizzy. His chest was stuffy and painful, and his head was also aching. Finally, he couldn't hold back and roared out his true feelings: "We have only rented this place for a few days. Isn't it normal that we are not familiar with this place?"
"Rent? Aren't you very rich? Didn't you say this is where you'll stay? Tsk tsk." The player excitedly breathed a sigh of relief in his heart: I finally forced these words out... I'm saying that you're liars!
Seeing that things were beginning to develop in the direction they hoped, the other players quickly took the opportunity to sneer at the man and the girl: "What you've been talking about for so long, it's all just a scam."
"I said I didn't admit my mistake, he is the liar!"
"fraud!"
"Pay back the money! Pay back the money!"
Player: Seeing how they spend money lavishly, I’m afraid I won’t get my money back. So let’s satisfy our craving for more while they’re still waiting to be arrested!
"What liar? We didn't say we bought this place. We just said it was a place to stay and we don't come here often." The little girl refused to be treated as a murderer, but that didn't mean she would admit to being a liar. "This place is full of people, and we don't come here often. What's so strange about renting a big house to stay in? Oh, right, you don't have the money to rent it, so of course you don't understand."
"What do you mean! We..."
"Alright, alright, stop arguing!" The constable separated the two groups of people: "If you have anything to say, go back to the yamen and tell them!"
Because a murder had occurred, everyone present was temporarily detained. Not long after, the coroner arrived. By then, the body had been untied from the rope by the police and placed in the yard. Because the death had just happened, the smell was not unpleasant, but it did attract flies.
"The time of death was probably last night." The coroner first made a preliminary assessment based on the wounds on the body and other symptoms: "The cause of death was initially determined to be a blunt force trauma to the head. The wound marks match the shape of the chair hidden in the secret compartment, but there are traces of poison in the mouth, so the possibility of poisoning cannot be ruled out." Since the body was hidden by being hung upside down and there were signs of a struggle on the body, the coroner temporarily ruled out the possibility of suicide.
"When did you rent this place last night?" The player bared his teeth and looked at the brother and sister: Admit it, liar! Accept the punishment honestly!
"Does it matter? We don't have many people hired. If someone climbs over the wall and runs in, we have no way of knowing!" The little girl crossed her arms and snorted, "We rented the house yesterday morning and don't know anything about this place. If there is anyone who could have hidden a body here, it must be the guy named Bai who rented the house to us!" Damn it, they only know that cheap things are not good, and they still say that they will give them a discount because it's not easy for young people to go out... It turns out that they are paying people to pay for their lives!
"Bai? Who?"
"Boss Bai!" Boss Bai is not a nickname, but for various reasons, the name on this person's household registration is the homophonic Bai Lao Da.
"Boss Bai?" The detectives looked at each other in confusion. "Are you sure it's him? The living Boss Bai?"
"That's right!" The little girl looked at the detectives in confusion. "What do you mean by 'living Bai Lao Da'?" Did he die? So suddenly? Was there any chance of getting the house?
"In other words, the Boss Bai you saw yesterday morning was alive?"
"Yes, well... anyway, he told us his name was Boss Bai. If he was fake, we wouldn't know it!" The little girl curled her lips: "We are not locals and we don't know him at all." What bad luck! This trip is really not going well. It seems that I have to be prepared for failure.
Oh my, I've actually managed to catch some gossip! It's not even over here yet... Bei Qiao passed by the government office on his way back to the inn from the restaurant. He'd originally just wanted to take another look at the wanted posters, but unexpectedly, he ran into a group of people who looked very familiar: "Aren't these the scammer siblings and their fellow players from before? They've been taken to the government office."
According to information obtained on the forum, players went to the house to expose the scammers and unexpectedly discovered a body hidden in a secret compartment in the front hall. The siblings refused to admit any connection to the body and were forced to reveal that the house did not belong to them. However, a new problem arose. The siblings claimed that they had rented the house from Boss Bai the previous morning, but the government had already confirmed Boss Bai's death the night before and sent the body to the funeral home.
The case of Boss Bai's death had not been closed yet, and now a new murder had occurred. The two murders were related to each other. After the prefect learned the news, he decisively sent people to instruct the detectives under him to be vigilant when patrolling. If they encountered any abnormal situation, when human lives were at stake, they were allowed to execute first and report later.
"Another troubled time..." The prefect frowned and looked outside. The post station had received news that a small country to the south had suffered another natural disaster, leading to a food shortage. Who knew if they would attack us? If someone took advantage of the situation...
The prefect had a lot of things to deal with, and he temporarily handed the new murder case over to the newly appointed Captain Ming.
"Okay, sir! I...I will go right away!" Mingfu clasped her fists and left after receiving the order: It was the first time she was called out for her position, and it felt quite fresh.
"Um."
A murder case of this magnitude naturally wouldn't be left to a novice like Mingfu alone. By the time Mingfu arrived at her destination, veteran detective Zhang Xiu had already arrived. He divided the people present into several groups, taking their statements and verifying each other's statements.
Mingfu had often visited the government office as a child and had a good relationship with Old Lady Zhang. As she sat down to take the transcript, she secretly reached into her pocket and slipped a few throat lozenges into Zhang Xiu's mouth. Zhang Xiu took the lozenges and popped them in her mouth. As she turned to talk to the next group of people, she couldn't help but frown. "How come this candy clears my nose?" The smell in the room wasn't very pleasant.
Mingfu also ate a piece of candy herself, and then she discovered the problem, but she couldn't force everyone else present to wash their feet, so she had to take out another piece of candy with a stronger smell to suppress her sense of smell, and gave another piece to Zhang Xiu.
"The Boss Bai you saw is the same as the corpse in the room?" Zhang Xiu took the candy and stuffed it into the small bag on her waist. She continued to interrogate him, "Are you sure about this?"
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