Chapter 97
In the deceased's room, an old man in his fifties or sixties lay in a pool of blood. There was a big hole on his head and his blood soaked the bed.
[Wow, the bleeding is huge.]
It was obvious that he died from blunt force trauma, but the two men and the dog did not find the key murder weapon in the room.
There are two possibilities for the murder weapon not being in the deceased's room: one is that it was hidden in a secret place after being used by someone; the other is that the murderer took the murder weapon away after injuring someone, and it is very likely to be in the murderer's room.
The two also discovered another clue: the door lock of the deceased's room was actually broken and could not be locked from the inside. In other words, as long as someone gently pressed the handle from the outside, they could enter and exit the room at will.
At the same time, the guests who were searching in other rooms also found some clues, which made the audience excited.
Looking at the various livestreams, it seems everyone is a villain again. So far, everyone seems highly suspected of killing the teacher.
As the clues were revealed one by one, the audience finally knew what happened that year.
Everyone in the Rose Manor had studied at Yucai Middle School, a private aristocratic school in the city. The deceased was once a teacher and had also taught at Yucai Middle School.
Yucai Middle School not only recruits students from wealthy families, but also allocates some places every year to students with good character and academic performance. Due to its strong faculty and high scholarships, Yucai Middle School has become a place that many students and parents aspire to.
For example, Lin Erdai and Ning Meiren from the small group were able to enter Yucai Middle School without taking an entrance exam thanks to the playground and library donated by their families.
Chef Qin and Huan Banzhuan entered the school through the general entrance examination. Their family conditions were average, not rich, but not difficult either.
As for the gloomy-looking Chu Haoyou and Bai Yu, another person involved in the incident, they were recruited from the neighboring county by Yucai Middle School with generous scholarships. Unlike the children of wealthy families, they could only rely on knowledge to change their fate, which required a great deal of time, sweat, and effort.
Chu Haoyou and Bai Yu, who seemed to be incompatible with each other, gradually became friends, even though they were not in the same class or even the same grade.
Chu Haoyou is a freshman who enrolled this year, while Bai Yu has already entered the senior year of high school and is about to graduate.
For Chu Haoyou, Bai Yu is not only his good friend but also his senior and brother. It was he who comforted and guided him when he was most confused and helpless when he first entered school, which enabled him to adapt quickly and maintain stable grades.
Amid the whispers of other classmates, the two would order discounted school meals from the cafeteria and sit in a corner to eat together, occasionally discussing study problems. They would also talk about the troubles of adolescence and imagine a bright future.
It’s not that lonely.
However, before the future arrived, bad news arrived first.
The first person to be targeted by the small group was Chu's friend.
The elderly Chinese teacher wanted to help him, but in the end he was stigmatized and cruelly fired when he was about to retire.
Lin Erdai stepped hard on Chu Youyou's chest and said, "If you have the guts, keep asking for help. It's more fun to watch you go from hope to disappointment."
What followed was a semester-long period of bullying.
Chu Haoyou became silent and withdrawn, and it was natural that his academic performance declined.
He even took the initiative to distance himself from his fellow high school senior Bai Yu.
Bai Yu finally discovered something was wrong.
Bai Yu secretly followed Chu Haoyou and witnessed with his own eyes the bullying of him by those scumbags. Bai Yu is really a good person. The first time he saw Chu Haoyou being bullied, he rushed out without any hesitation, pulled Chu Haoyou up and protected him behind him.
Yet he was betrayed.
In order to get rid of these bullies, Chu Youyou, who had changed his temperament under long-term oppression, pushed his good friend, who was also his senior, out with his own hands, hoping that the other party would take his place.
In his diary, Chu's friend wrote in messy handwriting: "I really just wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. I didn't think I would kill him. They are all demons, and I am equally guilty."
[I had expected this earlier. It's a book about school violence.]
God knows, a young child, a vibrant life, was lost just like that. My heart aches.
【Put the slogan "Oppose school violence" on the public screen. 】
The reason why everyone gathered at Rose Manor was because they all received the same invitation letter. The invitation letter used the events of that year as a threat, as well as the deaths of two people who later belonged to the same small group as a threat, to gather everyone together.
The deceased on the second floor of Rose Manor was the dean who chose to turn a blind eye.
The teacher's death not only involved the incident of Bai Yu that year, but through investigation and evidence collection, everyone also discovered that not only was Lin Erdai connected to Chef Qin after their meeting, but the teacher also had a connection with the two people present.
The first round of certificate delivery was over, and everyone briefly exchanged important information during the short meeting time.
The second round of evidence collection will focus on finding evidence of the teacher's murder, whether it was disposed of by the murderer, and -
Chef Qin pushed up his nonexistent glasses. "At the end of the third floor, I found a locked bedroom. And on the red carpet at the door, I found a drop of dark red blood that had practically blended in with the carpet."
"I thought there must be something behind this closed door, but I searched the entire guesthouse and couldn't find a key. Even the spare key wasn't for this room."
The others also didn't find the key, and were also very concerned about the bloodstains on the carpet that Qin Dongxiao mentioned.
At the beginning of the second round of evidence search, everyone came to the room at the end of the third floor.
The big black detective at the door of the room sniffed his nose and made a more rapid and nervous cry than before, indicating that there was definitely something bad in the room.
"What if I don't have the key?"
"Wouldn't it be too dangerous to climb in through the window..."
Before Ning Miaomiao could finish her words, Lin Yi, who played the role of a hot-tempered rich second-generation, had already raised his leg and kicked the door.
Violence breaks the situation.
As it turned out, the aging wooden door of the Rose Manor was not very strong and was actually kicked open by Lin Yi.
Is this okay?
【It should be fine.】
However, as the door was kicked open, the program team highlighted three large exclamation marks on the screen, indicating that the next plot would be a high-energy segment.
What the other guests and audiences didn't expect was that they actually found another dead person in this locked room.
[I was so scared! How come there is still a dead person? ]
The room was filled with red, even bloodier than the last one. How deep must the hatred and resentment be?
[Could it really be Bai Yu's ghost coming back for revenge? ]
【It's unlikely to be a ghost, but it could be a human. 】
[Am I the only one with this question? There aren't even any windows in this room, and I've already mentioned that the door is locked from the inside. So, how did the murderer kill the person, and where did he leave?]
[No, this case has too much clues and information, and my brain is failing. Call for off-site assistance.]
The guests present also realized that what they were facing was a locked room murder case.
Relying on the detective knowledge they had intensively studied recently, Qin Dongxiao and Lin Yi began to search for possible secret doors or mechanisms in the room.
However, no matter whether they knocked on the mirror or the wall, they could not find the so-called secret door that could allow the murderer to escape. As the countdown was about to end, they still had not found any useful information.
"Isn't it almost time?"
"What should I do?"
Qin Dongxiao pressed his head, looking like he was thinking hard. Suddenly, he thought of something and his eyes lit up:
"Friends, I don't think our priority right now is to solve this locked-room murder case. First and foremost, we can be certain that someone must have murdered this victim, judging by the tragic scene. This person might be among us, or perhaps the same Bai Yu who secretly sent us the invitation and murdered the Dean of Studies."
"We don't need to dwell on the details. Our most pressing priority right now is to determine the identity of the deceased. My hunch tells me that this deceased person must be hiding a huge amount of information that will help us solve the case."
"Director Huan, I'm not Huan Banzhuan, what do you think?" Qin Dongxiao expressed his thoughts and wanted to ask Director Huan for advice. As a result, he actually found a small problem after asking for advice.
"Wait, something seems to be missing."
After Lin Yi's reminder, the guests and the audience realized that from this moment on, Director Huan seemed to be very silent.
I have a vision.
At this time, Detective Daikoku's assistant also spoke up and relayed the clue that Daikoku had just discovered.
Assistant Yan took off his gloves and was silent for a moment. He looked up at Huan Xu and spoke slowly, asking and explaining to the others: "You are the murderer, right?"
Huan Xu: "Why did you say it was me, and not someone else?"
"The key to the locked room murder case was placed next to the deceased. It was obvious that they didn't want others to find it."
"Perhaps you had other plans after his death, but they were interrupted by unexpected events before you could implement them."
"What's important is how you got out of here and locked the door from the inside?"
"I, um, our Daikoku-sensei noticed that there were traces of glue on the lock, and I remember finding a tape recorder in your room that had been played to the end."
"I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I think about it, you probably used the tape's rotation to stage this murder in the locked room."
Knowing that the other guests and the audience lived in the interstellar age and might not know how the tape worked, Yan Ze gave a brief explanation.
There was a seal-like applause from the audience.
To be honest, if it weren't for Assistant Yan's keen observation, it would have been difficult for them to notice this detail.
With the evidence before his eyes, Huan Xu simply nodded: "You are right, I did kill him."
Not only did he figure out the modus operandi, but he also guessed the "other plans". Huan Xu winked at Yan Ze, with a look that said, "I knew you would guess it."
The reason for creating this secret room is simply to prevent people without eyesight from discovering or even moving the body. After all, the place where everyone "sleeps" cannot be changed at will.
Yan Ze met Huan Xu's affirmative eyes and clenched the hand hanging by his side.
"The person in the secret room should be the real Huan Banzhuan, and you... are Bai Yu."
Before Yan Ze could say anything, Lin Yi's voice suddenly attracted everyone's attention. He turned the body over, pulled open the clothes on the back, revealing a birthmark on the shoulder blade.
"The deceased was indeed Huan Banzhuan. I remember clearly that he had a birthmark here."
It was proved that Huan Xu was not Huan Banzhuan, and it was very likely that he was Bai Yu who was already "dead". Even though the facts were right in front of everyone, it still made everyone feel cold.
Bai Yu is not dead, he has come back and even borrowed Huan Banzhuan's identity to infiltrate their group, just to seek revenge on them.
Ning Miaomiao blurted out, "So you were the one who killed those people before, and you were the one who sent the invitation letter and gathered us here just for revenge. Then, was it Huan Banzhuan, no, should it be Bai Yu, who killed the Dean of Studies?"
[The one who moved the bricks was not Huan, but Bai Yu who killed Huan.]
He was seeking revenge for himself, first killing those two, then killing the teacher. It seemed right, yet also wrong. Could it be that this script could be broken so easily?
[Don't jump to conclusions yet. Didn't everyone just see the clue-hunting phase? The key isn't Bai Yu's identity, but the fact that the teacher is a scumbag. Besides Bai Yu, everyone else has ties and conflicts with him. The real question in this case is who killed the teacher. We'll have to wait and see who the murderer is.]
Assistant Yan also told everyone the same thing.
The two rounds of evidence collection have ended.
Assistant Yan said, "Let's gather in the lobby downstairs and share the existing evidence with each other."
He glanced in Huan Xu's direction and said in a deep voice, "There's no doubt that Bai Yu wanted to kill the teacher, but whether he was the teacher's murderer or not, we still need to collect evidence and investigate further."
Meeting Yan Ze's gaze, Huan Xu put his hands in his pockets, raised the corner of his lip slightly, and said slowly, half-seriously and half-falsely, "Assistant Yan is right. I did want to kill the Dean, but I'm not his murderer. There are people who want him dead more than I am."
The exchange of evidence and clues.
As soon as everyone sat down, Lin Yi couldn't wait to speak and continued the previous topic:
"Huan Banzhuan is Bai Yu. Yes, I remember now. I arrived very early, and when I arrived, there were already two people in the manor. One was the deceased dean of studies, and the other was Huan Banzhuan."
"It seems that Huan Banzhuan must have prepared everything here early in the morning, waiting for us, the unsuspecting ones, to fall into his trap."
"The real Huan Banzhuan may have arrived earlier and was killed before any of us arrived. To avoid being exposed so early, you hid him in a secret room. As we hadn't seen each other in many years and were unfamiliar with each other's identities, you cleverly borrowed Huan Banzhuan's identity."
"As for the fabricated life story you told yourself, I don't know whether it's true or not, but in your story, you were injured, your appearance was ruined, and your personality changed. This way, even if we find any clues, we might not suspect you."
Huan Xu took a sip of the hot water in the thermos, and returned to his original voice, saying nonchalantly:
"The injury is fake, but compared to you guys, that scumbag's life is indeed not that good. He really does make a living by moving bricks at the construction site."
At this point, Huan Xu fell silent, and the program team thoughtfully inserted a shot.
In the locked room, the real Huan Banzhuan was hit again and again by the Avengers with the bricks he was most familiar with. He tried to resist and begged bitterly.
He has now started a family and has established a career. In order to ensure that his children will not be like him, he works hard to make money and wants to give his children a better education.
The man cried and begged for mercy: "I'm sorry, I was wrong, I really know it was wrong, please let me go, if I die, without a father who earns money to support the family, what will happen to the child and his mother?"
The blood-stained brick paused in mid-air for a moment, then fell heavily again. With a thud, the corpse fell limply to the ground.
"You ask me what to do?"
But when they killed him, they didn't ask him how his only blind grandmother would live if he died?
People always have to pay the price for the crimes they have committed. These people should never force the old man who has no children or grandchildren to death in order to eliminate his traces in the world after his death.
Lin Yi testified that Bai Yu was the murderer of his teacher, and the evidence was this brick.
Lin Yi took out the brick he had searched from the bathroom in the secret room, which was still stained with blood.
The dean of studies and the real Huan Banzhuan were both killed by Bai Yu, and the brick stained with their blood was the murder weapon that no one had been able to find before.
"You mean, after killing the dean, I returned to the secret room again and hid the murder weapon in the bathroom?"
"That's right."
Huan Xu shook his head and said with a smile, "That's not necessary."
"Since I made this room a secret room, I didn't want any of you to find it."
"This manor and the rooms you live in are all the burial places I carefully selected for you."
"Huan Banzhuan is dead. The feud between him and me has been settled. I had already decorated his room before you came."
"I don't need to risk some of you curious people opening the door by setting up his room in the middle of the night just to hide a murder weapon."
"And like I said just now, I have prepared a death that suits each of you. In my plan, the dean should be killed not by a brick, but by a pen."
Does the fountain pen have any special meaning?
Assistant Yan followed up with an explanation at the right moment: "As a gardener, I'm supposed to teach and educate, correct mistakes with a pen, and guide children who haven't yet formed clear values onto the right path."
"However, the dean of studies failed to do so and instead aided and abetted the evil, even using his pen to criticize the genuine and diligently teaching and educating senior teachers, causing them to be misunderstood by the world."
Huan Xu and Assistant Yan once again exchanged glances, a look that spoke volumes, "Correct."
Ning Miaomiao's face turned pale as she flipped through a few photos, which she had taken when she was searching the utility room next to Huan Banzhuan's. She also found the key to the utility room in Huan Banzhuan's room.
"There are baseball bats, fishing lines, broken glass mirrors..."
Huan Xu gave a creepy smile: "Yes, these are all treasures prepared for you."
Take Lady Ning for example. What she cared about most was her appearance. So before she died, Bai Yu planned to use the glass from the broken mirror to destroy her appearance and let her see it with her own eyes. For a person who loves beauty, this may be more terrifying than death.
Huan Xu raised his hand to touch the scar on his face, lost in a brief memory: in the gymnasium, Ning Meiren looked at his face with jealousy, and even Lin Erdai shook his head with regret: "She has such a beautiful face, it's a pity that she is not a girl, otherwise I would definitely cherish her."
The girl held the shards of glass in her hand, her expression as innocent as ever. The glass pierced her skin, and blood dripped like red pearls, but she giggled: "Why do boys need to be so beautiful? Scars are the medals of men, isn't that what senior said?"
[So vicious.]
[I feel sorry for Director Huan and Senior Bai Yu. Hell is other people!]
As Lin Yi finished sharing, Yan, the detective assistant, put down his pen and asked, "So the person you suspect is Huan Banzhuan?"
Lin Yi scratched his head: "No."
audience:? ? ?
"So, you said all that just now, were you teasing us?"
Lin Yi probably sensed something from the looks of the guests present, and quickly explained, "I think what the detective said before makes some sense."
"While I personally believe Huan Banzhuan has a strong motive, I still need to listen to everyone's clues. Based on my past experience, premature judgment is likely to be contradicted."
Is there a possibility? Even after hearing all the evidence, you still can't find the real culprit?
【This hurts my heart. 】
[I was just passing by, how come someone kicked me. ]
It turns out that the reversal is always coming.
As everyone shares clues and questions each other, the deeper secrets that everyone wants to hide are revealed.
The members of the small group and the dean of studies agreed not to contact each other again, but the result was that except for Lin Erdai and Chef Qin who had been discovered by everyone earlier.
Through the evidence found in the dean's room, it was discovered that he had a one-way connection with Lin Erdai and Ning Meiren.
The dean of studies was addicted to gambling, and he actually kept some evidence.
In order to maintain his current decent life and his gambling hobby, the dean of studies used the incident of the year as a threat and found Ning Meiren and Lin Erdai.
At first it was only tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.
But human desires and gamblers' gambling addiction are like bottomless pits, and both of them became his ATMs.
Judging from the emails they exchanged, the two had been suffering from blackmail for a long time.
Lin's second generation and Ning Meiren once threatened: If the other party continues to threaten and does not restrain himself, the worst that can happen is that they will fall out and both sides will be destroyed.
Especially the latest message from Lin Erdai: Old thing, believe it or not, I will kill you.
In addition, the identity of Lin’s second generation was also exposed.
The Lin family ran into problems and faced a huge financial deficit. They were in a state of panic. Faced with forced execution and huge compensation, the second generation of Lin sold all his luxury cars. The car outside was temporarily rented by the second generation of Lin.
Just at this time, the head teacher blackmailed Lin Erdai again and asked for 5 million. Combined with the text message, Lin Erdai was probably really forced into a corner.
[When they had money, they could have used it to bribe the dean. Now that they have no money, the best solution is to eliminate him directly. The suspicion of the second generation of Lin has increased sharply.]
As Lin Erdai's face changes, the guests continue to share clues.
Lady Ning and Lin Erdai met again at a banquet. The two who were seeking excitement in private once again secretly had an affair without anyone's knowledge.
After the second generation Lin's family business encountered a crisis, he cut off contact with others.
[Just a joke, we agreed not to contact each other again. ]
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