Chapter 37 begins the evidence-gathering phase.
"At three o'clock in the afternoon, I arrived at the front hall. By then, the guests my father had invited had already begun to arrive at the mansion with their gifts."
"Young Master Luo and Guard Gu will be in charge of receiving the gifts and moving them to the backyard."
"Later, I saw that Master Lin had sent over the wine that my father liked to drink, so I volunteered to personally deliver it to my father to please him."
"After delivering the wine from Master Lin to my father, I had nothing to do, so I went to the venue to watch the rehearsal of the girls from Miaoyinfang. Pan Wuji's dance was especially beautiful."
"However, around four o'clock, the nanny from Miaoyinfang said that the effect was good, so she told everyone to rest for half an hour before practicing again, and then we didn't see Miss Pan Wuji again."
"It wasn't until around 4:40 that I saw the old woman leading her back to the venue. She said the house was too big and she got lost while wandering around."
"At 4:50, I thought I should go see my father. On my way to my father's room, I saw Guard Gu."
"Because Guard Gu and I grew up together, and he developed a leg ailment while saving me, we have always had a very good relationship. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that we are like brothers."
"When I saw that Brother Gu looked a little pale, I quickly went up to him and asked him a few words of concern."
"However, Brother Gu said he was not feeling unwell. I guessed that he was probably tired from preparing for Father's birthday banquet, so I didn't ask any more questions."
"It was around that time, when Guard Gu left, that I seemed to see a fleeting figure coming out of my father's room out of the corner of my eye. I didn't think much of it and assumed it was just a servant who came to report on the banquet to my father."
"Since a servant has already informed my father, I don't need to go over there."
"So I left my father's courtyard and went back to my room."
"Around 5:20 p.m., I heard the servants scream. I rushed to my father's room, but to my surprise, my father was..."
As she spoke, Wei Lan made a symbolic sneezing sound, about to put on a "tearful" act, but Song Rui and several guests quickly stopped her.
Wei Lan stopped joking and finally ended his speech with the sentence, "Then I came here with everyone."
After saying that, Wei Lan even pretended to wipe the corner of his eye.
His performance garnered him a lot of goodwill from casual viewers. Many viewers in the live stream liked Wei Lan's lively and humorous personality, which made the show "Hold On to the Villain's Script" more like a variety show.
At this point, all the guests had finished speaking, and the room fell into a brief silence.
Next, there will be a segment where each guest will be interviewed individually. Basically, the guests will need to provide their alibis and then be asked to guess who was present.
Give the person you suspect most among all the suspects.
Most people suspected Pan Wuji and Master Lin, but Luo Jiayin slyly said that she hadn't noticed anything amiss and that she needed to observe further.
Only Gu Yishen said that he needed to rule out the possibility that he was not the murderer before making inferences about others, and he was not afraid of getting himself into trouble.
After this brief blind guessing game, the program moved on to the next segment: the first round of on-site evidence collection.
The reason why the show "Hold On to the Villain's Script" is known as the most brain-teasing mystery variety show in China is that the production team does not simply provide some clues about locations and items.
The production team meticulously arranged the venue, which also included many live-action NPCs.
These NPCs will provide guests with some of their observations and experiences as a reference, which can be considered as "human witnesses" in a sense.
...
The first round of evidence gathering began, and the guests dispersed to search for clues.
Lin Manxi headed straight for Gu Yishen's "room".
It's unclear whether they were eager to find suspicious clues about Gu Yishen, or wanted to find clues that Gu Yishen was the murderer before others so they could help him hide his tracks.
Since the program's setup did not explicitly state that the murderer would be a single person, Luo Jiayin, who was well-versed in scripted murder mystery games, couldn't help but suspect that there might be an "accomplice" in this murder case.
Although the probability of having two or more murderers in a murder mystery game with only five players is indeed extremely low.
However, in order to avoid the possibility that someone might deliberately hide clues, Luo Jiayin hesitated for a moment, but still followed Lin Manyi's footsteps and came to Gu Yishen's room.
Lin Manxi searched through Gu Yishen's room thoroughly, but found nothing except a note on the desk that read "Zhao Wanyu".
Luo Jiayin merely glanced at the note, secretly memorizing the three words "Zhao Wanyu" on it, without saying anything more.
Luo Jiayin looked around at the furnishings in the room.
She discovered that there were many rare herbs and some books scattered in "Gu Huwei's" room.
Luo Jiayin walked closer to the pile of books and casually picked up the top one to flip through.
It was a booklet recording the formulas for elixirs, containing many detailed prescriptions.
Luo Jiayin recalled Gu Yishen's speech just now.
My martial arts skills aren't actually that high, but fortunately I've read a lot of books with Young Master Wei, and I've always enjoyed tinkering with plants, so I took a different approach and put some effort into refining elixirs, and I've achieved some success...
Luo Jiayin thought back carefully. The production team did not allow the guests to deliberately hide their relevant clues. Gu Yishen was a very shrewd person. Of course, he knew what he had to say and what he could keep quiet about.
Since he mentioned his ability to refine elixirs during his speech, this clue must be somehow connected to today's case.
Luo Jiayin carefully flipped through the manual that recorded the recipes for elixirs.
Soul-Devouring Ointment:
Recipe: Scorpion Grass, Soulflower, Grave Moss
Effects: Effective upon contact with blood; the blood of the poisoned person turns black, resulting in immediate death, the manner of death resembling that of someone asleep.
Luo Jiayin thought for a moment. When they found Wei Shining, he was lying in bed, covered with a blanket, looking just like he was sleeping.
However, she felt that, generally speaking, such evidence that was too obvious was often very misleading, so she could not prematurely conclude that Gu Yishen was the murderer based on this prescription alone.
Luo Jiayin flipped through the pages and couldn't help but widen her eyes.
This production team really takes their show seriously...
Although this booklet is just a prop booklet, the latter part is actually blank white paper.
However, the detailed prescriptions for the elixirs are recorded in the foreground, spanning a full five pages!
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