The Vanished Wife (16)
Professor Pan asked, "When did you and Wu Yaoyao switch identities?"
“About 19 days ago, after I put my android corpse into the wine cellar, I switched identities with Wu Yaoyao. Then, we pretended to have a fight, and Wu Yaoyao was fired and left the Jin family. From then on, the real me was gone. Three days later, Wu Yaoyao, who was impersonating me, secretly left the Jin family again. Everyone thought that Jin Mingyue disappeared 15 or 16 days ago, but that's not true. The real me was gone 19 days ago.”
"Why did Wu Yaoyao agree to switch identities with you? She's already become like you, so why not just go all the way and become the real richest woman, Ms. Jin?"
"Nobody knows that Wu Yaoyao and I are actually friends. Wu Yaoyao isn't greedy for money, nor does she want to impersonate me. I understand her, which is why I devised this plan with her. Wu Yaoyao does take advantage of her seniority to slack off and bully new maids, but in my eyes, that's nothing. If I couldn't tolerate her behavior, I would have fired her long ago, instead of waiting until now."
Besides, she can't pretend to be me forever, because she has a limited supply of powerful disguise rouge.
Professor Pan asked, "Where is the real Wu Yaoyao now?"
"She crossed the mountains and went to another country. She had always wanted to see the world, and now her wish has come true."
Qin Man said, "No, there's another problem. You left 19 days ago, and Wu Yaoyao left 16 days ago, a difference of three days. During those three days, did Wu Yaoyao, pretending to be you, sleep with Mr. Liang every night?"
"That's right."
Qin Man's expression changed drastically: "This...this won't do..."
"Actually, my husband's body has long been... Anyway, even if they sleep in the same bed, nothing will happen."
"Even so, Mr. Liang is still your husband, and Wu Yaoyao is your friend. How could she agree to that?"
"Why not? It's not that difficult. She just needs to endure three days, and then she'll be free."
Qin Man still couldn't accept it and remained speechless for a long time.
Jian Tanxi remembered the important matter and said to Jin Mingyue, "Ms. Jin, we still need your recording. The recording needs to clearly state where you went and what you did during this period. Only then can we consider it acceptable."
"No problem, but you have to promise me one thing. Don't tell anyone about me here. I want to continue living as Wu Yaoyao."
“But…we demolished the wall and need compensation. Therefore, we need the bonus from Mr. Liang.”
"I demanded compensation from you before because I was playing the role of Wu Yaoyao. Now that you know my true identity, I definitely don't want you to pay me back."
“However, we also smashed Yu Antai’s wall, and he also demanded compensation from us.”
“That’s easy. I still have money on hand. I’ll just give you some. You don’t need to go to Liang Wanhao to collect your reward.”
"OK, thanks."
Ms. Jin gave the players some currency from City B.
Next, Professor Pan took out a prop—a sound recording leaf—and recorded Jin Mingyue's voice.
Jin Mingyue said, "During the time I disappeared, I was at Wu Yaoyao's house. I pretended to look like her and planned to spend the rest of my life there. I used a cyborg corpse to impersonate my own corpse, and I also swapped identities with Wu Yaoyao to create a mystery and cover up my whereabouts."
After Professor Pan finished speaking, he put away the audio recording leaf, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Jin Mingyue said, "You're leaving soon? I must say, you're the smartest people I've ever met."
Jian Tanxi said, "Ms. Jin, you flatter me."
"Let me see you off."
Xie Wei was about to call the referee when Professor Pan stopped him, saying, "No rush, our deadline is five days, and it's only the second day."
Xie Wei asked in confusion, "But all the problems have been solved. We found Ms. Jin and got her recording. Why don't we leave now?"
"If you leave now, won't you just be moving on to the next round of the game? Are you eager to participate in the next round?"
No, I don't want to.
"I don't want to either. Anyway, we still have a few days, so why don't we have some fun in City B?"
Jin Mingyue said, "I think you'd better leave now, lest something else happens in a few days."
Professor Pan chuckled and said, "No rush. Ms. Jin, you should get some rest. We'll be going now."
Jin Mingyue hesitated, then watched the players walk away before returning to her room.
After walking a distance, Qin Man said to Professor Pan, "Professor Pan, are we really going to play around for the next few days? I think we should do more investigation and learn more about the ins and outs. What if we miss some details? I have a feeling that this mission went too smoothly."
Professor Pan said, "I had the same feeling, which is why I wasn't in a hurry to hand in the task. Although Jin Mingyue has been found and her recording has been obtained, I have a vague feeling that something is not right. When I said I wanted to take a few days off, I was just saying it to Jin Mingyue. In reality, there are still many unresolved questions in this case."
For example, why is the Jin family's bookshelf completely covered in dust? Even if Jin Mingyue and Mr. Liang don't like reading, it's impossible for them to never read a book. Yet, the books on the shelf show no signs of being touched, and everything is covered in dust.
For example, why did the "good guy card" fail on Yu Antai and the old butler? If they were both ordinary people, the card wouldn't have failed. Furthermore, the old butler has an even stranger trait: the "intelligence-boosting pill" and "health-enhancing pill" have no effect on him. He seems to have dementia; in reality, he's practically a walking corpse.
I always felt that there was someone else, someone even more deeply hidden, manipulating all of this. Previously, in the "darling heiress's dark side" instance, the apparent boss was Ou Bao'er, but the actual boss was Ding Zhelan.
This game seems to have some similarities to that one. Last time, the "good guy" card had no effect on Opal, leading us to deduce that Opal was under some kind of restriction, which we later discovered to be true.
Also, what the referee said earlier made me suspicious.
Xie Wei asked, "What happened to the referee?"
"The judge said we had five days to solve the case, but we couldn't contact the residents of City B for the first three days, only the last two. But now, we've solved the case without even interacting with the residents of City B. I think it's too easy. If it were really that easy, why did the judge emphasize that we couldn't contact the residents of City B for the first three days?"
This rule, no matter how you look at it, is designed to make solving the case more difficult. Logically, we shouldn't be able to discover the truth in the first three days; only in the last two days, after communicating with the residents of City B, will we likely uncover the truth. That's why the rule is set up this way.
Xie Wei said, "That makes sense... However, Jin Mingyue's true colors have been exposed to us. She is indeed Jin Mingyue without a doubt. There are no problems with her recordings either. I think that even if the doubts you mentioned are not resolved, it will not affect our completion of the mission."
Professor Pan said, “No, it still has an impact. How do you know that what we just saw was the real Jin Mingyue? Maybe she was just someone who looked a lot like Jin Mingyue, but we don’t know. Also, how do you know that what she recorded is definitely the truth? The recording needs to clearly state where Jin Mingyue went and what she did during this period. If she did something else, such as killing someone and didn’t confess, then the recording we obtained would be incomplete and we wouldn’t be able to deliver.”
"So there were so many hidden dangers... What should we do? Should we sneak back and keep an eye on Jin Mingyue?"
“Keeping an eye on her isn’t enough; we should also visit more people. Although we can’t talk to the people of City B these past two days, we can still observe them. Here’s what we’ll do: Xie Wei, you go and keep an eye on Jin Mingyue, and we’ll take care of observing the people of City B.”
Xie Wei said, "Okay."
"Remember to hide well and don't expose yourself. Keep an eye on her for two days, three days at most. If you don't find anything, go back to the Jin family's guest room, and we'll go back there too."
"OK".
Xie Wei walked back to keep an eye on Jin Mingyue.
The others continued walking forward.
Jian Tanxi asked, "Professor Pan, should we act together or split up?"
Professor Pan thought for a moment and said, "How about we split up? I'll go to the east, Qin Man and Xiao Chen to the west, and Tan Xi to the north. We won't be able to communicate with the people of City B today or tomorrow, so let's walk around and observe, and write down any suspicious points. We'll meet at the Jin family's guest room before midnight tomorrow and then formulate the next plan."
Jian Tanxi and Qin Man nodded, and then everyone went in different directions.
Jian Tanxi walked north, heading specifically towards the bustling streets.
The people of City B came and went, and it seemed that no one saw her.
Jian Tanxi deliberately walked up to a stall and said she wanted to buy something. However, the stall owner neither saw Jian Tanxi nor heard her voice.
Jian Tanxi was certain that she was completely transparent to the people of City B for the past two days.
Many things in City B don't exist on Earth, and Jian Tanxi was dazzled by them, treating it like a shopping trip.
However, she couldn't buy anything.
After walking for a while, we came across a house that was renovating, and people were banging and smashing the wall.
The smoke and dust were too thick. Jian Tanxi wanted to leave quickly, but she suddenly stopped and looked at the house that was being renovated in surprise.
She discovered that the walls of that house didn't have sheet metal inside; they were all ordinary concrete, just like walls on Earth. Several walls had been smashed through, but she still couldn't see any sheet metal.
Jian Tanxi had assumed that the walls of City B were generally supported by a kind of hard sheet metal, because they had seen that sheet metal when they smashed up Wu Yaoyao's house, Yu Antai's house, Jin Meigui's house, and Jin Mingyue's house.
However, the family in front of us did not have that.
Jian Tanxi ran quickly down the street. She wanted to find more homes that were being renovated to verify this.
In half a day, she saw seven households that were renovating.
None of the walls of these seven households had corrugated iron.
Therefore, sheet metal was not a necessity for the people of City B to build walls; perhaps only Jin Meigui, Yu Antai, and others had it.
However, that sheet metal was extremely hard; even a star-shaped triangular pyramid couldn't drill a hole in it. Clearly, it was made of a special material, and its price must have been exorbitant.
It's not surprising that Jin Meigui's family and Jin Mingyue's family can afford this kind of sheet metal; Wu Yaoyao has worked as a nanny for decades and saved up a lot of money, so she might also be able to afford this kind of sheet metal; but why does Yu Antai's family also have it?
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