Chapter 63 Haunted House Mystery: High-end Players

Fang Rui showed the photos to Li Bin, "Among these people, who knows Liu Xiaonian?"

Li Bin looked at them very carefully, and finally pulled out a few photos from them: "These people know Liu Xiaonian."

Fang Rui flipped through the photos. One of the photos showed the manager of the escape room store, three photos were of the store's employees, and one was of a passerby, whose identity Fang Rui and his team had not yet found out.

"Do you know who this person is?" Fang Rui pointed to the photo of the passerby and asked.

"His name is Wang Yang. He used to run an escape room shop. Xiaonian and I often went to his shop and became his regular customers. But his shop closed down a few months ago."

"What was the name of that shop?" Fang Rui asked.

"It was called 'Lost Island'. It was quite popular. Xiaonian and I especially liked to go to that shop. Later, 'Edgar's House' became popular through variety shows, and there was a price war and crazy price cuts. This despicable method forced many escape room shops to close down." Li Bin frowned, "But it's strange, why did Wang Yang and Xiaonian go to that shop?"

Fang Rui remembered that the store manager mentioned this store name in the morning. Did Liu Xiaonian sell his design to this store called "Lost Island"?

"Why is it strange?" Fang Rui asked.

"Xiao Nian, Wang Yang and I are all high-end players of escape room. We generally don't bother going to that kind of store." Li Bin curled his lips. "It's okay that Xiao Nian went to that store, but why did Wang Yang go there too? I don't understand them. Their taste has dropped so drastically."

"What's wrong with that store?" Fang Rui asked.

"That store is low-class. The charm of escape room is to solve puzzles rather than to be scary. If you want to experience horror, why not go to a haunted house? That store has a lot of gimmicks, with advertisements everywhere, but the experience is shitty.

The worst thing is that bad money drives out good money. Because of its existence, several high-quality escape room stores have closed down. Wang Yang's store closed down in that way. Oh, I won't be able to play fun escape room games anymore."

"Do you know where Wang Yang lives now?"

"I'm not sure." Li Bin thought for a moment and then said, "But after he went bankrupt, he owed a lot of debts. He couldn't afford to rent a house, so he stayed at his sister's house. His sister opened a store nearby. I'll take you to that store."

On the way to the store, Fang Rui asked him again, "How did Liu Xiaonian get to know the manager of 'Edgar Allan Poe's House'?"

"Half a month ago, we went to that store and we felt the experience was extremely bad, so we asked for a refund! They thought we were causing trouble, so the store manager had his employees kick us out. We almost got into a fight with them."

Li Bin sighed, "They even beat up Xiaonian. We were planning to call the police, but they refunded our money, so we didn't."

Li Bin suddenly thought of something, "Comrade police, do you think that the store clerks could have teamed up to murder Xiaonian? They resented Xiaonian for giving them a bad review, so they killed him?"

"Do you think any store would kill someone because of a bad review?" Fang Rui said.

"Xiao Nian's negative reviews are very fierce. He even hired trolls to criticize the store online." Li Bin's expression was a little embarrassed, and he explained, "But that store is indeed worth criticizing."

Fang Rui felt that Liu Xiaonian's hatred for that store was too great, so great that it was a little hard to understand. He remembered the design drawings he saw at Liu Xiaonian's house, "Why does Liu Xiaonian hate that store? Is it because they plagiarized his design?"

"Because it doesn't feel good!" Li Bin's face was full of surprise, "Plagiarized Xiaonian's design? That's unlikely. Although Xiaonian is very good at decryption, I have seen the secret room he designed before, and I have to say, it is very uncreative! No one would steal that kind of design drawing."

Fang Rui felt strange, where did those design drawings in Liu Xiaonian's house come from?

Wang Yang's sister lived in the village in the city, where she opened a fried noodle shop.

When Li Bin took them there, Wang Yang was lazily helping his sister wash vegetables, and his sister was nagging him: "Can't you wash vegetables more seriously? How can you not do such a small thing well? Don't look at me like that, you are not the boss now, I helped you pay off so many debts, can't I say a few words to you?"

Wang Yang had an unshaven beard, his hair was long but not well-groomed, and it was shiny and greasy, and he looked very decadent.

"Boss Wang...Brother Wang." Li Bin quickly changed his words and greeted Wang Yang, "Can I take up a moment of your time? These two police officers want to ask you something."

Wang Yang's sister suddenly became flustered. She looked at Wang Yang, "You didn't do anything illegal, did you? If you lose money in your business, I can pay you back. If you commit a crime, don't expect me to care about you. If you have done something bad, turn yourself in quickly! Do you hear me?"

"Sister, I didn't do anything." Wang Yang's expression was a little helpless.

Fang Rui explained for him: "We just want to find out some information from him, you don't need to be nervous."

"That's good, that's good!" Sister Wang Yang breathed a sigh of relief and warmly invited them into the store, "Police comrade, please come in and sit down. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Our Wang Yang will definitely cooperate."

Sister Wang Yang was very enthusiastic and poured hot tea for each of them.

Fang Rui asked, "Do you know Liu Xiaonian?"

"Yes. He is a frequent customer of our store and has a good relationship with me. We are friends. We have set up a group and often participate in various escape room activities."

Li Bin looked at Wang Yang with a sad expression, "Brother Wang, Xiaonian is dead."

Wang Yang was shocked, "How did he die? It's impossible. How did he die? I saw him a few days ago."

Fang Rui asked, "What were you doing on September 18th?"

"The 18th? That morning I was washing dishes in my sister's shop, and I broke a plate, and the fragments of the plate cut my hand. My sister let me rest in the afternoon." Wang Yang lowered his voice, "I went to play the escape room in the afternoon. Don't let my sister know, my sister doesn't allow me to play that game again, and I promised her not to go. If she knew, I would be scolded to death."

Li Bin said, "Brother Wang, then you can't go to that kind of store, what's the point of playing there?"

"But that store is the only one nearby that can play. And it was on sale on Monday that day, half price, it was too tempting!" Wang Yang's tone was helpless, "I felt ashamed too, but there was no way, I couldn't help but want to play. I have to say, the store is very immersive and exciting."

"Brother Wang, we are playing an intellectual game when we play the escape room, not looking for excitement!"

"What time did you go?" Fang Rui asked.

"I got there around midnight and played until the evening before going home." Wang Yang answered.

His words matched what was recorded on the surveillance video.

"Liu Xiaonian also went to that store that day. Didn't you guys agree to go together?"

"Xiaonian also went?" Wang Yang was shocked. "Impossible! Xiaonian said that store was rubbish, how could he go? Anyone could go, but he couldn't!"

Fang Rui looked at him, "You also think that store is rubbish, but you went there too."