missing
After Shen Anyan led the two out of the room, He Qingtian and Lin Shuang also ran up from downstairs one after another.
"What happened?" Lin Shuang asked.
"Is nothing wrong?" He Qingtian asked.
Liang Xiaonuo's shout just now almost blew the roof of the villa off, so naturally everyone in the restaurant heard it.
Lin Shuang and He Qingtian ran the fastest, and Zhou Tian arrived soon after.
As soon as she stood still, she frowned, stepped lightly on the wet blanket, and asked, "What's going on? Where did all the water come from? And what's that smell?"
Everyone was in a hurry just now and didn't notice anything unusual. After she reminded them, they realized that something was wrong.
He Qingtian asked, "Is there a water leak? Why is the water...red?"
Shen Anyan said: "Because someone died."
Zhou Tian rolled his eyes: "Yeah, the water is almost flooding the corridor. If it keeps leaking like this, we're all going to drown."
Shen Anyan: "...someone is really dead, Zhao Xixi is dead."
As soon as these words were spoken, the corridor fell silent.
He Qingtian said: "This... are you kidding?"
But Shen Anyan's heavy expression, Gu Cijiang's silent attitude with his head down, and Liang Xiaonuo's trembling body all showed this fact -
What Shen Anyan said was true.
Lin Shuang frowned: "I'll go in and take a look."
Gu Cijiang stopped him and said, "That's not very convenient... He's lying in the bathtub."
Lin Shuang was slightly startled and did not insist on going in to take a look.
In fact, there is no need to see a dead body. The blood gushing out from the bathroom door has already confirmed the death of the room occupant.
Shen Anyan said: "I'm going down to find the teacher. Please accompany Ci Jiang and Liang Xiaonuo."
After she finished giving these instructions, she rushed downstairs.
In the restaurant, the three boys were still unaware of their companion's death and were enjoying their breakfast with relish. Seeing Shen Anyan return, he asked with a smile, "Hey classmate, why did Liang Xiaonuo suddenly yell just now? Did she make Zhao Xixi angry?"
Shen Anyan ignored them and walked to the instructor's side, quickly repeating what happened upstairs in a voice that only the two of them could hear.
After she finished explaining what had happened, He Qingtian and the others returned to the restaurant. Liang Xiaonuo still hadn't recovered from his fear, still folding his arms in a daze. This made the three men with earrings laugh again, but this time Liang Xiaonuo didn't have the energy to care about it.
The instructor's expression grew serious after hearing this, and he nodded in response, "I understand. You guys wait here for a moment. Remember, don't act alone. Try to stay together. I'll be back soon."
After she finished speaking, she got up and went upstairs.
Even if the three men with earrings were stupid, they realized something was wrong from the instructor's serious expression. Seeing the faces of the others opposite them all look equally heavy, the man with earrings couldn't help but ask, "Classmate, what happened?"
Lin Shuang glanced at the three people opposite her and spoke with a thunderous tone: "Zhao Xixi is dead."
"What?" the three of them cried out in surprise.
The red-haired man said anxiously, "How could it be? How is it possible? Are you kidding me?"
As he spoke, he was about to get up and go upstairs to take a look.
Although He Qingtian didn't have a good impression of the three people, he still stopped them and said, "Don't move. Stay here."
The red-haired man angrily said, "Who the hell do you think you are? Why should I listen to you?"
Lin Shuang slammed the table hard, scaring the person opposite him so much that his momentum immediately dropped.
She said coldly, "Zhao Xixi's death was not an accident. He was murdered. It's still unclear who the murderer is. We can't stop you if you insist on leaving. If you die inexplicably on the way, you can't blame us."
The man with earrings hurriedly pulled the red-haired man back and apologized to them repeatedly: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we didn't mean it. It's just... it's just..."
As he spoke, his eyes suddenly turned red: "I just heard that a good friend had passed away, and I feel really... sorry..."
When the man with earrings said this, his voice was choked and he couldn't help but cover his face and cry.
The red-haired boy looked at him helplessly, not knowing what to say. The other boy patted his companion on the back and wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes a little sadly.
Seeing this, He Qingtian and the others didn't dare to say anything harsh, but instead tried to comfort them.
The instructor returned quickly. Ignoring the three crying boys in the cafeteria, she made a quick decision: "Everyone, pack up now, get dressed, grab some food and water, grab your power banks and phones, and we're heading down the mountain."
This decision seemed a bit sudden, but upon reflection, it was the most appropriate choice. The villa's signal suddenly failed, and contact with the outside world was impossible. The only thing to do was to get down the mountain as quickly as possible to seek help.
"Don't be afraid, don't be anxious, and don't get separated. It's not even nine o'clock yet, so we have plenty of time to get down the mountain. Everyone, pick them up one by one in the order I told you to."
The instructor led everyone upstairs. After saying this, he reminded everyone, "There's water in the corridor, so be careful when you walk. Okay, whose room is 201? Go in and pack your things. Everyone, wait outside first. Students of the same gender, go in and keep them company..."
Under the teacher's guidance, everyone quickly changed into thick clothes and packed the necessary supplies in their backpacks. Then, as they left the villa and were about to go down the mountain, they were struck by a bolt from the blue.
There was nothing between the cliffs. Two thick ropes were hung on the cliff on the opposite bank, with a few wooden boards hanging sparsely on the ropes.
The suspension bridge connecting the two sides is broken.
To be precise, it was chopped off by someone, because on the side where the villa is located, there were obvious signs of being cut off by an axe where the suspension bridge originally stood.
The red-haired man had a sad face and asked anxiously, "Teacher, what should we do?"
Lin Shuang glanced at the forest behind the villa and asked carefully, "Teacher, is it okay to go from the back?"
The instructor said, "It should work. But I only know the way down the mountain from the front. I've never been there before..."
She frowned and thought for a moment, then finally made up her mind: "Let's give it a try! As long as we can get out of the forest and find a road, we can always find our way out by following it!"
This seemed like a good idea, but unfortunately the group encountered difficulties at the first step.
The snow in the forest behind the villa was deeper and the soil was softer. After walking a few steps, half of their bodies were almost sunk in the snow.
Worst of all, there were snake nests in the forest, and Zhou Tian accidentally stepped on one. Fortunately, she was dressed warmly, and He Qingtian, who was beside her, reacted quickly and grabbed the snake's vitals in time. Otherwise, if she had been bitten by a venomous snake in this wilderness, she would have been finished.
The instructor quickly gave up the idea of breaking out from the rear.
"Let's go back to the villa first. It's too dangerous to walk like this. I'll try to see if I can fix the network cable first." said the instructor.
The group returned to the villa, but just as they reached the intersection, the red-haired man suddenly screamed.
The instructor quickly turned around and asked, "What's wrong?"
The red-haired man stammered, "Wang... Wang Zhou is missing..."
Wang Zhou is one of their companions.
The instructor frowned and asked, "When did you disappear?"
The red-haired man looked like he was about to cry. "I don't know. I was so scared that I didn't pay much attention. Just when I wanted to talk to him, I suddenly realized that he was gone..."
The instructor turned his gaze to the man with the earrings: "What about you? Do you know?"
The man with earrings answered softly, "I don't know. I didn't go with them..."
After the group left the villa, the man with earrings quietly left his original small group. Knowing that He Qingtian and the others disliked him, he worked hard to build good relationships with Lin Shuang and Zhou Tian, and tried his best to act with them.
When he said this, he looked at the red-haired man with a hint of blame in his eyes: "What's wrong with you? Wasn't Wang Zhou walking with you the whole time?"
The red-haired man shook his head repeatedly: "I don't know, I really don't know, I didn't mean it..."
The instructor sighed, and quickly led a few people into the house, asked everyone to sit in the living room, and reminded them to remember not to act alone, and to go together no matter what they did. He also asked everyone to find some handy sticks and put them aside, and then immediately left the villa to look for the students who were alone.
The red-haired man sat on the sofa, lost in thought, twirling his fingers unconsciously. The man with the earrings wiped his tears with a look of grievance, telling the girls how worried he was about his missing companion. Zhou Tian was usually sharp-tongued, but that was only with people he knew well. Due to her good upbringing, she couldn't say anything to refuse, so she could only listen to the man with the earrings in agony. He Qingtian and Gu Cijiang sat with Liang Xiaonuo, while Lin Shuang and Shen Anyan sat at the outermost edge, alert to the dangers that might appear at any time.
The clock on the wall ticked away, the minute hand moving in circles, but the teacher still hadn't returned. No one had eaten much breakfast, but after what had happened, everyone had lost their appetite for the seafood porridge with its chopped meat, and they weren't sure about the food provided by the villa. Fortunately, they had brought some snacks with them, which barely satisfied their hunger.
He Qingtian took a deep breath, silently reviewed the events of the day in his mind, and asked, "Do you have any idea who the murderer is?"
Zhou Tian had long been tired of the earring man's whining, and seeing there was something new to talk about, he quickly took up the subject: "Oh, I've been wanting to ask this for a while, too. What do you think?"
Shen Anyan tapped his fingertips lightly on the sofa, thought for a moment and replied: "It's not hard to think about it. I think it's very likely that it was the staff member in the villa."
"And I've seen Zhao Xixi's body. There was a hole cut in his neck. Only a knife or something like that could have made that. Of the people in the villa, that staff member was the only one most likely to get a knife, right?"
Lin Shuang nodded and agreed, "We can eliminate them by process of elimination. The contestants and instructors have no motive, so the only possibility left is that staff member."
He Qingtian added: "On our first day here... well, actually, yesterday, we met that man. He was holding a very heavy bag. Now that I think about it, it might have contained something like an axe or a knife."
After being reminded by the other party, Shen Anyan also remembered what happened at that time, and couldn't help but feel a little melancholy: "Yeah, it's only been two days, but it feels like several months."
He Qingtian said, "So the idea is very clear. The suspension bridge was fine when we arrived yesterday, but it was broken when we left today. The signal has been broken since yesterday. So according to my speculation, the staff member must have damaged the network cable before we arrived. Then, after we fell asleep, he destroyed the suspension bridge and killed Zhao Xixi. The order of these two things is still unclear."
This reasoning is generally reasonable, but it is still useless for the current situation. At most, it can only help everyone sort out their thoughts.
Zhou Tiandao: "What on earth was that person thinking? Why would he kill someone when there was no grudge between them?"
Lin Shuang pinched her brows: "Who knows..."
As soon as she finished speaking, she heard a sound like something heavy falling from the restaurant.
“Bang—”
That thing must be a sphere, because then there was a sound of an object rolling on the ground.
"Gulu, gurgle, gurgle..."
Everyone's eyes were focused on the restaurant entrance for a moment.
I saw a black object rolling out from the door, leaving a long red trail where it rolled.
When they got closer, they could see clearly that the black was the color of the hair on it, and the red was the liquid flowing out of the broken part.
That was the head of the missing contestant.
"Gulu, gurgle, gurgle..."
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