Live Action Murder Mystery

Chapter 87.2

President Gao and Tourist Jia were tending to their injuries and they had yet to arrive. Chef Huang was not here and his whereabouts were unknown.

Presently, only the four ladies were in front of Gu Liang.

Having thought of something, he asked the ladies first: “In these two days, has anyone seen that vagrant? Was he a NPC, or was he being portrayed by a player?”

Girlfriend Jia, Recluse Wang, and Zhao Meili all shook their heads.

Meanwhile, Waitress Jing revealed a difficult expression.

Gu Liang asked her: “Most of us are just tourists who have only been here for a day or two. The vagrant has been harassing your proprietress for a long time… you’re the only one who is familiar with him. You know where he stays, right?”

Waitress Jing eventually nodded her head. “I do. He… He stays on the mountain on the opposite bank of the lake. I went to look for him today. He didn’t open the door. Now that I think about it, perhaps he was already dead by then.”

Gu Liang did see Waitress Jing going to the opposite bank of the lake when he was fishing, but he did not see her returning.

“We should take advantage of all the time we have then, and head over to take a look. Please lead the way.”

After Gu Liang said those words to Waitress Jing, he turned around to leave the forest, but he saw Yang Ye, Ming Yue, and Tourist Jia wandering over at a slow pace.

Gu Liang stopped in front of Yang Ye, saying: “There’s another deceased on the opposite bank of the lake. I’ll be going over to take a look. It’s better if you don’t go.”

“Hey Gu Liang—” Yang Ye tried to pull him to a stop.

“Your leg is injured, don’t push yourself over much. We still have to get through 7 hours of free exploration.”

Gu Liang’s expression was quite strict as he was speaking. Then, a thought occurred to him. Imitating the gesture that Yang Ye would frequently use on him, he caressed Yang Ye’s head, “I’ll be back soon. Be good.”

“Pfft, hey Liang Liang—” Yang Ye adjusted his glasses, amused by Gu Liang’s actions.

Gu Liang made a stern expression before he turned his body and continued to venture deeper into the forest. “It should be faster if we go over from here.”

Thus, Gu Liang brought the four ladies over to the opposite bank of the lake, running.

Touching his nose, Yang Ye turned his head and saw Tourist Jia walking over and saying: “It’s fine if we search separately and it economises our time. Should the three of us check all of the rooms?”

“You can go ahead first. I’ll take a look at the corpse before I go over.”

Having said that, Yang Ye went into the forest alone to inspect Proprietress Ling’s corpse once more.

By the time Yang Ye walked out of the forest, Ming Yue and Tourist Jia were already gone.

Yang Ye’s train of thought was quite similar to Gu Liang.

When he was walking to the corpse, he had used the main road, but when he was returning to the inn, he went through the shrubbery, the patch of weeds, and then stepped over the wooden fence to reach the back of the inn’s stilted building.

After examining the heap of rice straw briefly, Yang Ye raised his head and looked at the third-floor window.

Eyebrows furrowed, Yang Ye stepped over the rice straw to move out of the small path. Then, when he eventually reached the inn’s courtyard, he saw Ming Yue in the courtyard.

From the darkening colours of the sky, it was evident that it was getting late. At this time, the sun had just started setting.

Ming Yue was lying on the long bench as he basked in the evening sun, as if he had no plans to search for evidence actively.

His performance was vastly different from the NPC Maid Liu from back when.

Walking up to him, Yang Ye could not help but ask: “Hello, I’ve heard about you from Gu Liang. You’re his classmate from Senior High?”

Ming Yue opened his eyes, glancing at Yang Ye lazily. He nodded his chin tartly before he closed his eyes again.

Yang Ye continued to ask: “If I may make a bold inquiry, the fact that the players might be dead in reality, do you know anything about it?”

Opening his eyes again, Ming Yue sat up. When he was looking at Yang Ye, there was some puzzlement on his facial features. “What? Is that how it is?”

Yang Ye: “&#k2026;..”

Ming Yue proceeded to return a question: “I was originally a player as well. Am I already dead then?”

Yang Ye: “…..”

The sentence “please do not tell this matter to Gu Liang first” was stuck in Yang Ye’s throat, and then it was swallowed by him.

In the end, Yang Ye only said: “Never mind. It was just a conjecture.”

“Oh.” Ming Yue nodded his head, lying back down again to sleep.

Yang Ye: “…..”

— Were all the elite students like Gu Liang very fond of sleeping in and taking naps?

Yang Ye did not bother Ming Yue any further and he swiftly immersed himself in the search for evidence.

The first thing that attracted his attention was the cardboard box inside the dustbin.

The cardboard box was extremely huge and it was unknown what it had previously contained.

After taking the cardboard box out and observing the whole construct, he saw the three words “Rhinoceros Horn Incense” written on top.

Yang Ye found it slightly strange.

When the rhinoceros horn incense was being introduced prior to this, Proprietress Ling had been holding a small incense burner.

Whether it was her actions or when it was combined with his own experience in reality, items like rhinoceros horns were precious and scarce. And for the same reason, it was not logical for the incense to come in such a huge box, and it was more likely that it was used to contain the rhinoceros horn itself.

Still frowning, Yang Ye continued to rummage through the dustbin but he did not find anything else.

Hence, he started to search around the grass patch nearby and he found a descriptive explanation.

“Man-made Rhinoceros Horn Incense, inexpensive in price, tremendous in output. It can completely replace actual rhinoceros horn oh — From a Pharmacist who loves doing research and development. ”

After reading through the paper, Yang Ye raised his head to stare at the inn they were staying in.

— A total of five guest rooms, and including the proprietress, there were a total of three staff members.

Firstly, why did they need so much rice straw?

Next, the fact that they could meet the deceased in Yellow Springs Inn, was actually deeply hidden.

Yang Ye’s character President Gao had scrolled through the internet for a long time before he unintentionally stumbled upon a forum and saw this myth. However, he was uncertain if this myth was true and he only came over because he was harbouring the thought that he should give it a try.

Therefore, logically speaking, the services provided by Yellow Springs Inn were not extensive.

— Why did they require such a large quantity of rhinoceros horn incense then?

Yang Ye narrowed his eyes, gazing towards the next door dining hall, the back kitchen beside the dining hall, the chef’s room and the service staff’s room. Finally, he kept the descriptive explanation and returned to the inn, mostly hobbling on one foot as he went to Proprietress Ling’s room on the third floor.

In the instant where he entered the room after scrutinising Proprietress Ling’s room door briefly, a sudden peculiar sensation arose in Yang Ye’s heart.

Which detail had an issue?

Which detail was it…

* * *

On the other side, Gu Liang ran to the foot of the mountain extremely quickly and it took him around 7 minutes; after expending another 4 minutes, he swiftly reached the opposite bank of the lake.

On the road just now, he had asked Waitress Jing about the vagrant’s residence, and now that he was on the other mountain, it was quite easy for him to find the house.

— After running up the mountain by using the precipitous stone steps for 5 minutes, he saw a thatched hut at the midpoint of the mountain.

Gasping out a short breath, Gu Liang tried to push open the door only to realise that the room was sealed shut and it seemed like it was locked from within.

Fortunately, the door for the thatched hut was not firmly built; after kicking it a few times, Gu Liang managed to kick the door down.

In the instant where the door fell, Gu Liang saw the vagrant’s corpse inside the room.

— A noose was hanging down from the roof beam and the vagrant’s neck was hanging on the rope. There was a stool that had been kicked over under his foot and it looked like he had committed suicide by hanging himself.

Gu Liang went up to take his body down. His eyeballs were nearly protruding out, his tongue was extended, and there was liquid tricking out of his nose and mouth.

Gu Liang took off the clothes on the corpse to inspect the entire body once, discovering that there were no external injuries on his person.

Hence, if there were no unforeseen circumstances, he had been strangled to death.

However, he did not know if he had truly committed suicide by hanging himself, or he had been placed in the noose after he was strangled to death.

Apart from the corpse in the thatched hut, the second item that attracted his eyes was the gun that was propped up by the window.

The model of the gun was somewhat unusual, a little rustic and unsophisticated even; like it had been personally made.

Since there was a scoping lens on the gun, Gu Liang stepped forward and inclined his body slightly to peer out of the scope.

After doing that, he realised an extremely important detail.

— This telescopic sight could accurately aim at the inn’s stilted building.

The telescopic sight could increase the magnification by over ten times, and not only could Gu Liang see the guest room he was staying in, he could even see through the window to view the decorations in the room.

If there were no unforeseen circumstances, the bullet in Proprietress Ling’s chest was shot by this gun.

Gu Liang continued to inspect the corpse before he returned to the entrance, picking up the door to scrutinise it.

Gu Liang mainly focused on the lock.

The lock was the simplest kind of latch lock and it was not strong, since it was just an iron bolt fastening the door in place, and the door was then considered locked.

When Gu Liang previously kicked down the door, he had kicked off a part of the wall the lock was attached to, and there was a huge chunk of plaster that was still hanging on the lock.

And the most crucial point was that— The lock was still fastened on the door.

This indicated that when Gu Liang kicked down the door, the door was actually locked from inside the thatched hut.

The vagrant hanging down from the roof beam, the sniper-like gun aiming at the inn, the bullet wound in Proprietress Ling’s chest…

Judging from the appearance of everything, it genuinely looked like the vagrant had used the gun to kill the proprietress before he hung himself.

But if the vagrant was also murdered by someone else, then this would make his death a locked room mystery.

At this time, the four ladies had rushed over.

Recluse Wang seemed to have the best physical constitution because her complexion was still quite level.

Whereas Li Xiao Yu fared the worst because she was panting for air as she held onto the wall.

Truth to be told, the mountain that the inn was situated on was not tall, but the main road was curved. If you cut across the forest directly, the distance was not far.

Moreover, when Gu Liang did a rough estimate with Waitress Jing’s walking speed – which was a measured pace, at around 70 metres per minute – and it took her 15 minutes to get across the bridge, and he estimated that the stone bridge was around 1000 metres in length, give or take a few.

Before Gu Liang could speak, Li Xiao Yu interrupted: “Don’t laugh at me. My physique is really bad, and even 800 metres will be the death of me. I… I’m going out… this corpse is way too disgusting—!”

“Xiao Yu, look around the grass patches and the shrubbery nearby to check if there’s anything hidden there. I’m going to continue inspecting the house. The time we have for investigating the crime scene is going to end soon, I suspect that this place will be sealed off by the fog.”

After uttering those words, Gu Liang inspected the thatched hut’s interior with due haste.

There was a lot of empty alcohol bottles littered on the ground, and judging from the smell, it was very similar to the plum wine from the inn.

Considering how Waitress Jing had mentioned that the vagrant would go to the inn to steal alcohol, he reckoned that the alcohol at the scene was stolen from the inn.

Furthermore, there was a large number of iron tools, logs that came in far greater quantities, and a lot of wooden shavings scattered on the ground.

And a few paper fragments were hidden among the logs.

There were a few plastic bags in the house as well, which was probably used by the vagrant to store the alcohol.

As he was surveying the room again, Gu Liang stated, “We don’t have much time left. Let’s take the things we can and bring them with us first.”

The other players concurred with Gu Liang’s suggestion as well, so they took a few plastic bags and stuffed whatever they could bring inside before they doubled back to the inn swiftly.

Sure enough, just as they went down the mountain and stepped onto the stone bridge, they heard the system’s public broadcast.

“Some areas of the map will be gradually sealed off right now. Please refer to the card map for the specifics.”

Li Xiao Yu took out her map to have a look. Towards the red circle that automatically appeared on her map, she commented: “Fuck, this is essentially Player Unknown’s Battleground, we have run away from the closing circle!”

LI Xiao Yu was afraid that Gu Liang did not know the mobile phone game so she explained: “When you’re playing this game, you’ll be randomly landing in an area first, and as the game progresses, circles will be drawn on the map with a certain spot as its centre. This circle will continuously contract and the players have to run into the circle within a certain period of time or they will be poisoned to death.”

Gu Liang looked over his shoulder. The white fog was already drifting over to the stone bridge.

Not sparing another glance for what was behind him, Gu Liang hauled up the plastic bags in one hand while holding the gun from the vagrant’s room in the other and broke into a sprint.

There was a few questions in Gu Liang’s mind.

One, how was the locked room accomplished, and was there the influence of ghosts?

Two, the stone bridge was roughly 1000 metres in length, but the stone bridge was not built on the shortest distance between the two mountains. The vagrant’s thatched hut and the Yellow Springs Inn were built on midpoint of their respective mountains and the mountain bodies had curvatures. Hence, the shooting distance was a lot shorter than 1000 metres. However, no matter how short the shooting distance was, it had to be 800 metres at least.

— Since that was the case, could the gun fire the bullet over such a long distance, even though it looked like it was hand-crafted by the vagrant?

This was the reason why Gu Liang took the gun.

If they could not find any other evidence, they could rely on Yang Ye’s professional judgement.

The third question that Gu Liang was contemplating was: how did the bullet hit Proprietress Ling’s body?

Although the vagrant’s thatched hut was facing the inn’s stilted building, it could only aim at the centre four guest rooms that were facing north, which was also the Rooms 301 to 304.

The room that Yang Ye was staying in, and Proprietress Ling’s room, were located at the protrusions of the “凹” character formation. These two rooms were situated at the two ends of the stilted building, with its windows facing west and east respectively.

When the shot was being fired, regardless of the angle that was used to take aim, or if the bullet could pierce through solids, it had to go through the window. After all, it was highly unlikely that the shooter managed to land a blind shot on their target from 1000 metres away, while having the bullet pierce through the wall.

Therefore, even if the gun could manage the shooting distance, and someone had actually used this gun to shoot Proprietress Ling from the thatched hut…

This pointed towards the fact Proprietress Ling was not in her room when she was shot, and she was in one of the four guest rooms facing north.

— Consequently, why did she go into a guest room?