Live Action Murder Mystery

Chapter 92.1

(The Domineering Younger Brother Fell in Love with Me; “Kiss me”.)

It seemed apparent that someone had deliberately lured them to the inn.

— But why did they do such a thing? Were they trying to borrow the hands of Proprietress Ling’s enemies to kill her?

Gu Liang’s body inclined towards Tourist Jia for a moment before he asked: “You previously mentioned that Proprietress Ling acted as your older sister to get close to you. In reality, she also acted as my ex-girlfriend and President Gao’s ex-wife.

“But the difference is that President Gao and I were unaware of it. We only became aware that the person accompanying us all along prior to our break up was Proprietress Ling during the investigation segment. In spite of that, you’re saying you actually knew of this matter early on?”

“Yeah, I grew up with my older sister. I’m too familiar with her. She doesn’t like using incense, and yet I unexpectedly found that there was incense in her room one day. Additionally, there were some details that made me doubt whether she was my older sister.”

Tourist Jia returned a question to Gu Liang, “Why did neither of you come to the same realisation?”

Gu Liang uttered, “When I was in a relationship with her, we were both university students and we weren’t staying together. When Proprietress Ling substituted my ex-girlfriend, I was busy with my internship and we barely met each other throughout the week, and the only instance we went to the hotel ended on bad terms. I didn’t pay attention to the items she used. Furthermore, the man-made incense doesn’t have a scent; we already verified this point when we went to check the rhinoceros horn incense burning in the kitchen.”

Yang Ye also said: “As the Mr. Perfect President, I was always busy and I didn’t concern myself over the fragrances that my wife used. If she wants to light incense or buy make-up products, I would always allow her to do so.”

Yang Ye glanced at Li Xiao Yu, “What about you then? You were dorm mates with School Senior Hua’s ex-girlfriend, did you discover that she was lighting incense?”

Li Xiao Yu pondered briefly before she uttered, “I’ve only seen it once, but she said that it was a mosquito repellent. I responded by saying that it’s November, where were the mosquitoes coming from? She said that, ‘In any case, I was bitten.’ The incense didn’t have any scents so I stopped caring.

“Moreover, after she returned from her leave, she stopped staying in the dormitory frequently. Now that I think about it, it’s possible that the actual Aileen never told Proprietress Ling about all the interests and hobbies that the people in the dormitory had. Proprietress Ling was afraid of getting exposed, so she chose to reside outside alone during that period of time. She was lying when she told School Senior Hua that she was staying in the dormitory.”

“Which means that I’m really the only person who knew that she was a ghost among all the guests.”

Tourist Jia shrugged his shoulders, “But there’s no point for me to conceal this; I brought ‘Girlfriend Jia’ precisely because I wanted her to investigate.”

Gu Liang asked him: “What about your older sister then? Is she dead too? Furthermore, the fact that your older sister is not your biological sister, what’s going on?”

“If we were to speak of this story, it would be another dog-blooded story from a rich and powerful family.”

Tourist Jia stated, “In short, she’s an adopted daughter in my family. I’ve always been fond of sticking to her ever since I was young, but because I knew she was my older sister, I didn’t dare to do anything either. It was until a certain day where I accidentally discovered the fact that there was no blood relation between us. I confessed to her but she rejected me. She said that in order to repay our parents’ kindness for raising her, she was going to have a business marriage with a certain family.

“I was unwilling to let that happen so I tangled with her persistently, refusing to allow her to marry. However, she actually introduced her fiancé to me.

“There was one time where her fiancé came to our house to stay for two days. He wanted to drink red wine at night and he instructed our servants to pour him a glass. I stopped the servant to ask a few questions, heard that he wanted to drink, and proceeded to spike the wine with [Certain Death in Seven Days Poison].

“When the servants were cleaning up on the second day, I saw that the wine glass was empty, which means that he should have drank the wine. But who could have known that after seven days, he did not die, and he was living well.

“One month later, my older sister married him. Fuck. And not long after marrying over, my older sister passed away.

“I felt like something was wrong. When I went to my older sister’s room to investigate, I came to the unexpected discovery that there was incense inside her room. Hence, I took a small piece and asked someone to check what kind of incense it was. Afterwards, someone told me that it was rhinoceros horn incense, and ghosts could use it to pretend to be human.

“It was then that I understood that my older sister had been supplanted by a ghost from some unknown point in time. I thought back about it, there were too many small details that didn’t match up. However, owing to the belief that my older sister had premarital phobia, I didn’t delve too deeply.

“The person whom my older sister married was a particularly rich person, he was richer than our family. The diamond on the marriage ring that the person gave my older sister was at least ten carats.

“Consequently, I assumed that the ghost’s motive was the diamond. She killed my older sister, replaced her, and then married a rich and powerful person to steal away the diamond. I don’t know how the ghost accomplished it, but I only saw my older sister’s ashes anyway.

“That happened three years ago. I have been investigating who killed my older sister the entire time, but I never found a lead. It was only one month ago when I heard that my older sister came to Yellow Springs Inn three years ago. When I counted backwards, she came to this place slightly before she married. Thus, I did a thorough investigation of Yellow Springs Inn, and realised that the inn had some ties with ghosts. Coincidentally, I was familiar with a Taoist nun on my end. I made her act as my girlfriend and follow me here.”

After Tourist Jia finished his story, he yawned. “That’s how it is for me. Do you have anything you would like to ask?”

Li Xiao Yu quickly opened the book that Proprietress Ling wrote in again, flipping forward until she reached page 76. “This page has your information! However, it contains more information about your father and mother!”

Upon hearing that, Gu Liang also walked over to Li Xiao Yu’s side, glancing at the page.

Similarly, this page had a remark from Proprietress Ling: “I walked past a coffee shop by chance, and encountered a worried-looking young lady from a rich and powerful family. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me that she was poisoned, and she could not live for more than three days, but she still wanted to marry.

“Issues had cropped up in her adopted parents’ company, and a business marriage needed to be held before the male side of the family would inject capital into her adopted parents’ company, and help them resolve the fracture in their funding chain. If she did not marry, her adopted parents’ company would be done for. Her younger brother had not graduated from university yet, and he was planning to go overseas to study for his Master’s degree. She did not know what she should do.

“I told her that I was a celestial being who was here for the sake of fulfilling the wishes of others, and I could pretend to be her after she died and take her place in the marriage.

“When the money issue has been solved, I will continue to act as her, and pretend to go out with a close friend to relieve her boredom. After returning, I will allow that close friend to bring her ashes back, which will make her family assume that she had died in the middle of her travels.

“Mn… This close friend, I will ask Waitress Jing to portray her. After she is done delivering the ashes, she can return to Yellow Springs Inn in ghost form, no one will be able to find her. A flawless plan!”

Once Li Xiao Yu read the entire page, she could not resist saying to Tourist Jia: “Fuck! Your older sister was poisoned to death by you! That poisoned wine wasn’t drunk by her fiancé, she drank it! Proprietress Ling probably didn’t take away the diamond ring either. It’s more than likely that Proprietress Ling sold the diamond ring to resolve the funding issue in your family’s company, and then she ‘died’. However, you were still attending university back then so you were kept out of the loop.”

Tourist Jia: “Then I… It’s because I didn’t know… Either way, in my eyes, Proprietress Ling was the ghost who killed my older sister.

“Furthermore…. From the current look of things, I feel rather upset.

“I’ve roughly grasped all of your stories. Aileen came here to look for Proprietress Ling’s help because of School Senior Hua. President Gao’s ex-wife also made the same choice because she didn’t want him to feel heartbroken.

“But my older sister was different. She asked Proprietress Ling for help mainly because she wanted to repay my parents for raising her. She didn’t really put me into consideration. The deep love I felt for her was for naught…”

Gu Liang did not express any opinions about Tourist Jia’s speech.

However, he did discover another crucial point. He raised his head to peer at Yang Ye, since he already had the habit of looking for Yang Ye first to have a discussion. “It mentions Waitress Jing here. When I was talking to Chef Huang previously, Chef Huang said that he neither knew where Proprietress Ling went nor did he know what she was doing, when she was absent from the Inn. But judging from the information here, Waitress Jing is aware.”

“It’s possible. Hence, the person who led everyone to the inn might be Waitress Jing.”

Yang Ye stated, “She must have planned everything out. Think about it, the wish that your ex-girlfriend Aileen made was the one hundred and first wish that Proprietress Ling helped others achieve. Her mission has come to a complete end, which means that she had been staying at the inn during this period of time without leaving. It’s highly likely that Waitress Jing realised this point, and she decided to borrow this opportunity to do something.”

“Mn, let’s look through her evidence again later, and ask her more questions.”

As Gu Liang stared at Yang Ye, he unconsciously took another moment to scrutinise him.

Yang Ye was sitting on the single-person armchair beside him, his injured right leg propped up. Presently, his elbow was braced on his kneecap while he casually supported his chin with the palm of his hand, making his sitting posture look exceedingly confident and easy, with some languidness mixed in.

His entire person, from the tips of his toes to his waist and torso, and even further to his arms, all formed an extremely smooth and seamless line.

Clad in a short-sleeved shirt, the compact and vigorous muscles on his arms were vividly portrayed as they were wrapped around by the white shirt which was bordering on translucence in colour, and amidst a blistering hot climate, his hormones were a little close to bursting.

Whenever Yang Ye was looking at Gu Liang, he would usually be smiling. Presently, his peach blossom eyes were slightly narrowed, which perfected the upward curve of his eyes.

Unbeknownst to Gu Liang, a light sheen of sweat had formed at the tip of his nose under Yang Ye’s focused gaze.

In Gu Liang’s cognition, the thought of how attractive a man could be had never really occurred to him.

In fact, he scarcely looked at pretty women even though he was a straight man.

He never harboured interest in that area, and correspondingly, he would never proactively search for images of women. However, it should be said that during his university days, Gu Liang would still give a brief answer whenever he was prompted by the boys in his dormitory when they were discussing which female student was the most attractive.

Of course, his sense of aesthetics did not differ from other straight men, and it was nothing more than liking the typical popular facial traits of wide eyes, oval faces, and pointed chins. Granted, when he was confronted with a pile of female internet celebrity photographs that his dorm mate was displaying, he would usually feel like they looked more or less the same.

“Gu Liang, I’ve decided to change to another female goddess.Which one do you think looks the prettiest, or looks the cutest?”

“Uh… All of them are fine.”

At any rate, Gu Liang did not really have any preferences for women’s aesthetics, but everyone was still capable of appreciating beauty. Hence, when he occasionally saw a pretty girl on his dorm mate’s phone, he would take an additional glance as well.

But the fact that Gu Liang never paid careful attention to a man’s appearance still stood, to say nothing of eliciting interest in a man’s appearance.

Honestly speaking, Gu Liang barely knew what a lady would consider as a handsome man, and he never bothered to understand either.

Right now, however, he suddenly felt that Yang Ye did look quite attractive— the contours of his facial features were deep and three-dimensional, the rims of his eyes rather sunken, which gave the lasting impression that his gaze was deeply emotional and abstruse.

Yes, his appearance was slightly sharp, which made him appear terrifying when he was not smiling, but it seemed to infuse him with another kind of stunning heroism, like he was a sculpture carved by knife. Although he looked slightly cold and severe, the lines of every faceted cut, the light and darkness of the highlighted points and shadows, happened to be perfect.

Just as Gu Liang shifted his gaze away, Yang Ye retrieved a piece of tissue to help Gu Liang wipe away the sweat on the tip of his nose. “Is it hot?”

Yang Ye’s voice was deep and slightly hoarse.

Gu Liang accepted the tissue, shifting away his line of sight. After stilling for three seconds, he looked at Tourist Jia again. “Let’s talk about what happened last night. From our present point of view, the relatives and close friends of these guests have already died, but they have already detached themselves from their greatest and most heartfelt wishes prior to their deaths, which is why they weren’t retained in the mortal realm.

“Based on the clues we have found, and according to the settings of this script, they should have reincarnated and experienced rebirth. Hence, when Proprietress Ling said that— She could use a spirit-beckoning spell to summon the departed spirit, and then illuminate them by using the rhinoceros horn incense, she was lying to us.

“The truth of the matter is that Proprietress Ling is incapable of showing us the person that we wanted to see the most, unless she personally puts on the pretence one more time. Therefore, why did she only meet you last night? And the lot drawing that she did, is there a problem with it?”