Live Action Murder Mystery

Chapter 97.1

(The Deeply Buried Wine)

After hearing Ming Yue’s reply, Gu Liang did not ask about matters relating to the case again.

He remained quiet for a long moment before he looked towards the large metal pot— a black mass of something was cooking inside the pot, and he could not discern what it was.

Gu Liang asked: “What are you cooking?”

Ming Yue: “Porridge.”

Gu Liang: “… No grains?”

Ming Yue: “… There’s none.”

After three seconds, Ming Yue explained: “The boba from boba milk tea, you know about it, right? I used that to cook the porridge.”

……?!

— That could be used to cook porridge?

— He just put salt inside, was it even edible?

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Gu Liang left the kitchen without changing his expression.

But as to whether the supper could actually be eaten, he was harbouring a doubtful attitude in his heart.

Truth to be told, after being brought up by a mother who could make a dish like “burnt tap water”, he had never cared for what he was eating apart from his distaste for coriander and carrots.

It was enough if he had something to eat. He felt that no matter who was cooking, their cooking should be better than anything his mother could make.

After thinking about it, he felt that he probably became slightly picky about food after being exposed to Yang Ye’s good culinary skills during this period of time.

After Gu Liang bid farewell to Ming Yue, he joined the other players in digging, and they finally obtained some results.

— They managed to dig out a jar of wine, and a letter from the bottom of the tree.

The jar of wine looked like plum wine, and apart from its older age, it was not that much different from the other wines inside the wine cellar of the inn.

The wine jar was pressing down on a letter, which informed the players of Proprietress Ling’s past, though in bits and pieces.

“Ling’er, Father has also passed away today. This jar of plum wine was something I personally brewed when you were just born, and I was planning to drink it when you eventually married. Later on, you met an ideal husband you had wished for, and so you married, but I never expected that you would be met with such an accident…

“Lamentably, the Heavens toy with people; the hair on your father’s temple grey, whilst your countenance remains the same. Your father is aware that your lingering attachment is deep, and going back is impossible. No matter; when you finally obtain what you have desired, open this jar of wine. Even if your father is in the Nine Springs, he too, will smile.”

After the players read the letter in succession, they felt slightly emotional in the moment.

After some time, Yang Ye and Gu Liang walked towards the back of the stilted building.

Along the way, Yang Ye asked Gu Liang: “With regards to that piece of clue, what do you think?”

Gu Liang said: “That letter was probably written to Proprietress Ling after her father died, it can be considered as a last will. The plum wine that Proprietress Ling brews is highly likely something she learned from her father. I believe that the plum wine holds a very special meaning to her.

“For the same reason, the possibility of Proprietress Ling using this wine to harm others isn’t very large. It can be considered as a side confirmation. The vagrant wasn’t killed by Proprietress Ling, it’s still among the AB combination.”

Upon reaching the rice straw pile at the back of the stilted building, Gu Liang stopped. Then, he knelt down to neaten the rice straw before he moved the extremely thick rice straw to the side.

Yang Ye wanted to come over to help him but Gu Liang promptly stopped him: “Your leg is still hurt, I can do it on my own.”

“Superficial injuries, it’s fine.”

As Yang Ye helped Gu Liang move the rice straw, he said, “You’re thinking about how Proprietress Ling jumped out of the window and ran away at 2:20?”

“Yes.” Gu Liang said, “According to Recluse Wang’s pretext, they merely allowed Proprietress Ling to run away like this while they stayed in the room without doing anything? I can’t bring myself to believe it.”

Yang Ye said: “But we can’t say that they are the murderers either. They could have jumped into the rice straw pile, went past the wooden fence and gone through the shrubbery to chase her into the forest, only to lose sight of Proprietress Ling. But they don’t have the guts to admit to this. After all, Proprietress Ling died in the forest.”

Gu Liang said: “That’s right. Which is why I’m thinking, where did Proprietress Ling go after she jumped out of the window? Logically speaking, she shouldn’t be able to run fast. After she ran into the forest, Recluse Wang and Girlfriend Jia should have found her. Unless… she hid herself after jumping out of the window.”

The stilted building was made up of three floors in total. The second floor was the lobby and wine cellar, the third floor was the guest rooms.

There were stone steps that led directly to the second-floor main lobby from the courtyard, and travellers would use the stone stairs for the most part.

Additionally, there was a door under the stone stairs, which led into the sundries on the first floor.

This floor was not tall; Gu Liang had to bend his waist in order to enter.

Instead of being air-tight, this floor was semi-open.

Frankly speaking, the so-called ‘door’ under the stone steps did not have a planked door; rather, they could walk into the sundries’ passageway directly.

The back of the sundries was close to the face of the building with the piled rice straw, and it was only separated by slack fencing. Most of the rice straw was heaped on the small path outside the stilted building, but there was a lot that was heaped into the building.

Hence, at the back of the stilted building on the first floor, half of it was fenced while the piled rice straw became a “wall” for the half. For the same reason, once Gu Liang pushed the rice straw aside, he only needed to bend his waist in order to enter the first-floor sundries.

Yang Ye followed Gu Liang inside.

Since he was slightly taller than Gu Liang, he had to bend his waist more.

Inside the dismal and cramped sundries, Gu Liang raised his torchlight and glanced at Yang Ye. “Having to bend your waist and walk on one foot… is it uncomfortable? Do you want to go out first?”

Yang Ye caught hold of Gu Liang’s hand naturally. “Look, the rice straw here clearly can’t be used anymore. They need to be dried again, and they’re on the verge of moulding. It’s so damp here, what if there are rats here?”

Gu Liang: “It’s not like I’m afraid of rats.”

Yang Ye: “What if there are ghosts?”

Gu Liang gave him a sidelong glance. “There are a lot of ghosts in this script.”

Yang Ye: “It’s not the same.”

Gu Liang could only allow Yang Ye to hold his hand.

The pair used their torch lights to search the sundries for a while before they continued forward. After walking out of the passageway, they arrived below the stone steps. After winding around the stone steps, they promptly returned to the courtyard.

Giving the sundries a backwards glance, Gu Liang could not help but remark: “Is it possible that Recluse Wang and Girlfriend Jia also chased after her after they saw Proprietress Ling jumping out of the window? Maybe someone was in front of the window watching where Proprietress Ling was heading to, while the other person ran downstairs; or perhaps both of them jumped out of the window directly.

“It’s just that Proprietress Ling hid behind the rice immediately and hid inside the first-floor sundries, which was why they couldn’t find her.”

“Following the logic that it’s dark under the lights, from Recluse Wang and Girlfriend Jia’s perspective, Proprietress Ling must have ran away. For instance, she might have continued running forward, towards the forest. They didn’t expect that Proprietress Ling would still be in the stilted building.”

After contemplating for a moment, Yang Ye stated: “It’s highly likely. Hence, she hid on the first floor of the stilted building for a while. After confirming that there was no one, she went back to her own room on the third floor. It’s just that we don’t know what happened afterwards, such that it led to her being shot to death in front of the window.”

* * *

1:30 at dawn, it was time for midnight snacks.

Half an hour later, at 2 in the morning, the familiar broadcast rang out.

“To all the players, greetings! Please head towards the dining hall, the dining hall is the centralised discussion venue for this current instance.

“This is a repeated reminder, the centralised discussion will last for 5 hours.

“Once the centralised discussion concludes, everyone will be ushering in 15 days of downtime, so please persevere a little more!

“In the case of《 Rhinoceros Shown 》, School Senior Hua accidentally saw Proprietress Ling’s waist, and felt that she was quite similar to his ex-girlfriend, and he started having good feelings for Proprietress Ling in his heart. School Senior Hua does not have any motivation to commit the crime. For the entire day, School Senior Hua was fishing by the lake, and a fisherman witnessed it. Hence, School Senior Hua’s suspicion has been ruled out, he is the detective of this case oh!”

“Without further ado, Detective, please work hard and lead everyone in solving this case!

“Additionally, there is an attached game reminder: the Detective Actor Gu Liang, and the Actor of President Gao Yang Ye have a substantive romantic relationship. If President Gao is the real murderer, the possibility of the detective helping him lie cannot be ruled out. Players, please take note of this when re-examining the case.”

Yang Ye: “……”

Gu Liang: “……”

System: “Okay, the discussion has begun! Hope everyone enjoys the game!”

After the centralised discussion began, apart from the NPC Ming Yue, the other players could not relax their mental states, probably because they were barely making any progress in this case.

As the detective, Gu Liang helped everyone organise and summarise all of their timelines first.

Of course, it was sorted under the premise that no one was lying.

Since it was 2 in the morning now, the homicide technically happened yesterday.

At 5 in the morning yesterday, Chef Huang discovered a letter in the back kitchen, asking him to invite Proprietress Ling to one of the rooms among 301 to 304 between 2:30 and 4 in the afternoon, and he had to open the window.

At 5:30 in the morning, Tourist Jia went to the courtyard to divert his mind. Subsequently, Girlfriend Jia and Recluse Wang went downstairs together. Girlfriend Jia spoke to Tourist Jia, confirming the fact that Proprietress Ling was an evil ghost that was capable of killing people, and Proprietress Ling must have killed Tourist Jia’s older sister.

At 7 in the morning, all of the characters ate their breakfasts in the dining hall.

After breakfast, School Senior Hua and Zhao Meili went fishing; they only returned to the dining hall to eat their lunch at 12 in the afternoon.

Correspondingly, President Gao invited Tourist Jia to climb the mountain during breakfast.

After eating breakfast, both of them did not climb the mountain immediately. Instead, they went back to their respective rooms to change into clothes suited for mountain climbing.

Both of them set off around 8 o’ clock, reached the peak of the mountain at 9, and they took a breather at the mountain top. They talked about their businesses, and around 9:30, President Gao pushed Tourist Jia off the mountain precipice while he was caught unaware.

As for Girlfriend Jia and Recluse Wang, both of them headed towards Beilin right after breakfast. They were borrowing the pretext of playing, and the reality was that they were discussing their plan of action in detail for the night. They originally planned to act against Proprietress Ling at night.

Chef Huang and Waitress Jing was busy with their own errands in the afternoon.

Once breakfast concluded, Chef Huang rested for some time before preparing the dishes for the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Waitress Jing was cleaning up the dining hall and washing the dishes, then she went to look for Proprietress Ling, in an attempt to lure her towards Tourist Jia’s guest room, and allow the Vagrant Qian on the opposite bank to shoot her to death.

This was the plan that she and Vagrant Qian previously conceived, and they were planning to kill Proprietress Ling in the morning.

But for the entire morning, Waitress Jing did not manage to find Proprietress Ling, so they could only put their plan on hold.

At 12 in the afternoon, apart from Proprietress Ling and Tourist Jia, all of the travellers were eating in the dining room. The Chef cooked, the Waitress served. While the travellers were eating, they only heard Proprietress Ling’s voice coming from the courtyard, no one actually saw her person.

They finished their meal at 12:30. School Senior Hua went fishing; because President Gao was tired from his mountain climbing, he went back to his room to take an afternoon nap.

At 1 in the afternoon, Chef Huang stepped into the inn’s lobby and saw Proprietress Ling. He fabricated an excuse to make her go to School Senior Hua to conduct a search.

At 1:30, Zhao Meili went to the lobby and stabbed Proprietress Ling with a knife.

At 1:40, Proprietress Ling went to the third floor, was brought into Recluse Wang’s room by Recluse Wang and Girlfriend Jia, Recluse Wang used the blood talisman against Proprietress Ling, and the blood talisman needed 3 hours before it could take effect.

At 2 in the afternoon, Girlfriend Jia went to Tourist Jia’s room, wanting to retrieve her peach wood sword, only to double back to Recluse Wang without succeeding.

Following closely, Zhao Meili stepped out of her room. She went to the main lobby to look for Proprietress Ling, but failed to find her, and she took away her bloodstained knife. She checked Proprietress Ling’s room, but after realising that there was no one inside, she returned to her room.

During this time, Chef Huang also arrived at the stilted building.

He found no one in the lobby so he went to the third floor. He saw Girlfriend Jia’s back figure first, then he saw Zhao Meili exiting her room. Thus, he left hastily before she could discover him.

Around 2:10, Chef Huang heard movement near the wooden fence while he was returning to his room.

Concurrently, Waitress Jing was heading down the mountain by flipping over the wooden fence, and she was heading towards the opposite bank of the lake.

She was going to inform Vagrant Qian that Proprietress Ling was not around in the morning, which was why the plan was not accomplished. In the afternoon, she was going to find a way to make Proprietress Ling appear in one of the empty rooms, and she wanted to ask Vagrant Qian to continue watching through the scope, lest he misunderstood, thinking that she had given up on the plan and had a change of mind.

At 2:20, Proprietress Ling jumped out of Recluse Wang’s room on the third floor and ran away. According to Gu Liang’s supposition, she hid inside the sundries, then she secretly returned to the third floor. But as to where she went later, no one was aware for the time being.

Afterwards, at around 2:50, Waitress Jing, who was now at the opposite bank of the lake, discovered Vagrant Qian’s death. Besides herself, and a little shocked, she returned to the inn. The thought that Proprietress Ling killed Vagrant Qian scared her slightly. However, she did not see Proprietress Ling at all after her return.

At 5 in the evening, President Gao woke up from his nap. He was planning to stroll around the courtyard, but he happened to meet the injured and returning Tourist Jia. Both of them got into a fight.

At 5:30, the detective School Senior Hua returned, and the investigation began.