Chapter 76
(Disappearing Corpses; Questionable Characters)
The current scene was strange and mixed with several parts of awkwardness and hilarity.
— Not a single human figure could be seen in the mirror, but there was a bed sheet floating in mid-air.
And that bed sheet was stained was blood.
After freezing for three seconds, Gu Liang’s first reaction was to take the bed sheet from Li Xiao Yu’s hands.
“Ignore it. This is a piece of evidence stipulated by the system. I’ve attempted to wash it before, and the card issued a rule violation warning.”
“f.u.c.k, this is too frightening!”
Li Xiao Yu’s face had been frightened into a pale shade and she did not dare to look at the mirror at all. Then, when she saw that Gu Liang and Yang Ye were still standing behind her after turning her head, she released a long breath. “This… What is going on?”
“Since we’ve reached this stage, I don’t need to conceal anything in front of you at least.”
Gu Liang pointed at the blood on the bed sheet, “What this clue is pointing at is actually very simple, which is that I’ve been bitten by a vampire before. That’s my side task. What about you? Why are you a vampire as well?”
“Vampire? That can’t be right, I’m not.” Li Xiao Yu looked at Gu Liang, dumbfounded. “I don’t understand.”
* * *
A moment later. In Actor Ming’s guest room.
When Li Xiao Yu raised her head from her position on the armchair, she was met with stares from Yang Ye and Gu Liang, which were rather oppressive.
“d.a.m.n it. Two big brothers, I really don’t know what is going on. When have I ever lied to you? It’s not like I can lie past you either.
“When I went to the terrace yesterday, the mirror still had my reflection.”
It was at this moment where Gu Liang recalled something, and he picked up his card to have a look. The displayed time was 6:30 in the evening.
They still had half an hour to explore.
According to the settings, his transformation period should come to an end tomorrow at 8 o’ clock in the morning.
Since he was still undergoing the transformation period, he should be in human state from 6 to 7.
He was clearly in his human state, so why did the mirror fail to reflect his appearance?
Therefore, it was actually possible that Li Xiao Yu was not lying when she said she did not know what was going on?
Gu Liang could not resist asking her: “What was your situation that morning exactly? Why did you a.s.sume that Chief Mei was your fiancé?”
Li Xiao Yu pouted as she contemplated for a long moment, her eyes narrowing as if she was sinking into her memories.
Shortly after, she spoke: “When I was walking in the thick fog, I couldn’t even see the road clearly. I checked the time and it was 8 o’ clock in the morning. I could only remember a few things vaguely. One being that my daughter had gone missing, I had arrived here to find my daughter, and that I should have taken a car here.
“Secondly, the legends state that this ancient castle was a little evil and there might be vampires, so I had to pay attention and try my best to avoid being reflected in mirrors. If I were to appear in the mirror with another vampire, they would know that I’m human and I might be eaten by them.”
“Thirdly, I should have a fiancé. And his body should have a little… Taoist temperament? He’s supposed to have a decent appearance and I need to find him. But owing to the possible existence of vampires and how the surrounding fog was too dense, I didn’t dare to walk too far and I merely wandered around the vegetable field. At 8:40, I met Chief Mei. When I saw him, I could sense that he was my fiancé.”
Gu Liang caught hold of something keenly. He asked her: “Therefore, you didn’t dare to confirm if he was your fiancé? As if there was something wrong with your memory?”
Li Xiao Yu looked at Gu Liang, nodding as she said: “That seems to be the case.”
Having thought of a certain crucial point, Gu Liang asked: “Confidant Ai is your daughter, do you know when her birthday is?”
Li Xiao Yu shook her head: “I don’t know at all.”
Gu Liang tossed out another inquiry: “When did she become acquainted with Lady Rong? What colour does she like, what is her favourite food? Which university did she attend? Do you know?”
Li Xiao Yu continued to shake her head: “I don’t know… I’m totally ignorant.”
After giving a pause, Li Xiao Yu added, “I only know one thing. That mysterious man, I met him today as well.”
Gu Liang asked her: “What time did you see him?”
Li Xiao Yu replied: “3 o’ clock in the afternoon. I was in the room doing my make-up. He told me that I looked beautiful and he wished me happiness, and he had hoped that his ending could be the same as mine.
“In fact, it’s not just me.” Li Xiao Yu continued, “When I b.u.mped in Su Lan just now, she said that she also had an encounter with the mysterious man, and she met him at 2:30. Inside her room.”
“What did he say to Su Lan then?” Gu Liang questioned.
Li Xiao Yu said: “‘This is good, I am truly gladdened by the fact that it wasn’t my daughter who killed her. Otherwise, this matter would be difficult to handle. Even if she is my daughter, I might have taught her a lesson’, his words were roughly along those lines.”
Thus, the reality was that everyone met this mysterious man today.
Gu Liang met him in the rose garden when it was approaching 2 o’ clock.
Su Lan met him in her room at 2:30.
Li Xiao Yu met him at 3 o’ clock in her sixth floor room as well.
Presently, it appeared that the last one to meet him was Yang Ye, since he met the mysterious man in his room at 3:30.
Seeing that Yang Ye and Gu Liang had sunk into deep contemplation, Li Xiao asked them tentatively: “I’ll go somewhere else to search for evidence first then?”
“Mn.” Gu Liang told her, “Don’t tell anyone about the fact that I’ve been bitten by a vampire first. If there’s a vote for this side task, it’s enough that you know about it. Understand?”
“Understood. Crystal clear.” Li Xiao Yu gave him an “OK” hand gesture.
Gu Liang asked another question: “When you went to the back garden at 5 o’ clock today, what were you supposed to do?”
Li Xiao Yu answered: “I suddenly remembered that the bride needs to have a bouquet prepared. Hence, I went to pick some roses first, then I thought of the sunflowers so I went over to have a look. In the end, I encountered the two corpses.”
Gu Liang asked her: “Did you like sunflowers in the past?”
Li Xiao Yu shook her head: “Nope. But in the past few days, I started liking sunflowers more and more. It’s an inexplicable feeling.”
* * *
Li Xiao Yu left to investigate the other areas.
A short while later, Gu Liang and Yang Ye also left the room together.
At the corridor, the pair encountered Sister Mei and Chief Mei.
Gu Liang called them to the stop temporarily. “Can I ask if both of you have met the other deceased today, which is that mysterious man?”
Chief Mei: “I met him, yes.”
Gu Liang followed with another question: “What time?”
Chief Mei said: “When I was together with you. When Sister Mei and I were picking the flowers, we saw you and him in the rose garden. He said something to you then but I didn’t hear it clearly.”
“You didn’t meet him alone?” Gu Liang looked towards Sister Mei, “What about you?”
Both of them shook their heads. “No. Apart from the instance in the rose garden, we never met him alone.”
* * *
After bidding farewell to Chief Mei and Sister Mei, Yang Ye and Gu Liang searched the sixth floor briefly before they made a trip to the second-floor centralised discussion room first.
When they were having their discussion for the second segment, they had brought numerous evinced objects over, which included the silver crosses they found in the Eastern Magician’s and Servant A’s rooms respectively.
Presently, the two cases of crosses were placed on the table and they had both been opened.
The pair did a count and affirmed the fact that they were missing two crosses.
Now certain that the murder weapon had been taken away from this location, the pair sat down to rest, planning to make some headway in their discussion here first.
Gu Liang flipped through the small notebook he had brought on his person and used his pen to scratch a few strokes. He told Yang Ye: “Presently, there are three important questions.
“One, your suspicion is quite heavy, you might be the target of a focused a.s.sault during the centralised discussion.
“Two, what are the ident.i.ties of the two deceased exactly, this will determine the time of occurrence for the murder.
“Three, what is going on with this fantasy, and what are the true ident.i.ties of every person here.
“Do you have anything to add?”
Yang Ye shook his head: “No. Those are the three main questions for the time being.”
Gu Liang: “Sure. Let’s talk about the first question then. From Magnate Rong’s diary, he wants to kill you but the person who died was him. There exists a possibility where you retaliated against him.
“Furthermore, with regards to the mysterious man and our present circ.u.mstances, you were the last person to see him. Your suspicion still remains rather heavy.”
Yang Ye nodded his head: “Mn. I understand. I’ll think of a way to wash away the suspicions on me. But before that supposition is made, we still need to make sense of this fantasy, and the murderer’s motivation for killing.”
Gu Liang glanced at Yang Ye: “We’ll talk about the second question then. Do you think that the two dead people—”
Yang Ye said: “I think that both of them aren’t vampires.”
“If they are vampires, the cross would need to be impaled in their heart for 3 to 5 hours before they will die. The corpses were discovered at 5 o’ clock at night, and even if they happen to take their last breaths at 5 o’ clock exactly, a backwards calculation shows that the crime was committed at 2 in the afternoon.
“Firstly, we can eliminate the mysterious man as a vampire, because I met him at 3 o’ clock.
“Secondly, I think we can eliminate Magnate Rong as well.
“300 years ago, Aimeili had no reason to cry for help, and through our a.n.a.lysis, we deduced that she used her own death as an opening. But those circ.u.mstances shouldn’t exist for Magnate Rong.
“If Magnate Rong was a vampire, and was stabbed by the cross, he could cry for help immediately and survive the attack. However, we didn’t see any signs of struggle on his body, and it’s unlikely that he was suppressed by external means. Therefore, I’m inclined to believe that he isn’t a vampire. His heart was stabbed and it led to his immediate death.”
“Sure, then—”
Gu Liang was about to write that down when he heard Yang Ye add another line, “But I feel that they’re not necessarily humans either.”
Truth to be told, Gu Liang understood what Yang Ye meant.
Brows furrowed, he flipped his notebook until he reached a blank page and started to write the names of all the players, deciding to sort everything from the start once more.
As Gu Liang was sorting out the information, he articulated: “Lady Rong and Butler Hao, Sc.u.mbag Yu, Designer Mei, Confidant Ai, and the chef. On the morning of November 11, when this story just began, we had six known dead people.”
“Yes. I believe that we can differentiate the deceased into three types.”
Yang Ye said, “I agree with your previous conjecture, which was that after 8 o’ clock on the 9th of November, we were already residing in a certain fantasy. When the chef died after 8, he belonged to a scene in the fantasy and he might not actually exist in reality. Consequently, he is alone in the first type, and he is different from the other five.
“The other five people can be separated into two types. But in order to accomplish this separation, there is a prerequisite which I would like you to opine about.”
Yang Ye gazed at Gu Liang, “Why do you think that their corpses are missing? This should be different from Magnate Rong’s circ.u.mstances.”
Gu Liang replied: “Magnate Rong is the true deceased in this case. Logically speaking, he should be similar to the deceased from the other scenarios, wherein he completely dies. But Meng Qian Cheng, the actor of Magnate Rong, used a [Reincarnation Card], which caused his corpse to disappear.
“The disappearance of his corpse is not part of the script’s stipulations, and it can be understood as an ‘unforeseen incident’, which is why the system gave a simple explanation.
“But the three corpses are different. The system didn’t give any special explanations. Since that is the case, the disappearance of their corpses should be a clue that the system is giving us.”
“There are no issues then. On this point, my views are consistent with yours.
“I’ll continue the differentiation from just now.”
Yang Ye stated, “The other five players are separated into two types, the first being Lady Rong and Butler Hao, their corpses were on the western street but inside this new story, which is also this fantasy realm, they have no new ident.i.ties. The two of them can be seen as thoroughly dead.
“The other type consists of Yu, Mei, and Ai. Their corpses do not exist here, but their faces have appeared inside this story. It’s just that they have taken new ident.i.ties, and they believe themselves to be Earl William, Princess Rose, and Mother Ai respectively.”
The diction of “believe” was used by Yang Ye with exceptional accuracy.
Gu Liang pondered briefly before he said: “Agreed.”
Gu Liang added a colon punctuation to the back of every player’s name and said: “a.s.suming that no one is lying, we can a.n.a.lyse it as such— You believe that you are Earl William, but you don’t remember yourself liking Princess Rose, and you can’t make sense of the real reason why you came to the ancient castle. Therefore, you are not the real Earl William.
“Su Lian believes that she is Princess Rose, she also remembers having murderous intentions towards Aimeili, but she doesn’t remember if she has ever acted against her. From the timeline 300 years ago on the day of Aimeili’s death, Princess Rose went to find Aimeili and stayed in her room for a total of two and a half hours but she doesn’t remember this matter at all, nor does she remember what she said to Aimeili.
“There, she is not the real Princess Rose.
“Similarly, Li Xiao Yu believes that she is Mother Ai, but she doesn’t even know when Confidant Ai was born. Additionally, her fiancé doesn’t actually exist. Therefore, she is not the real Mother Ai.”
After Gu Liang finished writing all these, he put down his pen and peered at Yang Ye, “Now that we’ve sorted the previous deceased, we can talk about the players in this story. As a matter of fact, they can tentatively be sorted into three types as well.”
Yang Ye gave it a moment of thought before he uttered: “Mn. The first type is Su Lan, Li Xiao Yu, and me. We gained new ident.i.ties after we died, or at least we believe we have new ident.i.ties.
“The second type is you and Magnate Rong. From what we presently know, both of you did not die when the story started, and you carried on with the roles you had in the previous script.
“The third type is Chief Mei and Sister Mei. Both of them are wanted criminals, they’re clearly aware of their true ident.i.ties since their current ident.i.ties are complete pretences.”
“Yes, Chief Mei’s and Sister Mei’s stories are relatively distinct.”
Gu Liang looked at Yang Ye,”The strangest people right now are you, Su Lan, and Li Xiao Yu. For certain reasons that are unknown to us, all three of you ‘died and revived’ in the fantasy, and you were each given new ident.i.ties.
“Li Xiao Yu believes that she is Mother Ai and thus she addresses herself as Mother Ai. But you and Su Lan are different; both of you a.s.sume that you are vampires and you didn’t want people to know about that fact, which is why you created a false ident.i.ty like the two fugitives.
“Even though all of you committed to the same camouflage, why are you an ‘Unknown Figure’ when she is Traveller Meng?”
“I get the sense that the system is lowering the difficulty by doing this.”
Yang Ye said, “With regards to the sole difference between me and Su Lan, I theorise that the system helped her create an ident.i.ty from the start. For instance, Su Lan’s script could have written, ‘you cannot allow the humans to know that you are a vampire, and you cannot allow anyone to know that you have killed someone, so you are disguising as ‘Traveller Meng’.”
“Mn. That’s plausible. I understand why the system did that now.”
Gu Liang said, “Su Lan’s character has killed the chef. Through a process of logical reasoning, you can infer that she is a vampire from her act of killing the chef, which is why the system could give her the ident.i.ty of ‘Traveller Meng’.
“However, there aren’t any incidents or clues on your end which could allow the others to a.n.a.lyse your ident.i.ty. For the sake of lowering the difficulty, the system didn’t help you create a role. Correspondingly, it’s directly telling the other players that you’re a vampire.”
“Truthfully speaking, if we were to take this thought a step further…. I believe that there is no harm in thinking that the system is hiding a hint in the ‘question mark’.”
Yang Ye continued, “For most of the instances with the system, it has the tendency to hide the hints in the t.i.tle. This time around, it concealed the hints in the characters’ names— In reality, the real ident.i.ties of me, Su Lan, and Li Xiao Yu, are all question marks.”
A long moment later, Gu Liang nodded his head and said: “Agreed.”
* * *
Inside the centralised discussion room, the lights were incandescent.
Yang Ye was contemplative while Gu Liang was writing in his notebook.
The pair’s cooperation was extremely tacit.
For a period of time, the room was exceedingly quiet save the sound of Gu Liang’s fountain pen scratching across paper.
Then, Gu Liang put down his pen for the time being and he saw Yang Ye standing up.
He watched Yang Ye scrutinise him momentarily from a higher point of elevation before he sat beside him. His hand raised, fingers tracing his collar before he proceeded to cup his entire face and bring it closer.
His proximity was too close, and he could even hear his breathing distinctively.
Gu Liang jerked backwards subconsciously. “What are you doing?”
Yang Ye raised his eyes to look at him. “The one who is having skewed thoughts this time around is you.”
Gu Liang: “……”
Smirking, Yang Ye said: “I merely thought of a sudden question, and I wanted to see your scar.”
Gu Liang: “The one you bit on my neck?”
“Mn.” Yang Ye asked him, “Are you going to let me see it?”
“……” Gu Liang said, “Why wouldn’t you be allowed to see this?”
After he asked that question, Gu Liang remembered the fallacy that Yang Ye previously mentioned about how touching the neck was equivalent to kissing.
Hence, Gu Liang, who usually thought nothing of the gesture, felt a faint sense of strangeness rising in his heart, something akin to awkwardness, but he felt like he could not term it as an awkward and strange sensation either.
Especially since Yang Ye had already started undoing the b.u.t.ton on his collar.
With his head lowered, Yang Ye was very close; it was close to the point where Gu Liang could almost kiss him once he slanted his head.
As a matter of fact, this process was quite short-lived, but Gu Liang had the inexplicable feeling that a long time had pa.s.sed before Yang Ye finally undid his collar.
At that moment, Yang Ye was genuinely devoid of distracting thoughts. Rather, he felt extremely baffled.
— Currently, Gu Liang’s fair and clean neck did not have a single scar. It was essentially as white as jade, and it did not seem like he was bitten before in the least.
“What about it?” Gu Liang asked.
Yang Ye frowned. “It looks like you’ve never been bitten before.”
Gu Liang raised his eyes to stare at him. “That can’t be right. I have a peculiar feeling.
“Maybe, the three of you are not alone in not being the people you believe you are.
“I am not the Actor Ming I believe I am either.
“Perhaps… the truth is that all of us are all ‘unknown figures’.”
Yang Ye’s eyebrows knitted together faintly as he said: “That possibility exists, yes. Do you still remember the a.n.a.lysis we made about Magnate Rong after the first round of voting?”
“I do.” Gu Liang said, “You said that Magnate Rong’s choices of votes were very strange, that he could be trying for a reverse logic. Back then, we a.s.sumed that there were a total of three vampires, namely William, Dahl, and Rose, and everyone only found you and Su Lan. Furthermore, you believed that the remaining one was Magnate Rong.”
“I still believe that my judgement wasn’t wrong.
“Reasonably speaking, Magnate Rong should be aware of who Princess Rose is.
“Magnate Rong wanted to appear unknowing and ignorant in his complete lack of ability to judge the evidence, and by acting stupid and excusing himself with distractions. Therefore, in the first round of voting, he arbitrarily gave the vote meant for Princess Rose to Li Xiao Yu.
“Then there’s the second round of voting where we had to vote for the person who killed Aimeili. He voted for Princess Rose instead, like he was deliberately clearing his relation to Princess Rose…
“For all these reasons, I still believe that he is Duke Dahl.
“That’s not right, the sentence needs to be rephrased. Rather, in his own perspective, he believes himself to be Duke Dahl. It’s just like how I didn’t have the slightest doubt in the belief that I was Earl William.”
Gu Liang ruminated for a moment. He picked up his pen, lowered his head, and jotted it down. “Agreed. This point can be mutually corroborated with his diary.
“He believes that he is Duke Dahl. However, when he saw that you could command bats, he was afraid that you would supersede him in becoming Duke Dahl, and he was also afraid that you would steal his Mother Ai. Thus, he wanted to kill you. Right—
“I want to look at the corpses again!”
Gu Liang thought of a crucial point and he stood up instantaneously.
He was too engrossed thinking about the case which made him forget one thing— at this moment, the distance between him and Yang Ye was extremely close.
Previously, Yang Ye had moved closer to check the wound on his neck, and then he was immersed in his a.n.a.lysis the entire time.
Although he did not look at Gu Liang’s neck again, Yang Ye merely straightened his waist and raised his head, but he had forgotten to lean back.
And owing to the fact that Gu Liang had picked up his pen again to jot down some notes, his head had always been lowered as he spoke.
Hence, the positions that Gu Liang and Yang Ye were in prior to him standing was— Yang Ye’s nose was facing his forehead.
Without any suspense, Gu Liang knocked into Yang Ye’s nose when he stood up so abruptly.
“Hiss—!” Yang Ye covered his nose immediately.
Gu Liang froze before he reacted. He sat down again and looked at him with furrowed brows. “Are you okay?”
Yang Ye did not make a sound, since he really wanted to see Gu Liang Liang’s reaction.
Gu Liang raised a hand to support his wrist, and concern was evident in his tone as he asked: “Is it bleeding? Let me see.”
Yang Ye stared into his eyes, silent.
Gu Liang asked: “Does it really hurt?”
Yang Ye remained wordless.
Gu Liang: “Have you gone silly because of the impact?”
Since his palm was covering his nose, Yang Ye’s voice sounded a little m.u.f.fled. “If your boyfriend became silly, would you still like him?”
Gu Liang: “You make it sound as though I really like you now—”
Yang Ye: “It’s okay if you don’t admit to liking me, you’ve already recognised me as your boyfriend either way.”
It was here. It was here again.
He was starting to emphasise on the word “boyfriend” again ceaselessly.
Gu Liang patted his forehead and stood up. “… Apart from thinking about the case, you’re still capable of creating a situation to route me. You’ve gone silly? I see that you’re extremely clear-headed.”
Gu Liang’s awkward and embarra.s.sed appearance made Yang Ye laugh.
Subsequently, he continued to tease Gu Liang in a shameless manner. “Liang Liang, it really hurts.”
Gu Liang: “Then… I’ll go to the kitchen and find some ice cubes for you before we go to the back garden to check the corpse.”
Yang Ye: “The ice cubes are not needed.”
“What do you want then?”
“It’ll stop hurting once you kiss me.”
“……”
“You can blow it too?”
“Are you in the older cla.s.s of kindergarten this year?”
“If you kiss me, I’ll even admit to being in the younger cla.s.s.”
“I really—”
Gu Liang could not antagonise him any longer, and even if he wanted to control his facial expression, he could not deny that he was amused by Yang Ye’s antics.
Against Yang Ye’s brazenness, he truly had to concede defeat.
* * *
Approximately 10 minutes later.
Yang Ye and Gu Liang went to the back garden again.
The skies had completely darkened by then.
Under the guide of their flashlights, the pair arrived at the previous vegetable field, which was the sunflower garden right now.
After the pair returned to the sunflower garden, they discovered— both of the corpses had unexpectedly disappeared.
Similar to the disappearance of the three corpses on the southern road, the disappearance of this corpse was implying another clue.
After having a few conjectures in their minds, Gu Liang and Yang Ye made their way back to the ancient castle very quickly.
As they travelled through the main hall and reached the lobby, the sound of a string instrument abruptly pierced the air.
The melody harboured a heavy metallic tint. It was a trait specific to harpsichords.
And towards that tune, both of them were very familiar with it. It was the piece that Yang Ye had unconsciously played prior to this.
Yang Ye and Gu Liang exchanged looks before they took the elevator up to the piano room on the fourth floor swiftly.
The door to the piano room was not closed.
Hence, when the pair reached the entrance, they could see with exceptional clarity that— the person sitting in front of the harpsichord and intoxicated from the tune, was Li Xiao Yu.
T/N: p.r.o.nouns are truly the bane of this chapter x.x