Chapter 26
(Everyone was almost deceived by the real murderer.)
Yang Ye nodded his head. “Noted. I don’t have any questions left. With what we have right now, we should be hovering near the truth.”
Oldest Martial Brother said: “This is just a guess I made. Since he needs to go past the lake to get to the fake mountain, it’s possible that he used the lake to conceal the evidence out of convenience’s sake. I can’t think of other brain holes.”
“Sure. If you think of anything new, you can fill me in on them again. I’ll trouble you to call in Second Martial Brother.”
After a short while, the person who sat opposite of Yang Ye in the interrogation room turned into the Second Martial Brother.
Truth to be told, Yang Ye could perceive that the Second Martial Brother had a comparatively vivacious and energetic personality. Like now for instance: he could not sit still and he kept twisting about on the chair as if he was being constrained, or had been afflicted with hyperactivity.
Yang Ye poured him a cup of water. “Don’t be nervous. We’re all playing a game. It’s not like I’m a real detective or something.”
“Ah, I know… I can’t help but be nervous,” said Second Martial Brother.
“Why? Are you the real murderer?”
“I’m not… At least I don’t think I am!”
“There’s a lot of people who are suspecting you right now.”
“Why? No, how could they suspect me, it really has nothing to do with me!”
Yang Ye smiled, choosing not to explain anything for the time being. He merely asked: “This script is called 《Painted Exteriors · Long Lived》. With regards to these two phrases, how much do you know about it?”
Second Martial Brother shook his head: “Long lived… It might be referring to the fact that Perennial w.a.n.g has lived for a long time and never grows old, but I’m clueless about the painted exteriors aspect.”
As Yang Ye stared at his face, he mused, since this was a game, it was highly likely that he would have no way of checking whether he was wearing a face skin on his visage. Fortunately, he had already grasped a few key details from the case review and the interrogation he had with the Oldest Martial Brother just now.
And now was the time to verify one of those details.
Having reached this point, Yang Ye’s blood flow sped up a little and sweat started to appear on his palms.
He wiped his hands with a tissue before he gripped his pen again. Staring at Second Martial Brother, he asked: “In that case, do you mind taking off your outer robe to let me see what you’re wearing underneath?”
Second Martial Brother started stuttering immediately, “Ik2026; Ik2026;”
Yang Ye had essentially guessed the reason why he chose to conceal the matter, hence he stated: “I won’t betray your trust.”
Second Martial Brother was not stupid; he immediately understood Yang Ye’s meaning.
Prior to this, Second Martial Brother had encountered Yang Ye and Gu Liang during the free exploration segment.
The Second Martial Brother then asked Yang Ye for the photograph of the corpse and hinted that the wounds might have been made by two people.
Back then, he did not confess upfront because he wanted to wait for Yang Ye to come to his own conclusions and see if he was a dog headed detective before he reconsidered on whether he wanted to reveal the truth of the matter. And with Yang Ye’s statement, it was clearly expressing that he had completely understood Second Martial Brother’s hint.
Yang Ye put down the pen he was holding and said slowly, “If your sleeves happen to have bloodstains, it will instead diminish the suspicions I have about you.”
Second Martial Brother did not really understand why Yang Ye would say that but he still took off his outer robe after a moment of hesitation.
Just as he had expected, the hem of his right inner sleeve as well as his chest was stained with a fair amount of blood. Furthermore, the bloodstain patterns left behind corresponded with a right-handed person holding a knife and carving those words on a body.
“Can you tell me how these bloodstains came about now?” Yang Ye asked.
Second Martial Brother sat back down and said sighing, “I confess that I’m the one who took the knife and carved those words. The reason I didn’t admit to it in the past was simply because I was afraid that you would immediately a.s.sume that I was the murderer once it was revealed. I… this script of mine is a trap.”
Yang Ye questioned him: “What were the original words in your script?”
“After I completed the curse at mao s.h.i.+, I borrowed the pretext of going to the kitchen to wait for breakfast to go to Perennial w.a.n.g’s bedroom to check if he was dead or not. As I was pa.s.sing by the weaponry storehouse, I slipped in and chose a handy short knife. Upon reaching Perennial w.a.n.g’s room, he was the only occupant of the room as I had expected, and he was not dead, merely in the state of unconsciousness which should be the work of the knockout drugs. I thought, since the talisman didn’t curse him to death, I’ll stab him to death with the knife then.
“But I changed my mind. The blood debt Perennial w.a.n.g owes me stems from the destruction of my Sect; letting him die in a sleep-addled state was letting him off too lightly. According to my tentative plan, I wanted him to wake up in pain after the knockout drug effects had subsided and then let him bleed to death slowly, tormented.”
“Just as I finished carving the two characters for ‘beast’ (畜生), I heard footsteps outside the room. It could be some servant girl walking past, it could also be Beauty Yi coming back in advance, thus I fled the scene without further delay.”
“Oh, right, before I carved the words on his person, I took off my outer robes and only wore my inner robe because I was afraid of staining it with blood. When I was done carving the words, I put my outer robes back on so the bloodstains on my sleeves and chest would be covered by the outer layer.”
After the Second Martial Brother was done speaking, Yang Ye did not make a single utterance for a long time.
His silence made Second Martial Brother fidgety and he blurted out a question: “The owner of the footsteps should be the real murderer. I ran away hastily and wasn’t certain if those wounds would take his life and I didn’t have the time to add more incisions either. The real murderer came after me. He must have felt that the wounds I inflicted were too light and it wasn’t enough to kill Perennial w.a.n.g so he added a few stabs.”
Yang Ye said: “What you’re saying is that, someone came in after you, picked up the knife you left on the ground, pointed at the dot on top of the ‘畜’ character and impaled it into his lungs. This person hated him to the utmost degree, and because he was afraid that it wasn’t enough to kill him, he followed the bottom stroke of the ‘生’ character and slashed open his stomach artery.”
“Yes. That’s what I thought.” Second Martial Brother nodded.
Yang Ye posed another enquiry. “When you went in, what state was Perennial w.a.n.g in? Was he wearing clothes?”
Second Martial Brother replied, “No. He was naked waist up. He was in the same condition as the deceased. Why are you asking this?”
Second Martial Brother could not wrap his head around why Yang Ye would suddenly be concerned about the deceased’s state of dress.
“It’s nothing, just casually asking.” Yang Ye did not want to explain too much for the time being. Instead, he asked: “Once you were done with your tasks, what time was it specifically?”
“After I used the curse at mao s.h.i.+, I set off immediately. When I finished carving the words and left… it was before three quarters of an hour, since I was already in the kitchen by then. But it’s really true that I was in the kitchen making breakfast for a time, and I remained there until five quarters of an hour in before I returned back to the room with breakfast.”
“Did you go to the fake mountain in the afternoon?”
“No. The kitchen and fake mountain are in two completely different directions. I don’t have the time. Besides, why would I go to the fake mountain?”
“Last question. When you went to the bedroom and realised that Perennial w.a.n.g was not dead, did it ever occurred to you that he was not Perennial w.a.n.g?”
“No. I reckoned he must have guessed that people would curse him on this day so he made plans to resist it in advance. I didn’t think too much into it, I simply thought that the opportunity could not be missed and I had to act as fast as possible.”
“Okay, I’ve figured it out.”
“Do you really have it figured out? I still don’t get it. I only know that I’m not the real murderer. Detective, you have to believe me.”
“I’ll be troubling you to call Doctor Yu in.”
When Doctor Yu walked into the room, Yang Ye was holding his card and inspecting the map.
Doctor Yu came to a stop in front of him. “Detective, have you discovered anything?”
Yang Ye eyed her and asked: “Who do you think is the murderer?”
“Isn’t it the Second Martial Brother?” She returned a question.
Upon seeing a lack of response to her words, Doctor Yu huffed out a few mouthfuls of air. Her pupils s.h.i.+fted back and forth before she said: “When you were having an individual interrogation with Second Martial Brother just now, I was also discussing the case with the Oldest Martial Brother outside. He told me his brain hole. I felt like there were no issues with it.”
“Is that so? Then I’ll ask you…” Yang Ye crinkled his eyes, “According to his deduction, the Second Martial Brother borrowed the pretext of making breakfast to take his leave, but he was going to kill someone in actuality. However, he ended up being retaliated against. Later, the murderer went back to his residence pretending that he was Second Martial Brother. During that period of time, he was carrying their breakfast. How did the murderer come to know he had to bring the breakfast back?”
“Maybe the Oldest Martial Brother and Second Martial Brother habitually eat their breakfast at that time. The murderer has been the Sect Leader for a long time and he’s bound to be familiar with his two disciples, making it natural for him to know these things. Furthermore, that also happened to be around the time for breakfast, and if the Second Martial Brother was concealing the fact that he was going out to kill someone from his Oldest Martial Brother, he would definitely fabricate an excuse. And this excuse was probably to go to the kitchen to fetch breakfast. It’s not difficult for the murderer to guess these details. I feel like this isn’t a problem at all. The most important issue is still the two missing face skins, and that’s the crucial point.”
Yang Ye: “Sure. I’ll continue to ask you a few more questions then.”
“Okay. Please don’t hesitate to ask.”
Yang Ye: “According to your script, you came and find me in the morning because you wanted to reminisce the old days and persuade me to be your alibi on the account that we had friendly feelings as childhood sweethearts, in order to prevent the suspicion from falling on your head once everyone discovered that Perennial w.a.n.g had been cursed to death, right?”
Doctor Yu nodded her head: “Yes. Didn’t I ridicule that detail in front of you this morning? The sentence that the script wrote was absurdly strange.”
“From the viewpoint of the story itself, the character doing such a thing is reasonable. But from a game playing, case solving perspective, this sentence is certainly weird. Despite our misgivings, I feel like it wasn’t written that way for no apparent reason. As you were making your way to my place, did you encounter anyone as you pa.s.sed by the secret path in the fake mountain?”
Doctor Yu thought back about it carefully and then shook her head. “No. I didn’t encounter a single person. Not even a servant girl or guard was in the vicinity of the fake mountain and the secret path.”
Yang Ye tossed her another question. “Don’t you find that strange? According to the map locations, your residence is quite far from mine. When you were done with your curse at mao s.h.i.+, the subsequent journey you had to take from your residence to mine not only ensured that you would bypa.s.s Perennial w.a.n.g’s residence, it also made sure that the fake mountain was included. You walked at a relatively slow pace and it took you around three quarters of an hour to get there, which is equivalent to 45 full minutes. If Second Martial Brother killed someone in Perennial w.a.n.g’s residence and later went to the fake mountain to take the face skins, you should have b.u.mped into him.”
Doctor Yu was a little bewildered. “Then… perhaps he left after three quarters of an hour in?”
Yang Ye explained: “I surmise that the script arranging for you to find me has two uses: one, it eliminates the possibility of you being murderer, and two, it was using your character to tell us that in those 45 minutes, no one went to the fake mountain.
“As for what occurs after three quarters of an hour in, the Second Martial Brother was already in the kitchen. I don’t think he would go to the kitchen first and then kill someone with the breakfast in hand. It’s only possible that he went to the kitchen to make breakfast after he accomplished the most important thing, which is killing the deceased.”
“But… if Second Martial Brother never went to the fake mountain, does the matter of the face skin exchange not exist? I’m getting more confused the more you speak.”
With how much her head was aching, Doctor Yu was essentially lying on the table. “No matter how you look at it, only the Sect Leader knows about the secret path. Apart from him, who could go and change the face skins?”
The corners of Yang Ye’s mouth quirked up. “Everyone is stuck in a general misconception. Does the matter of going to the secret path and taking the face skins, absolutely have to transpire during the script enactment segment?”
“What else could it be then?” Doctor Yu was befuddled.
Yang Ye said: “The murderer could be the first to find the secret path during the free exploration segment. When he learnt the secret regarding the painted skins upon entering the secret path, a flash of inspiration hit him and he thought he could seize the chance to s.h.i.+ft the blame onto another player, hence he took away two face skins. After he left, he pretended he knew nothing of the secret path.”
Doctor Yu froze for a moment. When she came back to her senses, she stared at Yang Ye dully as her response bubbled from her throat: “What the f.u.c.k!?”