Chapter 50.1
(Two Xiao Caos)
Despite being the one who said the answer, Scientist Li was the first to stiffen up. “Uh… Don’t tell me, there are really two Xiao Caos.”
“My script writes that, as the school gra.s.s, not only was Xiao Cao attractive in appearance, all his results were extraordinary too. However, what people thought was odd about him was that his energy levels were unusually vigorous.”
Scientist Li said: “He was a student of great ability in the chemistry faculty, but he was taking a double degree and his other degree was literature, which did not complement his chemistry at all. His schedule was essentially packed to the brim; be it presentation compet.i.tions, basketball compet.i.tions, literature workshops… He partic.i.p.ated in all of them.
“After he went on an adventure with us, he managed to submit a periodic and high quality thesis meant for publication not long after we returned from school, no one knew when he wrote it…”
Scientist Li’s enthusiasm continued to increase the longer he spoke.
Prior to this, he hadn’t paid much attention to the story details regarding Xiao Cao, and he could not remember them clearly, so he took out his card and did a careful examination of his script.
After he was done looking through his card, Scientist Li said: “There’s another detail. Owing to the fact that the majority of the boys in our adventuring team all had affections for Xiao Hua, they were my love rivals as well. I paid a fair amount of attention to them. I discovered that Xiao Cao was rather strange; in the numerous instances where I b.u.mped into him in the library, he did not acknowledge me at all, only looking through his chemistry-related books with a lowered head, and his gaze was extremely gloomy and dark.
“But when I told Xiao Hua about this, Xiao Hua denied my observation, saying that Xiao Cao was merely focused on doing his questions, which is why he ignored his friends. In Xiao Hua’s eyes, Xiao Cao has always been a boy likened to suns.h.i.+ne, he was not a.s.sociated with darkness at all.
“Apart from that, there’s nothing else. My script was very long, and it featured a lot of descriptions regarding Xiao Hua, Xiao Dong, so on and so forth. Hence, I didn’t think too much into it back then. I a.s.sumed that Xiao Cao was a two-faced person; being optimistic in front of the person he likes, but reverting back to his usual gloominess that he typically concealed when he was not. But from the looks of it now… It was not a pretence, but two actual people.”
After saying that entire chunk of words, Scientist Li took a huge gulp of water.
Gu Liang stared at him silently for a long time before he spoke up: “With the evidence presented before us, this script should not have any supernatural settings. There is no basis for a science fiction setting either; therefore, clones are beyond the scope of possibility. Since that’s the case, maybe they’re twins? It’s just that for some unknown reasons, the pair of brothers had to share the ident.i.ty of ‘Xiao Cao’.”
Scientist Li swallowed the water in his mouth as he nodded: “Mn, maybe they are twins.”
Professor w.a.n.g became quite intrigued by this story, and said: “Was the situation like this then? The person who could act against the four university students without any hesitation, must be the gloomy looking one, who is also the chemistry major. We’ll call him Dark Xiao Cao.
“The other person who is vivacious and suns.h.i.+ne-like, we’ll call him Light Xiao Cao, and he studies literature. The person who joined the adventuring team, and likes Xiao Hua, is all Light Xiao Cao.”
“That should be the case, yes.”
Gu Liang looked at Scientist Li once more, “It would be best if you talked about the things that happened on this snow mountain in detail. Like what happened before you entered the cave for instance, or whether it was Light or Dark Xiao Cao who was with the group during the expedition.”
Scientist Li raised his head to finish the latter half of his mineral water before he started to narrate.
“The legend states that the Rainbow Crystal of the Huilong Snow Mountain is hidden in a cave, and anyone who finds the crystal can obtain a blessing. When we found that cave in the middle of the night, everyone was very excited, but because our night vision wasn’t the best, it wouldn’t be easy for us to seek help if something were to happen. Thus, we returned to the camp, planning to rest for the night before heading back there the next day. These pieces of information coincides with the description you found in Xiao Dong’s diary.
“The next morning, we arrived at the cave, and implemented various safety measures like using the atmosphere sensor and whatnot. The air in the cave was within acceptable parameters, which was why we dared to go in.
“Ah right, I forgot to mention a detail. When I woke up in the morning, I noticed that Xiao Cao was already awake. I found it quite strange, because he usually likes sleeping in. When I was going out of the tent to cook porridge, I asked him if he had eaten, but he refused to acknowledge me. It was like he didn’t know me, and he had reverted back to his gloomy att.i.tude.”
Hearing that, Gu Liang asked: “And before that? By that I mean, when you were adventuring the night before, what was Xiao Cao’s att.i.tude like?”
Scientist Li said: “The script didn’t mention the specifics, but I think, this symbolises that my character didn’t notice anything strange. At that instance, Xiao Cao was still Light Xiao Cao.”
Gu Liang: “Which also means to say that, the person who went on a mountain climbing expedition with all of you, has always been Light Xiao Cao. But when all of you were sleeping in the camp the night you found the cave, the two Xiao Caos took the chance to swap places, albeit for unknown reasons. Hence, on the second morning, the person who entered the cave with you, became Dark Xiao Cao?”
“Yes. That conjecture should be correct.”
Scientist Li said, “That morning, the situation took a turn for the worse not long after we entered the cave. Dark Xiao Cao was the first to faint, and after he fainted, Xiao Hua and Xiao Dong fainted in quick succession. Just as I was about to open my mouth to ask about them, I fainted as well. When I woke up later, everyone was still unconscious. So I ran out, seeking help.
“Presently, the main base camp is only one kilometre away from our temporary camp. It wasn’t the same three years ago; I had to run ten kilometres before I reached the bottom of the mountain and found the main base camp. When the staff members were about to go up to the mountain cave to save them, the avalanche happened.”
Professor w.a.n.g asked in a doubtful tone: “According to your account, the person who died inside the cave was Dark Xiao Cao, and the person who killed was Light Xiao Cao?
“Who are we supposed to vote for then?”
“Will the twin older and younger brother appear in the choices? How would we know if we should choose the older brother or the younger brother?”
Gu Liang went silent. Picking up another water bottle, he twisted open the cap and drank a few mouthfuls.
Subsequently, he put down the bottle and said: “Considering how the script hasn’t been forthcoming with more information, I think that we only need to vote for Xiao Cao when the voting comes around. The pair of brothers were sharing the ident.i.ty of Xiao Cao.”
“Your meaning is, a NPC that we’re unfamiliar with won’t appear, nor will the descriptors of the older brother and younger brother?” Professor w.a.n.g was still a little unsettled.
Gu Liang shook his head: “Since the script didn’t provide more clues, then we only need to vote for Xiao Cao. The pair of brothers shared an ident.i.ty, and as to why one of them committed homicide, or if they had any entanglements with Xiao Hua… All these stories, they’re not present in the script enactment itself, and it doesn’t affect the quest to find the real murderer in the slightest. Hence, we don’t need to debate about it any further.”
* * *
Since they had an abundance of time remaining for the centralised discussion, the four players smoothed out the entire sequence of events in the script with Scientist Li’s concrete narration regarding that year’s expedition as a basis.
Three years ago, four university students from “I Am Super Intelligent” University went on an expedition together.
This included the fourth year students Xiao Cao, Xiao Hua and Xiao Yuan, Xiao Dong was in year three.
Unbeknownst to them, however, there was another Xiao Cao following them in the dark.
For some unknown purposes, the pair of twins shared a common name and ident.i.ty— Xiao Cao.
They climbed Huilong Snow Mountain and found the mountain cave the day before, but when the four university students entered the cave, they were knocked unconscious.
Among the sedated people, one of the Xiao Cao twins were present.
Xiao Yuan, owing to his anesthetic resistance, woke up in advance and escaped.
Following, a small-scale snow avalanche occurred. The heavy snow blocked the cave entrance, causing the other three to die inside the cave.
Hence, one of the Xiao Caos, killed two of his schoolmates, and his own twin brother as well.
After the fleeing Xiao Yuan reached the base camp at the foot of the mountain, he found the staff members, but the staff members had no way of enacting a rescue under those circ.u.mstances.
Afterwards, perhaps because the staff members did not want to take responsibility for it, they did not report it to the police.
And despite calming down later, Xiao Yuan did not dare to tell anyone the truth.
Four of them went on an expedition, but he was the only one who survived. He was afraid that people would mistake him as the murderer.
Hence, after he went back, he told his teachers, schoolmates, and the group’s parents that everyone had gotten lost, for he did not know where the other three went either.
Furthermore, when everyone went to search the mountain after the parents reported it to the police, Xiao Yuan pointed them in the wrong direction on purpose.
The body of Huilong Snow Mountain was huge; since it was formed by countless small mountains, some of the roads were extremely treacherous.
In addition to Xiao Yuan’s misguided directions, no one ever found the corpses.
Although three years had pa.s.sed, Xiao Yuan still felt guilty.
After graduating, he walked the research route and changed his name to Scientist Li.
On a certain day three years later, he heard that some research members were going to Huilong Snow Mountain for an inspection, so Scientist Li took the initiative to apply for it, thus becoming a member of the inspection team. He wanted to make up for his past cowardice; he wanted to know who was the murderer that killed three of his schoolmates that year.
And in those three years, the real murderer Xiao Cao was constantly disseminating rumours that there were ghosts wandering around Huilong Snow Mountain, and frequently pretended to be a ghost to scare people away, all because he did not want people getting close to that cave and discovering the three corpses inside.
Similarly, Xiao Cao did not expect that a four-person team would actually find the cave again, and they even planned to take the corpses away.
Hence, he created a trick where the camp disappeared and imitated the ghost by asking them “Do you believe me”, all for the sake of making them believe that there were ghosts so he might scare them away.
Alas, Xiao Cao failed.
The four members of the inspection team did not take to the bluff, and they still chose to bring the corpses away.
The three corpses had always been a frozen state for the past three years. If they were brought back to the police station, the substances inside their body could be autopsied, and the real culprit for the entire matter would be exposed.
Thus, Xiao Cao decided to burn the corpses.
On this day, after observing that Inspector Liu and Professor w.a.n.g went to the toilet, he ambushed them outside the toilet and knocked them unconscious first.
He had two reasons for doing this, one, since both of them were unconscious, they could not testify if the other party had been at the scene, which meant that both of them had the opportunity to commit the crime and they would mutually suspect each other later; two, to stop the pair from returning back to the crime scene, thus preventing them from ruining the next steps of his plan.
After sedating the two, Xiao Cao observed that Scientist Li was heading in the direction of the cave alone, so he sedated Scientist Li mid-journey.
He was cognizant of the fact that Scientist Li was Xiao Yuan, and having learnt a lesson from his past mistakes, he increased the dosage to ensure that Scientist Li would remain unconscious for a longer period of time.
Afterwards, Xiao Cao went back to the camp, sedated Doctor Xu, and brought her to a relatively safe place further away to ensure that she would not be injured from the explosion. This was to make everyone suspect that the person responsible for the fire was Scientist Li.
With all the preparatory work completed, Xiao Cao drizzled the alcohol on the three corpses and set the corpses on fire.
Before leaving, he snagged the three energy bars from the box in the pa.s.sing, because he needed food.
When he left, he used the road leading towards the cave, and as he was pa.s.sing the unconscious Scientist Li, he threw the emptied pharmaceutical bottle in his vicinity in order to s.h.i.+ft the blame.
The story flowed without a hitch, and there were no huge defects overall.
Gu Liang squeezed the empty water bottle with his fingers, and the resulting sound was particularly distinct in the barren snowy land.
After a long time, Gu Liang murmured, “Although we don’t know what the exact backstory is, but in killing his own twin brother, the real murderer actually killed himself as well. They shared a common social ident.i.ty. When he killed Xiao Cao, he could no longer return to the life he had in the school campus.
“He didn’t die, he’s not a ghost, but he lived like a wandering spirit on this snow mountain.
“Additionally, I keep having the hunch that…. The reason he burnt the corpses, maybe it isn’t because he’s afraid of the police.”
After ruminating for a long while, Gu Liang uttered, “Since he could no longer return to society with the ident.i.ty of Xiao Cao, he remained on the snow mountain, acting as a ghost to scare people day after day… His life had already been destroyed in actuality. It’s unlikely that a person like this would be afraid of getting arrested by the police as a known murderer. No matter how bad his days would become, it couldn’t get any worse.”
Indeed, Gu Liang had touched on an important point.
At this moment, the wind became a little bigger, and all the players at the scene tightened their down jackets.
They found it incredibly hard to imagine what the real murderer’s life was like in the past three years— having to wander in these frigid mountains, acting as a ghost to scare away lone expedition members or travellers whenever he met them.
Perhaps when the travellers were fleeing, they did not have the time to take away all their tents and equipment, so the real murderer would take these items for his own use, and survive off the food that they left behind.
Yes, he was pretending to be a ghost, and he was not an actual one. But as he remained on this snowy mountain for three full years, how was he any different from a wandering lonely soul, or a wild ghost?
The translator has something to say:
Surprisingly, this is one of the only arcs where I kind of guessed the entire story from the t.i.tle, opening story and the script enactment without having any actual evidence, because I’ve read too many mystery/thriller novels with the entire ‘twin conundrum’ or ‘a person pretending to be a ghost’ narrative.
[But then again, the only other story plot I managed to guess was Painted Exteriors because the entire ‘painted skins’ thing plus ‘immortal Perennial w.a.n.g’ rang alarms in my head…]