The other mental abilities could be ignored. The main concern was the one that listened in on people's thoughts. Listening in on his thoughts was cheating, and cheating was forbidden.
Without betraying any reaction, he followed the source of that subtle sensation to identify the ability's owner. After a careful search, he finally narrowed it down to a woman named Chu Yue.
Chu Yue rested her chin in her hand, looking bored out of her mind, but she had been listening in on their private thoughts all along.
"Butler," Chu Yue suddenly called out to the NPC, "has the troublemaker slipped in among the guests?"
Her tone carried just the right hint of doubt, as though it were an ordinary question.
"Yes, yes," the butler replied respectfully, a professional smile on his face and his hands folded before him. Then, his voice tinged with anger, he continued, "Our duke has taken great care in hosting all his guests, and that damned troublemaker chose to sneak in among them."
Chu Yue blinked lightly, her gaze shifting as though she were thinking about something. Then she asked, "Are there other guests who haven't arrived yet?"
"The duke sent invitations far and wide, and many were invited. Naturally, some guests have yet to arrive because of difficulties with their journeys," the butler answered in a steady voice. "However, that damned troublemaker slipped in long ago."
"How do you know?"
"What?" The butler seemed caught off guard by the sudden question, and a fleeting look of confusion crossed his face.
"Since you don't know who the troublemaker is, why do you know that they slipped in long ago?" Chu Yue pressed, watching the butler's expression. "Or are you hiding something?"
The butler gave a soft huff, looking a little displeased. "This is the duke's banquet. Naturally, I want it to go perfectly. Why would I lie about such a thing?"
With that, he left in a huff.
Chen Yang pushed up the glasses on his nose and asked Chu Yue, who sat across from him, "What are you doing? NPCs are a key source of information."
"Aha, key information?" Chu Yue smiled scornfully. "What, did you all read those guides for nothing?"
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
The guides for this Guixu were far too inconsistent. The troublemaker could be anyone, regardless of their identity.
In one guide, for example, there was a woman who owned a flower shop. She had once had a beloved man, the warmth and support of her life.
Then one day, the duke passed the flower shop on the street. A single glance left him so besotted that he lost his head. He disregarded others' wishes and took what he wanted by force, ultimately murdering the shop owner's beloved in cold blood.
The pain tormented the shop owner, so on the duke's birthday, that special day, she carefully prepared many bouquets of beautiful, delicate flowers to take her revenge. Placed separately, the bouquets looked like ordinary decorations, with nothing suspicious about them. But once they were cleverly arranged together, they would produce a deadly toxin in the air.
In another guide, there was a noble relative from a distant place who had eyes only for the duke's vast wealth. Consumed by greed, she used their relationship to get close to him and slipped a drop of deadly poison into his drink during a toast.
Afterward, the noble relative shed crocodile tears and pretended to be grief-stricken. Since the duke had no heir, his estate was like ownerless property, divided up among his various relatives.
They were happy, they were delighted, and they shared the wealth. Those relatives were all accomplices.
Then there was the reporter, a figure not to be underestimated in some guide videos. He possessed a crucial piece of evidence against the duke and used it to blackmail him.
The more he extorted, the more his ambition swelled, and he wanted even more. The duke threatened his life, and he obediently reined himself in. But on the day of the banquet, rumors flew. The duke came to him and said he no longer had the evidence to threaten him with. The reporter quickly pressed the shutter, trying to use words that could turn black into white to find one last way out for himself, while also recording this final scene.
Or take the invited merchant, who was even more treacherous.
In his eyes, there was only endless profit and a desire to monopolize the market. To fulfill his ambitions, he resorted to every means, even setting his schemes on the duke's businesses. He carefully planned each step, using all manner of commercial tactics and underhanded plots in an attempt to nibble away at the duke's business empire.
In every version of the guide, the troublemaker had a different story depending on their identity. Only the unemployed vagrant was missing one.
They all turned to look at Fan Daoyi. Olivia Clark smiled. "Mr. unemployed vagrant, do you have a story of your own?"
"Of course, and everyone here has a part in it," Fan Daoyi answered calmly. "Who would do their own killing? To avoid suspicion falling on themselves, they'd all choose to have an underling do it. Everyone, please listen while I tell you the story."
Fan Daoyi wove the pieces into a new story.
The flower shop owner loathed the duke and would not deliver the flowers herself. So she found an idle, unemployed vagrant, offered him a handsome payment, and had him deliver them.
The noble also knew all about what had happened to the shop owner and took advantage of it. A single drop of poison would have killed the duke, but he would have died too quickly, and she would have been unable to clear herself of suspicion. So she chose to add a harmless potion first, then let it combine with the flowers delivered by the unemployed vagrant to form a deadly poison.
As a reporter with leverage over the duke, he too hoped for the duke's death. Ever in pursuit of sensational news, he saw the duke's death as excellent material. Moreover, he would no longer have to live in fear of threats.
He took photos and recorded events from the very front, then paid the unemployed vagrant to act as a newspaper boy and quickly spread word of the duke's death. That would cause a sensation among the public!
The merchant had a keen eye for business opportunities. In his eyes, a dead duke was a good duke. He seemed to have reached some sort of understanding with the reporter, who quickly spread the news precisely to make the public believe the duke was dead. Even if the duke had not actually died, they would see to it that he truly passed away.
Once again, they seized upon the unemployed vagrant delivering the papers and used him to stir up the crowd. They led a group of misled citizens to the duke's residence to mourn the dead duke. Before long, the entrance to the residence was packed with people, jostling and shoving one another.
The investigation also ground to a halt because of the noisy crowd. Medical personnel were trapped outside, unable to enter the residence in time to treat the duke. By the time they made it inside, the duke was definitively pronounced dead, and the dust had settled.
How perfect. No matter which path the story took, in the end, every accusing finger would point at the unemployed vagrant. He was the culprit behind it all, and everyone's scapegoat.
Blame him, denounce him, kill him!
Then we sit behind the scenes and admire the ending.