Detective Bai Zhi

Accompanied by the highly rhythmic music of a plaza dance, Night Owl and Bai Zhi painstakingly searched the kitchen from top to bottom, both wearing expressions of extreme inner conflict.

It had to be said that the importance of BGM was beyond doubt. As everyone knew, the way to defeat Uncle Dragon was not to fight him in a furniture store or wear clothes with a tie, while the best way to defeat Wong Fei-hung was not to train martial arts relentlessly, but to turn off the speaker he carried around.

Although the music was fairly loud, it was clearly nothing compared to the torrential downpour outside, the snow-white lightning periodically flashing across the sky, and the booming thunder.

So the other pair did not notice what was happening on their side. At most, they vaguely heard some rather festive music...

The kitchen was not large. With two people searching it under the beams of their flashlights, they finished quickly. Aside from the human head stored in a refrigerator compartment, they found very little else. However, because of that dead person's head in the refrigerator, someone developed an intense curiosity about the composition of the solidified unknown substance in the pot.

If Night Owl had not desperately held him back, he might have used a shovel to scoop up the solidified unknown substance from the pot for a closer look... Bai Zhi found that deeply regrettable.

"The windows have all been sealed with wooden planks... To keep out the water?"

After thoughtfully glancing at the blinds nailed shut with more than a dozen crisscrossing black boards, Bai Zhi turned and walked out of the kitchen.

The efficiency of one person could not compare to that of two. With the BGM buff, Night Owl finally cast aside her identity as Dead Weight and, trembling as she held her flashlight, joined the search as well.

Using the same method, after investigating the kitchen, Bai Zhi and Night Owl successively checked a restroom and a master bedroom.

This villa seemed to have been abandoned for a long time. The floor was covered in dust, the corners were thick with spider webs, and everything was gray and grimy.

Just like the kitchen, the windows in the other rooms had all been firmly nailed shut with black wooden planks. The vanity mirror in the restroom was stained with a large patch of some unknown black filth, making it look rather creepy under the flashlight's beam.

—A certain Night Owl hid behind him again.

After inspecting the four rooms assigned to him, Bai Zhi returned to the main hall.

The filthy, dilapidated sofas were scattered haphazardly about. The candlelight on the coffee table still flickered, but the snacks that had been on the table had somehow been scattered all over the floor. The formerly shut front door stood wide open, and a gale mixed with heavy rain lashed wildly into the hall.

The candlelight burned on.

Looking at the snacks strewn across the floor near the sofas, Bai Zhi's deep black eyes narrowed slightly. He realized that things were not so simple.

After closing the door again, Bai Zhi walked over to the sofas.

The spacious, filthy living room was littered with all manner of odds and ends. The half of the floor closest to the windows had been soaked by rain seeping in, and puddles dotted the muddy ground formed from rainwater mixing with thick dust.

The old sofas had been arranged into a circle in the middle of the living room. A coffee table broken in half sat at the center, with a half-burned candle standing in a candlestick atop it.

The curtains had been soaked in a large amount of disgusting Dark Red matter. Most had fallen from the walls, leaving only a few strips of fabric stubbornly attached to the ceiling. Thick layers of wooden planks had been nailed over the glass, and the downpour made the living room seem even gloomier.

In such a bleak and dark environment, Bai Zhi stood beside the sofas with his arms folded, scrutinizing the empty living room inch by inch.

"Although the front door was opened, there are no footprints in the mud. It was probably blown open by the gale."

Bai Zhi shifted his gaze toward the sofas and coffee table, his sharp eyes catching every possible clue as he began laying out his deductions aloud.

"There are faint traces of movement on the floor around the sofas, and obvious fingerprints on the coffee table. Besides the footprints I left earlier, there are two other sets of messy footprints around the sofas. One set is somewhat heavier, while the other is lighter and more unsteady. It is clear that they were injured, to the point that they did not even have time to do something as simple as close the door."

He crouched down and, using the faint light from the candle on the coffee table, stared intently at the ground before him. His explanation continued.

"And the snacks scattered across the floor were obviously knocked down by someone. Xiao and the others must have accidentally swept them onto the ground in their panic, which shows that they were in grave danger at the time... The truth is already obvious—"

Lightning ripped across the night sky, illuminating the entire living room in an instant. Bai Zhi rose to his feet, his face grave.

"Unlike our smooth investigation, Hu Xu and Temperance's group clearly encountered danger. One of them was even injured. Judging by the depth of the footprints, the injured person should have been Temperance Gentleheart. Hu Xu was busy taking care of her and accidentally swept the snacks off the table while grabbing something..."

Turning to look at the two people sitting blankly on the sofa opposite him, Bai Zhi's voice carried a trace of pride befitting a great detective who had solved a case.

"Well? My deduction was correct, wasn't it?"

Temperance Gentleheart: "..."

Beard Guy: "..."

What kind of lunatic was this!?

Having more or less figured out the personality of this teammate whose ID was Black&White, Night Owl silently turned her head away.

Unlike Bai Zhi's side, Beard Guy's group really had been attacked. The master bedroom and Storage Room had been fine, with nothing unusual found, but when he and Temperance Gentleheart went to investigate the restroom, Temperance Gentleheart had inexplicably come under attack.

Black Fingerprint slowly appeared around her neck, as if an invisible pair of hands had clamped tightly around her throat. If he had not reacted quickly enough to drag her out of the restroom, Temperance Gentleheart might have died there for no reason at all.

After their initial fright subsided, they returned to the main hall and prepared to tend to her wounds. Although the Black Fingerprint on her neck had stopped spreading after they left the restroom, it still looked extremely frightening.

Just as they were treating her injuries, Night Owl came back carrying a speaker meant for plaza dancing, accompanied by cheerful, festive, uplifting BGM. Before they could recover their senses, that guy with the ID Black&White had put on an impromptu deduction show right in front of them, his expression so convincing it looked real...

Temperance Gentleheart was utterly confused. Beard Guy was completely dumbfounded.