December 19, 2:49 p.m., inside the villa at 644 Songshan Street, East District.
More than half the mission time had passed. Mei Sheng stood by the stairs on the third floor, looking down at the two bodies on the sofa, her gaze inscrutable.
The bodies on the sofa belonged to a man and a woman. The man was Yuan Ren, and the woman was Fan Rong.
Each had died more horrifically than the other.
The former had lost both eyes and half his tongue, while the latter had been disemboweled, her organs hollowed out.
On the coffee table before them lay two sheets of Drawing Paper—their Death Portraits.
Mei Sheng rested a hand on the staircase, her gaze moving between the bodies and the portraits as she silently considered:
"There are three forms of death imagery: Drawing Paper, a fountain pen, and an Ink Bottle.
Yuan Ren and Fan Rong both met their deaths only after seeing or touching these three objects inside this villa.
Then are the Death Portraits merely symbolic objects in this mission..."
After nearly five hours of investigation, Mei Sheng had essentially confirmed that this was a straightforward locked-room murder mission.
None of its aspects were particularly complicated. It leaned toward a conventional reception mission.
For a single branch, missions like this were fairly common, but they also put the employees' deductive abilities to the greatest test.
"Miss Mei, Mr. Xie is awake!"
Just then, the guest room downstairs opened, and Qiu Zheyan tilted his head back to shout excitedly toward the third floor.
At the news, a trace of life finally appeared on Mei Sheng's icy face. Without a moment's hesitation, she hurried downstairs.
There had been two ghost attacks within the first two hours of the mission.
Although Yuan Ren had been the first