Analysis

Fan Li seemed to recall something, his expression instantly turning odd. He then picked up his sneakers and turned to walk out the door.

He walked along the corridor, as if heading downstairs.

Everyone followed. Fatty and Jiang Cheng were at the back of the group. As they passed the boys' bedroom, Fatty was pulled into the room by Jiang Cheng.

"What are you doing?" Fatty asked, terrified.

"Checking some things."

"Then why are you dragging me along?"

Jiang Cheng opened the drawers in the bedroom one by one. Soon after, he squatted by the bed and pulled out a pair of slippers from under it. He then picked up the slippers, looked up at Fatty, and calmly replied, "Because I'm scared."

Fatty: "..."

After a long pause, Jiang Cheng and Fatty arrived at the living room downstairs. They saw Sister Nuan and the others gathered around the shoe cabinet, all the shoes pulled out and neatly arranged on the floor.

Hearing Jiang Cheng's footsteps downstairs, Fan Li put down a pair of women's casual shoes he was holding. Fatty noticed that all three of them had grim expressions.

Just as Chen Xiaomeng opened her mouth to speak, Jiang Cheng interjected, "Did you discover that this villa has not only two boys but also two girls?"

Fan Li's eyes flickered, as if he was about to say something, but he held back. After a long moment, he asked in a deep voice, "What exactly do you do?"

"Stop with the useless talk, tell me what you found first," Jiang Cheng said, putting down the item in his hand and looking at Fan Li calmly.

Fan Li picked up two pairs of shoes and showed them to Jiang Cheng. They were two pairs of women's casual shoes, identical in size. Based on their previous judgment, they belonged to the same girl.

Fan Li, with a dark expression, flipped over the two pairs of shoes, revealing the soles. "The outer side of the sole of the left shoe is severely worn, while the wear on the right shoe is concentrated on the inner side."

He looked up, staring into Jiang Cheng's eyes. "The wear on the soles is related to posture, and once a habit is formed, it's almost impossible to correct. So, these are two people's shoes. There are two girls in this villa."

"But why is there only one girls' bedroom on the second floor?" Chen Xiaomeng asked. "And why is there only one single bed in the bedroom?"

Jiang Cheng shook his head. "The two small bedrooms upstairs are for the girls, so naturally, there's one single bed per person."

"What do you mean?"

"I found this in the bedroom with all the military posters," Jiang Cheng said, taking out the slippers he found under the bed. "The size is rather small. You can compare it with the casual shoes."

Actually, no comparison was needed, but Fan Li still took them and placed them next to the casual shoes. Now, everyone could clearly see that the owner of these slippers should be a woman.

"Isn't it a bit far-fetched to say that room is occupied by a girl based on just a pair of slippers? Perhaps these slippers were forgotten in the boys' bedroom by a girl."

"And looking at the decoration in that bedroom, it looks like it should be occupied by a boy."

"But a man's bedroom wouldn't use this kind of thing," Jiang Cheng said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a packet, handing it to Chen Xiaomeng, who had raised the question.

After she took it, her eyebrows rose. It was a packet of opened sanitary napkins.

Sister Nuan looked at Jiang Cheng. "So, you're saying both bedrooms upstairs are occupied by girls, and one of them has a personality and habits that lean more towards being male?"

Jiang Cheng nodded. "That's right."

Chen Xiaomeng seemed to have just snapped back to reality, her eyes filled with confusion. "Then where do the other two boys live? We only found three bedrooms in this villa."

One was the master bedroom for the husband and wife.

Based on their deductions, the remaining two small bedrooms belonged to the villa's two girls.

"Could it be on the third floor?" Fatty reminded in a low voice. "We haven't been there yet."

Before he could finish speaking, Sister Nuan shook her head. "It shouldn't be. I observed when we came. This villa only has windows on the first and second floors. The third floor is a dark room."

Normally, no one would set up a bedroom in a dark room without windows.

Chen Xiaomeng seemed to realize something, her expression becoming tense. "So... these two boys aren't members of this family. They're outsiders!"

Fan Li glanced at her and said coldly, "It should be said they are intruders."

"And it's not two boys, but two adult men," Jiang Cheng added.

Hearing this, Chen Xiaomeng's body trembled violently.

Indeed, after the assumption that these two were the children of the husband and wife was overturned, judging solely by the two pairs of shoes left behind, one was close in size to Jiang Cheng, and the other was even larger than Fan Li's size.

Jiang Cheng looked at the two pairs of sneakers lined up on the floor. "When I first saw these shoes, I felt something was strange. They were too cheap and very worn, clearly not matching the other shoes in the shoe cabinet. And the people living in this villa don't seem like the type to settle for less."

Silence fell in the living room for a moment. Their previous line of thought had been overturned, and the story had shifted from a relatively straightforward family tragedy to a villainous invasion.

After a long pause, Fatty looked around and said in a low voice, "So, two men broke into this villa, dealt with the husband and wife first, then imprisoned their two daughters, and finally killed them."

"Do you remember the water stains left by the female ghost? And the woman's hair in the bathtub on the first floor?" Sister Nuan said with a dark expression. "That ghost was likely drowned by being held down in the bathtub."

"As for Xie Yu being scared to death and then dragged away and beaten, that was also the female ghost's revenge. This also explains why the female ghost put those shoes left by the intruders on him."

"Because she imagined Xie Yu as the one who abused her back then."

While they were analyzing the truth of the case, dawn had broken. This time, no one urged Fatty to cook. They simply ate some small bread and other snacks to fill their stomachs.

It wasn't out of pity for the agile Fatty, but because their time was running out.

Jiang Cheng had already noticed that the daytime in this world was getting shorter and shorter, while the nights were becoming increasingly long.

By his estimation, after at most two more nights, the daytime in this world would completely disappear.

"What will happen after daytime disappears?" Fatty asked, his eyes wide like light bulbs, his throat bobbing.

Jiang Cheng turned around and patted Fatty's shoulder. "Don't worry."

Fatty's pale cheeks regained a little color.

Jiang Cheng continued, "At worst, the ghosts will appear and kill people wantonly."

Fatty: "???"

The group walked down the corridor on the second floor. They needed to take advantage of the relatively safe daytime to conduct a second search of the villa.