Truth

"You already have an answer?"

The host was utterly astonished.

He was astonished because the incomplete information made it impossible to construct a complete line of reasoning. Yet Jiang Qian claimed he had already reached a conclusion.

The three beautiful suspects had taken off their muted headsets, and they too stared at Jiang Qian in disbelief.

The audience below was even more fired up, shouting for him to reveal the truth...

"Impossible, impossible..."

The host shook his head vigorously, muttering:

"The corridor cameras were broken, the spare key was stolen, there were no witnesses, and no one had an alibi. Forgive my bluntness, but every one of them had the opportunity to commit the crime... How did you determine who the killer was?"

"They told me." Jiang Qian smiled and looked toward the three women.

They exchanged glances. Li Tian'er was the first to succumb to her curiosity. "What did we tell you?"

"You first told me that Liu Xiao couldn't possibly be the killer."

As soon as Jiang Qian finished speaking, the three women's expressions all turned interesting in their own ways.

Liu Xiao in particular wore an ambiguous expression, as if she were half-smiling. "Why couldn't it be me?"

"Simple. The process of elimination."

Jiang Qian continued, "We have to start with how the crime was committed. Ahem... As the 'victim' in this case, I was extremely sensitive to the 'sound of a door opening' before I closed my eyes. That led me to assume the killer had broken in from outside and murdered me. But that wasn't what happened."

"While talking with Li Tian'er and Yu Xuan, I noticed a few details that made me think the killer might have been hiding in Room 8001 from the start—and very likely in the bathroom. So the 'sound of a door opening' I heard wasn't the entrance door. It was the noise the killer made while coming out of the bathroom."

"I remember that when I entered Room 8001 that night, the bathroom door was shut tight. But when Yu Xuan found my body, the bathroom door was open. Who had entered the room in the meantime? And why had they opened the bathroom door? The answer was obvious: it could only have been the killer."

"By that reasoning, the killer was already in Room 8001 when I left Liu Xiao's room. So Liu Xiao couldn't possibly have been the killer."

Yu Xuan objected. "What if Liu Xiao deliberately wanted to mislead us?"

"You mean she came in and committed the murder after I passed out? Then, while she was doing it, she noticed the bathroom door was shut and suddenly got the idea to open it, creating the illusion that the killer had been hiding in the room? Hmm, that's a pretty far-fetched explanation, but I can't deny it's possible."

Jiang Qian patiently explained, "Even so, Liu Xiao is still ruled out. Li Tian'er told me that."

"How did I tell you that?" Li Tian'er looked at Jiang Qian innocently.

Jiang Qian gave her a shrewd look. "Because you told me that after hearing the argument, you paid close attention to what was happening on both sides. But for a long time afterward, you didn't hear anything suspicious—not until Yu Xuan found the body."

"Doesn't that tell me that after Liu Xiao slammed the door, she stayed in her own room and never left?"

"Under the rule that only the killer among the three of you can lie, if Liu Xiao were the killer, Li Tian'er's statement would have to be true. But Li Tian'er's testimony indirectly proves that Liu Xiao isn't the killer. That's a logical contradiction. If Li Tian'er were the killer, then Liu Xiao's statement would have to be true."

"To sum up, Liu Xiao cannot be the killer."

When the information was incomplete, all he had to do was use the rules of the instance to create his own method of filtering information and take a "shortcut" straight to the truth.

At the end, Jiang Qian added offhandedly, "This logic is a lot easier than high school math."

The whole room fell silent.

Jiang Qian hadn't been investigating the evidence in the conventional sense. He had treated it like a math problem, using the given rules to organize what was known and deduce what wasn't.

Yu Xuan broke the silence with a smile. "So you think the killer is either me or Li Tian'er?"

"It's not what I think. I'm certain."

"Then what's your conclusion?" Yu Xuan rested her chin on her hand, her fair arm propped on the table as she smiled at Jiang Qian. "Was it me, or Li Tian'er?"

"Heh. In my view, both of you had ample opportunity to commit the crime, so it was very hard to tell. But in the end, something else made the decision for me."

At that, Yu Xuan, Li Tian'er, and Liu Xiao all perked up their ears, listening intently for Jiang Qian's final verdict.

"Remember that little question that seemed irrelevant?" Jiang Qian said with a smile.

When he had questioned Li Tian'er, Liu Xiao, and Yu Xuan one on one, he'd ended each conversation by asking the same thing: putting evidence aside, who did they think was most likely to hurt him?

The three women's answers to that question had been "distinctive," to say the least!

They had shown Jiang Qian just how fragile their sisterhood was, while also bringing him an "unexpected surprise."

"So, who was it? Come on, tell us!"

Li Tian'er's cheeks flushed with excitement, and her smile stretched so wide that the corners of her mouth nearly reached her ears.

"Stop keeping us in suspense. Hurry up and tell us, handsome~"

Liu Xiao could barely contain herself in her tight outfit, looking ready to break free of its restraints and let her true nature out at any moment.

Only Yu Xuan remained elegant, gazing lovingly at her younger brother.

"Remember, sis?" Jiang Qian imitated the way Yu Xuan had spoken earlier and repeated, "'She can't have you, so she'll want to destroy you.'"

Everyone's eyes turned toward the siblings.

"What's wrong with that?" Yu Xuan asked calmly.

"There's nothing wrong with the statement. Liu Xiao has an extreme personality, and she does seem like the kind of woman who'd turn love into hate and become destructive," Jiang Qian said evenly.

"But the logic is the problem, sis. How did you know Liu Xiao 'couldn't have me'?"

Yu Xuan's raised lips stiffened ever so slightly.

"Liu Xiao and I only met after you left. How did you know that I rejected her in her room and got kicked out? Were you nearby when it happened?"

The questions came one after another, leaving everyone stunned.

Only Yu Xuan's expression grew darker and darker.

Jiang Qian was now certain of his answer. It was True Love Woman, no mistake.

She'd used my trust in Yu Xuan to conceal her guilty trump card.

Too bad it didn't work.

Jiang Qian glanced at the "himself" lying exposed on the stage and said without expression, "To play along with the story, should I ask you, sis, what made you do something so unjust?"

"..."

Yu Xuan lowered her head and didn't answer.

The scene grew awkward.

The audience had been so shocked that they forgot to cheer.

No one seemed to have expected the game to end so neatly and quickly, as if it had been effortless!

"Student Jiang, you know our rules. If your answer is wrong, your head might... come off. Why don't you think it over again?"

"No need."

Jiang Qian was calmer than anyone else.

Ignoring the host's "friendly reminder," he looked at Yu Xuan. "You were the one who tried to kill me, sis."

[Prompt: Confirm answer?]

Jiang Qian was just about to speak.

At that moment, the dazzling lights went out. The grand, luxurious stage twisted and tore apart in an instant. The lively audience below revealed their true forms: students, office workers, members of the upper class, and scavengers, all like walking corpses...

These were the "mummified corpses" Jiang Qian had seen in the renovated corridor.

The host was among them!

He had turned into a pompous-looking male corpse, struggling to crawl and flee off the stage.

Li Tian'er, Yu Xuan, and Liu Xiao, who were still onstage, also revealed their true forms!

Just as Jiang Qian had predicted, the three skins concealed Joy Woman, True Love Woman, and Lust Woman, respectively, from among the Seven Emotions.

Joy Woman's "true form" had wings on its back. The rhythm of her wingbeats was like a series of jumping notes, and her body flickered in and out of sight in time with the vibrations.

Lust Woman's "true form" was easier to deconstruct. Simply put, she was a naked woman whose lower body had become a fish tail.

As for True Love Woman, her "true form" resembled a deeply rooted tree!

The instant she appeared, whether out of anger at being exposed or resentment at Jiang Qian's attitude, the tree's roots shot up from the ground, instantly wrapping around him and squeezing him tight before suspending him in midair!

"You're pretty cocky, aren't you, little brother?" A tender, loving voice came from the tree-like monster.

Excruciating pain swept over Jiang Qian in an instant. He gritted his teeth and shouted his conclusion to the instance before he was torn apart:

"But my sister failed to kill me! The corpse was fake. I'm not dead, and this absurd hearing doesn't have a real 'killer'..."

As soon as he said this, time seemed to freeze.

The tree roots attacking Jiang Qian stopped moving. True Love Woman, Joy Woman, and Lust Woman looked stunned. Below the stage, the students, office workers, members of the upper class, and scavengers who looked like walking corpses also stood frozen, gaping.

"How did you..."

True Love Woman, who no longer looked anything like his sister, asked in a trembling voice.

"How did I know?"

Jiang Qian was hanging upside down, suspended halfway in the air, but he showed none of the embarrassment of someone at another's mercy. His thoughts remained clear as he said:

"Actually, from the moment I saw the body, I'd already anticipated this outcome."

"Because I knew perfectly well that stabbing three inches below the left shoulder wouldn't pierce the heart. As you can see, the knife hadn't gone in deep enough either. From the moment I got off the elevator to the moment I was found dead, only twenty minutes had passed. With the knife still in my body, it shouldn't have caused that kind of exaggerated bleeding."

After the shock of being "Judged," Jiang Qian had become especially alert to these kinds of details. Thanks to his personal interest in anatomy, spotting the flaws in the corpse hadn't been difficult.

"Don't take anything at face value, right? Then the host's words deserve a question mark too."

Jiang Qian smiled.

"Of course, if you insist on chalking it up to 'stage makeup causing an error,' there's nothing I can do about that."

As a challenger, he had already revealed everything he could deduce: according to the rules of this game, he had used the preset conditions to figure out who attacked him, and, to be safe, pointed out the flaws at the crime scene as well.

Joy Woman, Lust Woman, and True Love Woman were all speechless.

Then Jiang Qian finally heard the verdict:

[Verdict: Answer... Completely correct!]

Then, like the ending of a murder mystery game, the instance revealed the story behind this level:

[Story Choice: Incestuous Love]

[Story Summary: The older sister, a superstar, had fallen deeply in love with her younger brother, who shared neither of her parents. This forbidden love was secret and all-consuming, fiercely rejecting any outside "intruders." Her innocent younger brother had been struck down before he even realized what was happening.]

[That night, the older sister brought her younger brother to a party among their circle. Young, beautiful bodies arrived one after another. When she saw her younger brother effortlessly flirting with one pretty girl after another, leaving his mark everywhere, she grew angry.]

[Her spirits sank. Her mind was filled with scenes of her younger brother enjoying himself with other people, and these distracting thoughts made her miss out on an important role.]

[She hurriedly said goodbye to the director. On her way back, she happened to see her younger brother heading toward someone else's bedroom. Her disappointment mounted. With a gloomy expression, she returned to her room, locked herself in the bathroom to cry, and made a decision: she would make sure her younger brother could never be taken away from her. And death would make their love eternal.]

[In a flash, the butcher's knife in her hand was pointed at her younger brother.]

[But she immediately realized that her younger brother had never been unfaithful to her. Everything had been her own baseless assumption! On the verge of a complete breakdown, she fell into evil and began killing in the name of "love."]

What kind of messed-up values were these? I really was going to... Jiang Qian grumbled through the pain.

If he'd accepted Joy Woman's or Lust Woman's invitation at the start, would they have given him a different "cause of death"?

Choosing his sister meant forbidden love... Would choosing Li Tian'er have led to a tragedy after an ecstasy-filled night? And choosing Liu Xiao would probably have meant dying of excess, right?

Vulgar...

Give me my money back!!

Jiang Qian roared silently.

But then the story took another turn:

[Fortunately, her younger brother hadn't been killed by that one stab. He was still alive.]

[The medical staff arrived in time to provide emergency treatment, and his condition was brought under control. In the end, he recovered in the hospital. For various reasons, the attempted murder was quietly dropped.]

[Everything returned to normal. After recovering, the younger brother continued to live happily with his older sister.]

[Only, whenever he saw his sister smile tenderly, he inexplicably felt an invisible pull between them, as though countless roots were constantly growing and winding around the two of them...]

She was still twisting the knife... Jiang Qian took a deep breath and roared from the bottom of his heart:

"Give me my money back!!!"

The next second, the pain of being bound and suspended by the tree roots vanished, and his body returned to the ground.

The lights came back on. To Jiang Qian's delight, he was standing in the corridor of the video hall.

A notification sounded beside his ear, almost beautiful enough to make music:

[Main Quest Updated: Arrive at the "Abyss Video Hall" and complete your personal viewing task (7/7)]

[Verdict: Main quest completed!]

[Verdict: "Whispers of the Inner Demon" instance successfully cleared!]

[You will be returned after "settlement." Enter settlement now?]

Thanks to White-Robed King, Distant Nebula Honey, and Book Friends 160105185450922 for the recommendation votes!

Thanks to all the book friends for following along from the beginning. Every visit and every bit of support has been a tremendous encouragement to a new author like me. Thank you~