Page 17

Would Zhen Liu be moved?

How could anyone refuse help that was freely offered?

Zhen Liu could. It simply had not occurred to him; he was still thinking in terms of maintaining his persona. So he answered, "I have a cleanliness obsession, not OCD."

Whether the room was messy or not would not affect Zhen Liu's evidence search. In fact, Doctor Zhen's obsession with the cleanliness of objects was only slightly stronger than the average person's. What he truly could not stand was contact with other people. The more he disliked someone, the stronger his reaction became. That was why he smelled of disinfectant, rather than his belongings smelling of it.

Professor Lu: "..."

For some reason, Zhen Liu noticed that Professor Lu seemed a little dejected during the rest of the search. But, how should he put it? It was actually pretty good. Zhen Liu could force himself to socialize with people too, but compared to talking, all he wanted now was to win the prize money for "Class Reunion."

After they finished searching the guest bedroom, Lawyer Jin happened to finish searching the attic as well. The two sides tacitly exchanged locations.

The attic was much like the guest bedroom—ransacked into a complete mess. Who knew what it had gone through before this? Zhen Liu's focus was not on what the attic had, but what it lacked.

This was a villa operating as a bed-and-breakfast. The attic had been deliberately decorated as a treehouse for children to play in, with bright colors, piles of toys, an indoor slide, a ball pit, plush toys, a swing chair... it had everything, except safety measures. This was the highest point in the entire villa. Whether someone fell out of a window or tumbled down the stairs, neither would be a joke.

Ordinary bed-and-breakfast owners usually had a strong instinct for self-preservation. In a children's activity area like this, if they did not want accidents or malicious complaints, they would definitely install protective measures.

Yet Zhen Liu could not find any railings, safety nets, or impact-resistant padding here. There was not even a fire extinguisher.

For now, Zhen Liu could not piece together what the absence of those things pointed to, but he knew that something was wrong. There had to be a reason for such abnormalities.

That was probably the charm of deduction: using what was known to infer the unknown. If the answer was right on target, the sense of accomplishment in that moment would shoot through the roof.

After Zhen Liu and Professor Lu left the attic, they went outside and circled the villa in the yard. It was a row house with an attic. The front and back yards were not connected, since other buildings stood on both sides beyond the walls. In other words, if someone was physically capable, it was not impossible to climb from this balcony to the neighboring one.

Zhen Liu even felt eager to try it himself. If he succeeded, it would mean his previous guess was very likely true: that night, while he, Lawyer Jin, and the victim were talking in the living room, someone had been hiding upstairs.

Then Zhen Liu began sketching on the light screen. He did not have the villa's floor plan, but he still roughly drew the location of every room from memory.

The layout of this villa was wrong!

***

Six hours flew by, and everyone gathered in the dining room again. When Zhen Liu and Professor Lu arrived, only Basketball Qiao was wandering around the living room. He truly had nothing to do. Lawyer Jin arrived shortly afterward.

Then they entered the kitchen together. For some reason, there had to be a cooking segment between the two phases.

Basketball Qiao waved his arms as he shouted, "This is a crime-solving game, not a cooking competition, right? The last game I played didn't have this many cooking segments." He had been running around doing everything last night, and he really did not want to do it again today. Basketball Qiao wanted to recruit an ally, only to realize that Second-generation Zhao, who had been busy alongside him before, had not arrived yet. "Huh? Where did he go?"

Lawyer Jin narrowed his eyes, keenly sensing something. "Did any of you see Second-generation Zhao?"

Basketball Qiao shook his head. Ever since he and Second-generation Zhao had separated, he had been acting alone.

Zhen Liu thought back as well. It seemed that after they split up to search upstairs, none of them had seen Second-generation Zhao again. The same had been true when he and Professor Lu came downstairs. The villa was only so large. Where could Second-generation Zhao have gone?

Lawyer Jin had more or less reached a conclusion. There had to be an undiscovered area in this villa. Second-generation Zhao knew about it, but he had hidden that information.

Just then, Second-generation Zhao came downstairs in a change of clothes, his face full of apology. "Sorry, sorry. I was sorting through clues in my room just now and forgot the gathering time."

Lawyer Jin tested him. "Is that so? But when I came down the stairs, I don't think I saw anyone in your room."

"That's impossible. I've been in my room the whole time." Second-generation Zhao's expression remained normal. He was not overly calm and composed; rather, his eyes held the instinctive deference of a junior following the lead of an experienced player. After Lawyer Jin questioned him, he looked thoroughly flustered. It seemed Lawyer Jin's bluff had failed, and Second-generation Zhao really had been in his room the whole time.

But Zhen Liu's intuition told him otherwise. Second-generation Zhao was lying.

This gave rise to another question: why was Basketball Qiao always able to "casually" bring up so many suspicious things? Deliberate? Coincidence? A fool's luck? Too many coincidences began to seem deliberate.

In the end, Professor Lu, Zhen Liu, and Lawyer Jin cooked lunch together. While doing so, they checked the kitchen once more.

Before cooking, Lawyer Jin deliberately restored every knife to its original position. The slots in the utensil rack all matched; not a single knife was missing. Second-generation Zhao chimed in, "I had the AI check them. There's no human blood on the knives, so feel free to use them." In other words, there was at least no murder weapon in the kitchen.

Yet Zhen Liu and Lawyer Jin still found it strange. The game had specifically required them to cook in the kitchen, so it could not be without purpose. If the utensils were fine, what else was in the kitchen?

After lunch, the players' first group discussion began.

The five of them sat around the table in the same order as at the previous dinner. In front of the table stood a light screen that could project images and be written on. This time, everyone could see what was on the screen.