Newbie Scenario: Class Reunion (10)

[Isn't Zhen Liu a newbie?]

[How did he know the quiz section was a fixed segment?]

[Awesome!!!]

[That makes sense. The murderer must be deliberately causing trouble.]

[I don't think Professor Lu wrote it. Someone with his personality wouldn't be afraid of anything. If he did it, he wouldn't deny it.]

333 asked Zhen Liu the viewers' question: how had he known that answering questions was a fixed segment?

Out of caution, Zhen Liu did not answer aloud. Instead, he wrote on a light screen visible only to himself and the viewers: --Of course I guessed.

Zhen Liu had always been cautious and meticulous in daily life, but when playing games, he became somewhat aggressive. It was a gambler's mentality. Go big or go home—he always wanted to place a big bet. That was why he would never allow himself to engage in any real gambling, because he knew his own weakness all too well.

After that brief interlude, the first group discussion officially began.

Although Zhen Liu had already proposed the hypothesis that the murderer was sabotaging their unity, the seeds of suspicion had nonetheless been planted. When everyone presented evidence against others, their words carried a distinctly unfriendly edge.

Lawyer Jin got things off to a "good" start.

"During group discussions, I generally don't go by the order of the rooms searched, nor do I go through the characters one by one. I summarize and categorize the clues first, then proceed according to different attributes.

"For example, today we'll start with everyone's motive for murder.

"Don't tell me you don't hate the victim. I don't believe it."

Lawyer Jin laid out, one by one, the clues he had photographed that were related to murder motives. The first person mentioned was Basketball Qiao. He had barely bothered to hide anything. Zhen Liu suspected that nearly everyone had found the small note in which the victim seemed to have threatened Basketball Qiao, mentioning that Basketball Qiao had fixed matches.

Lawyer Jin proposed a novel theory. "Although Basketball Qiao's weakness appears to be match-fixing, I personally think this is more likely the reason he has fallen so low. After his match-fixing was exposed, he could no longer catch the attention of professional teams. Neither the sports bureau nor the teams would take him, so he could only return to his hometown and teach children basketball. But that could not serve as leverage for a threat, because match-fixing no longer affected his current life."

Basketball Qiao had already paid the price for fixing matches. It was not a secret he would protect to the death, much less a likely motive for murder.

Basketball Qiao himself also seemed completely unconcerned. That might not have been because he truly trusted some so-called agreement, but because he wanted to create a false impression—that his only weakness was match-fixing, and everyone could stop digging there.

After all, Basketball Qiao looked so utterly unguarded. Who would think deeply enough to consider that this might merely be a smokescreen he had created?

Lawyer Jin would.

Lawyer Jin had never truly trusted anyone. He kept digging deeper and deeper until he successfully dug all the way to the other man's ancestral grave.

"Do you still remember Basketball Qiao's earlier self-introduction?" Lawyer Jin turned on his recorder and replayed a section of the conversation from then. Before the evidence search had even begun, he had used his recorder—not to record the clues, but everyone's words.

Zhen Liu suddenly understood. This was far more conclusive than taking notes with pen and paper. If anyone tried to twist their words, their current claims could be compared against what they had said before.

"Basketball Qiao said that one of his brothers had been abducted. And in my experience from playing so many scenarios, to deepen the interactive connections between player characters, many scenarios eventually develop into a large-scale family reunion. Also..." Everyone's side quests were surely similar. Lawyer Jin did not say it outright, but he clearly also had a mission to protect someone. From that mission, he inferred that Basketball Qiao's side quest might be to find his brother and protect him.

What kind of brotherhood could be used as leverage for a threat?

Only then did everyone realize it, turning to look at Second-generation Zhao, who had arrived at the villa with Basketball Qiao the previous night.

"Second-generation Zhao did not resemble his parents much as a child. Anyone who saw the phone's wallpaper should have had the same thought. After searching the phone with keywords, I found this interesting news article."

--Wealthy Businessman's Son Missing for Three Years, Successfully Recovered.

What an easy article to let one's imagination run wild over.

"Does Basketball Qiao's room look like somewhere he had only lived for a day or two?" Lawyer Jin showed the photo he had taken of Basketball Qiao's bedroom, piled high with belongings. Looking carefully, it did not resemble short-term luggage. It looked more like all the possessions he had in the world. Even his students' information was there. "I heard the victim mention before that Basketball Qiao's meager coaching salary was nearly insufficient even for rent. So, assuming he was really thrown out by his landlord, where could he live?"

One answer was ready to emerge: the villa.

"And why would Second-generation Zhao be so generous?"

Second-generation Zhao's face turned completely green. "Can't it be because of friendship between classmates?"

"So you admit that Basketball Qiao really lives here." Lawyer Jin pushed up his glasses and smiled.

What Zhen Liu was thinking, however, was that among the five murder suspects, there was one pair of brothers and one gay couple. So what was Lawyer Jin? The Orphan Card?

Chapter 10: Newbie Scenario: Class Reunion (10)

In fact, Zhen Liu had always suspected that the person Doctor Zhen secretly loved was Lawyer Jin.

Why use the word "suspected"? Because Doctor Zhen did not know either. That was why the first objective in Zhen Liu's side quest was to find out whom he secretly loved.

Rather than saying Doctor Zhen secretly loved a particular person, it would be more accurate to say that he secretly loved that irretrievable time in 2001. That year, he had just entered school. He had excellent grades, outstanding looks, and was very popular among the girls. But because of the aura of being the school heartthrob, he suffered severe bullying from the boys, led collectively by the School Bully.

Classmates including Qiao Basketball and Second-generation Zhao had also, to varying degrees, subjected Doctor Zhen to verbal cold violence. Lawyer Jin, meanwhile, had merely watched coldly from the sidelines.