Newbie Scenario: Class Reunion (12

This villa had an underground garage with quite a few parking spaces, yet only four cars were parked there.

Basketball Qiao said that he was already so poor that he basically had to walk everywhere; shared bikes and buses were his absolute bottom line.

Second-generation Zhao, meanwhile, could not drive himself. According to him, he had a driver whenever he went out, so he had never learned.

Professor Lu added, "Of course, this report letter was definitely intercepted and never actually submitted to the school. Don't ask me why I carried this around with me. How would I know why?" The game was really working hard to make sure the players found evidence.

Basketball Qiao blurted out, "Wasn't it so he could confront the victim and ask whether the victim had reported him?"

Basketball Qiao had seemed to be wandering around without finding any evidence, but he had actually found the anonymous letter and planned to share it later. He had not expected Professor Lu to be so ruthless and expose himself outright.

"Oh, if that's how you want to interpret it, sure." Professor Lu was somewhat nonchalant about it. "In any case, this is the evidence the victim used to hold me hostage, and it's also my motive for wanting to kill him. But how does that help solve the case? Every one of us has a motive. If we didn't, we wouldn't be sitting here. The key should never have been why, but who did it and how."

Lawyer Jin was thoroughly mocked again.

Just then, the DM released part of the victim's autopsy report. The wounds still needed to be examined, and the fatal injury could not yet be determined. What was known so far was that the victim had died between 2 and 4 a.m. the previous night. Besides stab wounds, the victim's body contained two different poisons, as well as traces of a sleep aid.

Professor Lu pointed at one of the many photos spread across the table. "I found a drug called Class A Poison in the trash can of the second-floor media room."

To keep players from drawing inspiration from murder mystery games and actually committing crimes, criminal drugs in scripts were always referred to as A, B, C, or D. This was a common understanding in crime-themed fiction. Many criminal methods in such works only looked feasible; in reality, they were riddled with loopholes and unexpected complications.

"Class A Poison is a controlled substance. It comes in powder form, dissolves in water, is colorless and tasteless, and takes four to six hours to take effect." Professor Lu read the label on the back of the bottle.

To determine who this poison might belong to, they needed to approach it from two angles. First, who present might know about this poison? Second, who present was most likely to have a way of obtaining a controlled substance like this?

Doctor Zhen!

That was everyone's first thought.

Zhen Liu admitted it himself. His character's background as a doctor gave him many advantages where drugs were concerned, but he said, "This is poison. Why would a hospital stock poison?"

Well, that made sense.

It would make some sense if the sleep aid belonged to Doctor Zhen, or if the drug could both save and harm people. But if it was a pure poison, what would a hospital need it for? Even if it was for research, that should have been the laboratory's business.

Professor Lu's goal was clearly not to nail the person he had a "crush" on. He continued, "I found an interesting piece of news online—Lawyer Jin, one of our city's outstanding young talents, had once again won a case involving the poisoning of a listed company's boss." Corporate warfare in novels was lofty and glamorous. Real corporate warfare... just poison the annoying boss.

"By sheer coincidence, that boss died from Class A Poison." The criminal had not managed to use all the drug. After all, it was a powder; if too much was poured in, it would not dissolve in water—it would turn into paste.

As the representative lawyer for the victim's family, Lawyer Jin had ventured into danger and found Class A Poison in a warehouse rented by the criminal before it could be destroyed. In theory, that Class A Poison should have become evidence stored in the police evidence room. But Lawyer Jin had been alone when he found it. He could easily have tampered with the quantity before handing it over to the police.

Lawyer Jin had found one piece of evidence against Professor Lu, so Professor Lu returned the favor.

"Let's assume the victim died at 2 a.m. Then the poison could have been administered no later than 10 p.m. and no earlier than 8 p.m. If the victim died at 4 a.m., then it could have been administered no later than midnight and no earlier than 10 p.m. At 8, someone arrived at the villa. At 10, someone was drinking with the victim. At midnight, we had already dispersed, yet someone had time alone with the victim."

Lawyer Jin: "..." Someone? You might as well just announce my ID number.

Lawyer Jin had wanted to put up a last-ditch struggle, but Professor Lu was not the sort to leave anyone room to breathe. If he did not strike, he did not strike; once he did, he would hammer the other person straight into the dirt.

Professor Lu looked at Lawyer Jin. "Most people who found the news about Lawyer Jin's court case would think they were done searching and stop there. But I'm different."

He projected his phone's search history onto the light screen.

Unsurprisingly, Professor Lu's phone wallpaper was still Doctor Zhen from their student days. The background in the photo was different from the classroom in the wallet. In this one, Doctor Zhen stood beneath an old tree on the school field, beneath blue skies and white clouds, its green canopy casting deep shade. Sunlight filtered through the overlapping leaves, scattering dappled light and shadow. Young Doctor Zhen wore his school uniform, as if he had stepped out of the old days.

After players entered the game, all biographical images of the characters they played were replaced with the players' faces with a single click. The game AI's simulation of Zhen Liu's teenage years could not be said to be merely similar—it was exactly identical.

Basketball Qiao wanted to ask Professor Lu for the same wallpaper, while also righteously condemning him. "Pervert! Why do you have so many candid photos of other people?"

Given Professor Lu's personality, he normally would not deign to explain something like that. But this time, he unexpectedly spoke up. "Other people took them."

Doctor Zhen's life as the school heartthrob had truly not been easy. Not only had the school bully harassed him out of jealousy, but people had also taken candid photos of him and sold them to the girls. Both were harassment. Though the latter was less severe than the former, it was hard to say Doctor Zhen had not been troubled by it as well.