Beginner Instance · Class Reunion (20

Lawyer Jin had not even heard him out before he shot Professor Lu a furious glare. He really did hate this man.

But... Professor Lu was right. Lawyer Jin had said all that to Zhen Liu because he wanted to recruit him. After all, whether in terms of reliability or intelligence, Zhen Liu was a good choice for a teammate.

"But no matter how things develop between Doctor Zhen and me, what does that have to do with you?"

Lawyer Jin loudly fired back at Professor Lu. He felt Professor Lu was like a high school girl in an American TV show—sharp-tongued, self-important, and fond of playing bizarre little mind games. In short, he was utterly detestable.

Zhen Liu said nothing. He treated them equally, thinking both of them were rather childish.

Professor Lu was not one to fight fair either. Instead of arguing with Lawyer Jin, he stole his lines and said to Zhen Liu, "A corpse will rot and stink. It's summer now, and there's no air conditioning or ice in the escape room. The next day is our Class Reunion. If Second-generation Zhao really planned to keep the body hidden here, wouldn't he be waiting to get discovered at any moment?"

All the evidence could only prove that the victim had indeed been hidden here, not that this had been Second-generation Zhao's plan.

If Second-generation Zhao had confessed voluntarily, there was a high chance he had mixed truth with lies.

Zhen Liu nodded. There had indeed been something wrong with what Second-generation Zhao had said at the time.

Lawyer Jin was stunned by Professor Lu's sneak attack. He had wanted to curse him out for being shameless, but then realized that the harsher he cursed, the more enthusiastically Professor Lu might keep stealing his thunder. So he could only hurriedly add more, making his presence known.

"Second-generation Zhao wasn't the only one who knew the escape room existed. The former owners, customers who had played here before, even people who had casually seen promotional ads online—any of them might know perfectly well that this place exists.

"Once Ying De's disappearance was reported to the police, they would search the escape room immediately. There's no way it could be concealed.

"In short, this isn't a particularly safe place. Anyone smarter than Basketball Qiao wouldn't choose to hide a body here. At most, it would work as a temporary stopover."

Jin Zhuang still felt that it was more likely Second-generation Zhao had killed the victim on impulse than that it had been premeditated.

Zhen Liu agreed and replied to Lawyer Jin, "If you said they had a complete plan to kill you, I'd believe it." But he found it unlikely that they had had a complete plan to kill Ying De. After all, the source of hatred between those two brothers was rather obvious.

"So our previous guess during the group discussion was right. Second-generation Zhao was more like the one cleaning up someone else's mess." Lawyer Jin thought he really was a little genius.

Zhen Liu, meanwhile, wondered whether that mess had been made by Basketball Qiao. That was harder to say.

Lawyer Jin continued to feel smug about the tacit understanding among the three of them. He felt a new alliance was rising, and after chatting with Zhen Liu for a while longer, he happily went off to continue searching for dirt on the brothers.

Professor Lu looked thoroughly displeased and loathed Lawyer Jin's retreating figure.

After watching Lawyer Jin leave, Zhen Liu said to Professor Lu, "The mess Second-generation Zhao cleaned up was one you made while disguised as Basketball Qiao, wasn't it?"

Professor Lu: "!!!"

Zhen Liu had already prepared himself for Professor Lu to ask how he knew, or to deny it to the bitter end.

But Professor Lu was instantly overjoyed, happiness practically dancing in his eyes. "You didn't say any of that in front of Lawyer Jin just now because you don't agree with his alliance at all, right? Exactly. We're the ones on the same side."

Zhen Liu: "???" Who had just said that beasts preferred to travel alone?

Author's note:

Nonsense mini-theater:

Professor Lu: "Baa~"

A real beast enjoyed solitude. A fake beast...

Started chattering away, voluntarily explaining to the person he liked exactly what he had done the night before last, as well as this character's past. His mouth was looser than an old pair of sweatpants.

Zhen Liu successfully unlocked Professor Lu's character card because of this.

When 333 appeared in Zhen Liu's mind, it was so excited it practically wanted to spin, leap, and do the splits on the spot. [Unlocking character cards can earn you points!] The tone alone made it clear that the points awarded were probably substantial. Although 333 did not reveal the exact number, Zhen Liu more or less understood that as long as they correctly identified the murderer and did not let the killer obtain the base escape score of 8 points, his bonus this time should be secure.

Only then did Zhen Liu look at Professor Lu's character card on the built-in light screen. Although some of its contents had yet to be unlocked, the overall framework of the character biography had appeared. At least Zhen Liu was no longer completely in the dark about Professor Lu.

Except...

Zhen Liu had always thought Professor Lu was a player who stayed fairly true to his role, but after reading about the events of that year on the character card, he realized Professor Lu's performance was nothing like the character at all.

Other than being "not fond of talking," the two Professor Lus had nothing else in common.

But even that trait of being "taciturn" felt completely different when portrayed through different personalities. The imposing Professor Lu was silent and dependable, but the actual character was timid and insecure.

After realizing he had fallen for the most handsome boy in his class, Professor Lu developed an intense self-loathing. For a long time, he fiercely rejected those feelings because he felt he was already abnormal enough; he could not bear the label of homosexuality as well. This was completely different from Zhen Liu's guess that "Professor Lu had secretly stood up for Doctor Zhen during their student days and reduced the campus bullying."

In other words, Zhen Liu still had not found his "hero" from his school days. But at least he could rule out Professor Lu. Back then, Professor Lu had not wanted anything whatsoever to do with Doctor Zhen.

When love arrived suddenly, some people became braver, while others retreated even further.

It was not that he did not love him. It was simply that love was not always as great as artistic works made it out to be. At least Professor Lu was like that. His secret crush on Doctor Zhen had not suddenly made him immensely strong or brilliant, nor had it helped him grow mentally. Instead, it had made him even weaker, afraid to face the world.