Newbie Instance: Class Reunion (20

Basketball Qiao's mind went blank for a moment. He opened his mouth, not knowing what to say. He had known about Professor Lu stabbing someone, but he had never expected it to happen so early. There had been no time left for him to fabricate a timeline.

Everyone had previously placed the victim's time of death in the latter half of the night, after dawn, but in reality, Professor Lu had struck first before midnight.

The silhouette of the victim Lawyer Jin claimed to have seen had actually been Professor Lu in disguise. By then, the victim had already been unable to stand.

Basketball Qiao could no longer argue and had no choice but to admit that he had lied about the timeline earlier. "I wasn't waiting for him in my room at all. I had other plans." He glanced at Second-generation Zhao but still did not explain what those other plans were. He only said, "When I came back after preparing the plan, I didn't expect to see the victim and that knife in the secret room."

As far as Basketball Qiao knew, only he and Second-generation Zhao should have known about the secret room at the time.

Basketball Qiao naturally assumed that the plan had changed and that Second-generation Zhao had accidentally killed Ying De. So he disposed of the knife, moved the victim back out, and covered the victim's face with a pillow, leaving behind obvious evidence of a crime.

"I thought it was you..." Although Second-generation Zhao had already coordinated with Basketball Qiao beforehand, he still stepped forward at that moment because he had to testify for him. "I was the one who put the victim in the secret room. He had already stopped breathing by then."

Lawyer Jin was thrilled. He said to Second-generation Zhao, "So you were actually the one who killed the victim, with a golf club."

"No! I hit him to create obvious injuries too. I just hadn't decided whether I should take the blame myself or frame someone else. I was afraid you'd find out, so I put the victim and the knife in the secret room first. I never intended to leave him there forever..." Second-generation Zhao said.

Lawyer Jin folded his arms and sneered, clearly unconvinced. "Then aren't you saying Professor Lu is the killer? Just say his name. Why beat around the bush?"

"Why can't it have been poison? The knife didn't kill him. He just happened to die at that time." Second-generation Zhao clashed with Lawyer Jin again.

Lawyer Jin was confident. "I already said my poison couldn't have taken effect that early."

"But that might not be true if Class A Poison and Class B Poison were used together." Second-generation Zhao produced the evidence they had found.

Zhen Liu's heart skipped a beat. The evidence had been casually written on a prescription slip, and he had no idea where Second-generation Zhao had found it. Yet the handwriting was exactly like that of the person Doctor Zhen had secretly loved during his student days.

Newbie Instance: Class Reunion (20

"Where did you find this prescription slip?" Zhen Liu blurted out. Even though he caught himself in time, he still revealed some emotion. He could only try his best to keep everyone from realizing that what he truly cared about was the handwriting.

Second-generation Zhao looked at Zhen Liu in surprise. "Didn't you write this?"

That answer was beyond Zhen Liu's expectations. He was even more surprised than Second-generation Zhao. "No, this isn't my handwriting."

After saying that, Zhen Liu suddenly realized this was a good chance to compare everyone's handwriting. Right there, he wrote several words on the light screen, then compared his writing to the writing on the prescription slip.

In the game, not only were players' appearances replaced, but all evidence, including handwriting, was replaced as well, all to heighten the sense of immersion. In other words, Zhen Liu's handwriting was Doctor Zhen's handwriting. Yet the writing on the prescription slip was completely different from Zhen Liu's, and naturally, from Lucien's as well.

"Why did you think this was mine?" Zhen Liu asked again.

"You're the only doctor among the suspects, so you'd have the easiest access to blank prescription slips." Second-generation Zhao tapped the hospital name at the bottom of the paper. It was exactly where Doctor Zhen worked. "Besides, I found this in your car."

Second-generation Zhao was not lying this time.

But Zhen Liu could swear that he truly knew nothing about this prescription slip.

Just as Zhen Liu had expected, the others also wrote down samples of their handwriting to prove their innocence. Then a strange result emerged: not a single person's handwriting matched that on the prescription slip.

Before anyone could figure out what was going on, Zhen Liu unexpectedly discovered that Basketball Qiao's handwriting matched the writing on the little notes slipped into their rooms. Jin Zhuang and Lucien noticed as well. They all looked at Basketball Qiao, waiting for his explanation. Sure enough, those notes had not been left by the victim. As had been said before, it would have been far too unnecessary.

"!!!" Basketball Qiao could no longer play dumb. Before speaking, however, he gave Zhen Liu a particularly aggrieved and resentful look. "You did that on purpose just now, didn't you? You used the handwriting issue to deliberately find the real owner of those little notes."

Zhen Liu responded with a smile. Basketball Qiao could think whatever he wanted, though it truly had just been an accidental discovery.

Seeing that things had come to this, Basketball Qiao simply told them everything, also to clear himself and Second-generation Zhao of their current suspicions. "My brother and I were actually using the victim's name to lure Lawyer Jin out late at night." Everyone else had been decoys; Lawyer Jin was the real target. "We whispered some things in the victim's ear and made him believe that unless he killed Lawyer Jin, this matter would be hard to settle."

In other words, they had been trying to sow discord and provoke Lawyer Jin and Ying De into making moves against each other.

It was a plan that killed two birds with one stone.

"No matter who died, the other would be arrested. When I saw Ying De lying in a pool of blood, I assumed Lawyer Jin had killed him, so I continued with the plan."

There had never been any taking the blame for a brother. From the very beginning, Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao had had a clear goal: take out both enemies at once. It was just that everyone's initial speculation had veered toward mutual cover-ups, and they had gone along with it because they did not want to expose their secret. But now they might really be voted out as the killers, so they had no choice but to tell the truth.

"We wouldn't dirty our own hands." Basketball Qiao was telling the truth this time. "Whether smothering him or hitting him, it was all part of our plan. The police would never believe such a clumsy attempt at taking the blame."