Beginner Edition · Class Reunion (Twenty

Basketball Qiao's mind went blank for a moment. He opened his mouth, unsure what to say. He knew about Professor Lu's stabbing, but he had not expected it to happen so early. There had been no time 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 made his move before midnight.

The victim's silhouette Lawyer Jin claimed to have seen had actually been Professor Lu in disguise. By then, the victim could no longer stand.

Basketball Qiao could no longer deny it and had to admit that he had lied about the timeline. "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 say what those plans were. He only said, "When I came back after preparing everything, I was also surprised 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 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 this point because he needed to testify for Basketball Qiao. "I put the victim in the secret room. He had already stopped breathing 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 to confess myself or frame someone else. I was afraid you would 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 murderer? Just say his name. Why beat around the bush?"

"Why couldn'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 once again.

Lawyer Jin was confident. "I told you, there's no way my poison could have taken effect that early."

"But that might not be the case when Class A Poison and Class B Poison are combined." 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. He had no idea where Second-generation Zhao had found it, but the handwriting was identical to that of the person Doctor Zhen had secretly loved in his student days.

"Where did you find this prescription slip?" Zhen Liu blurted out. Though he caught himself in time, he still revealed some emotion. He could only try his best not to let everyone realize that it was the handwriting he cared about.

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, that 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 a few words on the light screen, then compared his writing with 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 increase immersion as much as possible. In other words, whatever Zhen Liu's handwriting looked like was what Doctor Zhen's handwriting looked like. Yet the writing on the prescription slip was completely different from Zhen Liu's, and naturally, it was different from Lucien's too.

"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 paper." Second-generation Zhao tapped the hospital's name at the bottom of the slip. It was the very hospital where Doctor Zhen worked. "And I found this in your car."

Second-generation Zhao was not lying this time.

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

Just as Zhen Liu had expected, the others all wrote down samples of their handwriting to prove their innocence. Then, a strange result emerged: not a single person's handwriting matched the writing 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 it too. They all turned to Basketball Qiao, waiting for his explanation. Sure enough, those notes had never been written by the victim. As they had said before, they were 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 smiled at him. Basketball Qiao could think whatever he wanted, though this really had been an unintentional discovery.

Seeing that things had come to this, Basketball Qiao simply told them everything, also to clear himself and Second-generation Zhao of the suspicion now hanging over them. "My brother and I planned to use the victim's name to lure Lawyer Jin out late at night." Everyone else had been a smokescreen; Lawyer Jin was the real target. "We whispered things into the victim's ear and made him believe that unless he killed Lawyer Jin, this would be difficult 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 question of taking the blame for a brother. Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao had been very clear about their goal from the beginning: to get rid of two enemies at once. It was only because everyone's initial speculation had veered toward mutual cover-ups that they went along with it, unwilling to expose their secret. But now they might really be voted out as murderers, 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 covering his face or hitting him, it was all part of our plan. The police would never believe such a clumsy attempt to take the blame."