Chapter Summaries

Lawyer Jin presented clues that cleared Basketball Qiao and narrowed the suspects to Second-generation Zhao and Professor Lu. Professor Lu then revealed an anonymous letter reporting him to the school, leaving the investigation focused on the remaining suspects.

• Lawyer Jin revealed Professor Lu’s photo of Doctor Zhen and accused Professor Lu of liking him, but the group treated the secret as obvious.
• Lawyer Jin shared evidence about the bloodstained golf club, disturbed flowerpot, banner, and possibility that someone had hidden upstairs before Doctor Zhen arrived.
• Zhen Liu showed his chat history and trunk photo to establish that he had brought the banner’s other items to the villa himself.
• Basketball Qiao produced an e-wallet payment record that placed him downtown buying milk tea, leaving Second-generation Zhao and Professor Lu as the remaining suspects.
• Professor Lu showed photos and revealed a letter in his car that anonymously reported him to the school.

The players examined the victim’s autopsy and evidence, and Professor Lu used the poison’s timeline and Lawyer Jin’s past case to implicate him. Professor Lu’s search history also revealed his collection of candid photos of Doctor Zhen, which he said other people had taken.

• Basketball Qiao revealed that he had found the anonymous report letter, and Professor Lu admitted it was the victim’s leverage against him and a motive for murder.
• The DM released an autopsy report showing the victim died between 2 and 4 a.m. with stab wounds, two poisons, and traces of a sleep aid.
• Professor Lu revealed that he had found Class A Poison in the second-floor media room’s trash and linked Lawyer Jin to a past poisoning case involving the same substance.
• Professor Lu used the poison’s four-to-six-hour delay to argue that it had been given to the victim between 8 p.m. and midnight, when Lawyer Jin had opportunities to be alone with him.
• Professor Lu showed his search history and a candid photo of Doctor Zhen as a student, then said other people had taken the photos.

Professor Lu exposed Lawyer Jin’s connection to School Bully, prompting the group to suspect Jin and push for an early vote. Jin accused Professor Lu in return, then attacked him before DM separated them.

• Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao recalled School Bully’s expulsion, while Zhen Liu and Professor Lu reacted to the story.
• Professor Lu found that Lawyer Jin had represented Brother Hao, the former School Bully, and Jin admitted Ying De had arranged the defense.
• Professor Lu argued that Jin’s connection to Brother Hao made him suspicious, and Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao backed an Early Referendum.
• Jin resisted the vote, claimed it would let the real murderer win, and accused Basketball Qiao and Second-generation Zhao of wanting to silence him.
• Jin lunged at Professor Lu, who dodged him until DM used Misaligned Space to separate them.

Zhen Liu questioned Basketball Qiao’s focus on accusing Lawyer Jin, then visited Jin Zhuang in the Black Room to suggest the others’ hostility might come from their character alignments. He offered to help Jin Zhuang if he shared his character’s backstory, then went to visit Professor Lu.

• Basketball Qiao revealed that he had recorded footage showing Lawyer Jin had a motive to kill, while Zhen Liu questioned whether the fight between Lawyer Jin and Professor Lu had another explanation.
• Basketball Qiao asked whether the truth mattered, and Zhen Liu said it did before joking that money mattered most.
• Zhen Liu visited Jin Zhuang and suggested that Second-generation Zhao, Qiao Basketball, and Professor Lu might be hostile because of their character alignments.
• Zhen Liu offered to help Jin Zhuang investigate his character’s past in exchange for hearing his story and any grudges he uncovered.
• Zhen Liu went to visit Professor Lu, who was relaxing in the Black Room and reading a cookbook.

Zhen Liu persuaded Professor Lu to oppose an Early Referendum, then encountered Second-generation Zhao, who insisted on holding one to vote Lawyer Jin to death. Second-generation Zhao accused Lawyer Jin of helping a gang associate escape punishment for a fatal crash, while Zhen Liu recognized that Zhao was hiding his true motives.

• Professor Lu admitted that he targeted Lawyer Jin partly because Zhen Liu paid him so much attention, then readily agreed to vote against an Early Referendum if Zhen Liu wanted.
• Zhen Liu left Professor Lu's Black Room and met Second-generation Zhao, who announced that he intended to secure Professor Lu's support for the referendum.
• Zhen Liu questioned why Second-generation Zhao was determined to hold the referendum and vote Lawyer Jin to death.
• Second-generation Zhao claimed Lawyer Jin was the murderer and described how Lawyer Jin had defended Brother Hao's second-in-command after a fatal traffic accident.
• Second-generation Zhao argued that the associate had likely been driving under the influence and that Lawyer Jin had helped shift blame onto the victim.

Zhen Liu refused to accuse Lawyer Jin without evidence and used Basketball Qiao’s recording to uncover the lawyer’s history and his connection to the victim. The chapter revealed that the second-in-command had killed Basketball Qiao’s mother, while Second-generation Zhao’s possible family tie to them explained his determination to blame Lawyer Jin.

• Zhen Liu argued with Second-generation Zhao, insisting that Lawyer Jin’s guilt had to be established by evidence rather than suspicion.
• Zhen Liu obtained Basketball Qiao’s recording of Lawyer Jin destroying evidence and noticed a suspicious detail in the news footage about the second-in-command’s traffic accident.
• 333 unlocked Lawyer Jin’s character card after Zhen Liu gathered more than seventy percent of the information about him.
• Zhen Liu learned that Lawyer Jin and Ying De had worked together, and that Ying De eventually pulled the lawyer into handling shady cases for Brother Hao.
• The character card revealed that the second-in-command had killed Basketball Qiao’s mother in a traffic accident, and that Basketball Qiao had sought justice but lost his future in the process.
• Zhen Liu considered that Second-generation Zhao might be Basketball Qiao’s full brother and could be seeking revenge for their mother.

Zhen Liu pieced together how Lawyer Jin and Doctor Zhen had separately poisoned the deceased, leaving the exact cause and timing of death dependent on the timeline. After the Black Room session, Second-generation Zhao’s Early Referendum proposal failed when Professor Lu joined Zhen Liu, Lawyer Jin, and another voter in rejecting it.

• Zhen Liu determined that Lawyer Jin had planned to poison the deceased with Class A Poison before their argument, and had hidden it inside a wineglass.
• Zhen Liu learned that Doctor Zhen had premeditated poisoning the deceased with Class B Poison by soaking clothes in it, though Lawyer Jin’s poison may have sped up its effects.
• After three hours in the Black Room, Second-generation Zhao called for an Early Referendum, hoping Zhen Liu would change his vote.
• The Early Referendum failed by a vote of three against and two in favor, with only Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao supporting it.
• Professor Lu returned to Zhen Liu’s side and said he was ruled by love, leaving Lawyer Jin delighted that Second-generation Zhao had been rejected.

At the class reunion, Professor Lu’s devotion to Doctor Zhen drew scrutiny when Basketball Qiao revealed that Professor Lu had apparently killed people who bullied Doctor Zhen. The chapter ended with Lawyer Jin suggesting Professor Lu may have killed Ying De to stop Doctor Zhen from acting first.

• Lawyer Jin sat at the far end of the table after Professor Lu refused to let him sit beside either Doctor Zhen or himself.
• Basketball Qiao said Professor Lu had been taking revenge on Doctor Zhen’s former bullies and was a serial killer.
• Basketball Qiao suspected Professor Lu had pretended to be threatened so he could get close to Ying De and kill him.
• Professor Lu challenged Basketball Qiao to explain why he would kill in front of Doctor Zhen if he wanted Doctor Zhen to love him.
• Lawyer Jin suggested Professor Lu had improvised and killed Ying De because Doctor Zhen was about to act.

Zhen Liu and Lawyer Jin compared the suspects’ likely murder methods and evidence of a nighttime cover-up, narrowing suspicion toward Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao. Zhen Liu proposed that three different people may have killed the victim, hidden the body, and later returned it to the victim’s room.

• Professor Lu admitted he might have acted before Zhen Liu, but said he would have ensured the victim was dead before Zhen Liu killed him.
• Lawyer Jin matched the suspected methods to the five suspects and concluded Professor Lu likely acted last, leading him to focus on Second-generation Zhao.
• Zhen Liu presented laundry records and Luminol photographs showing blood had been washed from clothing during the night.
• Zhen Liu argued that either Second-generation Zhao or Basketball Qiao had covered for someone, possibly based on a mistaken belief about who had stabbed the victim.
• Zhen Liu suggested that one murderer might have killed the victim impulsively, another hidden the body, and a third returned it to the victim’s room.

Zhen Liu realized that everyone at the villa had been drugged, suggesting someone had deliberately obscured the timeline or that Ying De had drugged them himself. The group debated Ying De’s reason for gathering them, while Second-generation Zhao accused Lawyer Jin of drugging everyone and further implicated him in Class A Poison.

• Zhen Liu concluded that someone had hidden the body and someone else had put it back, then suspected that everyone might have been given sleeping medication.
• Zhen Liu summoned 333 and DM for examinations, and the results showed that every person had sleep-inducing drugs in their system.
• Zhen Liu suggested that someone among them—or Ying De—had drugged the group, and the others considered why Ying De had gathered them.
• Second-generation Zhao accused Lawyer Jin of drugging everyone to confuse the timeline, and Basketball Qiao speculated that he had altered the villa’s clocks.
• Second-generation Zhao again tied Lawyer Jin to Class A Poison, and Lawyer Jin decided to make Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao lose a point.

Zhen Liu searched the villa for a secret room while Professor Lu investigated everyone’s phone usage. Basketball Qiao confirmed the room existed and offered to reveal its location in exchange for Zhen Liu’s vote against Lawyer Jin and help persuading Professor Lu.

• After the group split up for the second round of evidence gathering, Zhen Liu told Professor Lu that Basketball Qiao’s theory about changing the time was flawed.
• Professor Lu proposed using phone usage records to estimate when people had been active, while Zhen Liu decided to search for evidence of a secret room.
• Zhen Liu passed Second-generation Zhao and Lawyer Jin as they argued on the third floor, then mapped the villa’s rooms to find discrepancies in its layout.
• As Zhen Liu prepared to investigate an unusually thick wall, Basketball Qiao called him into a nearby room and offered the secret room’s location in exchange for his vote against Lawyer Jin and help persuading Professor Lu.

Zhen Liu learned that Basketball Qiao and Second-generation Zhao wanted to use Brother Hao to kill Lawyer Jin for revenge, but he insisted on uncovering the truth. He found the secret room by smashing through the villa wall, leaving Second-generation Zhao devastated.

• Basketball Qiao told Zhen Liu that Second-generation Zhao wanted Lawyer Jin dead to avenge their mother, not to avenge Ying De.
• Zhen Liu argued that the truth mattered more than settling personal grudges and questioned whether sacrificing a life for revenge was worth it.
• Zhen Liu took an iron hammer and an axe from the villa's firefighting equipment and asked 333 whether damaging the walls would break the rules.
• Zhen Liu smashed a hole in the wall beside the stairway and uncovered the cramped secret room as the other players watched.
• Second-generation Zhao felt as if his whole world had fallen apart.

Zhen Liu exposed the villa’s secret room and learned how it had been created and used. Second-generation Zhao described his plan to hide the deceased’s body there, but Zhen Liu recognized that he was lying, leaving the group to investigate what really happened.

• Zhen Liu uncovered a narrow secret room running through the villa’s floors, and Second-generation Zhao explained that it had once been an elevator shaft converted into an escape-room feature.
• Second-generation Zhao said he had planned to kill the deceased and hide the body in the secret room, though Zhen Liu realized he was lying.
• Second-generation Zhao said he had found no fingerprints but had discovered bloodstains on the secret room’s first floor.
• Zhen Liu searched the secret room with Lawyer Jin and Professor Lu, while Lawyer Jin questioned whether Second-generation Zhao’s account was true.
• Professor Lu stepped between Lawyer Jin and Zhen Liu and mocked Lawyer Jin for trying to cling to someone’s side.

Zhen Liu and the others concluded that Second-generation Zhao had probably hidden Ying De’s body while cleaning up someone else’s mess, rather than carrying out a planned murder. After Zhen Liu accused Professor Lu of being behind that mess, Professor Lu eagerly revealed more about himself, and Zhen Liu unlocked his character card.

• Professor Lu argued that Second-generation Zhao’s account of hiding Ying De’s body was unreliable, and Lawyer Jin reasoned that the escape room was too exposed to serve as a long-term hiding place.
• Zhen Liu agreed that Second-generation Zhao was more likely covering for another person than following a plan to kill Ying De, and Lawyer Jin left to investigate the brothers further.
• Zhen Liu privately accused Professor Lu of making the mess while disguised as Basketball Qiao, and Professor Lu delightedly assumed Zhen Liu had chosen his side.
• Professor Lu voluntarily shared details about his actions and past, allowing Zhen Liu to unlock his character card and learn that the real Professor Lu had been timid and insecure about his feelings for Doctor Zhen.

Professor Lu’s character biography revealed that he loved Doctor Zhen, had terminal cancer, and planned to kill the person Doctor Zhen intended to kill. Zhen Liu uncovered why Lucien had misled Second-generation Zhao, while Lucien insisted on staying in character and expressing his love.

• Professor Lu’s biography revealed that he had loved Doctor Zhen for years, regretted his past cowardice, and learned he had at most six months to live.
• Professor Lu discovered Doctor Zhen’s secret, but the character card skipped the details, leaving Zhen Liu unsure what had been omitted.
• Professor Lu told Zhen Liu that he had followed him to kill the person Zhen Liu planned to kill first, then introduced himself as Lucien.
• Zhen Liu deduced that Professor Lu had misled Second-generation Zhao, and the biography confirmed Professor Lu had stabbed someone while Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao had mistakenly covered for each other.
• Lucien refused Zhen Liu’s suggestion to stop acting love-struck and promised to make Zhen Liu feel his love.

Lucien mapped out the players’ weapons and challenged Basketball Qiao’s account of the victim’s movements after dinner. He then claimed he had followed and stabbed the victim outside his room, leaving the others to react to his startling revelation.

• The DM chose Lucien to explain the players’ movements because he supposedly knew their timelines best.
• Lucien used a holographic display to match each player with a weapon and noted that Lawyer Jin and Zhen Liu had poisoned the victim before dinner.
• Lucien questioned Basketball Qiao’s claim that the victim spoke with him until 12:30, arguing that the victim had left Lucien’s room before midnight.
• When Basketball Qiao challenged how Lucien knew he was the last person the victim met, Lucien said he had followed and stabbed the victim outside his room.

Basketball Qiao and Second-generation Zhao revealed that they had planned to turn Lawyer Jin and Ying De against each other, while the group investigated a poison prescription and discovered who had written the mysterious notes. The chapter left the prescription slip’s author unidentified and Basketball Qiao and Second-generation Zhao admitting they had staged evidence but denying they killed anyone.

• Basketball Qiao admitted he had lied about his timeline and said he found Ying De and the knife in the secret room after returning from preparing a plan.
• Second-generation Zhao claimed he had moved Ying De into the secret room and struck him with a golf club to create injuries, then presented a prescription slip suggesting Class A Poison and Class B Poison could have been combined.
• Zhen Liu denied writing the prescription slip, and the group compared handwriting samples but found no match for its author.
• Zhen Liu, Jin Zhuang, and Lucien noticed that Basketball Qiao’s handwriting matched the notes left in their rooms.
• Basketball Qiao revealed that he and Second-generation Zhao had used Ying De’s name to lure Lawyer Jin out and provoke him and Ying De into attacking each other, insisting they had not killed Ying De.

Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao tried to recruit Zhen Liu and Professor Lu by revealing that Doctor Zhen had a split personality and threatening to vote him out. They left Zhen Liu to choose whether to join their plan to vote for Lawyer Jin or risk exposing Doctor Zhen's secret.

• Basketball Qiao insisted that he and Second-generation Zhao had encountered corpses, while Lawyer Jin dismissed their claim.
• Second-generation Zhao started a private chat with Basketball Qiao, Zhen Liu, and Professor Lu.
• Second-generation Zhao revealed that Doctor Zhen might have a split personality, and Zhen Liu realized that he was playing the secondary personality.
• Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao offered to protect Doctor Zhen's secret if Zhen Liu joined them in voting for Lawyer Jin.
• The narration explained that Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao repeatedly steered the scenario toward revenge against Lawyer Jin, while the livestream viewers wondered whether Zhen Liu would break the pattern.

Zhen Liu rejected Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao’s offer to force a vote, choosing to keep searching for the truth. He realized the players’ victory condition required turning the murderer over to the police, and suspected that handing anyone over to Brother Hao would otherwise end with everyone burned alive.

• Viewers explained that the case would keep restarting because its characters had lost their memories and repeated the same choices.
• Second-generation Zhao urged Zhen Liu to accept their offer, but Zhen Liu insisted that finding the truth mattered as much as winning.
• Second-generation Zhao threatened that he and Basketball Qiao would vote together, while Zhen Liu pointed out that he and Lucien could also form an alliance with the professor and doctor.
• Zhen Liu recognized that the quest required the players to hand the murderer over to the police, not to Brother Hao.
• Zhen Liu suggested that Brother Hao would burn everyone regardless of whom they handed over, leaving Second-generation Zhao stunned.

Zhen Liu and the others reconsidered Brother Hao’s threat and the mystery of who drugged them, then compared their present investigation with the choices they had made in a previous failed run. They realized that they had once sacrificed Lawyer Jin to Brother Hao and were still unsure what Brother Hao truly wanted.

• Zhen Liu questioned why Brother Hao had arrived so quickly, who had drugged everyone, and whether his demand to hand over the killer conflicted with their mission to turn the culprit over to the police.
• Zhen Liu persuaded Second-generation Zhao to join the group’s discussion, then explained the situation to Jin Zhuang.
• Jin Zhuang argued that Brother Hao’s rapid arrival likely reflected the instance’s underlying reality rather than a contrived reason to gather the players.
• Second-generation Zhao and Basketball Qiao recalled that, in their earlier attempt, they had agreed with the doctor and professor to hand Lawyer Jin over to Brother Hao instead of finding the killer.
• The four survivors had been burned alive in the villa despite sacrificing Lawyer Jin, and Jin Zhuang wondered what Brother Hao had actually been trying to accomplish.