Voyeurism was a way to gain a sense of belonging and validation, to strengthen a connection with the person being watched through a hidden gaze.
Although the butler had his back to the young man, anyone facing him would have noticed his breathing quickening at an unnatural rate, his gray eyes radiating an eerie satisfaction, and his lips curling into a crazed grin.
Every pore in his skin seemed to scream, desperately proclaiming his feverish excitement.
The old butler took a deep breath. By the time he turned around, he had returned to normal, his eyes betraying none of his earlier turmoil. He said politely:
"Forgive my rudeness. Let me help you."
An icy palm brushed over the young man's straight shoulders. A sickly-sweet, bloody scent mingled with floral fragrance, assaulting Shen Ru's nose like a surging tide as the butler drew closer.
The young man slipped off his coat without betraying anything and remarked casually, "Mr. Guan would probably like a glass of milk. Sorry for the trouble, but could you bring one to his room later?"
The cruelest way to deal with a voyeur was not to expose him outright, but to make him understand that even within arm's reach, the distance between them remained an unbridgeable gulf.
Imagine the person you were interested in gazing at you seductively one moment, even granting you permission to come closer.
Then, the next moment, while in your arms, they spoke tenderly of another man.
Just imagining it filled Shen Ru with delight.
Surely Guan Wenyue could appreciate the same feeling!
Sure enough, the suggestive atmosphere in the room gave way to coldness. The butler's hands stiffened briefly before he draped Shen Ru's coat over a nearby clothes rack and nodded slightly:
"Of course. Would you like any yourself?"
An angelically sweet, happy smile graced Shen Ru's face as he replied gently, "No, thank you. Just give it all to him."
I only hope you manage to pass that hatred on to him.
"Oh, one more thing!"
Remembering the scent he had just caught on the butler, the young man's brow suddenly twitched. He asked casually:
"Is there anything Mrs. Leon is interested in?"
The butler paused briefly before saying, "Perhaps roses, because Mr. Leon likes them."
With that, he left.
Shen Ru had stalled him long enough that there was no need to worry about Mo Yu and the others running into the old butler.
But those words made Shen Ru's pupils abruptly contract. Watching the butler's retreating figure, he sank into thought.
Roses should have been the thing Mrs. Leon hated most. He had seen the woman soaking in bloody water in utter despair, her entire body swollen almost to translucence.
The butler was lying.
No. His expression and indifferent manner didn't look like those of someone telling a lie.
Instead, although his words seemed casual, that final remark, tacked on almost through muscle memory, was the key.
Mr. Leon liked roses.
Shen Ru found it strange, but could not work out the connection just yet.
Inside the butler's room.
As the door opened, a pungent smell of blood mingled with floral fragrance rushed out. The strange, layered odor was instantly nauseating.
There were no electric lights in the room, only a few scattered candles burning silently beside the walls.
A narrow, cramped room, a cluttered desk, and several sheets of sketch paper stuck to the walls.
Mo Yu took the lead, walking slowly into the butler's room.
The farther they ventured inside, the more intense the eerie floral fragrance became. Under the dim light, the true contents of the sketches on the walls were fully revealed.
Penciled across them were horrifying scenes that sent chills down their spines. Every stroke bordered on obsessive madness. Even an ordinary person with no knowledge of art could see the excitement and passion woven into them.
The scenes depicted were familiar to everyone.
They showed the detailed procedures of the human experiments conducted at the Research Institute to cultivate immortal roses.
Wei Lanxing let out a startled gasp in a low voice. "So the butler was the mastermind behind the Research Institute?"
Mo Yu shook his head, then turned his gaze toward the cluttered desktop.
When he saw what lay there, the man lowered his head and laughed. His eyes darkened to almost black, and the shadows lurking in the darkness suddenly churned as though they had gone mad.
Judging by the images, however, the artist possessed astonishing skill and technique, whether in the strokes, composition, or handling of light and shadow.
Most of the pictures captured the Leons entwined in bed. The roses beside the headboard were drawn in vivid splendor, as though growing unchecked, steeped in love.
Then came two utterly different pictures.
The young man's figure was sleek and sensual. Even with his back turned toward them, his slender waist and full, rounded buttocks, partially concealed, still left plenty to the imagination.
His clean, pale skin in the unlit bathroom resembled a faint light of salvation shining through a filthy world, offering deliverance to its people.
"This..."
Qi Ning was startled. He had imagined finding all manner of things in this room, plausible or otherwise, but the one thing he had never expected to see was Shen Ru's face.
Mo Yu said nothing, but the shadows behind him were already spreading wildly beyond his control, until his fingertips tapped lightly against the desktop twice.
The sound was so faint that, had Qi Ning not witnessed it himself, he would never have heard those two emotion-laden taps.
As though finally receiving an order, the shadows surged out from behind the man. Overwhelming malice and suffocating fear instantly swept through the entire room.
The two sheets depicting the young man alone were torn to shreds.
In the livestream chat:
[Okay, but... could you give those drawings to me? Collecting private pictures is definitely wrong, but I admit I'm pretty twisted...]
[Hahahahaha, Boss Mo might be really unhappy, but I'm having a great time right now!!!]
[Gotta say, the butler's got some skills. Looks like the voyeur has finally shown his true colors.]
They rarely saw Mo Yu show any emotional fluctuations. For one thing, someone had to be at least S-rank to become a guild leader. At that level, unless they entered as a team, they would rarely be matched into the same instance.
For another, Mo Yu was a man with formidable control over his emotions. Few people could guess what he was truly thinking.
Having reached his current position, he had very few people capable of competing with him, so the word "emotion" had long since ceased to have anything to do with Mo Yu.
Although inwardly surprised, Wei Lanxing and the others did not show it. Instead, they smoothly changed the subject.
"We can't establish his connection to the Rosevine Research Institute yet, but we can now confirm that the old butler is the thing in the crack."
Qi Ning agreed. "Right, but there's still one thing I don't understand. Why did he have to kill Cao Liao?"
Mo Yu scanned the room once more. After confirming there was nothing else worth investigating, he thought for a moment before saying slowly:
"Perhaps because Cao Liao saw his eyes. Those distinctive grayish-white eyes."
Appearances were never a measure of whether someone was good or bad, just as a person's abilities had no connection to their morality.
Never imagine that you could judge someone's true nature by how capable they were.
Who could have imagined that the dignified, gentlemanly old butler was secretly a pervert who enjoyed spying on his employers' intimate activities?
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