Live Action Murder Mystery Chapter 50.2

Chapter 50.2

After Gu Liang finished saying those words, no one opened their mouths again for a very long time.
That lasted until Professor Wang’s brain hole opened wide, and he suddenly clapped his hands.
The clap shattered the silence in the mountains. Professor Wang exclaimed: “I get it now! Both of them liked Xiao Hua!”
“In any case, Xiao Hua’s character design enthralls everyman, right? I’ll give an example, imagine that the older brother is Light Xiao Cao, the younger brother is Dark Xiao Cao. In the younger brother’s eyes, his older brother, Xiao Dong and Xiao Yuan, all liked Xiao Hua. Thus, the younger brother decided to make use of this mountain expedition, and designed a way to kill all his love rivals. In the end… he killed Xiao Hua too.”
“Doesn’t it have this perverse feeling of ‘since I can’t have her, I might as well kill her’?”
Professor Wang continued expounding, “That being the case, not only did the younger brother kill his love rivals, he killed the Xiao Hua he liked as well. Afterwards, he had no intention of returning back to normal life. He stayed on the snow mountain, lingering on in a condition that steadily worsened. He constantly watched over the snow mountain without leaving because he wanted to accompany his lover’s corpse everyday…
“Ah, right, Inspector Liu previously said that he didn’t go back and burn the corpse because he was afraid of the police. If so, he must have felt that… since he can’t protect his lover’s corpse, he might as well burn it, and be done with it all.”
Professor Wang’s sudden insight surged up, gushing like a fountain, and his brain hole made the other three players dumbstruck.
Gu Liang remained dazed for a long time before he eventually said: “Yes, the psychoanalysis that you brought up could be a possibility.”
Delectation spread across Professor Wang’s visage. “Well, I do have more than ten years of societal experience over all of you. I’ve read quite a few pieces about perverse people like these.”
“En. If the murderer in the script is really that…”
As if he could not find the correct descriptor in the moment, Gu Liang gave a pause before he continued speaking: “I truly want to know who the writer of the script was.”
Gu Liang yawned. Since he had nothing to do, he took off his glove and grabbed a handful of snow, causing him to reflexively shiver from the cold.
Retracting his hand back, he wore his thick glove again and reviewed the plot in his head once more.
Furrowing his eyebrows, he unconsciously said: “Wait, that’s not right…”
Professor Wang became a little nervous. “Ah? There can’t be another twist, right? The murderer isn’t Xiao Cao?”
“The murderer is Xiao Cao. I’m only saying that there’s a problem with the story you imagined.”
Gu Liang gazed at Professor Wang, saying, “Scientist Li previously said that in Xiao Hua’s perception, Xiao Cao has always been a bright person. Therefore, the person that came in contact with Xiao Hua in the adventure team, has always been Light Xiao Cao. The dark one never had any contact with Xiao Hua. Thus, I don’t think that Dark Xiao Cao liked Xiao Hua as well.”
“But this means that…” Professor Wang hesitated briefly.
Gu Liang finished his words. “If the real murderer is the younger brother, perhaps his thought process is analogous to what you said— since he can’t have him, he’ll kill him, and after killing him, he’ll accompany his corpse for the rest of his life. It’s just that…. the person that the younger brother wanted to accompany, I’m afraid it’s not Xiao Hua, but his older brother.”
“The two brothers grew up together, mutually dependent for life, and it’s to the extent where they share the same name. Now that the older brother liked a girl, and planned to be together with her after graduating, the younger brother might have struggled to accept it.”
“Vice versa, if the murderer is the older brother, the older brother couldn’t accept the fact that his younger brother will be getting together with Xiao Hua.”
“Fuck.” Professor Wang said, “If that’s the case, the murderer in the script is even more perverse.”
“Certainly.” Gu Liang nodded, “Once this ends, we’ll get to see the original story issued by the system.”
* * *
Throughout the entire discussion time, Doctor Xu tried to intercept their conversation several times, but no one acknowledged her.
And while Scientist Li met her gaze in the numerous instances where she was giving him a persistent stare, he was quick to shift his eyes away, as if he did not want to talk to her.
Currently, the things that should be discussed have been discussed. Gu Liang closed his eyes to recuperate his energy, while Professor Wang was seated by his side, trying to find a topic to talk about. Unable to sit still, Doctor Xu walked up to Scientist Li. “Let’s talk?”
Although Professor Wang managed to keep facing Gu Liang when he heard that, his gossiping eyes had already shifted over to Doctor Xu’s side.
Despite his previous reluctance, Scientist Li chose to talk to Doctor Xu in the end. He followed her to a further place before they sat down.
But this time around, he did not deliberately lower his voice, which meant that Gu Liang and Professor Wang were completely privy to all the words he was going to say to Doctor Xu.
Doctor Xu: “I didn’t suspect that you’re the murderer on purpose. It’s just that in our shared timeline, you kept asking me to check the corpses incognito, and it looked like you were hiding the evidence of the crime, so I… In addition to that…”
Scientist Li: “I’ve already explained this to you before. It’s not my fault that the three of them died three years ago, but because I was afraid of attracting a calamity to myself, I didn’t allow their parents to find their corpses, and that’s on me. This is the stain of my lifetime, which is why I was unwilling to allow other people to know that I was the Xiao Yuan who ran away that year, who was unwilling to say more to the police.
“But due to my remorse and unease, I still wanted to privately investigate how they died, so I wanted you, a doctor, to help me check it privately. Furthermore, I nearly died that year. If I didn’t get to the bottom of this matter, I wouldn’t be able to sleep easily.”
Doctor Xu: “I know. Back then I… Maybe it’s too cold here, my brain became muddled from the chill. Do you feel that I’m…”
Scientist Li: “All these are not important anymore. The most important thing is that you don’t trust me. When I told you my side task, I was braving a huge risk, because it might make everyone else suspect that I’m the real murderer. When all is said and done, Xiao Yuan is the sole survivor, his suspicion is incredibly heavy. I guarded against Professor Wang, guarded against Inspector Liu, but I didn’t guard against you. I didn’t expect that the person who trusted me the least would be you.”
Doctor Xu: “Sorry, I…”
Scientist Li went silent for a moment. He said: “It’s fine, it’s not important anymore.”
“You mean… You don’t mind it anymore?”
“Mn. I don’t mind.”
Doctor Xu was on the verge of releasing a breath, “Then I can rest my heart at ease.”
“I don’t mind, because I finally understood one thing: it has always only been my wishful thinking, I apologise for disturbing you.”
Scientist Li stood up and ambled over to Gu Liang and Professor Wang’s position.
That mouthful of air lodged itself in Doctor Xu’s throat, and her complexion became utterly pale.
* * *
On the other side, Professor Wang could not help but sigh emotionally in a small voice: “I think I’ve finally figured it out. Perhaps, the reason why Doctor Xu treated Scientist Li well in the past few scripts, was because Scientist Li had the best qualification among all the people. Now that we’ve arrived at this script, she noted that you were attractive, and wanted to curry your favour, so she sold Scientist Li out. And now that she has offended Scientist Li, she wants to make up to him… As it turns out, this Doctor Xu is green tea.”
Seeing that Gu Liang did not reply, Professor Wang asked, “Hey, do you know what green tea is?”
Gu Liang: “Green tea? Drinking tea?”
Professor Wang: “You’re actually eighty this year, and twenty years older than me, right?”
Gu Liang: “Oh, I remember it. The term you’re talking about, I’ve seen it and searched it before. The meaning behind it is…”
Professor Wang interrupted him: “They’re back. Stop talking. Cough cough cough, the moon is truly breath-taking tonight.”
Gu Liang: “……”
After Doctor Xu and Scientist Li returned, the atmosphere became a little subtle as everyone sank into silence.
Gu Liang continued to recuperate his energy with closed eyes, Scientist Li remained mute with a lowered head, Doctor Xu played with her own fingers, and the most carefree was Professor Wang, who decided to make a snowman because he had nothing to do.
It was only when the centralised discussion time was nearing the five-hour mark that Scientist Li walked up to Gu Liang’s side. “I would like to talk to you.”
Gu Liang was quite surprised. “Mn.”
Scientist Li’s voice was somewhat hoarse. “I… The attitude I regarded you with previously wasn’t the best. Why were you willing to help me? I know, this isn’t considered as helping me, since we needed to find the truth. In any case, I still want to thank you.”
Gu Liang: “It’s true that this isn’t considered as helping you.”
Scientist Li: “……”
Gu Liang: “Up until now, we still don’t know who the detective is. It’s even possible that the system might announce the existence of the detective right before the vote casting. What if it lands on my head and all of you randomly voted? Wouldn’t I be going cold too?”
Scientist Li blinked his eyes twice. He asked: “Go cold?”
Gu Liang: “Ah, it means to die. I just learnt it recently as well. A friend told me about it.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve heard of the song Liang Liang before.”
Professor Wang pursed his lips. “My granddaughter watches that television series everyday.”
Gu Liang: “……”
* * *
The centralised discussion came to an end.
The system started its broadcast punctually.
“The case scenario of《The Fifth Person 》has come to an end. The following is the commencement of the voting segment.
“There are two rounds of voting in this instance. The first round concerns the voting for the side task.
“Among your current inspection team members, there is a person who was previously a university student from “I Am Super Intelligent” University, was part of an adventuring team, and once visited Huilong Snow Mountain. Who is he? Please make your choice.”
Gu Liang took out his card. There were four players on the voting page, which included Gu Liang, Scientist Li, Doctor Xu, and Professor Wang.
Gu Liang tapped on “Scientist Li” swiftly.
One minute later.
The system continued: “Wah, all four players chose Scientist Li, including Scientist Li himself… I hereby announce that Scientist Li has failed his task and will not attain any rewards; the other three players have completed their task successfully, and they have a chance to draw two reward cards. May men in black come forth and allow the players to draw their cards.”
After Gu Liang, Professor Wang, and Doctor Xu drew their reward cards in quick succession, the system continued to speak: “Following, we will be entering the second round of voting for the main task— three university students at the prime of their lives died miserably on this mountain, who is the vicious and merciless person that caused their deaths?”
“Since the matter three years ago is too far-flung, and the whereabouts of everyone cannot be tracked, the current case has no detective, and all four players are suspects. Of course, the three university students at the scene that year are also suspects. Okay, the vote casting will begin next! The voting time limit is one minute! Hope everyone can cast their votes smoothly!”
Gu Liang raised his card. This time around, there were a total of seven head portraits on the page, and apart from the present four players, the three NPCs Xiao Hua, Xiao Cao, and Xiao Dong were automatically included.
For a brief moment, Gu Liang furrowed his eyebrows slightly. Then, he lifted a finger and tapped on the head portrait of “Xiao Cao”.
The voting ended.
The broadcast rang out again.
“In the case of《 The Fifth Person 》, who is the real murderer that harmed the three university students? Wow, one suspect was given all four votes. He is— Xiao Cao.”
“Congratulations, everyone has voted correctly. Everyone is awarded two gold coins!”
“This is the last attached friendly reminder in this game. This current scenario can be called a difficult environment experience script. Being able to come to this sort of scenario, usually means that you received a negative evaluation for your in-game attitude in the previous scenario.
“The difficulty level of this current scenario is level one. Players, please maintain a positive in-game attitude, or else you will enter a script with an environment that is far more treacherous, like earthquakes, tsunamis and even apocalyptic zombie settings. All of it is possible. In such settings, if you were to come under a deadly zombie assault, players will actually die oh.”
“Okay, this current game has come to a perfect end. Please wait for the men in black to direct everyone to the public resting area. Let us meet in the next scenario!”
The game ended.
Gu Liang climbed onto a sedan, and was brought to the so-called public resting area.
On his journey there, Gu Liang mulled over the system’s last “friendly reminder”.
According to the system, his performance in the previous game had been judged as “negative”.
Gu Liang thought back about the circumstances carefully.
After he ascertained the fact that he was the murderer, he tore off the page that wrote “Yang Ye said I was a hero”, and left behind another small note, reminding his amnesiac self to burn the notebook. This suggested that he wanted to conceal himself from the start, and he wanted to win the game and live on.
But later on, probably because he was touched by Yang Ye’s selflessness – and the intensity of those emotions were only exacerbated by Beggar Ding’s story – he chose to give up on his victory after some struggles. He would rather die than be willingly burdened with someone else’s life.
And after being brought to the snow mountain scenario and made to lie on the snow-covered ground for an entire night, Gu Liang amply felt what an arduous environment was like.
But his difficulty he had to face was only level one; which probably stemmed from the fact that he had been playing the game seriously at the start, and only the latter half of his performance had been deemed as negative.
However, judging from the system’s evaluation, Yang Ye’s negative behaviour was far worse. Hence, he was sent to a far more dangerous environment.
When he said he was fighting zombies, he was actually fighting zombies.
According to the words of the system, the players would die a true death if they were killed by the zombies in such a scenario.
The “more negative” evaluation that Yang Ye received, also indicated that… He was different from Gu Liang. Gu Liang had hesitated at least. Quintessentially, Yang Ye had never thought about winning from the very beginning.
Gu Liang was quite aware that Yang Ye’s actions might have been driven by the convictions he gained from the army alone. Like he had stated, he would never give up on a comrade.
Despite knowing all these, Gu Liang still felt touched.
In the midst of his gratitude, he remembered that while Yang Ye served the military for two years, he had never been on an actual battlefield in truth. Gu Liang took out his Request for Help Card and stared at Yang Ye’s head portrait for a long time. Worries inevitably emerged in his heart.