Shao Qingge All the silver coins in the treasure chest were the same size, each ingot engraved with 3 to 5 characters. Xiao Lou took out the silver coins and arranged them on the table in order, connecting the characters on them—
CEO Shao wrote a short essay to clearly describe his experience with Ye Qi in that world.
"We traveled back twenty years and found several suspects who were still children."
" During the famine, a group of bandits in Qingfeng Town robbed people everywhere and obtained a large amount of gold and silver treasures. They then built a bandit stronghold on the mountaintop. However, due to a dispute over the distribution of the loot, they fought amongst themselves. Five sworn siblings conspired to embezzle the treasures and kill all the other bandits. Their actions were witnessed by a 9-year-old girl named Zhou Xiaoyun."
" In Qingfeng Town, a kind-hearted Granny Sun adopted six orphans. The eldest, Ren Yuan, would later become Uncle Ren, who sold rattle drums in Qingfeng Town 20 years later; the second, Aunt Qing, married and moved to Yue Prefecture; and the other four children, girls Zhou Xiaoyun and Han Ningshuang, and boys Qi Ran and Qin Feng, were all nine years old at the time and born in the Year of the Tiger. The grandmother knew how to make rattle drums, and each of the four children had a rattle drum with a tiger painted on the drumhead, made by the grandmother herself."
"Because Zhou Xiaoyun saw the faces of the five robbers, the five wanted to kill them to silence them. So they found Granny Sun and took the old woman and the three children, Qin Feng, Han Ningshuang, and Qi Ran, back home. Zhou Xiaoyun jumped out of the window and escaped, and sought help from Ren Yuan."
"Those people committed all sorts of atrocities during the famine. They not only burned, killed, and looted, but also captured the old, weak, sick, and disabled and kept them as human livestock, feeding them human flesh every day. When they were about to eat some of the children, the old woman stepped forward and tricked them by saying that the children had contracted smallpox, which was highly contagious, and made them find a place to bury the children. After the three children were buried, they were rescued by Aunt Qing who came to the rescue."
"To avoid being discovered by thugs, Aunt Qing took Qin Feng and Han Ningshuang to Yue Prefecture. Later, a fire broke out in Yue Prefecture, and Aunt Qing died in the fire. Qin Feng and Han Ningshuang were separated as a result. In order to survive, Han Ningshuang recognized a bandit as his master."
" Qi Ran and Zhou Xiaoyun were being cared for by Uncle Ren. When the children were being arrested, Qi Ran lost a little finger to the thugs while trying to help Han Ningshuang, and had a high fever for a day. Also, due to improper treatment of chickenpox, he was left with many scars on his face."
" Qi Ran had a strange book with pictures of marionettes drawn on it. We found him sneaking out alone at night to read the book, muttering to himself. Later, the five of them continued to search for the witness Zhou Xiaoyun in Qingfeng Town. Ren Yuan had no choice but to leave Qingfeng Town with Qi Ran and Zhou Xiaoyun, intending to go to Yue Prefecture to seek refuge with Aunt Qing, but they were unable to find Aunt Qing and the other two."
" The five-person group in Qingfeng Town are named Zhao Lang, Chen Yu, Xue Ming, Lin Xiaofeng, and Lu Cheng. Among them, Zhao and Chen are the grandfathers of the Zhao and Chen families who later disappeared. The other three have no family members and cannot be identified. Except for Lin Xiaofeng, who is female, the other four are male."
"During the famine, Ye Qi and I ate wild grass and leaves every day, and we couldn't last long. The clues we found were also very limited. I believe that by combining the clues from later generations, you will definitely be able to arrive at the accurate answer."
"Finally, if Ye Qi's and my names are still on the contract book when we see this treasure chest, it means we were lucky enough to guess correctly, and one of the murderers is Qi Ran. If the names are not on the contract book, then this grave will truly become our joint grave. Professor Xiao, burn some paper money for us then."
Everyone: "..."
What's with burning paper money? CEO Shao is quite the joker!
After reading the words on the silver note, Xiao Lou pressed his temples in exasperation: " CEO Shao bet that much? Did he and Ye Qi guess the murderer directly?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "The murderer twenty years ago was just a child. The information they could find was limited, and they couldn't possibly follow the murderer for twenty years. Based on the known clues, Qi Ran is indeed the most likely murderer. However, we can only find out that there was actually more than one murderer through investigation in later generations. Perhaps, guessing one correctly twenty years ago would be enough to complete the mission?"
Xiao Lou's gaze swept over the names of the four children that were deliberately marked with ink on the silver.
Qin Feng, Han Ningshuang, Qi Ran, Zhou Xiaoyun.
Xiao Lou said, "Based on the clues left by Ninth Brother and the others, Han Ningshuang and Qi Ran must have joined forces. Han Ningshuang was responsible for flying the kite and pretending to be a female ghost to create mystery, while Qi Ran was responsible for luring people to Mass Grave to kill them. Qin Feng knew about it but did not stop it. As for Zhou Xiaoyun, her whereabouts seem to be unknown afterward? Neither Ninth Brother's nor CEO Shao's clues mentioned her fate."
Yu Hanjiang paused for a moment, then suddenly said, "By the way, CEO Shao and the others found out that among the five bandits from twenty years ago, one was named Xue Ming. Is he Xue Zhao's father? Han Ningshuang married Xue Zhao when she was away from home and followed her back to Qingfeng Town to sell tofu, but she became a widow not long after... Perhaps, she took care of the Xue family?!"
Xiao Lou also considered this possibility and agreed, saying, "The enemy from back then was surnamed Xue, and Han Ningshuang happened to marry someone with the surname Xue, and became a widow not long after the marriage. It can't be a coincidence. Obviously, after Han Ningshuang was separated from Qin Feng, she wandered around with a group of bandits in order to survive, and her mind gradually became twisted. She happened to meet the Xue family in a foreign land, recognized her enemy, and then married Xue Zhao without making a sound, just to come back for revenge."
She marries a descendant of the Xue family, then kills the Xue family members, and then pretends to be a "lonely and helpless widow" to stay in Qingfeng Town to eliminate other enemies.
Perhaps Qin Feng suspected Xue Zhao when she died. Later, when both the Zhao and Chen families met with misfortune, Qin Feng was certain that she was responsible. However, she didn't have that much ability on her own, and Qin Feng must have guessed that she had accomplices. That's why Qin Feng left a rattle drum with a tiger painted on its surface at the scenes of the Zhao and Chen families' disappearances.
All four children were adopted by their grandmother, who was brutally murdered with her limbs severed. The impact of this event on them was unimaginable. Qin Feng disapproved of the revenge method of wiping out an entire family, but due to his indecisiveness, he dared not directly stop his partner's revenge plan. Han Ningshuang and Qi Ran, on the other hand, had their mentality distorted by their upbringing, and they used the act of slaughtering an entire family to fill the void left by their childhood.
Qi Ran, having had chickenpox, had many scars on his face and therefore always wore a mask. He approached Zhao Zesui, the fourth young lady of the Zhao family, making the naive girl fall in love with him, and then plotted to kill the entire Zhao family…
The two murderers are truly among the most cunning and ruthless killers we have ever encountered.
After clarifying the logic of the whole incident, Xiao Lou collected all the silver on the table and said, "The truth of the case of the vengeful ghost has finally come to light. Our teammates went to investigate twenty years ago and three years ago respectively and successfully passed on the clues. We in this world have the most comprehensive information, so the reasoning is the easiest."
Liu Qiao said, "But we still have two problems to solve: the whereabouts of the eyewitness Zhou Xiaoyun and the killer of the girl Sunken Lake Case."
Qu Wanyue was the first to discover the body of the girl in red at Zuiyue Lake. Hearing this, she couldn't help but say, "Xiaoqiao is right. The girl's body was only discovered after our team split up. At that time, we couldn't contact Brother Jiu and CEO Shao. They certainly didn't know that this locked room mystery was actually a case of two cases being solved simultaneously."
Xiao Lou looked at Yu Hanjiang thoughtfully: "So, the difficulty of this escape room is to have our teammates travel to different time periods to help investigate the suspects in the ghost-hunting case and find a way to leave us clues; while we in this world also have to investigate the killer of the Sunken Lake Case?"
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "Yes, that should be the case, otherwise we would have won by doing nothing this time."
The teammates were all very helpful. Tang Ci's method of passing on clues was clever, and even the clues spanning twenty years were passed to them by CEO Shao in a " treasure chest buried in a grave " manner. They were essentially taking the exam with reference materials, so deduce the correct answer without much difficulty.
The Sunken Lake case was discovered when they sneaked into Zuiyue Lake at night. At that time, the team had split up and lost contact. CEO Shao and Ninth Brother were completely unaware of it and naturally had no way of finding out who the culprit was.
It seems they have to rely on themselves to solve this case.
Xiao Lou carefully recalled the known clues in the Sunken Lake Case and said, "At that time, many bodies of girls in red were found in Zuiyue Lake. Normally, a body in the water will turn to bones within two years. Among the bodies we saw, some had turned to bones; some had already begun to decompose; and some were fresh female corpses that had been dragged into the water in the last few days and showed obvious signs of gigantism."
Yu Hanjiang said, "This proves that the killer of the girl in the Sunken Lake Case also committed the crime over a long period of time, at least more than two years. The woman he initially killed has already turned into bones?"
Xiao Lou nodded and said, "Moreover, he also used the legend of 'vengeful ghosts taking lives' when he committed the crime. He specifically chose the time around the Ghost Festival to drag those girls into the lake and drown them. In this way, the people in the town would think that these girls were taken away by vengeful ghosts."
Liu Qiao frowned as she recalled the scene where they worked together on the play: "I pretended to fall into the water, and Captain Yu and Brother Long went in to save me, bringing up a female corpse along the way. If I remember correctly, the girl's surname was Lin, and she had gone missing a few days ago?"
Xiao Lou said, "When Qin Feng arrived at the scene, I thought he would continue to investigate, but he said that outsiders should not interfere in the affairs of Qingfeng Town and sent the body back to the Lin family... Strangely, the Lin family did not react at all to the fact that their daughter had fallen into the water?"
Long Sen scratched his head and said in confusion, "This family is really strange! At first, the rumors of a vengeful ghost taking lives and the daughter's disappearance could be understood as her being taken by the ghost to be a ghost wife. Later, the daughter's body was found in the lake. A normal person would suspect that the daughter was murdered, right? But the Lin family didn't react at all. It seems like they don't care about the girl's life or death at all?"
Yu Hanjiang said in a low voice, "There are two possibilities. First, they have a very bad relationship with this daughter, and no one cares whether she lives or dies; second, although they suspect that their daughter was murdered, they dare not speak out because they have a guilty conscience."
He paused, then continued, "I'm more inclined to the second possibility. There's more than one missing girl in the town, and it's impossible for every girl to have a bad relationship with her family... Maybe these people have all done bad things, and their daughters' disappearance makes them think it's retribution for their bad deeds, which is why they dare not investigate, for fear of exposing their past crimes."
Xiao Lou agreed with Yu Hanjiang's opinion and followed his line of thought to analyze: "We stayed in Qingfeng Town for several days and didn't see a single girl wearing red in the town. However, the bodies we found at the bottom of the lake all wore the same style of red clothing, and even their hairstyles were very similar. Obviously, this is the killer's obsession with the woman in red."
Liu Qiao said, "So, the red dresses were changed by the murderer, which is why they looked so neat?"
Old Mo sighed, "This murderer is really twisted. He must have been very strong to be able to easily control a woman, change her into red clothes, and then drag her into the lake to drown her."
Yu Hanjiang concluded: "The murderer is an adult male, strong and a good swimmer. He started committing crimes two years ago by exploiting the public opinion of 'vengeful ghosts.' He must have been provoked by the woman in red, either because she abandoned him or because the woman he deeply loved died tragically, which fueled his desire for revenge. Red... In ancient times, the occasion when women wore red most often was their wedding, right?"
Xiao Lou's eyes lit up: "Perhaps, the red dress symbolizes a wedding gown?"
The whereabouts of Zhou Xiaoyun and the killer of the Sunken Lake Case are just two remaining mysteries. Although the teammates' names are still on the contract book, there's no guarantee that their flawed reasoning in this world won't drag them down with them and throw them into the Nightmare Secret Room.
As it was getting dark, Yu Hanjiang stood up and said, "After dark, we'll be teleported to Ghost City again, where a bunch of Hunters are waiting for us. Everyone, hurry up and check if anything has gone wrong at any of the weddings in town over the past two years."