HP - Chapter 19

Typhoon Night Murder Files 14

Zhong Xu quickly calmed her mind and spoke slowly:

 "After the Xu siblings died, the first question that came to my mind was: how did the murderer manage to lure them into the specially designed death trap?"

The trap in the audiovisual room had been custom-made by the murderer, so the murderer had to get the Xu siblings into that room. However, they had agreed not to act alone, and the murderer couldn’t appear by themselves to lure them into the trap.

"So, how exactly did the murderer manage it?"

"Just a moment ago, it suddenly dawned on me. It was the disc—just a single disc claiming to contain clues about Jiang Zhi’s death would be enough to lure Xu Hangquan into the trap. Because his character was the most emotionally invested in uncovering the truth about Jiang Zhi’s death, I suspect his side mission was related to it as well."

"But nowadays, laptops rarely have disc drives. At this point, Xu Hangjia would remember that Liang Qing had once introduced her to the DVD player in the audiovisual room. That DVD player was a portable, rechargeable model that could still be used during a power outage, so the siblings would inevitably rush to the audiovisual room without hesitation."

Mu Xingchao said anxiously, "Then you should suspect Liang Qing!"

Liang Qing immediately started cursing upon hearing this and only stopped grumbling after Zhou Zhi called her to halt.

"Several points inevitably point to you. First, when the Xu siblings were attacked, you were in the bathroom. I suspect you pulled the string through the bathroom window. Others were either waiting outside the bathroom or in the kitchen, so they didn’t have this opportunity. Second, I found the receipt for the DVD player in your room. That machine was a gift from you to me. So I suspect you came prepared, with your suitcase likely filled with items to create a horror atmosphere and the disc. Third, you were the most anxious and the first to rush to the third floor. I guess it was to throw the string and…"

Xu Shuangyuan raised a question, "Sorry, I’d like to interrupt… but at the time, everyone scanned the scene and no one saw any string."

"My room…" Mu Xingchao’s face darkened. "You actually went into my room."

Zhong Xu chose to answer Xu Shuangyuan’s question:

 "My wording was a bit off. It shouldn’t be called a string, but rather LED strips."

Everyone suddenly understood.

LED strips could be used as strings, and the horror atmosphere in the audiovisual room made extensive use of them. After the Xu siblings died, Mu Xingchao, who was in the bathroom, could have pocketed the LED strips. Once he reached the audiovisual room, he only needed to toss them casually when no one was looking.

"Then how did Luo Fang get to the third floor?"

"If I’m not mistaken, it was probably when the typhoon hit and everyone went to check if the windows were closed. Mu Xingchao took the opportunity to go to the storage room and stuff Luo Fang into a suitcase."

"Guess?" Mu Xingchao seemed furious. After a long silence, he half-warned, half-threatened, "I don’t know how many levels of this game you’ve been through, but I’m a veteran player. I know very well that this is a 'survival game.' Any wrong decision could get you killed. Even if this is a deduction game, making a wrong deduction will also lead to death."

Hearing this, Zhou Zhi couldn’t help but glance at Zhong Xu with concern, quietly moving closer to her to remind her to be cautious.

Everyone else fell silent, looking at Zhong Xu with strange expressions.

Mu Xingchao was right—this was a deduction game, not a guessing game. Even if she wasn’t the murderer, she was still too arrogant and lone-wolf-like.

Based on her previous behavior, it seemed like she had already teamed up with Zhou Zhi and Sang Long. But seeing how surprised her teammates were, it was clear she was acting entirely on her own.

Was she even a veteran player?

Unexpectedly, she didn’t take Mu Xingchao’s bait.

Zhong Xu’s expression didn’t change at all as she continued:

 "Everyone was gathered in the first-floor living room. After the power went out, you turned up the volume on the speakers and then moved the suitcase containing Luo Fang to the third floor."

"The evidence is that after Cui Shuying and I checked the circuit breaker and returned, we had already told everyone about the flashlights and scented candles. But you, grunting while moving the body, didn’t hear it. After coming down, you asked the stupid question of whether there were flashlights. As for the scene setup, I won’t go into detail because you had plenty of time to do it."

Mu Xingchao’s angry expression faded, turning into a blank stare.

 "You really aren’t afraid of death."

Zhong Xu still showed no reaction and continued:

 "Your plan was for the Xu siblings to die together in the audiovisual room. You would leave the LED strips used to lock the door in the audiovisual room and take the disc away… This way, even if everyone later found the receipt for your DVD player, your suspicion wouldn’t be too high."

"But you never expected that the siblings had such a deep bond—the brother desperately saved his sister, and the sister risked her life jumping off the building to save her brother. Your plan was disrupted, but the sister still died accidentally, which must have given you some relief. However, you were likely still anxious because you couldn’t find that disc."

After Ji Zhou locked the storage room door, he also came to the yard. Instinctively, he asked,

 "Then where is the disc?"

"In the grass next to Xu Hangjia’s body," Zhong Xu said.

 "After she fell, she didn’t die immediately and still suspected the murderer might be you. So she used her last bit of consciousness to hide the disc. Unable to move, she could only lift the turf beside her and hide the disc under it. That’s why there was dirt under her fingernails."

When Zhong Xu saw Xu Hangjia’s body, she immediately felt that something was off.

Later, when she began deducing, her thoughts grew bolder and bolder until she just confirmed them through on-site verification.

Mu Xingchao chuckled,

 "How ridiculous. Using a disc to lure the Xu siblings into the audiovisual room—you could have done that too. Because you were the one who set up the audiovisual room."

Zhong Xu ignored him and continued,

 "Then let’s move on to Luo Fang. I suspect your suitcase contained a strawberry pie with added peanuts that you prepared at home in advance. This way, you only needed to swap it directly. Strawberry pie was Luo Fang's specialty dessert—he never changed the recipe over the years, and desserts are easy to carry; they don’t differ much when cold."

"Anyone could have prepared that."

"But you specifically chose to place the insulated container that held the strawberry pie in the bathroom of Luo Fang's room."

"Only three people entered the bathroom at that time," Zhong Xu said expressionlessly. "Liang Qing went in because I said he had eye discharge. Cui Shuying went in because she was disgusted by Luo Fang's diary mentioning spitting in her water. Only you rushed into the bathroom with a far-fetched excuse and then 'discovered' the insulated container."

"At the same time, when you returned from outside yesterday afternoon, the first thing you did wasn’t to dry your wet body but to walk into the kitchen. Your purpose at the time was to confirm if there was strawberry pie, right? If there wasn’t, you would definitely have suggested to Luo Fang that he make strawberry pie."

Everyone fell silent.

They thought she was slacking off and being idle, but it turned out she remembered everything everyone did and every suspicious action?

"Everyone understands now, right? Then let’s talk about Lin Huaiping’s death."

"……"

In a hurry?

"After focusing suspicion on Mu Xingchao, you’ll realize many of his actions weren’t 'coincidental' but deliberate. For example, after Zhou Zhi and Xu Shuangyuan’s affair was exposed, Mu Xingchao asked Lin Huaiping for a lighter to smoke, tossed the lighter aside, and got into a fight with Zhou Zhi."

"He did it on purpose. He deduced that Lin Huaiping would guiltily slip back to his room, but due to his character’s influence, Lin had developed a smoking addiction and would inevitably want to smoke soon. At that point, Lin would go downstairs, and Mu Xingchao, who was already prepared, could sneak into his room. Since Lin was just going down to get a lighter, there was no need to lock the door."

"Before that, Mu Xingchao learned from Xu Shuangyuan that there was hot water in the kitchen. He took the last two pots of hot water into Lin’s room. After that, unexpectedly, Xu Hangquan knocked on Lin Huaiping’s door, but it didn’t matter—he just had to hide in the darkness, and the sound of water from the bathroom would naturally attract Xu Hangquan. Finally, he could pretend to have rushed over after hearing Xu Hangjia’s scream."

Xu Shuangyuan couldn’t help but recall the scene at that time…

The room was very dark. Just as she was about to turn on her flashlight, Mu Xingchao turned around from inside the room and stopped her, warning her that the scene was terrifying and she shouldn’t look.

She thought she was the first to rush to the scene, but Mu Xingchao was even faster. So it was actually because he had been in the room all along.

"Ev-everyone…" Just as everyone was lost in recollection, a faint voice suddenly spoke up.

"Cui Shuying, what’s wrong?!"

Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and were shocked to see Cui Shuying slowly sitting on the ground, as if she had no strength left. Her face grew paler and more awful, and she was breathing rapidly.

"My chest feels so tight… I’m really unwell… save me…"

Zhou Zhi rushed forward quickly, wanting to support her.

But as soon as his fingers touched her, she suddenly went limp and collapsed, her clothing brushing against his fingertips. Her breathing stopped.

"Cui Shuying!" Zhou Zhi immediately began chest compressions.

Everyone was stunned by this sudden turn of events and didn’t know how to react.

Zhong Xu frowned, a shadow darkening her expression.

Mu Xingchao in the storage room came to the window and looked at everyone through the window bars, a smile appearing on his face:

 "Everyone, I’ve been identified as the 'murderer,' but I’m locked in here, yet deaths are still happening."

How did it come to this?

Liang Qing pointed at Zhong Xu emotionally:

 "You’re the murderer! You’re misleading everyone!"

Zhong Xu’s face showed no expression; she neither clarified nor refuted.

Xu Shuangyuan on the side also took a few steps back, shocked and doubtful. Could she really be…?

"Don’t talk nonsense!" Ji Zhou stepped forward, using Mu Xingchao’s earlier words to warn Liang Qing. "Making wrong deductions will get you killed."

"Cui Shuying is dead." Severely sleep-deprived and without food or water, Zhou Zhi was so physically exhausted he could barely stand. He knelt on the ground, sweat beading on his forehead.

Seeing this, Ji Zhou hurried forward to help him up.

Zhou Zhi’s voice turned hoarse:

 "There’s a smell of cyanide on her—very faint, but it should be correct."

"It’s poison…" Xu Shuangyuan recalled anxiously. "She drank a cup of warm water around one or two o’clock. But would the poison take effect after such a long delay?"

Zhong Xu seemed lost in prolonged thought.

Just then, she suddenly looked up at Mu Xingchao. Seeing her expression, Mu Xingchao suddenly had a bad premonition.

"It’s the contact lenses," she said calmly and assuredly. "You put the cyanide in the contact lens solution."

Cui Shuying’s eyes were uncomfortable, so she went upstairs to change her contact lenses. To make them more comfortable to wear, she used the solution.

And at that time, Mu Xingchao was right there.

Mu Xingchao fell silent for a moment, his eyes gradually turning cold. He asked,

 "Then tell me, why would I kill them? My relationship with Jiang Zhi wasn’t that good."

Others also wondered: Yeah? What motive would Mu Xingchao have?

Zhong Xu, however, felt like laughing. Did he think that by dragging her into the ditch, he could make her fall into darkness with him?

"Of course, because Jiang Zhi also died by your hand."

Everyone was shocked, unable to believe it. Mu Xingchao’s eyes grew even more sinister; if he weren’t locked in the storage room, it seemed like he would have pounced on Zhong Xu.

Zhou Zhi thought to himself:

 "So that’s how it is."

As long as you find the most crucial and characteristic puzzle piece, you can naturally connect the similar pieces together.

Everyone’s story involved Jiang Zhi, and she had died a year ago. So it was natural to assume: 'This is a revenge murder for Jiang Zhi.'

However, first of all, Jiang Zhi’s death was unclear.

Additionally, everyone’s story involved Mu Xingchao.

"But…" Xu Shuangyuan said confusedly, "that was just malice, right? Why was it only malice toward you, but toward us it turned into intent to kill?"

"Malice?" Mu Xingchao fell silent for a moment, then turned his gaze to Zhong Xu again. "Well, do you have an answer for this?"

Zhong Xu nodded slightly. It wasn’t that she was clever—it was just that she alone had opened Mu Xingchao’s room and knew more.

"I suspect you’re not Mu Xingchao, are you?"

Huh?

Everyone else’s eyes widened in even greater shock.

"Mu Xingchao has a younger brother. They already looked similar, and with plastic surgery, he could pass as the real one. Of course, plastic surgery would leave traces… so Mu Xingchao had a 'car accident.'"

"What do you mean?" Liang Qing was completely confused. "The real Mu Xingchao died in a car accident, and then his brother had plastic surgery to look like him?"

"Plastic surgery will always leave traces, and no matter how skilled the surgeon is, they can’t make it identical. So I had to come up with an excuse to fool family and friends—'had plastic surgery due to a car accident' was the excuse." Mu Xingchao suddenly seemed in the mood to explain. "My name is Li Yang. I’m Mu Xingchao’s younger brother."

Ji Zhou instinctively asked,

 "Then what about Mu Xingchao?"

Li Yang smiled slightly:

 "He was 'killed' by you all."

1. 杀局 (shā jú) – Death trap; a premeditated plan to kill someone, common in crime fiction.

2. 影音室 (yǐngyīn shì) – A/V room; the isolated location for the trap.

3. 光盘 (guāngpán) – CD/DVD; an anachronistic plot device luring victims to the trap.

4. 影碟机 (yǐngdié jī) – DVD player; required to play the disc, making the A/V room necessary.

5. 灯带 (dēng dài) – LED strips; decorative lights repurposed as a murder tool.

6. 氰化物 (qíng huà wù) – Cyanide; lethal poison with a faint smell, a key clue.

7. 美瞳 (měi tóng) – Cosmetic contact lenses; poisoned via solution to serve as a weapon.

8. 护理液 (hù lǐ yè) – Contact lens solution; medium for delivering poison.

9. 整容 (zhěng róng) – Plastic surgery; enables impersonation in the plot.

10. 车祸 (chē huò) – Car accident; cover story explaining changed appearance after surgery.

Characters (Players)

• 终栩 (Zhōng Xǔ)

  • Role: Protagonist 

  • Game Role: Later assumes the identity of 宋慕思 (Sòng Mùsī), the idealistic guesthouse owner with a hidden agenda tied to her friend’s death.

• 季舟 (Jì Zhōu)

  • Role: Self-proclaimed "萌新" (newbie)

• 老玩家 (Lǎo Wánjiā, Veteran Player)

  • Role: Experienced survivor

• 瘦弱男人 (Shòuruò Nánrén, Thin Man)

  • Role: Terrified newbie

• 眼镜男 (Yǎnjìng Nán, Glasses Man)

  • Role: Silent observer

~~~~~~

• 宋慕思 (Sòng Mùsī) – The protagonist; a quiet, introspective young woman who organized the friends' gathering and owns the 民宿 (guesthouse). Hides complicated past relationships.

• 江栀 (Jiāng Zhī) – Outgoing and sociable; Song Musi’s close friend (闺蜜) but also entangled in a love triangle involving Sang Long. [Been Dead Prior]

• 崔书颖 (Cuī Shūyǐng) – Another extroverted friend in the trio; makes Song Musi feel like a third wheel at times. [Dead]

• 桑隆 (Sāng Lóng) – Jiang Zhi’s current boyfriend and Song Musi’s ex; their past relationship is a hidden source of tension.

• 骆方 (Luò Fāng) – A timid, cowardly classmate whom Song Musi dislikes. Later revealed to have a peanut allergy. [Dead]

• 徐杭泉 (Xú Hángquán) & 徐杭佳 (Xú Hángjiā) – Self-centered siblings; both are classmates disliked by Song Musi. [Dead]

• 周至 (Zhōu Zhì) – A smooth-talking, socially adept classmate (possibly a surgeon); Song Musi finds him insincere.

• 梁青 (Liáng Qīng) – An insecure and overly sensitive classmate; another person Song Musi dislikes.

• 牧星朝 (Mù Xīngcháo) – A hypocritical rich kid (富二代) with a photography hobby; Xu Shuangyuan’s boyfriend. [Been Dead Prior]

• 许双园 (Xǔ Shuāngyuán) – Proud and arrogant; Mu Xingchao’s girlfriend, whom Song Musi resents.

• 林怀平 (Lín Huáipíng) – Jiang Zhi’s cousin who joins the group through her; displays incompetent arrogance, disliked by Song Musi. [Dead]

• 陈警官 (Captain Chen) – A recently acquainted police detective; annoys Song Musi by replying slowly to messages.

Sevyn here ~~~

Enjoy!