Buddhist player

As Bai Chen finished speaking, the hall fell into an unspeakable silence. For a moment, the only sound was the crackling of burning wood.

...and the clear sound of cola bubbles being poured into a glass.

The bard looked at the person in front of him who had somehow produced a large bottle of cola and an exquisite mug from somewhere, and he had a look of utter disbelief on his face.

"What, would you like a drink?"

Raising an eyebrow slightly, Bai Chen gestured towards the other person with the mug in his hand.

"It was frozen. I put it in the refrigerator for an afternoon before I came."

"...Did you find this photo on the second floor?"

Suppressing the urge to complain, the bard tried to steer the conversation back on track.

"Well... strictly speaking, I borrowed it."

After thinking for a moment, Bai Chen answered in a relaxed tone while sipping his iced cola.

"...Borrow? Wait, you wouldn't happen to be...?"

As if he had thought of something, the bard looked at him strangely.

"Yes, those two corpses were so rude. I just borrowed them to take a look; it's not like I'm not going to return them."

Bai Chen put down the mug in his hand and sighed.

The bard: "..."

"Since those two corpses cared so much about this photo, it means that this photo is likely a key prop."

After examining the photo in his hand over and over, he reached up to adjust his glasses and nodded, saying, "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."

"The title of this instance is 'A Wish,' and if we're thinking about this family photo, then it's very likely that... wait, what are these?"

Before he could finish a sentence, looking at the clothes, wallet, pants, belt, lighter and other odds and ends that Bai Chen had taken out, Dao Ke Dao Fei Chang suddenly had a bad feeling.

"The things I borrowed, didn't I just say so?"

Looking up at the other person, Bai Chen looked puzzled.

"...Don't tell me you stripped those two corpses naked."

"Oh, no, I kept my underwear on."

"..."

"Alright, enough joking around. My original intention was to collect their bodies and give them a proper burial, but I didn't expect to disturb those two mummified corpses instead."

Bai Chen took the photograph from Dao Ke Dao's hand with a serious expression.

"Although they are not particularly fast, they are immune to physical attacks, so even solid-type monsters are difficult to deal with. I do not recommend that you confront them head-on."

"And those two corpses...?"

"They're still upstairs; they don't seem to be able to come downstairs for the time being."

Bai Chen put the photo back in his pocket and shrugged.

"The two corpses died in a very gruesome manner; some were even reduced to half a body. I examined the cuts, and they looked like they were made with a sharp weapon like a knife."

"knife……"

Subconsciously, the bard's gaze fell on the blood-stained kitchen knife on the coffee table, and he was momentarily stunned.

...A cursed kitchen knife?

"We can deal with the main quest later. Right now, the most important thing is to find all five corpses in this villa. Yuanqing and I have already thoroughly explored the second floor. The only places left to explore are the first floor, the third floor, and the basement."

Bai Chen poured himself another glass of iced cola and began to tell his story.

"The grandparents of the family of five were murdered on the second floor, the father was murdered on the first floor, and the daughter and mother were murdered on the third floor. The incident occurred at night. The father may have come down to the first floor to get something in the middle of the night for some reason, and he happened to run into the burglar. After realizing that the burglar was hostile and had a weapon, the father ran upstairs to call his family for refuge, but he was caught by the vicious thug and murdered in the stairwell. The bloodstains on the wall of the stairwell are evidence of this."

As he spoke, Bai Chen glanced at Yuan Qing beside him.

"The elderly are naturally light sleepers, and the noise coming from the stairwell on the first floor woke up the two elderly people on the second floor. They ran head-on into the assailant and were both killed. In this process, perhaps because the elderly fought back desperately, or perhaps because the father had injured the assailant earlier, the assailant's ferocity was aroused at this moment, and he not only cruelly killed the two elderly people, but even vented his anger on the corpses..."

"After that, the thugs, who had already killed three people, decided to go all the way up to the third floor and brutally murdered the mother and daughter who had hidden there after hearing the commotion."

Exhaling, the bard took over Bai Chen's words.

"As for the murder weapon, it's most likely the kitchen knife, since Father probably went to the kitchen to get something. And the reason Tiger King suddenly went berserk is probably because his size is similar to that of the thug, and his action of going into the kitchen directly triggered a stress response from the vengeful spirit lingering in this villa... Uh, what, did I say something wrong?"

"No, but I didn't expect you to be able to deduce so accurately."

Bai Chen looked at the bard in front of him with a curious expression.

"I admit, my opinion of you has changed a bit."

"It's nothing, just continuing to follow your reasoning."

The bard sighed.

"Now that the background story has been clarified, what we need to do is most likely find a way to resolve their resentment... such as bringing the criminals to justice."

"Uh, that..."

"Oh right, no wonder we weren't trapped in the villa."

As if he had thought of something, the eyes of the Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao suddenly lit up.

"The massacre of that entire family must have occurred during a similar torrential downpour. Considering we were inexplicably knocked unconscious after entering the villa, there's a high probability that the person who knocked us out was the murderer. After discovering our group was coming to explore, he followed us to this villa. Thinking about it that way, the fact that all the doors to the neighboring villas were wide open might have been deliberately left there, as if he was hiding in the shadows, playing tricks!"

In the end, "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao" looked excited.

"That's right, this is the entire process of this beginner's trial mission. We need to help the vengeful spirits in this villa bring the culprits who harmed them to justice. So, what we need to do next is..."

"Although it's not nice to interrupt you like this, there are some things I'd like to explain in advance."

Just as the Dao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Dao, Bai Chen's voice rang out softly from the side.

"Your reasoning seems logically consistent, but it has a major flaw: the perpetrator has already been brought to justice."

"……what?"

Still reeling from his perfect deduction, he turned to look at Bai Chen, who was completely bewildered.

"Look, it's been deliberately reported in the news and newspapers."

With a slight shrug, Bai Chen took out a backpack and, under the strange gazes of the bards, pulled out a notebook.

"Look, the report says that because the impact of this family annihilation case was so egregious, the murderer was caught in less than three days, even with almost the entire city's police force mobilized. He had already been brought to justice five years ago."

"……Backpack?"

With one hand covering his forehead, the bard suddenly felt quite powerless.

"Found it upstairs."

"...Those conclusions you drew before?"

"Isn't it written here? I'm just stating the facts."

"..."

"Alright, don't be discouraged. From an outsider's perspective, your reasoning was quite brilliant."

Seeing Dao Ke Dao Fei Chang Dao and the bard sitting down again with their faces covered, Bai Chen offered words of comfort.

"...Never mind, I'll just keep grilling."

Covering his face, looking ashamed to be seen, he sat down in front of the barbecue grill again.

One instance of extroversion can lead to a lifetime of introversion.

Recalling his earlier excited and thrilled expression, he felt rather ashamed.

(...As expected, I'm still not suited for this... Hmm? What's this? A piece of meat that fell off while I was grilling...?)

Looking at the things that had suddenly appeared on the barbecue grill in front of him, Dao Ke Dao Chang Chang Dao was taken aback.

However, because his glasses fogged up, he couldn't see clearly for a while. While wiping the glasses, he used the tongs to reach for the thing on the barbecue grill.

When he put his glasses back on, he also held the clip up to his eyes.

At that moment, the thing clipped to the clip clearly came into his view.

—It was a shriveled eyeball.