Several mysteries from the gathered evidence still didn’t add up.

Boss Chen’s room had been locked from the inside. How had the killer gotten in and, more importantly, gotten back out?

The jewelry in Boss Yu’s pack had an unclear origin. Chief Escort Xu’s sealed chest, which he absolutely refused to open, claimed to be silver under his protection, but what was actually inside?

And then there was the white garment in Lin Zhirou’s belongings, a near-perfect match for what the ghost had been wearing. Had she been the one playing ghost in the dead of night?

SYSTEM: First evidence round complete.

SYSTEM: Cast your vote for the suspected killer, or abstain.

Cute Rabbit abstained.

Everyone else’s vote landed on Lin Zhirou, likely on the theory that her timidity was an act, a cover for sneaking around as the “ghost” after dark.

The old woman smiled. “Well, since they’ve all decided you’re the killer, Miss Lin, perhaps you should sleep alone in the woodshed tonight.”

Lin Zhirou, pale and clearly unhappy about it, followed the old woman out without protest.

SYSTEM: Night two. Please return to your assigned chambers.

Darkness fell quickly, and everyone retreated to their rooms.

In the dead of night, a violent gust threw a window open with a crash loud enough to jolt everyone awake. Cute Rabbit bolted to her window — and there it was again, the ghost, hair streaming, drifting past at speed.

This time, with a night’s experience behind her, she reacted fast, lunged, grabbed, and tore a scrap of fabric clean off the figure’s robe with a sharp ripping sound.

The ghost drifted up and away, vanishing into the dark.

The commotion had woken the rest of the house too. Doors banged open as everyone spilled out into the hall.

Zhou Sheng, practically vibrating with adrenaline, demanded, “Did you guys see that? Holy shit, the face on that thing…that was terrifying.”

The profanity slipped out before he could stop it.

Murmurs of agreement went around. “Saw it.”

Boss Liu, composed as ever, said, “It looked like it drifted toward the back kitchen.”

“Same direction I saw,” Cute Rabbit said, pointing west toward the kitchen.

The group exchanged glances, then forced themselves to walk that way together.

If she remembered right, Lin Zhirou, having been voted suspect, had been moved to the woodshed for the night. Which was also west.

They reached the woodshed door.

Cute Rabbit pushed it open herself. It creaked. She stepped inside, scanning the room—

Moonlight fell through the window in a clean square against the floor.

In the corner, on a crude straw pallet, a woman lay still – white robe, long black hair fanned across her face.

It looked exactly like the ghost.

The woman didn’t move. A bad feeling crawled up Cute Rabbit’s spine.

“Miss Lin?” she called, quiet.

No response.

Zhou Sheng pushed past her, crossed the room in three strides, and shook her shoulder hard. “Hey! Wake up!”

The motion knocked her hair aside, revealing a face drained completely of color.

Her lips had gone bloodless. Her hand was wrapped around a sharpened wooden stake, the other end of which was buried in her own chest.

Blood had soaked through the white fabric in a wide, ugly stain.

Her eyes were closed. Something that might have been a smile still touched the corner of her mouth.

A dead body in the middle of the night was enough to put gooseflesh on every arm in the room.

Zhou Sheng got a close look at her face and staggered back several steps. “She’s…she’s dead?”

A letter lay beside her.

Boss Liu, steady as ever, stepped forward, picked it up, and read it aloud.

“My true name is Lin Ruolan. I was once betrothed to Ye Hantian, the Ye family’s second son. Ten years ago, I took the betrothal gift he gave me and ran off with our household guard.”

“Not long after, the massacre happened. I have carried the guilt ever since I failed him. Perhaps this is a curse. My health has only worsened with each year, and there is little reason left to go on living. Better to end it now.”*

The group stared at each other, unsettled by the strange confession.

This girl had been the missing son’s betrothed? Same as Boss Chen the night before — a confession, then “suicide.”

The scene itself looked the part: the sharpened stake gripped in her own right hand, driven through her chest. Self-inflicted, by every visible sign.

But everyone in the room already knew better. This was staged, same as the first.

Silence settled over the room. Under the moonlight, the body looked even more wrong than before.

After a moment, Cute Rabbit spoke. “Yesterday, you all suspected her of playing ghost. Today, she’s dead. Which means the killer is still standing right here with us.”

Zhou Sheng’s fists clenched, his voice unsteady. “This… this is a serial killing, isn’t it? Someone’s going to keep killing all of us. Revenge for the Ye family?”

The color drained from every face at once.

The day before, when someone had asked who knew the Ye family, every single person had claimed ignorance. But standing here now, the truth was obvious to all of them: everyone had lied.

The first victim, Boss Chen, had been the family’s cook — fled with the strongbox, built a restaurant fortune.

The second victim, Lin Zhirou, had been the second son’s betrothed — fled with her betrothal gift, eloped with the guard.

Cute Rabbit’s own character, Madam Yue, real name Qiuyue, had been the third daughter’s maid, spared by an errand to buy rouge on the night of the massacre.

The rest of the group, almost certainly, had their own ties to the Ye family, buried somewhere in their backstories.

Which meant someone here had never let go of what happened that night — someone who believed everyone who’d survived owed a debt that was finally coming due. Operating on the principle of better to kill the innocent than let one guilty party slip away.

Once the shape of it clicked into place, Cute Rabbit felt her skin crawl.

This was the real horror of this script. Not just a ghost rattling around after dark — a genuine killer, embedded among them, working through a list.

Am I next?

It was just a game, but the sensation of being hunted was viscerally unsettling — like walking alone at night and sensing footsteps behind you. The not-knowing was the worst part.

She rubbed the goosebumps off her arms and forced herself to speak. “Six of us left. The killer’s one of us.”

Boss Liu, calm and methodical, laid it out. “When the ghost passed by just now, we all came running the moment it happened. Was anyone missing? Whoever was playing ghost – that’s our killer.”

The logic held up. Everyone started checking around the group, and the gap became obvious fast: Zhao Chunhua, Zhou Sheng’s wife, hadn’t shown up.

Boss Liu turned to him. “Young master Zhou, where’s your wife?”

Zhou Sheng looked genuinely lost. “I don’t know.”

They went to find her — and the moment they turned, there she was, standing pale and shaking in the courtyard, still in her blue cloth dress. “It— it wasn’t me. When you all ran out after the ghost, I tried to follow, but I tripped over a table and fell. That’s why I was behind.”

The group regarded her with open skepticism.

Boss Yu spoke up, quiet. “What if there’s more than one killer? What if they’re working together?”

Cute Rabbit blinked, turning to him. “You mean… two killers covering for each other? One does the killing, the other plays ghost to draw our attention?”

He nodded. “I suspect Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua. Last night there was that huge commotion — Zhou Sheng said he slept through it, heard nothing, while his wife said she saw the ghost. Tonight it flipped — Zhou Sheng came running, his wife arrived late. The two of them have never once been in the same place at the same time.”

He looked at the couple. “If they’re working together, that gap is exactly what gives each of them cover for the other.”

Boss Liu considered this, then added, “Now that I think back, the first day you arrived, you said you were headed to Qingshan Town for fabric. Your family’s in the textile trade? You’d know exactly what kind of white cloth makes a convincing ghost costume.”

Chief Escort Xu, silent until now, spoke abruptly. “The two of you don’t read as a married couple at all. Posing as husband and wife – is that cover for coming here together to wipe us all out? Revenge for the Ye family?”

The mention of the Ye family sharpened everyone’s attention instantly.

Chief Escort Xu didn’t hold back. “I’ll say it plainly — I used to be a guard at Red Maple Villa. The third daughter had two maids serving her. One was named Qiuyue. The other was named Chunlan.” His eyes fixed on Zhao Chunhua. “Was that you, ten years ago? Chunlan?”

He held her gaze. “Chunlan lost part of her left pinky finger saving the young miss’s life, once. Would you care to show us your hand?”

Color drained from Zhao Chunhua’s face. Her left hand instinctively retreated into her sleeve.

So he’d been right. She really was Chunlan.

SYSTEM: Character data confirmed. Chunlan’s left pinky is partially missing — accurate match.

SYSTEM: You and Chunlan grew up alongside the young miss, close as sisters. Ten years have changed her appearance enough that you didn’t initially recognize her.

Cute Rabbit absorbed this, a complicated knot of feelings settling in her chest. This woman had been a fellow maid to the third daughter, just like her own character.

Chief Escort Xu went on. “The young miss saved both your lives — yours and Qiuyue’s. You were as close as sisters. The night of the massacre, neither of you was at the estate — one out buying rouge, one out buying cloth. Correct?”

Boss Liu’s brow furrowed. “Chunlan. It’s really you?”

Zhao Chunhua turned toward her. “Are you… the Sister Liu from back then?”

“I am,” Boss Liu said. “I was the young master’s wet nurse.”

The young master she meant was the Ye family’s eldest grandson.

The room went quiet.

How had a murder mystery turned into a family reunion?

Boss Liu spoke into the silence. “The situation’s clear enough now. We’re all connected to the Ye family one way or another. Easier to just lay our identities on the table — it’s the only way we’ll find the real killer.”

The ones already exposed agreed readily.

Chief Escort Xu asked, “Zhou Sheng. Who are you, really?”

Zhou Sheng sighed. “I was the second son’s closest friend.”

“I’m Qiuyue,” Cute Rabbit said. “Third daughter’s maid.”

Boss Yu spoke up. “Distant relative of the Ye family. The eldest son would’ve called me cousin.”

So — every single person at the table had some thread connecting back to Red Maple Villa, ten years ago.

Boss Liu turned to the couple. “Chunlan, Zhou Sheng — why were you posing as husband and wife? And the second son’s betrothed eloping — that’s not common knowledge. Zhou Sheng, you were his close friend. You must have known.”

Zhou Sheng’s expression went grim. “I knew. But I am not the killer.”

Chunlan jumped in quickly. “We posed as a married couple so we’d have someone to look out for. I recognized Zhou-ge on the road here.”

“That’s right,” Zhou Sheng confirmed.

The game’s matchmaking was random — two players, paired by chance, couldn’t possibly have coordinated a fake-marriage cover story in advance. This had clearly been a system-assigned backstory.

The reasoning hit another wall.

Suspicion lingered on Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua, but nothing concrete actually tied them to the killings.

Several in-game hours passed quickly. Dawn broke.

While the group was still circling the same dead end, a knock sounded at the front gate. The old woman went to answer it.

A young man in red official robes walked in, several guards behind him.

Cute Rabbit’s eyes lit up the instant she saw him.

Lord Di. Finally.

Another night of this and they’d all have died of nerves before the killer even got to them.

---

No one had reported the case officially — Di Renjie had simply caught wind of rumors about hauntings at the estate and come to investigate firsthand.

He hadn’t expected to walk in on two bodies.

His gaze swept the assembled group. “Do you know the identities of the two deceased?”

Boss Liu stepped forward immediately. “My lord. The man found hanged is Boss Chen of the Mantang Spring restaurant. The young woman in the woodshed is Lin Zhirou. These two letters were found in their rooms.”

She handed both letters over.

Di Renjie read each carefully, passed them to an aide, then moved to examine both crime scenes. The players exchanged glances and followed close behind.

He entered the room where Boss Chen had hanged first, searched it briefly, then stopped — crouched, studying the door latch closely — and turned. “Who first discovered Boss Chen’s body?”

Zhou Sheng answered. “All of us together. We came down for breakfast and noticed he hadn’t joined us, so we went to check his room. The door was locked from inside. I kicked it open.”

“Did anyone hear anything unusual that night?”

Boss Liu said, “A haunting — several of us saw a white-robed ghost drift past the window…”

“And the second death — the ghost appeared again that night as well?”

A unanimous nod. “Yes.”

Di Renjie turned to the old woman. “Years of rumors about this estate being haunted, and you’ve lived here alone the whole time. Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary?”

“My lord, I’m just an old woman, eyes gone weak with age. Can’t see much of anything clearly. There’s been a white shape drifting past at night more nights than not, that’s all I know.”

“Doesn’t that frighten you?”

She smiled. “At my age? When the King of Hell decides it’s my time, he’ll come for me regardless. Nothing to be afraid of.”

He didn’t press further, turning instead to search the room properly. He drew his sword and rapped the hilt along the walls and floorboards, listening for hollow spots. Nothing.

No hidden mechanism here, it seemed.

Next he examined where Lin Zhirou had died. Her body showed no signs of having been moved after death; the blood from her chest wound had only sprayed the nearby straw — a clean, decisive strike.

He considered for a moment, then turned back to the group. “Tell me — why did each of you come to Red Maple Villa?”

Boss Liu hesitated, then spoke first. “I received a letter. Someone asked to meet me here, said they had important news connected to the Ye family massacre, ten years past.”

Zhou Sheng’s eyes went wide. “Same here!”

Chief Escort Xu, grim-faced, added, “I received a letter too.”

Cute Rabbit was still deciding how to phrase her own answer when a system prompt appeared: You also received a letter summoning you to Red Maple Villa.

She blinked, then said quietly, “…Same for me.”

The system, it seemed, never handed over the full picture at the start — details unlocked gradually as the case progressed. Same as Zhao Chunhua’s hidden identity as Chunlan, which hadn’t surfaced until the second day.

Maybe that was the real thrill of murder mystery games — you never knew the full shape of the truth until the next piece dropped.

Every single person here had been drawn to Red Maple Villa by an identical letter.

Which made sense — there’d been no other plausible reason for a group of wealthy merchants to suddenly converge on a reportedly haunted estate.

The killer had clearly planned all of this in advance.

Di Renjie turned to Chief Escort Xu. “Open your chest.”

In front of everyone, Xu broke the seal and opened the locked box — and inside, every inch of it, was gold and jewels.

His expression soured. “I took these from the estate years ago, in the chaos. When the letter summoned me back here, guilt got the better of me — I meant to return them to the master’s family…”

He paused. “But I am not the killer. Ten years ago, I only wanted to survive.”

Di Renjie’s reply cut straight through. “The Ye family treated you well, and when they needed you most, you fled with their wealth. Is that the truth of it?”

Xu’s face went red. He had nothing to say to that.

Di Renjie turned to Boss Yu. “The gold in your pack carries the same maker’s mark as the silver in Chief Escort Xu’s chest. Where did it come from?”

Boss Yu cleared his throat. “My uncle by marriage — the master of this estate — gave it to me, years ago.”

He scratched his head, laughing weakly. “With the whole family gone, money from them felt cursed to keep around. When the letter brought me back here, I figured I’d return it properly, as an offering.”

Di Renjie nodded, then continued. “And the rest of you — where were each of you on the night of the massacre, ten years ago?”

Boss Liu answered. “I wasn’t at the estate that night. My own son was inconsolable, and I went home to settle him. I wasn’t there for the young master.”

She’d been the eldest grandson’s wet nurse, with a child of her own — and by chance, absent the night everything happened.

Chunlan spoke next. “The young miss sent me to town for supplies. By the time I returned, everyone in the estate was already dead. I was too afraid to do anything but run.”

Zhou Sheng said, “I was the second son’s friend. Wasn’t there that night, didn’t know what had happened until word got around afterward that the Ye family had been wiped out…”

Boss Yu added, “Distant relative, also not present, also learned of it after the fact.”

Cute Rabbit gave her own account. “Same as Chunlan — I was the third daughter’s maid, sent out to buy rouge that night…”

Di Renjie listened to each account, his brow creasing slightly. He turned to one of his aides and said, low, “Bring me the file on the case from ten years ago.”

The guard produced a sealed dossier and handed it over.

The Ye family massacre had gone unsolved for a decade. On a rain-soaked night, the master, his wife, both sons, the unmarried third daughter, a grandson barely a year old, and over a dozen servants and guards had all died within a single night.

The killer had vanished without a trace. No witnesses had ever come forward.

And now, ten years later, every person who’d narrowly escaped that night had been drawn back to Red Maple Villa by an anonymous letter.

Di Renjie looked around the group. “No one was present the night it happened?”

Chief Escort Xu spoke, reluctant. “I— I was.”

“Did you see the killer?”

“No,” Xu said quickly. “His face was covered. He came at night with a blade, cutting down anyone in his path. I survived by hiding in the stables.”

Di Renjie’s gaze swept the room once more, thoughtful. “This case has two killers.”

The words landed hard. Every face in the room tensed.

Boss Yu spoke up quickly. “We worked that out too, my lord. Two killers acting together — one stages the haunting to pull our attention, the other strikes while we’re distracted. We’ve concluded Zhou Sheng and Zhao Chunhua — Chunlan — are the most likely pair!”

Di Renjie’s mouth curved faintly. “Are you certain you wish to name this couple as the killers?”

SYSTEM: Third voting round. Name your suspect(s).

SYSTEM: You may select up to two. A correct identification earns +5 points. An incorrect or abstained vote earns +0.

No options menu appeared this time — players had to name their suspects directly.

Cute Rabbit hesitated, then didn’t name Zhou Sheng or Chunlan. Instinct, maybe — something about the pair posing as a fake married couple didn’t read as killer behavior to her.

What nagged at her instead was Boss Yu’s gold, supposedly a gift from his late uncle. Something about that explanation didn’t sit right. She named Boss Yu.

Others split between naming Chief Escort Xu and, overwhelmingly, the “false couple,” Zhou Sheng and Chunlan.

Di Renjie said, “I already know who the killer is. You have one final round to gather evidence. When this incense burns out, I will reveal the truth.”

The group exchanged glances and scattered to search again.

Some went to revisit Lin Zhirou’s death in the woodshed. Others returned to the room where Boss Chen had hanged.

Cute Rabbit went back to Boss Chen’s room.

She remembered — Di Renjie had crouched and studied the door latch closely when he’d searched it earlier. Could’ve been habit, the thoroughness of a professional. Or he might have actually spotted something there.

She made a point of examining the latch herself this time.

Boss Chen’s death had always hinged on one impossible detail: a locked room. Door and window both sealed from inside, no hidden passage anywhere in the room.

A completely sealed space. How had the killer gotten in and out?

She’d been stuck on it from the start.

But now, looking closely at the broken latch, something clicked.

This latch is wrong.

When Zhou Sheng had kicked the door open, he’d put real force behind it. A wooden latch, hit that hard, should have splintered — shattered, even.

But the break in front of her looked clean. Too clean. Like it had been pried apart gently, not smashed.

Had anyone actually confirmed, with their own hands, that the door was locked at the time?

She replayed the moment in her memory. Boss Yu had reached the door first, pushed against it, and announced: “It’s locked.”

Only after that had Zhou Sheng stepped up and kicked it open.

Everyone present had seen the broken latch and the body inside, and simply assumed — the door had been locked, then forced open by Zhou Sheng’s kick.

But “the door is locked” had been Boss Yu’s claim, and his alone. No one else had checked it themselves before he announced it.

What if the latch had already been broken before that moment — already snapped, the room already unsealed?

If the latch was already broken, the killer could have moved in and out freely. And Boss Yu’s claim that the door was locked — there was no way to confirm that independently. He’d been the one to control that information from the start.

He’d been first to the scene. He’d made a show of pushing hard against the door. He’d announced it was locked. A simple, effective way to plant a false conclusion in everyone’s mind before anyone could check for themselves.

He might well be the one who killed Boss Chen.

As for his partner — whoever that was — and the truth of what actually happened ten years ago, the threads were still too tangled to pull apart cleanly.

But one thing, at least, Cute Rabbit felt sure of now: Boss Yu was far from innocent.