"Butler, what are you doing here?" Tao Jianchun asked.
The Butler seemed startled by them, immediately standing up and discreetly tucking the jade pendant into his sleeve.
Then, he put on his standard smiling face: "Hello, everyone."
Seeing him like this, the group didn't know how to respond for a moment.
Only Gu Wanyin went straight to the point: "Are you here reminiscing about the Second Young Master's mother?"
Hearing this, the Butler's expression instantly changed, his smile freezing on his face.
"You two must have had a good relationship, right? She was forced to marry into this family, and you were very upset about it, weren't you?"
The Butler's expression gradually turned cold. He walked step by step towards Gu Wanyin and said in a chilly voice, "Who told you this?"
"It was just a guess," Gu Wanyin said calmly. "Now it's confirmed."
The Butler: "..."
He kept glaring at Gu Wanyin menacingly.
The others were nervous for her.
But in the end, the Butler just glared at her once more before walking away.
The others finally breathed a sigh of relief.
"You're too bold!" Gu Han said to Gu Wanyin. "Weren't you afraid he might suddenly lash out?"
"In this scenario, killing isn't allowed during the day," Gu Wanyin said. "Every incident happens at night. And tonight is the wedding night - it's do or die. No need to worry about offending a butler at this point."
"Thanks to Ms. Gu, we can now confirm an important piece of information," Bai Shuwen said. "It seems the Butler and the Second Young Master's mother were indeed in love back then."
"It's more than that," Gu Wanyin said gravely. "I think the Second Young Master... is the Butler's child."
"What?" Everyone was shocked.
But thinking about it, it wasn't impossible.
If the Butler and the Second Young Master's mother were in love back then, it wasn't unimaginable that they might have had a secret relationship.
The Second Young Master's mother could have been pregnant when she married into the family, and during the birth, she could have easily bribed the doctor and midwife to say the Second Young Master was premature.
"The hairpin in the Second Young Master's study was probably a love token between his mother and the Butler," Gu Wanyin said. "He likely knows about his mother and the Butler, and about his true parentage."
"But that's not right!" Tao Jianchun frowned. "I remember the maid saying earlier that the relationship between the Butler and the Second Young Master was very bad! Isn't it because the Butler couldn't stand seeing the child of the woman he loved with another man, so he always disliked the Second Young Master?"
"Is it possible that their bad relationship is just a facade to throw people off?" Zhuang Xiaoxia said. "As long as they keep up the appearance of a poor relationship, no one would ever suspect they're actually father and son."
Dong Yue scratched his head frustratedly and said, "But we still don't know who killed the Elder Young Master and the servants, or why they were killed."
Everyone fell into deep thought.
Gu Wanyin suddenly said out of the blue, "Don't you think the Second Young Master is a bit short?"
"What, you look down on short men?" Tao Jianchun asked displeased. "We can't help being short! Who doesn't want to be tall?"
"That's not what I meant," Gu Wanyin explained. "I just think that the Second Young Master is an adult, but he's only about 165 cm tall..."
"For an adult man, 165 cm is indeed quite short, but there are men like that," Zhuang Xiaoxia said.
"Wanyin, are you suggesting that the Second Young Master is actually... a woman?" Gu Han asked in shock. "How is that possible? He's the Second Young Master! Everyone in and out of the house calls him that."
"And judging by his behavior and mannerisms, he doesn't seem like a woman," Chen Sisi said. "His voice doesn't sound like one either."
Bai Shuwen thought for a moment and said, "If a girl was raised as a boy from childhood, it would be normal for her behavior and mannerisms to not seem feminine. The voice can be trained too."
"But if that's the case, our earlier theory about the Second Young Master killing the Elder Young Master for his love interest doesn't hold up!" Dong Yue said. "If the Second Young Master is a woman, how could she fall in love with a woman? And why would she kill her own brother for a woman? Oh wait, not her real brother, but still someone she grew up with!"
Gu Wanyin smiled and said, "Unless the Second Young Master's love interest isn't the Second Young Mistress."
...
That day, they searched the house carefully again.
They did find some more clues.
For instance, they discovered traces of makeup outside the Second Young Master's bedroom door.
The Second Young Mistress, in her current state, couldn't possibly have come to the Second Young Master's bedroom.
The maids in the house all had bare faces and didn't use any makeup.
In other words, this clue was hinting that the Second Young Master was indeed a woman.
"Ah!" Bai Shuwen sighed, "Even if raised as a boy from childhood, she's still a girl after all. And this is set in ancient times - maybe the Second Young Master has always longed to wear girls' clothes and use makeup."
"But why raise her as a boy in the first place?" Dong Yue asked, puzzled.
"That's probably something only the Second Young Master's mother and the Butler know," Gu Wanyin said.
But since they had encountered the Butler that morning, he hadn't appeared again.
The servants in the house seemed to have disappeared as well.
Previously, the kitchen door had been closed, and they hadn't dared to enter.
But this time when they passed by the kitchen, they found the door open.
After entering, they found a small, altar-like setup in a corner of the kitchen.
It was a strange symbol they had never seen before, with an incense burner on top burning three sticks of incense.
"This altar must be what allows the dead people in the house to move around during the day," Dong Yue shuddered. "Ugh, it gives me the creeps..."
"The one who set up this altar must be either the Butler or the Second Young Master," Bai Shuwen said. "The killer who murdered everyone must be one of them too, right?"
The others nodded in agreement, but Gu Wanyin felt like something wasn't quite right.
She suddenly remembered the letter she had seen earlier in the Second Young Master's study.
At the bottom of that letter was written "Kill him, kill him".
If their earlier deduction was correct and the Second Young Master's love interest wasn't the Second Young Mistress, then it must be the Elder Young Master.
They had grown up together, and although they were raised as brothers, the Second Young Master was actually a girl. Over time, she had fallen in love with this brother who wasn't related to her by blood.
Earlier, when the Elder Young Master was going to marry the Second Young Mistress, the Second Young Master naturally felt upset.
But why write "Kill him"?
Why would the Second Young Master kill her own love interest?
Indeed, in ancient Chinese, "he" could refer to males, females, and all things, but in that letter, all the other characters were in simplified Chinese, so it should be interpreted in the modern sense.
If the Second Young Master wanted to kill someone, it should have been the Second Young Mistress, and it should have been written as "her".
But that letter...
If all their previous deductions were correct, then that letter wasn't written by the Second Young Master at all.
