Fang Rui found the shipping record of that suit from the online store. He discovered that a user named "Year After Year Abundance" had bought a size L suit, and this person's delivery address was the same residential compound where Liu Xiaonian lived.
"Boss, do you think this 'Year After Year Abundance' could be Liu Xiaonian?" Zhang asked in shock. "Did he buy the suit himself? Could he be into Cosplay in escape rooms?"
During the case analysis meeting, Fang Rui presented his deduction: "I suspect there's no murderer in this case. The victim hanged himself."
Wang objected, "Wait, boss, you're saying he committed suicide by hanging? How is that possible? Dr. Mu detected sleeping pills in his system. No one would drug themselves before hanging, right?"
"Exactly. And he was wearing a blood-stained suit. He couldn't have put that on himself, could he?"
"Even if he wanted to commit suicide, why would he go to such a creepy place? What was the point?"
However, Mu Mian eagerly raised her hand, "I support Fang Rui's theory. If this were truly a murder case, the killer wouldn't have dressed the victim as a horror groom because that would automatically make us suspect murder. It's completely unnecessary. But if we think about it in reverse, if the victim committed suicide, this setup would easily disguise it as a murder."
Mu Mian had always felt that whoever killed the victim must have been very intelligent and wouldn't make such a foolish mistake. Unless they deliberately wanted the case to be treated as a murder.
Fang Rui turned to Mu Mian: "Mu Mian, when did you start suspecting it was suicide?"
"When I first saw the body. I felt then that the mechanism was very suitable for suicide. After activating it, the noose rises very slowly. He would have had plenty of time to walk over and put his neck in it. Of course, if he wanted to change his mind, he would have had a few seconds to do so."
"Why didn't you tell me this at the time?" Fang Rui asked, somewhat exasperated.
"I didn't have any evidence. I was afraid of misleading you."
"Boss, we still don't have any concrete evidence now! These are just our speculations," Wang pointed out.
Fang Rui said, "Do you remember the bag Liu Xiaonian was carrying in the surveillance video?"
"Yes, it was black."
"We found that black bag inside the chest cavity of the skeleton bride, and it only contained a book. It looked quite flat," Fang Rui replayed the video on the screen. "But in the surveillance footage, that bag was bulging, full of things. I suspect that when Liu Xiaonian went in, the bag he was carrying contained that suit."
Fang Rui continued, "We found red substances in the bag. The tech team has already tested it, and it's a type of theatrical makeup pigment, the same as the one on the suit. Moreover, Liu Xiaonian had purchased this suit online. All of this suggests that Liu Xiaonian made the bloody suit himself and brought it in."
"And he put it on himself," Mu Mian added. "His inner clothes weren't wrinkled, which indirectly proves that he most likely put on the clothes himself. Because even if he were unconscious, it would be very difficult for someone else to dress him without wrinkling his inner clothes."
"But how do we explain the sleeping pills?" Chen Xue asked. "Why were sleeping pills detected in the victim's system?"
"Liu Xiaonian had sleep issues. His parents confirmed that he had seen a doctor at the hospital, and the doctor had prescribed him sleeping pills," Fang Rui added.
All the evidence pieced together almost conclusively proved that Liu Xiaonian had hanged himself.
"But what about the motive?" Zhang asked. "What could be his motive for going to that escape room to commit suicide?"
Everyone fell silent for a moment.
"Maybe to give the store a bad review," Lin Sen said quietly.
"Lin, consultant, that's too far-fetched. Who would hang themselves in a store just to give it a bad review?" Chen Xue found this guess too outlandish.
Lin Sen continued, "Giving the store a bad review is just the surface reason. The deeper reason is that escape rooms were the most important thing in his life, the meaning that kept him going. But that store tarnished the most sacred thing in his heart, so he was willing to use his life to take revenge on that store."
The current physical evidence was almost enough to prove that Liu Xiaonian had committed suicide.
Fang Rui then remembered the two blank envelopes. He took them and went to find Mu Mian.
Mu Mian was seriously brushing non-existent dust off the skeleton.
Fang Rui felt that this skeleton was seriously interfering with Mu Mian's work. She had never slacked off at work before!
It seemed necessary to make this skeleton disappear.
"Fang Rui, were you looking for me?"
"Mu Mian, is there any way to make words disappear from paper?" Fang Rui asked. His instinct told him that there should be words on those two envelopes, words that would tell them the reason for the victim's suicide.
"There are many ways! We can write with colorless phenolphthalein, and once it dries, the words will disappear. We can also use lemon juice or vinegar..." Mu Mian listed many methods. "But to make the words appear again, we'd have to try many different methods."
"Can you see if there are any words on these two envelopes?" Fang Rui handed the envelopes to Mu Mian.
"No problem."
Mu Mian had been very lucky recently. She only tried one method before making the words on the envelopes appear.
Mu Mian discovered that the words on the envelopes were written with colorless phenolphthalein. They just needed to apply an alkaline solution to make the words visible.
The words on the first envelope read: Congratulations on solving my suicide puzzle. Please read the letter inside for answers.
The other envelope read: To Dad.
Using the same method, Mu Mian revealed the words on the white paper inside the first envelope.
[To the clever police officer (sir or madam):
Congratulations, you have successfully solved my suicide puzzle. Your prize is that you will now know the whole truth about my suicide.
I've wanted to commit suicide since high school. But I didn't. Because suicide is a cowardly way to die, not only does it not garner sympathy, but it also invites criticism. I didn't want to become a topic of gossip.
So, I thought about disguising my death as a murder. This way, people would sympathize with me, mourn for me, rather than mock me for being weak. I considered many ways to kill myself but never went through with any of them. Maybe I was still afraid of death.
I had initially planned to commit suicide at the "Lost Island" escape room. I even drew up the blueprints. But Eldest Brother Wang was too kind to me. He never mocked my hobbies or called me useless. So I didn't want to die anymore. I felt that life was still pretty good.
Unexpectedly, just when I wanted to live on, "Poe's Cabin" ruined my life!
Now, I suppose no one dares to patronize that store anymore? Is it about to go out of business? Haha, that's the effect I wanted to achieve.
Before entering the escape room that day, I put on a suit similar to the prop corpse outside. Then I stuffed the bag containing my clothes into the chest cavity of the skeleton bride. I figured you wouldn't search there immediately. I couldn't let you find this bag easily, otherwise you would quickly determine the case as a suicide, and then it wouldn't have the devastating impact on that store.
I took sleeping pills before I died. This way, you definitely wouldn't classify this case as a suicide.
I even deliberately left the blueprints in the drawer. Based on the dates on the blueprints, you would think that the store owner or Eldest Brother Wang killed me to cover up their plagiarism. This would provide a motive for the murderer.
But in fact, those blueprints were what I used to design my death. The dates are real, but the content of the blueprints was drawn based on Eldest Brother Wang's descriptions in the group chat. If you observe carefully, you'll notice that there's the same little figure in each design sketch - that's me.
At that time, I wanted to commit suicide in that escape room. I never thought I would eventually fulfill my wish.
I learned from Eldest Brother Wang's Weibo account post that he had deliberately injured his hand that morning, in order to ask for leave from his sister in the afternoon to play an escape room at that store. So I chose to commit suicide that day, adding another suspect and making the case more complex. Of course, if you investigate further, you'll find that Eldest Brother Wang couldn't be the murderer.
In the end, you can only come to one conclusion: I committed suicide. By then, you'll surely find various pieces of evidence proving that I took my own life. But that store will have its reputation ruined because of this murder case, and no one will dare to play there anymore.
You might not understand what escape rooms mean to me. They are the most important thing in my life, my spiritual pillar, my only joy in living. But that store destroyed it; it shattered the crystal of my life. I can't go on living.
So I want to destroy it. Even at the cost of my own life.
You might laugh at me, thinking that I don't value my life at all. But it doesn't matter, I'm just a useless person who's ridiculed and wastes food while alive anyway.
Please help me deliver another letter to my father. It's fine if you don't give it to him, just throw it away then. He probably wouldn't read it anyway.
That's all. This worthless person is leaving this world now. I'm going to explore another world, if it exists.】
Everyone was speechless after reading this letter. So Liu Xiaonian really did hang himself in the escape room to take revenge on that store.
However, this Liu Xiaonian was quite clever, designing such a complex case that led the police investigation in the direction he wanted.
Mu Mian asked, "Do we need to reveal the contents of the letter for his father?"
