At 8:30 AM, Kang Mu Cheng arrived at the office on time and immediately opened his computer to enter the livestreaming platform of 'King of Reasoning'.
At 9 o'clock sharp, the livestream room was opened. After a brief network hiccup, he quickly entered the livestreaming page.
He found Jian Jing's number "4" and clicked on it.
At first glance, he frowned deeply.
What was she wearing? It looked gaudy and ostentatious.
However, upon seeing her expression, his concerns eased a little. In the high-definition camera, Jian Jing's face was radiant and glowing, looking absolutely stunning. The shimmering sequins on her eyelids sparkled in the sunlight, resembling the shimmering scales of a mermaid.
She looked excited and eagerly followed the others into the study.
The camera zoomed in, and everyone saw Dan's body lying on the floor. He was sprawled on the carpet, drenched in fresh blood, but his head was nowhere to be found.
"Ah!" Ran-er Kim let out an exaggerated scream and performed a dramatic fainting act.
In comparison, Jiang BaiYan was more professional. He wore a look of horror, but there was a subtle glimmer in his eyes as his gaze swiftly scanned the faces of the others, pondering something unknown.
Wu Lie also contributed his acting, his expression complex, not quite conveying shock or bewilderment, but something else.
"Dad!" Connor Lee chose to express his emotions through actions. He rushed towards the body, helplessly examining it, "Oh God, is this really my father?"
Jian Jing's reaction went beyond what he had expected.
Was the headless body she saw last night the same as the one now?
If the body was real, that would be fine - the physical features were so obvious that with her keen observational skills, it wouldn't be difficult to discern truth from fiction.
But now it was a dummy.
Could the dummy wearing Dan's clothes prove it was the same person from last night?
Just like her character persona, she looked utterly bewildered, unable to confirm anything.
"Ahem." Since the scene was already set, she decided not to play the dumb act any longer and cut straight to the chase, "Who here has medical knowledge and can examine the body?"
The role of the doctor was given to the Indian guy, Raj.
He clearly lacked acting skills and upon receiving the script from the crew, he began reading, "Based on my assessment, the deceased is an elderly male, matching Dan's description."
"Matching doesn't mean it's him," Jian Jing was extremely cautious - the identity of the victim was the easiest aspect to manipulate with a headless corpse. "What about the cause of death?"
Raj: "...That would require further examination."
The subtext: He hadn't received that part of the script yet.
Jian Jing's mouth twitched slightly, "So what can we know?"
Raj bluntly stated, "The killer is among us."
"Say something valuable," Min-cheol Park, the Korean elder, entered the room and examined the dummy's body, "It doesn't seem like there are any other wounds on him. Let's turn him over and take a look."
"Aren't you going to try to find fingerprints?" Jian Jing asked.
Min-cheol Park said, "We've all come into contact with Dan before. No matter whose prints we find, there would be a reasonable excuse to explain it."
"Alright then," she shrugged and joined in the search.
"Senior, you and Miss Jian really have great chemistry," said Liu Sau-chi, a popular idol from a boy band who had participated in similar variety shows before, his attitude relaxed. "You two have the vibe of a married couple."
Jian Jing: "..."
The chat room erupted with a flurry of messages.
[Get out of here, you Korean cabbage! Don't even think about my wife~]
[Miss Jian's expression screams rejection]
[The goddess is so pitiful, her luck with the role assignments isn't great]
[The Jian-Bai faction expresses disappointment, Xiao Bai, why didn't you fight for a better role?]
[Reject shipping, Miss Jian is beautiful on her own]
[This is a deduction show, let's not make it a romance drama, annoying]
Seeing the chaos brewing, Kang Mu Cheng quickly closed the chat room.
The network seemed to have stabilized slightly.
The guests began searching the scene, but apart from a locked safe and a desk phone, there were no other noteworthy clues.
Since the safe couldn't be opened, they focused their attention on the phone.
Liu Sau-chi pressed the redial button, calling the last dialed number.
"Ring ring—"
An automated voice answered from the other end, "Hello, this is the restaurant, your call is being connected—"
"A restaurant?" Everyone was taken aback.
"This call was made by the killer," Min-cheol Park confidently concluded as he pushed up his rimless glasses.
Ran-er Kim: "Why?"
"The call was made at 11:47 PM," the elder journalist displayed keen attention to detail. "I remember we wrapped up at 10 PM, and the restaurant was also getting ready to close. Dan should have known that at this hour, no one at the restaurant would answer his call. If he needed something, he could have easily contacted the butler."
The NPC butler said, "Yes, if the master needed anything, he would call my room."
The others exchanged glances, saying, "So the killer dialed a number that was guaranteed to have no response, just to cover up the fact that Dan had called them?"
"Not necessarily," Hiroto Ishikawa countered. "Or perhaps it was to create the impression that Dan was still alive at 11:47 PM."
"Makes sense," many agreed.
However, Jiang BaiYan looked at Jian Jing and asked, "Jing-jing, what do you think?"
Jian Jing pondered for a moment and said, "It does seem unreasonable for Dan to call the restaurant's number around midnight. But it's too early to speculate about the implications of this number."
"Do you have another hypothesis?" Wataru Kojima, the young mystery manga artist who had remained silent, looked her way.
Jian Jing met his gaze. Wataru Kojima was very young, reportedly only in his twenties, yet he had created one of the most popular mystery manga series in Japan. His appearance was a bit unkempt (though the makeup artists had given him a basic styling) - his trimmed hair was still messy, and his eyes behind the glasses were half-open, as if lacking energy.
In a nutshell, he exuded the aura of a reclusive detective.
"Rather than a hypothesis, I can't draw any conclusions," she admitted candidly. "Based on the blood stains at the scene, the amount of bleeding from the victim is too little."
Wataru Kojima immediately nodded, "I agree. If this were the primary crime scene, there's no way the blood stains would be this sparse. When a head is severed, the pressure in the blood vessels would cause the blood to spray everywhere."
He extended his finger, "There are two possibilities: First, the victim's head was severed after death. Second, this is not the primary crime scene. Miss Jian, that's why you're hesitant to make definitive claims about the phone, right?"
"Correct," Jian Jing crouched down to carefully examine the desk phone. This study phone was quite large and didn't have a separate handset and keypad - it was just a standard rotary dial. "If the killer had a confrontation with the victim, they might have accidentally pressed something or left behind some evidence..."
"I see," Wataru Kojima paced back and forth, constantly observing. "The rotary dial has been wiped clean."
Min-cheol Park caught up with the train of thought, "The killer might have wiped away blood or fingerprints, which is why they intentionally made a call to mislead us. Or they could have dialed a number during the struggle, and to cover up the real time of death, they made another random call."
The others: "..."
--
In the chat room:
[Damn, they're already going at it within an hour of the livestream]
[So many possibilities from just one phone call]
[This is getting exciting]
[Why isn't 'dialed the wrong number' one of the possibilities...]
[If the dead were hungry and wanted to eat instant noodles, how would they go about it (ludicrous)]
[Based on my intuition, this phone call must have some ulterior motive]
--
After intense discussion, the guests found the phone call to be highly suspicious. But currently, there were too few clues to make any judgment.
Jian Jing urged Raj (the staff member behind the scenes), "Quickly perform the autopsy, the corpse is the most important evidence."
"Time of death," Wataru Kojima said, "That is the most crucial."
Raj said matter-of-factly, "The earliest will be around two in the afternoon before we have the results."
Jian Jing: "...Alright then."
Min-cheol Park said, "We can first go through the alibis."
Thus, the guests gathered in the restaurant and, in numerical order, each narrated their actions from the previous night.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Hiroto Ishikawa, the eldest and of highest social standing, voiced his opinion, "We need to know the last time Dan was seen alive."
Connor Lee also asked, "After the eight o'clock banquet ended, did anyone see Dan?"
The air was thick with an awkward silence.
Min-cheol Park suddenly laughed, cutting right to the chase, "From what I know, more than one person saw Dan, but no one wants to be the first to speak up now. This is understandable, as you wouldn't want to become the prime suspect."
"Would Mr. Park like to go first?" Kumiko Terauchi spoke up unexpectedly.
But Min-cheol Park said, "I think it would be better to proceed in order."
Valeriya, who drew number 1, nodded gracefully, "Very well."
She contemplated briefly, then began her account, "After eight o'clock last night, I played cards with Mr. Ishikawa, Liu Sau-chi, and Professor Wu. At nine, Zhang Xue'er replaced me. I went to the deck for some fresh air and returned to my room around nine-thirty."
Number 2, Liu Sau-chi.
He said, "I played cards until nine-thirty, then ran into Miss Jian. I went back to my room to rest at ten."
Number 3, Raj.
He said, "After dinner, I was just wandering around the cruise ship. From eight-thirty to around nine-fifteen, I was reading in the lounge. Oh, and I also saw Miss Jian and Mr. Lee."
Number 4, Jian Jing.
She pondered for a moment, struggling to remain calm as she recounted, "Um, from eight to ten, I was quite busy." She paused briefly, hinting tactfully, "I was probably just chatting about life with some people of the opposite sex."
The other guests couldn't help but snicker.
Only Wataru Kojima was utterly serious, jotting down notes and asking, "Who were they, specifically?"
"Mr. Lee, Mr. Liu, and Mr. Jiang BaiYan."
"And the reason?"
Jian Jing flatly replied, "Private matters."
Number 5, Wu Lie.
He said, "I started playing cards at eight-forty and finished around nine-thirty."
"What were you doing before that?"
"Taking a walk to aid digestion."
Number 6, Kumiko Terauchi.
She said with great theatricality, "I went to visit my husband in his room. He said he wanted to be alone for a bit, so I returned to rest. Around nine, I joined the others in playing mahjong."
Number 7, Andrei.
"I played mahjong until nine, but I was losing too much, so I stopped," he said. "Mrs. Terauchi took my spot."
Number 8, Ran-er Kim: "I was very interested in mahjong, so I kept playing at the table until nine forty-five, then I went back to my room to rest."
Number 9, Linnaer: "My throat was a bit sore, so I returned to my room to rest quite early. Oh, at nine, I ordered the restaurant to send me some bird's nest soup."
Number 10, Jiang BaiYan: "Playing mahjong. Around eight-fifty, I stepped away for a few minutes to chat with Jian Jing."
Number 11, Min-cheol Park: "I was wandering around the cruise ship. At nine-fifty, I went back to my room."
Number 12, Wataru Kojima: "Learning to play mahjong."
Number 13, Connor Lee: "At nine-ten, I went to find my father and discussed some matters with him. I left at nine-thirty and returned to my room to rest."
He added, "At eight-twenty, I ran into Miss Jian."
Jian Jing rested her head in her hands, wearing an expression of utter mortification.
Number 14, Hiroto Ishikawa: "I played cards until nine, then went to rest as I could no longer stay up."
Number 15, Zhang Xue'er: "After dinner, I returned to my room to rest for a while. At eight-forty, I found my father to chat. At nine, I replaced Valeriya and played cards with the others until nine-thirty."
