CH 2.1

The action of tapping his fingertips on the table stopped slightly as Bai Lixin’s other hand stretched out and revealed several white sheets of paper in his palm, “I was afraid that the papers would be blown away when the window was opened, so I put them away. These papers must be the only thing that can carry our answers, so don’t lose them.”

It was only then that several people realized that the papers in front of them had disappeared.

First was the joy of finding a signal, then the shock of Yang Hao’s horrific death, and then the observation of the corpse.

With this chain of events, they had forgotten that they still had an answer sheet in front of them.

Zhou Guang hurriedly picked a piece of white paper from Bai Lixin’s hand and said gratefully, “Thank you.”

Bai Lixin, “You’re welcome.”

After the rest had all drawn a piece of white paper one after another, Bai Lixin drew a few more pens out of the darkness and said with a smile, “There are pens as well.”

The crowd: “…” Handsome, are you *Doraemon?

Where the hell did you pull this pen out from?

After several people were each holding a pen in their hands, Zhou Guang asked again, “Do you really know who the murderer is?”

Bai Lixin glanced at the rattan suitcase, “The hand marks on the deceased’s neck were wide, and the neck was twisted and deformed by strangulation. It is impossible to not do this without a certain amount of strength. There is a certain proportional relationship between the hand and the height of the human body, so it can be deduced that the murderer’s height should be between 175 and 180 cm. Li Cancan can indeed be ruled out as a suspect.”

Li Cancan’s tense shoulders relaxed, but then stiffened again.

What was the point of just eliminating suspicion?

This ghost of a game was about writing the right answer, and writing the wrong one was going to get her killed, so she wasn’t even out of danger yet!

“Old Shen already said this,” Zhou Guang paused, “Do you have any other findings?”

Bai Lixin continued, “There are a few more findings. I discovered that the handprint on the victim’s neck was heavy on the left hand and light on the right, so the murderer should be a left-handed person.”

Liang Xi, who had been silent, turned white, “I’m left-handed, but I didn’t kill him! I just said that I’m a veterinarian and I was doing surgery!”

The group was already on the verge of a fight, and Zhou Guang asked in a stern voice, “But you’re the only left-handed person here? Who knows if you’re a veterinarian or not?”

Shen Gudao then said, “No, there is one more person. I noticed that Yang Hao was holding up his phone outside the window with his left hand, so he should be left-handed too.”

Liang Xi hurriedly took over, “Right, right. Shen Gudao is right. Yang Hao is also left-handed, so the murderer must be him!”

Bai Lixin, “There was indeed another left-handed person in the room, but it wasn’t Yang Hao. Yang Hao was holding his phone with his left hand because he was holding a cigarette with his right hand. And he used his right hand when taking the phone and Huazi from his pocket.”

Liang Xi subconsciously stared at Bai Lixin, “Who is the other person?!”

Bai Lixin swept his gaze over the crowd and finally landed in one direction, “It’s Old Man Shen.”

The crowd: “?!”

Li Cancan retorted, “That’s impossible. Elder Shen said at the beginning that he was practising his calligraphy. His right sleeve is stained with ink, which means he was holding the brush in his right hand.”

Xia Chi, who had only said one sentence, spoke for the second time tonight, “No, it’s not necessarily true. I practice calligraphy too, and one can’t judge which hand holds the brush just by looking at the ink-stained cuff. This is because some people are used to writing with their hand raised high, while some people use their other hand to pull the cuff of the writing hand tight, so both sleeves have a chance of getting stained with ink.”

“Indeed, the position of the ink can’t show which hand is used, but I’m not left-handed.”

Shen Gudao then dabbed a bit of saliva on his right index finger and quickly wrote three large characters on the table: Shen Gu Dao.

The handwriting was open and flowing. One could tell at a glance that he was used to writing with his right hand.

Liang Xi was already nervous after being labelled as a suspect, and he looked at Bai Lixin furiously, “You actually don’t know anything at all, do you? Aren’t you the murderer? First, you deliberately say nonsense to create panic and guide everyone to put suspicion on my head and finally fish in muddy water. I think the murderer is not left-handed at all!”

“The body is right there; just go and see for yourself if the murderer is left-handed.” Bai Lixin was not angry and continued to speak, “Elder Shen, are you really not left-handed? There were at least three times when you revealed yourself to be left-handed in the past ten minutes.”

“The first time was when you first came in here, you were wiping your sweat with your left hand.”

“The second time was when Yang Hao was standing by the window and said he’d found a signal. You first walked out on your crutches with your left hand, only to switch to your right a few steps out.”

“The third time was just now. When I told you to return your pens and papers after I’d found the murderer, you used your left hand both times.”

“One can disguise their dominant hand, but they will use it unconsciously in situations of extreme mental stress where the brain cannot think.”

“The first time was because of fear of the unknown, the second time was a fervent desire to survive, and the third time?”

“Why did you get so tense that your brain went into a daze when I mentioned the murderer?”

Outside the window, a bolt of lightning struck.

The eerie blue light fell on Bai Lixin’s face, setting off his beautiful face in an unusually eerie and enchanting manner.

Shen Gudao slightly pursed his lips. His cloudy gaze fixed on Bai Lixin for a moment before he spoke, “Yes, I used to be left-handed. But I deliberately practised using my right hand because it was not convenient for the students to take notes when I was writing on the blackboard with my left hand in class. I have been using my right hand for more than thirty years, but I didn’t expect you to be so observant. So much time has passed that I had forgotten that I was still a left-handed person at heart.”

“Are you suspecting that the murderer is me? Don’t forget, you also said the killer was a strong man, 175-180 tall. I’m only 170 tall and I suffer from Parkinson’s. My hands simply don’t have enough strength to do that sort of thing.”

“Yeah.” Li Cancan called out, “Anyone of us here can be a suspect, but Elder Shen should be the least suspected ah. He’s so old, let alone breaking someone’s neck; he can’t even leave a mark if he choked them, right?”

The rain beat on the glass and the wind blew violently. Outside the window was a strange scene, but it was particularly silent in the hotel.

In silence, Bai Lixin said something that sent chills down everyone’s spine, “What if the murder happened thirty years ago?”

Bai Lixin stood up and walked over to the radio. “The radio provided the information that first made me suspicious. In the contact details at the end, the family of the missing person left a landline number. And this landline number starts with the two-digits, 01.”

“If I remember correctly, the first batch of landlines in our country only had two-digit area codes, and it wasn’t until the nineties that they changed to three-digit numbers.”

Xia Chi thought for a moment and added, “It was in ’95 that the national unified code was changed to a three-digit landline area code.”

Everyone’s eyes flushed over, and Xia Chi coughed nervously, “I saw it when I was revising for the comprehensive general knowledge for the college entrance exam.”

Bai Lixin continued, “The rattan suitcase with the body was weaved with a decades-old craft. In addition, the clothes and shoes of the deceased are all over thirty years old. The structure of the house we were in, the style of the lamps, the wiring structure, and so on are all decades old.”

“The deceased looked young, only about twenty years old, which matched the age mentioned on the radio, indicating that the time of disappearance and death was close.”

“Seeing that the body had not decayed yet, we subconsciously thought the murder happened so recently that we ignored the time,” Bai Lixin walked over to the body as lightning fell behind him through the window, bringing another eerie blue mysterious glow, “but in reality, this is a case that occurred at least thirty years ago.”

“Everyone, how old were you thirty years ago?”

The crowd was horrified.

How old were they thirty years ago?

Those who were born early were only wearing diapers by then, while those who were born late were not even embryos!

Liang Xi’s voice trembled a little, “Elder Shen said he’s only 170 cm tall, but he’s an old man now. Bones shrink as the body ages. If we go back 30 years, he’d be at least 175 or taller!”

Zhou Guang was shocked, “He has been leading us to suspect Yang Hao, and it was his words that provoked Yang Hao in the beginning. The rules of the game said that those who got the most votes and those who filled in the wrong answer would be punished. If we all wrote Yang Hao in the end, he could write his name in peace. That way, he writes the correct answer but is not the one with the most votes.”

Li Cancan’s scalp tingled, “And we would all die.”

Everyone looked at Shen Gudao in unison, their eyes filled with disbelief.

They had been fooled by this man from the very beginning!

Shen Gudao had been the first person they ruled out; old people and children had always been the two groups that could make people easily put their guard down.

They really couldn’t imagine that the clear-eyed and gentle university professor could be the murderer.

[Ding! Player Bai Lixin submitted his answer in 31 minutes and 20 seconds.]

[Ding! Congratulations to Player Bai Lixin! His answer is correct, and he receives 50 points for the correct answer. The remaining time is 23 hours, 28 minutes, and 40 seconds, which translates into another 50 points. Excellent performance on the field means an additional 50 bonus points.]

[Congratulations to Player Bai Lixin, who has earned a total of 150 points for this warm-up session.]

The cold electronic voice suddenly rang out, and the crowd snapped out of their fear, following Bai Lixin’s speed as they quickly filled in their answers.

Only Li Cancan was still a little hesitant: “Even if he’s vicious, it’s still a human life and we don’t have the judicial power, right?”

Zhou Guang’s hand holding the pen stopped abruptly.

He was a law student, of course, he knew the precision of the law. Even if Shen Gudao was the murderer, they should not be the ones to decide whether the other party lived or died.

Bai Lixin, “Look down and take a good look at the footprints on the ground.”

The crowd immediately lowered their heads. There was a circle of wet footprints on the ground, and the ends of the footprints connected to Bai Lixin’s position.

Was there water on Bai Lixin’s shoes? Where did he get it from?

“It’s the rattan suitcase!” Xia Chi called out, “The carpet around the rattan suitcase is soaked in a puddle of water. Bai Lixin and Elder Shen both went over, but only Bai Lixin showed shoe prints!”

Stepping on water but not leaving footprints, was that still human?

Several people got a chill down their spines and stiffened their necks to look at Shen Gudao.

At this moment, Shen Gudao no longer looked amiable. He looked at Bai Lixin with resentment, his eyes like poisonous snakes.

The shock of the crowd was soon replaced by fear as they realised that something did not seem right with Shen Gu Dao.

He walked stiffly, turning his neck in a very uncoordinated manner, and his eyes even rotated uncontrollably in their sockets. His skin showed an eerie greenish-white color, which had not been obvious under the dim kerosene lamp.

Several people drew in a cold breath.

Liang Xi’s voice was trembling, “This…Is this a zombie NPC?”