Chapter 48: The Dramatic Murder

Chapter 48: The Dramatic Murder

"Moreover, I saw a name in the files that should not have been there. I didn't expect, well..." Ray paused, furrowing his brow and sighing deeply, as if he were recalling something painful.

The atmosphere turned heavy in an instant.

Seeing this, Liu Xing quickly signaled to Tina with his eyes. Tina immediately understood, and with a cheerful smile said to Ray, "Ray, it's not nice to keep us on tenterhooks like this. Can you please continue and tell us what exactly happened?"

No sooner had Tina spoken than the sound of dice hitting the table filled the room.

Tina, quick conversation, 39/70, success.

Tina, persuasion, 23/55, success.

Liu Xing looked at Tina, somewhat surprised. He hadn't expected her to roll so high in quick conversation and to also succeed in persuasion. Was this a new strategy? Nonetheless, due to the double success of quick conversation and persuasion, Ray nodded and began, "If you want to know about this matter, you must promise not to disclose it to anyone else. After all, this is an internal secret, and speaking of it could have undesirable consequences."

The three of them nodded immediately, knowing full well that the information Ray was about to divulge would be of great significance.

"The thing is, when I first started working, I was assigned to oversee the security of the Harvest Festival. Given that there weren't many events in our small county town, the Harvest Festival was always as lively as the New Year celebrations. Thus, it attracted a very large crowd every year."

"I was on patrol when I found a little boy who had been separated from his family, so I brought him here. The missing children's center has always been set up here during the Harvest Festival, so parents whose children have gone missing would come here to search."

In Liu Xing's view, creating these minions must surely take more time and effort than it was worth, so why would the "tiger" engage in such an unrewarding act?

Mystified, Liu Xing glanced again at the peach trees but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, he couldn't shake the premonition that something was amiss with these trees.

Nevertheless, Liu Xing could now be certain of one thing—that Nan Xiaoniao's mother had most likely become one of these ghostly minions.

At this time, Li Ming and Tian Dao finally made their ascent to the Crane Watch Pavilion, reaching the child disappearance center to join Liu Xing and the others.

"Uh, why are you all sitting here? Where has the little bird gone? Did you find her mother?" Tian Dao asked, surprised.

Tian Dao's words jolted Liu Xing and the others out of their reverie. They had been so engrossed in Ray's tale that they had neglected to keep an eye on Nan Xiaoniao.

A plot twist!

That was Liu Xing's immediate thought, because while initially listening to Ray's secret revelations, he would intermittently check on Nan Xiaoniao, monitoring her movements. But as Ray continued, Liu Xing gradually forgot about her presence. He was certain this was a narrative device—a plot twist orchestrated by KP Cao to advance the story by forcibly removing Nan Xiaoniao from their control.

Liu Xing had witnessed such tactics before when he was a spectator at Wu Lei's gaming sessions. At the time, player Wu Lei had stubbornly refused to explore a cellar that would trigger the next event, forcing the KP to deploy a plot twist—suddenly an earthquake shattered the ground beneath Wu Lei, causing him to fall...

But this was not the time for excessive thought. Liu Xing and the others immediately stood up and began to search for Nan Xiaoniao, and seeing their urgency, Tian Dao and Li Ming realized that Nan Xiaoniao might have been lost by them.

"There!" Liu Xing was the first to spot Nan Xiaoniao.N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.