To prove that he had not deliberately tampered with the cri scene, Lucas randomly picked two people from the crowd to accompany him into the room, asking them to monitor his actions and record the entire investigation.
Under the watchful eyes of the observers and the phone caras, he carefully examined the body, the furnishings, and every trace in the room.
After the inspection was complete, everyone left the room. In front of the group, Lucas shut the door and motioned for everyone to leave the second floor and return to the first-floor lobby.
“I need to question each of you individually about what you did from last night after you separated up until the body was discovered. It’s too cold here—how about we go down to the lobby?”
No one objected. It really was cold here, and with a corpse lying nearby, the atmosphere felt chilling both physically and psychologically.
As everyone turned around and helped the two terrified students downstairs, Lucas, at the rear of the group, suddenly called out, “Miss Everly, one mont.”
Everly stopped and looked at him calmly.
She was already prepared—if Lucas started picking a fight or talking trash, she’d punch him twice on the spot and show him “why flowers are so red.”
Unexpectedly, Lucas didn’t say anything unpleasant. Instead, he extended his hand and held his phone out to Everly, his expression unusually serious. “These are the photos and videos taken at the cri scene. You might want to take a look.”
He adjusted his glasses and added in a matter-of-fact tone, “Since it’s a competition, it should be fair.”
“……”
Alright. He might have a sharp tongue, but his character seed fine.
Everly was confident in her own abilities and didn’t need any extra information, so she resolutely refused Lucas’s offer.
“Thanks, but no need. I have my own way of finding the killer.”
Lucas clearly wasn’t soone with a particularly good temper. When Everly refused the phone, he simply put it away, the corner of his mouth twitching as a trace of mockery appeared on his handso face. “Alright then. I hope everything goes smoothly for you… and by the way, I look forward to seeing your reasoning.”
“Thank you. I’m looking forward to it as well.”
The two clashed head-on and parted on bad terms.
Once they reached the lobby, Lucas didn’t even bother with lunch. He found a seat on the sofa by the fireplace, holding a recorder and a notebook, and began calling people over one by one for questioning.
When it was Everly’s turn, he asked four very ordinary questions: whether she had left her room after returning the night before, what ti she got up that morning, whether she had been to Room 205, and whether anyone could confirm her answers.
Everly answered everything truthfully.
The lengthy questioning process lasted nearly two hours.
After finishing, Lucas lowered his head and began organizing his notes. During this ti, since he didn’t allow people to wander around, everyone sat off to the side in tacit agreent, speaking in hushed, fragnted whispers. Even going to the restroom required being accompanied by soone Lucas randomly designated.
Although no one disturbed him, it was clear to the naked eye that this renowned Arican mystery novelist’s brows were tightly furrowed, and his expression was growing worse and worse.
It was obvious—his investigation was not going smoothly.
After organizing his notes, he called the innkeeper couple and the front desk girl over separately to ask a few more questions, and even had the three of them take him on a round through the boiler room and the kitchen.
By the ti he left the kitchen, Lucas’s expression had turned even darker.
“So, Mr. Lucas, have you figured out who the killer is?” A student nad Daniel couldn’t hold back and asked when Lucas returned.
Lucas ignored Daniel. Striding forward with long steps, he walked straight up to Everly, lowered his head slightly, and asked sowhat stiffly, “Do you know who the killer is?”
At that mont, Everly was playing cards with Old John and the other three. They were playing Guandan—a ga she had taught them. Everyone quite liked this novel ga from the East, and once they started, they got hooked.
Hearing Lucas’s question, she shifted her gaze away from her cards and leisurely looked up at the young man’s face.
His brows were furrowed, lips pressed tight, his expression dark—one look was enough to tell that the investigation hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped.
Ha, just as she thought! If he wasn’t happy, then she was.
Everly realized she quite enjoyed seeing Lucas frustrated. The more arrogant and self-important soone was, the more entertaining it was to watch them fall from their pedestal and end up looking dejected and miserable, like a drenched stray dog…
So she kept a straight face and deliberately said in a calm tone, “Of course. This case is very simple, isn’t it? Who the killer is is practically obvious at a glance.”
As she spoke, she unhurriedly drew four jokers from her hand and casually tossed them onto the table. “Double Joker bomb.”
“Hey! Everly, how could you do that? I finally managed to put together a straight flush!” Misha, whose hand had just been beaten, cried out in dismay.
In front of her, Lucas remained silent, staring at her for a mont. His face shifted between pale and flushed, and the corners of his mouth twitched faintly from how tightly his muscles were clenched.
“Good… very good. Then let see exactly how you reasoned it out.”
He forced the words out through gritted teeth, then turned and walked toward the others scattered around the lobby.
“Everyone, please gather. Next, I’ll present all the clues I’ve discovered during my investigation. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found the culprit, so the identity of the killer will be revealed by this Miss Everly, who claims to be a detective.”
“That girl? She doesn’t look like it…”
“Honestly, she looks more suited to entering a beauty pageant than being a detective…”
Amid whispers and murmurs, everyone followed Lucas’s instructions and gathered to sit on the sofas by the fireplace.
Everly was already used to being treated like a re “pretty face.” She paid no mind to the people whispering behind her back and remained seated calmly, her expression unchanged.
Lucas then took out his notebook and, just as he had said, began sharing the information he had gathered during his investigation.
“The deceased, Samuel Bruce, was a professor of botany at Fortas University and an expert in the artificial cultivation of cushion plants. At approximately 18:25 yesterday evening, he entered his bedroom. During that ti, for reasons such as working on a lecture draft, he had his four students enter the room one after another.”
“At 19:45, Fatima was the last to leave his bedroom. After that, no one saw the professor co out, nor did anyone witness anyone else entering. It wasn’t until around 11:45 this morning that two students brought food to Samuel. When they unlocked the door, they unexpectedly discovered his body.”
“Based on the on-site investigation, the cause of death is suspected to be excessive blood loss. The fatal wound was located in the abdon. The edges of the wound were clean and straight, clearly a cut, with visible contraction and curling along the margins, accompanied by a large amount of blood spatter—indicating it was inflicted while he was still alive. In other words, the victim’s abdon was cut open while he was conscious, his internal organs removed, and he died in agony from massive blood loss…”
Lucas clearly hadn’t given up on finding the killer. As he spoke, his hawk-like sharp gaze swept back and forth across the faces of the people around him.
Everly didn’t know about the others, but as for her and Old John’s group of four, their expressions were extrely calm—after all, compared to the various cases they had experienced, this kind of death was nothing out of the ordinary.
When Lucas’s gaze passed over her, Everly’s mischievous side kicked in. Her eyes curved slightly as she gave him a smile.
“…” Lucas’s voice faltered for a mont. As if he had seen sothing unpleasant, he quickly shifted his gaze away from Everly. It was obvious to the naked eye that his expression had grown even more sullen.
“…The murderer’s thod of extracting the organs is quite unskilled. There are many scratches along the edges of the wound, indicating a lack of anatomical knowledge.”
“As for why the killer insisted on removing the internal organs, I believe there are two possibilities. First, the killer had a conflict with the victim and removed the organs as an act of venting rage. Second, the killer is a cult believer, and displaying the organs by the window may carry so religious symbolism. For the record, I personally lean toward the first explanation, because the killer also cut off and damaged the victim’s genitalia. In homicide cases, this often indicates a form of punishnt—the killer may have been sexually assaulted by Samuel.”
“In any case, regardless of the killer’s intent, there is one thing he did accomplish: by removing the organs and opening the window to freeze the body, the postmortem rigidity and body temperature beca difficult to determine. Therefore, based on the formation of livor mortis on the back, I can only roughly estimate the ti of death to be between 10 p.m. last night and 10 a.m. this morning.”
Lucas then went on to share the information he had obtained during his earlier private questioning.
According to the statents, between 10 p.m. last night and 6 a.m. this morning, no one left their rooms—except for Joshua, the inn owner, who went out for about five minutes at midnight to extinguish the boiler. Everyone else claid they had stayed in their rooms the entire ti.
At 6 a.m., the innkeeper couple woke up due to their usual routine and were the first to co out to prepare breakfast and light the fireplace, although their activity was limited to the first floor and they did not go upstairs.
After 6:10 a.m., people gradually began waking up and going downstairs for breakfast.
From 6 a.m. until the body was discovered at 11:45 a.m., everyone’s movents were quite varied. So went to the public restroom at the end of the first-floor corridor, so returned to their rooms to put on more clothes, and so went back upstairs to charge their phones because they had run out of battery. Since the body had not yet been discovered, no one paid special attention to who went where and when. The only confird fact was that Daniel, Fatima, Ella, Rebecca, and Lucas himself had all gone back upstairs at so point during the morning.
“Next are so clues I personally found that may help identify the killer.”
“First, the murder weapon. No weapon was found at the scene, which ans the killer took it with them. Judging from the wound, it should be a sharp blade under 6 inches in length with a pointed tip. Ms. Layla told that a boning knife went missing from the kitchen, and its size and shape match perfectly. That knife was still there last night, so it is very likely the murder weapon, aning the killer probably went to the kitchen.”
“Second, the door. When the body was discovered, Room 205 was closed. After Ella used a keycard to open it, she found that the professor had already been killed. From start to finish, there were no signs of forced entry, and the snow layer on the exterior wall remained intact, making it unlikely the killer entered through the window. This suggests the killer entered the room through normal ans.”
This points to two possibilities: first, the killer knew the victim, or was allowed in by him voluntarily; second, the killer obtained a keycard and entered directly.
“As far as I know, after guests check in, the inn provides two room keycards. One was inserted into the card slot behind the door in Professor Samuel’s room, and the other was given to student Ella last night. Apart from these two, the front desk also keeps a master key, which is locked in a drawer, with the drawer key placed under a decorative object at the counter. Two days ago, because Jones and Hilda accidentally locked their keycard inside their room, they borrowed the master key. Therefore, in theory, the professor’s four students, the innkeepers, the front desk staff, Jones, and Hilda all could have entered the professor’s room and killed him…”
“It has nothing to do with us! We don’t even know him, and we have no motive to kill him. In cases like this, it’s usually soone the victim knew!” Jones with the red hair imdiately interrupted.
Following Jones, the innkeeper couple also stated that they had no grievances with the professor and absolutely no reason to kill him.
“Are you saying the professor was killed by us? Ridiculous. We were all hoping to participate in more research projects under his guidance. Why would we ever harm him?”
Fatima let out a cold laugh and shot back at Jones without backing down.
Jones showed no fear either. “Why not? The closer you are, the easier it is to build up resentnt. That’s how it always goes in TV shows. Like that Ella—who knows what the professor was doing when he gave her the keycard? If you ask , maybe that pig-like professor did sothing to her in secret, and she couldn’t take it anymore, so she killed him in the middle of the night!”
Jones had only spoken casually, but Ella suddenly reacted as if struck in a sensitive spot.
Ever since seeing the professor’s corpse, she had been in a dazed state, her ntal condition clearly close to breaking down. At Jones’s words, it was as if she could no longer endure it. The girl covered her ears and let out a sharp scream, then crouched down on the spot, curling up as she began to sob uncontrollably.
Her reaction was unmistakably that of soone who had experienced sothing.
The others imdiately exchanged strange looks.
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