Chapter 1

I rubbed my eyes and studied the wall. A message had just come in on my phone, setting off the flash.

In that brief instant, the light had struck something metal and reflected straight into my eyes.

Except the walls of the White Swan Hotel, where we were staying, were covered in textured plasterwork. There shouldn’t have been any metal there!

I hurried over and felt along the wall. My unhinged artist, Bashful Boy, watched me.

“What are you doing? Come inside. There are outsiders and bad guys out here.”

I made a shushing gesture and kept feeling around.

At last, I found a tiny pinhole camera in the wall. Judging by its angle, it was aimed directly at our door.

My heart lurched. If we hadn’t been put off by the smell of those snail noodles…

We would have taken that elevator. The person who’d lost his head…

A chill ran down my spine. This was murder. And not just murder… a locked-room murder…

I dug the camera out, threw it straight down from upstairs, then checked the wall again.

Only after making sure there was no more surveillance equipment did I pull Bashful Boy into the room.

He looked at me.

“So someone made that elevator stop on our floor, right?”

“They saw us come out and called it up to this floor.”

I nodded.

“Right. That man probably wasn’t the target. We were.”

“This building has sixty-eight floors. People are coming and going all the time.”

“Sure, it was two in the morning, but to know exactly when we were heading downstairs, they’d have to be watching us.”

I took out my phone and called Officer Liu.

“Officer Liu, your colleagues were just here investigating a case.”

“But I found a pinhole camera outside our room. I think there’s a good chance we were the intended targets.”

Officer Liu grunted.

“I’ll be right over.”

About twenty minutes later, Officer Liu arrived.

After Bashful Boy and I explained, Officer Liu agreed.

“Premeditated murder. And the killer must have some unusual method.”

“Any ideas?”

I thought for a moment.

“Let’s look at the elevator first. Honestly, it’s pretty creepy.”

“He was the only person inside. By the time it got downstairs, his head had fallen off.”

“Tell me a ghost did it and I’d believe you.”

Officer Liu laughed.

“Have some faith in science. There’s a trick to it. It’s a locked-room murder.”

I nodded and brought Bashful Boy along to inspect the elevator.

There was nothing suspicious inside. Anything that could take a person’s head off in one stroke ought to be very sharp.

But there wasn’t a knife, a sword, or anything of the kind. Nor was there any sign that someone else had been in the elevator.

Judging by the blood spray, anyone standing there would have blocked some of it.

Instead, the pattern looked completely natural.

Bashful Boy looked at me.

“I don’t think that’s it.”

Officer Liu and I turned to him. He pointed at the wall.

“Whatever it was, it was sharp, but not sharp enough to cut straight through on its own.”

“Look at the blood spray. There was clearly pressure on it first.”

“If it were a knife or a sword moving fast enough, the blood would spill out, not spurt.”

“So whatever this was, it compressed the artery before cutting it.”

Officer Liu nodded.

“That makes sense. I’ve seen something like that in cases where the blade wasn’t razor-sharp.”

“The first blow doesn’t break the artery. It squeezes it and blocks the flow.”

“Then a second blow lands in the same spot and the blood spurts out.”

Holy shit!

No wonder people called artists geniuses. In certain situations, this brat was frighteningly smart.

We began searching the elevator carefully. No weapon inside meant the weapon itself must be something that could be hidden.

But there’d only been one person in the elevator. How could he have hidden it?

A knife, even a blunt one, couldn’t just vanish into thin air.

Human neck bones were tough. A blade that could cut through them would have to be at least the size of a boning knife.

This was getting seriously weird. What the hell had happened?

While I was mulling it over, a booming voice rang out.

“Who’s trying to kill my Little Butterfly? Little Butterfly’s my best friend!”

My scalp prickled. Oh, shit.

Bashful Boy must have messaged that nutjob who claimed to be a Calabash Brother and wanted to kill me.

I ground my teeth. As if we didn’t have enough trouble!

This was the guy who’d wanted to murder me just because I’d jokingly called myself the Scorpion Demon.

Now I had nowhere to run.

I quickly turned away, hoping to keep out of Invincible Darling’s line of sight.

The next second, the elevator that had already stopped in front of me suddenly moved.

I watched, helpless, as someone shoved the whole elevator car upward with one hand.

A huge head poked through the gap between the elevator and the floor, a flower clenched between its teeth.

“Surprise, Baby!”