chapter 20

As Qin Nan asked, he kept a close eye on the maid’s expression.

“Did someone go to the Young Master’s courtyard and say the Master wanted him over to talk?” Qin Nan pressed.

Mu Xin glanced at Qin Nan in mild surprise, then dropped into thought.

No NPC had mentioned this line before. For Qin Nan to bring it up, he had to have a reason. Mu Xin was already trying to deduce what Qin Nan must have experienced the previous night.

Qin Nan, of course, knew Mu Xin existed.

He’d already been seen by the old woman yesterday. That would come out sooner or later in this round of evidence gathering. Since it couldn’t be hidden, there was no point trying. Besides, if he could win Mu Xin’s trust and support, his chances of not being voted as the culprit would go way up.

The maid nodded. “Someone did come.”

“Do you remember about what time it was?” Qin Nan kept going.

From his experience last night, the only lead he’d really gotten was the Young Master. If he could get something out of the maid, he could at least pin down Xia Zeqin’s movements.

Not getting along with Xia Zeqin was one thing; but in the game, he couldn’t drag his personal feelings in. If he could eliminate one person’s suspicion, that was already a win.

The maid thought for a moment, then answered right away, “At the sixth quarter of You hour.”

Qin Nan’s face froze for a second.

Why did the Murder Mystery Game have to be set in ancient times again?

He paused for quite a while, mentally forcing “sixth quarter of You” into a 24-hour format. It should be around seven-thirty in the evening.

“Did the Young Master go?” Qin Nan asked.

The maid shot him a somewhat puzzled look. “This servant already said just now, the Young Master stayed in his study first, and only went back to rest very late. He didn’t step outside the courtyard even once, so of course he didn’t go see the Master.”

Qin Nan hesitated, then continued, “Then do you know how the Young Master replied to the people from the Master’s side?”

The maid shook her head. “I don’t serve close to him, so I didn’t hear. But the Young Master went into the study right after the Master’s people left.”

A possibility flashed through Qin Nan’s mind.

“After the Young Master went into the study, was anyone else serving inside? And are you sure you saw the Young Master in the study the whole time?”

“The Young Master didn’t close the study door. He was sitting inside, and we could see him whenever we walked by,” the maid answered. Then she gave Qin Nan’s head a slightly suspicious look.

Qin Nan suddenly got what that look meant.

She was wondering if there was something wrong with his brain.

For an NPC, there was really no need to act this vividly.

He pushed that aside and suddenly thought of the Young Mistress, so he asked, “What about the Young Mistress?”

“Once the Young Mistress went back to her room to rest, we servants naturally had to leave so we wouldn’t disturb her. But if the Young Mistress wasn’t in her own room, where could she be?” The maid sounded a little speechless now, and the way she looked at Qin Nan grew even stranger.

Qin Nan, however, felt he might have just stumbled onto an important clue.

At that time, there was no way to be sure the Young Mistress had actually been in her room.

He strained to recall the two figures he’d seen last night. The victim hadn’t been particularly tall, but was taller than the other person. The Player assigned to the Young Mistress’s role was Xu Tian. Among the girls, Xu Tian counted as fairly tall, but compared to a man she was still a bit shorter. That matched the height and build he’d seen yesterday-

Qin Nan’s eyes brightened. The Young Mistress was very likely the person he’d seen last night.

In other words, the Young Mistress had put on the Young Master’s clothes and gone to meet the victim-and it was very likely she was the one who stabbed the victim, then fled the crime scene. What’s more, as the Young Mistress, she was also the person who could most easily get her hands on the Young Master’s clothes.
If that was the case, then Xia Zeqin probably wasn’t the killer. He had a clear alibi. Next was Xu Tian. As the First Young Madam, she seemed to have some grudges with the deceased, but she should only be the one who stabbed him, not the one who actually killed him.

Being able to rule out two suspects at once was undoubtedly a good thing.

Of course, all of this hinged on one premise-that the maid had told the truth.

Qin Nan asked a few more questions afterward, but this NPC was not someone who served at the master’s side, so there wasn’t much useful information to obtain. As for where the personal attendants were, Qin Nan couldn’t immediately find them. Besides, even if he did, in the Script, those people would correspond to the confidants of the First Young Master and First Young Madam. They might not be willing to provide any information.

Still, he could hold on to a bit of hope. Maybe the other Players were competent enough to pry out some clues.

Jian Fan was also conducting his own round of questioning.

On his side, there were two potentially useful NPCs.

One was a servant from the deceased’s courtyard.

“I once saw the Master and the Second Master arguing,” the servant said.

Jian Fan immediately realized this was a lead pointing toward the deceased’s younger brother.

“Do you remember when it was? And what they were talking about? How much did you hear?” Jian Fan asked.

The servant tried hard to recall. “It should’ve been seven or eight days ago. I just happened to pass by and caught a few words. The Master seemed to be shouting something about money, money. Actually, Second Master has always been asking the Master for money. Every once in a while the Master and Second Master would argue a bit, but most of the time it was just a small quarrel, and Second Master would coax the Master afterward. Only that time, it was really bad. I remember that after that day, Second Master left home in a rage and stayed out for two days before coming back.”

The deceased had made his fortune thanks to his wife. As the deceased’s own younger brother, the Second Master was clearly not well-off. After his elder brother struck it rich, he had been relying on the deceased’s money to get by.

His situation was somewhat similar to that of the distant nephew.

Both of them depended on the deceased’s money to live. Just as Qin Weiyi had said, once the deceased died, neither the distant nephew nor the younger brother would be able to get money out of the next family head. They wouldn’t logically be the ones who wanted the deceased dead-unless the deceased had some crucial leverage on them that forced them into a position where they had no choice but to kill him.

However, the two of them were almost the same type of case. A Script normally wouldn’t set up two situations so alike. There had to be some other inside story here that they still didn’t know.

The servant only vaguely knew that the two brothers had argued over money. Jian Fan couldn’t get anything more out of him.

The second person was the maid who served as the Eldest Miss’s close attendant.

When he heard that she was part of the Eldest Miss’s retinue, Jian Fan’s expression paused for a moment before he continued, “On the night of the murder, what was the Eldest Miss doing?”

“What else would the Eldest Miss be doing? The same things she does every day-reading a bit, picking out pretty clothes, dressing herself up, and then…” The maid trailed off and cast Jian Fan a meaningful look.

Jian Fan’s face remained expressionless.

“Doctor Jian, you’re not suspecting our young lady, are you?” the maid muttered, clearly displeased. “You don’t know who the Eldest Miss is always thinking about?”

Qin Nan had just finished his own round of questioning and was walking over with Mu Xin. They arrived just in time to hear that loaded line from the maid.