chapter 9

The twelve players quickly finished introducing themselves.

In this world, there were eight men and four women.

Xia Zeqin was the Young Master. Qin Nan ranked second. Third Young Master was a male player from Xia Zeqin’s team. Fourth Young Master was the middle-aged man from the later two-person team. Lin Junruo was the Eldest Miss. Xia Zeqin’s female companion was the Second Miss. Aside from the children of this household, Jian Fan’s identity was the resident physician, Zheng Jueming was the accountant, Xu Tian was the Young Madam, and Mu Xin was the Third Young Madam. The boy from the two-person team was a distant nephew. As for the last remaining player-also from Xia Zeqin’s team-his identity was the master’s younger brother.

“Second Young Master’s still single?” After everyone finished, Lin Junruo cracked a joke.

Qin Nan shrugged helplessly. “That’s why my relationship with him really is terrible.”

A sudden scream came from outside, cutting their conversation short.

“Let’s go take a look.” Xia Zeqin stood up first. When he moved, the woman beside him rose as well. The two of them led the way, and the other players got up one after another and followed.

Jian Fan still lagged behind at the very end. Qin Nan deliberately slowed down to walk with him.

Jian Fan seemed a little surprised. “You’re not worried I’m the murderer?”

“What you need is a Long-term Partner,” Qin Nan replied. Clearing one stage only meant surviving a little longer. He believed Jian Fan’s goal matched his-to stay alive and leave the Realm of Death. They both needed a Partner they could trust, someone capable.

Maybe, in some world, they would end up on opposing sides for a time. But you couldn’t only focus on what was right in front of you. Losing a reliable Partner meant losing a lot of advantages in the worlds to come. They were in a game and had to follow its rules, but the ultimate goal was to clear the game-not to slaughter each other according to the rules and sacrifice their own Partner.

Of course, given the relationship between Qin Nan and Jian Fan right now, complete trust was still impossible.

Because of Qin Nan’s words, Jian Fan gave him an extra look.

“Thinking I’m pretty dependable?” Qin Nan raised his brows.

Jian Fan’s face filled with blatant disgust.

Qin Nan paused, then made a gesture of zipping his lips. He never should’ve gone looking for trouble-joking with someone this dull was basically asking to die.

The group of players arrived at the manor’s main courtyard. They soon discovered a corpse lying in the main room.

The dead man was middle-aged, dressed in expensive clothes-clearly their so-called father. He lay on his back on the floor, eyes wide open, as if he couldn’t rest in peace. Beneath him was a pool of blood. By some coincidence, the blood had gathered into a pattern; paired with the color of the floor, it formed a perfect Taiji Diagram.

There was also a middle-aged man at the crime scene-the household Steward. The scream just now had come from him.

“I came to call on the master for the meal. The moment I walked in, I saw him lying on the floor,” the Steward NPC explained briefly, then added, “Young Masters and misses, you must find the murderer and avenge the master!”

According to the rules of a Murder Mystery Game, they had to identify the killer. The NPC’s words were clearly another reminder of that.

But those were the Murder Mystery Game’s rules-not necessarily the rules of this game world. They needed to proceed according to the rules, but if they wanted to clear the stage, they would probably have to look for clues during the process.

As of now, Qin Nan had nothing.

“There are twelve of us. How about we split into groups of three and search for clues separately?” Among them, Xu Tian-the New Player-spoke up first. Qin Nan even saw a hint of eager excitement on her face.
Was she just unusually good at accepting things, or did she not understand her situation at all?

Lin Junruo nodded. “I agree with her. Three people can supervise each other and keep the killer from messing with anything.”

“I have no objections,” Xia Zeqin said.

Xu Tian’s suggestion was quickly approved by everyone.

There were twelve of them. In groups of three, they could make four teams. Xia Zeqin was paired with his female companion, and Xu Tian proactively asked to join them. Qin Nan and Jian Fan were together, and Lin Junruo volunteered to join their team. Zheng Jueming, Mu Xin, and her young distant nephew formed one team, and the remaining three made up the last.

Qin Nan chose to stay at the scene to examine the crime scene itself. Jian Fan didn’t object. Xia Zeqin’s team and Zheng Jueming’s team went to check the twelve people’s rooms, while the other team handled a preliminary sweep of the entire courtyard.

With the tasks assigned, the Players quickly got into gear.

Qin Nan was the first to examine the victim’s body.

There were two clearly visible wounds. The first was on the forehead, likely caused by being struck with a heavy object. A lot of blood had flowed from the head, soaking half the victim’s face. The second wound was in the chest-there was still a dagger lodged there, with obvious bloodstains around it.

“Give me a hand?” Qin Nan half-crouched in front of the corpse and looked up at Jian Fan.

Jian Fan gave a low grunt of acknowledgment, crouched down, and asked, “How do you want to do this?”

“Strip him,” Qin Nan replied. Then he looked at Lin Junruo. “If you’re uncomfortable with it, you can step aside.” Normally in games the body would be a dummy, and stripping it for an inspection wouldn’t be a problem. But this was a real corpse-a male corpse.

Lin Junruo shook her head. “No need.”

Qin Nan didn’t press her. He and Jian Fan quickly stripped the victim down to his undergarments.

With the clothes off, the condition of the body became even clearer. Besides the two wounds visible to the naked eye, the victim was covered in scars of varying depths-some old, some relatively fresh.

The victim was a merchant by trade. Those scars made Qin Nan take extra note.

After finishing the front, Qin Nan rolled the body over. The moment he saw the back, he visibly froze.

There was a huge tattoo across the victim’s back, almost covering it entirely. The design was strange: a stark black-and-white Taiji Diagram.

A Taiji Diagram on his back, and even in death he was lying in a Taiji Diagram.

“T-That’s… a Taiji Diagram?” Lin Junruo was dumbfounded.

“Within Change there is the Taiji; from Taiji comes the Two Forms; from the Two Forms come the Four Images; from the Four Images come the Eight Trigrams,” Jian Fan suddenly recited.

Lin Junruo looked even more confused. “What does that mean?”

Qin Nan glanced at Jian Fan. “You know the I Ching?”

“I’ve read it. Don’t understand it,” Jian Fan said, then lifted his eyes to Qin Nan. “Do you?”

Qin Nan shook his head. “These days, there probably aren’t many people who do.” As he spoke, he kept his gaze on the victim. “A tattoo could just mean he’s into this stuff. But for the blood to just happen to form a Taiji Diagram too? That’s not a coincidence. There’s something going on here.”

Jian Fan didn’t respond. His eyes dropped to the victim’s crotch. “Those too?”

Qin Nan nodded. “Of course.”

Lin Junruo’s eyes widened. She stared blankly for a moment-then when she saw the two of them really starting to pull down the victim’s underpants, she hurriedly turned her back.

She wasn’t afraid of corpses. She was afraid of seeing something she could never unsee.

“Holy-!” Qin Nan couldn’t help it and blurted out a curse.

Lin Junruo jumped at the shout and reflexively turned around to see what happened. One look-and she froze in place.

The victim had been castrated.