Chapter 112
Chapter 112
Wei Sen was still thinking when she caught a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of her eye, darting toward the back courtyard.
“Who is it?!” She got up and gave chase.
From the back, it did not look like anyone from the inn.
Soon, Wei Sen followed the person through the corridor and arrived beside the hot spring pool.
She looked around the hot spring, but there was no living person in sight. Only two bodies lay on the ground.
She stepped forward to check. The dead were none other than the twin sisters.
Both of their faces were intact, and both had died on the bank. The fatal injury was a slash across the neck from a sharp weapon, staining the surrounding snow a deep crimson.
Wei Sen reached out to test them. Both bodies were still warm.
They had not been dead for long.
The older sister’s posture in death was completely different from the younger sister’s. The older sister’s expression was one of shock, her hands spread open as she lay on the ground.
The younger sister’s face, however, was filled with unwillingness. Her right hand was stretched forward, her index finger still held in the position of writing. In the snow, she had left behind the character “2.”
Both bodies were lying on their backs, their feet facing each other. There were no drag marks on the ground.
They had not been killed by the Faceless Woman or the Skeleton Monster, but by… a third Eerie Entity, or an Order Keeper!
Had that figure just now deliberately lured her here to discover their bodies?
“Shu Yun! Shu Yue!”
Hearing the shout, Wei Sen turned back. Lao Wang came hurrying down the corridor, his face full of anxiety, with Huang Xinze close behind him.
The moment Lao Wang reached the hot spring and saw the scene, he froze in place, staring at the twin sisters’ bodies in disbelief.
“What… what happened…”
Only after waking had he seen the message Shu Yue had sent him half an hour earlier.
[Shu Yue: Uncle Wang, Shu Yun is acting a little strange. She went toward the hot spring!]
After seeing the message, he had rushed to the hot spring at once, but he was still one step too late.
“Sister Sen, how are you? You’re not hurt, are you?!” Huang Xinze looked at Wei Sen with concern.
“I’m fine,” Wei Sen said.
Lao Wang forced down his grief and stepped forward to examine the twins’ bodies.
“Time of death was within the last twenty minutes. A sharp-force injury to the neck completely severed the artery, causing death from hemorrhagic shock.”
As Lao Wang spoke, his voice choked slightly. He quietly turned his head aside, not letting them see his expression.
“Lao Wang, let me do it,” Huang Xinze said, stepping forward with a grave expression.
He had heard Lao Wang talk about the twins before.
They were also from Civilization City and had grown up in an orphanage. The two sisters had met Lao Wang the first time they entered an Eerie World Instance.
Back then, Lao Wang had accidentally violated the rules while saving someone and nearly died at the hands of an Eerie Entity. It was the two sisters who had used the only Anomalous Artifact they had to save him.
From that moment on, the sisters had followed him everywhere.
After returning to the Real World, Lao Wang had even gone out of his way to visit the sisters at the orphanage. As they came and went, the group grew increasingly close.
On top of that, they were about the same age as Lao Wang’s own daughter, so he took especially good care of them in the Instances.
He had promised the sisters that as long as he was alive, he would never let anything happen to them.
But now, he had broken that promise…
Huang Xinze stepped up beside the bodies. “Sorry to disturb you.”
With that, he carefully examined the fatal wounds on the sisters’ necks.
Wei Sen stood to one side, watching Huang Xinze’s every move. His autopsy technique looked exceptionally professional.
“What are you all doing here so early in the morning?” Xia Susu appeared in the corridor, strolling toward them.
“Don’t come over!” Huang Xinze called out in warning.
Xia Susu snorted coldly. “Just because you tell me not to come over, I’m supposed to listen? I’m coming over anyway!”
Xia Susu quickened her pace. The next second, she let out a shrill scream.
“Ah! Someone’s dead!”
Wei Sen frowned at her.
Was a death in the Eerie World really something that terrifying?
Xia Susu’s reaction was far too exaggerated…
“What happened here?” Xia Susu asked, still shaken as she came to the bodies.
Huang Xinze continued inspecting the wounds on the bodies. “I told you not to come over. Scared you, didn’t it?”
Only after saying that did Huang Xinze realize something strange. Last night, Xia Susu hadn’t found her roommate, yet now she was standing here perfectly fine…
Forget it. As long as she was alive. It was a human life, after all.
After a brief thought, Huang Xinze went back to examining the bodies.
Xia Susu frowned. “Why are you feeling around on other people’s corpses? They’re already dead, and you’re still trying to take advantage of them?!”
…
She should have just died last night.
Huang Xinze’s face darkened, and he said nothing.
A moment later, Huang Xinze stood up, walked to the edge of the hot spring pool, washed the blood from his hands, and said, “The neck wound is wedge-shaped, with clean edges. The wound cavity reaches as deep as the cervical vertebrae, with chop marks on the bone. It’s consistent with a cutting weapon of a certain weight and a relatively thick blade, such as an axe or a cleaver.
“The wound angle shows tailing, indicating a certain amount of inertia during the swing, which matches the characteristics of a heavy chopping weapon.”
“Wait, you said a heavy chopping weapon?!” Xia Susu looked at Wei Sen in shock and suspicion. “Doesn’t she have an axe?!”
At that, both Lao Wang and Huang Xinze turned to look at Wei Sen.
Theoretically speaking, she was indeed suspicious.
After all, she had been the first to appear at the crime scene, and the suspected murder weapon did match the axe she had been carrying yesterday.
Huang Xinze’s expression was exceptionally serious. He said solemnly, “Impossible. She has no motive to kill.”
Then Huang Xinze gave Xia Susu a warning look. “You can leave. This has nothing to do with you.”
It was rare for Wei Sen to see this serious side of Huang Xinze, and even rarer to see him pull a long face at a so-called “beauty.”
Wei Sen didn’t take Xia Susu’s slander to heart, but she did realize that this matter was not simple.
Lao Wang’s expression was grave. He had his own judgment as he looked at the writing in the snow. “Shu Yue left behind a message about the killer before she died.”
Xia Susu looked over in surprise. She stared at the writing on the ground for a long time before asking in confusion, “What does ‘2’ mean…”
Lao Wang and Huang Xinze also fell into thought.
“There’s little point in thinking about the killer right now. Catching the killer won’t help us clear the Instance,” Wei Sen said calmly.
She was only making an objective assessment, and she also didn’t want to waste her time over the deaths of people who had nothing to do with her.
But when Lao Wang heard this, his grief only deepened.
Even in the Eerie World, he would catch the killer who had murdered Shu Yun and Shu Yue and make him pay with his life!
Huang Xinze stepped forward. “Sister Sen, you go on ahead. I’ll stay here with Lao Wang.”
He knew Wei Sen meant no harm. She was an absolutely rational person, someone who would never act on emotion no matter the situation.
Indeed, catching the killer had no practical significance. But the twin sisters had been close to Lao Wang, and from Lao Wang’s perspective, he would definitely want to avenge them.
“Alright.” Wei Sen answered flatly and turned to leave, though inwardly she was puzzled. What was the purpose of that figure deliberately leading her here?
“I know!” Xia Susu suddenly said, glaring viciously at Wei Sen. “This ‘2’ is telling us the killer’s name has two characters!”
As soon as she said that, Lao Wang’s gaze darkened, and he looked at Wei Sen again.
Wei Sen also stopped in her tracks.
A two-character name?
Didn’t that point the suspicion right back at her?
Wei Sen had already found Xia Susu’s early appearance here highly unusual. Now, she seemed to understand why.
The deaths of the twin sisters might very well be connected to Xia Susu!
Could the person who had lured her to the hot spring pool just now have been Xia Susu?
But how had she disappeared from the hot spring pool, then quickly reappeared from the corridor?
And that figure’s back didn’t seem all that much like Xia Susu…
What puzzled Wei Sen even more was this: what benefit would Xia Susu gain from the sisters’ deaths?
Oh. To frame her?