"My head hurts a bit, and I'm going upstairs to rest. If you have any questions, you can come find me at any time."
With that, the Little Boy turned and walked toward the stairs.
His steps were very slow and very light.
To be honest, his tone and demeanor were completely unlike what a twelve- or thirteen-year-old child should have.
Yet along the way, there had been far too many anomalies, and no one paid it much mind.
The first-floor lobby was not only spacious, but also completely empty.
There wasn't even a decent chair to be found.
This family was poor.
Liang Fei stepped onto the second floor, and Zhou Yue, the burly man behind him, immediately cried out in a hurried voice:
"Hey... young man, wait up."
Ever since they boarded the bus, he had been secretly observing Liang Fei.
This young man was frighteningly calm.
He caught up to Liang Fei in a few strides and whispered:
"Aren't you scared? I keep feeling like this place is gloomy."
"Scared?"
Liang Fei gave a bitter smile, feeling a flutter of panic in his heart.
"Do we have a choice?"
The woman who had treated the Mission like a joke was already dead.
They truly had no choice, at least not right now.
The others gathered on the floor below, watching the two of them, lacking the courage to follow upstairs.
Who knew what kind of even more terrifying thing might be waiting for them on the second floor?
The two walked into the master bedroom on the second floor, where the lighting was rather poor.
Inside... there was also a heavy smell of blood.
A dilapidated double bed, a turned-off black-and-white television, a bench about one meter twenty centimeters long, along with several crisscrossed wires and a blood-stained power strip.
Aside from these, there wasn't a single decent piece of furniture.
This reaffirmed Liang Fei's initial thought: this family was poor.
This self-built house seemed to have consumed all of the owner's savings.
Moreover, judging by the Little Boy's clothing, they were not a wealthy family.
Liang Fei's gaze swept across the room and stopped at the double bed on the left side of the entrance.
There were blood spatters on the edge of the bed and the wall...
"Young man, do you see anything?"
Zhou Yue asked nervously.
Liang Fei shook his head.
"You have the hint given by the Mission too, right?"
Zhou Yue nodded, and Liang Fei said in a low voice:
"Let's talk about it when we go back downstairs later."
Looking at the somewhat chaotic room, Liang Fei suddenly asked:
"Did you notice just now whether the front door on the first floor was undamaged?"
Zhou Yue had been in a state of high tension, and Liang Fei's sudden question startled him.
He took a deep breath before replying:
"Yeah, that door was just fine. Didn't the little brat open it for us earlier?"
"This place looks like it was ransacked."
Liang Fei pointed at a wooden cabinet by the bed. The drawer was half-open, and about half of the items inside were scattered on the floor.
"You mean the killer did it for money?"
Zhou Yue was stunned for a moment.
"But this family is so poor, who would come here to rob and kill?"
Liang Fei shook his head; he hadn't figured it out either.
With no signs of forced entry on the door, it was very likely an inside job.
If it was someone they knew, wouldn't they know how poor this family was?
It was a contradiction.
According to the clues provided by the Mission, this family of three consisted of a husband and wife who were murdered last night, and their only son who was injured and hospitalized.
Yet what about now?
Although the Little Boy's injuries had not fully healed, he had already been discharged.
Liang Fei vaguely felt something was amiss, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.
Leaving the room, he headed straight for the third floor.
The third floor had only a rooftop terrace, separated from the Back Mountain by just a single step.
Could the perpetrator have crossed over from the Back Mountain to the third floor?
And then sneaked into the second-floor master bedroom under the cover of night to commit murder?
Liang Fei looked around and found a pair of bloody gloves in the corner of the terrace.
"Young man, did you spot any problems?"
Zhou Yue followed behind, asking nervously.
Liang Fei withdrew his gaze and shook his head.
"I have some thoughts, but not many."
"Then what should we do?"
Zhou Yue's expression turned ugly. He glanced slightly up at the gloomy sky and couldn't help trembling all over again.
"The Mission requires us to find the murderer within seven days, and provide a clue every single day..."
"Let's go downstairs and take a look first."
Before Zhou Yue could finish, Liang Fei cut him off.
This Mission not only required a daily clue, but the clue had to be correct.
If the clue was wrong, the person who provided it would be killed.
Just like that woman.
"Well? Did you find any clues?"
As the two went down, Qin Kai, a middle-aged man wearing glasses, eagerly asked.
Liang Fei gave him a faint glance.
"There are six people here. Were you all just expecting me to find the clues by myself?"
As soon as he said this, the others looked exceptionally awkward.
Even in the first-floor lobby, they felt like they were sitting on pins and needles.
Looking at this dilapidated house, they felt a persistent sense of unease; how could they possibly dare to walk around everywhere like Liang Fei?
"We're neither police nor detectives. Not only do we have to find the murderer, but we also have to take care of that kid upstairs."
"Exactly."
"What are we going to do? I don't want to die."
"..."
"Alright."
Seeing the two women huddled together, tears welling up in their eyes, Liang Fei felt his head ache fiercely.
You couldn't blame them for being cowardly.
Normal people in real life, having witnessed a living person being bludgeoned to death right before their eyes and then eaten—
and then seeing a bus drive itself away without a driver—would probably carry psychological shadows for a very long time.
"Let's focus on figuring out how to find the killer first."
A young man with ordinary looks but well-dressed stepped forward and said.
His name was Lu Ming.
"The Little Boy upstairs is the only witness. He just said himself that if we have any questions, we can go straight to him."
The group exchanged glances. Seeing that no one spoke, Lu Ming tentatively asked:
"Should we go ask him?"
The group went upstairs one by one. The Little Boy's room was right next to the master bedroom on the second floor.
Compared to the master bedroom, the Little Boy's room was even more crude.
The only good thing was that this room lacked the heavy smell of blood.
To everyone's surprise, however, the Little Boy who had just opened the door for them and invited them in was now lying motionless on the bed.
Lu Ming called out to him a few times, but the Little Boy remained completely unresponsive.
Seeing this scene, the group felt even more uneasy.
"What's going on? Wasn't he fine just a moment ago?"
Lu Ming said in astonishment:
"He isn't dead, is he?"
Liang Fei's expression shifted slightly. He walked to the Little Boy's side and looked closely, spotting a faint breath, which finally made him relax.
"He's not dead."
Yet even though he wasn't dead, no matter how much the group called out to him, he showed no reaction at all.
That was the most anomalous part.
"Dammit, he's the only witness, and now that he's lying here looking no different from a corpse, how are we supposed to get any clues out of him?"
Zhou Yue's expression was exceedingly ugly.