Song of the Wanderer Arc
Great Demon King 11
Xin Lan picked up the violin leaning against the wall and walked into the living room without looking at the person lying unconscious on the ground.
Molly’s lifeless body had disappeared at some point, leaving only a few traces of blood on the floor to prove that she had once existed.
Pi Tianzi had disappeared to an unknown location, while Ren Difei, Ke Xuguang, and Sheng Lifan each took their positions, vigilantly observing each other.
Xin Lan emerged calmly and quietly. Apart from a slightly reddened area on her face, there were no visible wounds.
“Are you okay?”
Ren Difei spoke up, asking what everyone else had heard too: the sounds of a fight coming from the stairs. But no one dared to go over.
Seeing the scene, it seemed that Xin Lan had won.
Ren Difei showed no surprise, but Ke Xuguang and Sheng Lifan, who were sitting there, appeared somewhat astonished when they saw Xin Lan coming out.
After all, Qi Haolin seemed quite strong, and the commotion from earlier was quite intense. They didn’t expect him to be beaten down by a woman.
However, they couldn’t help but shiver as they remembered Pi Tianzi, who had just started killing without hesitation a couple of minutes ago.
“What do you think?”
Xin Lan raised an eyebrow, the obvious fact being that she was unharmed.
There have been plenty of people who wanted to kill her, and Qi Haolin was nothing special.
“Did you take care of him?”
Ke Xuguang inquired after a moment of silence.
On the second floor, only five out of seven people can survive, and one person has already died. If one more person dies, the remaining five can temporarily find the key in peace.
“Don’t target him; his life is now in my hands. You all rely on your own abilities.”
“Why? Weren’t you just fighting with him?”
Sheng Lifan couldn’t understand why Xin Lan spared Qi Haolin’s life when they were about to eliminate one more person. If Xin Lan protected Qi Haolin, then one of them would have to die instead.
The root of all this trouble was clearly Qi Haolin, the driver, wasn’t it?
“It’s true that he should be the one eliminated. If it weren’t for him posting about this tour online, we wouldn’t have come to this place in the first place. And if he hadn’t failed to reach the destination in time, how could we have ended up inside this villa?”
Sheng Lifan pressed on.
“If you want to kill him, go ahead, but you’ll have to pass my test first.”
Xin Lan replied without arguing. The whole situation was Qi Haolin’s fault; it was a trap designed by him.
However, it wasn’t entirely his responsibility either. Nine-tenths of the blame was on Qi Haolin, and one-tenth was on themselves.
After all, fundamentally speaking, both sides were willing participants; Qi Haolin didn’t force them to come.
For these people, Qi Haolin deserved to die, and Xin Lan felt he deserved it even more, but the time for that hadn’t come yet.
Sheng Lifan fell silent, and Xin Lan had only come to inform them of this matter, to prevent anyone from taking action against Qi Haolin before she had a chance to deal with him.
She returned to the right side, and footsteps sounded behind her.
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“Um… Can I, um… follow you for now? I can help you find clues for the key.”
Ren Difei softly inquired, determined to survive for as long as possible, even though he knew only one person could eventually make it out alive.
The items he obtained weren’t combat-oriented like the others’, and he wasn’t skilled in fighting to begin with. Ke Xuguang, the strong bald man sitting in the living room, was formidable and robust. If Ren Difei tried to attack him, he would have no chance of defending himself.
“As you wish.”
Xin Lan replied and walked to the master bedroom, pushing the door open.
Zero Nine: Pi Tianzi is in the little girl’s bedroom.
Xin Lan sat on the bed in the bedroom, instructing Ren Difei to drag the seemingly half-dead Qi Haolin inside.
The peculiar smell in this room was the most prominent, and it seemed to be the point of ignition for the fire.
Were there any items in this room that could cause a fire?
Xin Lan looked around; there were no candles or anything similar, so it was very likely that someone intentionally set the fire.
She gazed at the wedding photo with a smudged face. In the previous haze, she couldn’t clearly see the man in the wedding photo, but now, it was evident that the man in that photo was not the same person as the one they found in the hidden photo album.
Could it be that the little girl’s mother remarried, taking her daughter with her?
The hidden photo was actually of the original family of three, and then the mother remarried, which would explain the discrepancies in the photo album and wedding pictures. It would also account for the sudden change in the little girl’s diary and sketchbook. However, if that were the case, how could the fast food on the dining table and the dishes in the kitchen be explained?
Ren Difei put on his glasses, and just as he turned to face Xin Lan, she saw something strange.
On the glasses, there were a pair of blood-red pupils.
The visual effect was somewhat indescribable. Those eyes looked fierce, but Ren Difei’s expression was somewhat lifeless, which made for an odd combination.
“What’s wrong?”
Ren Difei nervously inquired as he noticed Xin Lan looking at him.
“Can you touch your glasses frame?”
Ren Difei, puzzled, touched the frame, and Xin Lan couldn’t help but feel like he was deliberately blinding himself.
He probably didn’t know that wearing these glasses would have such an effect; otherwise, he wouldn’t have looked so bewildered.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing, just that the visual effect is a bit subtle.”
Xin Lan replied with a nuanced expression.
Ren Difei lowered his hand, feeling that asking further might not lead to anything good, so he decided to drop the subject.
The world he saw through the glasses was completely different from what he had seen just a moment ago.
This place was a burned-down ruin, and Ren Difei could even feel the heat from the flames and the unpleasant smell in the air.
He walked to the doorway, crouched down, and sniffed.
Xin Lan stood there, observing his actions, while Qi Haolin on the ground seemed to be recovering, emitting a low groan.
Qi Haolin propped himself up and sat up, still feeling a bit dizzy in the head.
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When he saw Xin Lan standing there with a somewhat ambiguous smile, the pain from his wounds intensified.
He moved his lips, wanting to call out Xin Lan’s name, but immediately restrained himself under her piercing gaze.
“Aren’t you going to kill me?”
His voice was hoarse, and his once arrogant face now looked somewhat dejected.
Qi Haolin’s question intrigued Yu Wan Yan and Miss Green Hat, who were nearby.
“I’m already eager to let the ghosts he summoned backfire on him. You’re prey despised him, no? Why doesn’t she make a move? Instead, she even declared that she’ll protect him?”
At first, Zhen Zhen thought that during the time she spent under the stairs, her prey would have been eliminated. However, she didn’t expect that the person not only didn’t finish the job but actually walked out and claimed to be protected by someone else. It was simply incomprehensible.
“I have no idea.”
Yu Wan Yan shrugged, as long as Xin Lan was happy, it didn’t matter to her.
“I won’t kill you.”
Qi Haolin was taken aback by her words.
“Not killing, for now.”
Qi Haolin said with a restrained expression, clenching his fists quietly.
Xin Lan saw his reaction and sneered inwardly.
She wasn’t afraid of his tricks; if he had the ability, he could do whatever he wanted.
If he gave up and didn’t resist, then he wouldn’t be Qi Haolin anymore.
He dare torture the original host to death with each cut, and she dare step on him, one step at a time, until he lost all hope.
When Ren Difei saw that Qi Haolin had woken up, he didn’t move.
“Don’t mind him, you keep going.”
Xin Lan said, raising her chin. Yu Wan Yan had previously told her about the function of Ren Difei’s glasses—they weren’t very effective in a fight, but they should be quite useful for finding the key.
Qi Haolin looked at the red pupils appearing on Ren Difei’s glasses, his expression also somewhat indescribable.
The eyeballs weren’t aligned with Ren Difei’s own eyes; instead, they seemed to be attached to the glasses, making it impossible to see Ren Difei’s eyes but only those red eyes, resembling evil spirits, rotating on the glasses.
Ren Difei had already searched the entire room, including the second bedroom converted into a cloakroom.
“The fire was severe in here too; it burned all the clothes.”
Ren Difei said, frowning, as he came out and looked towards the window.
“The fire was severe here as well; the curtains have been burnt.”
Ren Difei stood at the doorway, looked outside, and then withdrew his gaze.
“This should be the point of ignition. I just checked outside, and it’s not severe at all. It didn’t even spread to the dining area.”
“So someone intentionally set the fire here, but there aren’t any combustible materials around. I think we need to figure out one thing: whether the only person who died in this fire was the little girl or the entire family of three.”
Including the other man in the wedding photo.
“Earlier, you also noticed that the face in the wedding photo wasn’t smudged.”
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Xin Lan nodded in agreement.
“I think it’s possible that the little girl’s mother remarried another man but still had feelings for her ex-husband. That’s why she hid a photo of the three of them in the living room album. Now, with the current husband not often at home, only the mother and the little girl are left in the house. From the scene we observed, we could see that the mother was neglectful towards the little girl. When the girl wanted to play with her mother, the mother was too busy to spend time with her. Of course, we can’t entirely rule out work-related reasons, but based on my intuition, it seems less likely.”
He took off his glasses as he continued.
As an 18th-tier entertainment journalist and paparazzo, he was very sensitive to certain situations. The way the woman dressed so attractively indicated she was either going on a date or going shopping with her friends.
Ren Difei glanced at Xin Lan, seeing that she didn’t object and continued speaking.
“From the little girl’s reactions, we can tell that her mother has done this leaving-the-child-at-home thing before. The little girl must have developed feelings of resentment or disappointment towards her mother, otherwise, she wouldn’t have acted out by throwing toys or expressing her displeasure on the wedding photo by painting on it.”
“As for the unfinished fast food on the dining table and the food in the kitchen, before leaving, the little girl’s mother probably told her that if she got hungry, she could order takeout. This implies that the mother doesn’t take responsibility for the little girl’s food when she goes out to play. So, the leftover fast food was probably the little girl’s own choice, and the uncooked dish might have been intended by her mother to make a delicious meal in the evening, but she left halfway through, likely to go out.”
Ren Difei concluded, organizing the clues. It seemed like the most logical deduction, and there didn’t appear to be any inconsistencies so far.
However, Xin Lan still felt that something was amiss, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“The little girl’s death seems certain, but did only she die?”
Xin Lan looked at the smudged wedding photo, pondering thoughtfully.