Chapter 10 Are You Making Fun of Me?

"Wh-what are you looking at me for?" The moment Lu Xiaoyao realized Mu Chen was staring at her, she nearly fell to her knees in fright.

Mu Chen's gaze at that instant was truly terrifying, like a wild beast about to pounce.

Even the normally oblivious Lu Xiaoyao, after blurting out her question, had to admit she almost kneeled down and called him "Daddy."

Her outburst naturally drew everyone else's attention to Mu Chen, but they noticed nothing unusual.

The murderous intent Mu Chen had briefly displayed was extremely fleeting and precise, disappearing without a trace after Lu Xiaoyao's cry.

"I just think it's a miracle that a high-altitude window cleaner like you can afford a place here. You don't need to be so sentimental about others."

"Huh?"

Mu Chen's change of topic immediately piqued everyone's curiosity about Lu Xiaoyao.

Before Lu Xiaoyao could ask how Mu Chen knew, he explained that when he went to the building management to retrieve surveillance footage after Shu Chuan's death, he had inadvertently seen the property register of the building's residents.

Lu Xiaoyao's face was simply too hard to ignore; her ID photo featured a radiant smile.

"What's wrong? Is it a problem for a charming widow with lingering beauty to buy a house?"

"Pfft—"

Ming Mei, who had just returned from terrorizing the fake meal NPC by pulling out their hair, heard Lu Xiaoyao's declaration as she was taking a drink of water.

Unsurprisingly, she spat it out.

Lou Jia, playing the role of detective, was also holding a cup of hot tea, and like Ming Mei, was shocked into spraying it out by Lu Xiaoyao's words.

"Where are you a charming widow with lingering beauty?"

The blunt Charlie looked at Lu Xiaoyao with a complicated expression, finally saying, "You need to have some self-awareness."

"You bastard!"

Lu Xiaoyao looked at the others nodding in agreement, and felt utterly humiliated.

"That's just the character setting! The persona! The persona! Of course, I'm an invincible, beautiful girl! It's the character who's a charming widow with lingering beauty, okay?"

For a moment, everyone was at a loss for words.

Was the problem the first half of the sentence, or the second?

"You don't have to say it out loud, though. Saying it makes it even less believable." Charlie finished speaking, then turned his head, somewhat bewildered, and asked, "Hey, I wanted to ask, does everyone live in this building?"

"It seems so. I just rented an apartment here." Li Yuan, who hadn't mentioned where he lived, realized something was amiss and revealed that he also lived there.

It was then that everyone realized they were all residents of the building, and after sharing information, they discovered they all lived on the 24th floor.

"Is 24 some kind of lucky number?" Lu Xiaoyao noticed that not only did everyone live on the 24th floor, but she also cleaned windows on the 24th floor. The coincidence was striking.

"That's because only the 24th floor of the building has a sky garden extending outward. Judging by the location of Mr. Shu Chuan's death, in order to kill someone by throwing an object from a height, either the person has excellent knowledge of physics, is very strong, and can calculate the trajectory of a projectile in a short amount of time and throw it accurately, or they dropped it from outside the sky garden on the 24th floor. However, we can't rule out a delayed mechanism."

Lou Jia explained to everyone, revealing the information she had gathered, "So, this proves that all of you residents on the 24th floor are highly suspicious."

"Really? Isn't it possible for someone from another floor to come to the 24th floor and do it?"

"Because the police have already investigated the surveillance footage and found that no one from other floors was active on the 24th floor, and the surveillance on the 24th floor, especially around the sky garden, has been damaged since last night."

Lu Xiaoyao fell silent after Lou Jia said this.

She couldn't argue with that.

"If we're playing this like a murder mystery game, are we going to split up and search the players' rooms for evidence next?"

Clearly, some players were already treating the game as a murder mystery. Charlie was the first to suggest searching the rooms and looking for evidence.

Lu Xiaoyao immediately raised her hand in agreement.

In the end, Lou Jia divided them into groups based on raised hands: Mu Chen and Li Yuan were one group, Lu Xiaoyao and Charlie were another, and Lou Jia planned to investigate the case with the two officers.

The officers: I'm so grateful! (sarcastic)

The NPCs, who wanted to slack off and watch the show, never expected that players would actually drag them everywhere they went. Why did they have to do work?

Ming Mei wasn't busy. She sat in the lobby, watching all the players leave. Then, she saw the fake meal NPC, whom she had just punished, come in after making a special trip to a deserted place to tidy themself up.

When they looked up and saw Ming Mei sitting there alone, they couldn't help but tremble.

"You're here?"

"Yes… yes."

Slowly moving their unwilling feet, they sat down next to the sofa. The other person tremulously raised their eyelashes and looked at Ming Mei's face, which was identical to theirs, but whose personality was completely different. Their thoughts were in a complete mess.

Oh my god!

Was this the confidence of a high-level NPC?

They could give players attitude whenever they wanted, and beat up other NPCs whenever they wanted?

Thinking about themself, a newly employed NPC… sigh!

Life is hard!

Ming Mei clearly heard the other person sighing.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Nothing." The other person shook their head quickly. Ming Mei didn't ask anything more, and changed the subject. "What information did you provide in your lunch boxes?"

"A lot. I provided everything except for the real information."

Ming Mei: …

…

"You're saying—after you finish your lunch box, it tells you that only one of us is the murderer?"

Li Yuan looked at Lu Xiaoyao, whom he had coincidentally met in the restroom, with a complicated expression.

"Yes. My lunch box message said that one of us is the murderer. What about you? You ate two lunch boxes. You must know something, right?"

Li Yuan: …

Not only did he know, but the information he knew seemed to contradict Lu Xiaoyao's.

[There is more than one murderer among you.]

[Is what you think true?]

These two strange prompts had already left Li Yuan confused. After hearing Lu Xiaoyao's words, he became even more silent.

"Are you going to talk?"

Seeing that Li Yuan was pretending to be stupid after hearing her words, Lu Xiaoyao became angry.

"Hey, you, you're not planning to tell me, are you?"

"Yeah."

In the end, Li Yuan didn't plan to tell Lu Xiaoyao his lunch box information.

If he revealed contradictory information, with her brain circuit, she might think that he was the murderer deliberately spreading false information as a smokescreen.

"No, hey, you…" Lu Xiaoyao felt like she had been greatly deceived. "Can't you say anything? I won't take advantage of you. Just give me one sentence out of the two."

Lu Xiaoyao grabbed Li Yuan, not letting him leave. She wasn't someone who would take a loss.

After being pestered by Lu Xiaoyao to the point where he really couldn't take it anymore, Li Yuan added, "Is what you think true?"

Lu Xiaoyao: ??!

"Are you mocking me for foolishly revealing game information to you? You don't want to give me information, fine, but you're actually mocking me!"

Li Yuan: …