The deduction failed... The notification in my ears felt like a bucket of ice water poured over the three of them. Even the two Saints and one Ruler, who had seen their share of storms, felt a sense of "something terrible is about to happen" at that moment.
Zhao Cheng-huang's face turned pale instantly. A failed deduction meant that Guan Ya, Sun Miao-miao, Tianxia Guihuo, and Hongjige would all die.
These were all his closest partners, his childhood sweetheart, and the connections he would rely on for future development.
Zhang Yuanqing's expression froze, and he was completely stunned. The "incorrect deduction" given by the notification almost caused his Dao Heart to collapse. All his reasoning and analysis were overturned, and everything was wrong.
He couldn't bear the outcome of a failed deduction. Guan Ya, Sun Miao-miao, Tianxia Guihuo, and even Hongjige, were his irreplaceable brothers and loved ones.
No amount of money could fix this!
In the face of the immense emotional impact, his brain temporarily lost its ability to think, leaving only one thought: Impossible!
"Sigh..." A huge sigh echoed in the room.
Just as Zhang Yuanqing and Zhao Cheng-huang were sinking into despair, Zhai Cai sighed, raised his left hand high, his face solemn and serious, without a trace of his usual cynicism, and solemnly declared, "I announce that this deduction is invalid!"
As his words fell, the notification sounded again:
［Exorcist Daniel used the Judgement skill. This deduction is invalid! Daniel will die within three seconds.］
Zhang Yuanqing and Zhao Cheng-huang, who were already in despair, suddenly saw a glimmer of hope in their eyes.
Hearing the notification, Zhai Cai breathed a sigh of relief, looked at Zhang Yuanqing, and shrugged his shoulders, "I brought you in here, and I will take you out. Kid, I'm betting my life on you! Try again, don't let me down."
He could also choose not to use the skill and leave the Castle Mystery painting, abandoning the companions who had already died in the case.
As a Ruler, he really didn't need to risk his life for a few Saints.
The life of a Saint was as different from that of a Ruler as a beggar was from the world's richest man.
But he was a Knight! A proud and upright Knight!
Zhang Yuanqing looked back at him and nodded silently.
Only then did Zhai Cai close his eyes, his body falling straight down, turning into a corpse.
This was the price of Judgement!
The room fell silent for a moment. Zhang Yuanqing sat on the edge of the bed as if he didn't have the strength to stand, staring blankly at the ground. Zhao Cheng-huang leaned against the wall, his face grim, without saying a word.
How could it not be David? How could it possibly not be David? The sound of questioning echoed repeatedly in Zhang Yuanqing's mind.
Fu Luan's revelation was "d", and the werewolf's vomit also proved that Ya·Lans had been poisoned with a deadly poison that even a werewolf couldn't withstand.
And a bottle of poison was found in David's room. Only his room had poison.
Based on the results of the crime scene investigation, it was almost certain that Ya·Lans died from poisoning, and the poisoning must have preceded the fatal wounds to her chest and abdomen.
This didn't require clues. This was the result given by the crime scene investigation.
Where did things go wrong? Where exactly did things go wrong? Did Fu Luan make a mistake? Did the results of the crime scene investigation make a mistake? Was the werewolf vomiting not because of poison? Zhang Yuanqing's thoughts were chaotic, a tangled mess.
Time passed quickly. After who knows how long, Zhao Cheng-huang said in a deep voice, "I think we should review the case instead of spacing out. If you're thinking, then ignore what I said. If you're wallowing in the frustration of a failed deduction, please think about the Knight's sacrifice."
Zhang Yuanqing finally came back to his senses from his contemplation and raised his eyes, "How long until the next nightfall? I didn't keep track of the time."
Zhao Cheng-huang said sternly, "Ten minutes!"
"Ten minutes..." Zhang Yuanqing rubbed his face hard. "Including tomorrow, we have forty minutes, but if I die tonight, the deduction will inevitably fail, so we actually only have ten minutes. We have to deduce the real killer within ten minutes, so that even if I die, you can still deduce the killer."
Zhao Cheng-huang, in a heavy mood, nodded. "Do you have any ideas?"
Zhang Yuanqing shook his head. "No."
Zhao Cheng-huang's expression became even more grim.
Zhang Yuanqing glanced at Zhai Cai's body and said, "Now it's just us. I can go big now!"
He raised his hand and touched his forehead with his fingertip. A milky white halo appeared, spreading like water, covering his entire face. Black paint outlined his eyes and eyebrows.
In Zhao Cheng-huang's eyes, Yuan Shi Tian Zun visibly became cunning and treacherous.
White Face!
Zhang Yuanqing looked at his teammate, a smirk on his lips, "It's easier to think in this state!"
The cunning and treacherous White Face was very good at thinking up conspiracies. Combined with the planning ability of the Astrology, it was a perfect match.
But Zhang Yuanqing rarely did this, because White Face was unscrupulous and had no bottom line. He would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. He was worried that he would do something unforgivable.
So, he usually used it as a "thinking" boost, to broaden his thinking. Someone who was good at devising conspiracies must also be good at seeing through them.
Zhang Yuanqing sat on the edge of the bed, crossed his legs, and said in a rather gloomy tone, "Let's start with the process of elimination. Among the six characters, the ones that can be completely eliminated are the Bigfoot Monroe and the family doctor David. That leaves four people, Dong Fashi, Sandy, Lenn, and Daniel, all of whom are suspects."
"If David isn't the killer, then all previous assumptions have to be overturned. We must have overlooked some crucial clue."
Zhao Cheng-huang said in a deep voice, "Sun Miao-miao's and Hongjige's rooms can't be opened!"
If any crucial clues were missing, they must be in those two rooms.
"We don't need to worry about the rooms we can't open. What we need to do is use the existing clues to deduce the real killer." Zhang Yuanqing smirked. "Among the four suspects, let's assume Lenn is the killer. What motive did he have for killing Ya·Lans? Can we deduce it from the existing clues?"
Zhao Cheng-huang said, "The cannibalistic nature of the full moon night..."
He glanced at the silver crucifix that had fallen on the ground and added, "Ya·Lans is a vampire."
"Then is Ya·Lans a vampire?"
"No!"
Zhang Yuanqing's smile widened. "So, we can eliminate Lenn."
Zhao Cheng-huang nodded, agreeing with his statement.
In Lenn's character clues, there was no ironclad evidence to support that he was the killer. Swallowing the Castle owner's organs happened after her death.
"Next is Daniel. This exorcist's plot line is connected to the werewolf Lenn. On the night of the full moon, he appeared in Ya·Lans's room and left a fatal wound on her chest, but Daniel's character clues have no motive for killing Ya·Lans. The chest wound was inflicted after Ya·Lans's death, so we can eliminate Daniel as the killer," Zhang Yuanqing said.
Zhao Cheng-huang "hmmmed" in agreement, "That leaves Sandy·Lans and Dong Fashi."
"Dong Fashi is the only one among the four with a motive for murder, and the murder weapon has also been found. He is the most suspicious. If David isn't the killer, then Dong Fashi has a more than 90% chance of being the killer."
Zhang Yuanqing crossed his legs and gently tapped the outside of his thigh with his hand. That treacherous and cunning face seemed to always wear a sneer. "So, if we assume that Dong Fashi is the killer, can we reconstruct the entire battle of the heavens?"
Without waiting for Zhao Cheng-huang to speak, he continued to analyze, "Dong Fashi had always coveted the witch beneath the Lans family's castle and wanted to refine her into a puppet or a spiritual servant. So, taking advantage of that night, he killed Ya·Lans with the ice pen..."
Speaking to here, he thought for a few seconds, and suddenly his eyes lit up. "The ice pen pierced the heart and froze the wound, so the blood didn't flow out in time, which is why the amount of blood in the chest was less than expected. That night happened to be the night of the full moon, and the werewolf was bloodthirsty and couldn't resist the bloodlust, so it regarded the castle owner as a hunting target. Its participation prevented Dong Fashi from making a finishing blow and forced him to leave the scene."
"The werewolf broke into Ya·Lans's room, discovered her dead, and happily began to devour her. The hunter Daniel heard the sound and drove away the werewolf."
"Then why did Daniel stab the castle owner?"
"There are too many possibilities. Maybe Ya·Lans, whose heart was frozen, hadn't completely died, and she still had a breath left after being devoured, so Daniel gave her a quick death, piercing her heart with a greatsword and destroying the ice pen."
"Barely reasonable..." Zhao Cheng-huang frowned. "I still feel like something's not right."
"What's not right?"
"Maybe it's just a preconceived notion. I remember you saying that Dong Fashi came to Lans Castle because he received a distress signal from Ya·Lans. Before that, the castle owner often heard cat noises in the middle of the night, which meant that the seal in the underground was loosening and the witch was gradually reviving. But according to your reasoning, Dong Fashi is the real mastermind, and it feels like the order is wrong."
Zhao Cheng-huang tried to think for a moment, and suddenly his eyebrows twitched. "Then why did the werewolf vomit? If the castle owner died from the ice pen, how could the werewolf have vomited out the meat it ate?"
Zhang Yuanqing didn't speak. That gloomy and cunning white face fell silent.
This was why his Dao Heart had collapsed before. Only if the castle owner died from poison could all the clues be connected.
If David wasn't the killer, many phenomena couldn't be explained, and the deduction would be stuck in a dead end.
After a brief silence, he said, "David isn't the killer. The failed deduction just now has proven that the castle owner didn't die from poisoning. The only other explanation for the werewolf's vomiting is that it was injured by the hunter Daniel at the time."
Zhao Cheng-huang seemed to have thought of something, and his expression straightened. "I have a way to determine if the castle owner died from poisoning."
With limited time, he strode out of the foul-smelling room, quickly rushed to the second floor, and returned to Ya·Lans's room.
Zhao Cheng-huang stopped in front of the corpse, bent down, twitched his nose, and vigorously sniffed the slightly rotting corpse.
Seeing this scene, Zhang Yuanqing, who was following behind, felt a stirring in his heart.
The werewolf's skill?
Zhao Cheng-huang sniffed for more than ten seconds, silently straightened up, walked out of the room, and then came to Tianxia Guihuo's room.
He bypassed Tianxia Guihuo's corpse, picked up the small pottery jar that was placed on the table, opened it, and vigorously sniffed it. Zhao Cheng-huang, holding the pottery jar, was silent. He maintained this posture for more than ten seconds, turned his head, and said in an extremely solemn and strange tone, "This case is more complicated than we thought... Ya·Lans's body has the smell of the liquid in the pottery jar. She was poisoned..."
"David isn't the killer!" The rare trace of fury flickered on Zhang Yuanqing's sinister and treacherous face. "If she was poisoned, we should have left here long ago. That poison is a death sentence once it enters the blood. An ordinary person would die on the spot after drinking it. Did David's poison and Dong Fashi's ice pen kill Ya·Lans at the same time? Did they plan it in advance?"
"Or did Dong Fashi steal David's poison and use the poison first and then the ice pen? The two characters have no connection at all. If that's the case, then Castle Mystery is just messing with us!"
"And if you use poison, you don't need the ice pen. It's pointless and redundant."
The discovery that Ya·Lans died from poisoning once again caused Zhang Yuanqing's emotions to become somewhat out of control.
At this time, Zhao Cheng-huang said with a strange expression, "Tianxia Guihuo is a vampire!"