Lin Xiaolei suddenly thought of a possibility.
“Could he have accidentally fallen into a sinkhole while running away? Or maybe he slipped into a rock crevice in the mountains, which is why he hasn't been found?”
His meaning was clear: the younger brother was already dead.
“Wait!”
Another thought struck Lin Xiaolei.
“Hey, do you think the ghost here—I mean, the specter—could be the younger brother himself?”
“Maybe the older brother and the butler aren't staying because they want to, but because they're trapped here and can't leave!”
The more he spoke, the more he felt his theory was correct.
“No wonder they said they were looking for him, yet didn't show any anxiety or urgency.”
“It's because there's no need to look for him at all—they already know he's dead!”
Hearing this, the old Daoist sighed and shook his head.
“What an idiot!”
Lin Xiaolei looked at him. “Why are you calling me names? Am I wrong?”
The old Daoist said helplessly, “Let me ask you, how many photos of the two brothers did you see in this old residence?”
Lin Xiaolei recalled carefully.
“Uh... one in the dining room, and I think there was one in the front hall, but I didn't look closely.”
“Let's just talk about the one in the dining room. Aside from noticing that Mr. Yao's brother was on his deathbed, did you notice anything else?”
Lin Xiaolei knit his brows in deep thought. He recalled the details before speaking somewhat hesitantly.
“A specter... is hiding in the photo?”
Hearing this, the old Daoist raised his hand and punched him!
“Are you stupid?”
Lin Xiaolei clutched his head and quickly ran to the other side of the room.
“Old man, I'm your actual grandson! If you break me, who's going to inherit your legacy?”
The old Daoist was thoroughly exasperated, but he managed to calm himself down.
“I was telling you to look at the atmosphere of the photo. When the two brothers took that photo, they were clearly very relaxed, both in their expressions and their posture.”
“In other words, their close relationship is genuine!”
Lin Xiaolei finally realized he had gone off on a tangent.
“Then what are you trying to say?”
“Are you suggesting that Mr. Yao's brother truly wanted to return to his hometown on his own, and then committed suicide because he didn't want his older brother to keep running himself ragged and wasting his life for him?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, the room fell dead silent.
They looked at each other, seeing the same conflicted expression on each other's faces.
How should they put it?
It actually... seemed quite possible.
While the grandfather and grandson were talking, Zuo Lin'an suddenly remembered the specter items he had set up earlier.
The consumable specter item, the Withered Leaf, had been placed in the vase in the "younger brother's" room.
He had almost forgotten about it.
However, it wasn't too late to remember now.
He quickly left the dining room, went to the younger brother's room, and pushed the door open.
Right away, he saw the vase he had previously placed on the table, along with the single branch inside, and most importantly, the leaf on it.
But when he picked up the vase, intending to take it away...
【Important Plot Item, Cannot Be Moved.】
A dungeon notification suddenly popped up before Zuo Lin'an's eyes. Even though it was clearly just an ordinary vase, he couldn't budge it in the slightest.
This...
He suddenly thought of his gold hairpin.
His specter body, which had been hiding in the cliff crevice all this time, instantly opened its eyes. It thrust its hand directly into its own abdomen, trying to pull the gold hairpin out, but failed.
The same dungeon notification appeared before him.
Only then did Zuo Lin'an confirm that the positions of these two specter items indeed could not be altered.
His gaze instantly darkened. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to the chat group.
【Zuo Lin'an: The specter items in my dungeon can't be moved. Why is that? Is it because the dungeon has upgraded to Two-Star difficulty?】
He waited a moment before someone replied.
It wasn't Bai Yuan, but Song Yangxia.
【Song Yangxia: Because there's a plot now.】
【Song Yangxia: Because of plot requirements, specter items must be placed in logical locations. Furthermore, they have to be set before the dungeon starts. Once the dungeon begins, they can't be moved.】
【Song Yangxia: Oh, right. Don't think about changing their locations the next time you open the dungeon just to hide them in extremely obscure places. That won't work. They must be placed in logical locations that fit the plot.】
【Zuo Lin'an: Thanks.】
【Song Yangxia: No problem.】
Bai Yuan happened to be busy with something, so it was finally his turn to show off a bit. It felt pretty good.
Zuo Lin'an put away his phone and stood before the table, quietly staring at the vase.
Specifically, he stared at the leaf hanging on the withered branch.
“Sigh...”
“What a pity...”
He had originally wanted to use these two Daoists to test the plot of his dungeon.
Moreover, he had just witnessed the conversation between the old Daoist and his grandson through his God's-eye view. Honestly, that kid Lin Xiaolei was actually quite sharp.
With just a few words, combined with Zuo Lin'an's attitude and behavior, the kid had managed to guess most of the truth.
It seemed the plot test was progressing perfectly.
But...
The fact that the specter items couldn't be moved had too great of an impact on him!
Especially this time, when the old Daoist had brought along so many paper puppets.
Two of them had been following him the entire time.
The old Daoist had surely noticed his attempt to take the vase just now, and yet... he simply couldn't remove it.
After all, the special effect he had set for the specter item 【Withered Leaf】 allowed a player to survive a lethal attack!
Although it would leave them in an extremely weakened state, they would be immune to attacks for the following three days.
In other words, if they obtained this specter item, one of them would highly likely clear the dungeon.
Zuo Lin'an checked the time. There were still ten minutes until seven o'clock in the evening.
Very well.
Time to act!
No matter what, he would kill them first.
As for the issue of specter items being immovable, he would think about it carefully after this dungeon run ended.
The specter body instantly vanished from the cliff crevice, rushing toward the old residence at top speed.
Meanwhile, inside the guest room.
The old Daoist and Lin Xiaolei were still discussing the brothers.
“Grandpa, do you think... the younger brother committed suicide? Or did Mr. Yao really have no intention of killing him?”
The old Daoist stroked his beard, then scratched his head.
“Sigh... What hasn't this old Daoist seen in all these decades?”
“Whether it's family, friendship, or romance, whether it's sharing hardships or betraying each other, I've seen it all more than once.”
“Just now in the dining room, Mr. Yao asked me to use my daily divination tomorrow to find his brother's location. If he was the killer, why would he need to know where his brother is?”
“If he met true Daoists like us who are adept at divination, he would do everything in his power to send us away instead of letting us stay.”
“Therefore, regardless of whether Mr. Yao wanted to kill his brother, he definitely wasn't the one who did it.”
Lin Xiaolei understood.
“Right, right, that makes sense. Then was it the butler who did it?”
“I remember now!”
“Earlier, the butler mentioned that the young master even quit his job for his brother. He seemed extremely loyal to Mr. Yao, so did he take it upon himself to...”
At this point, he made a throat-slitting gesture.
Rate on N.U.
