Chapter 24 Who Am I 23

Zhuo Xing was tortured until he saw stars, yet he hadn't managed to pry any clues out.

Only then did he realize how difficult it was to find clues, and it seemed that if he didn't trade with this woman, there was no way he would safely get the seesaw clue.

Zhuo Xing caught his breath and said, "Fine, let's trade clues. Everyone be honest and don't play any tricks."

Lin Xiangjun smiled and shook her head, "The price has gone up. If you want my clue, you'll have to trade it for the clues of all three of you."

"You!"

Zhuo Xing clenched his fists tightly.

"Are you trading or not? If not, you can go sit on the seesaw again yourself. Maybe when they are in a good mood, they'll tell you?"

Zhuo Xing's fists loosened dejectedly.

"... Fine."

...

Lin Xiangjun sat on a bench in the residential complex garden in a very good mood. Today, she had clarified the clues for all floors except 104, and as Wang Zixuan had said, these clues were all different yet coherent.

504 was the starting point; the clue was Qin Jianyuan's unusual behavior and the fact that the adults were all afraid of him.

204 provided the method by which Qin Jianyuan abused cats; this part came from Wang Zixuan.

Aunt Wang lived in 304. Her clue was that Qin Jianyuan was discovered abusing cats by his mother, who then kicked him out of the house to reflect properly. However, it was also mentioned here that Han Yi kicked Qin Jianyuan out around five in the afternoon, but went looking for him after seven.

Two hours—that was about the entire process for someone to go from anger to cooling off.

Han Yi didn't really want to abandon Qin Jianyuan; otherwise, she wouldn't have just let him stay downstairs in the residential complex, and she specifically instructed Old Man Abao at the entrance to watch him and not let him leave the complex.

In Lin Xiangjun's view, this part of the clue was the most important, indicating that Qin Jianyuan was lost within the residential complex and that it was an inside job by someone in the complex.

Finally, there was Zhuo Xing from 404. The clue he provided was a bit strange: he said that on the day Qin Jianyuan went missing, he bought a bag of candy at the complex's convenience store, threw candy wrappers everywhere while eating, was caught and lectured by the complex's Cleaner, and then ran off looking very angry.

Having obtained the clue, Lin Xiangjun repeated what Qin Jianyuan had just said, then stopped paying attention to Zhuo Xing and went off to find clues by herself.

"Hey, wait a minute..."

At this moment, Lin Xiangjun was completely devoid of her previous warm, cheerful, and smiling demeanor. She didn't look back and walked with quick, hurried steps, as if a ghost were chasing her.

Bye-bye, brother. You no longer have any value to utilize.

A person without value does not deserve her pleasant expression.

...

The residential complex was quite large, and it took Lin Xiangjun the better part of the day to walk through it once. At noon, she found a secluded, empty corner, ordered five servings of chicken wing rice and a cup of mango pomelo sago. After eating, she felt a bit greasy, so she bought a bottle of mineral water and drank it while walking.

By the time she finished walking through the entire complex, it was already six in the evening. She returned to the small garden and happened to meet up with Wang Min.

At this time, the elderly in the complex had basically gone home to cook. Only one old man wearing a yellow long-sleeved shirt was still persistently bumping into a tree.

Seeing Wang Min and Lin Xiangjun, he greeted them cheerfully.

"Young ladies, you two are also here to exercise in the evening?"

Lin Xiangjun struck up a conversation very naturally.

"Yes, the sun isn't scorching in the evening. Walking around for a stroll makes both body and mind feel comfortable."

The old man nodded happily.

"Exercising is good, exercising is good. You have to exercise more for a healthy body so you can carry my little grandson."

"My little grandson is very lively. He wants to be carried every day, sitting on my shoulders and screeching. Every now and then he wants to stand up and wobble around. Without a good body, you can't carry him or keep him steady."

"Exactly, exactly. You look very fit and sturdy, sir."

"Hey, if you walk more, bump into trees, and clear your meridians, longevity isn't a problem. Look at those young people, sitting all day. What do they say on the internet? Every one of them is made of glass..."

Wang Min was sitting on the bench waiting for her.

Both of them had investigated the residential complex, but different people observe from different angles, so the places they felt were suspicious were naturally different.

Lin Xiangjun was more cheerful than Wang Min and was more liked by the elderly, while Wang Min looked delicate and dressed more exquisitely, so she talked more with young people.

The elderly and the young view things from different angles, so the clues they obtained were also different.

"I think the most suspicious place is 104 downstairs."

Wang Min, having collected information all day, dropped a bombshell right at the start.

"The couple living in 104—the husband is the Cleaner in the complex, the one who argued with Qin Jianyuan. And I heard there's a basement under the unit building, which comes with buying the first floor. That means there are four basements; this should also be a focus for investigation."

"There is a convenience store, 101, in Unit 12. That's where Qin Jianyuan bought the candy."

Lin Xiangjun was holding some dried mango she had bought on her phone. This dried mango was a bit cloyingly sweet; she had to drink two sips of water for every bite.

"I didn't get any clues related to Qin Jianyuan on my end."

Lin Xiangjun swallowed the cloyingly sweet dried mango in her mouth.

"But I did find out the reason for keeping quiet from 11 PM to 7 AM the next morning."

This was information obtained from two aunties chatting downstairs, which only cost a handful of melon seeds.

Just as Lin Xiangjun had thought, the rule about not speaking after 11 PM was not at all for the rest of the elderly. It was because after 11 PM, even the slightest movement would cause hallucinations or nightmares, and the nightmares were all the same: being chopped up, dismembered, and buried in the ground.

Lin Xiangjun recalled the sound of the Eerie Parents frantically banging on the door last night, and then thought about her own sweet sleep until dawn. She felt that this instance was quite malicious toward the players.

None of the clues were actively presented; everything had to be asked of the residents. Just building rapport took a lot of time, and it was uncertain whether one could even find someone to ask for information.

Is this really a two-star instance? Lin Xiangjun wondered.

However, doubting was useless at this moment. She sighed, took out her straight-A student notebook, and began to organize her thoughts.

Mainly about what happened after Qin Jianyuan was kicked out of the house.

Lin Xiangjun suspected that Qin Jianyuan had been killed, dismembered, and buried in the ground by the Cleaner, but this could not be confirmed. After all, although the Cleaner was the last person to have contact with Qin Jianyuan and had a basement in his home that could store a body, some people had seen Qin Jianyuan run off after arguing with the Cleaner.

But without other clues, it was better to first list the Cleaner as the most suspicious candidate.