There's definitely something wrong with this murder mystery game

And the performance required a lead role to be chosen.

Qiuzi was the favored and most valued student by the teacher, but she, the most likely candidate for the lead role, died in the dance studio last night.

Xu Shuo opened the door to the restroom and looked at the two girls talking in the lounge, and at that moment, a system notification sound came through.

[Congratulations to the player for triggering the character mission: Qiuzi.]

It seemed like somewhat useful yet somewhat useless information had increased.

The conditions for triggering the previous two times were items, such as the mysterious box hidden under Zhang Shou\'s bed, and Chen Chu\'s spiritual medicine, but who would have thought that this time, it would be a person?

No wonder he could not unlock it even after searching the entire house last night.

In an instant, the memories of the girl flooded into his brain as if by a revolving lantern before his eyes, but his mind did not waver.

It was much better than the first time he received Zhang Shou\'s memories. Perhaps the Psychic Powe points he added before were effective—as for Chen Chu\'s memories, he received them in his sleep.

Xu Shuo collected his thoughts and sized up the two girls in front of him without betraying any emotion.

One girl looked mildly surprised, while the other\'s surprise was mixed with a hint of fear, and even her body began to tremble slightly.

These two girls were Xuena and Lanruo, both students under teacher Changying, and the three of them studied ballet here together.

Lanruo and Qiuzi were even closer, having been good friends since childhood.

Although he had prepared to solve the case by choosing one out of three, he hadn\'t expected to gain a lead so soon. It seems like mature victims nowadays are the ones who find their own killers.

Thus, Xu Shuo raised the corners of his mouth and revealed a very gentle smile, speaking softly, "You\'ve arrived~"

Xuena quickly reacted and stepped forward with concern, asking, "Qiuzi, you don\'t seem to be in good spirits. Are you sick?"

It seemed her surprise was just about his condition.

Xu Shuo couldn\'t help touching his face. He had carefully applied makeup before leaving the house, yet everyone who saw him still said he looked unwell. It was really discouraging.

He lifted his head, his dark and deep eyes glanced at the girl who came over with concern, and then shifted to look at the obviously guilty one.

Lanruo quickly adjusted her own state as well, uncomfortably avoiding eye contact, and said, "Qiuzi, you also arrived so early today, how come..."

Xu Shuo cocked his head and gazed at her with wide eyes, "What\'s wrong?"

The girl\'s body trembled nervously, stammering without knowing what to say, when suddenly an unhappy chiding voice came from outside—

"Aren\'t you changed yet? Don\'t waste time!"

Upon hearing this voice, Lanruo seemed to have found salvation. She hastily grabbed her dance outfit and rushed into the restroom, swiftly closing and locking the door behind her.

Xuena was startled by her strange behavior, looked at the girl in front of her, and ventured to ask, "Qiuzi, did you two have a fight?"

"No," Xu Shuo frowned slightly, innocently resembling a naive little girl, and said, "I don\'t know what\'s wrong with her; I\'ll ask her later."

After finishing, he casually walked out of the lounge, greeted teacher Changying, then went to the barre beside the window and started his leg stretches as usual for warm-up.

Although in his memory, Lanruo did indeed seek out Qiuzi last night and was very likely the one who acted from behind, the system did not provide a task completion notification. This probably meant evidence needed to be found or the truth exposed face-to-face, right?

Actually, Xu Shuo didn\'t have any rash ideas to rush in at the moment, as his current identity and body were, after all, of a dead person.

And the people around him seemed to be not so simple either.

If Lanruo were the murderer, then she was acting too blatantly, almost guessable by her demeanor alone that she had something to hide without the need for intimidation.

But surely, this game wouldn\'t be that simple, would it?

...

The girl in front of the window was stretching her legs in a very standard pose, and the white curtain reflected a vague shadow.

Across from the dance studio.

Officer Zhang watched calmly for a while before putting down the binoculars, then turned his piercing gaze toward another man in the room who was cowering in fear.

This was an apartment with a decent interior, the window facing the street and just opposite the dance studio.

There were three people in the room at that moment.

One man was cowering in a corner, not daring to approach the window, his face full of fear; a priest emanating a holy aura, dressed in a black and gold robe, his face solemn and serious; and Officer Zhang.

"Peeping tom, do you know how long you could be sentenced for that?" Officer Zhang scoffed and, squatting in front of the man, threatened.

"This... is peeping a crime punishable by prison?!" The man looked up, startled, and after reacting out of his fear, he said urgently, "I didn\'t do anything, and besides... I even discovered a murder case! I can redeem my actions with this good deed!"

Content from m-vl|em|p,yr

"You\'ve simply misunderstood; Qiuzi was not dead when I went over there yesterday," Officer Zhang said with an expressionless face.

"She\'s really dead!"

Upon hearing this, the man became more frantic than if he had known he was being sentenced, his face flushed red and he shouted with his eyes nearly bursting, "At half past eight, I saw her being strangled to death with my own eyes! But not long after, she... she got up again, just like this... being pulled up like this..."

The man\'s eyes were bloodshot, and he grew increasingly frightened as he spoke, trembling as he raised his hands, twisting his body like a marionette, his expression grotesquely contorted as he mimicked the scene.

Officer Zhang narrowed his eyes and stepped back a little from him.

The priest beside him took a step forward and kindly patted the man\'s shoulder, smiling and saying, "Don\'t be nervous, the Almighty has already forgiven you, He will grant you redemption, saving you from the demon\'s revenge."

As if soothed by the priest\'s words, the man quickly stopped his eerie movements, curling back into a ball and shrinking into the corner, shivering with fear.

Officer Zhang frowned and looked at him, before shifting his gaze back to the window, watching the dance studio across the street.

Behind the white curtains, the delicate and weak figure had begun to dance gracefully, the gray shadow fleeting, the enchanting posture reflected on the curtain, carrying a misty sense of illusion, like an angel descending to the mortal world yet unreachable.

No wonder this guy peeps at her every day, indeed she\'s a sight for sore eyes, especially since the shadow is even clearer at night.

It\'s just not clear whether the angel now is human or ghost.

Officer Zhang mumbled to himself for a while, then turned his head to look at the priest, and after exchanging a glance, they walked out the door together.

"He came to my church last night and confessed everything, and given his mental state at the time, this could very well be true," the priest said with an almost imperceptible smile, his voice gentle, "According to him, because he witnessed a \'demon\' reaping a soul, it sought him out for revenge."

"He only saw the shadow cast on the window, what if it was just a misunderstanding caused by misplacement?" Officer Zhang said indifferently.

But as she said this, her mind thought of the faint marks on the girl\'s neck from yesterday, although light, they were strikingly obvious on her pale skin.

The priest gave Officer Zhang a meaningful look and said, "The fact that you came to investigate means that the police are not treating this matter lightly."

Officer Zhang met his gaze, noncommittal.

...

Last night, a mysterious person called the police claiming that there had been a murder in the dance studio.

But when Officer Zhang arrived at the scene, there was neither a victim nor a murderer, and the police checked the street surveillance that night, only seeing a man in a black coat running into a public phone booth.

Because the person had wrapped up so tightly, the police were unable to figure out who the informant was.

However, in the middle of the night, the church also made a police call, and this time, they figured out the cause and consequence without any effort.

The peeping Tom watched the dance studio every day through binoculars from his window.

He even watched so intently that he understood Qiuzi\'s daily routine, knowing she would return to the dance studio alone at seven o\'clock in the evening to practice.

This voyeuristic behavior continued for more than half a month, until last night.

He saw Qiuzi finishing her dance as usual, stretching by the window, but this time, another figure was reflected in the window.

A second person in the dance studio?

Qiuzi appeared to have a conversation with the figure, then turned back to continue stretching, giving the killer her back—a fatal opportunity.

The peeping Tom watched in horror as the figure grabbed Qiuzi, struggled with her for a while, and then Qiuzi\'s head was jerked to the side, and she fell over while the perpetrator quickly fled the scene!

Even though he was a bold voyeur, in reality, he was also a timid and sleazy man.

After the murder scene ended, the terrified man lay shaking on the ground, unable to collect himself for a long time, completely distraught, afraid, and worried, until he saw a shadow appear again on the window.

A twisted shadow rose from the ground...

The lights in the dance studio dimmed, and countless black lines entwined the shadow, pulling it up like a marionette, its graceful posture contorted into something hideous.

Suddenly, the shadow slowly turned its head.

Facing the window—it seemed to look right at him.

The man could no longer bear it, screaming in horror, he rolled and scrambled away from the window, and finally managed to seek help from the police downstairs.

In the intermittent time, when he looked up at the window of the dance studio again, there was nothing there.

The dance studio, which had been well lit, was now in complete darkness, and even the shadow had disappeared into the blackness, as if what he had seen earlier was all an illusion.

The peeping Tom hung up the phone in a daze.

He didn\'t know if he had been a thief for so long that he was seeing such illusions out of guilt, or if he had already fallen into the demon\'s enchantment.

The man returned to his apartment, cowering in a corner, shaking with fear. He dared not sleep, and he dared not turn off the light.

But even with the bright lights on in the room, he still felt as if he was being watched by some strange entity, time slowly oozing by as if thickened to the extreme.

Daylight had not yet arrived, and the apartment\'s electric lights had somehow turned off.

In the pitch darkness, the man woke with a start, no longer daring to stay, running frantically out of the apartment, running crazily towards the church in the rainy night, as if it were the only light in his sight.

At this moment, only a deity could save him!