"Minghe?"
At the fifth-floor stairwell, Chi Hao looked down at Jing Minghe, who was descending from above, with concern.
Seeing Chi Hao's expression, Jing Minghe couldn't help but chuckle. As he walked over to Chi Hao, he originally intended to put an arm around his neck, but since his Hao Ge was a bit taller, he abandoned the idea. He simply nudged Chi Hao with his arm and joked, "My good brother, that look doesn't suit you. You should believe that your Minghe can be strong enough to not need worrying about at all."
Hearing this, Chi Hao, seizing the moment when no one else was around, quickly pecked Jing Minghe on the lips and smiled, "Yes, my Minghe is very strong."
Gu Chenhui, who had been treated as if he were invisible by Chi Hao, saw this scene and clenched his fists. However, he quickly came to terms with it, recalling what Lu Fanfei had told him.
"Chi Hao is a powerful pawn, and an extremely dangerous existence. He can be used, but not kept."
Gu Chenhui let out a long sigh, pretending he had seen nothing. After all, although Chi Hao was powerful, he was by no means a match for someone like Lu Fanfei when it came to schemes. In his opinion, Lu Fanfei had only arranged for a dangerous person like Chi Hao to stay by Jing Minghe's side as a powerful bodyguard.
After Jing Minghe and Chi Hao walked away, Gu Chenhui slowly descended the stairs. Before going down, he looked back towards the flowerbed.
"Then, what do I count for?" Gu Chenhui laughed self-mockingly. "No matter what I count for, I will make myself different. When it comes to strength, I am not inferior to him."
The room on the fifth floor belonging to Li Zhong was already closed. Due to a death in the art troupe, the afternoon rehearsal was canceled. Yumi and the others had already returned to the fourth floor. From Yumi, they learned that the person sent by Boss Lu, along with others from the art troupe and Hu Feiyan, were talking on the third-floor performance hall. The players, as guests, were excluded.
Xia Rong complained discontentedly, "We're always excluded like this, how can we get clues?"
"Yes," An Ruo added in a small voice, "and some of our players have died, and they don't seem to care at all."
"Did you tell them?" Jing Minghe asked Yumi.
Yumi nodded and replied, "Yes, Xia Rong went after them and mentioned Fang Chao's death and Ning Ping's disappearance, but that person ignored him, as if Xia Rong had just told him a joke."
"It doesn't matter," Jing Minghe said. "We don't belong inside the instance, so naturally, we are not within his jurisdiction. Our most important task is to find a way to clear it. We don't need to care about anything else."
"Didn't you hear what I said?" Xia Rong sounded somewhat agitated. "We're excluded like this and can't even get close to any clues, how can we clear it?"
Jing Minghe sneered and asked Xia Rong, "Are there really no clues?"
Without waiting for his answer, he walked downstairs, with most of the others instinctively following him.
An Ruo and Xia Rong exchanged glances. Their current clues were extremely meager. In such a situation, they could only choose to follow the main group.
Jing Minghe and the others went downstairs to the first-floor restaurant. Since it wasn't mealtime, all the food in the restaurant had been cleared out. However, the tables and chairs were still there, though they looked a bit different.
Yumi exclaimed, "I didn't expect to be able to come in even when it's not mealtime, but... why does it feel strange?"
Si Lian immediately added, "The tables and chairs are so old. When we came for breakfast this morning, they were all brand new. How did they become so old in just half a day?"
"Yes," An Ruo peeked from behind Xia Rong and looked inside. "Why are they so old? It's like they haven't been used for a long time."
Jing Minghe said as he walked further in, "Aren't the clues coming to us now? And we'll have more."
With that, Jing Minghe walked over to a table and sat down, beckoning Chi Hao and Gu Chenhui to join him.
As Gu Chenhui walked over and sat down, he also said with a confident air, "That's right, we have plenty of clues. The most important thing is to stay alive."
After everyone had found their seats, Jing Minghe spoke again. "Let's start with me. Let's talk about what we gained from our conversations."
Seeing that Gu Chenhui seemed about to say something, Jing Minghe stopped him with a look and continued, "Except for Yumi jie and Qiao Qiao jie, everyone else knows that the person I spoke to earlier was Li Zhong, and now Li Zhong is dead."
"Yes," Si Lian asked doubtfully, "So, do you know how Li Zhong died?"
Jing Minghe shook his head. "No, I don't know. When I went to find him, there was no one in Li Zhong's room, or rather, I wasn't entering Li Zhong's room."
"Then what did you encounter?" Qiao Qiao pressed.
"I encountered..." Jing Minghe paused for a moment. "I encountered the person I most wanted to see. Of course, it wasn't real, but this instance read my memories and created an illusion for me. After I shattered this illusion, I saw a pile of sawdust and heard a sentence."
"What sentence?"
Jing Minghe imitated, trying his best to recreate the atmosphere at the time.
"Death, everyone must die! Those who harm her, not a single one will escape alive! Everyone must die!"
After hearing this, everyone else looked bewildered.
Yumi questioned, "Those who harm her? Who is 'her' referring to?"
Gu Chenhui tapped the table gently with a finger. "Perhaps this is what we need to figure out. Who is 'she'? And who or who are the people who harmed her? There are only a few people in the art troupe, so it shouldn't be difficult to deduce."
"Harm her?" Si Lian tried to analyze. "Could this 'her' refer to A Mo? Isn't she already dead? Are they asking us to find the murderer of A Mo?"
"I don't think so," Qiao Qiao shook her head and denied. "If you say she's dead, then isn't Li Zhong also dead? And we don't know if 'her' in this sentence is male or female."
"We'll talk about that later," Jing Minghe's gaze swept around. "What about you? What did you gain?"
Yumi answered first. "Most people in the troupe disagree with the troupe leader Quan Zhe's ideology, and some even have the idea of replacing Quan Zhe as the leader. As for who it is, Ya Wei didn't explicitly say."
Qiao Qiao added, "We talked a lot with Ya Wei, trying to learn as much as possible about everyone in the art troupe. Fortunately, Ya Wei was very cooperative. However, when we asked about the lighting technician Chen Cai, Ya Wei changed the subject, seeming reluctant to mention this person. Oh, and about Luo Yu, Ya Wei spoke the most about him, and his tone was noticeably lighter, speaking only words of praise for him."
Chi Hao spoke up after Yumi and Qiao Qiao. The person he had sought out was Chen Cai, the one Ya Wei was reluctant to discuss. Chi Hao's words were very simple, only four characters: "Frivolous, despicable."