Chapter 33
(Yang Ye, did you kill me?)
This chapter is sponsored by Kitty, Ina, and an anon! Thank you so much for your Ko-Fis
True to Yang Ye’s words, Gu Liang realised that his own corpse was not the most pleasant to look at, because his entire face was blue and purple in colouration.
The corpse was wearing a simple and cheap white T-s.h.i.+rt, which was exactly the same as the one Gu Liang was currently wearing.
However, the corpse’s clothes and bluish-purple face was stained with dirt and he looked exceedingly wretched.
Despite having another him lying in the ground lifelessly, Gu Liang could not say he was fearful, and he merely found it a little peculiar.
It was like he had experienced something similar recently— where he looked at his own corpse with the ident.i.ty of a bystander.
Gu Liang stilled for a moment before he squatted down and lifted the corpse’s T-s.h.i.+rt. The deceased did not have any obvious external injuries apart from the deep ligature marks around his neck. The corpse’s complexion and lips were slightly purple, and when Gu Liang peeled back his eyelids to take a look, he noted that his eyes were bulging a little.
“The cause of death should be mechanical asphyxia. The murderer used something to strangle him to death.” Gu Liang twisted his head around to ask Yang Ye: “Did you check the corpse before this? Are there any external injuries on the back or other areas?”
Belatedly, Gu Liang realised that Yang Ye was evading his gaze and he did not look in the direction of the corpse at all.
Gu Liang raised an eyebrow. “I don’t even feel much when I’m looking at my own corpse. What are you being awkward for?”
Yang Ye thought, What am I being awkward about? Isn’t it really inappropriate for me to take off your clothes?
Take off your clothes and check you over? If this gets out, does it sound good?
Furthermore, where are you referring to with your “other areas”? Do you want me to take off your pants?
How could Gu Liang possibly know that Yang Ye’s mind had already run off to another tangent? Thus, he could only contemplate briefly before he nodded and said: “But that’s reasonable too. Two identical people appeared before you, one alive and the other dead and lying in the ground. It’s really strange no matter how you think about it. However… have you ever considered that I might genuinely be dead, and an unnamed murderer might be posing as me currently, while wearing a human skin mask or something?”
Yang Ye: “…………”
After Gu Liang was done tossing and turning his own corpse to study it fully, he put the corpse back into the ground again.
Gu Liang brushes his hands and patted off the dirt on his person before he stood up to glance at Yang Ye. Subsequently, he discovered that Yang Ye was staring at him fixedly, and his expression was quite severe.
“What’s wrong?” Gu Liang asked.
Yang Ye: “Don’t ever say that again.”
Gu Liang was puzzled. “What do you mean by ‘that’?”
Yang Ye told him seriously, “Don’t talk about yourself dying like that ever again. Living and dying are significant matters, they should not be treated too lightly.”
It was rare for Yang Ye to be this serious, and it stunned Gu Liang.
In another rare feat, Gu Liang did not retort back harshly. Instead, he merely nodded after a short beat. “Mn.”
Likewise, Yang Ye was slightly surprised in the face of his unexpected response. “Mn?”
— And we’re done here?
Gu Liang nodded his head again. “Mn, I understand. Do you have any other problems?”
The present att.i.tude that Gu Liang was showing resembled a cat whose hackles were easily raised but had chosen to retract its claws during an unexpected moment, and its furs were smoothed out which made for an incredibly cute sight.
Yang Ye heaved out the air that had been lodged in his heart and his lips hooked up unconsciously. “None left,” he said.
Gu Liang was a little flabbergasted. However, that stemmed from the fact that Gu Liang did not understand what Yang Ye was smiling for when he abruptly gave him that smile.
Honestly speaking, Gu Liang had discovered this problem a long time ago— whenever the both of them were having a regular conversation, Yang Ye would suddenly smile to himself without any rhyme or reason.
Despite that, Gu Liang did not want to ask what strange things he was conjuring inside of his mind. He merely scrutinised him briefly before he uttered, “I’m going back to my place to shower. You should shower too, you have dirt all over.”
“Sure. Do you want to come over to my place once you’re done with your shower? We can discuss this case a little?” Yang Ye asked.
Gu Liang thought about it and said: “How about this. Follow me to a place at 10:30. My script didn’t write that I couldn’t bring someone along and I reckon we can go together.”
At 10:30, Gu Liang followed the script’s prompt and went to the small alleyway beside Seventh Secondary School.
What differed from the script was that Gu Liang brought Yang Ye with him instead of coming alone.
However, the script did not explicitly say that Gu Liang encountered the corpse alone; even though they threaded through the loophole, Gu Liang and Yang Ye did not receive any notice from the system about violating the rules.
The bright moon shone into the small alleyway, illuminating the two dead bodies inside.
One of the bodies was Beggar Ding, whom Gu Liang had seen recently.
And unexpectedly, the other body was another familiar person— Li Xiao Yu.
Li Xiao Yu’s eyes were shut firmly and her pale face made it apparent that she had lost too much blood.
A gla.s.s shard was impaled into her chest. The fragment probably came from a broken beer bottle.
Blood flowed out from her chest and seeped into the cracks of the flagstone pavement, issuing a sharp fishy smell.
Meanwhile, Beggar Ding was embracing Li Xiao Yu tightly and there were several tear tracks running down his face that had yet to dry.
However, Beggar Ding did not bear any bloodstains on his person, but he was exhibiting symptoms of having been poisoned with his greenish-purple lips.
Gu Liang moved forward to check. Beggar Ding’s body still had some warmth and it seemed like his death was quite recent, whereas Li Xiao Yu’s corpse had already gone cold which signified that she died earlier than Beggar Ding.
A subtle feeling arose in Gu Liang’s heart; he kind of understood how Yang Ye felt when he was looking at his own corpse.
— Li Xiao Yu was an acquaintance as well.
The fact that an innocent and artless girl just died like this, was truly regretful.
“What do you observe?” Yang Ye’s expression was a little grim.
Gu Liang told Yang Ye the abridged version of the script he had received once before he remarked: “I initially a.s.sumed that when I reached the small alley at 10:30, I would only find Beggar Ding’s corpse, but I didn’t expect that Li Xiao Yu’s corpse would be present too… Currently, the only female character I know of within the entire cast is School Senior Feng, which means that Li Xiao Yu could be acting as School Senior Feng. Hence, with what has transpired in the script, at least three people have died, namely the Boss Meng that I’m playing, and the School Senior Feng and Beggar Ding before us.”
Yang Ye: “School Senior Feng? Beggar Ding was hugging School Senior Feng as he died, and he’s wearing a sorrowful expression. What’s their relations.h.i.+p?”
Gu Liang replied: “From what I heard in the conversation between BBQ Li and Beggar Ding, Beggar Ding genuinely likes School Senior Feng and he was saving money to buy School Senior Feng a guitar.”
After ruminating for a moment, Yang Ye said: “It seems like School Senior Feng died from an excessive loss of blood and Beggar Ding was poisoned. Since there are two methods of killing, it’s highly unlikely that their murderers are the same person. And according to your script’s account, the person who poisoned Beggar Ding to death might be BBQ Li. As for Beggar Ding… considering how Beggar Ding likes her, he couldn’t have killed her.”
Gu Liang frowned in contemplation, trying to restore the exact happenings with the clues he had in his grasp which would have led to the scene before him.
His line of sight drifted several metres away, landing on the broken beer bottle. It was not hard to guess that the gla.s.s shard in School Senior Feng’s chest had been picked up from its remains.
Shortly after, Gu Liang opened his mouth slowly to say: “The murder weapon should be one of the random broken beer bottle fragments that was picked off the ground. This doesn’t look like a premeditated murderer and it should be a crime of pa.s.sion instead. School Senior Feng was killed in the small alleyway first and Beggar Ding arrived subsequently after. Upon seeing her corpse, he felt very sad, which was why he pulled her into his arms and started sobbing. Then, in an unexpected manner, his poison flared up and he died. This was probably the sequence of events.”
The pair did not investigate the corpses for too long, and they returned back to Old w.a.n.g’s place next door after 20 minutes, give or take a few.
Since neither of them had the intention to sleep, Yang Ye thought he might as well make a few dishes and have supper with Gu Liang.
Yang Ye only made a few dishes like garlic pork ribs, cola chicken wings, boiled white lettuce and an egg and tomato soup.
After they were done with their meal, Yang Ye ladled out a bowl of soup for Gu Liang. As he watched him nibble on the pork ribs, he asked: “What did you eat today?”
Gu Liang felt a little embarra.s.sed when he recalled the egg with light soy sauce that he made.
Yang Ye stared at him smilingly, “If I wasn’t in this game, would you starve to death?”
Placing down his pork ribs, Gu Liang wiped his mouth, folded his paper napkin and threw it in the rubbish bin. Then, he said unhurriedly, “It wouldn’t have gone that far. It’s just… the food would be comparatively lighter in taste.”
Yang Ye did not expose him and went to search for a bottle of beer and two gla.s.ses instead. “Do you want some?”
Gu Liang shook his head and drank the rest of his soup at a leisurely pace. After wiping his hands and mouth clean, he stood up and cleared away the cutlery, since he subscribed to the standard norm of having to wash the dishes because Yang Ye had done the cooking.
By the time he was through with dish was.h.i.+ng and returned, Yang Ye had already situated himself on the small and tattered sofa in the narrow room, and he had downed two bottles of beer.
When Yang Ye was about to open the third bottle, Gu Liang stopped him.
Yang Ye shot a look at him as he lowered the bottle. “What’s wrong?”
Gu Liang said: “Let’s discuss the case for a bit. Your brain will become muddled if you drink too much.”
“Sure. What do you want to discuss, talk about it.”
While Yang Ye was placing down the bottle, he heard Gu Liang say: “Since I’ve ‘died’ before, my time has been reset.”
Yang Ye nodded, “It’s possible.”
“There are no clocks in the houses. Everyone can only refer to the time on their cards. When I woke up today, the card indicated that it was 7 August, 9 o’ clock at night. What about you, what’s your time now?” Gu Liang asked.
Yang Ye knitted his eyebrows slightly and said: “According to my card display, it’s 8 August.”
“My time is one day behind yours. Since that is the case, I’ve only died once. As for the murderer who killed me…”
Having spoken to this point, Gu Liang raised his lashes and met Yang Ye’s gaze. He questioned: “Did you kill me?”
With the low-quality T-s.h.i.+rt and simple strapped sandals that Gu Liang was wearing, he looked like every bit of the personage from the lower rungs of society he was supposed to act as, who tended to his coffin shop as he muddled along in life and waited for his death.
But his steady gaze, ebony black hair, and fair visage made him look highly respectable.
It could be perceived that he was an extremely upright and proud individual; an impression that came straight from his bones, like a flower blossoming amidst dust.
Yang Ye could not comprehend where it came from but, he could not shake off the feeling that there was thinly veiled provocation behind Gu Liang’s gaze when he was asking him that question.
Hence, Yang Ye s.h.i.+fted out of his leisurely and comfortable sitting posture. His body leaned forward as though he was unwilling to be outdone, and there was a sense of oppression in his interrogative posturing.
Yang Ye returned him a question: “Do you think I would kill you?”
The costume meant for a shroud shop’s boss that Yang Ye was wearing bore some resemblances to the long gown from the Republic of China period, but its style was more subdued and lower quality.
But when Gu Liang scrutinised him, he immediately understood what was called an innate n.o.ble temperament and an inborn dominance.
— When Yang Ye was wearing these clothes, he did not seem like the boss of a shroud shop at all; rather, he was only reminiscent of a bigshot who mingled around in the Shanghai social circles during the Republic of China period.
Legs spread open slightly and hands palm flat on his thighs, his sitting posture was extremely domineering as he leaned his body forward to stare at Gu Liang.
And although his smile conveyed that he could care less about the fours and sixes, his gaze was quite deep with meaning.
Gu Liang could essentially feel the loaded insinuations buried in his question, and it took him a moment before he replied: “Killing me, merely means that you’re carrying out the script requirements. You have two choices— either you kill me personally, or get locked up in the small black room and allow the men in black to kill me in your stead. When you compare the choices with the inexorability of my death in mind, why put yourself through a trip into the small black room? Therefore, if you’re smart enough, you ought to choose to kill me directly.”
Yang Ye narrowed his eyes slightly, and his eyes appeared dark and gloomy for some inexplicable reason underneath the lights. “If I were to weigh the pros and cons like this, wouldn’t you find me cold and despicable?”
Gu Liang’s expression remained unperturbed as he smiled faintly, causing his beautiful plump lower eyelids to curve temporarily. “Weighing the pros and cons has always been natural and normal in human relations.h.i.+ps.”
Yang Ye reclined back on the sofa again, shoulders relaxing like he was loosening his posture. Then, he gave his comment: “Tch, no conscience.”
Gu Liang lowered his eyelids, smiled, but chose not to respond.
Half a beat later, Yang Ye said: “Even if you have to weigh the pros and cons, this isn’t how you weigh it.”
“How else would you weigh it then?” Gu Liang queried.
This question went unanswered by Yang Ye.
He merely switched to a sloven expression and said: “Aren’t you going to ask me for my timeline in the past two days?”
Gu Liang tossed him another query, “If I were to ask you, would you answer truthfully?”
Yang Ye sighed out the mouthful of air that had been suffocating his heart for a long time. “You really have no conscience. When have I deceived you? Why do you distrust me so much.”
Gu Liang glanced at him with a tint of coldness in his gaze. “I’ve never said that I was afraid of you deceiving me.”
Subtly, Yang Ye seemed to become aware of something. “Huh?”
Raising his chin, Gu Liang gave him a sidelong glance. “I was simply thinking that there might be script regulations preventing you from saying some words to me.”
Yang Ye: “Oh…”
Gu Liang’s pupils contracted and his tone of voice was stern. “If I was afraid of you deceiving me, why would I bring you to this scenario?”
Yang Ye: “……”
— Oho.
Yang Ye’s heart felt toasty and warm, and he immediately leaned his body forward. But instead of the oppressive att.i.tude he previously had, his expression showed that he wanted to give a proper explanation. “I’m not the murderer. After I entered this scenario, I was immediately brought to a wasteland which had absolutely nothing, and the men in black left after giving me two loaves of bread. You don’t even know what kind of h.e.l.lish day I had to live through.”
Gu Liang asked him: “What was your story then?”
Yang Ye replied, “I was supposed to return to my village to visit my relatives. As soon as they put me down, the men in black looked like they were going to leave, so I asked them, ‘Didn’t the script state that I was going back to my village? Where’s the village?’ Guess what the men in black answered with?”
Gu Liang was rather amused. Smiling faintly, he cooperated with him by asking: “What was his answer?”
With a resentful tone, Yang Ye spat, “He said, the village site hasn’t been built, and he told me to improvise during my short stay here, it’s not like my role was important anyway!”
Gu Liang arched up an eyebrow. “Is it possible that you’re the detective again?”
“Who knows. In any case. The deceased is undisclosed, the murderer is unknown, the detective is undisclosed, and I don’t have the notebook or the camera.”
Yang Ye took the chance to complain to Gu Liang: “I was basically staying at a wasteland for a full 24 hours, there wasn’t even a blade of gra.s.s!”
Gu Liang gave him a word of consolation unconscientiously. “Mn, it’s been hard on you.”
“Right?”
Despite Gu Liang’s response, Yang Ye seemed consoled, and a smile lined his visage as he looked at Gu Liang.
Gu Liang gave him an expressionless nod. After a moment of contemplation, he said: “Okay, I understand it now. Currently, there are three murder cases: one, someone used a broken beer bottle fragment to kill School Senior Feng and threw her into the small alleyway. There’s a high possibility that this was a crime of pa.s.sion.
“Two, Beggar Ding’s lips were purple, there weren’t any obvious external injuries on the other parts of his body, and it’s suspected that he ate the barbeque that BBQ Li poisoned. This poison does not cause instantaneous death, and therefore he died after an hour interval.
“Three, someone strangled me to death and disposed of me in your house’s backyard. He might have known that you went home to visit your relatives, which is why he dared to go to your house to bury the corpse. Conveniently enough, it also allows him to s.h.i.+ft the blame to you. Right…”
Gu Liang asked Yang Ye: “What time did you arrive?”
Yang Ye said: “Around 10 o’ clock.”
Gu Liang nodded his head. “I woke up at 9. In compliance with the setting that the deceased’s time will reverse back to 24 hours prior, I died on 8 August at 9 o’ clock. Since you returned at 10, he should have killed me at 9 and finished burying me by 10.”
“Yes, that should be correct. It’s currently 11, which means that you’ve already been murdered once two hours ago.”
Yang Ye stretched his body lazily before he said with raised eyebrows: “Actually… with the resurrection and the deceased’s time resetting, I feel that these phrases are specifically used by the scenario to confuse everyone. At its root, everyone is still living in the same time and s.p.a.ce.”
Internally, Gu Liang thought, That’s right on target.
The clothes he had folded the previous day was by the bed, the refrigerator had the porridge he cooked… all these objects still existed. At its very roots, the time never flowed back; the “resurrected” person merely lost a day’s worth of memories.
After a moment of silence, Gu Liang said: “Therefore, if we use a different frame of thought to look at the settings, everything becomes simplified— no one truly died, but once they’re killed by someone, they will lose 24 hours of their memories while a complete replica of their corpse will simultaneously appear, allowing us to investigate for the murderer and find the clues.”
“Yes, that should be it. This script is called《 Undying Town 》, and logically speaking, there should be no permanent deaths. I speculate that numerous corpses will appear in this script but this doesn’t mean that they actually died, they’re merely there for the sake of drawing out the contextual clues. As to how the deceased for the final case will appear, and who the murderer is, there should be separate clues.”
Having said that, Yang Ye stood up. “I ought to find a book and record down all these things. If I get killed, I’ll lose 24 hours of my memories. If it’s anything like your cooked porridge, it should continue to exist. When the time comes around, I just have to refer to my notebook to know what occurred in the past 24 hours that I lost. And with that, the scenario will become a lot simpler.”
“Yeah, I’m a little disappointed.” Gu Liang said.
Yang Ye gave him a slightly incredulous look. “What are you being disappointed for?”
Gu Liang said placidly, “When I was skimming the setting, I was confused by the words “time reset”, and I thought that this scenario would be quite difficult. I didn’t expect that it would be this simple. If I had known earlier, I wouldn’t have called you.”
Yang Ye mulled over something before he grinned. “Ah, are you praising me?”
“Mn.” Gu Liang nodded his head generously, “If I were to encounter a genuinely difficult script… Tch, a wasted opportunity.”
Elated, Yang Ye said: “It’s fine, perhaps I’ll draw a similar reward card next time, I can just bring you along, no?”
“Sure.” Gu Liang glanced over to Yang Ye. “Right, apart from your copy, bring two more books over. We’ll have three records between the two of us. One for you, and one for me. The third will be a joint spare copy and it’ll be placed with my corpse.”
Yang Ye seemed to have thought of something because his smile disappeared instantaneously. “You want to make another copy?”
Gu Liang nodded, “Of course, I might be killed for the second time, causing me to forget everything once more.”
Yang Ye’s eyebrows furrowed together instantaneously.
At that moment, he happened to find a few small-sized and blank account books, and hearing Gu Liang’s word made him grip the account books forcefully as the emotions that he could not describe surged within him.
“What are you doing? You’re going to crumple the paper.” Gu Liang suddenly spoke out.
Yang Ye snapped back to his reverie. Then, he walked over and handed the books to Gu Liang before they split the work and recorded down the important information.
Deep in the night. Yang Ye sent Gu Liang back.
Gu Liang gave him a strange look. “I’m just next door, what are you sending me for?”
Yang Ye said: “I’m going over to have a look, a location like the coffin shop… it’s plausible that there’s something there.”
Gu Liang nodded, “Have it your way.”
By the time Yang Ye sent Gu Liang back to his house and they checked over the top and bottom floors once, it was almost time for Yang Ye to depart.
And when he was about to leave, it started raining. Gu Liang went upstairs to the storage room to retrieve an umbrella and brought it down for Yang Ye.
As Yang Ye stood at the entrance of the backdoor, some of the rain had splashed on his hair and the water trailed down the sides of his temple.
Gu Liang offered him the umbrella before he went to fetch a towel.
Under the eaves’ lights, Yang Ye smiled with crinkled eyes as he stared at him. “Very comprehensive.”
“You’re welcome,” said Gu Liang indifferently.
Hearing his reply, Yang Ye became amused. “Lady Bai once gave Xu Xian an umbrella during a raining day too.”
Gu Liang’s expression was calm. “Oh. Your point?”
— What kind of brain circuit does he have exactly?
Yang Ye took off his gla.s.ses and wiped off the raindrops on the lens. “Nothing really. It’s currently 12 midnight, I’ll record this down in the journal too. It might be useful.”
“En,” Gu Liang nodded to express his agreement.
Afterwards, Yang Ye raised his umbrella and left.
While Gu Liang stood at the back entrance, he tilted his head slightly as he watched Yang Ye’s back figure plunging deeper into the night rain.
Subsequently, the corners of his eyes curved.
— Xu Xian? Xu Xian was an open and guileless person, you’re not like him at all.
To Gu Liang’s surprise, his card vibrated just as Yang Ye left. It wrote: “The longer you thought about it, the more furious you became. If you end up becoming utterly isolated and incapable of finding a wife to marry, it would be Princ.i.p.al Zha’s fault entirely. You have decided to kill him to quell the hatred in your heart.
“Princ.i.p.al Zha runs at the backfield of Seventh Secondary School every morning at 6 o’ clock. You left through your back door at 5:30, walked across the sports equipment room and took out a baseball bat in the pa.s.sing. At 6 o’ clock, Princ.i.p.al Zha was making his way over for a run as you had expected. Thus, you took him off guard and killed him, and proceeded to throw his corpse into the sandpit meant for long jumps and buried him there, alongside the baseball bat. After accomplis.h.i.+ng everything, you returned back to the coffin shop and pretended like nothing had happened.”