The atmosphere at the scene was somewhat subtle.
I have admitted everything I wanted to admit, and I have reasonable reasons for wanting to admit it.
Park Min-chul recounted: "This time, at 10:20, Dan called his fiancée (Jian Jing) and asked her to come over at 12:30. Then at 10:30, he asked his brother-in-law (Wu Lie) to come over. They talked until they left at 10:50. Then he met his brother-in-law (Andre) from 11:15 to 11:30."
"This time is so strange. If what Raj said is true, Dan thinks he is going to die today, so he will definitely see his son. And his nephew, he likes Xiaobai very much." Zhang Xueer frowned, "And it is reasonable for the first call to Teacher Jian. In the hour from 11:30 to 12:30, doesn't he want to see anyone?"
Ishikawa said simply and forcefully: "Someone lied."
"who?"
"Jane is the first person to reveal her time. The probability that she is lying is very small." Valeria wrote a string of Russian words in her notebook, and then said, "It's too easy to be exposed."
Everyone agreed.
"Kojima-kun's suspicion has increased," said Terauchi Kumiko. "All he needs to do is follow Jian Jing. It's so late, and the chances of him coinciding with others' schedules are high."
Ishikawa Keito: "I'm more suspicious of my son. It's really strange for him to see his own child. I think that after 10pm, the first person Dan passed through should be my son."
Li Kangna asked: "Is it possible that the one-hour blank time was the murderer killing people? He was afraid that his crime would be discovered by the next person who came, so he chopped off the head of the corpse and made it look like the corpse might be Dan to mislead us?"
Jian Jing: "Is the autopsy report of the witch out?"
Toolman Raji: "It's out. The witch died between 10:00 pm and 1:00 am. No signs of homicide have been found so far."
Kojima Wataru: "Witchcraft."
The case became more complicated.
"The confession is for reference only, so we'd better look at the evidence." Jian Jing suggested, "Assuming witchcraft exists, Dan needs a new container to achieve immortality. So now there is a new question, was the immortality technique successful?"
Jin Lan'er gasped: "If it succeeded, Dan would still be alive now?"
"Oh, that's scary." Kumiko Terauchi looked around and joked, "If Dan is still alive, please ask him to tell us who the murderer is."
No one responded.
Jian Jing could not bear her embarrassment and smiled: "Maybe, Dan didn't reincarnate successfully."
Shigeru Kojima: "If Dan has been reincarnated, there is no need for the murderer to kill him again. I think the murderer killed Dan most likely to prevent him from achieving immortality."
Jian Jing nodded: "I am more inclined to this motive."
"Who wants to stop him?"
Valeria thought for a moment: "Of course it's the person he replaced."
"Then we are back to the old question. Who did Dan choose as the container?" Li Kangna asked, "Me, reporter Park, or someone else?"
"There must be other clues." Jian Jing asked, "Where is the witch's room?"
NPC housekeeper: "On the 9th floor."
The 9th floor is the leisure area, with a cinema, billiard hall, indoor golf, wine bar, gym and indoor swimming pool. Because the case happened on the first day, no one came here very often.
This time, everyone gathered on the 9th floor to look for the witch's room.
The housekeeper said: "I also think the witch lives there, but she is on the 9th floor."
The implication is that please find it yourself.
Everyone started to move, and roughly searched all the rooms with doors, but found no signs of suspected habitation.
"It's the secret room again." Wu Lie looked at Jian Jing and asked, "Does Teacher Jian have any advice?"
She smiled bitterly: "This place is too big, and I'm an architect, so at least give me a scope."
Steward: "The Captain has the floor plan."
"Huh." Jin Lan'er exhaled exaggeratedly, "Let's go borrow it now."
After getting the floor plan, everyone gathered around the table to study it.
Jian Jing had never drawn a building card, so she studied it for a while and found nothing unusual. The others also noticed it, and finally decided to check as a group to see if there was any room that looked particularly small.
This took up a lot of time, including eating, resting, touching up makeup and going to the bathroom. At around 3 pm, we finally found the door behind the curtain wall of the cinema.
"It's not easy for an old lady in her seventies or eighties to come in and out here every day." Park Min-chul sighed.
Li Kangna: "Let's see what secrets are inside."
The last piece of the puzzle finally appeared.
Pushing the door open, I saw a dark room with strange colored papers hanging overhead, on which were written spells that I couldn't understand. There were many silk threads hanging from the ceiling, and a puppet's head was tied to each thread.
In the middle of the room was a rug and a low table, like a living room, with a door at the back.
Jian Jing: "What a hell."
"This is too scary." Zhang Xueer subconsciously moved closer to her. Her 1.80-meter height made her almost at the same level as the doll's head.
Their eyes met, she shuddered and hugged Jian Jing's arm: "What does the witch want to do?"
Jian Jing: "You've got to the point. Why did the witch help Dan? Judging from the situation at the scene, it seems that she even sacrificed her life for this spell."
She ignored the surrounding arrangements and went straight to the inner room.
The inner room was a small bedroom with a tiny wooden bed, an old cabinet, bottles and jars piled up in the corners, and some clear liquid on the surface.
"Jane Sang, your life story is here." Xiaodao She called her.
Jian Jing turned her head and saw the photo in his hand.
A young woman holds a little girl in her arms, and the two are photographed together in the hospital. On the back of the photo is written: With my son Xiaoyu in 1940.
"Yu Meng is the witch's daughter." Jian Jing suddenly realized, "Wait, there are small words on the photo."
She held it under the light and squinted to read: "Daniel Charity Hospital, the name on the medical record is Xiaoyu."
Kumiko Terauchi: "Is it that Yumeng was sick and Dan saved her, so the witch was willing to help him to repay her kindness?"
"I remember reading in the newspaper that Yumeng's parents were ordinary workers." Xiaodao said, "Oh, she was also adopted."
"It should be a child born out of wedlock." Jian Jing said, "This is a scandal. In order to let her daughter grow up well, the witch entrusted her to a working couple. But Yu Meng inherited the witch's magic power and also learned some witchcraft, but she didn't learn it well and died from the backlash. So it seems that I should be Dan's child, but he may know my life experience."
Sort it out.
Next, I had to rummage through all the boxes and cabinets.
A dozen people were tinkering around in a small room, and even the best-hidden secrets would be dug out.
A quarter of an hour later, the diary hidden under the floor was dug out.
All secrets will be revealed.
The diary at the beginning, as expected, describes the witch's own experience: she was deceived by a scumbag when she was young, and unfortunately became pregnant. However, the tradition of Wu Village is that only unmarried women can serve as witches. After losing her virginity, the villagers did not allow her to stay in the village, so she had to leave her hometown.
The days of wandering outside were very difficult, but fortunately the daughter was safe and the mother and daughter depended on each other. However, when the child was 18 years old, she was diagnosed with a rare disease that required a large sum of money to treat.
The witch was desperate and almost jumped into the sea with her child, but she met Dan, a philanthropist. Dan paid to cure her daughter and also developed a strong interest in witchcraft.
To repay the favor, the witch agreed to work as a nanny for the Dan family. But considering the child's future, she couldn't bear to see her being regarded as a fatherless wild animal, so she entrusted her to a family to take care of her.
Many years passed, Yu Meng discovered her life experience from somewhere, found her, and wanted to learn witchcraft, but was rejected by her.
But Yu Meng didn't give up and stole one of her notebooks, and later died tragically in the backlash.
She had no desire to live, but Dan told her that Yumeng had a daughter. She persisted for the sake of her granddaughter whom she had never met.
Twenty years later, she was old and wanted to see her only relative.
Dan verbally agreed, but kept putting it off until his granddaughter became his son's fiancée.
She begged Dan to be kind to his relatives, but Dan proposed a deal: he could agree to her marriage, but the witch must help him reincarnate.
The witch agreed.
She told Dan that the reincarnation ritual required several necessary conditions:
1. The caster must pay with his life. Reincarnation is a forbidden technique, and the wizard who acts as a medium must be dragged into hell as the price of changing fate against the will of heaven. She is old, and as long as her granddaughter has no worries for the rest of her life, she will have nothing to worry about, and is willing to die for Dan.
2. The new container must have a blood relationship with Dan. Blood is the bridge of the soul. Only with the same blood can the soul reach the new body from the old body.
3. The spell must be cast at 0:00 every night.
4. The materials needed for the reincarnation technique are: Dan's blood, the blood of a new container, an altar, a bell at 0 o'clock, some yellow paper, cinnabar, and clay.
"As expected, blood ties are required." Apart from this, everyone was more concerned about the time. "The ceremony is at 12 o'clock, which is very demanding."
Kojima Wataru asked: "If the ritual is successful, what will happen to the original body?"
"It's written here. The old container loses its soul and dies naturally. The soul of the new container dissipates once it finds a place to reside. The soul and spirit are annihilated and it falls into reincarnation."
Kumiko Terauchi took a breath and said, "How cruel."
"It's horrible." Jin Lan'er rubbed her arms. "Blood relations mean we are family. How could Dan have the heart to do that to them?"
Andre: "So, the murderer is the vessel chosen by Dan?"
"It should be him. He was replaced by Dan, and Dan killed him when the two were fighting."
"Is it possible that the ritual was successful, he entered Dan's body, Dan killed himself, and disguised himself as someone now?"
"Also a possibility."
Everyone returned to the meeting room while discussing.
Now that the clues are basically complete, we can move on to the final reasoning phase.
Jian Jing held a cup of Coke. After drinking the caffeine and sugar, her mind became clear. She picked up a pen and wrote down the key words on the whiteboard.
First corpse: Dan (cause of death: suffocation; time of death: 23:00-02:00)
Second corpse: Witch (cause of death: natural death; time of death: 22:00-01:00)
Reincarnation Ritual: 0 points, bloodline, container
Was the ceremony successful? A big question mark.
"Let me briefly review the situation. The question we are facing now is whether Dan's ritual was successful. Death from suffocation could be homicide, or it could be a natural death caused by an illness.
"If it succeeds and there are no accidents, it is very normal for 'Dan' to die naturally. There is no need to behead him to create a mystery. Therefore, success must have accidents. For example, the chosen person enters Dan's body, the two have a conflict, Dan kills himself, and he can be the murderer, so he beheaded him to disguise it. This requires us to find out who is now Dan.
"If it doesn't work, then the murderer is still me. I just need to find his identity."
Valeria asked: "Can we exclude some people now? Those who are not related by blood."
"It's possible." Jian Jing said, "The container's relatives may have killed to protect him. It's also possible that the murderer is a witch and just wanted to kill him, but it was just an accident. It's not comprehensive enough to judge the suspect based on the motive."
Her speech was well-reasoned and all the guests already had ideas in mind, and now they have to think about it again.
But Park Min-chul said: "You have considered it very comprehensively, but judging from the current situation, witchcraft is a possible direction, so I would like to share my views with you along this line of thought."
"Of course." Jian Jing returned to her seat and gave up the whiteboard.