"This rose seems to have been picked and left for quite a while."
Tan Xiaohe, not worried about leaving any fingerprints since they all wore gloves while searching for things, boldly picked up the decaying rose from the body to take a closer look.
"To leave something like this... Could it be that the old butler had some unspeakable relationship with his master?" Yang Ming's mind wandered wildly, and then he suddenly frowned and muttered, "But that's not right, there seem to be no roses planted in the yard..."
"Who knows." Tan Xiaohe put the rose back, and even lifted the cloth to take another look at the corpse, resembling a complete psycho.
In the night-vision goggles, the color of the corpse, its stiff and pale face, indeed filled one with a sense of horror.
Yang Ming: "..."
Tan Xiaohe felt under the pillow, found nothing, and disappointedly covered it back with the cloth, while saying, "Stop dazing around; let's finish searching this room and leave before people in the next room notice anything."
Yang Ming continued to search the wardrobe with a stiff expression, the pair not sparing even the pockets of the clothing.
At that moment, Tan Xiaohe, who stood beside him, seemed to see something as she casually turned her head, and her eyes suddenly widened in shock.
"Wha... what's wrong?" His heart panicked.
"He— he— he..." Tan Xiaohe pointed behind him but couldn't get her words out.
Behind him?
Wasn't that just the bed?!
What was it that made this girl, usually into dark stuff, show a face full of terror and, for once, come close like a real girl?!
At that moment, Yang Ming felt as if a heavy hammer struck his heart; a cold sense of dread rose from his spine to the top of his head, giving him goosebumps all over, as he turned his head fearfully to look back.
In that instant, he thought of many things.
Then he saw nothing.
Yang Ming: "..."
"Hahaha!" Tan Xiaohe suddenly burst into repressed laughter, covering her mouth and shaking with uncontained mirth, her eyes gleaming with teasing humor: "Just kidding with you."
Yang Ming, with a deadpan face: "Not funny at all."
I wonder if he knows about the horror movie rule—the bad jokes usually come true, what's known as setting up a flag.
After Tan Xiaohe's interruption, Yang Ming couldn't help but glance at the bed every now and then as he searched, to see if the planted flag could be removed.
Otherwise, it would be quite unseemly to have a brawl.
In the quiet darkness, only the murmuring sounds from the study could be heard. Yang Ming turned his head and suddenly felt he heard something else—a very faint but familiar sound.
This heightened sensitivity was precisely because he had been startled by such a sound earlier.
"Click... click... click..."
the sound came intermittently, in a peculiar rhythm, as if reflecting the emotions of whatever was making it.
In the silent villa, the sound in the darkness became crystal clear in his mind.
Wasn't that the sound of someone continuously pressing on a door handle?!
Yang Ming snapped to attention and quickly checked the nearby rooms, yet found no door handles being pressed down. No one had left the study either.
He listened intently once more; the subtle noise was no illusion—it continued.
Could it be from somewhere else?
Wait, Yang Ming suddenly looked towards the hall.
They were actually quite close to the front door of the villa. Now that he had focused all his attention, it increasingly seemed like the sound was coming from over there.
Continuously pressing on a door handle usually meant that someone on the outside wanted to get in but the door was locked.
If it were helpers summoned by the butler, or a traveler lodging just like them, why wouldn't this person ring the doorbell?
Deep mountains, dead of night, thunderstorms, a sinister house, a creepy midnight knocking...
For a moment, Yang Ming's head was filled with scripted scenarios.
He pressed his Bluetooth earpiece and spoke in a hushed tone, "Hey, how's your search going?"
"What's up? Is there a situation?" Tan Xiaohe's voice came through the earpiece.
"In the middle of the night, someone's messing with the villa's door handle outside. I don't think I can handle this—let's pull out..."
The manor owner's sudden death, the decaying roses, and the Mysticist that had been brought in... Yang Ming didn't want to delve further into what kind of Mutant Script this might turn into.
Although he had never played a Scripted Murder Game, his long exposure to the internet had given him quite an understanding of the game.
Even though most Scripted Murder Games were rooted in logical reasoning based on reality, some incorporated surreal, bizarre, and mystical elements. These were called Mutant Scripts.
In other words, this meant that it was possible to encounter ghosts.