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After the darkest time before dawn had passed, a hint of pale white began to emerge on the horizon.
Last night, nothing thrilling had happened, only imperceptible undercurrents flowed faintly.
Quite a few people had not slept all night. Tan Xiaohe was halfway through checking the housekeeper's room when she was called to stop, and upon returning, she promptly fell asleep, frustrated.
Yang Ming, sitting on the floor, was looking through the copied documents. He had been reading them all night, and the whole person was a bit spiritually absent.
His brain was just too heavy. Propping his head up, he was drowsy and struggling with an encrypted document, determined not to give up despite having decoded it for the better part of the night because he had a hunch that there was something important inside!
When Tan Xiaohe woke up, the first thing she saw was the geek sitting against the wall, staring solemnly at the tablet but in fact, spaced out.
"Hey!"
She called out, and Yang Ming instantly snapped back to reality, as if waking from a deep dream, with a bewildered look on his face, "Huh?"
Tan Xiaohe pulled a face, speechlessly saying, "Weren't you reviewing the documents? Did you find anything?"
Hearing this, Yang Ming fully regained his composure, rubbed his sore eyes, and looking at the tablet screen still being decoded, said, "There is some data that is very well hidden, I'm still decoding it, but I should be close."
"Aren't you a geek? How come you look like you can't pull an all-nighter?" Tan Xiaohe got up and stretched, looking quite refreshed as she spoke.
"I never pull all-nighters," Yang Ming yawned.
Who said all geeks are night owls? Homebodies just don't like going out, that's all.
Moreover, staying up late and pulling an all-nighter are two different things!
"I'm going out then, you keep decoding," Tan Xiaohe tidied up the props from last night's Scripted Murder Game that they hadn't managed to organize and then headed for the door.
"Go on, and cover for me while you're at it," Yang Ming said, massaging his temples.
...
Dawn had broken, and after a night of rain, the air outside had become especially fresh.
The villa's main door was wide open. The morning sun and a gentle breeze blew in, making the atmosphere much more comfortable.
The servants in the manor had also risen early. They were all silently going about their work, their light movements matching those of the people who had wandered around in the middle of the night, carrying a sense of oppression.
The simplest methods of murder are the least likely to be found out—just like the flashy and flawed techniques used by the Grim Reaper Elementary School students.
Of course, committing a murder under one's own identity is quite stupid; it's like forcibly pinning oneself as the prime suspect.
If there were no tutorial for newbies, he'd prefer sneaking into Mr. Guo's room in the middle of the night and finishing him off with one strike, at least that way he could survive a bit longer.
Not to mention, so he wouldn't be immediately targeted by that photographer.
...
Then, as Xu Shuo was ready with the main house's breakfast and pushing the cart towards the elevator, he bumped into the photographer he had just been criticizing in his mind.
"Good morning, is this breakfast for the butler and Mr. Guo?" the photographer greeted him warmly.
"Just for Mr. Guo. Yours is already prepared at the dining table," Xu Shuo replied, nodding normally as he turned his head to indicate the dining room.
"Alright, thanks."
"You're welcome."
After exchanging pleasantries, they passed by each other. The photographer suddenly stopped, turned around, and looked at the young man, just as the elevator doors were closing.
The doors soon blocked his view, and the photographer's smile faded. Rubbing his temples, he walked to the dining room, and only when he saw the two girls there did he bring back his warm and polite smile.
He sat down and observed the two women, noticing Zhan Qian's slightly flagging spirits—he didn't need to guess to know she had also stayed up late. The other girl, however, seemed to have slept well.
In fact, he had also stayed up late, inspecting the kitchen, and had even tried to check the chef's room.
The door was locked, and as he expected, nobody was inside.
The photographer noted down the people who had gone out last night, none of the task performers from outside had stayed quietly in their rooms.
Still, he felt the chef was the most suspicious!
In the process of deduction, if you first lock onto a target and then reverse reason from there, it makes things a lot easier.
The photographer's target was now the chef, so all his search directions started from the standpoint of "the chef is the murderer." The only thing he lacked now was information.
Hopefully, the police arriving later could provide some useful help—he didn't wish to fail the task.
After all, he had a main task, which was [to find out who killed Mr. Guo].