"...clues..."
The two-headed woman fell silent for a moment, seemingly in thought. Finally, both faces smiled apologetically in unison.
"Sorry, I'm not really sure."
"I've been staying home the past two days, so I don't know much about it. You should ask someone else."
With that, she began packing up the tools on her stall. It seemed she really was getting ready to leave work early, just as she had claimed.
Yan Jing, however, had no intention of leaving. He simply kept smiling and said, "You're not sure? That's fine. I happen to know a little about it, so I can share it with you."
"There's plenty of time anyway, and I'm more than happy to spend it with a beauty like you."
Faced with Yan Jing's apparent flirting, the woman neither answered nor refused. She simply sped up her packing in silence.
This aligned perfectly with the normal attitude most inner world residents held toward humans. Just a moment ago, Yan Jing's praise had caused her to slip up slightly.
She could tell Yan Jing was putting on an act, but she had no idea what his goal was.This made her slightly uneasy.
Yan Jing continued talking with ease: "I heard the murder happened the night before last."
"The reasoning goes that many inner world residents saw the old woman the afternoon before last. Combine that with Rotten Vegetable Village clearing the streets and sealing off the village that night, and the natural conclusion is it happened the night before last."
"But I don't think that makes much sense."
"After all, that youthful officer from the Order Management Bureau just mentioned that this serial killer is a master of disguise. It's highly likely the old woman everyone saw was actually the killer in disguise."
"What do you think?"
"..."
The woman smiled, both heads speaking in unison. "Perhaps."
She went back to packing up her stall, her hands moving just a little bit faster.
Beneath the brim of his hat, the corners of Yan Jing's mouth curled up. He continued, "Working off that assumption, the killer must have wanted to obscure the time of the murder to create an alibi for himself."
"But was that really necessary? He's a master of disguise. If he killed the old woman and hid her body, it might have taken days for anyone to notice."
"By then, he could have slipped away completely. Why use such a risky method to muddle the timeline?"
"Unless he had an ulterior motive."
Yan Jing looked up at the woman, who was nearly finished packing. "I caught wind that a resident spotted a potential suspect the night before last, and the Order Management Bureau has already taken them into custody."
"My guess is... maybe it was an attempt to frame someone."
"What do you think?"
By now, the woman had packed up all her things.
She stacked her tools onto a grocery cart, doing her absolute best to control her faintly trembling hands, and said in a perfectly natural tone, "An interesting theory. But I'm getting off work now. You can save your stories for someone else."
"It is pretty interesting."
Yan Jing chuckled. "But seeing as the Order Management Bureau is still asking us players for help today, I'm guessing the framing attempt wasn't very successful."
"Maybe it lacked sufficient witnesses and physical evidence. You know how it is—the Order Management Bureau always insists on solid proof."
"If I were that killer, I'd probably die of anger after spending so much time planning something only for it to fail."
The woman didn't reply. She just pushed her cart slowly toward the back exit of the market.
There was nothing abnormal about her movements. She kept her walking pace perfectly steady and completely suppressed the bulging veins on her forehead.
But Yan Jing could feel an invisible resentment radiating from her. His smile grew even more radiant as he chased after her and blocked her path.
"I forgot to mention, my theory wasn't entirely baseless. It's because I actually saw something the day before yesterday."
"I saw both that old woman and the suspect who was taken away."
With that, Yan Jing pulled back the hood of his sweatshirt.
The woman finally lost control of her expression, freezing in shock for a split second.
In that brief moment, she recognized the human standing before her.
Because she had seen him twice the day before yesterday!
Once shortly after she killed that old woman, and once more in that damn Cameraman's house!
She hadn't paid much attention to him at the time. She never expected this damn human would manage to connect so many dots just from those two brief encounters!
"Actually, I have a way to prove my theory. I heard that old woman's voice that day."
Yan Jing looked at the woman's two heads and spoke slowly. "If I could just hear the old woman's voice again, I might be able to spot any inconsistencies. The killer probably can't perfectly mimic a voice."
"If I can do that, this quest to find clues will be wrapped up."
"As for finding a way to hear that voice... let me think. If I dig around enough, there's a good chance I can find it."
He paused, his eyes curving into a smile. "Since you're a beauty, I'll let you in on a secret. I actually have an even simpler clue."
"That day, the Cameraman told me he was going somewhere far away, but when I woke up in the middle of the night, I saw him right outside my window. Don't you think that's interesting—"
"Would you like to come to my place for a bit?"
The woman's mature-looking head spoke softly, interrupting Yan Jing.
Yan Jing pointed at himself in mock surprise. "Are you inviting me over?"
"Yes."
The woman took a step forward, her long, pale leg slipping out from beneath her apron. "It seems you really want to talk to me. Would you like to come to my place for a bit?"
She didn't try to hide the flirtatious undertones in her words.
It wasn't entirely unheard of for this sort of thing to happen between inner world residents and players.
Yan Jing hesitated. "Actually, I—"
"Stop acting."
Both of the woman's heads leaned in simultaneously, breathing warm air against Yan Jing's ear. "I can tell you're putting on an act."
"If you want to, follow me."
With that, she turned her heads and strode away on her long legs, pushing the grocery cart ahead of her.
As she reached the mouth of an alley, one of her heads tilted slightly. She caught a glimpse of Yan Jing following her out of the corner of her eye, and the corners of her mouth curled up.
The two of them, one leading and one following, soon stepped into a secluded alley.
"Here will do."
She stopped, turned around, and looked at Yan Jing.
"I didn't expect you to be so forward." Yan Jing crossed his arms, making a show of preparing to pull off his sweatshirt.
"Are you still acting even now?"
The woman relaxed completely, dropping her disguise to reveal her true voice. It was hoarse, like silk torn full of holes, sharp and grating on the ears—exactly like the voice Yan Jing had heard that afternoon.
She had scouted this alley many times. No residents would ever come here.
And even if someone did, she could just kill them too, kicking off another journey of slaughter, disguise, and escape.
It wasn't as if she hadn't done it before.
She looked at Yan Jing and smiled. "I'm quite curious. Just how much did you figure out?"
"A lot."
Yan Jing maintained his crossed-arms posture and smiled.
"Then do tell. Before we officially begin."
"OK."
Yan Jing thought for a moment. "Let me see... I'll start from the beginning of the story I pieced together."
"A serial killer from the Envy System, having lain low for years, suddenly—and for reasons unknown—developed an extreme, hateful jealousy toward a man with a camera for a head."
"Maybe it was because the man was handsome, or maybe it was because he had a pleasant voice. Regardless, this killer swore to kill him."
"But for some reason, the killer failed."
"Even if he didn't want to believe it, the facts were right in front of him. The man was actually still alive."
"Originally, the killer planned to destroy everything connected to the man after his death. But when he saw the man perfectly fine, he was dumbfounded."
"He was absolutely certain he had killed the man. So how could the man have come back to life?"
"Refusing to believe it, the killer quickly launched another assassination attempt against the man, but the man somehow survived again."
"He realized that if he kept this up, he would be exposed sooner or later and lose his chance completely. Because of that, he decided to change tactics."
"That's why the killer broke from his usual pattern and decided to try framing someone."
"Because an uncontrollable variable had appeared—a man who should have been dead came back to life."
As Yan Jing finished, the look in the woman's eyes shifted completely.
A thick sense of shock welled up in her eyes, spreading across both of her faces. She hadn't expected Yan Jing to figure out even this much.
It was a secret that absolutely no one should have known. Only she knew just how terrified she had been when she saw the Cameraman turn up alive at the market.
That feeling of having seen a ghost made her toss and turn every night, her mind consumed with the need to kill the guy again.
Yan Jing slowly continued, "He changed tactics."
"Although framing isn't his specialty, he still came up with a relatively perfect plan."
"The day before the incident, he witnessed an argument between the man and the old woman. Taking advantage of the situation, he decided to target the old woman, murder her, and disguise himself as her, deliberately letting many people see him to muddle her time of death."
"But what he didn't expect was that during or right after the murder, I showed up. Perhaps because the corpse hadn't been fully hidden yet, he loudly scolded me to make me leave."
"When night fell, he disguised himself as the Cameraman and purposely walked past many people's windows, leaving behind sightings of the Cameraman wandering the streets in the dead of night."
"To ensure the real Cameraman didn't show up somewhere else and ruin the alibi, he lingered around the Cameraman's house for a long time to confirm he was home."
"And as a result, he saw me again."
"Although he didn't spot the Cameraman, the old woman was already dead. The plan had to go ahead."
"Finally, he chose to target two of the Cameraman's close friends. This way, whether he succeeded or not, the Cameraman—sitting at the center of their social circle—would end up arrested by the Order Management Bureau."
"And he was confident that as long as the Cameraman was arrested, he would never see the light of day again. He would become the perfect scapegoat. With that, the plan was complete."
Yan Jing finished speaking slowly, a look of mild confusion crossing his face. "That's just my theory, but there's actually still a flaw in it."
"A simple trick like muddling the time of death is something the Order Management Bureau could easily see through. If they did, the Cameraman would very likely be released."
"So what made you so sure the Cameraman would go down as the scapegoat?"
The woman listened quietly and didn't answer.
She simply lowered both of her heads, seemingly lost in thought.
A second later, her body violently expanded.
Clumps of shapeless flesh burst through her skin. In an instant, the beautiful two-headed woman transformed into a massive man covered head to toe in bloated tumors.
Piles of fleshy tumors covered every inch of his body.
His face, in particular, had practically dissolved into an amalgamation of four or five fleshy mounds. His original features were completely unrecognizable. A single mouth sat in the center of the lumps, resembling the mandibles of a giant maggot.
Most terrifying of all, for some unknown reason, there were two bowl-sized, bloody holes piercing straight through both of his shoulder blades, as though he had been impaled.
Inside the gaping wounds, fleshy tendrils grew wildly, and fresh blood gurgled endlessly outward.