Superstar's Development Diary
Chapter 328 - 329: Clue or Smoke Bomb

Chapter 328: Chapter 329: Clue or Smoke Bomb

Wang Tao’s eyes lit up, "I think it’s very possible, Ren Xiao, don’t you know some Japanese? Try translating the song!"

Ren Xiao was a bit worried, "I’m just a beginner. What if my translation isn’t accurate enough..."

Wang Tao patted his shoulder, "No worries, we have Qingzhu here!"

He turned his head to look at Qingzhu, "Didn’t you study abroad in Japan before?"

Lin Qingzhu nodded, "Yes, I can help Xiao Ren with the translation. My character card as a police officer says I’m proficient in Japanese."

He Jinxia’s mind hadn’t caught up yet, but her heart had already thumped heavily.

Wait, proficient in Japanese?

And again, the Japanese CD on the desk, the Japanese language books on the bookshelf... All these clues pointed to the possibility that the murderer could speak Japanese.

So among Ren Xiao and Lin Qingzhu, could one of them possibly be the murderer?

He Jinxia suddenly started to feel nervous.

She turned to look at a special design on the shoulder of her clothes, a red button.

This was a small device, designed to spurt out red burst-jelly from the inside at the press of the button, resembling flowing blood.

He Jinxia’s brain was running at full speed at this moment, analyzing the detective rules.

The murderer and the last victim were among them. If they couldn’t identify the victim, it was very likely they would all die.

But in the sealed villa, how would they die?

The production team couldn’t possibly opt for a mysterious person declaring "you all are wiped out," and then they would all just die; that would be too abrupt and nonsensical.

Since the theme is "detective," the production team would definitely script a complete and realistic set of show rules.

So if they were really going to "die," it should be from being killed by someone. At the scene, only the murderer would have the intent to kill them.

The camera in front of He Jinxia captured her facial expressions of the last few seconds.

Never mind how the audience would perceive it after editing; at least the cameraman, seeing her like this, felt she might have discovered something and gave her a close-up, zooming in for a facial feature shot.

He Jinxia scanned the bookshelf, where all the book covers were yellow or white, except for one book with a black cover that was particularly eye-catching.

Her gaze sharpened, focusing on the book. She pulled it out from the shelf and saw the title - "Death Walker."

The name of the CD is "Hell Girl," and the name of the book is "Death Walker"; they seemed quite fitting together.

She moved closer to Ren Xiao and Lin Qingzhu to listen to their discussion and to the song wafting from the VCD. She opened "Death Walker" to page 34 and counted to the 34th word, which was "的" (de).

After recalling everyone’s name, He Jinxia shook her head and closed the book. The word did not match the name of any of them.

Meanwhile, Ren Xiao and Lin Qingzhu had already translated the first part of the lyrics:

Do not indulge in vain dreams, nor dwell too often in sadness.

The moonlight is bright like water, illuminating my heart.

The colors of the flowers dance as if burning, pointing out the path ahead for me.

Layer upon layer becomes a song of sin, brimming and filling my chest...

Counting each word of the lyrics one by one, the 34th word landed exactly on "sin". Lin Qingzhu’s expression became grave, and he told them to stop looking for the book and all come over.

"What do you all think?" Lin Qingzhu looked at them and asked.

Wang Tao frowned, "The word ’sin’, according to the background information on the back of our Character Cards, seems to match only Ren Xiao."

Ouyang Baoer nodded, "I also think that Ren Xiao is very likely to be the next victim. All the evidence points towards him."

He Jinxia pondered for a moment, then offered a different opinion.

"Don’t you feel that once we start thinking Ren Xiao could be the next victim, all the evidence points to Ren Xiao as if there are invisible hands pushing us toward the idea in our minds?"

Lin Qingzhu pondered for a moment and said, "I understand what you mean, but this is not a coincidence, it’s the result of our step-by-step analysis. All the evidence points to Ren Xiao. Investigation doesn’t concern itself with intuition, it’s about evidence. I only believe in evidence."

Wang Tao suddenly spoke up, "But the new lyric evidence has nothing to do with the other victims!"

At his words, everyone was stunned.

Once the number "34" came up, they all focused on 34 and overlooked its connection to the other victims.

Wang Tao helped them to sort through the information step by step, "Firstly, the Death Note presented the numbers 34. If we assume the number 34 is related to the next victim, then, by reverse reasoning, the other victims who have already died were not selected randomly by the murderer, but according to some sequence or pattern."

Ouyang Baoer nodded her head. Even if she played the role of being brainless, it didn’t mean she was completely stupid, and she also felt that something was off.

"Yeah, there’s no reason that the first few victims were chosen randomly, and only the fourth to be selected with the number 34, chosen according to the 34th word or a sequence to kill. That doesn’t make sense!"

Even the relatively intelligent He Jinxia was getting dizzy by this twist. She took a deep breath and said:

"Ever since we included the number 34 as a factor in searching for the victim, the case isn’t as simple as ’whoever makes a mistake is the next to be killed’. There must be some sort of connection between the victims, but we haven’t found it yet."

Ren Xiao couldn’t help but speak up, "But whether it’s the earlier simplistic view or the later addition of the number 34 as a factor in searching, it all relates to me. After all is said and done, I’m still the one with the highest suspicion of being the victim."

Lin Qingzhu nodded slightly, "That’s right, after all is said and done, your suspicion is the greatest."

Wang Tao shook his head, "No, no, no, the previous reasoning was far too simplistic, relying entirely on intuition is not valid. As a meticulously thinking murderer, they wouldn’t make it so easy for us to find the next victim."

He continued, "Using the number 34 to find a lead is a bit more clever, after translating the song lyrics, the word ’sin’’ does seem very related to Ren Xiao, but we haven’t found any other clues in the lyrics connected to the victims."

"Since we’ve confirmed the victims weren’t selected randomly but according to some pattern, we need to find out that pattern. Only by discovering the pattern can we truly determine the identity of the next victim, rather than just seeing an incomplete picture like this."

Seeing only one aspect can lead to taking things out of context and can confuse us, preventing us from finding the real victim.

Lin Qingzhu frowned and said, "I disagree with your view. I think the previous reasoning was quite good. The murderer is meticulous in thought, seemingly giving us so many clues, but maybe it’s all a smokescreen they’re using to toy with us."

Ouyang Baoer whispered, "It’s because they are meticulous and brutal, which is why they wouldn’t think it’s so easy to be figured out by us."

Lin Qingzhu frowned, "You’re missing the forest for the trees, don’t let your inner fear confuse you. Often the truth is right in front of us, it’s just that nobody expects it to be that simple."