Chapter 121.2

What kind of logic was the person who cast the curse on Zhou Yunyun operating under?

To put it coldly, Li Zhuiyuan would have found it easier to understand if they had simply tried to murder her outright.

But this kind of using a cannon to kill a mosquito was truly baffling.

Li Zhuiyuan sat back down in his chair, lowered his head, and began to think.

From past experience, once his thoughts on something entered a dead end where the logic no longer worked, it meant he needed to switch methods.

And he had to stop using his brain entirely, put himself in the shoes of some idiot with no logic, no sense of利益, and driven only by emotion. That might actually produce results.

“Shuyou.”

“Here!” Lin Shuyou immediately turned around to face Li Zhuiyuan.

“You beat up five people this morning.”

“Yes. I am guilty.”

“It seems our class monitor really is very popular.” Li Zhuiyuan looked up at Zhou Yunyun on the hospital bed and murmured, “Could it be because she’s too popular?”

…

Tan Yunlong arrived with his colleagues.

Some of the police went to inspect the hospital room, some went to the doctors to ask about her condition, and others took simple statements from the school staff who had come along. Everything was proceeding exactly according to the procedure for a poisoning case.

Tan Wenbin went up to greet his father. The two of them had only parted that morning, yet by noon they had already reunited.

Tan Yunlong deliberately chose the protruding terrace on that hospital floor so only father and son were there. He lit a cigarette and asked:

“Is it really poisoning?”

“Brother Xiaoyuan said handling it this way would keep the negative impact to a minimum.”

“What I’m asking is, is it really poisoning?”

“Hm?” Tan Wenbin understood. He first shook his head, then nodded. “Dad, let’s just follow the poisoning procedure for now.”

Tan Yunlong exhaled a ring of smoke and said slowly, “Don’t tell your mother about this.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything before there’s a result.”

“Even after there’s a result, there’s no need to tell her.”

Tan Yunlong dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it out under his shoe. He saw Li Zhuiyuan walking toward him.

“Xiaoyuan.”

“Uncle Tan, the next step should be checking into Zhou Yunyun’s network of relationships, right?”

“Mm. I was just about to go to her school. Do you want me to drop you there on the way?”

“All right.”

Tan Yunlong asked Li Zhuiyuan, “Then what about Binbin?”

Tan Wenbin said, “I…”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Brother Binbin should stay here for now and keep Zhou Yunyun company.”

Tan Yunlong looked at Tan Wenbin. “Then you stay here.”

Tan Wenbin replied, “All right, Uncle Tan.”

“Xiaoyuan, I’ll wait for you in the car downstairs.” Tan Yunlong left first.

Li Zhuiyuan said to Tan Wenbin, “Brother Binbin, I’ve made arrangements in the hospital room. You have to protect those three candles and make sure they don’t go out.”

“Understood.”

“Other than doctors and nurses you recognize, don’t allow anyone into the room to visit, especially anyone from Zhou Yunyun’s school.”

“Mm, I’ll remember that.”

Li Zhuiyuan waved at Lin Shuyou in the distance, signaling for him to follow downstairs.

After the two of them got into Tan Yunlong’s police car, they headed to Zhou Yunyun’s school.

Because they needed to search and question people in the girls’ dormitory, more female officers had been brought in this time.

Lin Shuyou was young, but standing among a group of police officers, he could at least pass as a plainclothes officer. Li Zhuiyuan’s age and appearance, on the other hand, were a bit awkward.

Tan Yunlong directly explained that Zhou Yunyun was Li Zhuiyuan’s distant cousin.

In any case, they were from the same hometown. “Cousin” did not necessarily mean there had to be a blood relationship.

Zhou Yunyun was in a six-person dorm room. At the moment, the other five girls who shared it had all been sent to other rooms to give statements, while the police searched their dorm.

Li Zhuiyuan said to Lin Shuyou, “Help look around too.”

“Me?”

“You have experience hiding things in dorm rooms.”

“Oh. All right.”

“Check it the same way you did in the hospital room earlier.”

“I understand.”

Lin Shuyou borrowed a pair of gloves and joined the search. The whole time, however, he kept a lucky talisman from The Zhuiyuan Secret Scroll tucked in his palm.

There were a lot of things in a girls’ dorm room, especially clothes. In the wardrobes, on the beds, in storage bins, and hanging out to dry on the balcony, there were clothes everywhere.

Whenever Lin Shuyou checked the clothing, he would wipe it with the talisman paper and watch for any reaction.

Meanwhile, under Tan Yunlong’s guidance, Li Zhuiyuan went from room to room and sat in on the statements being taken.

All five girls seemed extremely nervous in front of the police, stammering when they spoke.

That was only natural, but it also created a problem for Li Zhuiyuan’s observations. His Physiognomy let him capture the subtle micro-expressions on a person’s face, but when all of them were in a state where they could no longer manage their expressions, that method became hard to use.

He gathered a general picture: Zhou Yunyun had very good relationships both in the dorm and in class.

Also, although the new term had only just begun, Zhou Yunyun had already received many love letters, and some boys had even confessed to her in person.

Li Zhuiyuan could only silently memorize the names of the five girls in her dorm:

Tong Yanyan,

Wang Lunan,

Zhao Mengyao,

Zhang Xin,

Zhou Shengnan.

Standing in the corridor, Li Zhuiyuan looked at Tan Yunlong, hoping this veteran detective might have noticed something.

Then the boy realized Tan Yunlong was looking at him the same way. Their thoughts were perfectly aligned.

Tan Yunlong comforted him, “Once we widen the relationship network and bring more people into the investigation, maybe we’ll find a breakthrough.”

“Mm.”

Tan Yunlong added, “I’ll have people do a deeper background check on these five girls from the same dorm, and we’ll also dig into their relationship networks.”

“Uncle Tan, did you notice something?”

“No.” Tan Yunlong shook his head frankly. “It’s just experience. In cases that happen in dorm rooms, whether it’s stolen money or something else, the odds are usually high that the culprit is someone from the same dorm.

“But it would still be best if we could find the poison.

“With Zhou Yunyun’s condition, if it really is poisoning, then setting aside psychiatric drugs, could it be heavy metal poisoning?”

“Uncle Tan, I don’t know much about that.”

What he was looking for was not a toxin, but a cursed object.

Though to a certain extent, a cursed object and a poison could produce the same effect.

At that moment, Li Zhuiyuan saw Lin Shuyou waving at him.

Li Zhuiyuan walked over, and Lin Shuyou lowered his voice. “Brother Xiaoyuan, I found something unusual.”

As he spoke, Lin Shuyou opened his palm. Inside were five darkened talisman papers.

They were not completely black, and the color was not deep, but they had definitely changed color.

“On what?”

“Clothes. Clothes hanging on the balcony to dry.”

Under Lin Shuyou’s lead, Li Zhuiyuan went to the dorm balcony. The five pieces of clothing that could darken the talisman paper had all been hanging together.

Tan Yunlong followed over as well and asked, “Xiaoyuan, did you find something?”

That was an unnecessary question, because Lin Shuyou’s earlier furtive, overly cautious behavior had practically had I found something written across his forehead.

“Uncle Tan, since the statements are done, let them come back to the dorm. Have each of them collect their own clothes from the balcony.”

“All right. I’ll arrange it.”

The five girls were allowed back into their dorm room. A female officer pointed at the balcony and said, “Take down the clothes hanging there. Each of you only take your own. We need to do a full inspection of the balcony.”

Very soon, all the clothes on the balcony were taken in.

Except for the five pieces that had caused the talisman paper to change color.

So those five pieces belonged to Zhou Yunyun.

Li Zhuiyuan tugged at Lin Shuyou’s sleeve. Lin Shuyou looked down at him, puzzled.

The boy felt helpless. If Tan Wenbin had been here, Li Zhuiyuan would not even have needed to remind him. He would have asked on his own. But Lin Shuyou was the sort who still would not know what to do even after being prompted.

With no other option, Li Zhuiyuan could only look up in feigned curiosity and ask, “These are my cousin’s clothes, right? Did she wash them yesterday?”

Tan Yunlong turned to the five girls and asked, “Did Zhou Yunyun wash these clothes yesterday?”

“Yes, Yunyun washed them last night.”

“That’s right, Yunyun washed the ones hanging outside last night.”

“Yunyun was washing clothes for a long time last night before she came back. The lights were already out when she returned.”

“After she hung the clothes up, she went straight to bed. I called to her and she ignored me. I really regret it now. Maybe she was already feeling unwell then.”

“Yeah, and first thing this morning, Yunyun drove all of us, who were still in bed, out of the dorm.”

Li Zhuiyuan said, “Back when my cousin was home, she used to wash my clothes for me all the time.”

Tan Yunlong asked, “Did Zhou Yunyun only wash her own clothes last night?”

The five girls looked at one another. Tong Yanyan raised her hand. “When Yunyun was doing laundry last night, she asked whether any of us had dirty clothes and said she could wash them along with hers. I asked her to wash a short-sleeved shirt for me.”

Tan Yunlong asked, “Where is that shirt?”

“This is it.” Tong Yanyan tugged at the red short-sleeved shirt she was wearing. “Is there a problem with it?”

Tan Yunlong said, “Take another shirt and go to the dorm next door. Change out of the one you’re wearing and bring it back for us to look at.”

“All right.”

Tong Yanyan took another shirt and went to the neighboring dorm. Soon enough, she returned holding the red short-sleeved shirt she had originally been wearing.

Tan Yunlong had no idea what could be wrong with a piece of clothing, so he could only spread it open and hold it toward Li Zhuiyuan.

Lin Shuyou took the chance to hide a fresh talisman paper in his hand. As he touched the shirt, he rubbed it with the paper. Then he moved his hand behind himself, where Li Zhuiyuan could see it, and opened his palm. The talisman paper had changed color, but more faintly than the previous five.

This shirt also had a problem. Because someone had worn it, the effect had actually been diluted.

But the clothing was not the main cause.

Li Zhuiyuan said, “The clothes my cousin used to wash for me always smelled really nice.”

Tan Yunlong asked, “What does Zhou Yunyun use to wash her clothes?”

Tong Yanyan replied, “Yunyun uses laundry soap.”

Tan Yunlong asked, “What about the rest of you?”

Tong Yanyan said, “Some of us use washing powder, and some of us also use laundry soap.”

Tan Yunlong asked, “Where is Zhou Yunyun’s laundry soap?”

Tong Yanyan crouched down, pulled out two stacked basins from under the bed, took out a bar of soap from inside, and handed it over. “Here. This is the one Yunyun uses.”

Tan Yunlong took it and examined it carefully. “This is a newly opened bar of laundry soap. It hasn’t been used.”

As he spoke, Tan Yunlong handed the soap to Li Zhuiyuan.

Li Zhuiyuan reached out and took it. That was indeed the case.

Tan Yunlong asked, “Where is Zhou Yunyun’s original bar of laundry soap?”

The five girls looked at one another, but no one knew, and no one answered.

Li Zhuiyuan lightly stroked the bar of soap in his hand with his fingertips. So the cursed object was that bar of “laundry soap” from last night.

But even if a bar of laundry soap went missing, it would not count as any big deal. If he had not shown up, who would have known Zhou Yunyun had been cursed?

You took away the original cursed object, fine. But then you even put back a freshly opened new bar of soap.

Was that really necessary? Just how idle were you?

Li Zhuiyuan became certain once again that in this incident, rational logic could be set aside for the moment. A purely emotional line of thinking was more suitable.

A person had an extremely high-level cursed object in her hands. She used that high-level cursed object on an ordinary girl. After it worked, she took the cursed object away again.

Then she lay in bed, inwardly excited, tense, fearful, thrilled, and delighted, replaying everything in her mind over and over. Then she noticed a “loophole,” and, in a completely unnecessary flourish, opened a new bar of laundry soap and put it back in Zhou Yunyun’s basin, probably even feeling smug about how flawless her work was.

Zhou Yunyun only came back after lights-out last night once she had finished washing clothes, and this morning she drove all of you out of the dorm. Unless the one who cast the curse had agility on the level of Lin Shuyou back then and could climb into a fifth-floor dorm room in the middle of the night without anyone noticing just to swap out a bar of laundry soap.

But that was impossible. If someone had Lin Shuyou’s kind of skill, would it not have been easier to carry out an assassination or stage an accident?

So...

Li Zhuiyuan’s gaze swept across the five girls present.

Which one of you

was that idiot?

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