Don't provoke mentally ill people in the infinite flow genre!

Yi Zanglan's question left Wang Mingyue somewhat bewildered, but she wasn't stupid. Having witnessed one face turn into two, she could at least come to her senses.

"Could this not be the mortician's corpse?"

"This is the body of the mortician, but he also had another identity."

"Who is it?"

Yi Zanglan threw his face on the table and answered slowly, "Mayor Trist."

Wang Mingyue was shocked: "Didn't the mayor die ten years ago? We just went to his burial site... oh, although there was no body there."

"There's none there, but here it is." Yi Zanglan pointed to the mortician's corpse, as if describing an extremely ordinary matter, "The mayor probably didn't die back then, but changed his identity and continued to live in the town. However, ten years later, Caroline's ghost came back to seek revenge on him."

Wang Mingyue thought about it again and again, and the more she pondered it, the more unbelievable it seemed: "Um... can I ask you how you came to this conclusion?"

Yi Zanglan got up and started looking for something in the room, explaining casually as he searched.

"The mortician likes to smoke cigars, and I also found a box of cigars in the mayor's grave."

The box of cigars was buried with the metal box. The cigars were so dry and shrunken that they were unrecognizable, but it was still possible to tell that they were the same brand as the mortician's.

"The mortician was always wearing a high-necked, loose-fitting outfit, and the hand holding the cigar had a scar, which I guess was a burn."

After hearing this, Wang Mingyue suppressed her nausea and pulled open the corpse's collar, then rolled up the sleeves and trouser legs, and sure enough, she discovered extensive burn marks.

She suddenly realized: "Back then, when the mayor dealt with Caroline in the theater, did he also burn Caroline's puppet? But because the theater was sealed, he couldn't escape, which caused such severe burns?"

"Pretty much," Yi Zanglan said. "Although he eventually escaped, he was rendered useless."

The mayor didn't want to face the townspeople with this appearance, so he had to wear a fake face year after year and live as Jude Marlowe.

Wang Mingyue asked in confusion, "Now that he's dead, does that mean Caroline has discovered his true identity?"

"He deliberately lured Caroline to kill him, just like he deliberately prompted us to find Doris to find out what was going on."

This was the mayor's plan, which is why he cut off Zhao Chen's face and heart last night and placed them at the door as bait to lure Caroline into killing him herself, thus lowering her guard.

He was now a cripple, and knowing he couldn't kill Caroline who was making a comeback, he pinned his hopes on this group of tourists from out of town.

Their next step is to fulfill the mayor's last wish.

……

Yi Zanglan searched almost the entire house, but unfortunately found nothing.

She stood in the center of the living room, wiping the blood from her hands with a tablecloth, lost in thought with a blank expression.

"Are you looking for that exorcism gun?" Wang Mingyue was also pondering. "Where would the mayor hide it?"

"If you were him, where would you hide the gun?"

"I...I'll probably hide in...well, somewhere that looks obvious but won't attract too much attention?"

Yi Zanglan smiled, a rare smile of approval on her face, which inexplicably gave one a warm feeling.

"That's right, that makes a lot of sense."

Wang Mingyue was completely bewildered and hadn't figured out what made sense when she saw Yi Zanglan walk straight to the storage room and, a moment later, bring out a tin makeup case—a toolbox specifically for morticians to apply makeup to corpses.

Yi Zanglan carefully weighed the makeup case and opened it to check its contents again.

Some common cosmetics, brushes of various sizes, disinfectant alcohol, sterile gauze, and suture needles and thread.

At first glance, it doesn't seem particularly special, but...

Even with the makeup case itself included, the weight of the contents is completely disproportionate.

She took the dagger from her bosom, inserted it into the gap at the bottom of the tin box, and pried it open with force—

Clang!

With a crisp metallic clang, the sheet metal at the bottom of the box fell off, along with a short, black, gold-plated pistol.

Wang Mingyue gasped: "This makeup case actually has a hidden compartment?"

Yi Zanglan picked up the gun, checked the magazine, and found it to be empty.

A strip of paper was wrapped around the trigger, with a line of small writing on it in red ink:

Any bullet fired from this gun is enough to eliminate evil spirits.

It means that as long as there's a gun, any bullet can kill Caroline's ghost.

But the prerequisite is that she has to find the bullet first.

Wang Mingyue had no idea what Yi Zanglan was thinking. After all, Yi Zanglan was unpredictable and most of the time he was too lazy to share with her.

She tentatively asked, "Where do you think we should look for bullets?"

"We don't need to look."

"what?"

"The bullets will come to us of their own accord."

Wang Mingyue didn't understand the sentence at first, but soon she knew what Yi Zanglan was going to do.

Yi Zanglan took out a makeup brush, dipped it in blood, and began writing on the floor.

She first wrote down the address of the two-story building, then, with a flourish, added another line:

The murderer is Yi Zanglan.

Wang Mingyue: "...So your name is Yi Zanglan?"

* * * * * *

At three in the morning, Yi Zanglan, who had just written an inscription at the mayor's house and openly admitted to being the murderer, returned to his bedroom carrying a metal box.

She sat at the table, waited patiently for a while, and then turned her gaze to the quartz clock on the wall.

3 points.

On the first night of the game, when she suddenly woke up from her dream, the quartz clock also pointed to this time.

Just like last time, when the hour and minute hands are at this position, the second hand pauses briefly before returning to normal.

This wall clock is working properly; it's not broken. As for the issue of it stopping at fixed times...

This can only be interpreted as a special hint to the player.

With the answer in mind, Yi Zanglan picked up the metal box, placed it on her lap, and adjusted the bottom row of the combination lock to 0315.

Click.

The second lock opened.

Now there's only the first letter lock left, with a six-digit password.

She leaned back in her chair, her gaze falling directly on the bookshelf.

She had checked the bookshelf on the first night; it was mostly filled with hardcover books with gold foil stamping, and only a few slightly worn paperback books.

She counted them; there were exactly six paperback books.

She arranged the six books neatly on the table and began to try to rearrange their order.

……

Inside the live stream room.

Not long ago, viewers witnessed Yi Zanglan digging up graves with a shovel, dancing with an idol, tearing off a face, taking a gun out of a box, and writing words with blood on her hands. Now, the audience is watching her study a few tattered books.

The scene was too quiet; they weren't used to it.

The password must be hidden in these books, right? What is it? Has anyone figured it out?

[It might be related to the book title... but I can't think of any words...]

I suspect it's the initials of the book titles, like the "M" in the English title of "Moon Valley," but the exact arrangement of the six letters still needs further investigation.

[@YanZhao, are you still watching the live stream so late? Can you answer our questions?]

About half a minute later, the curse master replied.

[Yan Zhao]: mirror.

Meanwhile, Yi Zanglan, who works within the bureau, has completed the final sorting of six books.

M, I, R, R, O, R.

She seemed lost in thought, then turned to look at the picture frame on the bedroom wall.