Infinite Murder Mystery Game: The Beauty with a Delicate Palm

Su fell to the ground, clutching his neck and coughing violently, breathing in the air that smelled of the river.

Zi Shi lowered his head, his cold, needle-like eyes fixed on his feet.

His face twitched, and his nostrils flared as he caught the faintest scent in the air.

Then, to Su Mian's incredulous gaze, the head of the arbitration panel, who had just moments before wanted to kill her, stretched out two fingers and picked up the peanuts, goji berries, and mung beans from the ground one by one.

At midnight, he picked up a mung bean, brought it to his nose, and sniffed it. A satisfied glint flashed in his needle-like eyes.

"A gift to me?"

Su Mian's mind was still in a state of suffocation. She nodded subconsciously and simply turned the whole pocket inside out.

She prepared a large bag of blood-nourishing tonics in advance.

Knowing I won't be able to sleep tonight, I'm thinking of soaking myself in a kettle of hot water.

Since the culprit's identity has been exposed, there's no need to hide the real culprit who caused the power outage on the floor.

Zi Shi snatched it away with lightning speed, his claws scraping against Su Mian's cold hand.

At that moment, Zi Shi abruptly stopped.

"Your hands..." He frowned, "Why are your hands so cold?... Just like my daughter's used to be! I've told you so many times, young people have plenty of yang energy, you need to move around more!"

"Stop keeping yourself cooped up all day, thinking about useless things, and just torturing your body... Cold hands and feet, insufficient blood and energy, you'll suffer for it in the future!"

He spoke more and more fluently until he caught a glimpse of Su Mian's eyes, which gradually shifted from confusion to astonishment.

"—!!!"

The words spoken at midnight came to an abrupt end.

"I...I'm not going to talk to you about all this trivial stuff!!!"

He flicked his hand and sleeve, and a bright white light shone forth, causing Su Mian to close her eyes again.

……

So what was the final outcome?

Su Mian's health was so low that she couldn't think about these things anymore, and she struggled to walk back to her dormitory.

It doesn't matter anymore; no one can accept death more than her anyway.

But when the voting began, Su Mian had not seen Si Shi yet; instead, an arbitrator with gray skin and white eyes arrived.

He silently waved his hand, and the players sat down in the center of the examination room.

"Please have the detective vote."

He said only a few words, then put his hands in his pockets and squinted at the podium.

Please write down who you believe the murderer is on your exam paper and hand it in to the teacher within ten minutes.

Several players silently filled out the test paper. At the hour of Chou (1-3 AM), he opened his eyes, glanced at it briefly, and then announced.

"A tie."

Jingzhe was surprised for a moment and looked at Chang Anning.

She wouldn't vote for Shen Jiarui, would she?

There are also experts.

Shen Jiarui clenched her fists, her eyes filled with hatred as she looked at Chang Anning. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she wished she could strangle her.

It's all that woman's fault, it's all her fault! She almost won, so close!

Su Mian showed no emotion; she calmly looked up.

"What about 9 AM?"

While organizing the exam papers at the hour of Chou (1-3 AM), her nose ring dangling in the air, she paused upon hearing the sound, then sighed, "This is not something you should know, Miss Detective."

With that, he turned and walked out. "Your appeal was successful."

At the hour of Chou (1-3 AM), he stared intently at Su Mian and said, "Please do your best to live on."

Before Su Mian could understand what that sentence meant, a system notification sounded in her mind.

[Congratulations to the detective for successfully appealing; points have been returned.]

[Ding dong, due to a tie in this game, the system will unlock a deduction side quest. The two final suspects are requested to go to the cardboard box space. The detective who wins the game first will survive.]

"A cardboard box...space?"

As Su Mian murmured, two fist-sized cardboard boxes suddenly appeared out of thin air on the podium. One of them had the number "one" written on all sides, while the other had a flower drawn on its front side.

Shen Jiarui immediately snatched the flower-patterned cardboard box into her arms, her tears still wet on her face.

"I...I've made my choice."

Su Mian shrugged indifferently, and when her fingers touched the box on the podium, both of them fainted at the same time.

Welcome to Cardboard Box Space.

Each cardboard box contains unused drafts from an endless series of murder mystery games. These can be used to improve deductive reasoning skills, to punish detectives who break the rules, or to discard outliers eliminated from the game.

[You are currently in a cardboard box space called "Dream." Please observe everything within the space; everything could be a clue. Use these clues to deduce and reconstruct the events.]

[The cardboard box space will keep track of your time.]

Su Mian opened her eyes to find herself in a small clinic room, only a few square meters in size. Outside the window was nothing but emptiness, and it was raining.

She immediately focused her attention on the furnishings in the room.

After scanning everything, quickly organize it into useful information.

1. The wall clock: stopped at 03:17, the second hand is gone.

2. Waiting chair: There is a dried, dark brown stain under the third chair.

3. Medical record cabinet: The bottom drawer is half open, and there is only one medical record inside. The name is blacked out, and there are many horizontal lines in the blank file.

4. Sink: The faucet is dripping, and a sentence has been scratched out on the mirror with a fingernail: "Don't let him fall asleep."

5. Trash can: It contained a large number of disposable syringes, all with the needles deliberately broken off.

6. Through the crack in the inner door: Regular, slow breathing could be heard from inside, but the clinic had been closed for many years.

7. Floor: Dragging marks extend from the inner room to the feet, then suddenly disappear in front of you.

[Task updated: Please reconstruct the story and determine who is sleeping in the cubicle.]

Su Mian carefully examined the medical record and realized that the line on the file was not drawn horizontally.

Instead, they were spaced out, so much so that they were almost invisible unless you looked closely. She suddenly remembered the "one" drawn on every side of the cardboard box.

It might be an important clue.

The fact that time stopped suggests the story is likely related to a loop, and the force used to break the needles in the trash can must have come from the same person.

As she approached the inner room, she noticed the breathing sounds getting closer and closer, not in terms of distance, but in terms of hearing.

The voice had been in his ear the whole time, but it only came closer when it got to the inner room.

The sound will get louder and louder.

It's an illusion.

If you think too simply, you'll definitely think there's someone inside. But Su Mian tried several times before she confirmed that the voice was right next to her ear.

"Was that me?"

"Am I sleeping in the cubicle?"

[Correct answer! Please continue reasoning to uncover the truth of the story.]

Su Mian breathed a sigh of relief. Sure enough, the medical record probably listed "herself," and she herself was a mental patient who had been locked up here, repeating the same things she used to do every day.

"I am a mental patient who was dragged here and locked up. The time loop prevents me from getting out of here, and I have to sleep after being given injections."

"So I made marks on the medical records every day, and the words on the mirror were to remind myself to stay awake so that I could escape."

[Not entirely correct, please continue your deduction, detective!]