The male supporting character was actually myself.

The family of nearly twenty people lives in two newly built villas that are in a row.

According to the villagers, the village chief's children are all successful. Except for the second son and his family, who stayed on the island to help their father with tourism, the other children have settled down in big cities.

They returned a day early with their families because it coincided with an important annual festival on the island.

The largest new boat on the dock belongs to the village chief.

Their family only has this complete set of belongings during the Lunar New Year and when they worship the sea god.

The family of Li Mingliang was in a similar situation to the village chief's. His son was named Li Shuaishuai, and his mother was the old woman who had driven away the village chief's grandson, Zhang Pengpeng. Her name was Wang Siya.

After walking around for a while, it was almost noon, and we could vaguely hear the sound of gongs and drums and opera performances starting in the main square.

"So far, everything seems to be normal." Duan Chengze stood on the hillside and looked down. Most of the villagers had already gathered in the square and were busy preparing to cook, with large pots boiling water in the pots.

Jiang Chen pointed to a man preparing offerings for the sea god, "The one wearing the hat is the one with the red birthmark who was hacked to death in the bushes. His name is Wang Dayou. He used to be a tour guide when the tourism industry was booming."

There aren't many tourists coming these days, so he often makes and sells pottery. His wife was paralyzed a couple of years ago and has been sickly ever since; their family is very poor.

"If the note in Wang Dayou's pocket was written by Zhang Qiang's wife, she should be ready to give it to him by now."

Duan Chengze looked up at the clock tower and whispered, "Wang Dayou was arranged by the village chief to prepare sacrificial items early this morning."

Zhang Qiang's wife was helping prepare the banquet, and the two didn't have a chance to speak privately in public. She probably only then remembered to pass him the note.

"The village chief said the sea god worship ceremony will be held at four o'clock this afternoon, and the whole village will attend. It's risky for her to meet Wang Dayou at three o'clock. What could be making Zhang Qiang's wife so anxious?"

Duan Chengze frowned slightly and shook his head. "I didn't find anything amiss."

"Host!" The little white cat, who had split up, darted over from the back mountain and cried out in a panic, "Something terrible has happened! Li Shuaishuai has drowned! He was discovered by Wang Erzhu, who was casting his net to fish at the river mouth in the back mountain!"

Jiang Chen turned around and headed towards the back of the mountain, but saw Shi Xiaotong running towards him from that direction in the distance.

Duan Chengze reminded her, "Zhang Qiang's wife was in charge of pouring water. She paused for a moment when she passed by Wang Dayou!"

The two of them looked up at the clock tower at the same time; it was already past noon.

"A child has drowned!" Shi Xiaotong ran over breathlessly. "You guys have to go and see! He fell down the waterfall and his neck is broken. It's terrifying!"

Li Mingliang's wife is not from the village; it is said that he married her from elsewhere.

Dressed smartly and wearing heavy makeup, she was now holding her limp, long-dead son and crying her heart out.

"My precious grandson, how could you die!" Grandma Wang Siya rolled on the ground and cried, while the villagers gathered around and watched silently, no one came forward to comfort her.

Jiang Chen noticed that several people had intriguing expressions on their faces; Zhang Qiang's wife even seemed a little gloating.

"Zhang Pengpeng!" After wailing and throwing a tantrum for a while, Wang Siya suddenly jumped up, grabbed her son Li Mingliang, and shouted, "He's the one who instigated it! He must have dragged Shuai Shuai to play in the water. I'll make him pay for my grandson's life!"

Upon hearing this, Li Mingliang was filled with rage. He wiped away his tears, grabbed the shovel from Li Dahan's hand, and roared as he went to find Zhang Pengpeng.

The village chief was assigning tasks at the Sea God Temple when he heard about it and led a group of strong men to stop them.

A fierce conflict broke out between the two sides, but Li Mingliang was outnumbered and was quickly subdued by having his shovel taken away.

With the protection of his father, uncles, and aunts, Zhang Pengpeng explained that he originally wanted to invite his childhood friend Li Shuaishuai to go fishing in the river, but his grandmother stopped him and he was beaten, so he left.

After that, he played with his uncles and cousins ​​and never saw Li Shuaishuai again.

The fiery Wang Siya insisted that it was because of his encouragement that her grandson, who couldn't swim, went to play by the river and had an accident, and that Zhang Pengpeng should be held responsible.

Zhang Pengpeng's father naturally objected, retorting that they themselves hadn't taken good care of their child.

After arguing for a long time, the village chief agreed to pay some money, but insisted on digging a hole and burying Li Shuaishuai immediately.

According to ancestral rules, one should not encounter any bad luck on the day of the sacrifice. Therefore, it is necessary to quickly resolve the issue so that Li Mingliang's family will no longer attend the sacrifice, so as not to offend the sea god.

According to the village custom, children who die before reaching adulthood are not buried in the ancestral graveyard.

Li Mingliang called a few people to help him find a place on the back mountain to dig a pit and bury his son.

His wife was crying her heart out when he kicked her aside. "You still have the nerve to cry? Who told you not to take good care of the kids! I've fed you and clothed you all these years, and you still haven't given birth to another one. Instead of wailing, you should have had more children!"

The heavy makeup made the woman look somewhat terrifying. She stopped crying after being kicked twice, but instead glared menacingly at the onlookers, pointing and drawing a circle with her finger. "You...you all have to die! I'll make everyone pay for my son's death!"

"Damn it, what does your son's death have to do with us?"

"You don't accumulate virtue and will be childless, yet you have the nerve to curse others!"

"Just you wait, this is only the beginning..."

……

The villagers she pointed at spoke rudely, and several even spat and cursed as they left.

Wang Siya, whose grandson had died, had a livid face and stared viciously at the villagers who were making sarcastic remarks. Her withered hands were clenched tightly.

"If it weren't for our Li family, you would have starved to death long ago!"

"You ungrateful wretch, you will get your comeuppance!"

She cursed a few times, dragged her daughter-in-law home, and then stayed inside the house and never came out again.

The accident delayed the activities in the square, and the banquet officially began after the situation was resolved.

Apart from Li Mingliang's family, who had just lost their son, most of the people were present. Hot food was served, and everyone toasted and chatted, creating a lively and festive atmosphere.

Chapter Six: Terrifying Desert Island (Part 5)

On the stage, the music and singing were in full swing. A person dressed in theatrical costume and makeup had just finished singing a line when suddenly he grabbed his own neck, convulsed a few times, and leaned against the prop table, where he died.

It was as if a switch had been flipped, and people in the square began to fall one after another.

Within ten minutes, more than half of the villagers had died.

"Help! Murder!"

In the woods near the beach, Zhang Qiang, his eyes bloodshot, chased after Wang Dayou, who was having an affair with his wife, wielding an axe. The two ran into the village chief, who was holding a dagger. Terrified, Wang Dayou shouted at the village chief, "Put down the knife! Don't come any closer!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Wang Dayou tripped and fell into the bushes. Zhang Qiang then nearly chopped off his head with an axe, and blood gushed down, soaking the beach.

The village chief was so frightened by what he saw that he trembled as he held the dagger in his hand.

The two sides met briefly. The village chief was no match for the young and strong Zhang Qiang, who was blinded by hatred. His knife not only failed to injure the other party but also cut himself several times. In his last instinct for survival, he stumbled and tried to run towards the beach but was beheaded and fell to the ground.

"You bitch, how dare you cuckold me?" Driven mad by the lust for blood, Zhang Qiang grabbed the woman's hair and stabbed her in the back with a knife, gritting his teeth in her ear, "You haven't conceived a thing all these years, and I haven't even found a lover yet, while you're already finding some other man, go to hell!"

He pushed her, and the woman stumbled and ran towards the beach, crying, "Help...help me..."

She hadn't gone far when she staggered, her breath coming in gasps, and collapsed on the beach, where she died.

Zhang Qiang tucked the blood-stained axe into his waistband, turned and walked towards the village. He was terrified when he saw that everyone in the square was dead. Not long after, he stumbled and died in the bushes next to the square.

"It's a bit far away, so we can't see the details very clearly." Duan Chengze and Jiang Chen stood at the foot of the clock tower halfway up the mountain, surveying the entire scene.

Song Gang, whom we hadn't seen much, came from the village with a grave expression and said, "These people must have been poisoned, but I can't figure out where the poison was put."

Liang Rumeng and Shi Xiaotong had met up at some point, and they came around from the back of the mountain.

"Li Shuaishuai's grave has been dug up by someone, and his body is gone." Liang Rumeng pinched her brow and said, "Is this really a beginner dungeon? I've been in the game so many times, and I've never seen anything so brutal."

Shi Xiaotong added, "Li Mingliang's whole family is dead. After they went back home, they stayed at home and didn't come out or have any contact with anyone else."

“There’s no well in the village; they draw water from the river. It’s unlikely they’d collectively poison us.” Song Gang rubbed his face nervously and said, “Could it be some kind of inhaled poison? Could we be poisoned too?”

Duan Chengze shook his head and said, "It can't be an inhalation type; it's impossible in an open-air plaza."

"Host, I saw it clearly just now!"

The little white cat jumped onto Jiang Chen's shoulder and whispered, "After killing people, Zhang Qiang was terrified when he saw so many dead bodies on his way back."

He was drenched in cold sweat and his legs were trembling. Then he pulled out a small flask he always carried with him from his pocket, took a few sips of wine, and died a short while later!

Everyone knew what was going to happen in the bushes near the beach, so no one dared to go near.

Otherwise, if the murderer finds out, you'll definitely be silenced. The rules of the game don't allow for restrictions on personal freedom, so it's safer to stay away.

Only after the bell rang and it was confirmed that there was no further movement in the village at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon did Jiang Chen and his group split up and set off.

All 132 people from 21 households on the deserted island perished.

"Li Shuaishuai's body has been hung at the Temple of Poseidon!" Tang Zixuan, who had been hiding for a long time, was pale and trembling, looking like he was terrified.

Jiang Chen and Duan Chengze went to take a look. In the main hall, which had just been unlocked and cleaned, a corpse still covered in dirt was hanging from the main beam with a hemp rope.

Li Shuaishuai's neck was already broken and limp, and now that he was hanging up, his neck was stretched out and swayed in the sea breeze.

The little white cat scratched its ear, looking completely bewildered. "Who did this? This is so creepy!"

Jiang Chen got up and walked down the mountain. "Where did the wine we drank at the banquet today come from?"

“It shouldn’t be poisoned in the wine.” Duan Chengze frowned. “Many women and children don’t drink alcohol, and they still die. I’m more inclined to believe the water was poisoned.”

However, there are no wells in the village, and the water used for cooking at the banquet is fetched fresh.

The villagers who didn't come to the banquet also died;

The wine used at the banquet was kept in a small bamboo house next to the square; it was a huge wooden barrel with a valve at the bottom.

Upon opening the lid, a strong aroma of alcohol wafts out, suggesting it's homemade.

Li Mingliang and his wife were clearly refined people; they were both wearing perfume and had no smell of alcohol on them. They died in the main house.

Wang Siya died in the east wing. She was probably standing on a stool to get gasoline when the poison took effect, and she collapsed in a pool of gasoline. An empty bucket rolled down next to her.

"What does this old lady want to do with the gasoline?" Song Gang scratched his head, looking puzzled.

Duan Chengze came out of the west wing and asked Shi Xiaotong, "Where did you keep watch after they came back? The west wing has two doors, one connecting to the main house and the other leading to the backyard."

"There's a back door?!" Shi Xiaotong cursed, went in and looked around, muttering to herself, "Their child just died, and I have no reason to go in, so I can only sit under that stone pavilion across the street and keep an eye on them."

I heard from Li Mingliang's wife that she wanted everyone to be buried with her, and I felt that she had a motive to kill.

I initially thought that since no one in the family had left the house, there was no suspicion, but if their house has a back door…

She frowned, her mind a jumble of thoughts.

The group of six split up to search for clues but found nothing. As darkness fell, they gathered at the beach hut.

“Let’s summarize all the known information.” Duan Chengze thought for a moment and tried to sort out the clues. “The murder on the beach should be an accident. What I saw was that Zhang Qiang ran into the woods with an axe, bumped into his wife with Wang Dayou, and when he chased after Wang Dayou, he happened to run into the village chief with a dagger.”

Zhang Qiang killed Wang Dayou, the village chief, and his own wife, and died in the bushes by the square on his way back to the village.

Jiang Chen added, "He made a drinking motion after killing the man, and I found an empty small wine flask on his body."

Assuming the poison was added to the alcohol, the time between Zhang Qiang drinking it and his death is consistent with cyanide poisoning.