INSIDER Chapter 35

Li Jiapeng stood up and paced around, calming himself before sitting back down. He then asked the others who were still deep in thought, “So, how did Lin Lin die?”

He Mingde suggested, “Domestic violence?”

Song Gui speculated, “Suicide?”

Lu Chu proposed, “Accident?”

Qi Li remained silent, prompting everyone to look at him. Finally, Qi Li spoke up, “Murder.”

Li Jiapeng clapped his hands together. “Great, we’ve covered all the possible ways to die. Now we can summon the dragon.”

Lu Chu suddenly thought of something and asked Song Gui, “Did you find anything else in the storeroom?”

“No,” Song Gui leaned back in his chair lazily. “But before I left, I locked the storeroom door again. I hope Wei Rong only has one key. While searching, I felt like something was missing. I plan to go back when Wei Rong isn’t home or when she’s at Aunt Wang’s, and dig up the floor of the storeroom with a shovel.”

Lu Chu pondered this and said, “That’s a good idea. I noticed ‘its’ scent was particularly strong at Wei Rong’s house.”

He Mingde added, “A stronger scent… That makes sense since Guo Jianping’s place is the starting point of everything.”

Lu Chu replied, “We need to check it out to be sure.”

Song Gui interjected, “Lu Chu, do you have some sort of psychic ability? Other people rely on spirit sight, but you use your sense of smell? Very advanced.”

Li Jiapeng agreed. “I think so too!”

Lu Chu shook his head. “Who knows?”

Ever since he left his original “game,” his already sharp senses had become even more acute. He hadn’t mentioned that he could sometimes determine “its” location by closing his eyes and meditating.

“But what about Liu Cuihe? Should we keep looking there?” He Mingde asked.

Lu Chu affirmed, “Yes, we should.”

When Wei Rong went mad earlier, most of her ramblings were similar to before, but she ended by questioning, “Do you think you were fair to me, to Lin Lin?”

This suggested that Wei Rong might have learned part of what happened later, but some unknown trauma drove her insane.

Lu Chu tapped his fingers on the table. “We need to piece together the truth of what happened back then.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

Lu Chu placed a few stones on the table. He started with one in the center. “Guo Jianping, who came to the village over twenty years ago and started the first school here, is at the center of this incident.”

He then placed two stones beside the first one. “Wei Rong and Lin Lin, who were among the first students at the school. Wei Rong had feelings for Guo Jianping and helped him, but he ended up marrying the prettier Lin Lin.”

Finally, he placed another stone on the table. “Liu Cuihe, who had an affair with Guo Jianping during his marriage to Lin Lin. She moved out of the village shortly before Lin Lin was rumored to have run off with another man, but in reality, Lin Lin was already dead. Guo Jianping then married Wei Rong. Wei Rong discovered that Guo Jianping was often away from home and suspected he was seeing ‘the returned Lin Lin,’ but he was actually entangled with Liu Cuihe again. This led to a fight, a miscarriage, and Wei Rong’s descent into madness. Guo Jianping’s strange death followed, and Wei Rong lost her sanity completely.”

The others nodded thoughtfully.

Lu Chu then placed three wooden sticks on the table. “Apart from Guo Jianping, three others have been killed: Yang Cheng, the village chief, and another villager. I suspect this villager was one of the drunks who tried to assault Lin Lin, as recorded in her diary.”

“Now we’ve determined that Yang Cheng is the ‘ghost,’ and the most likely candidate for a vengeful spirit is Lin Lin. This matches our previous assumption,” Lu Chu continued. “We previously hypothesized that the ghost, having grown powerful over twenty years, didn’t kill all at once because it, like us, wanted to uncover the truth of what happened back then.”

Lu Chu tossed the stone representing Lin Lin into the air and caught it. “The ghost kills one by one both for revenge and to push us to uncover the truth.”

He Mingde exclaimed, “So the ghost wants to know who Guo Jianping had the affair with… Perhaps Lin Lin’s death is connected to that person, Liu Cuihe?”

“Exactly,” Lu Chu nodded. “Lin Lin’s diary shows she never knew the other woman was Liu Cuihe. Her death is a mystery, but it’s likely connected to those drunks and Liu Cuihe.”

“So we must find Liu Cuihe,” Li Jiapeng added.

Song Gui stretched. “Looks like we’ll be asking around the whole neighborhood tomorrow.”

“It’s just one street,” Lu Chu pointed out.

Qi Li added, “Our main tasks now are to determine how Lin Lin died, Liu Cuihe’s and Guo Jianping’s roles in it, and whether finding Liu Cuihe can resolve the ghost’s anger.”

“What if the anger can’t be resolved?” Li Jiapeng asked with a bitter smile.

Song Gui laughed, “Then we’re out of luck.”

“Perhaps,” Lu Chu said, “we should also find out how Wei Rong learned the truth. Or maybe she didn’t learn the whole truth but enough to feel anger on Lin Lin’s behalf and call Guo Jianping a beast.”

“I think,” He Mingde interjected, “Wei Rong might have found Lin Lin’s diary.”

Li Jiapeng agreed. “Maybe she read the diary, realized what kind of person Guo Jianping was, and discovered he was having an affair with someone else, leading to her madness.”

Lu Chu considered this. “I think it’s more than that. Reading the diary doesn’t explain why she went from unstable to completely mad, nor why she reacted with fear and pity when we showed her Lin Lin’s photo.”

Lu Chu looked at the others. “I think she actually saw the ghost.”