Feng Huai looked at the roof as soon as Luo Haonan came down, but he found nothing, not even a sling.
It was as if Luo Haonan had fallen out of nowhere, and even where he had appeared in the first moment seemed to be a mystery.
Feng Huai immediately put down the piano in his hand and quickly ran to the backstage.
There was an elevator in the backstage, which could be used to reach the position near the roof.
He operated the elevator and leapt up with a light touch, waiting with bated breath for the elevator to take him to the highest point.
When he was about to reach the roof, he heard a scream from the stage below.
Only then did Mu Zi realize what had happened, she took two steps back with rounded eyes until her body crashed into the piano, her elbows pressed against the keys, making a piercing and dull noise, and only then did she come back to her senses with a jolt.
“My god …… is that investor ……,” Mu Zi murmured incredulously.
Zhang Xiaofeng had a pale face, but didn’t move his eyes away.
Ji Jian had goosebumps all over his body, he cursed, and jumped away quickly.
“If this was smashed one centimeter off! I would have been dead!” Ji Jian cursed.
“Who killed him?” Mu Zi sucked in her breath, she looked up to the dome, and then her pupils slightly shrunk – Feng Huai was standing up there.
Ji Jian gently poked Mu Zi’s arm, signaling her to stop looking up and look down-
Someone had fallen from a height and died.
But the audience at the bottom of the stage didn’t react.
Mu Zi receives Ji Jian’s hint, her eyes fall on the audience below the stage, then her scalp tingled a little, she lowered her voice and asked Ji Jian: “Not a single person screamed, this is too strange, right?”
“Not only not screaming, you see those people, they’re too calm!” Ji Jian suppressed his urge to scream.
Mu Zi looked at the audience again.
The faces of every audience member sitting in the front row were indifferent and numb, but everyone’s eyes were focused on the corpse on the stage.
Mu Zi gulped, “Those viewers aren’t ignoring the accident that happened, they just …… just seem, not surprised?”
Ji Jian was reminded by Mu Zi, and quickly reacted, “It’s as if …… Look at them, just staring at the corpse with such a deadly stare, like they can’t wait to eat the corpse alive.”
After he finished, he suddenly patted Mu Zi twice with force, “Sister Mu Zi! Take a closer look at them, don’t you think that each and every one of them has …… extraordinarily pale skin? It just …… doesn’t look like a living person ah?”
Due to the lighting of the stage, the light underneath the stage wasn’t good, plus the reflection of some slightly blue spotlights at the bottom of the stage, made the faces of the audience underneath look even more pale.
Mu Zi was frightened by Ji Jian’s words, and the more she looked, the more she felt that it looked like such a thing.
Zhang Xiaofeng stood behind the two of them and suddenly spoke coldly, “So what if it’s not a living person? If we play for the dead or the living, is there much difference?”
Ji Jian jumped up in place with an “ow”, tears almost flying out of his eyes at Zhang Xiaofeng’s sorrowful words.
“Big brother, at this time please say something human, okay ……,” Ji Jian tearfully looked at Zhang Xiaofeng, “where can the dead hear voices and see things?”
Mu Zi stood at the side of Ji Jian, paused and asked, “So …… Zhang Xiaofeng, are you a living person?”
Ji Jian: “……” Stunned, he stiffly moved away from Zhang Xiaofeng.
“Of course I’m alive.” Zhang Xiaofeng laughed a little, seemingly amused by the two of them, “The timid and clumsy trumpeter, who always bumps into something, after two days here, don’t you guys know me best?”
Mu Zi and Ji Jian were slightly embarrassed, these comments were made during their casual conversations, not realizing that they would be heard and noted by the person involved.
No wonder they couldn’t trigger the side quest. Mu Zi thought in her heart, first of all, the NPC favorability wasn’t in place ah.
As Mu Zi was slandering in her heart, she suddenly felt the lights in front of her eyes brighten up, and she wondered if Feng Huai had touched something backstage and turned on the spotlights under the stage.
“Sister Mu Zi!” Ji Jian sucked in a breath and called out with a startled cry.
“What’s wrong again?” Mu Zi frowned.
“I …… suddenly realized that Zhang Xiaofeng might not be joking.” Ji Jian gulped and whispered, “Those spectators, might really not be human ……”
Zhang Xiaofeng: “When did I joke?”
Mu Zi stared slightly.
Ji Jian pointed to the seating area directly under their stage in the first row.
Earlier, due to the dim lighting, they hadn’t been able to see what the audience underneath was wearing or how they were dressed.
It wasn’t until just now, when the lights underneath were turned on by mistake, that they noticed that the audience underneath wasn’t dressed in the usual dress code required to see a concert performance.
They were wearing fall gray-blue jackets with bright orange collar and shoulder-sleeve areas, and everyone was dressed exactly the same, like work clothes.
They were indeed work clothes.
Work clothes for construction workers on site.
Mu Zi didn’t recognize them at first, until she noticed that half of the face of one of the spectators was on a photograph she had seen.
That half of the face was originally hidden in the shadows, and the half of the face seen from Mu Zi’s side was intact until the person seemed to notice Mu Zi’s line of sight and slowly turned his head to look over.
Then Mu Zi saw half of the face that was almost squeezed together, the eyes, nose and mouth were almost all rubbed together, it was hard to imagine what had happened to the other person before he died.
Mu Zi fell back onto the stage, suddenly staring at the person with wide eyes, so scared that she forgot to even breathe.
“Oh come on, it’s rude to stare at someone, I think that person will get angry if you keep staring.” Zhang Xiaofeng kindly reminded.
Ji Jian was also startled, but it wasn’t as strong as the shock Mu Zi received, and at the sound of his words, he saw the half-faced man vaguely change his face a little, seemingly about to get up from his seat.
He sucked in a breath of cool air and hurriedly covered Mu Zi’s eyes, saying in a panic: ”We’re not staring at you! Not staring! Big brother don’t be angry!”
Mu Zi had her eyes covered by Ji Jian, but she couldn’t muster the strength to remove her hand.
She recalled the old newspaper she had seen earlier in the lounge.
–When the Opera House was first remodeled, there was a collapse at one point, and dozens of workers were crushed under the construction pile.
She murmured, “So this closing performance …… is dedicated to those dead workers.”
“Yes, but Luo Haonan wouldn’t think so.” A smile tugged at the corners of Zhang Xiaofeng’s mouth, as he responded to Mu Zi, “However, it’s not up to him.”
Mu Zi opened her mouth but couldn’t say a word, she suddenly realized that even though she was a player, the dominance of the game was never in her hands.
……
Feng Huai ascended through the backstage elevator to the place closest to the roof.
It was dozens of meters high from the stage, and everything that was happening below the stage was cut off by the huge beams.
Feng Huai couldn’t see what was happening below, so he simply didn’t look, and he set his eyes on the entire huge dome.
The dome of this performance hall consisted of several thick beams interlaced to support all the weight.
Looking up from the bottom, one would not feel how exaggerated these beams are. It was only when one ascended them that one realized that these beams were probably made entirely of several hundred year old logs.
The huge log beams were completely enough for two adults to stand on them side by side.
Feng Huai realized that perhaps before, Luo Haonan was killed here and thrown down.
The elevator was up there before he came up, and the only way to leave the roof was the elevator, which meant that if Luo Haonan was murdered here, then the murderer was still hiding here and had not left.
Feng Huai eased his footsteps and stepped onto the beam.
The concentrated beams of spotlights on the stage were all located below the beam, above the beam, there was a dimness where the light could not shine, and only a hint of brightness could be vaguely borrowed from the stage’s lighting.
Just as he thought, at the other end of the beam, he vaguely saw a man half crouching on the beam.
Feng Huai silently approached the figure, which looked defenseless.
If he was willing, there were ten ways he could take the other person down without disturbing the people underneath.
Feng Huai thought, fixing his gaze on the figure’s back.
“You’re here.” The man’s voice rang out unexpectedly, without a hint of surprise.
Feng Huai’s eyes widened slightly, “Yu Rui?”
“I was one step ahead of you, but unfortunately, one step behind the murderer.” Yu Rui said.
Feng Huai frowned.
He gestured to Feng Huai, “This is the last place I checked, there’s no bloodstains, no strangulation marks, nothing.”
“It’s like god opened a door for him out of nowhere and let him fall from the dome.” Feng Huai whispered.
Yu Rui slightly raised his eyebrow, “Since when do you believe in god?”
“No, I believe in predestination. And anyone, anything, can play god, play the one who can open the door.” Feng Huai glanced at Yu Rui and looked around, “Like you said, someone opened a door for him to fall, and that door is right here.”
Yu Rui quickly reacted with a “uh-huh” and stood up to look around, “You mean, that side quest, [Finding the Invisible Door]?”
“This place also fits the quest description, doesn’t it?” Feng Huai asked rhetorically.
He tilted his head and looked at the colorful glazed dome, which depicted the Virgin Mary, meaning the saint of the sinless body. She prayed for forgiveness of sins on behalf of people and confessed all sins.
Feng Huai looked at Yu Rui, “It’s really the best outcome for a guilty person to push open an invisible door, make a final confession in front of the Virgin Mary, and then die.”
Yu Rui thought for a moment, “If you think about it from the perspective of a door, you’ve reminded me that there’s a place that might be suitable.”
He signaled Feng Huai to follow him and walked into the elevator.
“Earlier, Luo Haonan called out to meet with me alone, and he talked to me about the orchestra’s subsequent collaboration with the theater.” Yu Rui said, “But not long after we chatted, he received a phone call, his expression became extremely ugly, and he hurriedly left.”
“I trailed behind him, following him into a hall, the hall curtains were all drawn up, there was hardly a bit of light, just when I thought I had lost him, there was suddenly a flashlight beam above my head that shook twice, and I saw him appear in the audience box on the third floor.”
“The design of the audience box is that it can only be accessed from the vip channel outside the hall, and the inside of the hall is off-limits.” Yu Rui added, “At least that’s how it’s claimed externally, but apparently, Luo Haonan knows some hidden passages.”
“The hidden passages might not be just that one, they might be connected in all directions.” Feng Huai understood Yu Rui’s suspicion.
His eyes lit up slightly, as long as they could find one of them, they would be able to find out all the other hidden passages along the way.
Yu Rui nodded.
They left the stage from backstage and entered the temporarily unoccupied performance hall that Yu Rui said.
“A performance audience box like this looks like some opera house from the nineteenth century.” Feng Huai tilted his head to look at their destination and commented.
“Then judging from the architect’s preferred style that won’t change easily, maybe the entrance to the secret passage we’re looking for is also in the same vein as that nineteenth century era.” Yu Rui did feel that Feng Huai had provided a good idea and nodded.
The two of them split up and searched for something that could be a door lock.
“Look at these candlesticks on the ground, they shouldn’t be here.” Feng Huai lowered his voice and called out to Yu Rui.
“Candlesticks should be placed on pillars to be lit, not stacked in a corner like a short version of a trident as a murder weapon that can trip people to death.” Feng Huai spat.
He froze when he finished and suddenly realized something.
[F.uck the newcomer found the truth? Don’t tell me, this shape and size, it kinda matches the pianist’s neck piercing wound?!!!]
[Newcomer: I have a mouth like this, what’s the truth?]
Yu Rui and he glanced at each other, both of them understood what was in each other’s mind.
Yu Rui said, “Put that one aside for now, put the candlestick back in its original position and take a look.”
When they put the last candlestick back in its place, they heard a “poof” sound, and the wall against the inner side was suddenly pushed through a gap.
Feng Huai inhaled lightly – they had found it, the invisible door.
Just as they were about to enter, a commotion came from outside the corridor.
The news of a dead investor had finally gotten out, and the police and staff began to move.
“Let’s go back first, or we’ll be the number one suspect.” Yu Rui said on the spot.
Feng Huai was slightly stunned, they were players, did they not have the power to be automatically excluded as suspects?
“In this world, you’re living and breathing.” Yu Rui could tell what Feng Huai was thinking at a glance, and he emphasized in a deep voice, “In someone else’s world, you’re the outsider.”
He tugged on Feng Huai’s hand and seized the moment to flash into the crowd, blending back into the scene of the crime in silence.
TN:
Merry Christmas y’all and happy new year in advance ♥️♥️