Chapter 230: The Real Killer

"Blood?"

The flashlight's beam illuminated the dark red blood. It hadn't congealed yet, dripping from the wooden treasure chest drop by drop.

"So much for the promised treasure." I had already lost all interest in opening the chest; the still-flowing blood explained enough on its own.

"Streamer, what are you spacing out for? Open the chest! Wouldn't it be great if you won a 'one more chest' prize?"

Vengeful Spirit Who Hasn't Finished Homework: "Blood on the ground, a corpse hidden in a wooden box, placed inside a maze... It would be perfect if there was dismemberment too!"

Socrates Paradox: "Streamer, open the chest. No matter whose corpse you see, this place is a 'treasure' for you because it can provide precious clues."

Teletubbies Died of Murder tipped the Super Thriller Live Broadcast Room 99 Underworld Coins: "I bet 99 Underworld Coins it's Yi Yi's corpse inside!"

Vengeful Spirit Who Hasn't Finished Homework tipped the Super Thriller Live Broadcast Room 99 Underworld Coins: "I bet 99 Underworld Coins too, it's our math teacher's corpse inside!"

...

I set the flashlight aside and pushed the wooden treasure chest open with both hands. A thick stench of blood immediately hit my face.

I leaned in for a look. Folded at the bottom of the box was a male corpse. He bore multiple axe wounds, but the true cause of death was likely asphyxiation.

"The wounds are mostly distributed across his hands and back. He must have been caught by the killer while trying to run and chopped down."

"His clothes show signs of tearing and twisting. Even after falling, he tried to struggle and block the axe with his hands, but he was ultimately overpowered."

"There are obvious bruise marks on his neck. He must have been strangled to death after losing the ability to resist."

I rolled the male corpse over and felt a jolt of surprise when I saw his face. "Xiaobei?"

The young man in the staff uniform lying before me was none other than Xiaobei. He had a handsome face, though it was now clouded by a layer of deathly gray.

I peeled back his eyelids to check the whites of his eyes, then examined his tongue. The time of death wasn't too long ago, but pinning it down to the exact minute was impossible with just my bare eyes.

"He doesn't have the white foundation left behind by the Clown makeup on his face. This young man must be the real Xiaobei." Seeing this, the situation took another complicated turn. I had originally thought the other party only disguised themselves as Tie Ningxiang, but looking at it now, they were playing a much larger game.

"Why did they kill Xiaobei?" When I first met Xiaobei in the Haunted House, he was wearing the serial killer costume and seemed to be looking for something. There was a specific detail at the time: he had picked up that red dress from a few years ago and said a single sentence—"How did this end up here?"

His tone was full of surprise, as if he also found it strange that a red dress would appear in the hospital.

"The person who disguised themselves as Xiaobei must have seen the red dress before. And since Xiaobei was a Haunted House repairman, impersonating him allowed the killer to freely enter and exit the Haunted House. It seems that place is far from simple." I stood beside the corpse and voiced my deduction.

Socrates Paradox: "Streamer, I once encountered a criminal who wiped out an entire family and fled. The police didn't have a single clue, and the case went nowhere. It wasn't until ten years later that the police received a tip from a well-meaning citizen saying someone had secretly entered the old house where the massacre took place. Following that lead, the police caught the person sneaking in. After an interrogation, they discovered that he was the very killer from the massacre ten years prior."

"At the time, the police asked him why he revisited the scene. His answer was that he wanted to come back and look at what he had done."

"The most brutal criminals don't kill for money or profit. They usually don't lack wealth, and they possess exceptional psychological fortitude along with glamorous identities and professions. They kill simply to satisfy their own twisted hobbies. It's a thrill that ordinary stimulation cannot replace."

"Assuming a real murder occurred five years ago and the victim was the little girl in the red dress, then I speculate that the person who replaced Xiaobei is very likely the killer who committed the murder in the Haunted House all those years ago. He just wanted to come back and take a look."

After reading Socrates Paradox's message, I nodded.

His analysis made sense. I was becoming even more curious about this livestream viewer's identity; ordinary people wouldn't have access to this kind of psychological profiling of killers.

So, he was either a master of criminal psychology, or a psychopathic killer hopelessly addicted to bloodshed!

Of course, regardless of his identity, he was at least standing on my side for now.

"The possibility you mentioned absolutely exists. The killer who caused the Amusement Park to shut down five years ago has returned now that the park has reopened. They want to recreate the tragedy!"

I couldn't find any other clues on Xiaobei's body, so I placed him back in the wooden chest. "Someone is dead. Looks like I have to call the police."

A human life was a matter of utmost importance. Besides, my fingerprints were left here; calling the police was the right choice.

Taking out my phone, I called the Municipal Sub-bureau. Zhao Bin was on duty. After quickly explaining the situation, I hastily hung up.

"There are three places hiding treasure chests in the maze. Are they all filled with corpses?" With nothing more to gain in the room, I grabbed the flashlight and the map and stepped out.

My field of vision was filled with mirrors. Under the light, the figures in the mirrors all moved along with my footsteps. Sometimes, I couldn't even tell if they were my reflections or if someone was actually following me.

Every time I passed a fork, I used the iron pliers to scratch a mark on the ground. Following the map's guidance, I soon arrived at the second location where treasure was buried.

Pushing open the gold-framed mirror, I found a wooden treasure chest sitting in the center of the room.

"There's no blood on the ground, and the air is very dry. It shouldn't be a corpse this time, right?"

I lifted the wooden box's lid. The contents inside were unexpected, yet made perfect sense.

It was a female corpse. Her skin was fair and tender, so supple it looked like you could pinch water out of it. She had maintained herself very well. Unfortunately, she lacked the warmth a living person should have.

"Li Manman?" I carried the female corpse out and placed her on the ground, staring at her terrified face. "The time of death should be quite recent. The cause of death... is asphyxiation."

I found clear bruise marks on Li Manman's neck. The state of her death was consistent with strangulation.

"There are no other wounds on her body, nor any human tissue under her fingernails. Strange. It seems she was easily killed without putting up much of a struggle?"

Socrates Paradox: "Streamer, the expression on this woman's face should be a breakthrough point. It looks like she saw something absolutely terrifying."

"Yeah, but what exactly did she see? Something that stripped her of even the courage to resist." I examined Li Manman's corpse, hoping to find more clues, but came up empty-handed.

The killer's process of murdering her couldn't have taken more than a minute. Ambush, attack, hiding the body—the sequence was methodical, as if perfectly premeditated.

"Li Manman was caught on camera the first time she entered the maze. After that, whatever she encountered inside remains unknown. What's terrifying is that when I arrived at the maze, she appeared in front of me again. I'm afraid the Li Manman from that moment was no longer herself."

The surveillance cameras hadn't captured how the killer exited the maze. In other words, this maze had more than just the entrance and exit marked on the map; there were other ways out.

"The killer understands the maze very well. Could he be a staff member managing the maze?" As my deduction reached this point, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind: "Right! The hiding spots for both murder cases are inside the maze, and the primary crime scene for Li Manman's death should be within the maze too. But absolutely none of this was caught on the security monitors!"

I had noticed cameras positioned above many of the mirrors along the way. Thinking back to the screens in the security room, this place was heavily surveilled, yet not a single camera had captured the killer's actions.

"This proves that he is intimately familiar with the maze. He knows the location of every camera and is aware of secret passages not marked on the map. Even a staff member would have a hard time achieving this."

Racking my brain, I formed an extremely bold guess about the killer's true identity.

"The killer who murdered two people and kidnapped Tie Ningxiang and Yi Yi... is very likely the person who designed the Magic Mirror Maze!"