There is One New Rule Every Month Globally

"You can try."

Tuberculosis Rabbit rolled his eyes at Sword Without End, "Just by thinking with one's butt, you'd know it's impossible for it to be that simple. If it were, there wouldn't be just the Skywake Squadron that had cleared the game."

And at that moment.

He also received the extra information on the map that came with the title.

The title allowed him to receive an additional piece of information about the map each time he entered, but whether it was due to some delay or not, he always had to wait two or three minutes after entering the map before getting that extra information.

"Yi, there's information."

"The new information says that the walls in this map cannot be destroyed, the walls will perfectly return any damage dealt to them by the players."

Chen Yi nodded to indicate he understood; the message wasn't actually surprising.

Upon entering the map, he had surmised that this sealed room was probably not simple and definitely had its mysteries, the walls certainly couldn't be rashly destroyed. Otherwise, wouldn't players just smash their way through? What would be the need for decryption then?

"Continue searching for useful information."

He issued the command expected from a team leader.

...

Soon, 30 minutes had passed.

Chen Yi and the others sat silently on several chairs in the room, not speaking. In that half an hour, they found almost no clues on how to leave the room.

They heard only one piece of information that may or may not be useful.

The owner of the secret room was a person of deep faith.

And it was a murder, not suicide.

This conclusion was reached by Tuberculosis Rabbit after conducting an autopsy on the body.

Beyond that, there were no answers on how to leave the secret room, and the entire scene looked like a closed-room murder case.

Sword Without End looked toward the body that had been disassembled like building blocks not far away, a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth, and he chose not to say too much.

Guess you found yourself an opportunity to perform, right? Is it necessary to remove the fingernails too, just to investigate the cause of death?

As if seeing the questioning look in Sword Without End's eyes, Tuberculosis Rabbit, sitting on the chair, began to explain expressionlessly.

"At most murder scenes, victims would struggle violently before death, and under most circumstances, skin and flesh from the perpetrator can be found under the victims' fingernails."

"Almost all perpetrators' first thought after committing the crime is to leave the scene, and even some professional criminals may overlook this clue, leaving a crucial breakthrough for the case."

"In the past, nearly eighty percent of murder cases were born out of grudges or for profit; they were simply too easy to investigate."

"If you go to a strange city, find a secluded village away from cameras, randomly stab a passerby to death, then quickly clean up the crime scene and leave, there's practically no chance of being caught."

"Fingernails are a crucial clue that the police will definitely search for in an investigation."

"Although we don't have the equipment to analyze the DNA in the flesh under the nails, with the naked eye, we can still tell if it's a suicide or a homicide. There's dried flesh under the victim's fingernails."

"This alone clearly indicates that the victim was murdered."

"Even though it seems like the victim died from poisoning, the autopsy revealed that only a part of the victim's esophagus was cyanotic, showing signs of chemical burns, but no related traces were found in the stomach."

"This suggests that the victim was force-fed the pesticide after death, and the cause of death should be asphyxiation. Although there are no signs of fingers around the victim's neck, the victim's nose is slightly skewed, and the area around the nose and mouth is somewhat pale."

"There are obvious injuries in the mouth left by teeth, and the lividity is purplish-red."

Tuberculosis Rabbit paused briefly, then calmly adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and picked up the empty pesticide bottle from under the bed: "This is weed killer, and practically all weed killers contain potassium chlorate, which is also clearly labeled on this one."

"Deaths from potassium chlorate poisoning will have brown or yellowish-brown lividity."

"But the lividity from asphyxiation is typically purplish-red."

"The body may look old, but it's not been more than three days since death; there are obvious signs that it was aged artificially."

"The crime scene at the time becomes very clear, someone smothered the victim with a pillow while he was sleeping, leading to death by asphyxiation. The victim struggled and left the perpetrator's flesh under his fingernails."

"After the victim suffocated to death, the murderer took this bottle of pesticide, pried open the victim's mouth, and poured it down force-fully."

"They then stuffed the victim's ID into his mouth to create the scene of a suicide."

At this point, Tuberculosis Rabbit couldn't help but shake his head with some emotion: "The way the scene was handled is too amateurish; this level is not even qualified to be an apprentice to Yi and me."

"Such obvious clues that the police would definitely search for are just ignored."

"It's simply unprofessional."

"And you, Sword Without End, I'm the professional in this area, even Yi is slightly inferior to me. You shouldn't question me on this."

"..."

Sword Without End was silent, completely silent. He looked down at the dismembered pieces of flesh beside him and remained absolutely silent.

He was convinced, truly convinced.

What in the world was all this?

After a long while,

he couldn't help but speak, "Tuberculosis Rabbit, didn't you tell me this morning that before the afterworld arrived, you and Yi were working in the morgue as Corpse Guardians?"

"Corpse Guardians know this stuff?"

"Well,"

Tuberculosis Rabbit smacked his lips and said, "Normally, Corpse Guardians wouldn't know this, but as you know, Yi and I were both orphans, struggling to survive alone in this highly competitive big city. Naturally, we needed to have some side businesses."

"That just means learning a few extra things, having more skills can never be a bad thing, right?"

"Your side business..."

Sword Without End thought about it but decided not to continue asking. He knew without a doubt it probably wasn't any ordinary side business. However, he suddenly remembered something and hurriedly said,

"Wait, I once gave you a 'Life Theater' Map Access Pass, the one that grants access to the unique, effective map. There's a hidden task in that map, to clear one's own criminal suspicion."

"Did you complete that hidden task?"

Originally, he had never thought about this matter, after all, that hidden task was simply too perverse.

Only 4 minutes of time given, a body lying in the living room, a dagger on the coffee table, it almost went as far as carving the words 'suspect' on one's forehead. It would be surprising if someone could clear their criminal suspicion in such a short time!

Though he admitted Chen Yi was strong, he didn't believe Chen Yi could complete such a twisted hidden task.

But Tuberculosis Rabbit's comments just now made him suddenly think that if it were Tuberculosis Rabbit, perhaps he really could have a chance to clean up the crime scene within 4 minutes.

"Oh, you're talking about that one, Yi and I both completed it,"

Tuberculosis Rabbit glanced at Chen Yi, who continued to search for clues nearby, and casually said, "Yi hid the body, then found out through the diary that the deceased had only social relations and didn't officially exist—an unregistered recluse woman with autism."

"So he played the role of having split personality disorder, stabbed his own stomach, and made the police believe that Yi had killed another one of his personalities."

"Just like that, he successfully cleared his criminal suspicion."

"This..."

Sword Without End stood there, shocked, never having considered that completing the hidden task this way was possible. At first glance, it seemed feasible, but on further reflection, it made no sense at all!

"This is impossible, you only had 4 minutes—how could you clean all the blood in the living room? That blood belonged to the victim, and a simple test would reveal that. And there's the body to hide; how could there be enough time for that."
Find adventures on empire

"Tsk..."

Tuberculosis Rabbit grinned: "That requires a professional to do—cleaning up a crime scene, Yi and I are professionals at that, ordinary people certainly can't manage it."

"And you, did you pass the level in the same way?"

"Not me, I passed by refusing to admit it to death."

"What does 'refusing to admit it to death' mean?"

"It means that I'd rather die than confess it was me who killed the person."

"..."

Sword Without End, with a twisted expression, sighed, "You're not treating me like a fool, are you? If all it took to clear one's own criminal suspicion was to stubbornly deny it, then aren't the police in that map all fools?"

"Because it wasn't you who killed the person?"

"It wasn't me who killed the person?"

Sword Without End paused, confused, and said, "That's impossible. When I entered the map, the computer showed me how to dispose of the body. The woman in the living room was lying in a pool of blood, there was the sound of police sirens downstairs, and the weapon was on the coffee table."

"Under these circumstances, if it wasn't me who killed the person, then who could it have been?"

"Indeed, it wasn't you who killed her. Basically, the story goes, you were bored with life with your wife, then you secretly hired someone online to 'discipline' your wife. That person was your neighbor Old Wang."

"In the end, Old Wang entered your house and killed your wife."

"You hid under the bed and narrowly escaped this disaster. After Old Wang left, you hurriedly crawled out from under the bed, and as a mysterious person, you kept educating Old Wang on how to clean up the crime scene, trying to make him go upstairs and clean the scene quickly."

"But since you didn't know how, you could only search online."

"Worried that the incident would implicate you, you deleted your contact with the other party, and then you lost your memory. What follows is you entering the map and starting to play this role."

"This hidden task isn't that difficult; as long as you keep steadfastly denying it and give the police enough time to investigate, you could pass easily."

"The reward is quite generous too; what, you didn't complete it, did you?"

"..."

Sword Without End felt somewhat dispirited, turned his head expressionlessly to the side, his heart continuously bleeding. He would never have imagined the method to complete the hidden task could be this simple!

The person wasn't killed by him!

What kind of joke is this?!

And is the real plot of this map too abstract or something? Are any of this edition's map designers sane?

Meanwhile, Chen Yi walked straight to the wooden door, without hesitation, grasped the doorknob, and pushed hard.

"Bang."

The wooden door was pushed open.