sincerity of lies

When the shock exceeds a certain threshold, at least for a dozen seconds, the brain is unable to respond, and the body is also unable to move. Only the sight seen by the eyes is fixed on the retina for a long time and stubbornly.

When the picture in the retina is finally understood by the brain, the horror will also be conscious.

People then lost the ability to manipulate expressions and limbs at the same time, yelling, laughing and crying, making expressions and reactions. Among the chaotic reactions in the room, two people's reactions caused Meng Lingshan to panic. focus on.

Those were the other two bosses who were with Boss Lin. They were the first to react among the shocked people, with a weird expression of crying and laughing on their faces.Boss Jiang with a pig liver face stepped back again and again, and said in a trembling voice:

"The sky is blue, the land is barren... She's back, she's back!"

Meng Lingshan folded his palms together.

He was keenly aware that these two people had already had an established guess about the murderer of this case, "The sky is green, the land is barren", sounds like a prophecy, "TA", what kind of "TA" does it refer to? , Is it he who is "亻", is she next to the word "female", or is he who is "礻"?

Suddenly, Meng Lingshan's eyes turned to the balcony door leading to the deck in the room. The masked boss he met in front of the game world gate was standing in front of the balcony door.

After the people who came in just now found Boss Lin's body, they panicked and instinctively stayed away from Boss Lin's body—and also stayed away from the balcony door leading to the deck next to Boss Lin's body.

Except this one.

What is he doing there?Watching the balcony door fall and lock, guessing the escape route of the murderer?

Meng Lingshan thought for a while, thinking that this person was really suspicious, but he couldn't help but feel that he was far-fetched because of his preconceived guesses. The behavior of this person standing by the balcony door can also be explained as a temporary Didn't react for a while or was naturally courageous.

The other party suddenly looked over.

The eyes under the silver mask gave him a cold look.

Then the man said: "The man is dead, who killed it?"

The voice is very young.Meng Lingshan thought.

"That's right, Boss Liu, you have to give us an explanation." Someone started, and the rest of the bosses recovered from the panic, and each of them returned to their previous domineering appearance.

"It's fine if the ship is destroyed, and now there are still people being killed! What's going to happen next, do we want us all to die at the bottom of the sea?" These words were shouted out of anger by the bosses, but when it rang While in the room, the talking boss couldn't help shivering again.This kind of nonsensical rebuke seems to have turned into a terrifying future that is not impossible under the current situation.

Therefore, their anger is like a prophecy about the future fate resounding in the cabin.

"Go up and have a look." Mr. Liu said to the bodyguard with a gloomy face.

Under normal circumstances, Mr. Liu gives the impression of being easy-going and elegant. Although he is doing this kind of criminal business, he always seems to be covered with a layer of tender gauze, so that all the bosses who come on board can feel He entertained like a spring breeze.

Until now, his impression has finally changed. The elegant spring breeze has settled down and turned into mud on the ground.

The bodyguard looked at it according to the words, and then said in embarrassment: "The person is dead..."

They were not too afraid of the dead, but they didn't quite understand what Mr. Liu wanted them to see.

"I know he's dead," Mr. Liu held back his anger, "how did he die?"

"It was killed by a ghost!" The pig-faced Boss Jiang screamed again, "40 years have passed, and she is still back!"

Boss Liu turned around suddenly, rounded his arms and slapped Boss Jiang across the face.

He beat so hard that the silver mask on Boss Jiang's face was blown away by him. Meng Lingshan saw Boss Jiang's face. It was Zhang Fang's head. His face was once sold as a coolie and did rough work, and there was an old wound on his forehead, which had healed up long ago, leaving only a five-centimeter-long brown mark, like a long-standing wrinkle, lying deep across his forehead. the center of the forehead.

"The ghost can take away his soul, can the ghost cut off his tongue? Cutting his tongue requires a knife!" Mr. Liu said coldly.

"But, but..." Boss Jiang covered his face. He was both afraid and convinced of Mr. Liu, muttering, but did not continue.

A look of disappointment flashed in the eyes of the silver mask leaning against the balcony door.

Meng Lingshan found that the person standing in front of the balcony had no intention of walking towards the corpse.

If it was Huo Ranyin, out of professional requirements, he would check the corpse immediately, right?

He weighed briefly, and went out to check the corpse: "The last time I saw Boss Lin was in the middle hall on the first floor three and a half hours ago. At that time, the three bosses came down from the elevator with their bodyguards and met Mr. Liu."

In a chaotic scene, everyone is most afraid of running around like headless chickens.

Someone is willing to stand up and analyze the situation, and everyone's thinking that is flying around has the reins of traction.

Mr. Liu nodded slightly.

"Who else has seen Boss Lin since then?" Meng Lingshan asked.

"After the middle hall is over, Lao Lin will go up with us." Mr. Wu, the old man with spots, said in a low voice. His nose and throat don't look very good, and when he speaks, there is a grunting sound of phlegm stuck in his nose and throat. "We Each entered the room. After that, I stayed in the room and did not come out."

"Me too." Boss Jiang also said.

Meng Lingshan looked at the bodyguards who were searching the ship.

The bodyguards all said, "We didn't see Boss Lin during our search."

"Obviously Boss Lin died during these three and a half hours. During these three and a half hours, Boss Lin stayed alone in the room, and the murderer sneaked into Boss Lin's room..."

Meng Lingshan was interrupted in the middle of his speech, and it was the silver mask by the balcony that interrupted him.

"How to sneak in?" Silver Mask said, "The balcony door leading to the deck is locked from the inside and cannot be opened from the outside; the door from the living room to the corridor is also locked from the inside and cannot be opened from the outside even with the room card. He was able to come in only by breaking the door with an axe."

"Secret room!" Boss Jiang yelled, looking at his expression, it was obvious that the fear of ghosts in his heart was reborn like a weed in the spring breeze, "It was also a secret room at that time...!"

The corners of the mouths of Mr. Liu and Boss Wu also twitched.

Apparently they all felt some shadow from the past.

Meng Lingshan kept these few words in his heart, he was very curious about what made these bosses so afraid, "40 years ago", "ghost", "TA" were killed by them 40 years ago person?But for so many years, the blood stained by these people's hands can pour down a palace, and there are countless people who have been killed or maimed. It's just the revenge of the dead and the killing of ghosts. Is it worth making them so afraid?

"There are many ways to form a secret room, mechanical and psychological. There are no ghosts in the world, only man-made. Since it is man-made, it has its purpose." Meng Lingshan said, "Most of the prisoners who made the secret room were to kill him and pretend to be a ghost. Suicide, the rest is either pretending to be a ghost, or showing off all kinds of skills. This scene is a very obvious homicide, so the purpose of the prisoner in creating the secret room..."

Mr. Liu cut off Meng Lingshan's analysis flatly: "Well said, but it's just pretending to be a ghost. Everyone worships Mazu when they go out to sea. This criminal just wants to use the statue of Mazu to create an atmosphere and arouse everyone's panic with myths and legends. The secret room is not In the secret room, as long as you catch the prisoner and ask him, all doubts will be resolved."

Attitude explicitly avoids things from 40 years ago.Just as the picker is the buyer, what they don't want to say is probably the most valuable secret buried in their hearts.Meng Lingshan thought.

But that's okay, you'll know.

The real secret room is not this room, but this giant ship that has been blocked from the means of communication.

The claustrophobic isolated island on the sea, the most exciting stage of the Blizzard Villa serial murder case - the most similar to the prisoner's "pretending to be a ghost" is the so-called "nursery rhyme killing".

Those bosses even read nursery rhyme slogans, what the sky is green, the land is barren...

That being the case, when the prisoner is caught, the motive is also caught, and it must be related to what happened 40 years ago.

"Three and a half hours is quite long, can you judge a more specific time of death?" Silver Mask spoke again, and asked in a nasal voice lazily, "I remember that in movies, the alibi is always asked first."

Today, although not all the bosses are gathered here, the crew and bodyguards have already arrived one after another during the process of cutting down the door. Among them is a physiotherapist with certain medical knowledge. Mr. Liu's eyes naturally fell on on him.

"..."

A physical therapist has never done this kind of thing before. To him, this gaze is undoubtedly driving Chinese medicine to the operating table for surgery.But Mr. Liu has a lot of prestige, so he can only bite the bullet and walk forward. The slower he walks, the more guilty he goes. After finally passing the corpse, he walked around from the back of the corpse to the front of the corpse, and saw Boss Lin. The tongue held in the raised hands, the chin full of blood, and the part of the cheek above the chin protruding, like a smiling silver cold white mask.

The barely supported legs went limp in an instant, and the physical therapist's whole body was crooked like a corpse, so in his eyes, the bloody and soft tongue was getting closer and closer to him——

"Ahhh-"

The scream of not being stingy to kill rang out again, the scream was so shrill, not to mention them staying in the room, I am afraid they could even hear it clearly from outside, maybe when Boss Lin was killed, no physical therapist screamed like this at this moment Tragic.

"Okay, I didn't touch it." Meng Lingshan said impatiently while the physiotherapist was screaming for breath, "Please, open your eyes and shut your mouth."

One of his hands firmly controlled the physical therapist's shoulder, controlled the physical therapist's body, and did not let the physical therapist actually fall into the arms of the corpse.

"Yeah, if you fall, you will fall. If you destroy the corpse, at a small level, you will not respect the dead, and at a large scale, what should we do if we destroy our hope of arresting people? Be professional, start as soon as you can, no Just don't force it." Silver Mask spoke again.There is no problem with what he said, but no matter how he sounds, it sounds like he is stirring up trouble.

If he didn't know that Ji Xun was below the deck at the moment, and he was too familiar with Ji Xun, he would have thought that Ji Xun had put on another vest to cooperate with him—the muddier the water, the easier it was to catch fish.

"I'll check with you." Meng Lingshan said to the physical therapist. He weakened the professionalism of the physical therapist and strengthened his professionalism. "After the corpse dies, the body temperature will change. °, the surface of the corpse has hardened, and the hardening occurred between 0.5 minutes and 1 hours after death, so Boss Lin died for at least half an hour. As for the cause of death—"

There were no gloves in the room, so Meng Lingshan carefully pinched a tablecloth and pulled Boss Lin's collar down, revealing the deep purple strangle marks on the neck of the deceased.

"It was strangled and suffocated."

After a shock, the physical therapist's heart that flew out of the sky finally stood firm with his heels.

He glanced at Meng Lingshan gratefully, and ran to the physiotherapy room to get a thermometer and gloves.

By this time, the initial panic had almost dissipated. During the free time when the physical therapist was picking up things, one of the bosses praised: "Mr. Liu, there are a lot of talents under his command. By this time, we can still find two qualified forensic doctors." The knowledgeable come out."

"Prevention before it happens." Mr. Liu said modestly, and he was also thinking about why this person knew forensic knowledge, but when he thought about Chen Jiashu's matter, he was soon relieved. put him on board.

After they finished talking, the physical therapist also rushed back, distributed the gloves to Meng Lingshan, and measured the temperature of the body with a thermometer himself.

"Normal human body temperature is between 36.5° and 37.2°. Judging from the current body surface temperature, Boss Lin died within 2 to 3 hours." The physiotherapist said.

“现在是11点50分。”柳先生低头看了眼手机，“2~3个小时之前，就是上午8点50到9点50。这段时间里，有谁有不在场证明？这个不在场证明，需要有第二个人帮他作证。”

However, there was silence.

Then the bosses showed displeasure: "We listened to your words and went back to the room to stay. How can there be a second person to prove that he has been staying in the room!"

Including the boss who was not at the scene, they all followed Mr. Liu's words and left the central hall after 8:20.

Mr. Liu's personal bodyguard also spoke on behalf of all the bodyguards: "When we searched the jammer, we were divided into two groups, but in the middle, it was necessary to lie under the bed, climb up the ventilation duct, go to the toilet and other situations where we cannot monitor another person."

"During this period of time, I walked around the deck and smoked for 10 minutes." Meng Lingshan said voluntarily, "Alone."

"I stayed in the physio room until I was called to search the ship together," the physiotherapist said.

Among the staff on board, the captain, the first mate and the physical therapist are similar. They all stay in their own rooms first, and then go out to search the ship. The chef takes a helper to prepare food in the kitchen, and the helper goes to the freezer to organize the inventory. The fitness trainer I've been chatting with the deck master in the gym, and including the physiotherapist and Meng Lingshan, the eight crew members are all here.

Among the eight crew members, the only ones who could barely prove their innocence were the fitness trainer and the deck chief who stayed together.Everyone else...

"Everyone has time to kill." Silver Mask said with great interest, "It seems that the murderer is among us."

The eyes that were originally pointing at the corpse immediately turned to each other.

Ghosts don't kill people, people do.