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"You can't be serious…" Qiao Ling fell to her knees, colliding with the floor with a thud. Her flashlight fell from her grasp and rolled across the tile, only stopping once it made contact with Cheng Xiaoshi's boot. Tall windows lined the wall before them; the top of each one a different beautiful stained glass design. Lightning poured in through them, illuminating the horror on their faces. Rain beat against the manor with such intensity its only rival was Qiao Ling's heart that was fit to burst out of her chest.
Lu Guang picked up the discarded flashlight and moved to examine the spectacle laid out before him. "Do either of you know who this is?" He pulled a napkin out from his pocket, taking care to not touch anything bare handed as he rolled the body over to face the other two.
"How can we?! The face is all messed up!" Cheng Xiaoshi could hardly get the words out.
A heavy silence settled in the air as they looked between themselves, silently agreeing upon three things.
One. Help was not getting there any time soon.
Two. The body before them was beyond recognition.
Three. One of them was the killer.
"We need to work together." Lu Guang insisted. "We can put aside who did it for now. We need to start by figuring out how."
"Definitely bludgeoning. Look at the state of this guy…"
Qiao Ling turned away, unable to look at the corpse any longer.
“I don’t think he was killed here.” Lu Guang stood back up, circling the body and using his flashlight to point at areas of interest. “There is no blood pooling despite the grotesque nature of the crime. This suggests that the murder was commited elsewhere and the body was simply dumped here.”
“That seems like an awful lot of work for something the killer knew we were going to find anyways.” Cheng Xiaoshi sighed.
“Then this room must be significant. It must hold some value to the killer.” Qiao Ling paused. “Or perhaps it holds value to the person the killer is trying to frame.”
“Also a very likely possibility.” Lu Guang put his flashlight away and turned towards the door. “In any case, we should investigate the other rooms… If this is not the scene of the crime, then there has to be another room with evidence of a murder taking place.”
“Nuh uh. You’re going nowhere alone again. Last time you went off on your own, someone wound up dead. We move together.” Cheng Xiaoshi grabbed Lu Guang by the collar and pulled him backwards, the latter stumbling under the force.
“...I feel like that defeats the purpose. We need to investigate as much as possible and splitting up is the best way to do that…”
“I’m with Cheng Xiaoshi.” Qiao Ling added. Her companions’ eyes went wide with surprise. Cheng Xiaoshi began to circle around her as if she needed to be investigated. “We currently know little about our surroundings and who might be here with us. It’s smart to stay together!”
“We know very little because you didn’t bother asking the client about why we needed to come here in the first place.” Cheng Xiaoshi narrowly dodged Qiao Ling’s small hand that was on course to smack him in the back of his head. “I won’t lie, a party in a place like this is a cool idea, but when nobody else showed up besides us, we should’ve left right away.”
“We can sit around and throw blame at each other for why we’re in this situation or we can try to figure out what’s going on. If you guys insist on staying together, then let us make our way to the next closest room. Which should be… the lounge?” Without waiting to hear what the others had to say, Lu Guang began to make his way out of the room. Qiao Ling followed quickly, leaving Cheng Xiaoshi behind with the body. He looked down at him for a moment, staring into the bludgeoned mess where his eyes should be. Morbid curiosity and pity kept him watching the lifeless corpse for longer than he should’ve.
The sound of the observatory door slamming shut echoed through the large room and startled Cheng Xiaoshi back to reality. He scrambled to leave and catch up to the others before he was completely left behind. He stole one last glance at the departed stranger before making his way out with the other two.
As the trio walked throughout the vast halls towards the lounge, both Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling clung to one of Lu Guang’s arms. Every sound, every breath felt as if it was booming in their anxiety ridden ears. Paranoia was creeping up on all of them, plaguing their ability to think rationally.
They slowly approached the lounge, terrified to find that the door was already open. Lu Guang pulled himself from the others’ grasps and made his way inside. Unlike the observatory, they were not given the luxury of having giant windows to help light the room with moonlight. Three flashlights were barely enough to help them.
“Inspect slowly and carefully.” Lu Guang ordered. He set off towards a corner of the room where the furniture was overturned. Cheng Xiaoshi swallowed roughly and took up position searching the opposite corner. Qiao Ling gravitated towards the center of the room. She gasped loudly as her flashlight caught sight of a giant puddle in the carpet.
Cheng Xiaoshi ran over first, taken aback by the sheer amount of blood.
“...I guess we’ve found the murder scene.” Lu Guang walked around slowly, doing his best to examine the blood splatter and trajectory of the spray. “The question is… How did the body end up in the observatory?”
“This place is huge and the hallways are massive. There’s a very likely chance that the killer just dragged the body there, right?” Qiao Ling offered up her opinion.
“Hmm… I don’t think so.” Lu Guang moved his flashlight along the path of the blood in the room. From the amount of blood here, I highly doubt that they would have been able to drag a body along the route we took and not leave any behind. This is also not nearly enough to be all of the blood within a grown man.”
“But the body had no puddle in the other room, so this has to be all of it, right?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked.
“I don’t think so. I think…” Lu Guang returned to the edges of the room. “I think there must be a tunnel somewhere. A human being has far more blood than that and there is no more towards the entrance of the room or in the halls. There has to be a hidden pathway.”
“You can’t be serious…” Qiao Ling’s voice shook. “The murderer could be in the walls right now… watching us?”
Lu Guang didn’t entertain her question and continued searching. He smiled softly to himself as he tossed a chair aside and revealed a small door in the floor. He threw open the hatch and was greeted by the smell of blood and dust. Cheng Xiaoshi peered over his shoulder, covering his nose immediately.
“Why does it smell so much worse down there than the actual dead body itself?!”
"We found our transport tunnel." Lu Guang got to his feet and began to descend into the depths, not waiting nor caring to make sure the others were following. One hand held a flashlight while the other was brought to his mouth to do something to hide the stench. Humidity and bloody remains were indeed a pair that was not to be reckoned with.
"Cheng Xiaoshi, stop pushing me!" Qiao Ling shoved her terrified companion off of her arm, tripping over her own feet in the process. She fell into Lu Guang's back, sending the both of them forward. Lu Guang tripped over a pipe, falling headfirst into the streak of blood that lined the entire tunnel.
"What's with you?! You were totally fine unti-"
"Look." Qiao Ling directed her flashlight at an empty spot in the ceiling's pipes, effectively cutting off Cheng Xiaoshi and gaining Lu Guang's attention. "I think this tunnel is slowly collapsing. That pipe had to have come from there."
Lu Guang stared at the pipe for a moment before standing up and leaving for the lounge in silence. Cheng Xiaoshi and Qiao Ling exchanged glances before sprinting after him.
After emerging back into the upper level of the building, Lu Guang took off for the entrance hall.
"You-! Wait up!" Cheng Xiaoshi dashed after him, leaving Qiao Ling behind to still catch her breath.
Lu Guang burst through the closed entrance hall doors, sending the lock flying off into the room as he entered. He grabbed his bag from the coat rack and rummaged through the contents until he pulled out his invitation.
"You bastard, can you please tell us what you're thinking?" Cheng Xiaoshi entered the room with the poor Qiao Ling he had gone back to assist.
Lu Guang held his invitation up and pointed to the second line. "This was premeditated. Our host knew someone was going to die here tonight and who would do it."
"Beneath dappled light, four becomes three. Descend down a flight, there, your answer to be free."
"What are you talking about?" Qiao Ling rolled her eyes and grabbed the card from Lu Guang. "How come yours has a riddle on it? Mine was just an advertisement…"
"Lu Guang?! Since when do you have an invite too? Where's mine?!" Cheng Xiaoshi looked at the ceiling as if he was directing his anger towards the unknown force that gathered them here.
“Ah.” Lu Guang’s eyes went wide. He tossed his hat aside and made a break for the basement. The click of his heels echoed through the empty halls of the manor while Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi were hot on his tail. He ignored their pleas to stop, listen to what they have to say!
Qiao Ling rounded a corner behind Lu Guang, hoping to cut him off and beat him to the entrance. She yelled at Cheng Xiaoshi to keep following in the direction he was going; One of them had to beat Lu Guang. They had to.
Qiao Ling could feel her breath hitch in her throat. She stumbled, tripping over her own feet as she attempted to keep running. She hit the tile with a thud! and sent her notes flying. She sat - frozen - unsure of what to do… what to think. All of her work was for naught. She could feel everything come crumbling down around her. If only she had been faster… smarter… cleaner…
“Lu Guang!” Cheng Xiaoshi could be heard from every corner of the manor. “You bastard! We know it was you!” His accusations went unanswered as Lu Guang continued moving ahead of him. They continued their game of cat and mouse for several more minutes. Cheng Xiaoshi was forced to a halt, however, as Lu Guang finally entered the doorway to the stairwell that led to the basement. He turned to look at his friend, both of them equally out of breath. Lu Guang gave him a soft smile before slamming the door behind him and descending into the depths of the pitch black cellar.
His journey finally reached its conclusion as he entered the office at the end of the basement. He walked slowly through it, breathing a deep sigh of relief as he found the last thing he needed atop the desk.
As he found the truth.
He looked up at the ceiling, shouting, “Qiao Ling! It was you! You killed Mr. Green in the lounge with a lead pipe!” He tore open the orange envelope in his grasp and threw down the cards inside, proving every word of his accusation correct.
"You motherf-!" Cheng Xiaoshi threw his cards down onto the table, yelling at Lu Guang as he jumped up. "You cheated! You absolutely cheated!"
"How would I have done that if you're the one who put the cards in the envelope in the first place?"
“For once, he’s definitely right. There’s no way I didn’t have you fooled…” Qiao Ling huffed and rolled her eyes. She tossed her cards down as well, accepting defeat.
Cheng Xiaoshi immediately began to reset the board, mumbling as he did so, "One more round. I'll definitely win this time."
"That's what you said two games ago." Lu Guang sighed, but began to reset the CLUE board anyways.