The air grew slightly still.

The already silent atmosphere grew more so in the wake of Bai Youwei’s words.

What she had said fell just short of pointing at Robert outright and calling him the killer.

In the face of such a pointed insinuation, Robert somehow managed to maintain his composure, and smiled. “In that case, allow me to take a look as well. Could you spare me a piece of paper?”

“Here~” Bai Youwei pulled a blank sheet from the bottom of the stack and handed it to him. Then she glanced at the others. “Does anyone else need a sheet?”

No one spoke.

After a moment, a man with an affected, lisping manner of speech said: “I’m sorry, I have no interest.”

He declined Bai Youwei’s offer with decisive bluntness.

“Whoever planted that message did so confident that no one would ever crack the secret on that paper. If any of you could just glance at it and solve the puzzle, that would be an extraordinary stroke of luck. Personally, I have no patience for this sort of thing — you lot can play on your own.”

The lisping man put down his cutlery, swayed his way out of the dining room with a curl of his lip. “The whole table is probably full of murderers. I’d rather go sit in my room…”

Several other guests who had finished eating rose to leave as well after his departure — apparently none of them were keen to remain near Bai Youwei.

The one exception was a man named Willard, who extended a hand toward her, a polite smile on his face. “That copy you made of the text — may I have a look?”

Bai Youwei blinked. “…Of course.”

She passed it over.

He took it.

She noticed his fingers were long and slender — quite striking — and even his nails were clean and neatly kept.

This man named Willard had a particular quality about him. Even just sitting quietly, it was difficult not to notice his presence.

He looked at the paper for a short while — no more than ten or so seconds — then returned both paper and pen to Bai Youwei. “Thank you.”

Bai Youwei fixed him with a searching gaze. “Did you make anything of it?”

The man’s expression didn’t waver in the slightest — he seemed faintly to be smiling, or perhaps he was simply an emotionless machine. His reply was flat. “No.”

Bai Youwei’s brow furrowed with suspicion.

Willard rose and left the dining room. The remaining few drifted away in twos and threes as well.

Some went straight back to their rooms. Others stayed on the ground floor — smoking, drinking tea, watching the rain through the windows, killing time in dull silence.

Until the rain stopped, no one could leave.

Bai Youwei, Su Man, and Zhu Shu sat in the dining room for a while before they too left.

At last, only Robert remained seated at the table, a faint smile at the corner of his lips. He held the paper he had taken from Bai Youwei up toward the candle flame and examined the faint impressions left in its surface.

When you write on paper, the sheet beneath it will always carry traces of what was written…

“Just what did she write on that paper…” Robert narrowed his eyes and looked closely, his curiosity piqued. “Could it be… that you’ve truly seen through me…”

He began deciphering the impressions character by character.

Some tangled lines. Small circles. Irregular squares… and then, words emerged:

*A pig…trying…to…read…*

Robert froze.

A moment later he looked at the paper again, his mind reeling with disbelief.

*A pig trying to read.*

He had not misread it. Bai Youwei’s scribbling and sketching hadn’t been the result of cracking any code — she had simply written *that.*

The colour drained from Robert’s face and flooded back as cold fury.

“She dares play me for a fool…” he said through clenched teeth, his hand balling into a fist. Then, with a burst of indignation, he tore the paper to shreds.

Someone walked into the dining room. Robert turned his head.

It was Zhu Shu.

“Oh, there it is.” Zhu Shu went straight to the seat, picked up a pen from the table, and walked back out with quick, light steps — as though she had simply come to retrieve something she had forgotten.

Robert’s expression shifted again — draining to a grey-white pallor.

His entire face went rigid with tension, and a wave of helpless chagrin surged through him. The scraps of paper on the table seemed to mock him in wordless silence.

“Did she see?” Robert closed his eyes and drew a slow, deep breath. “It seems… I may have met a formidable adversary…”

—