I Raise My Wife in a Supernatural Story (Infinite) - Chapter 67

When Bai Qing clashed with that suit of armor, she noticed it immediately: the armor and the heavy sword were not of the same quality. The heavy sword was incredibly hard. Although Bai Qing had only recovered half of her spiritual power and was using only ten percent of her strength with her spiritual blade, her sword remained a formidable weapon capable of slicing through iron like clay. Yet, despite her sword striking the heavy sword head-on multiple times, the latter suffered no damage at all. In contrast, the armor was already riddled with scars just from being grazed by her sword qi.

Bai Qing raised her hand and tapped on the armor, saying casually, “If I wished, I could shatter it with a single finger.”

Qi Yan thought to herself, “I know you are powerful, just do not actually do it.”

“I have a feeling someone was controlling this armor just now.”

Bai Qing furrowed her brows and looked at her, carefully recalling the details of the fight. “The movements of that armor were somewhat sluggish, not like something that can move naturally.”

That was exactly it. Although Qi Yan had not personally joined the fight, she had been watching closely and had not missed any important details. The armor’s actions were indeed very slow, sometimes even lagging by a full half-beat.

“If it is being manipulated, the person must be multitasking. If they were focusing entirely on controlling the armor, the reactions would not be this dull.”

Hearing this, Qi Yan nodded slowly. “That person is definitely the killer. And since they are currently with the police and unable to get away, they can only control it remotely and cannot focus properly.”

Bai Qing hummed in agreement. “But we still cannot determine who this person is.”

Qi Yan knit her brows in deep thought, her gaze falling back onto the suit of armor. At this moment, the hunk of iron had lost its ability to move again; the person controlling it must have given up. That person likely had not expected her to have a trump card like Bai Qing and assumed she was alone, which is why they decided to make a move.

But why target her?

In typical stories, a boss does not need a reason to kill a player. The boss’s role in a script is to hunt players and obstruct them from clearing the game; players and the ghosts within the script are naturally opposed.

However, this script was different. The task itself had already set a trap for the players. As long as they could not guess who the real killer was, they were doomed to die. There was no need for the boss to intervene personally.

Yet, this ghost had attacked Qi Yan anyway. Did they perceive her as a threat?

But Qi Yan did not feel like she was close to the truth at all. Right now, she could not even confirm who the players were. She had previously only suspected Dai Qi, but the problem was that it was merely suspicion and guesswork, far from certain.

So where was the problem? Why did they attack her?

Qi Yan’s eyes remained fixed on the armor. If she had to say, the armor seemed to attack her right when she was about to take a closer look at that sword.

A flash of inspiration struck her. Qi Yan grabbed Bai Qing’s sleeve and whispered, “I want to look at that armor and the sword myself. Do you have a way to temporarily seal this area off from the outside?”

Bai Qing gave her a surprised look, but despite her confusion, she did as requested. With a flick of her right long sleeve, a flash of light swept across, enveloping the space.

“I can maintain this for about five minutes,” Bai Qing reminded her softly.

She had only recovered fifty percent of her spiritual power and could not sustain it for too long; she needed to conserve her strength in this place.

Qi Yan nodded. “Five minutes is enough!”

The killer had attacked her while she was inspecting the armor. Qi Yan could only think of one reason: they did not want anyone looking too closely at the armor and the sword. There must be something on them that the killer did not want others to know.

Qi Yan walked quickly to the armor, leaning in to observe every detail. The armor was too clean. There was nothing on it except for the sword marks left by Bai Qing. But the sword was different; it clearly bore Zhao Ruibin’s blood, making it unmistakably the murder weapon.

But the armor was different; there was not a single trace of blood on it. No matter how many times Qi Yan checked, she could only see Bai Qing’s sword marks.

If the murder weapon was this sword, why would the killer leave the sword behind but not wear the armor? If they could, would it not be better to just wear the armor? That way, they would not even need to find a separate set of clothes for the crime.

The only reason was that the killer could not wear this armor.

Qi Yan sized up the armor. Was it too big or too small? She pushed Bai Qing to stand next to it for comparison. The armor was very tall and large; Bai Qing was more than a full head shorter than it. The owner of the armor should be a very tall and burly man.

“You are about 174 centimeters, and this armor probably requires someone over 190 centimeters to wear. It feels like I still cannot rule anyone out. Among everyone, including the man Meng Jiumo, no one reaches 190 centimeters in height.”

Bai Qing suddenly said, “If they can manipulate this armor, why did they have to personally enter this place to kill last night? Could they not have just let the armor do it remotely?”

“Maybe they had a reason they had to do it themselves,” Qi Yan’s mind raced. “For example, did they want to ask Zhao Ruibin something? Something very important to them.”

Thinking it over, Qi Yan felt she might need to understand Zhao Ruibin better. Right now, her knowledge of him was very limited; perhaps she could find an opportunity to ask the others.

Bai Qing picked up the heavy sword, scrutinizing it carefully, and could not help but praise, “Truly a fine sword!”

Seeing how much she liked it, Qi Yan took a few more looks. Her gaze paused as it swept over the hilt, and she immediately pressed her hand over Bai Qing’s hand holding the sword. “Wait, let me see.”

She leaned in close to the hilt and clearly saw a mark engraved there. It looked like an auspicious cloud emblem. Because the emblem was carved directly into the hilt and the sword was entirely black, it was impossible to see without looking very closely.

“It is this! This is likely what they wanted to hide!” Qi Yan whispered, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. As she spoke, she took out her phone to photograph the emblem. “This is the thing they did not want me to see.”

After putting her phone away, the five minutes Bai Qing mentioned were exactly up. Qi Yan took her hand and said, “Come on, let us go find Sister Sanshui and Shanshan.”

When they stepped out from the scene, Jiang Miao and Tang Shanshan happened to be walking over. Seeing them, the two hurried over to exchange their current findings in low voices. “Those police officers have become just like ordinary NPCs since the search started. They basically will not interfere with us looking for things.”

Tang Shanshan said, “We checked Dai Qi’s room. We did not find any key evidence, but we did find some noteworthy, subtle details.”

Interested, Qi Yan asked, “Like what?”

“For instance, this person spent most of her time working abroad. She studied interior design in Germany, stayed there after graduation, worked in a large design center first, and then started her own independent studio.” Tang Shanshan whispered, “The most subtle thing is that before she returned to China to take on jobs, she mainly did European-style designs. Even the projects she did after returning were Western-style. Before this, she had never touched Chinese-style design.”

Qi Yan stroked her chin and muttered, “That should not be right. Zhao Ruibin valued this project so much, why would he allow a designer with zero experience in this field to participate? My understanding of Dai Qi was limited to her brilliant titles; I really did not know her specific design style. Is it possible she falsified her resume to get this project?”

Jiang Miao said, “We suspected that too, so we asked the police officer following us. He said the police already confirmed with Zhao Ruibin’s company that the materials Zhao Ruibin submitted to the board of directors showed that Dai Qi had done Chinese-style designs.” She took out a file and handed it to Qi Yan. “So we intensified the search of Dai Qi’s room and found this in the email on her tablet. The negotiation process between her and Zhao Ruibin to conspire on the fake resume, as well as the fake resume itself, are all here.”

Qi Yan quickly flipped through the documents, her confusion growing. “But why? Zhao Ruibin cared so much about this project, why would he do this? Interior design is a crucial part of the resort; why would he go through the back door? Even helping Dai Qi with the forgery?”

“Not only is the resume fake, but this name Dai Qi is also fake.” Tang Shanshan showed a copy of an ID to Qi Yan. “I cannot exactly say it is fake; Dai Qi is the name she gave herself after going abroad for school because it was convenient. Her original name is not this; it is Narentuya.”

Mongolian? No, in this world it was not Mongolia. Qi Yan looked at the words “Beirong Tribe” printed on the copy of Dai Qi’s ID.

This script world was different from reality; the north here was not Mongolia, but Beirong.

“She is from the Beirong Tribe, but what does that have to do with Zhao Ruibin’s project?” Qi Yan frowned slightly, remembering that this resort was also to be built on the grasslands. “Could it be that this project has something to do with Beirong?”

Thinking of this, Qi Yan immediately looked at Jiang Miao. Since she was playing the role of a historian, her character biography would surely have an explanation of this world’s history.

Jiang Miao said, “The location where Zhao Ruibin’s resort project is to be built was once a battlefield. That spot is some distance from the ancient battlefield that has now become a famous tourist attraction, simply because it is not the most famous or best-preserved ancient battlefield in history. However, in the history of this world, a famous battle once took place there: The Battle of the Wolf Hunt.”

At this point, she suddenly stopped talking.

Qi Yan blinked, waiting for her to continue, only to find that she really had stopped and had no intention of speaking further.

“Sister Sanshui, and then? What happened with that battle?”

Jiang Miao shook her head and said, “I can only say this much for now. The task will not allow more.”

A breath caught in Qi Yan’s chest, feeling incredibly stifled.

“Fine, let us leave it at that for now.” As she spoke, she remembered the photo she just took and quickly pulled out her phone to show Jiang Miao. “Then look at this emblem. Do you know what it is?”

Jiang Miao took the phone, zoomed in on the image, and frowned slightly, looking somewhat puzzled. “I do not know.”

Qi Yan stared at her. “You do not know? Or you cannot say?”

“I do not know,” Jiang Miao said. “The character biography I received did not mention this emblem.”

Qi Yan stared at the auspicious cloud emblem with narrowed eyes. This was definitely a vital clue, but if even Jiang Miao had not seen it, what could it possibly be?

“Why do we not use a search app to check it? Can you not scan it now to find matches online? Maybe it will be useful.”

Tang Shanshan’s suggestion reminded Qi Yan. She immediately imported the image into a search engine, and the results came back quickly.

However, to her frustration, most of the results online were just pictures of clouds, along with logos for companies, restaurants, and even icons from cartoons and TV dramas. Not one of them was related to this specific auspicious cloud emblem.

The results were disappointing, but Qi Yan was not discouraged. Clues could always be found; they just did not know enough yet. Moreover, Jiang Miao and Tang Shanshan were still hiding some things. Once they had enough clues, the truth would naturally emerge.

“Who is searching your two rooms?”

“Meng Jiumo.”

Qi Yan tsked and said jokingly, “How did it end up being the most unreliable one?”

“He is so careless. I am worried he will not find everything, and then the clues on my end will not be able to unlock.” Jiang Miao was very concerned, fearing that the boy was just going through the motions. She still could not speak about the secrets she was currently hiding.

Tang Shanshan suddenly jerked her chin toward the entrance. “Hong Jing is out. She searched Meng Jiumo’s room.”

“Let us go. Let us have a chat with Boss Hong.” Qi Yan walked toward Hong Jing.

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