Universe Infinite Canteen-Chapter 374: The Killer

To confirm her own speculation, Gu Qingyi decided to personally walk through the process to test it.

Yet, unexpectedly, as soon as she moved behind the Buddha statue, she made a new discovery.

Initially, she intended to test which positions were least visible, but accidentally kicked the base of the statue during her movement, producing a dull thud.

This sound was clearly not something a solid stone would make, and Gu Qingyi immediately realized something was amiss here.

She then crouched down and fiddled around for a while, surprisingly removing the stone slab in front of her, only to discover the Buddha statue’s base was hollow.

Subsequently, she found another body inside.

Gu Qingyi was somewhat numbed by now, having run away from home wanting to live out her fantasy of being the Divine Detective and investigating cases, but encountering three bodies in one night was a bit too much for a rookie.

This was another headless corpse, bare-bodied, barely distinguishable as a young male.

Fortunately, there was more beneath the Buddha statue, and after she and Ma Lu moved the headless body, they found the head underneath.

And it was two heads.

One of them likely belonged to the headless corpse, but the second head Gu Qingyi picked up altered the scholar’s expression dramatically.

Because it was unmistakably He Qisheng’s head.

The scholar had not expected He Qisheng to have actually died, just as Ma Lu had said.

This left him standing frozen on the spot.

Seeing He Qisheng’s head, Ma Lu showed no surprise, but the previously new corpse had slightly startled him.

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Though his face showed surprise, his hands were not shy; he continued to help but seized the opportunity to feel around once more.

But this time, what he found was somewhat ordinary—the Li Family Fist Card Pack.

Opening the card pack, there were only 3 sets of Fist Techniques, all 1st Level, and the most powerful move had a strength of only 2 points, stronger than basic boxing, but only by a little.

Ma Lu even doubted whether the deceased belonged to martial arts circles at all, guessing he was probably just a street tough at best.

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"Does anyone... recognize who he is?"

Gu Qingyi laid the new body on the ground and asked the people around, but received no response.

Gu Qingyi was also wrestling with her thoughts; when she first heard of a murder, she thought her chance to show her prowess had come.

But this case was clearly much more complex than she had imagined, and so far, not only was He Qisheng’s cause of death unresolved, but two more bodies had been added, and the mysteries had piled up.

Gu Qingyi began to feel that flashing the Iron Clothes Sect’s Divine Detective Token earlier was somewhat reckless; if she failed to catch the murderer, embarrassing herself was a minor issue, but shaming the Iron Clothes Sect would be quite a loss.

As Gu Qingyi fretted over how to maintain the prestige of the Iron Clothes Sect, Ma Lu quietly took a few steps back and moved to stand behind her.

Gu Qingyi noticed Ma Lu’s subtle maneuver and whispered.

"Did you discover something?"

Ma Lu nodded, then leaned closer to her ear and whispered six words, "The murderer is still in the temple."

"Ah?" Gu Qingyi almost couldn’t resist exclaiming, glanced around, and then said, "How did you know?"

"Because apart from He Qisheng, the bodies we found were all inside the temple, and there were no other footprints outside the temple. This indicates that the murderer brought the bodies back after killing them. If it were someone from outside, there would be no need to go through such trouble."

Ma Lu took a deep breath.

After pondering for a moment, Gu Qingyi felt his reasoning made sense and asked, "Then who do you think the murderer is?"

Ma Lu didn’t directly answer the question but said, "Actually, most of the wrong options have already been eliminated. The remaining one, even if it seems impossible, must be the correct answer."

Before Gu Qingyi could think deeply about his words, she heard the tall, lanky disciple of the Songxi Sword Sect suddenly shout.

"You must be the killer who murdered my senior brother!"

His gaze firmly fixed on Ma Lu, "Come to think of it, I’ve been suspicious of you for a while now. With so many people in the temple, only your background is unclear, and you didn’t carry any luggage, wearing a set of Night Travel Clothes and appearing alone in these desolate and remote mountains. Heh, no matter how you look at it, it’s very suspicious."

Hearing this, Gu Qingyi defended Ma Lu, "He’s not the murderer. I’ve sparred with him, and he has no martial arts skills at all. How could he possibly kill He Qisheng?"

Another disciple from the Songxi Sword Sect then said, "Catcher Gu, don’t be fooled by him. Perhaps he switched his card pack secretly during your sparring, pretending not to know martial arts, just to cover up his identity as a murderer."

Gu Qingyi, hearing this, also hesitated somewhat.

Mainly because Ma Lu’s behavior was indeed too unusual, not even knowing the basic rules of card playing, which didn’t seem like that of a normal person.

If he was pretending, it could indeed explain everything clearly.

However, Gu Qingyi was still reluctant to believe that Ma Lu was the murderer. Seeing the two Songxi Sword Sect disciples approaching, she instinctively stepped in front of them.

The expressions of those two disciples from the Songxi Sword Sect changed abruptly, "Catcher Gu, what do you mean by this?"

"There must be some misunderstanding here," Gu Qingyi said gravely. "If we talk about pretending, anyone could be pretending. Why don’t you suspect others, like that family of three over there?"

She casually pointed toward a middle-aged beauty who was feeding medicine to a man.

After the bodies appeared, that family had kept to themselves in a corner, not joining the commotion but occasionally stealing glances this way, which was consistent with the reaction of ordinary people who wanted to avoid trouble.

Therefore, no one really suspected them, and those two disciples from the Songxi Sword Sect clearly didn’t think they were the murderers either.

Especially since the man looked seriously ill, coughing almost all night as if he was about to cough out his lungs, not looking at all like someone capable of killing.

The tall and thin man, seeing Gu Qingyi’s obstinacy, couldn’t hold back anymore, "Hmph, with you covering for him so much, I suspect there might also be a big problem with your identity. Could that Divine Detective Token be stolen by you?"

This was actually the unspoken thought of many people there.

Although Gu Qingyi claimed to be a Divine Detective and held the token of the Iron Clothes Sect, her performance that night didn’t seem like that of a competent Divine Detective.

The bodies kept on piling up, yet there was not a single clue about the murderer, and it was only because of the formidable reputation of the Iron Clothes Sect that no one questioned her.

But now, seeing Gu Qingyi stopping them from capturing the murderer of their senior brother, the skinny guy couldn’t care about that anymore.

Hearing this, Gu Qingyi also became anxious. "Just give me a little more time; I’m almost there."

"Forget it, don’t waste your efforts," another disciple from the Songxi Sword Sect mocked. "What have you figured out? You even said the murderer is among Sister Zheng’s family. It looks like you are desperately latching onto anyone to conclude this matter."