The Novelist Forced to Become Famous

The driver stepped on the gas, starting smoothly.

The live broadcast began.

He heard Little Princess\'s voice: "Morning, is Raj dead yet?"

The cameraman said: "He\'s alive and well."

"Then I\'ll sleep a bit more." The sound of a door closing.

At 8:20, Kang Mu Cheng arrived at the company. Dai An, who had recently received a pay raise, came running over. She skillfully took his briefcase and handed him a cup of freshly brewed hot coffee.

She glanced at the screen.

"Oh, Teacher Jian looks so beautiful today," Dai An said, "Even though she said yesterday that makeup was uncomfortable."

Kang Mu Cheng asked his secretary: "You\'ve been watching too?"

Dai An: "Of course, I\'ve always followed Teacher Jian. She was amazing yesterday."

Kang Mu Cheng nodded. Knowing there was no danger in filming the show, his mindset was much more stable than usual, allowing him to view her performance more objectively.

As Dai An said, she had indeed performed remarkably well.

Meticulous yet bold, intelligent and resourceful, she had unknowingly risen above the others.

Today was the last day.

Lost in thought, he had already entered his office. Dai An handed him the printed schedule and presented him with freshly baked bread bought from the café downstairs.

Kang Mu Cheng glanced at it; the meeting was at 10 o\'clock.

He decided to check the online comments about Jian Jing first.

On the Weibo super topic "King of Reasoning":

[Teacher Jian is the best!! No one is worthy of my wife!!!]

[So awesome, crush the other representatives, China is the coolest!]

[It\'s the last day, so excited, can\'t wait]

[Beautiful pictures of Teacher Jian, image attached.JPG]

[Yesterday was so thrilling, looking forward to today]

[I hope there won\'t be any plot twists today]

[Games are about experience first, winning second. Hope everyone doesn\'t put too much pressure on Jing Jing]

[Jing Jing is already doing great]

...

Although there were occasional shippers, pessimists, and doubters, overall, people were generally hopeful for Jian Jing, wishing she could find the culprit and win the prize money.

Then he checked foreign websites.

Well, it was much more intense there.

Korean celebrities were cheering for their own people on Twitter while dissing Japan. Japan was boasting about their representative\'s abilities and suggesting that Wataru Kojima should propose to Jian Jing to have genius babies, which made Kang Mu Cheng frown deeply.

Countries like Singapore and Malaysia had a relatively high favorability towards Jian Jing, but they didn\'t forget to cheer for Connor Lee, Wu Lie, and others as well.

Europeans were just enjoying the show.

Most people couldn\'t tell who was who, except for Jian Jing. Because she was the only one with ashy flaxen hair, standing out among the dark-haired crowd, easy to recognize.

And because they weren\'t invested in celebrity culture, unrelated to the grudges between European countries, they focused more on discussing the reasoning.

Of course, there was also criticism. Many people thought that the Asian edition\'s reasoning wasn\'t as good as the European edition, and the witchcraft setting was a bit confusing.

--

At 9 o\'clock, in the dining room.

After breakfast, the regular meeting began.

"Today..." Min-cheol Park was about to say something when Jian Jing raised her hand.

Everyone was curious: "What\'s wrong?"

Jian Jing said: "We only have 13 hours left. I think there\'s something I must say to ensure everyone has all the clues."

Wataru Kojima: "The persistence of a mystery novelist?"

"You could say that," Jian Jing said, "Of course, I\'m well aware that this will put me at risk. Perhaps you\'ll suspect that I\'m the murderer, making up lies to mislead you. That\'s up to your judgment."

Min-cheol Park: "What do you want to say?"

Jian Jing: "On the first night, around 10 PM, Dan called me and asked me to meet him at 12:30. But when I got to his study, I only saw a headless corpse."

The air suddenly froze.

She said: "That\'s why I\'ve been so concerned about the headless corpse. Both the witch and Dan are old people, with shriveled and skinny bodies. If they were wearing the same clothes, I couldn\'t be sure whose body it was."

"One\'s a man and one\'s a woman..." Andrei muttered.

Jian Jing with a cold face: "I didn\'t dare to look closely."

According to the setup of mystery stories, people who see a headless corpse usually get startled, then flee or faint on the spot. In any case, they don\'t usually go over to touch or look closely to verify who it is.

Otherwise, what\'s the point of the trick?

But if it were a real person... ahem, no, no, let\'s stick to the game.

Wataru Kojima: "What was the state of the corpse?"

Jian Jing returned to normal: "No different from what you all saw. \'I\' was so scared at the sight that I ran away immediately (theoretically speaking), unable to confirm the identity of the corpse."

She paused, then added, "Also unable to determine if there was a third person present at the time."

The others looked at each other.

After a moment, Wataru Kojima spoke: "At 1:30 AM, I went to the deceased\'s room and also saw the corpse."

Jian Jing was surprised: "Did Dan ask you to go, or..."

Wataru Kojima shook his head: "I wanted to sneak in secretly, to look for anything related to witchcraft."

"How much do you know about immortality, and how much do you know about Dan\'s plan?" she asked.

Wataru Kojima thought for a moment, then started from the beginning: "I happened to see the symbol of Wu Village at my uncle\'s place. Once when I went out for inspiration, I happened to pass by Wu Village and decided to take a look. By asking the local villagers, I learned some knowledge about witchcraft and became deeply curious about it.

"However, the more I learned, the more confused I became, and also... more tempted."

After he finished, he looked at Jian Jing, his gaze intense.

Jian Jing was exhausted: "I have a friend who also likes to give me puzzles. Do you know how he is now?"

--

"Ahem." Season Wind, who had just sat down after the meeting, heard this conversation and almost choked on his bun.

Old Gao said softly: "Oh my, I have a friend, who could it be, who could it be, who\'s so mean to like testing Teacher Jian?"

Season Wind: "Cough cough cough cough."

Old Gao quickly handed him a glass of water, afraid that grass might really grow on his grave.

--

"This is the last time," Jian Jing responded to Wataru Kojima\'s challenge, "You want to save your girlfriend, the girl in white who appeared multiple times in the photo exhibition."

However, answering questions aside, she still had to make a comment: "Why do I always discover some juicy gossip?"

The guests who had been looking serious just moments ago all burst into laughter.

"Haha haha."

"If Teacher Jian is like this, her future boyfriend will be under a lot of pressure."

"Girls are indeed particularly sensitive to these things."

After a round of jokes, they got back to business.

Wataru Kojima said: "Yes, I wanted to steal information about witchcraft to resurrect the person I like."

"Can you describe the scene you saw at that time?" Jian Jing asked.

Wataru Kojima recalled: "The corpse was lying on the ground, with a pool of blood nearby. The room didn\'t seem to be in disarray. At that time, I didn\'t discover the secret room, I just took a quick look at the scene."

Realizing this didn\'t quite fit his character, he quickly added, "Unfortunately, I didn\'t find any information related to witchcraft, so I left."

Jian Jing nodded, believing him. Wataru Kojima\'s deductive skills were not bad, but he was completely an armchair detective, not good at discovering clues at the scene, more adept at using information for logical deduction.

"We\'ve both said our piece. Did anyone else see the deceased that day?" she asked.

After a moment of silence, Andrei spoke up: "I went there, at 11:15 PM."

"Why?"

Andrei shrugged: "For money, of course. I told him I really had no money recently and asked him to help me pay off some debts for the sake of my deceased sister."

"Did he agree?"

"He did, but he wanted me to promise not to gamble anymore," Andrei answered, "I agreed, of course. He said he would have someone transfer money to me tomorrow, so I left."

"What time?"

"11:30 PM."

Jian Jing pondered: "Did anyone go there after 11:30?"

Wu Lie: "I went earlier."

He said: "Dan called me around 10:30 PM, asking me to come over, so I did."

"What did he want from you?"

"He said I looked like I had something on my mind, and asked if I was in trouble. So I told him about my financial problems, and he promised to help me solve the trouble and was willing to lend me some money to get through the crisis," Wu Lie explained in detail, "I left around 10:50 PM."

Jian Jing frowned: "What exactly did Dan say on the phone? Did he ask you to come over immediately?"

"Yes, he said if I wasn\'t asleep, to find him in the lounge," Wu Lie asked, "Is there a problem?"

She replied, "It\'s not your problem, it\'s mine. Dan called me after 10 PM, but asked me to go at 12:30 AM..."

"That\'s quite a time gap," Wataru Kojima agreed. "Even if he was worried about waking you, two hours\' notice is too much, unless he didn\'t want anyone to know he was meeting you."

Jian Jing lowered her head in thought for a moment, not commenting yet, and continued asking, "Was there anyone else?"

No one responded.

Jian Jing was surprised: "No one else?" She looked at Min-cheol Park, "The eldest son and second daughter both talked with Dan, so it\'s understandable they didn\'t go again. He didn\'t call for you, and you didn\'t seek him out either?"

Min-cheol Park answered, "No, I had nothing to discuss with him."

"You prepared arsenic," Wataru Kojima hadn\'t forgotten this crucial information.

Min-cheol Park said, "Yes, I wanted to poison him, but I couldn\'t find an opportunity to do it that night."

Jian Jing was puzzled: "You wanted to poison him at the banquet?"

"Of course," Min-cheol Park explained logically. "If we were alone, even an idiot would know it was me. Only by acting when everyone was gathered would it be less likely to arouse suspicion."

Kumiko Terauchi couldn\'t help but say, "That seems a bit odd."

Liu Sau-chi: "It doesn\'t sound very convincing."

"But at least I had a plan. What about you?" Min-cheol Park countered, "Son-in-law, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, nephew - none of you had any plans?"

Liu Sau-chi: "Although I encountered trouble, Dan wasn\'t my first choice. I would certainly want to discuss it with my wife first."

Ran-er Kim: "I just hated the arranged marriage Dan set up, I had absolutely no reason to kill him."

Valeriya: "My issue was about the children. Dan\'s death wouldn\'t benefit me; on the contrary, I needed his help."

"What do you mean?"

Valeriya explained: "My husband has children with someone else. If Dan died and he divorced me, I would be left with nothing. So, not only would I not kill him, I hoped he would live well."

This reason seemed plausible.

Jiang BaiYan: "I wanted to be Dan\'s heir. His death now wouldn\'t benefit me. The people I wanted to eliminate were his two sons."

"What about Mr. Ishikawa?"

Hiroto Ishikawa said: "\'I\' was Dan\'s good friend, he was sort of \'my\' investor. Besides, Dr. Sharma\'s death wasn\'t caused by me. I had no motive to kill him."

Finally, everyone looked at Raj.

Raj: "I didn\'t go to find Dan, nor did I think about killing him, because..." He looked around at everyone, shrugged, and said in heavily accented English, "I felt he was about to die anyway."

Everyone was surprised: "Why?"

"At 10 PM, I escorted him back to his room to rest. Dan told me that I had worked hard for him lately, that I reminded him very much of my father, bringing back memories of years past. But he knew clearly that his time was running short. He was already very happy to be able to see his family and friends at this birthday banquet."

Raj said: "I felt like he already knew when he was going to die. So even if I had suspicions about him, there was no need to kill an old man who was already near death, right?"