The one who was killed is you.
The black insect that had crawled into the boy’s mouth wriggled out again, its abdomen swollen, with thin black legs smeared with a faint dark red.
Everyone was looking at Jiang Yan.
He was already dead.
Since last night.
At this moment, the black-haired boy lying on the table like a glossy plaster statue should have been him.
What does it feel like to have your death publicly announced?
Jiang Yan didn’t know. All he felt was a calm emptiness.
His pale and indifferent face showed little expression, and his pair of glassy, sapphire-blue eyes emotionlessly reflected the faces of every suspect seated at the long table.
Everyone but one.
Someone at the end of the table, utterly panicked, tugged at their hair and exclaimed, "No... What’s going on? Is this the memory implanted? No one... no one...
"Isn’t there anyone different?!"
What the hell is this?!
Tao Shi rubbed his slightly curly brown hair in frustration, trying to calm himself, then continued narrating his version of the timeline:
“And then, I saw the chef.”
The chef who was called out shuddered violently, now drenched in sweat.
Tao Shi remained calm and continued, "He stood up and said to me: ‘We’re going to kill him! Kill this white lamb! Hurry and call the others to come see!’
“So, I went to knock on Yu Jia’s door and invited him to witness the murder.”
As he spoke, Tao Shi raised his eyes and swept a glance at everyone around the long table.
Geng Hui no longer screamed but kept making “thud-thud” noises under the table, though what she was doing remained unknown.
Tao Shi spread his hands with a smile. “That’s all I have to say.”
Cao Youfeng crossed his arms and said, “My timeline matches the boss’s. Lu Sha!”
Called by name, Lu Sha rolled his eyes and then spoke with a dark expression, “I was also invited.
“After the banquet ended, I returned to my room. I don’t know how much time passed, but it was before I heard the thumping noise—when that girl, Geng Hui, knocked on my door.
“I was shocked at the time because I don’t have any human friends, and she was a guest invited by the Little Prince. Everyone knows I don’t get along with the Little Prince!
“I’ve explained this before—because he’s a product of the evil god. Although he’s our prince, the entire elf tribe is deeply wary of him, including our queen, Her Majesty...”
As he said this, he cast a glance in the direction of Cang Rou.
The elven queen, who had been idly doodling for most of the meeting, shrugged slightly.
Lu Sha continued, “So, when Geng Hui told me: ‘We’ve captured him and are preparing to kill him. Do you want to come watch?’
“I refused at first. Elves abhor killing—killing brings blood, which is filthy and impure. But when I heard it was Jiang Yan they’d caught, how could I not go?
“So, I went without hesitation.
“I don’t know where the room was exactly, because I’m completely unfamiliar with the layout of this castle. I was stunned that, as a human, she could navigate this place so effortlessly without getting lost.”
"When I arrived at the room, the chef, that father and son pair, Commander Ding Wanyu, the dead buzz-cut man, and our esteemed queen were all present.
“And Jiang Yan was trapped in a giant net, like a butterfly caught in a web.
“Then they asked me to help invite others to come and watch, so I went to knock on Tao Shi’s door.”
After Lu Sha finished speaking, Cang Rou flapped her wings lightly, pointed at the boy with colorful braids, and said:
“My timeline is very simple—that child told me Jiang Yan wasn’t a butterfly but a white lamb. They decided to execute him and invited me to watch. So, I went.”
When the middle-aged man saw his son being singled out, he became agitated and quickly explained:
“We were also invited there!
“It was… it was Geng Hui. She said Jiang Yan wasn’t a butterfly but a lamb, and that he had been captured.
“At that time, the banquet had just ended, and we ran into her in the hallway…”
“In the hallway?” Jiang Yan’s sharp instincts immediately picked up on the anomaly. “Why weren’t you in your rooms?”
The middle-aged man paused, stammering, “Because… because…”
“Because they were spying on you and your husband… being intimate,” Ding Wanyu said.
This time, Jiang Yan was truly shocked.
He stared, wide-eyed, in disbelief.
Ding Wanyu calmly continued, “I discovered them peeping while I was patrolling and was preparing to apprehend them and hand them over to Her Majesty for punishment.
“At that moment, the girl appeared. She said she had seen a white lamb trapped in a butterfly’s net and had decided to execute it. She asked if we wanted to come along and watch, so we followed her.
“We didn’t see anything!” The middle-aged man quickly defended himself.
“Truly… we didn’t see anything. The door was only slightly open. We didn’t dare push it… It was purely because this boy was curious—curious, you know… boys his age are always curious about such things…”
Jiang Yan was about to say something, but the large hand around his waist tightened slightly.
The steward’s voice sounded from above him, steady and calm:
“It’s true. They saw nothing.”
Jiang Yan furrowed his brows slightly and looked up at Yu Xiu, who was holding him.
As a steward, he shouldn’t have known what happened last night between Jiang Yan and his husband.
This guy… he definitely isn’t an NPC created by the main system using DNA. Who exactly is he?
However, Jiang Yan didn’t have the time to ponder what kind of role his husband, who was holding him tightly, was playing in this game.
What he needed to focus on now was the fact that he had already died last night, and the people here were the ones who witnessed and killed him.
Yet, the body currently lying before him wasn’t his—it was someone he didn’t recognize, someone who, at least in the Little Prince’s memories, had no existence at all.
Among this group of people who killed him and then replaced him with another boy’s body, he needed to find the murderer who killed his husband last night.
“But…” Jiang Yan said, puzzled, “if you were spying last night… then it means I was in my room with my husband at the time…”
“So the person you caught couldn’t possibly have been me!” Jiang Yan raised his eyebrows. “This boy might look somewhat like me, but…”
“It was definitely you.” Tao Shi, rubbing the head of the still-panicking person beside him, said firmly, “I’m absolutely certain. The person we caught was you. No one else has eyes as blue as glass beads.”
Jiang Yan pointed at the father-and-son pair with his hand. “But when Geng Hui announced that I’d been captured, they heard me and my husband—”
“They heard, but they didn’t see,” Tao Shi interrupted nonchalantly.
“So… so it was him and Geng Hui!” The middle-aged man suddenly pointed at the chef beside him and exclaimed, “It was him and Geng Hui who discovered you first! It must be them! They must be the murderers… it has to be them!”
"No! It’s not me!"
The chef panicked immediately. His clothes, both on his chest and back, were already drenched in sweat. Frantically, he explained:
"It was Geng Hui! Yes, Geng Hui!
“I had just returned to my room and was about to rest when she knocked on my door. She told me she and the buzz-cut guy had caught a white lamb using a butterfly net… They decided to kill it, but they didn’t know how to kill a lamb, so they asked me to help.”
The middle-aged man slammed the table and shouted, “They asked you to help kill someone! And you still dare say it wasn’t you?”
“No!” The chef quickly denied, shaking his head. “I didn’t do it. I can swear—I absolutely didn’t touch him! Absolutely!”
“It was Geng Hui! It must have been Geng Hui and that buzz-cut guy. Yes, them!”
As if recalling something, the chef wiped the sweat off his face, his expression twitching as he spoke.
“Don’t you all remember? When the buzz-cut guy died… what did we see at the door? It was that kid he harmed…”
“Yes! The culprit is already obvious. Now that the buzz-cut guy is dead, the murderer must be Geng Hui!”
At that moment, the boy with colorful braids interrupted the group, pointing at Tao Shi.
“What about him?”
Swish!
All eyes turned to Jian Hou.
Tao Shi, who had been rubbing the back of the person next to him, suddenly turned icy, his gaze hardening.
“He’s not in any of our timelines! Clearly, his storyline is different from ours!” the boy with colorful braids exclaimed. “We’re here to find the murderer who killed the king, not the one who killed Jiang Yan or whoever’s lying on that table!”
Cao Youfeng raised an eyebrow slightly.
This newbie is interesting.
It wasn’t that he was particularly clever, but in a situation like this, for a newcomer to remain calm was already impressive.
Look at his father and the chef next to him—both were falling apart!
How pitiful... truly unfortunate.
The boy with colorful braids continued his analysis:
“Just now, all of our timelines proved only one thing that each of us could potentially be the one who killed Jiang Yan. However, this person didn’t appear at all!”
“So, after the bride Jiang Yan was captured, where did his husband go?”
The expressions of the crowd subtly shifted as they looked at the boy. The middle-aged man’s face was a mix of astonishment and pride as he gazed at his son.
Sensing the attention, the boy with colorful braids couldn’t help but grow smug. Tilting his chin upward arrogantly, he glanced toward Jian Hou and said:
“Let’s assume the person we all saw being killed last night really was Jiang Yan. In that case, we can all testify for each other—we were all present at the scene.
So, where did the one who wasn’t present go?”
“Could it be… to kill his husband?”
Tao Shi’s expression darkened as he retorted coldly, “A single human, taking on and killing a giant all by himself?”
The boy with colorful braids raised his hand—the one wrapped in white bandages after being bitten off by Jiang Yan’s tendrils and sneered:
“Humans can kill elves cursed by divine spirits. Why can’t they kill a giant? This game doesn’t have to make any sense!”
Tao Shi seemed ready to argue further, but Jian Hou raised his hand to interrupt him:
“I really didn’t participate. But… my timeline is completely different from yours.”
Saying this, he lifted his head to look at everyone seated at the long table and hesitated before continuing:
“Are you… sure that what you’ve just recounted is everything that happened after the wedding last night, according to your memories?”