The snow wind howled, the way back still unseen.
Lin sat alone by the fireplace, the flickering light alternating on his face, punctuated by the crackling of firewood.
"Aren't you going to rest?" Mobius stood behind him, asking softly with rare gentleness.
"…I don't think anyone dares to sleep tonight," Lin gently patted Mobius's hand resting on his shoulder.
That letter-like thing, with its emanated malice, sent shivers down everyone's spines.
A prank? Or was someone lurking near the house?
No one knew.
But during this period of waiting for the blizzard to stop, everyone would probably keep their room doors and windows tightly shut.
"That paper… who do you think wrote it?"
In this moment of silence, Mobius asked a chilling question.
"…"
Lin actually understood Mobius's thoughts. The paper likely described methods of murder, corresponding to a total of thirteen people. Counting Su, who was already missing, they had fourteen people.
This meant that the person who wrote the murder prediction might also be among them, the "extra person."
However, this couldn't rule out the possibility of it being the killer's plan, deliberately sowing discord among them. The most immediate sign was that everyone was now afraid to be with anyone else.
"Whew… I still can't figure anything out," Lin shook his head. Everything was still a mystery, with every possibility open. "Let's go, back to the room."
The fire in the main hall went out.
A pair of cold-blooded eyes opened.
…
Lin and Mobius, fully dressed, walked into the main hall and greeted the few people who were already there.
It was obvious that most people were mentally drained and hadn't slept well. The unrelenting snow outside the window further intensified their gloomy mood.
"Who else hasn't arrived?" Lin counted the people and found two people missing.
The others also looked at each other, and the usually observant Sakura added, "Kalpas and Kevin haven't come yet."
"…"
Lin had a bad feeling. He immediately turned and walked quickly toward Kevin's room.
Apart from Lin and Mobius sharing a room, the men lived on the first floor and the women on the second. The top floor was the tea room and storage room. So, he quickly arrived at Kevin's door.
Kalpas also walked over from the corridor just then. Seeing Lin approaching with such momentum, he asked suspiciously, "What's wrong?"
"Have you seen Kevin?" Lin asked.
"Not yet. I just came out of my room."
Lin started knocking on Kevin's door without a word, using considerable force. The sound of the knocking should have been loud enough to alert everyone in the villa.
"Kevin!" Lin shouted loudly.
But the silence inside the door was frightening.
With that noise, let alone sleeping, even those upstairs should have been woken up, right?
Besides, Kevin wasn't one to sleep in; he was a working professional.
At this point, Kalpas also sensed something was wrong. He took a few quick steps to Lin side, ready to ram the door.
"Wait a moment," Lin shook his head to stop him. Eden was already walking over with the spare key.
Lin took the spare key, which only Eden, the owner of the villa, possessed, and put it into the keyhole. The two clicking sounds made him pause.
This type of door could only be locked once from the inside. It required a key from the outside to be locked twice. This meant the door… was locked from the outside!
With no time to think, he pushed the door open—
"Boom!"
Crimson filled his vision.
Everyone stood stunned at the doorway, looking at the window from which hot air and the smell of cooked meat was blowing. A pillar of fire shot into the sky, driving away the cold wind.
An unmoving "fire man" tied to a barren tree in the snow was burning fiercely.
His white hair gradually curled, blackened, and turned to ash in the flames.
"Kevin!"
Lin and Kalpas immediately jumped out of the open window without hesitation, rushing to Kevin, who was tied up. But the mass of flames had completely engulfed Kevin's body. Even throwing snow on him couldn't stop the burning.
Lin smelled a pungent odor. This smell was… gasoline?
Under the desperate gaze of everyone, Kevin burned violently in the blaze…
…
"Bang!"
"Who is it?!"
At this moment, Kosma looked even angrier than Kalpas. The usually quiet young man was now roaring hysterically.
"Who killed Kevin!"
Lin squatted silently next to Kevin's charred corpse. The body was burned beyond recognition, with no trace of his former handsomeness.
"Two, the frenzied shall self-immolate in the ice land."
This was the second sentence on the paper.
Clearly, this time, it demonstrated its accuracy to them in a more direct and terrifying way.
But even with such profound grief now, Lin had to examine Kevin's body. Otherwise, more people might be harmed before the police arrived.
Moreover, Kevin's "fire execution" clearly had numerous suspicious points.
First, the paper wrote "self-immolation," but Kevin was tied up and motionless, clearly having been incapacitated by someone before being set on fire.
And the description "frenzied" did not suit the extremely calm Kevin in any way.
Lin observed Kevin's body, but it was burned too cleanly. All clothing and hair were reduced to ash. Even with the desire to observe, he couldn't find any clues.
"It must be one of you!" Kosma's hysterical roar made Lin turn his head.
"Kevin's door was locked from the outside, wasn't it! I saw Lin turn the key twice when he unlocked it! Someone must have dragged him out of the room, tied him up, set him on fire, then left the room, locked the door, and returned to the villa!"
"…"
He was right. Currently, this was the only possibility.
Kevin himself couldn't have locked the door twice from the inside. It could only have been someone locking the door from the outside, and that person might have turned the lock one extra time when leaving after committing the crime.
However, it was also possible that He did it on purpose, just to tell them…
He was among them.
"Eden, did you find Kevin's key?"
Eden was now forcing herself to remain calm and not look at Kevin's corpse. Sadness inevitably showed in her eyes, and she nodded weakly, "It's on the bedside table in the room…"
This meant that the only way to lock the door would have been with the spare key, then…
"Was it you, Eden?!" Kosma immediately shifted his target to Eden.
"Kid, calm down!" The usually rash Kalpas was surprisingly calm now. He stopped Kosma, "Anyone could have stolen the spare key from Eden!"
"Then tell me… who the hell killed Kevin…"
Everyone fell silent.
Yes, who did it…
The intimate bond between the fourteen friends began to crack.
And the perpetrator was smiling, watching it all.