Chapter 32 Part 1

“You… I… I didn’t.” For a moment, Jiang Xiao didn’t even know what to say. The words that came out were pale and weak. Bo Xiting spoke with such genuine emotion that even Jiang Xiao himself couldn’t help but start to doubt…

Was he really with Bo Xiting because of Jiang Mu?

From the clue strips provided, he and Jiang Mu met during a confused phase of his sexual orientation. Jiang Mu had been his guide. Their breakup wasn’t due to relationship problems, but because he felt Jiang Mu had approached him with ill intentions. Disheartened, he had initiated the split.

And one sentence in the clues was especially meaningful—

Jiang Mu became your sexual awakening teacher, and the aesthetic scale by which you selected boyfriends thereafter.

Didn’t the subtext of this sentence imply that all the boyfriends he chose later bore some resemblance to Jiang Mu?

Admittedly, Bo Xiting and Jiang Mu were clearly different types, but they both had the exact same green eyes. On closer inspection, their brows, eyes, and the corners of their lips seemed somewhat similar.

And Ying Weizhu, like Jiang Mu, was mixed-race, with more pronounced facial features than normal. At first glance, one might also find some similarities there.

As for Wen Xu…

Jiang Xiao retrieved the photo from his System Inventory and compared them repeatedly.

Wen Xu and Jiang Mu’s facial features and contours had absolutely no similarity. If one had to force a common point between the two, perhaps it was…

Their temperaments both leaned towards calm and steady composure.

Jiang Xiao stammered, unable to utter a single word for a long time. This was a far cry from his usual silver tongue; clearly, he had been hit right in the heart of the matter.

Bo Xiting watched coldly, feeling a flame burst upwards in his chest. Yet the tongue of the fire was extremely cold, like a chill soaked through from a high altitude of eighty thousand miles, freezing and coagulating the blood in his entire body. Even the sound of his heartbeat disappeared.

Bo Xiting’s mouth tugged into a smile utterly devoid of mirth: “What, can’t even manage a single word of defense now?”

But Jiang Xiao was actually deeply puzzled by one thing: “Senior, how do you know I dated Jiang Mu?”

A relationship like that should have been widely known. Jiang Mu might have used him as a springboard for a fleeting fling, but he would never tell such a private, small matter to Bo Xiting.

Ever since arriving at the hotel, Jiang Xiao and Jiang Mu had only met that one time in the evening. In front of others, they hadn’t exchanged a single word.

So how did Bo Xiting know?

“You’ve learned to deflect too, did you pick that up from Jiang Mu?” Bo Xiting said coldly.

Fine, fine, everything he said now was wrong.

Jiang Xiao finally understood the meaning of the “Hell-level” difficulty. While investigating the case, he also had to handle various romantic debts—missteps meant big trouble.

Just as the tension between them was razor-sharp, the door was suddenly knocked upon, filled with a polite and formal manner.

Bo Xiting cast a cold glare at Jiang Xiao. Though this guy was a master at playing pitiful, he was surely secretly delighted right now that someone had finally come to rescue him.

The door wasn’t locked. The visitor pushed it open. As fate would have it, it was the very person at the center of the argument’s vortex:

“I could hear you two arguing from the corridor. What are you talking about?”

No one answered.

Jiang Mu had one hand holding his suit jacket, his collar slightly open. His dark green eyes held a deep, interested meaning. As if relishing the drama, he said towards Bo Xiting:

“It’s rare to see you so agitated. How did Jiang Xiao provoke you?”

“What are you here for?” Bo Xiting spat out five words, each like a flash of snowy, deathly sharp light on an unsheathed blade, wishing to pierce the visitor’s throat.

“Looking for you about something.” Jiang Mu tilted his head slightly, looking at Jiang Xiao, who was desperately trying to shrink his presence. “Right, I haven’t told you happy birthday yet.”

Jiang Xiao twitched his mouth into a forced smile: “Thanks.”

You didn’t say it on the actual birthday, saying it now feels a bit deliberate.

“You didn’t like the gift I sent?” Jiang Mu added, “The watch you really wanted before…”

“Don’t like it anymore.” Jiang Xiao interrupted him, enunciating each word, “Something liked before isn’t necessarily liked now. Tastes always change.”

Jiang Xiao was now past caring, completely unafraid of offending Jiang Mu. Hadn’t he offended him enough already? Jiang Mu’s hatred value was probably capped. How much more could he possibly hate him?

Jiang Mu’s smile at the corner of his lips diminished slightly.

“I have nothing to discuss with you,” Bo Xiting stated curtly, clearly issuing an eviction order.

“When the snow stops, the Police will come up the mountain and take you away. Then the whole family will know you became a murderer. Does it not matter, even then?” Jiang Mu responded in an equally icy tone. “Do you know what consequences this will cause? Even if you go inside, I fear no Lawyer would dare to defend you—”

“You two chat, I’m leaving first,” Jiang Xiao cut in abruptly, clearly unwilling to get involved in the affairs between the two brothers and their family. However, unable to see, Jiang Mu was standing right in front of him. The moment he looked up, he bumped right into the other’s chest.

…Utterly embarrassing.

Before Jiang Xiao could even rub his forehead, his wrist was grabbed in the next second, pulling him towards the door.

“I’ll take him back. Other matters, we’ll discuss later.”

Bo Xiting’s tone was cool, his pace pulling Jiang Xiao along without the slightest pause. Jiang Xiao was dragged forward by him: “Slow down, hey, I can’t see!”

“Bo Xiting, are you bullying me again taking advantage of this?!”

Bo Xiting spun around abruptly.

“When have I ever bullied you?!” Bo Xiting’s voice was tinged with anger, as if the earlier displeasure hadn’t subsided and Jiang Xiao had just lit another fire under him. The flames surged even higher, burning away the settling ice into unbearably scorching teardrops.

“Do I have to watch you being all lovey-dovey with him for this to end? Or, were you planning to reconcile right in front of me, and have me be the Best Man at your wedding—would that finally satisfy you?”

Jiang Xiao probably didn’t understand the meaning behind Bo Xiting’s words. Only Bo Xiting remembered what Wen Xu had said back then—

“If Jiang Mu hadn’t betrayed him, perhaps Jiang Xiao would consider marrying him.”

That sentence had become the flesh feeding the thorn in his heart. The shock, anger, and hatred that had been twisting and growing were all interwoven, finally transforming at this moment into words that only seemed like jealous remarks.

No one knew what emotion was truly in Bo Xiting’s heart when he said those words.

“Mar… Marry?”

Had Bo Xiting’s imagination run too wild? And besides, same-sex marriage was possible in this world?!

“I’ve already completely fallen out with him. It’s impossible for us to be together in this lifetime. How could we possibly marry?” Jiang Xiao was frantic, wishing he could stuff the words “Jiang Mu and I have nothing to do with each other” directly into Bo Xiting’s brain. “Besides…”

“Don’t you want to know what I wanted to tell you when I asked you to the restaurant?” Jiang Xiao asked seriously.

Bo Xiting glanced at him a few times, and said neither warmly nor coldly: “Not interested.”

Jiang Xiao: “…”

That’s not how I imagined you’d react.

“Actually, at that time I wanted to tell you…”

Jiang Xiao brewed for a few seconds and was about to speak when Bo Xiting cut him off.

“First Jiang Mu, then Ying Weizhu. How many more times do you want to deceive me? I won’t believe you anymore.”

“I’m sending you back. After this, whatever entanglements you have with anyone else, I won’t bother with.”

“Then can you help me with one more thing?”

Utterly shameless, Jiang Xiao pressed his palms together and bowed towards Bo Xiting: “Right now, you’re the only one who can help me.”

Bo Xiting’s temple throbbed.

Was Jiang Xiao just relying on the fact he was easy to bully, trampling all over his heart relentlessly…

Bo Xiting said nothing and turned to leave.

At first, Jiang Xiao didn’t believe it. He hesitated and called out Bo Xiting’s name a few times, but all he got was empty, dead silence. He took a few steps forward, but his hands met only air. He could only draw one conclusion:

Bo Xiting really left.

Though he didn’t know what scenarios the guy had cooked up in his head, it seemed Bo Xiting’s hatred for him was likely no less than the others’.

But the instigator was Jiang Xiao, this love fraudster… Wait, isn’t that just cursing myself out?

Wen Xu’s death still had its suspicious points, the truth of the car accident was bewildering, and who exactly was the murderer who killed Qin Guan?

Jiang Xiao laid out all the clues before him and analyzed them one by one.

The clues he currently knew: First, when he had the car accident, Bo Xiting and Qin Guan were present. Bo Xiting had photographed the scene of Qin Guan getting out of the car to save him. Ying Weizhu knew Bo Xiting was at the scene, meaning he had either investigated it or was also present;

Second, his hospital diagnosis report showed his eyes were fine, yet now he couldn’t see anything. Was it a diagnostic error, or was the diagnosis report Bo Xiting saw incorrect?

Another possibility was that his blindness was artificially caused. But at that time, besides Wen Xu, only Qin Guan had gotten close to him. Was it one of these two who acted?

Third, Qin Guan died at the entrance of the Storage Room. The Knife stuck in his chest belonged to Ying Weizhu. Yet in a crevice near the storage room door, there was also a blood-stained knife, which shouldn’t belong to the hotel, suspected to have been brought by someone else.

But this was strange again. Qin Guan had no luggage. Others’ bags had been thoroughly searched by Jiang Xiao without finding any trace of a knife. Although that knife wasn’t large, carrying it on one’s person would be easily discovered. Thus, one could conclude that knife, at least, wasn’t from the rooms they were in at the time.

Could Jiang Mu have brought it? That possibility existed.

Fourth, there were injury marks on Wen Xu, and after he left, that Small Knife disappeared. It wasn’t necessarily Wen Xu who took it, but he was a suspect.