Chapter 369: Detective Liv — Solving Cases on the Reveal Board
One day, Everly logged onto the SAI Reveal Board and discovered that she had received a private message.
The sender went by the name “Fashionable Pianist.” Judging by the icon next to the username, the person was a high-level user just like Everly. However, Everly usually kept a low profile and rarely interacted with anyone other than Old John, so she didn’t know this person.
Before opening the private message, Everly assumed they were looking to recruit people for a team.
There were mainly two types of missions on the SAI Reveal Board: combat missions and analytical missions.
Combat missions were exactly what they sounded like: missions that required going to the location of a case and confronting evil forces. For example, there might be a mission like, “Ghouls have appeared at a church in some mountain village; capable individuals are needed to go there and eliminate them.”
SAI had long been short-staffed. When a difficult mission came up, they would send their own people. As for those relatively minor, troublesome-but-not-worth-their-time missions, they were generally posted on the Reveal Board for outside personnel to handle.
The abilities of unofficial members varied greatly. To ensure their safety, people would often look for teammates through posts or private messages on the website, putting together a team to “play a team battle in good faith.” Once the mission was complete, the rewards would be distributed according to each member’s contribution.
Analytical missions, on the other hand, placed less emphasis on combat ability and were more reliant on the recipient’s analytical and deductive skills.
These missions mainly came from police departments and the FBI across the country.
In the United States, a land shrouded in horror movies, bizarre cases were happening every moment of every day. After some major cases and cold cases went through a double screening by local police departments and the FBI, those involving supernatural elements—cases that could not be solved through science alone—would be forwarded to SAI.
Once the cases piled up, SAI would select some of them based on their severity and level of confidentiality and post them on the Reveal Board, allowing outside personnel to help clear some of the backlog.
After accepting a mission, an unofficial member would receive a case file containing all the information that the police and FBI agents had gathered up to that point, including crime-scene photographs, forensic autopsy reports, the victim’s social connections, information on suspects, witness statements, physical evidence, and more.
Unofficial members had to analyze the disclosed information, deduce who the likely culprit was, and submit their answer.
Considering that some unofficial members possessed special abilities such as divination or prophetic dreams and could arrive at conclusions without any detailed reasoning process, SAI only required the final answer and did not mandate that they submit their reasoning.
However, that didn’t mean task takers could simply pick a random suspect and submit their answer. Once a conclusion was submitted, SAI’s backend would verify the result.
The verification was incredibly fast—basically, the answer would be submitted and the result returned almost instantly. Most likely, they were using some kind of expensive consumable item.
For this reason, to prevent people from submitting random guesses and wasting resources, unofficial members would have a certain number of points deducted if their answer was wrong. If they made too many incorrect submissions, they would even be barred from taking the same type of mission.
Everly and Old John only accepted analytical missions. They were “intellectual” rather than “combat” talents. Intellectual types tended to prefer working alone and rarely formed teams, so this was the first time Everly had ever received a private message from another user.
With a hint of suspicion, she opened the message.
Unexpectedly, Fashionable Pianist wasn’t looking for teammates at all. He was contacting Everly to ask her a question.
[You solved the serial murder case in Jikaren Village, right? How did you do it?]
Everly typed back a string of question marks:
[???]
Sorry, bro, but are we close? Why are you opening with a question like that?
Fashionable Pianist was apparently online the entire time. After receiving Everly’s reply, he remained silent for a while before sending a long response:
[Sorry, I got too excited. I also took that analytical mission, but I had barely started my investigation when I saw you accept the mission and submit your conclusion within ten minutes.]
[At first, I thought you had just submitted a random guess and gotten lucky. But the backend actually verified your conclusion and closed the case. I was genuinely shocked. Based on my analysis, this definitely isn’t a simple serial murder case. It involves a new religious movement, mind control, and behavioral manipulation. The person carrying out the murders and the mastermind behind them are very likely not the same person! And yet you managed to find the mastermind from among hundreds of suspects in practically no time. How on earth did you do it?!]
Everly remembered the “Jikaren Village Serial Murder Case” he was talking about.
The case concerned a small village called Jikaren in the northeastern United States, where a series of murders had taken place. All the victims were young women. The killer would remove a part of each victim’s body and leave behind a totem associated with a certain cult at the crime scene.
The perpetrator was extremely cunning. Almost all physical evidence left at the scenes, such as fingerprints and hair, had been destroyed. After investigating, the local police had compiled a suspect list containing several hundred people. Checking every suspect one by one would be an enormous undertaking. Since the case also involved a cult, they naturally passed it on to SAI.
SAI had no desire to take on such a troublesome case either, so they tossed it onto the Reveal Board. To attract more people to take on the mission, they even increased its reward.
Everyone had assumed that a case with such a massive amount of information would require a great deal of time to process and analyze. Yet Everly had arrived at the correct answer in less than ten minutes after accepting the mission. This left Fashionable Pianist utterly shocked—and rather defeated.
Everly: “…”
Was that case really that complicated?
She had simply tried looking through the suspect list, spotted a face that looked extremely familiar, and decided to submit that person’s name on a whim.
The owner of that face was named Chris Kenworth, a veteran American actor from Everly’s previous life and a famous specialist in playing villains. He had naturally pale skin, deep-set eyes, and an inherently sickly, detached air. His personal presence was cold and eerie, while his early experience performing on Broadway had given him a unique dramatic intensity in his mannerisms. He was therefore perfectly suited to the “evil yet charming” type of villain often found in horror and suspense films, and he had gone on to play countless similar roles.
After appearing on screen so many times, Chris’s face had become so recognizable that even someone like Everly, who paid little attention to the Western entertainment industry, could take one look at him and immediately conclude that this guy was definitely the final Big Boss!
And so, through a strange twist of fate, Everly had swiftly solved an incredibly complicated serial murder case.
Naturally, however, she couldn’t tell a complete stranger with whom she had no relationship the real reason.
After her initial surprise, Everly casually replied:
[I got the answer using my ability.]
Under normal circumstances, anyone with a little social awareness would have ended the conversation there. The special abilities of unofficial members were private information, and revealing them could even endanger them. Continuing to pry would be extremely rude.
But the other person still wouldn’t let it go.
[What ability? Divination?]
By this point, Everly was already considering closing the chat window and blocking him. Unexpectedly, Fashionable Pianist continued talking to himself:
[I don’t buy your answer. I’ve been observing you for a long time. If you really had such a useful special ability, you wouldn’t have spent two days dealing with the “Aldo River Dismemberment Case”!]
Everly: !!!
This guy called Fashionable Pianist has been watching her? Who is he? What does he want? Why has he been keeping an eye on her? Could she be in danger because of this?
The mouse cursor, which had already moved onto the “×” button, immediately moved back.
Out of caution, Everly decided to observe him a little longer and try to draw some information out of him. After all, she was now immortal, and there was still an unused Fountain of Youth hidden beneath the gas station. If someone had their eye on her because of this, it could bring her endless trouble.
The “Aldo River Dismemberment Case” was the case Everly had solved three days ago.
The case took place along the banks of a river called the Aldo. By chance, a fisherman discovered a partially undigested human finger inside a fish. After reporting it to the police, officers searched the waters around the fishing area and recovered several human remains. A forensic examination revealed that they belonged to four different people.
The police immediately sensed that something was wrong and expanded the search area. As a result, even more unidentified human remains were recovered along the riverbanks. The dumping sites stretched across three states, scattered throughout both the upper and lower reaches of the river. The methods of dismemberment varied, as did the tools used. The only thing proving that the cases were connected was the discovery of several statues of the Skeleton Madonna at the dumping sites.
It was because of these ominous statues that the series of cases was eventually transferred to SAI.
At first, Everly didn’t want to take the case because it looked complicated at a glance. A person could only accept one analytical case at a time, and they couldn’t take another until the current one was completed. Without confidence that she could solve a case, she wouldn’t recklessly take it on.
But the case summary and some of the crime-scene photographs looked incredibly familiar to her.
As she continued looking through them, distant memories gradually resurfaced. Everly finally remembered that she had actually watched a horror movie based on this very series of dismemberment cases.
What was there to hesitate about, then?
Of course she had to take the case!
Too much time had passed, and the movie itself hadn’t left much of an impression on her—it was the sort of film that had become indistinguishable from all the others in her memory. So after accepting the mission, Everly spent a long time recalling and piecing together the details.
Only after she had reconstructed the story and figured out the main chain of events was she able to determine the identity of the ultimate murderer.
That was why it had taken her a full two days to solve the case, from accepting the mission to submitting the solution.
Of course, that reason was likewise not something Everly could tell an outsider, so she continued making things up:
[Because my ability is unreliable. When it works, I can solve cases quickly. When it doesn’t, things take a little longer.]
Fashionable Pianist replied:
[What about the Grain Family Massacre? You spent a week investigating that case and ultimately submitted a detailed explanation of your reasoning. If you really solve cases using a special ability, then logically there should only be one result. You shouldn’t have been able to provide such a thorough analysis.]
Everly: “…”
Is this ever going to end? Why is this guy like a cockroach?!
The Grain Family Massacre was the case Everly had taken shortly after registering as an unofficial member.
She hadn’t taken any shortcuts when solving that case. She hadn’t seen the corresponding movie, nor had she spotted any familiar actors on the suspect list. She had simply read the case description, decided that it was something she could solve, and accepted the mission.
Her horror-movie viewing experience had certainly helped during the investigation, but most of the time, she had relied on the extensive criminal-investigation knowledge she and Old John had accumulated.
At the time, Everly had been a newcomer who had just joined SAI. She didn’t know that submitting her investigative process was optional, so when she submitted her answer, she casually included her reasoning as well. She never expected that, several years later, Fashionable Pianist would somehow dig up her history from when she had first entered the field!
Why has he investigated so much? What exactly is his purpose?!
Just as Everly’s wariness continued to rise and she couldn’t help spinning increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories in her head, Fashionable Pianist spoke again:
[It was because of the Jikaren Village Serial Murder Case that I noticed you. To be honest, since I entered the field of deduction, I’ve only ever been defeated twice. The first time was on a snowy mountain. The second time was on the Reveal Board. Being beaten to the punch left me extremely frustrated. For the sake of my mental health, I believe it’s necessary to get to the bottom of what happened.]
[I tracked every case you’ve taken since registering as an unofficial member. I found that your solving speed is within the normal range for some cases, while for others, you solved them abnormally fast… This contradiction is simply too intriguing. How exactly do you solve these cases, and why is there such a drastic difference in your performance? Please, you have to tell me the truth! Even if you can’t explain everything, just give me a few keywords as hints.]
[Please. If I don’t get an answer, I just can’t settle down…]
Accompanying this long stream of self-talk was a “Credit Transaction.”
This was a type of transaction on the Reveal Board. The initiator had to pay a certain number of points as a processing fee before a credit transaction could be launched.
Once the transaction was initiated, the recipient had to fulfill the conditions set by the initiator in order to receive the promised reward. The SAI Reveal Board supervised the transaction process, and if the recipient acted dishonestly—for example, by lying—the transaction would be deemed a failure. Everly had no idea what criteria they used to make that determination, but it worked every single time. Everyone who had used it swore by it. Everly figured they must have been using some kind of item.
Everly’s gaze lingered on the words “snowy mountain” and “deduction” before her mouse moved and she clicked on the “Credit Transaction” initiated by Fashionable Pianist.
Transaction Requirement: Provide the methods used to solve the “Jikaren Village Serial Murder Case” and the “Aldo River Dismemberment Case” in the form of keywords.
Transaction Reward: 500 points.
Everly’s eyes widened.
How much?! He’s giving me HOW MUCH?!
She had to work her butt off to solve a single case and only got five points, while this guy was casually offering 500 points in one go?!
That meant she and Old John could get the disguise items they wanted right away!
Everly thought for a moment, then tentatively typed:
[Hello, Noah 🙂 ]
Fashionable Pianist:
[!!!]
Fashionable Pianist: [You know who I am! Is this another one of your abilities? How did you do it?!]
Fashionable Pianist: [Answer me!]
[System: User “Fashionable Pianist” has initiated a new “Credit Transaction” with you. Please confirm whether you wish to accept.]
Seeing his response, Everly was certain of it—sure enough, this annoying guy who had a habit of talking to himself in a way that was strangely irritating was none other than the famous mystery novelist Lucas, whom she had encountered on the snowy mountain!
In fact, if she looked closely, his ID, Fashionable Pianist (Hep Piano??), had been formed by rearranging the letters of his pen name, Noah Pipe (Noah Pipe??). He had practically given away a hint in his username.
If it was Lucas, then his obsession with the person who had defeated him was hardly surprising. He was an arrogant, self-centered man who considered himself superior to everyone else. Everly had merely outdeduced him on the snowy mountain using nothing more than some ordinary surveillance cameras, yet he had treated her as the protagonist and written her into one of his novels. Now that he had encountered someone on the Reveal Board who could solve cases far faster than he could, it was perfectly normal for Lucas’s pride to take a hit and for him to come charging after her without a second thought.
Once Everly had confirmed his identity, she lightly clicked the mouse and accepted the first Credit Transaction Lucas had sent her. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she typed two keywords:
“Look at the face.”
“Remember.”
Then she clicked Send.
The SAI backend reviewed her response and approved it.
“Clatter-clatter!”
A crisp notification sound rang out as the points were credited to her account. Everly didn’t even look at the second transaction Lucas had sent. She immediately clicked the X and closed the conversation.
She couldn’t say too much, or she’d blow her cover!
…
A few months later.
Everly went into the city to stock up on supplies. As she passed a bookstore, she saw a poster plastered outside:
After several years, renowned mystery novelist Noah Pipe returns with his paranormal mystery novel The Haze over the Gildo River! This time, what thrilling adventures will heroine Liv bring us? Let’s wait and see!
Everly: “…”
Oh, come on. Again?!