Chapter 49: Deduction

“Tanya, you killed her, didn’t you?” Chu Ning carelessly uttered words that struck Tanya like thunder, questioning Zhang Long directly.
“Don’t be so quick to deny it. At first, I thought the heavily made-up woman outside was your accomplice. Your reaction confirms I wasn’t mistaken.”
“At this point, I retraced everything from start to finish and discovered an important issue, which led me to suspect you had another accomplice. Without that, judging by the timeline, you couldn’t have accomplished this series of events.”
Tanya, keeping her distance, listened to this deduction with reddened eyes, staring at the composed Zhang Long, gripping the wooden handrail so tightly she barely restrained herself from rushing forward.
The silhouette of Zhang Long’s back gradually overlapped with that of the killer from that day; the more Tanya observed, the more similar he seemed.
Zhang Long, hearing these shocking words, twitched the corner of his mouth unnaturally, then feigned calm as he argued, “You claim I killed Tanya? That’s absurd—I don’t even know who Tanya is.”
“I admit to what I’ve done; there’s no need to cover it up. Besides, I’ve already confessed to killing my companion—why would I lie about this? It doesn’t make sense!”
Chu Ning, as if hearing something amusing, couldn’t help but laugh loudly. He pointed strangely at Tanya before him and asked Zhang Long, “Can you see the person behind you?”
“Yes!” Zhang Long’s voice suddenly chilled, like a frigid northern wind in winter, dropping the temperature of the environment dramatically.
“Tanya, do you remember your self-introduction to me?” Chu Ning shouted toward Tanya behind him, urging her to recall something important.
“Ah! My self-introduction…” Tanya frowned, unsure what Chu Ning was hinting at, struggling to remember their meeting and what she had said.
“I am a ghost…” Tanya stopped halfway, suddenly realizing the peculiarity of the situation. Why could the person before her see her? From the faint yang energy emanating from Zhang Long, he still counted as human.
Zhang Long shrugged helplessly, addressing Tanya with a light, mocking tone, “So you’ve found out. I’m glad we’ve met again, Tanya!” He bowed like a gentleman, then eyed Tanya up and down with amusement.
“I don’t think I ever told you my name, did I?” Tanya said softly, now understanding that the man before her was indeed her killer. How uncanny that the murderer would come right to her!
A crisp whistle sounded, and Chu Ning looked provocatively at Zhang Long, saying arrogantly, “Hey, your opponent is me. Don’t get any ideas about the young lady—did you hear me?”
“Sorry, my target has always been Tanya. If she hadn’t become a vengeful ghost by accident, I wouldn’t have returned here. It’s all her fault!” Zhang Long glared venomously at Tanya, the smell of blood around him intensifying.
Chu Ning only just realized something was off. Because the guy liked pretending to be human, he hadn’t immediately noticed anything strange about Zhang Long; his presence was weak, easily overlooked.
It wasn’t until Chu Ning sifted through all the events that he remembered he himself was a ghost. Having only recently regained control of his body, he’d overlooked Zhang Long’s true identity.

Ordinary people can’t see their figures, yet Zhang Long can see them—this alone points to a problem. If not for their alternating personalities, Chu Ning might have noticed the issue sooner.
“Can you tell me why?” Tanya asked unwillingly, wanting to know why she was chosen as the target. She had no grudges against anyone and didn’t know the man before her. Why go to such lengths to investigate her, plotting her murder in secret?
“No reason. You were just chosen by chance,” Zhang Long sighed gloomily and smiled lightly, helpless in the world’s currents.
Tanya screamed sharply, “What gives you the right?” Her grip on the rail made it creak; her pale arms bulged with veins.
“You were unlucky, that’s all. Who told you…” Zhang Long stopped himself in time, unwilling to reveal the deeper truth. He was simply following orders—everything else was out of his hands. Obeying commands was his only option.
“I understand. There are always times in life when one is forced. You can share what isn’t confidential—being kept in the dark is uncomfortable. Could you answer a few things?”
Chu Ning interjected empathetically, chatting familiarly with Zhang Long, ignoring Tanya’s furious glare from behind. Satisfying his curiosity was most important now; he wasn’t the greedy type, scheming after young girls’ fortunes.
“For example, where is your other accomplice hiding?” Chu Ning asked with a smile, suspecting Zhang Long had more than one accomplice. From Zhang Long’s helpless demeanor, this seemed a group crime.
To root out evil, one must dig to the source! How could they let Zhang Long’s backers go unexposed? Otherwise, Tanya would never forgive her killer, and few can lay down their vengeful blades—most would rather send their enemies to meet the Buddha.
Zhang Long shook his head with a bitter smile; he was better suited as a sharp blade, not as someone who deceives from all sides.
“You’re truly clever!” After praising Chu Ning, Zhang Long fell silent, staring indifferently at the security door behind Chu Ning.
“Your accomplice isn’t here yet. Why don’t we discuss things first? Let’s see if my guesses are correct,” Chu Ning urged casually. Even knowing the other was waiting for backup, he remained calm—he was waiting as well.
“Among the seven of you, besides yourself, there must be another accomplice. The person who died on the sixth floor was Tanya. You deliberately made it unclear so people would assume the sixth floor victim was the last of the seven, concealing your accomplice’s identity!”
Chu Ning paused, observing Zhang Long’s expression, then continued, “According to my deduction, this is how it happened.”
“Tanya, don’t rush to act. Let me finish. Without my help, could you defeat a professional killer on your own?”
Chu Ning advised Tanya, who was itching to strike, not wanting anyone to disrupt his reasoning. He’d worked hard to assemble it and couldn’t let it remain buried.
Listening to Chu Ning, Tanya restrained her urge to attack, but her eyes remained full of hatred for Zhang Long; she wished to tear him apart.
Zhang Long maintained his composure, glancing again at the security door outside, then settling in to hear Chu Ning’s reasoning.

“You’re quite calm.”
“Mm. Alone, I can’t be sure of silencing you both, so I need to wait for my partner. I’m not skilled in dealing with ghosts, and if I try, you might escape. If it were humans, I’d be confident—I wouldn’t have to listen to your chatter. It’s really annoying!”
Zhang Long stared emptily ahead, pondering how to kill them; killing ghosts was not his forte.
“Sigh, one shouldn’t be too honest, or how can friends be made?” Chu Ning chuckled at himself, looking at Zhang Long with a plaintive gaze. How anticlimactic—what was he to do next?
“Don’t dawdle. Hurry up and speak!” Tanya could barely contain her anger, desperate to kill the two before her. If not for her lack of power, she would have done so already.
Chu Ning knew time was short—he’d better not delay, lest Zhang Long’s accomplice arrive and he lose the chance to lay out his theory. Conflict would be inevitable.
“Then I’ll be brief and deduce the events. On a rainy night, you received a mission from a mysterious organization—to assassinate Tanya. With the intelligence provided, you completed the task admirably.”
During the murder, you cut Tanya’s wrist, letting her bleed slowly to death. Judging by your methods, this wasn’t your own idea—it was a special requirement of the mission.
Perhaps it was too tedious, distracting you. When you saw Tanya’s corpse fall toward six o’clock, and the floor was the sixth, such coincidences made you restless.
You handled the aftermath cleanly; professionals found no clues, and no one knew Tanya was your victim. By rights, it should have ended there, but you hadn’t foreseen Tanya would become a ghost, changing everything.
We saw Tanya’s corpse—was that your doing? If I’m right, Tanya’s physique was suited for corpse refinement, that’s why she was killed! Everything went smoothly until the stage of refining the corpse.
You then found the corpse lacked instinctive awareness—a failure. There could be many causes, but I imagine you ruled out several before realizing Tanya had become a ghost.
Tanya listened intently to Chu Ning’s account, combining it with her own experience, and discovered a blind spot in his deduction. She recalled the driver’s warning to her when he left, and thought of countless things: the reports of stolen bodies.
“The accident with the 24 bus was your arrangement, stealing many corpses as cover to hide my body, confusing everyone…” Tanya wanted to continue, but Zhang Long cut her off.
Zhang Long grimaced helplessly, “Stop your imaginative mind—you think too highly of yourself! How could I kill everyone on a bus just to steal your corpse?”
Hearing this, Tanya felt a temporary relief. She truly didn’t want others dragged into her tragedy.