“Because he’s wearing a white coat, he must be the biology teacher, right?” Gui Xiao added.

“Heh…” Feng Bujue chuckled and replied, “What you’re describing… is called a stereotype, and it can’t be considered evidence.” He paused for half a second, then continued, “My real basis for determining that he’s the thing in the biology classroom is the birthmark on the back of his hand.”

As he said this, his teammates all instinctively looked at the photo. Because the group photo was large, the details were very clear—the man in the white coat did indeed have a patch of skin on the back of his hand that was a different color.

“You’re really something…” Gui Xiao muttered. “At the music room door, you could clearly remember the appearance of the upside-down female ghost; at the biology classroom, while wrestling with the monster’s arm, you could still notice the mark on the back of its hand.”

“Yeah… normal people usually wouldn’t notice such details in those situations,” Feng Bujue replied.

“Are you indirectly saying you’re not normal…” Gui Xiao retorted.

“Hmph… don’t worry about the details.” Jue-Ge smiled and continued, pointing at the photo, “Let’s focus our attention back on the photo…” He moved his finger away from the surface of the photo and added, “There are thirteen people in this group photo, nine children and four adults. Now we’ve identified two adults and one child. As for the rest… how about we make some reasonable deductions?”

“The two adults shouldn’t be hard to guess, right?” Ruo Yu immediately chimed in. “In my opinion, the younger man is highly likely to be the homeroom teacher of Class 2-A, and the remaining fat uncle is undoubtedly the principal of this school.”

“Yeah, I agree,” An Yueqin said. “In terms of identity, it’s reasonable for the principal and the homeroom teacher to appear in the photo.”

“But… is it possible that the homeroom teacher of this class is a biology or music teacher?” Gui Xiao suggested at this moment.

“That’s right,” Feng Bujue replied. “Although in our country, it seems natural for a main subject teacher to be the homeroom teacher, this script is set in Japan during the Showa era, so we can’t just apply that kind of thinking. Besides… rural elementary schools like this must have relatively weak teaching staff, so it’s possible for a teacher of any subject to be the homeroom teacher.” He raised his hand and pointed to the younger adult male in the photo, “However…” In the next second, he changed the subject, “To be honest, whether this person is the homeroom teacher or not… doesn’t make much difference to us. Since he appears in this group photo, it means he’s considered a member of this class. Judging from this script’s nature, we might see him in some plot later… and he’s probably already dead. So, whether he teaches math or sports, even if he’s a math teacher who teaches sports, it’s not important to us. What we need to focus on is his ‘whereabouts,’ or rather, his ‘ending.’”

“Then, according to what you’re saying…” Gui Xiao followed Jue-Ge’s line of thought and looked at the oldest fat uncle in the photo, “We don’t need to care too much about whether this uncle is the principal?”

“He is the principal.” At this moment, Xiao Tan suddenly interjected, stating this with a very certain tone.

“Oh? How did you determine that?” Hearing this, Feng Bujue turned to look at Xiao Tan, asking with a look of interest.

“Isn’t it already obvious?” Xiao Tan looked down at the photo and replied, “You see… he just happens to be adjusting his tie at the moment the photo was taken, right?”

“You mean…” Under his reminder, Xiao Ling stared at the photo for two seconds and also realized, “He’s left-handed?”

“That’s right,” Xiao Tan said. “Judging from his position, it’s clearly more convenient to use his right hand to adjust his tie, right? But he used his left hand instead, which shows it’s a matter of habit…” He paused, then looked at the telephone on the desk, “Then, let’s look at the arrangement of this office… the desk is placed with its right side against the wall, and the telephone is placed on the left side of the desk. The light switch in the room… although we can’t turn it on now… is also installed on the left side after entering the door. In addition, the way the documents are arranged on the bookshelf, and the wear and tear of the sliding rail below the glass door of the bookshelf (a horizontally sliding double-layer glass door), all show that the person using this ‘Chairman’s Office’… that is, the principal, is left-handed.”

“Whoa~” After hearing this, Gui Xiao widened his eyes and exclaimed, “It seems that everyone in your Hell Frontline is a great detective, with amazing observation and godlike reasoning?”

“Hehe… not really,” Xiao Tan said with an awkward smile. “This level of reasoning is all taught to me by Jue-Ge in elementary school.” As he spoke, he pointed to the chair behind the desk, “By the way, from the wear and tear on various parts of that chair, you can also tell that the person sitting on it is a fat man who is used to using his left hand.”

“Not bad,” Feng Bujue said. “Then… you’ve checked all the keyholes of those drawers, right?”

“Yeah,” Xiao Tan nodded. “Checked them, there are a lot of scratches.”

“What can a lot of scratches indicate?” Gui Xiao asked curiously after hearing this.

“It means this person’s hands are always shaking,” Feng Bujue replied.

“Parkinson’s?” Gui Xiao asked.

“He’s a drunkard!” Xiao Ling corrected, and glanced at the slow-witted Gui Xiao with a contemptuous look.

“Oh… right, right, there was a hint when opening the door.” Gui Xiao was also a little embarrassed; he was indeed too hopeless in terms of reasoning.

“Okay, let’s temporarily stop discussing the identities of the adults here,” Feng Bujue also shifted the topic at the right time, adding, “Let’s look at the nine children…” While speaking, he glanced around at his teammates, “There are a total of six boys and three girls… Fortunately, the three girls are already here, so the problem at hand is focused on those six boys… or rather, the five boys other than Noguchi Eiji.”

“What can be confirmed is… among these five people, three are exactly Yamada, Sawada, and Tomigashi, whom we are playing,” Gui Xiao said at this moment, “And the other two, one is the class monitor Watanabe, and the other is Suzuki.” He paused, “The problem is… how do we distinguish these five people?”

“Right, Jue-Ge,” Xiao Tan also remembered something at this moment, “Is there any more specific information on that old newspaper? Such as appearance descriptions or something?”

“If there was… I would have already analyzed their identities,” Feng Bujue replied, “Obviously, the system deliberately didn’t leave any personal characteristic information on the newspaper, but…” As he spoke, he shifted his gaze to another photo on the table, “The identity of this unlucky guy seems to be relatively clear.”

“He’s Suzuki, right?” Ruo Yu was the first to reply, “Judging from the known information so far, the plot of the previous fire was roughly like this: because the principal was an alcoholic, he got drunk in broad daylight, so he didn’t even notice the warehouse across the street catching fire… which led to Suzuki Takayuki being burned alive. After the incident, the principal was condemned by his conscience, or was haunted by vengeful spirits, and finally committed suicide by hanging himself at home.”

“Yeah… that makes sense,” Xiao Ling also nodded in agreement, “Whether it’s condemnation by conscience or being haunted by vengeful spirits, it’s not strange for this photo to appear in his drawer. The difference is… in the former case, he put the photo in himself; in the latter case, the photo is a ghost…”

Drrr…drrr…drrr…

Just as Xiao Ling said the word “ghost,” suddenly! The telephone on the desk rang.

It had to be said that this scene… was truly full of malice.

First of all, the ringtone of this telephone was particularly loud, far higher than the decibels generated by the players during normal communication.

Secondly, at this moment, all the players were gathered around the desk, and their attention was focused on the two photos on the desk, with almost no mental preparation.

Thirdly, after the first wave of shock and startle, the fact that “this telephone is not connected to a telephone line at all” would naturally float into the players’ minds, generating further fear.

In summary, although this plot didn’t add any visual horror impact, under the mutual influence of multiple factors… this sudden burst of ringing still frightened the surrounding players quite a bit.

“Tch…” Even An Yueqin’s face turned red, and she pressed her hand on her heaving chest, spitting out a sentence, “This is really hard to guard against!”

“Holy crap…” Gui Xiao, who had been startled back a few steps, happened to sit on a chair outside the desk, “Just now, I felt like my heart stopped for a few seconds…”

“Yeah… in those few seconds, I forgot the pain of my wound,” Xiao Tan also added.

Drrr…drrr…drrr… Drrr…drrr…drrr…

While they were talking, the telephone didn’t stop ringing.

At this time, Feng Bujue, who was still standing by the table and hadn’t been frightened at all, looked left and right; after confirming that no teammates had been frightened offline, he conveniently pressed the “speakerphone” button on the telephone.

“Moshi Moshi~” After pressing the button, Jue-Ge even stretched out his voice and said a sentence in Japanese in a lazy tone.

“Damn it! Answer the telephone!” A man’s shout came from the other end of the telephone. Judging from the speed and voice, this should be a young man, “Principal! Are you drinking during the day again! Wake up! The warehouse across from the Chairman’s Office is on fire! I know you have a secret wine cellar, what if the fire spreads there…”

The shouting on the telephone stopped abruptly at this point.

There was no busy tone, and there was no hanging up sound, it just ended so abruptly.

“If there are no accidents…” After a few seconds, Feng Bujue looked at Ruo Yu and said, “…your analysis just now triggered this plot.”

“In other words… Suzuki’s appearance can also be determined,” Ruo Yu replied.

“Yes,” Feng Bujue nodded, then added, “Moreover, the telephone call just now has also told us the next clue very clearly.”

“A secret wine cellar…” Even Gui Xiao could hear what the keywords in that sentence were, “But… we just searched very carefully, we didn’t find any entrance to a wine cellar?”

“Yeah, I’ve moved everything in the bookshelf,” An Yueqin replied.

“I’ve also checked the top, bottom, left, and right of the desk, there’s nothing like a switch,” Xiao Tan also said.

“Hmm…” Feng Bujue pondered after hearing this, “So… the remaining method is to knock on the walls and the floor inch by inch…”

“No need!” At this instant, Xiao Ling suddenly spoke, “I can find the entrance very quickly.”

After saying this, she turned on her flashlight and shone it on the floor, revealing a very focused expression.

Seeing this, everyone cooperated and remained silent, not disturbing her.

“Found it…” Xiao Ling also did what she said, and after just twenty seconds, she pointed the flashlight at a piece of floor in the corner of the room, “It’s here.”

As she spoke, she had already walked to that area and stomped on that piece of floor twice with moderate force.

Thud—Thud—

The feedback sound showed that the floor was hollow underneath.

And at the same moment she stepped on that piece of floor, they only heard a “click” sound, and the second small drawer in the three drawers on the inside of the desk made a sound, as if… it had been unlocked.

Xiao Tan, who was closer to the table, took out the three items in that drawer in passing—a note, a calculator, and a remote control.

“This is… a puzzle, right?” Gui Xiao, who was bad at solving puzzles, said a piece of nonsense when he saw those props without any item descriptions.

“Alright, you don’t need to solve it,” Feng Bujue smiled at him, “Let Bei Ling handle the puzzles here.”

Xiao Ling had also walked back to the table at this time. She first looked at the note, which had a string of numbers written on it, namely: 231568, 6, 3, 8, 5, 11, 9, 6, 4, 616512.

Then, the calculator. Although it hadn’t been turned on yet, it could be seen at a glance that this was a standard calculator that could display twelve digits.

Finally, the remote control… In addition to a red and a green button, there were also ten number keys and a clear key on this remote control.

“The remote control must be used to open the secret wine cellar,” Xiao Ling said after confirming all of this, “But you need to enter an eight-digit password.”

“Eh? Aren’t the small numbers on the note exactly eight?” Gui Xiao immediately replied upon hearing this.

“However, 11 takes up two digits,” Feng Bujue poured a bucket of cold water on him before anyone else could.

“Uh…” Gui Xiao was deeply hit, “Alright, alright… I won’t talk, okay?”

“Heh… actually it’s very simple,” On the other hand, Xiao Ling smiled and said after thinking for a few seconds, “Even without a calculator, I can solve this level of puzzle with mental arithmetic.”

“Oh! I understand,” Xiao Tan realized when he heard this, “Do you want to use the calculator to calculate these ten numbers to get an eight-digit number?”