Zhang Kou died in the lounge a stone’s throw from his own; the weapon was the small knife from his room, a blade like a cold thorn pulled from home soil. So the killer drifted through lounges like a shadow sliding under a door.
A master key?
Could be, like a ring that opens every gate under one moon.
By the setup, though, that shouldn’t touch Chi Mu or Chen Ke; they wear a protagonist aura like a sun-disc over their heads. Killing a minor extra by hand and pinning it on someone else—unless the world itself cracks like ice—almost never happens.
But Boss Li Yu’s four hired male actors sit in a gray zone, like reeds that hide snakes. Nana Toki dared a guess: among those four, someone might hold a real-life grudge against Zhang Kou, and use this film as a tide to sweep him away, then toss the blame like driftwood at another’s feet.
That was just Nana Toki’s personal hunch, a cloud shaped by wind.
Staff had told her about the lounges before: seven rooms, communal, open to all like doors in a courtyard, no order, no priority. On the surface it felt fine, a clear pond. Beneath, the current curled with hidden eddies.
She hadn’t felt anything then; now, looking back, riddles rose like mist layer upon layer.
If every lounge could be used freely as the staff said, then why were the keys stamped with numbers like seals on bamboo slips?
Nana Toki weighed the key ring marked “1” in her palm, her smile turning odd, like a mask lit from behind. Maybe someone did that on purpose, smoke for the eyes. In truth, each key might open every lounge door like one wind opening many leaves.
To test the thought inked in her mind, she slid her own key into Zhang Kou’s lock; the motion was calm as placing a brush, and—click—the door yielded like a reed bending to water. So this was a premeditated killing, planned like a net set at dusk?
She drew her key back like a fishbone from the throat of the lock. She meant to leave without ripples and think in her own room. But from a distance she spotted Lan Duo passing by, his face in disarray like a flock of startled sparrows, his gaze drifting like minnows in silt. He’d likely seen her open Zhang Kou’s door.
If she didn’t explain, even the Yellow River wouldn’t wash this stain away.
“Hey. You—wait.” Her voice fell like a pebble on glass.
She arched a brow, pocketed the key, and closed the distance at a quick clip, like a cat crossing tiles. “You saw what happened, right?”
“S-saw… saw what?” Panic pricked him; his heart fluttered like a deer at the edge of a field.
A light tap landed on his right shoulder, and Lan Duo—cast in the movie as a mooch living off his parents—shuddered, his knees soft as boiled noodles. “I didn’t see anything.” He’d only wanted a walk, to breathe the green of the island forest like sunlight’s photosynthesis. Then, not ten steps out, he ran into this.
“Whether you saw it isn’t yours to declare. I say you did, so you did.” Nana Toki’s smile bloomed like a flower, but to Lan Duo it gleamed with frost.
“W-what do you want?” Blocked from his path, he decided this eerie woman meant to kill him to hush him. He stepped back, feet scraping like a crab retreating. “Don’t come closer… If you do, I—I won’t be polite!”
To him, the woman called Qiao Wan was eerie as fog over graves. As a regular guy, he couldn’t raise a single spark to resist.
Nana Toki could see his nerves twitching like grass in wind. Still—
“Don’t be so tense. I’m not going to do anything to you.” Her eyes held light amusement, like ripples under moon. “We’re colleagues on this crew, shooting the same film; I don’t do obvious harm in broad daylight.”
Lan Duo: … If you don’t, why are you loitering at a dead man’s door and opening it with some mystery key? That’s fear served on a platter.
“I’m guessing you’re dying to know how I used my lounge key to open Zhang Kou’s door.”
… I’m not! His heart shouted to run like a hare over open ground; everything else could drown.
But Nana Toki didn’t intend to let him slip away like smoke.
“Here’s a deal. Come look at one thing with me. If you promise not to tell after, I’ll let you go.”
…
He didn’t agree at once. He measured her with small, guarded eyes, trying to read the hook inside her words.
“Relax. I’m not the type to lure you into Zhang Kou’s room and then stab you from behind with the knife lodged in his chest.” Her voice was mild, like dawn wind on a quiet lane; the words themselves carried winter chill.
… She just said the thought straight out, like showing a blade in daylight!
Lan Duo’s face turned a bruised shade at that, and no matter what she said next, he refused to follow, digging in like a mule.
Her patience thinned like paper in rain. She produced a sharp tool from nowhere, cold as a sliver of moon, and set it against his throat. Only then did Lan Duo, forced by fear like a tide, follow her to Zhang Kou’s door.
“Give me your key.” Her method pressed like a thumb on a bruise; he hesitated, caught between give and don’t like a moth between panes.
“I said give me your key. Can’t you hear?” Her brow ticked up; the long sword in her hand gleamed eager as a hunting hawk. Lan Duo’s legs quivered like bamboo, and he handed over his lounge key in a rush.
“Hmph. You really made me use force. Don’t tell me you’ve got some special kink.” She slid his key into Zhang Kou’s lock, tongue clicking like a pebble on a drum.
Lan Duo: … You’ve got the kink. Your whole family’s got the kink.
Click.
The lock spoke a familiar sound, and the door swung open like a curtain in a sea breeze. Nana Toki had used his lounge key to open Zhang Kou’s door.
“Uh… this…” Lan Duo stood at the threshold, mind blank like a wiped slate. His key could open someone else’s lounge? Why hadn’t he known?
“Feels a bit magical, doesn’t it?” Nana Toki tossed him a playful smile, a spark dancing on water.
“Why tell me this?” His scalp crawled; this woman’s heart felt as unreadable as deep water at night.
“Because I want you to know I’m not Zhang Kou’s killer.” She stepped into the room, eyes sweeping like lantern light. The stink of rot crawled up her nose; the floor was littered with food scraps like scattered husks. No trace of the killer from last night—no footprint, no thread.
“If you aren’t the killer, how do you know everyone’s key can open the lounge locks?” Lan Duo swallowed, the gulp loud as a frog in reedbeds.
“Because you’re slow. The staff told you the lounges are shared working spaces. You didn’t catch the meaning, and now you blame me?” She searched as she spoke, hands peeling corners like bark. “Besides us two, there’s a third who knows this. He’s the real hand behind the curtain.”
“You mean Chen Ke and them?”
“Can’t rule it out,” she said, like pointing at clouds without naming the storm.
Truth be told, Lan Duo himself was misty to Nana Toki, a silhouette behind gauze. As for telling him—she felt this secret would surface sooner or later. Better to say it now than wait for the Protagonist Lord to find the hidden egg and drag her to the dock. That way, the mud on her shoes might lighten.
“What do we do, then?” Thinking of last night, a murderer pacing by his bed with a blade like moonlight, Lan Duo’s back went cold as pond water.
“What else? We wait.” She flicked a glance at him, voice casual as rain on eaves. “If the killer struck on day one and took Zhang Kou, they might keep moving in the next six days, like a wolf testing fences. If they only wanted him, they could’ve waited for the last day of shooting. Plenty of time to prep, then leave at wrap like a gull on the tide, instead of hiding among us now with risks stacked like stones.”
… How can she say something so terrifying this calmly? This woman called Qiao Wan—doesn’t she worry about getting killed at all?
“Oh, and by the way,” she added, as if answering a question in his chest, “I trained professional fighting to handle certain things in the past. If the killer tries a night raid, they won’t do much to me. You can rest easy.”
Huh?
Professional fighting?
She didn’t misspeak about self-defense? Self-defense is a shield; fighting arts are a spear. One guards, the other kills.
What on earth did this woman go through to learn that kind of craft, iron under silk?
