In the courtyard outside the villa, the girl was sitting in a pavilion holding a painting book, facing the gravel path not far away, and the brush in her hand was drawing horizontally, as if she was really painting.
After Zhan Qian came out, she sat on the wicker chair next to her.
The painter lady glanced at her, then turned her head away in disgust, and kept drawing with her hands.
"You and Master Guo seem to be familiar with each other?" Zhan Qian didn't care. She crossed her legs and gathered up her long skirt, maintaining a noble and elegant posture.
"Do veteran players also need to ask for information from me, a script newbie?" the girl snorted.
"Collecting clues is the most important process in script killing. Different player characters have different scripts, so the clues they get will naturally be different. I need to gather these clues together." Zhan Qian said lightly.
As she spoke, she glanced at the girl's drawing. The pencil sketched out a corner of the courtyard. At the end of the gravel path, a prototype of a gardener bent over taking care of the lawn had just been drawn.
Zhan Qian looked up and saw that there was no gardener on the other side. If it were realistic, her painting would be too creepy.
What's more, Zhan Qian knew that there might be ghosts in this manor, so her little hands on her waist silently tightened some of her skirts.
She couldn't help but say: "There are no gardeners there."
The painter slowly completed the image of the gardener and said casually: "People who paint have mountains and rivers in their hearts. So what if there is no gardener? I can draw flowers even if there are no flowers."
As she spoke, the girl moved her pencil angrily and added a few roses to the grass bed.
Zhan Qian twitched her lips and heard the girl continue: "Instead of asking about Mr. Guo here, you might as well ask him directly. I think, as Mr. Guo's son, he may know everything."
"It's one thing to know, but it's another thing to say it or not." Zhan Qian said: "No matter what the story is, the truth is always buried in the mouth."
Hearing this, the girl suddenly stopped painting and looked up at her with an unclear look.
Zhan Qian was a little confused and continued to ask: "So what other clues did you get from Master Guo? I suspect that this incident is related to Mrs. Guo, and Master Guo seems to have a relationship with Guo because of his mother's relationship.
My husband is a bit disconnected, and I still lack a lot of clues if I want to restore the truth of the story."
"Your guess is indeed correct." The girl looked away and continued to draw, while saying: "Mr. Guo forced his wife to death, and Master Guo happened to see all this, and he fell into depression from then on."
"What's the reason?" Zhan Qian continued to ask.
At this time, she suddenly saw a middle-aged man dressed as a gardener appearing at the corner with a hoe. He seemed to have been gradually repaired from the front yard. There was dirt on his trousers. At this time, he swung the hoe with a stern face and vigorously moved the soil in the grass altar.
Compaction.
Zhan Qian looked at the girl's painting again.
The painter didn't even raise her head, she continued to paint, and said calmly: "I don't know about this. Mrs. Guo seemed to have suddenly gone crazy because of something at that time, and committed suicide after arguing with Mr. Guo."
Zhan Qian looked at her: "You really don't know?"
"I'm a script novice, what kind of information can I get out of it?" The girl also looked at her, with a sarcastic smile on her lips.
"If you want to belittle yourself, what else can I say?" Zhan Qian mocked elegantly.
"Really, you are just arrogant."
The two of them started to choke each other inexplicably before they could say a few words.
Zhan Qian said a few words and then calmly stopped. She looked at the gardener who was pressing the soil not far away, and suddenly asked loudly: "Mr. Gardener, what are you doing?"
When the gardener who was digging the soil with a hoe heard this shout, he suddenly became panicked as if he had been frightened. He quickly raised his head and looked around, and then saw two girls sitting in a pavilion not far away.
The gardener glanced at it and then quickly looked away. His voice was not loud but a little low: "It rained heavily last night. The soil in the yard is a little loose. Let me press it down."
Zhan Qian squinted her eyes slightly. She felt that the gardener's reaction was really strange. In layman's terms, he just felt guilty.
She stood up and walked directly over there.
After realizing she was approaching, the gardener's expression suddenly became very nervous. He lowered his head and quickly moved the muddy soil. There were many broken branches in the grass bed, and they were all buried under him.
Zhan Qian looked at it casually and then asked: "Gardener, how long have you been working in the manor?"
The gardener turned his head and ignored her. Zhan Qian asked again: "What's wrong? Can't you tell me? In fact, I can ask the housekeeper."
"More than three years..." the gardener whispered.
"Is that so? I heard that Mr. Guo used to plant roses here for the late Madam, but unfortunately they were all pulled out for some reason. Were you taking care of those flowers before?" Zhan Qian asked casually.
"..."
The gardener was silent and didn't speak. He buried his head and kept pressing the broken branches into the mud with a hoe. The grass bed that had rained had indeed become very muddy. When he turned over the soil, he accidentally splashed some muddy water.
Zhan Qian carefully took a few steps back to prevent her long skirt from being stained. Seeing that the gardener really didn't want to say anything, she glanced at the grass altar and returned.
The girl who was painting sneered when she saw that she had returned without success.
Zhan Qian didn't respond, and looked at her painting again. At the end of the stone path, the gardener seemed to be turning over the soil with a hoe, and she had already painted the roses dotting the grass bed.
Suddenly, Zhan Qian thought of the white shadow she saw at the window last night.
She looked up and saw that this was the backyard of the villa. The windows in the second corridor to the left all faced the front yard, but if she looked from that side, she could indeed see the courtyard to the back corner.
And if you think about it carefully, that figure seemed to be close to the grass altar at that time.
if……
Just as she was thinking about this, suddenly there was a noise in the front yard, and then the frivolous detective came out from around the corner, and seemed to be observing the grass altar.
The photographer and the housekeeper followed him. The gardener who was repairing the lawn suddenly became panicked when he saw this.
"Gardener, what are you doing?" The detective who came over smiled and asked the same question as Zhan Qian before.
"I...I..." The gardener lowered his head, glanced at the housekeeper behind him carefully, and said in a low voice: "It rained heavily last night, and the soil in the yard became very loose. I came over to tidy it up."
"What needs to be sorted here? Flowers and plants are not all weathered by wind and rain, let alone you haven't spent any of them. Come on, let's give it a try." The detective said, pulling the helpless gardener out of the grass bed.
Then he walked in on his own.
I just put on new shoes and they were covered in mud again.
The detective knelt down and looked at the lawn, his eyes sharpened suddenly, and he stared at the gardener: "Did you plow all the ground along this way?"
The gardener said nervously: "Some branches are broken, and grass leaves and roots are stuck in them. I am sorting those out."
"Then did you see any footprints inside just now?" the detective continued to ask.
"What...what footprints?" The gardener looked surprised.
The detective stared at him for a while. At this moment, Zhan Qian came over again and asked with a curious look on his face: "What happened?"
The detective who heard the voice turned to look at her. After looking at her for a while, the young man suddenly smiled strangely and said: "Ms. Zhan, as an occultist, did you see any ghosts last night?"
