American comics: I am full of martial virtues and I love to be kind to others.

The deputy sheriff nodded and began issuing a series of orders over the radio.

Lynn stood in the wind and suddenly remembered what Gwen had said at the crossroads—don't come back empty-handed.

He raised his hand, which had been burned by the fire, and gently exhaled.

By the time I returned to the main building from the mountain, the busiest part of dinner time had passed. There were even fewer guests in the lobby; many had been led back to their rooms. The lights in the public areas were brighter than usual, as if trying to suppress everything that had happened that night. The flowers behind the reception desk were still there, and the fireplace was still burning. Only the ever-smooth reception rhythm was completely shattered, replaced by police officers, technicians, evidence bags, and tense, tired faces.

Gwen was waiting on the side of the lobby.

The moment she saw Lynn, her gaze fell on his hands, and her brows furrowed immediately: "Did you go to catch someone or to touch the boiler?"

"More or less," Lynn said.

The sheriff said from the side, "The real one was waiting on the lookout tower with the membrane. We caught him."

Gwen raised her eyes: "Harold?"

“Hmm,” Lynn said.

Gwen didn't seem too surprised, only giving a cold smirk: "I knew that cigar smell wasn't just for show."

The deputy sheriff chimed in from behind, "Your nose is worth more than our entire dog squad's."

Gwen glanced at him: "Then next time you're investigating a case, bring me a piece of ham as a gift."

The deputy sheriff actually managed a slight laugh, but the sheriff quickly glared at him back.

The sheriff said to Gwen, "Now I can give you a more formal statement. From this moment on, you are no longer a suspect. Unless someone's gone mad."

Gwen crossed her arms and looked at him: "This sounds much better than the one this afternoon."

“My language skills are limited,” the sheriff said.

"I can tell."

Lynn stood to the side, his palm still burning. Gwen noticed and reached out to pull his hand over to examine it. It was quite red and showed signs of blistering.

"You actually tried to put out the fire with your bare hands?" She looked up at him, the coldness in her eyes instantly turning into something else, like annoyance, or speechlessness.

"We can't let the membrane burn," Lynn said.

Gwen took a breath, as if unsure which insult to utter first, and finally gritted her teeth and said, "Next time you better not make me choose between the evidence bag and the morgue to see you."

The sheriff cleared his throat beside him: "I can't hear you."

“Then you should get your ears treated too,” Gwen replied.

The deputy sheriff was trying so hard to suppress his laughter that his shoulders were shaking.

At that moment, a state trooper rushed in and handed the sheriff a temporary transfer order: "Everyone's on the bus. Rowan asked not to speak again until he sees the federal lawyer, Elena shut up, Rachel still won't give her name, and Thomas is asking if he can get his criminal record transferred."

"Dream on." The sheriff folded the form and stuffed it into his pocket. "Where's Harold?"

"Before getting on the train, he told us to check the bottom of the old saddle cabinet in his manager's office, saying that there were things Violet had left for 'later generations'."

Lynn and the sheriff looked at each other at the same time.

“What is it?” Gwen asked.

"You'll see when you go," Lynn said.

The stables were quieter than before. After the suspect was taken away, the mountain night finally showed a belated emptiness. The light was still on in the stable room, the cigar ash on the table was uncollected, and the map was still spread out. As Harold had instructed, the stable staff moved the bottom layer of the old saddle rack, revealing a loose wooden board behind it.

The deputy sheriff crouched down and pried it open. Inside was neither money nor weapons, but just a thin, waterproof envelope.

The envelope had a line of English writing on it, in fine, sharp handwriting:

Give it to those who arrive first and are still alive.

Gwen looked at the line of text and muttered, "She really knows how to talk."

The sheriff put on gloves and opened the envelope. Inside were two things: a folded piece of paper and a very ordinary wooden stable sign with a small piece of metal foil on the back.

Lynn took the paper first.

It wasn't a long letter, just a few lines, as if it had been written in a hurry.

"If you're reading this, it means someone else slipped up even faster than me. Don't trust the guy who calls himself R, and don't trust anyone with a name on their person. The most important thing to keep in the module isn't the list, it's the time at Pier Seven. Someone will be more anxious about that time than about the name. As for who's the first to slip up in the villa—see who's the most eager to define 'only one person can do it' for you."

There is no signature below, only a very faint V.

After reading it, the sheriff frowned: "What is Pier Seven?"

Lynn took the stable card and flipped it over. Underneath the metal foil, there seemed to be something even smaller, so thin it was almost imperceptible.

“She also left a third layer,” he said.

The deputy sheriff's eyes widened: "Does this woman just like to take things apart when she has nothing better to do?"

Gwen stared at the line “See who’s most eager to help you define ‘only one person can do it’” and whispered, “She actually noticed something was wrong with Thomas last night.”

“It also shows that the front desk and the outside lines are not clean,” Lynn said. “That’s why the final handover was pushed to a corner like Harold’s.”

The sheriff rubbed his temples: "I don't want to praise a deceased person for how well they set up a trap right now."

“She’s really annoying,” Gwen said.

“I agree with that,” Lynn said.

The sheriff handed the text message and the stable card to the technician, who sealed them in a bag. Looking up, his voice finally betrayed the weariness of a case nearing its end: "Alright. That's it for tonight. Transfer everything to the federal government. The resort is under lockdown until tomorrow morning. Take statements from each guest individually, and don't release any staff. As for you two—"

He looked at Lynn and Gwen.

Gwen spoke first: "I'm not going back to 507."

“Nobody’s telling you to go back,” the sheriff said. “We’ll move you to a different room, and someone will be outside your door, not to watch you, but to prevent others from looking for you. What you’ve seen, smelled, and remembered today is more than many of the regular employees here.”

Gwen's lips twitched slightly: "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Suit yourself." The sheriff then looked at Lynn. "Go to the infirmary, bandage your hand, and come back to give your statement. You've already meddled enough tonight."

“It’s not like federal agents are meddling in cases,” Lynn said.

The sheriff scoffed, "It doesn't matter if it's on my estate."

"This villa doesn't look like yours either."

"Now that it's sealed off, it's almost done."

Gwen finally laughed, though it was only for a short time. She looked at the two of them and said, "If you two aren't sleepy tomorrow, you can find a room to argue by yourselves."

The sheriff clicked his tongue and turned to leave, tossing out, "Ten minutes to the infirmary. If you don't go, I'll have someone carry you out."

After he walked away, only a few people and a little dust floating under the lamp remained in the administrator's room.

Gwen glanced at Lynn's hand: "Let's go. Before I carry you, you still have the dignity to walk on your own."

Lynn didn't move, but looked down at the horse stable sign that had been sealed in the evidence bag.

Gwen followed his gaze: "Still thinking about Pier Seven?" "Yes," Lynn said. "Violet wrote it down specifically to show that it wasn't just a casual note. She would rather risk her life to dismantle the module into several layers so that the people who come after her could see this sentence."

Gwen leaned against the table: "That means tonight's events only cover the part at the manor."

"Correct."

Gwen paused for a moment, then suddenly said, "But at least tonight, the people who really wanted to frame me as the murderer have all been put in the car."

Lynn then looked at her.

Her face was still pale, and she looked tired, but she was different from the person who had been sitting stiffly in the reception room during the day. The feeling of being choked by sudden, unfamiliar malice had at least eased now.

“Yes,” he said.

Gwen stared at him for two seconds, then looked down at his hand and frowned: "You're really not in pain?"

"pain."

"Then who were you trying to fool by acting all nonchalant just now?"

“Show it to the sheriff,” Lynn said. “Otherwise, he’ll think the entire federal government is this fragile.”

Gwen rolled her eyes: "You're the biggest show-off in the Federation."

"You know a few Federations."

"I've gotten to know a bit more people since tonight."

The sound of the armored truck's engine fading into the distance drifted in from outside, low and slowly disappearing through the wooden walls and the night wind. The villa seemed to have finally slipped a little from the taut string that night, but it was not at peace; broken pieces, footprints, evidence bags, and lingering smells remained everywhere.

Gwen straightened up: "Come on, let's go. Then you tell me the whole story again, from the front desk to the lookout tower. Especially the part about Harold, I need to know when he started acting strangely."

"Are you taking a statement or reviewing the events?"

"I want to make sure that next time I see someone like this, I can yell at them an hour earlier than you."

Lynn finally smiled, though it was very faint.

"Row."

The two walked towards the infirmary, one after the other. The corridor was brightly lit, and the carpet absorbed most of their footsteps. In the distance, police officers stood guard at the door, technicians hurried past carrying boxes, and others quietly repeated key points from their statements.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Gwen suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" Lynn asked.

She glanced back towards the lobby. The light at the front desk was still on, but the area behind the counter was empty. The woman who always looked up and smiled before customers approached, her voice perfectly gentle, was gone.

Gwen whispered, "I thought she looked the most normal this morning."

Lynn glanced in the direction of her gaze.

"That's probably how she makes a living," he said.

Gwen looked away, said nothing more, and continued walking forward.

The infirmary was warmer, and the smell of medicine was stronger. The nurse on duty gasped the moment she saw Lynn's hands, immediately shoving him into a chair: "What happened to you?"

Gwen, standing beside him, answered for him: "We caught someone and made a fire while we were at it."

The nurse glanced at her, clearly unsure whether the remark was a joke or not. Lynn obediently stretched out her hand, letting the cold water, disinfectant, and ointment be applied layer by layer. The pain was real, the cold was real, and the sensation of her nerves relaxing from their tense state was even more pronounced.

Gwen leaned against the cabinet, watching his palm wrapped in gauze, before saying, "Actually, there was a moment during the day when I really thought I was going to die."

The nurse paused, wisely refraining from interrupting, and continued wrapping the bandage.

Lynn looked up at her.

Gwen looked at the stainless steel tray on the counter, as if she wasn't looking at anyone in particular, but rather speaking to that point of reflection: "Not the kind of 'I'm going to be convicted' kind of ending, but the kind of ending where... you haven't done anything, but the whole thing has already been prepared for you. You just sit down, and someone else will write your lines for you."

She paused, then smiled faintly.

"This feels disgusting."

Lynn didn't respond with words of comfort, but simply said, "You didn't sit down."

Gwen looked up at him: "Is it because you came?"

“Because you didn’t follow their rhythm from beginning to end,” Lynn said. “You sensed something was wrong, remembered something was wrong, and didn’t change your story to make yourself seem more normal. Someone else might have been pushed down the path of ‘panic, contradiction, and making more and more mistakes’ by them.”

The nurse finished wrapping the bandage and coughed lightly: "Alright, don't get it wet tonight, don't touch the fire again, and don't hit anyone."

Gwen said, "He might not be able to keep the last two."

The nurse finally realized she was joking and couldn't help but laugh.

Lynn stood up and tried to shake hands. There was a dull, throbbing pain under the gauze, but he could still move.

There was another knock at the door; it was the deputy sheriff.

"Have you two finished talking?" He poked his head in. "The sheriff said if you're still alive, go to the small conference room. Rowan just added a new statement to his testimony."

Gwen immediately stood up straight: "What?"

The deputy sheriff said, "He said Pier Seven isn't a pier, it's a time designation. We'll have to wait for the Federal Technology Department to come and dismantle it."

Lynn's eyes darkened.

Gwen looked at him: "See? It's not over yet tonight."

Lynn put her bandaged hand into her pocket and walked towards the door.

"That's about it for the villa section," he said.

The deputy sheriff led the way, muttering to himself, "I get a headache just hearing the word 'almost' now."

Gwen followed behind and whispered, "Me too."

It was almost dawn when we left Greyridge Manor.

It wasn't the usual soft morning light; it was more like a pale, ashen glow, etched by a whole night of cold wind and police lights. A hint of gray tinged the ridge, the treetops and rooftops still stiff, but most of the police cars parked outside the main gate of the resort were gone. The armored trucks had left first, the technical vehicles followed, and the remaining team of local officers and federal personnel were still conducting the final round of containment and handover. The fireplace in the lobby was extinguished, the flowers were still there, and the brass bell behind the reception desk was still in its place, but no one would look up at the perfect moment to say "Good morning" when a guest approached.

Gwen stood on the porch, carrying only a hastily packed soft duffel bag, a dark gray wool coat from the estate draped over her shoulders. Her original coat, which had been covered in mud and dust from running around all night, had been taken by the sheriff for further examination and wouldn't be back for a while. She still looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes visible, but she no longer seemed as tense as she had been during the day, like a string about to snap.

Lynn walked up the steps with her car keys and two paper cups of coffee in her hand.

"Here you go," he said.

Gwen took it, sniffed it, and said, "You actually managed to find something drinkable for me in a place like this."

“An automatic coffee machine,” Lynn said. “Don’t expect too much.”

Gwen took a sip, frowned, and then nodded reluctantly: "Okay, it's a little better than I expected."

Lynn looked at her: "Are you really going straight back to Manhattan? You could go to the hospital first or find a place to sleep for a couple of hours."

“The hospital is unnecessary,” Gwen said. “As for sleeping… I suspect that now, whenever I close my eyes, the first thing I dream about is the smell of steam in the boiler room.” (End of Chapter)