Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Chapter 5871 - 4892: Marvelous Shadows and Ingenious Drama (18)_2

When they saw this part, many of the audience were waiting for Stark to reveal the mystery to them. But when Shiller stepped up and began deducing, it was the first time they realized the gravity of the problem.Many detective novels adhere to the Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction, one of which is extremely important – the detective cannot be the murderer. This is because such a scenario would provide the author with too much of an informational advantage, allowing the detective to conceal all unfavorable clues and throw out various false appearances, making it impossible for readers to keep up with the detective’s thoughts. This would be unfair to the readers.

Today’s detective films generally follow this rule as well, striving to create a relatively fair reasoning environment and not making it all about the director’s narrative. Therefore, Shiller’s suspicion was ruled out.

This left Strange as the only possibility. Just as all the audience was thinking this, Strange took a great leap and flew upwards.

Indeed, he flew, soaring from the balcony to the rooftop terrace, with magical light flickering in his eyes. This finally made all the audience realize that not merely was Strange in this film the same actor as the Supreme Magician in the magical school movie, but rather they were indeed the same person! This guy knows magic!

Another commandment among the Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction seems a bit like racial discrimination. It states that Chinese people cannot appear in detective novels. The author himself indeed expressed some racist remarks, but the meaning here is that detective novels should not include supernormal powers, assuming then westerners believed Chinese people could perform martial arts. If a character suddenly appears in a detective novel capable of punching through walls with Iron Sand Palm, there’d be no way to investigate, violating the fairness principle of detective fiction. Therefore, such elements shouldn’t exist.

Although many detective novels now do include scenarios with supernormal powers, they must inform readers in advance. Otherwise, it breaches fairness. Since this film didn’t do so beforehand, Strange’s suspicion was largely overturned – using magic for the crime would leave no traces, thus making reasoning impossible.

With suspicions removed, the problem only intensified. Shiller was excluded, Strange was ruled out. So, who was it?

Viewers quickly recalled the film’s opening, where Stark saw many people in the mirror. Initially, they believed it was a ghost film; however, the plot later explained Stark could frequently see hallucinations. Could Stark have succumbed to mental instability and committed murder?

The storyline seemed to unfold just as the audience speculated. Strange took Stark upstairs, and the first crime scene that appeared before him, splattered with blood, was the restroom.

Adding onto the later scenes of shadows appearing in the restroom seemed to continually imply that Stark, in his mental instability, killed someone entering the restroom—He indeed shot a film with himself as the perpetrator!

The audience’s comments were on the tip of their tongues, but the film quickly shifted focus to why the corpse was thrown from the skylight, this critical issue. Even if Stark accidentally killed someone, he wasn’t the one who threw the body; he had an alibi, and this served as evidence he did not commit the murder.

As the movie progressed into the mid and late stages, matters grew bewildering once again. With the top three suspects ruled out, the audience began searching among supporting roles. Shiller’s deduction seemed to target the celebrities attending the banquet to find the murderer.

At this point, some audience members found it a bit dull. Primarily due to the lack of substantial groundwork for the murderer beforehand, suddenly revealing a random character as the murderer is far from an excellent screenplay design; it might even be considered poor filmmaking.

But this notion hardly lasted a few minutes before yet another twist arrived. This time, it addressed the relationship between Stark, Shiller, and Strange, which turned out to be entirely contrary to what the audience had imagined.

The viewers believed the relationship between the two seemingly friendly brothers almost shattered during their reunion. Whereas Stark and Strange, who were thought to share little to no connection, actually had significant ties.

In this retrospective plotline, Stark suspected Shiller of swapping his anxiety medication, even intentionally leading him to hallucinate, resulting in a huge quarrel. Meanwhile, Stark unintentionally helped the financially struggling Strange. Strange wasn’t there to harm him, but to save him.

At this point, suspicion reverted to Shiller. Apparently, Shiller was likely framing Stark deliberately, initially destabilizing his mental state leading to accidental murder, followed by exposure. As for the motive, it seemed quite straightforward – the usual family inheritance battle.

Strange possibly discovered Shiller’s conspiracy and intended to help Stark. Subsequently, in the film’s latter half, the detective indeed switched to Strange, uncovering Shiller’s plot.

Up to here, the mystery seemed unraveled: Shiller orchestrated a trap to frame Stark.

Ultimately, Shiller seemed to resist desperately. With urgent drumbeats, he initiated a series of seemingly absurd deductions, eventually concluding – Hampton is haunted; there exists a monstrous killer hidden within the estate.

These deductions indeed sounded far-fetched, unbelievably reminiscent of the nonsense a clumsy murderer would spew towards the end. Most of the audience deemed it so.

Yet some true detective fiction enthusiasts found that, logically and in terms of the evidence chain, Shiller’s reasoning was correct. All human suspicions were convincingly eliminated, hence the least likely scenario could very well be the truth.

Moreover, this was foreshadowed earlier. From the figures appearing in the mirror to Strange possessing magic, it indicated the setting belonged to a supernatural world, fulfilling the elements of fair reasoning.

It was just Chris playing a trick with the lenses – while deliberately emphasizing Stark’s anxiety disorder, leading viewers to believe what was seen was merely anxiety-induced hallucinations. Simultaneously, leveraging external factors implied Strange was the Supreme Magician, essentially an easter egg character outside the narrative framework not meant to partake in the world-building.

This succeeded in making viewers steadfast in believing that the world lacked ghosts amidst a plot replete with supernatural occurrences.

The ending was unexpectedly astonishing. As the monster hanging on the ceiling descended, slowly lifting its tendrils, Earth began to scream.

The screening room fell silent as if death had taken over. Natasha’s fingertip slightly trembled: "That final scene of the monster dropping down was staged, right? ... Right?"

Bucky swallowed nervously: "Hard to say."