Third Person's POV
The moment you said the first google result when you searched 1,000 beautiful caves the detectives cheered at their Maknae's success. You hurried and rode the car, you sitting next to Jonghyun and Sejong at the second row while Jong min sat in the last row. Jaewook was driving while Sehun was next to him, googling some random things.
Soon you arrived and exit the car while Jongmin slept in the backseat and you completely forgot about him. "Jonghui is probably his wife? His girlfriend?" Sehun says as he steps out the car making you and Sejong giggle.
"In the note, it seems like he was longing to be with that person. We just have no clue who he or she is." You said as they nodded.
Then the four of you heard a knock in the car and see one of the detective members still there. You laughed as the moment you remembered that he was there as they opened the car and folded the seat.
"Why did you forget about me?" Jongmin asks with a sad expression yet with a sheepish smile on his face since he fell asleep.
"We didn't mean it." Sejong says between her laughing fits.
"Let's just go." Jaewook said after a good laugh and started walking.
They arrived at the entrance of the cave and it was amazing. There was a staircase made of pure stone and the surroundings were all nature. The rock formations were wonderful and the small fountains with lights made it look magical. The cave itself was a beauty.
-1,000 beauties inside a cave
At the entrance, there was this large sign talking about how to make a wish. "Turn right three times and then turn left two times. Make a wish and it will be granted." Sejong read.
-Wish making
After reading precautions and warning. You walked further inside the cave to see a big falls in the center and five set of 6 letters surrounding it. The sets of letters had blanks on it and it was in English. It was unreadable.
-Scrambles of letters around the fountain
"Y/n-ah! You know English right?" Sejong asks you as you nodded silently, going towards the statue of the fountain.
"Unnie! There's a lock with letters." You said as you held the lock in your hands. The others just looked at the letters that was all round the place in pure confusion.
A lock within the formation of the fountain
"Maybe the letters on the blank will result to the passcode." Jongmin asks as detective Ahn took his notebook out.
You sat in front of the lock, trying different passcodes as they tried to figure out the scattered letters. The lock was made of letters that can result onto different 5 letter words. You just wanted to try your luck.
"Ahh!" Jaewook suddenly shouted catching the attention of the others.
"Why?" Sehun asks as he walked towards the detective.
"I figured it out! Countries!" The moment Jaewook said that, you played around the lock and succeeded at opening it. Yet you still kept silent as you watched him explain it. Sehun watched you as you opened the lock, laughing in amazement yet he also kept silent.
-There will always be a shortcut
The format was basically the pattern to make wishes. The outer part of the letters result to a country with a blank on it, making one letter. The pattern repeated again and again until they ended with the passcode.
"KOREA!" Jongmin and Jaewook shouted in success as you scratched the back of your head.
"I'm sorry!" You shouted the moment they arrived in front of the lock that was already opened.
"She solved it the moment you said the first country." Sehun said laughing as Sejong made a shock face.
"Of course." Sejong said with a big smile. "They took their time solving when there's a shortcut." She says as you two hi five.
Jaewook felt as if he was betrayed yet they just opened the lock and it revealed a light. The light shone in a specific upper part of the cave, where there was another verse.
-Another verse
The team read it out loud yet it was too hard to understand. "I also found this." Jonghyun suddenly said and pointed at the fallen opening from where the light came from.
It was an address. And they predict that they need to head there.
-Does the address relate to the verse?
Earlier, Minyoung, Jaesuk and Kwangsoo followed Suro to this warehouse. It was small and it was quite old. There were no other house beside it and was instead filled with fields.
Suro tried to knock on the door that had random holes probably because of the age of the door. He knocked several times yet notice that there was no response at all.
He panicked and look at the edge of the door where the was a small gap, there he saw a man on the floor. "I think someone died." Suro said as he took a crowbar from the side as the detectives looked at the holes, seeing the same thing.
-A dead body?
"What happened?" Minyoung said as the men broke the lock of the door to enter the room. Inside, they saw a man who has rope scars around his neck and a rope hanging at the ceiling.
"Jeongsik!" Suro shouted as he checked pulse of a man in pure horror. There was no pulse at all. He died.
-Jeongsik???
"Did he die?"
"What happened?"
Suro sighed as he faced the other detectives. "He died."
-A dead body in between a treasure hunt
"There's a picture!" Minyoung said as he pointed to the man's back pocket where there was a white picture.
They picked it up from the pocket and was shocked to see who was in the picture. "That's Hong Jonghyun!" Minyoung said in shock.
-Suspicion rises towards the Seoul boy
They flipped the picture as there seems to be some type of writing on it. "Rich man, Haenyo, Jonghyun." Those three words were written in a triangle that was connected by lines.
The detectives stood in front of the corpse, checking the place for clues to know whether it was suicide or murder. Suro tugged at the long rope that was hung at the ceiling making the others look at it. "Isn't it suicide?" Jaesuk said.
"No, he wouldn't commit suicide." Suro said knowing that fact.
"The door was locked and there is a rope in the ceiling." Kwangsoo says. "Based on these clues. It's suicide."
-A locked room? Not a suicide?
"I'm sure it's not suicide."
The detectives and Suro roamed around the small place. They checked his bag and saw the front door key, a tape measure, screwdriver, and other tools. They thought it wouldn't be much of help so they roamed around the room more. Suro notice the open laptop and sat in front of it as the other detectives follow.
"I'm a man of sins. I deserve to die. I did everything for money yet was still a failure." Suro read the message on screen.
-A suicide note
"I participated in the treasure hunt years ago when I suddenly had a fight with my colleague. I couldn't control my anger and killed him in the fields in the green tree farm. My friend tried to stop me yet it was too late. Was done is done and now I deserve to be dead for my sins." Suro continued making the detectives skeptical.
"There's a suicide note. Isn't it certain that it is suicide?" Jaesuk says.
"He won't commit suicide. He would never do that." Suro was sure.
-He was sure that it was not a suicide
"To be honest, I was the friend who stopped him commit the murder." Suro said with a low voice making the detectives alarm.
-A witness
"I thought it would be difficult to admit that I knew who killed the skeleton you found earlier." Suro says in guilt. "But one thing is for sure, he didn't commit suicide." He was certain.
The team took a phone from the table as Suro said it was Jeongsik's. They traced his last call which had no name. It only had a number and it was unreachable.
The two male detectives then went outside the warehouse. Beside the warehouse they saw a ladder and windows that were high up. They tried to reach the windows with the ladder and it worked, yet there was a catch. All the windows were locked.
Suro flipped the corpse of his friend as careful as possible. He then saw the wound around his neck that was from the front to the back. He was skeptical.
-A weird wound for a suicide
He took the rope from the ceiling and tried to recreate the way his friend would commit suicide as the two male detectives enter. "The wound on his neck is strange." Suro says as the detectives stare at him, waiting for an explanation.
"If he committed suicide, then the wound should have been from the top, yet on his neck it isn't." Suro says and the detective agreed to his words. The wound was surely far from how it would look if it was suicide.
"The marking make it look like he was strangled from behind." Suro says as Jaesuk backed him up.
"Someone who strangled him would be shorter."
-Someone shorter?
Kwangsoo, Jaesuk and Minyoung lied down on the ground to see how short the perpetrator would be. They concluded that it was probably a little taller than the female detective. The two males stood up from the ground yet Minyoung stayed there like it was nothing.
"Minyoung-ah." Kwangsoo says with laughter as he remembered their first case where she lied down comfortably. "Please do not be that comfortable. That also happened when we did our first case." He says with small laughter followed by Minyoung's and Jaesuk's.
-Things became a habit after cases
Minyoung started to stood up from the ground as Jaesuk talked. "One thing is for sure, it is not suicide." He says.
"But then, how did the killer exit the place when all of the entrance and exits were locked from the inside?" Kwangsoo says as they now recheck all the things inside the warehouse.
-Locked in a room murder
Minyoung then went back to the drawers in the room and saw this piece of ripped newspaper. The two detectives seem to notice it and walked closer to her.
"A museum director had many accusation of travel to Southeast Asia and is suspected to be gambling." She read.
They stood silent as they remembered the museum director who asked them to look for the treasure. "The number!" Minyoung says making Jaesuk and Kwangsoo alert.
They remembered the number the director gave them earlier saying to call him after they find the treasure immediately. Kwangsoo take a look at his arms where he wrote the number and looked at the phone where Jeongsik had his last call.
"It's exactly the same." Jaesuk says.
Who would ever expect that the person who asked for detectives help would be the prime suspect for murder?
~End of Chapter 8~