Translated by Chen Zengwei

Reasoning is a kind of wisdom, but it is more like a competition, the author must play this game fairly with the reader, he must use strategy and trickery while maintaining a certain level of honesty, and never go so far as to cheat when playing bridge. He had to outwit him and capture the reader's interest through clever and honest design. Therefore, there are very clear rules for writing reasoning, which are unwritten, but binding, and must be obeyed by every respected or self-respecting author.

Here is a special list of these texts, which should be called "commandments", one part of which is forged according to the principles of all great writers of reasoning, and the other part of which comes from the inner convictions of all honest writers:

First, the reader must be given the same opportunity to solve the mystery as the detective, and all clues must be explained clearly.

2. Except for the necessary criminal techniques that the murderer has played with the detective, the reader should not be deliberately deceived or fooled by unscrupulous tricks.

3. Do not add love to the story, so as not to interfere with the deduction of pure rationality with irrational emotions. What we want is to send the murderer to the court of justice, not to send a bitter couple to the altar of marriage.

4. The detective himself or the police investigator must not turn into a murderer. This is equivalent to taking a penny of copper plate and saying that it is like a five-dollar gold coin, which is a false statement.

5. Accusations against murderers must be based on logical reasoning and must not be pretended to be accidental. Confessions of suspects by coincidence or without reasonable motives. The latter method of solving the case is undoubtedly a deliberate attempt to drive the reader to search for an impossible place to find the answer, and only after the reader returns from failure to tell them that the answer is in your pocket from beginning to end. Such an author will not be much better than a laugher.

6. There must be a detective for reasoning, and a detective cannot be called a detective if he does not investigate the case. The detective's task is to gather all possible clues and then use those clues to find the person who committed the evil deeds at the beginning of the story. If the detective can't deduce the final conclusion through the analysis of clues, it is like a schoolboy who peeks at an arithmetic textbook and solves it, and he does not really solve the puzzle.

7. There are usually corpses in reasoning, and the more doubts revealed by corpses, the better. A crime lacking homicide is too thin and too insignificant, and it would be too trivial to write 300 pages for such a mundane crime. After all, readers must be rewarded for their time and effort. Americans are inherently more human, so a murderous murder will provoke a sense of revenge and fear, and they want the killer to be brought to justice. Therefore, when a "vicious" murder occurs, even the most gentle reader will pursue the murderer with a passion for justice.

8. Solving cases can only be done through natural methods. As far as reasoning is concerned, magic, divination, mind reading, séance, or crystal balls are all taboo. A reasoning story created according to reason will give the reader a fair chance to participate in the battle of wits, but if he competes with the supernatural world, or even helps the metaphysical world of the fourth dimension to hunt for the murderer, the reader is destined to lose at the starting point.

9. There can only be one detective, that is, the protagonist who is responsible for the real reasoning of the murderer, just like the god of liberation in the ancient Greek war drama Deus ex Machina, is unique. Bringing in three or four detectives to solve a puzzle will only distract from the pleasure of reading, disrupt the context of logical reasoning, and unduly deprive readers and detectives of the right to play fairly. With more than one detective, the reader will not be able to figure out who his real competitors are, which is like having a reader take on a relay race team alone.

10. The murderer must be a somewhat weighty character. In other words, the murderer must be a character that the reader is interested in and somewhat understandable. If the blame is placed on a stranger or an insignificant character until the last chapter, it is tantamount to the author admitting himself incompetent and unworthy of wits with the reader.

11. Those who are servants, such as stewards, porters, waiters, stewards, cooks, etc., shall not be chosen as murderers. Because such a murderer is too obvious and too easy to find, such a treatment is really unsatisfactory, and the reader will feel that it is a waste of time. The murderer has to be someone who is worth the time and effort to find – usually the least suspected. If the murderer really was some lowly slave, then there was really no need for the writer to write such a story in a book for the world to remember.

12. Even if it is a serial homicide, there can only be one murderer. Of course, the murderer can have accomplices or accomplices, but it is important that only one person provokes all the responsibility for the crime, and all the reader's anger must be focused on a single villain.

XIII. In reasoning, it is better not to have secret organizations, gangs or criminal groups such as mafias, otherwise the author is tantamount to writing adventures or espionage. A perfect and suspenseful murder case would be irretrievably ended if it was mixed up by such a large number of people. Of course, the murderer in the reasoning should still have a legitimate chance to escape, but it would be too much to let the entire secret organization support him (such as a hidden place or the protection of a large number of people). It is believed that a first-class murderer with self-esteem will not allow himself to put on an impenetrable armor when facing off against a detective.

14. The methods of murder and the methods of solving cases must be reasonable and scientific. That is, reasoning does not allow the use of pseudoscience, pure fantasy or speculative mechanisms. For example, it is not reasonable for a murder victim to be killed by a new element that has just been discovered, such as superradium, or to be killed with a poison that is extremely rare, even imaginary by the author. A speculative writer must limit his imagination in the field of poisons, and the poisons he uses must not go beyond the scope of ordinary pharmacopoeias. If the author is imaginary and soars freely in non-existent time and space, then the boundaries of reasoning are escaped.

15. The truth of the puzzle must be clear and coherent, so that the reader with a keen eye can see through it, I mean, after the case is revealed, if the reader rereads it, he will clearly find that the key to solving the case is always in front of him, and all the clues point to the same murderer. If he's as smart as a detective, he wouldn't have to wait until the last chapter to solve the case on his own. Of course, such readers do exist. My basic theory about reasoning is that if the structure of a book is fair enough, it is impossible for the reader to find the answer for himself. It is to be expected that there must be a certain part of the audience that is as clever as the author. If the author is athletic enough to honestly describe the plan and clues of the crime in the book, these keen readers will be able to identify the suspect through analysis, reasoning and elimination in the same way as the detective in the book, and this is the fun of this game. This may also explain why some readers who disdain popular literature do not blush at reading reasoning.

16. Excessively long narrative texts, subtle character analysis, excessive atmosphere creation, or playing with words on some trivial matters should not appear in reasoning. These are completely unimportant in the process of recording and reasoning about the crime. Our main purpose is to state the problem and draw a satisfactory inference from the analysis. And this kind of writing only hinders the development of the plot and adds extraneous things to the theme. Of course, the necessary narrative and character depictions can make it more realistic. When the author writes a story in a very compelling way, he can fully devote the reader's emotions to the development of the plot and the portrayal of the characters, and in this respect the author has taken the pure literary technique with the authenticity required of the crime to be equal. Writing reasoning is a very rigorous thing, and the reader does not read it for the flowery rhetoric and style, nor for the brilliant narrative and emotional projection, but for the mental activity of stimulating the brain—just like they go to a ball game or play Scrabble. How can telling the players about the natural beauty of the stadium at the change of time in a baseball game motivate the players to want to win?

17. Professional sex offenders must not be held accountable for crimes in reasoning. As for the bad deeds done by the thieves and villains of the empty doors, it is the responsibility of the police, not the writers and brilliant amateur detectives, and such crimes are the routine work of the criminal unit. The real attraction of crime should be the work of some respected person in the church, or an old lady who is known for her charity.

XVIII. In reasoning, the crime must not end in an accident or a suicide, and this kind of anticlimactic ending is tantamount to playing an unforgivable joke on the reader. If someone buys a book and finds out that it is all deception and demands a refund, any impartial court will be on his side and punish the writer who has deceived his loyal readers.

19. The motive for the crime in the reasoning is personal. Political games of international conspiracy and strategy are of a different kind, such as stories about secret service organizations, for example. The plot of the murder must maintain a certain level of approachability in order to reflect the reader's daily life experience and give vent to their long-suppressed desires and emotions.

20. Here is a list of a few commonly used methods (by the way, I will round up these rules), which have been used badly. A self-respecting reasoner usually doesn't use it again, because all reasoning fans are familiar with these methods. Whoever uses it is admitting his own ignorance and lack of creativity.

(A) Compare the cigarette butts left at the scene of the crime with the brand of cigarettes smoked by the suspect in order to identify the murderer.

(B) Pretending to be the ghost of the victim to scare the murderer into confessing himself.

(C) Falsification of fingerprints.

(D) Using a dummy to create an alibi.

(E) Because the dog does not bark, it means that the intruder is an acquaintance.

(f) An innocent person is identified as the murderer, and it turns out that he is the murderer's twin brother (or sister) or a relative who looks very similar.

(G) Injection with a syringe or in a drink.

(H) The murder did not really begin until the police broke down the door and entered a locked room.

(i) Use relevant words to test guilt.

(J) Use of ciphers or ciphers, which are finally detected by detectives.

Opus:

Send a bitter couple to the altar of marriage.

4. The detective himself or the police investigator must not turn into a murderer. This is equivalent to taking a penny of copper plate and saying that it is like a five-dollar gold coin, which is a false statement.

5. Accusations against murderers must be based on logical reasoning and must not be pretended to be accidental. Confessions of suspects by coincidence or without reasonable motives. The latter method of solving the case is undoubtedly a deliberate attempt to drive the reader to search for an impossible place to find the answer, and only after the reader returns from failure to tell them that the answer is in your pocket from beginning to end. Such an author will not be much better than a laugher.

6. There must be a detective for reasoning, and a detective cannot be called a detective if he does not investigate the case. The detective's task is to gather all possible clues and then use those clues to find the person who committed the evil deeds at the beginning of the story. If the detective can't deduce the final conclusion through the analysis of clues, it is like a schoolboy who peeks at an arithmetic textbook and solves it, and he does not really solve the puzzle.

7. There are usually corpses in reasoning, and the more doubts revealed by corpses, the better. A crime lacking homicide is too thin and too insignificant, and it would be too trivial to write 300 pages for such a mundane crime. After all, readers must be rewarded for their time and effort. Americans are inherently more human, so a murderous murder will provoke a sense of revenge and fear, and they want the killer to be brought to justice. Therefore, when a "vicious" murder occurs, even the most gentle reader will pursue the murderer with a passion for justice.

8. Solving cases can only be done through natural methods. As far as reasoning is concerned, magic, divination, mind reading, séance, or crystal balls are all taboo. A reasoning story created according to reason will give the reader a fair chance to participate in the battle of wits, but if he competes with the supernatural world, or even helps the metaphysical world of the fourth dimension to hunt for the murderer, the reader is destined to lose at the starting point.

9. There can only be one detective, that is, the protagonist who is responsible for the real reasoning of the murderer, just like the god of liberation in the ancient Greek war drama Deus ex Machina, is unique. Bringing in three or four detectives to solve a puzzle will only distract from the pleasure of reading, disrupt the context of logical reasoning, and unduly deprive readers and detectives of the right to play fairly. With more than one detective, the reader will not be able to figure out who his real competitors are, which is like having a reader take on a relay race team alone.

10. The murderer must be a somewhat weighty character. In other words, the murderer must be a character that the reader is interested in and somewhat understandable. If the blame is placed on a stranger or an insignificant character until the last chapter, it is tantamount to the author admitting himself incompetent and unworthy of wits with the reader.

11. Those who are servants, such as stewards, porters, waiters, stewards, cooks, etc., shall not be chosen as murderers. Because such a murderer is too obvious and too easy to find, such a treatment is really unsatisfactory, and the reader will feel that it is a waste of time. The murderer has to be someone who is worth the time and effort to find – usually the least suspected. If the murderer really was some lowly slave, then there was really no need for the writer to write such a story in a book for the world to remember.

12. Even if it is a serial homicide, there can only be one murderer. Of course, the murderer can have accomplices or accomplices, but it is important that only one person provokes all the responsibility for the crime, and all the reader's anger must be focused on a single villain.

XIII. In reasoning, it is better not to have secret organizations, gangs or criminal groups such as mafias, otherwise the author is tantamount to writing adventures or espionage. A perfect and suspenseful murder case would be irretrievably ended if it was mixed up by such a large number of people. Of course, the murderer in the reasoning should still have a legitimate chance to escape, but it would be too much to let the entire secret organization support him (such as a hidden place or the protection of a large number of people). It is believed that a first-class murderer with self-esteem will not allow himself to put on an impenetrable armor when facing off against a detective.

14. The methods of murder and the methods of solving cases must be reasonable and scientific. That is, reasoning does not allow the use of pseudoscience, pure fantasy or speculative mechanisms. For example, it is not reasonable for a murder victim to be killed by a new element that has just been discovered, such as superradium, or to be killed with a poison that is extremely rare, even imaginary by the author. A speculative writer must limit his imagination in the field of poisons, and the poisons he uses must not go beyond the scope of ordinary pharmacopoeias. If the author is imaginary and soars freely in non-existent time and space, then the boundaries of reasoning are escaped.

15. The truth of the puzzle must be clear and coherent, so that the reader with a keen eye can see through it, I mean, after the case is revealed, if the reader rereads it, he will clearly find that the key to solving the case is always in front of him, and all the clues point to the same murderer. If he's as smart as a detective, he wouldn't have to wait until the last chapter to solve the case on his own. Of course, such readers do exist. My basic theory about reasoning is that if the structure of a book is fair enough, it is impossible for the reader to find the answer for himself. It is to be expected that there must be a certain part of the audience that is as clever as the author. If the author is athletic enough to honestly describe the plan and clues of the crime in the book, these keen readers will be able to identify the suspect through analysis, reasoning and elimination in the same way as the detective in the book, and this is the fun of this game. This may also explain why some readers who disdain popular literature do not blush at reading reasoning.

16. Excessively long narrative texts, subtle character analysis, excessive atmosphere creation, or playing with words on some trivial matters should not appear in reasoning. These are completely unimportant in the process of recording and reasoning about the crime. Our main purpose is to state the problem and draw a satisfactory inference from the analysis. And this kind of writing only hinders the development of the plot and adds extraneous things to the theme. Of course, the necessary narrative and character depictions can make it more realistic. When the author writes a story in a very compelling way, he can fully devote the reader's emotions to the development of the plot and the portrayal of the characters, and in this respect the author has taken the pure literary technique with the authenticity required of the crime to be equal. Writing reasoning is a very rigorous thing, and the reader does not read it for the flowery rhetoric and style, nor for the brilliant narrative and emotional projection, but for the mental activity of stimulating the brain—just like they go to a ball game or play Scrabble. How can telling the players about the natural beauty of the stadium at the change of time in a baseball game motivate the players to want to win?

17. Professional sex offenders must not be held accountable for crimes in reasoning. As for the bad deeds done by the thieves and villains of the empty doors, it is the responsibility of the police, not the writers and brilliant amateur detectives, and such crimes are the routine work of the criminal unit. The real attraction of crime should be the work of some respected person in the church, or an old lady who is known for her charity.

XVIII. In reasoning, the crime must not end in an accident or a suicide, and this kind of anticlimactic ending is tantamount to playing an unforgivable joke on the reader. If someone buys a book and finds out that it is all deception and demands a refund, any impartial court will be on his side and punish the writer who has deceived his loyal readers.

19. The motive for the crime in the reasoning is personal. Political games of international conspiracy and strategy are of a different kind, such as stories about secret service organizations, for example. The plot of the murder must maintain a certain level of approachability in order to reflect the reader's daily life experience and give vent to their long-suppressed desires and emotions.

20. Here is a list of a few commonly used methods (by the way, I will round up these rules), which have been used badly. A self-respecting reasoner usually doesn't use it again, because all reasoning fans are familiar with these methods. Whoever uses it is admitting his own ignorance and lack of creativity.

(A) Compare the cigarette butts left at the scene of the crime with the brand of cigarettes smoked by the suspect in order to identify the murderer.

(B) Pretending to be the ghost of the victim to scare the murderer into confessing himself.

(C) Falsification of fingerprints.

(D) Using a dummy to create an alibi.

(E) Because the dog does not bark, it means that the intruder is an acquaintance.

(f) An innocent person is identified as the murderer, and it turns out that he is the murderer's twin brother (or sister) or a relative who looks very similar.

(G) Injection with a syringe or in a drink.

(H) The murder did not really begin until the police broke down the door and entered a locked room.

(i) Use relevant words to test guilt.

(J) Use of ciphers or ciphers, which are finally detected by detectives.

Opus: