Although Ji Mingrui was on standby at the police station, he was broken into a cold sweat by this instigator who had unexpectedly surfaced.
He hung up after finishing a phone call and fell into deep thought.
Who could have imagined that even after a case was closed, someone was still hiding behind the scenes?
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call this kind of abettor a demon.
Ji Mingrui couldn’t help but wonder: Who is he? Why would he do something like this? He didn’t even instruct his “disciples” to hide his identity. Could he actually be waiting for the day he exposes himself?
…
The more Ji Mingrui thought about it, the colder his heart grew.
At this thought, he began searching for the geographical locations of all the churches in Huanan City based on the available information. “Six places in total,” he said, pulling out a map of Huanan City from a stack of files next to him. “It should be these locations…”
He circled the six locations on the map with a red pen and then called Chi Qing. “Are you guys done questioning over there? Are the specific coordinates of the church clear? I’m heading over right now.”
Sitting face-to-face with a brutal serial killer would make any normal person feel a bit unnerved, especially since there was no glass window separating them in the room.
A criminal police officer stood at the door, constantly worried that something might go wrong inside. After all, he had heard that this prisoner was captured by the two consultants themselves. Life in prison wasn’t easy, and these convicts already harbored plenty of psychological issues. If he suddenly flew into a rage upon seeing Assistant Chi and lost control…
The officer watched every single movement in the room intently.
However, he quickly realized that the situation was entirely reversed.
It was clearly Zhou Zhiyi who was terrified of this Mr. Chi.
Every time he looked at Chi Qing, he was reminded of that night he was about to commit the murder… the man lying quietly beside him, and the smiling one lying in ambush under the bed…
After finishing most of his questions, Chi Qing received Ji Mingrui’s call. “Which church?”
Chi Qing glanced at Zhou Zhiyi.
Zhou Zhiyi answered honestly, “The south side of the city, the one near the big shopping mall.”
Ji Mingrui marked a red triangle over the church in the south district. Just as he was about to hang up and drive over, the landline on his desk rang out with a ding-ling-ling.
“Xiaolan, help me grab that phone. I need to head out.”
Understanding the urgency, Su Xiaolan picked up the receiver. “Hello? This is Yong’an Police Station.”
A few seconds later, she cried out in shock, “—What?!”
As she shouted, she grabbed Ji Mingrui’s hand, which had just picked up the car keys, and slammed his wrist firmly onto the desk.
Ji Mingrui looked utterly bewildered. “…What are you doing? Practicing the new grappling techniques you just learned?”
“If that’s the case, your skills have definitely improved. A little more force, and I probably won’t be able to drive today.”
Su Xiaolan’s expression was grim. She moved the receiver slightly away from her ear and said in a heavy voice, “The church is on fire.”
For a moment, Ji Mingrui didn’t react. “What’s on fire?”
“The church,” Su Xiaolan repeated. “The South District Church. Someone set it on fire.”
Xie Lin and Chi Qing didn’t know about the church fire before they rushed over. Because the situation was critical, Ji Mingrui hadn’t had the time to notify them.
The two of them realized it themselves halfway through the drive.
“This road is much more congested than usual,” Xie Lin noted. “It’s unusual. Reasonably speaking, this isn’t a high-accident zone, and the car radio hasn’t broadcast any traffic alerts. The traffic shouldn’t be moving this slowly.”
“Do you have your phone?” Xie Lin asked Chi Qing, who was sitting in the passenger seat. “Check the news or social media, search for nearby updates.”
Chi Qing took off his gloves.
He quickly found that the surrounding news was dominated by four words: Church on Fire.
Boom—
Driven by the wind, the fire expanded continuously. Originally, thick smoke was only billowing from the central spire, but the flames soon spread to both sides. The rolling black smoke rose even higher than the white spire.
The church fire looked far more spectacular than the previous high-rise fire, resembling another mural of “The Passion.” The pristine white spire was blackened by the churning smoke, making it look as if the entire church had originally been built upon Raging Flames.
The fire was too intense. Even though the fire department arrived immediately, the flames continued to grow.
Ji Mingrui and the others stood by the roadside, surrounding the police cars. A long police cordon was stretched across the street, and sirens wailed from all directions.
Seeing Xie Lin and Chi Qing step out of the car, Ji Mingrui said, “We received a tip-off call from a citizen earlier and rushed over in a hurry. I forgot to notify you.”
Chi Qing looked at the raging fire.
Up close, the heat radiated like a wave striking their faces.
It was as if “that person” knew they had tracked down the church; the very moment they confirmed its exact location, something happened to it.
Xie Lin asked, “The firefighters were already here before you arrived?”
“Yes, they’ve been here for a while.”
“So, was that phone call really from a ‘citizen’?”
Hearing this, Su Xiaolan, who had answered the call, froze.
A crowd of onlookers gathered around the cordon. These people were busy recording videos with their phones to post on their social feeds, and even those without phones were sighing, “How did it just catch fire out of nowhere? What a shame. Such a beautifully built church, burned to this extent…”
A small number of believers who had rushed over clasped their hands in prayer, murmuring “Amen,” believing the great fire symbolized a calamity.
No one would think to call 110 to report it to the police when the firefighters were already on the scene.
Then the person who just called…
“It was a male,” Su Xiaolan recalled. “He sounded no older than thirty, probably around twenty-five or twenty-six. His voice was very raspy.”
In his mind, Chi Qing equated the keyword “raspy voice” with the information they had just gathered.
Xie Lin asked, “What did he say?”
Chi Qing’s gaze fell upon the bustling crowd nearby.
Perhaps just ten-odd minutes ago, “that person” was standing right among the crowd. He might have unconcernedly pulled out his phone like an ordinary onlooker and said, “Is this the police? The church is on fire. I don’t know what happened, but normally, a fire this serious shouldn’t break out, right?”
Xie Lin spoke up, “He isn’t afraid of his instigations being exposed by these few people. In fact, after committing arson, he was afraid we wouldn’t find out. His personality is typical of an antisocial personality disorder—warped, arrogant, and egotistical.”
It took a long time for the fire to be brought under control.
The inside of the church was already a complete mess.
“After a preliminary assessment, we found that the fire originated from the main hall.”
The group pushed open the still-smoking church doors and walked inside. Every step they took sank into puddles of water. The scorching temperature had not yet dissipated, and the sacred hall was unrecognizable. The two rows of candlelight that originally lined both sides of the long red carpet were nowhere to be seen.
The candles were highly likely the source of the fire; sparks had fallen onto the red carpet, and the flames devoured everything.
The spot where the painting of the Crucifixion of Jesus used to hang was now blackened into a perfectly square shape, its frame charred. Chi Qing carefully avoided the puddles on the ground. After taking two steps, he inexplicably felt something was amiss. His alertness made him pull his hands back into his sleeves, and he took two steps backward.
At the same time, the charred painting of the Crucifixion hanging in the center of the hall fell from the wall with a loud crash.
And with that step back, Chi Qing happened to fall right into Xie Lin’s embrace.
Xie Lin wasn’t startled, nor did he care if the splashed muddy water got on him. He instinctively opened his arms, tilting his head with a smile as he caught him, “What are you running for? You’re just like the cat at home.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Xie Lin: “It’s fine, luckily I caught you. Or did you run into my arms on purpose?”
Chi Qing: “You’re overthinking it.”
Xie Lin’s hand had originally been resting on Chi Qing’s shoulder. As if remembering something, his palm slid down, lingering briefly on the man’s waist. He whispered in Chi Qing’s ear, “Does your waist still hurt?”
Ji Mingrui, who was following behind, didn’t possess Chi Qing’s hypersensitive cleanliness radar. His shoes were covered in grayish-black mud. Hearing Xie Lin’s words, he casually chimed in, “What? Your waist hurts?”
Chi Qing placed his fingers over Xie Lin’s hand, and then applied force through the black fabric, pulling Xie Lin’s hand away.
Only he and Xie Lin knew what that “waist pain” referred to.
That night, Xie Lin wanted to switch positions, and neither of them was experienced. In the end, the man gripped his waist… His waist was already lean, and it felt like it was about to snap.
Chi Qing: “It doesn’t hurt. Beat it.”
Xie Lin wanted to tease him a bit more, but everyone’s attention was quickly drawn to the wall in front of them.
With the massive painting gone, a large section of the wall was exposed.
A detective stared blankly at the wall and uttered, “—What is that?”
There were traces of writing on the wall.
The section covered by the painting hadn’t been heavily affected by the thick smoke, and some white background was still visible. Written in red paint were several names. The handwriting was erratic and sharp, resembling dry brush strokes that lacked ink, crawling across the entire wall.
They recognized all of these names.
Though the writing was messy, it wasn’t hard to discern that the first two-character name was: Li Kang.
The sprawling archives room of the Bureau resembled a library, where closed cases were turned into thick stacks of files and stored away. Even though the victims had passed away and the culprits had been brought to justice, most of these crimes would likely fade from memory.
Stored here were all the criminal records within Huanan City over the past few decades.
The criminal records were categorized by the nature of the crime and the time of occurrence. Starting from the cat-killing case, the files of several cases were connected. The cover of the first file bore the date of the crime, and below the date, the killer’s name was printed in regular script: Li Kang.
These two “Li Kangs” almost completely overlapped.
But unlike the Li Kang on the file, the “Li Kang” on the white church wall had a flagrant, sweeping ‘X’ drawn over it in red paint.
Aside from Li Kang, there were several other familiar names: Zhou Zhiyi… Shen Xinghe…
Every single name was struck through with a large “X”.
These “X” marks made it look like a gaming leaderboard where the listed individuals had already been knocked out of the game.
At the very end of the names, there was a line of crooked, clearly newly added letters greeting them.
It was a simple English word:
Hi.
