Very few people ask their partner if they want a hug in such a reluctant tone. Chi Qing even kept his hands stuffed inside his coat pockets, giving off a vibe of: “I’m just saying it, don’t actually believe me—if you dare lean over, I’ll twist your head right off.”
Ignoring this illusion, Xie Lin unbuckled the seatbelt fastened across his body and leaned his upper body slightly toward him: “Then let’s have a hug.”
Chi Qing nodded his chin down, looking somewhat patronizing.
Xie Lin wrapped one hand behind Chi Qing’s head, pressing him into his chest, and then continued, “I’m very sad right now. I might need to hug you for a little longer.”
The screen in the car displayed the time.
With all their running around up to this point, the sky had long since turned dark. The numbers on the screen ticked upward minute by minute, quickly jumping to 12:00 AM.
Chi Qing said, “Emotionally, I can allow you to hold me a bit longer, but rationally, I still have to remind you that it’s already the sixth day.”
The time left for them was running out.
Xie Lin was also well aware of this, so he only held him for less than half a minute. As they parted, he lowered his head and lightly bumped his lips against Chi Qing’s: “Alright, put it on tab.”
“Let’s go find him first,” Xie Lin unlocked his phone, glanced at his chat with Wu Zhibin, and said, “The municipal bureau is already looking for the relevant personnel. Based on the photo in the file, they can also simulate a criminal profile closer to ‘Z’ himself. As long as he has remained in South China City over these years, it’s impossible for him to leave absolutely no trace of his existence.”
The file on Z and the information they uncovered had been synchronized with the bureau. With the bureau able to deploy their database for a dragnet search, finding ‘Z’ had become purely a matter of time. With a photo and an identity—even if it was just a serial number—they would locate him sooner or later.
But the crux of the issue was precisely time.
What they lacked most right now was time.
As they spoke, Wu Zhibin sent over several more messages.
—Where are you guys now?
—We might not make it in time.
With less than 24 hours remaining, everyone was extraordinarily tense.
Every single person participating in the case was exceptionally sensitive to time.
Su Xiaolan had even set a bunch of alarms that went off every hour. Every time they rang in the office, everyone’s hearts would tremble along with them.
Xie Lin moved his fingers to type a reply, sending back a sentence that was difficult for others to comprehend: The person who is most anxious right now might not be us. Z should be even more anxious than we are.
—?
—What do you mean?
As expected, Wu Zhibin could not understand.
The ones catching the criminal were anxious, but what did the criminal have to be anxious about?
This time, Xie Lin didn’t type. He pressed the voice message button, and his casual voice echoed in the car: “Because he is anticipating that we find him. By hijacking so many children and making such a massive scene, he never planned on escaping. On the contrary, he wants the matter to blow up even bigger… If no one finds him for a long time, he will definitely find it utterly boring. He’ll think… ‘Why hasn’t anyone come to play with me yet?’“
Xie Lin spoke the line “Why hasn’t anyone come to play with me yet” very casually, but his tone carried a startlingly immersive quality.
“Although watching those kids play games is quite interesting, kidnapping them wasn’t simply to watch them play. Those kids have games to play, but he doesn’t. The game that belongs to him hasn’t truly begun yet. Therefore, he will definitely start feeling bored. The closer it gets to the end of the first round of the game, the stronger this sense of boredom will become.”
“Do you know about explosions? His current state is very much like waiting for an impending explosion to land, entirely disregarding whether he is standing right next to the bomb.”
Wu Zhibin listened in a daze. For a split second, he felt as if the person on the other end of the chat was ‘Z’ himself.
Once the last voice message finished playing.
Wu Zhibin realized his back was covered in a thin layer of sweat.
If…
If Xie Lin took one wrong step, he might genuinely have become ‘Z’s’ friend.
No, not just Xie Lin.
Wu Zhibin also thought of that pair of hands that wore black gloves year-round, as well as those eyes deeper than pool water hidden behind the hair. Thinking of these things brought along memories of continuous bleak rain and the icy tip of an umbrella.
If they took one wrong step, these two would become people far harder to deal with than ‘Z’.
Wu Zhibin was about to instruct that the suspect might actively send them some information when he looked outside the office and realized the desk of a certain someone who should have returned long ago was still empty: “…Where is Ji Mingrui?”
“Ji Mingrui’s phone isn’t going through,” Su Xiaolan was also waiting for him. She had been answering calls all day and was starving as she waited at her desk. “He promised to bring me a sandwich and coffee when he came back, but what time is it already? If we keep waiting, my dinner is going to turn into a midnight snack.”
After 10:00 PM, the phone calls had decreased significantly, and after 12:00 AM, there were even fewer, leaving basically nothing to do except handle some late-night disputes.
Su Xiaolan could finally stop and catch her breath.
As she was speaking, the telephone rang again.
Because it had been quiet for a long time, combined with the late-night hour, the ringing of the telephone sounded particularly jarring in the office.
“Hello?” Su Xiaolan picked up the phone.
There was silence on the other end.
Su Xiaolan asked once more, “Hello?”
Yet, there was no reply from the other side at all. Only a mechanical voice emerged, reciting a string of numbers without any emotion: “7… 1… 0… 8…”
“What?”
After the robotic voice finished reciting it once, it repeated: “7… 1… 0…”
Su Xiaolan did not know the meaning behind this string of numbers, nor did she know the caller’s intention in making this late-night call. However, out of habit, she still grabbed a pen and quickly jotted down the strange numbers being broadcasted over the phone onto a piece of paper beside her.
7108453.
Just as she finished writing the last digit, a human voice finally emerged from the phone. The voice was highly recognizable as a man laughed hoarsely: “Officer, did you get it down?”
Although the person on the other end asked this, he didn’t care about her answer at all. Just as Su Xiaolan was about to reply, the call was hung up, leaving only a busy dial tone in the receiver: Buzz—
“7108453?”
While driving, Xie Lin repeated the string of numbers Su Xiaolan had sent over.
They were currently searching all locations in South China City related to the Huanan Orphanage, such as the garment factory that used to supply clothes to the orphanage, and the construction factory that had participated in its demolition and modification. The area where the orphanage was located had not developed well over the years; ten years had passed, and many small factories had failed to survive, leaving most of these places as vacant factory buildings.
Xie Lin had an intuition that the place where ‘Z’ was hiding must be related to the orphanage.
Huanan Orphanage, original address: No. 128 Chang’an North Road.
No. 128 Chang’an North Road was currently abandoned. Originally, a municipal document had been issued to rebuild it, but because the local residents were unwilling to relocate, the difficulty of the reconstruction was too great, so it was abandoned.
There were many introductions about the orphanage on the internet, such as how it had co-sponsored a charity project with a certain Red Cross society and won municipal awards aimed at resolving children’s issues… Next to a bunch of descriptions was a picture. Perhaps because it was taken in autumn, the plants were withered, and the ten-year-old traditional building looked gray and gloomy in the photo.
A row of children stood in front of two or three orphanage teachers. These children were of various heights and builds, all wearing forced, routine smiles, their eyes hollow and their expressions stiff.
The atmosphere was just like an eerie old photograph.
Flipping further down, one could see a piece of child abuse news from back then.
—Staff at the Huanan Orphanage beat and scolded children at will. Those who were “disobedient” would be locked in the “punishment room.” During the “punishment” period, they were not allowed to eat, drink, or even use the restroom.
Chi Qing, who had been looking up old news about the orphanage, glanced up at the string of numbers: “There’s no pattern at all. It doesn’t look like a code that needs decrypting.”
While driving, Xie Lin said, “If he is very anxious and impatient to make a bigger scene—having kidnapped so many children, he would feel that not many people are paying attention to him, and not many are panicking because of him. Based on this premise, why did he make this call? Or rather, what can blow the matter up?”
Speaking up to this point, Xie Lin suddenly slammed on the brakes.
“Search the most popular live-streaming platforms right now,” he suddenly thought of something and replied to Su Xiaolan, “See if you can find this stream.”
“A live stream?”
Su Xiaolan found the live-streaming platform with the largest number of users and typed the string of numbers into the search bar. After entering the final “3,” an associated stream page automatically popped up. The stream did not have any name or description yet; it was simply called Room 7108453.
The screen was completely pitch black, displaying: The live stream hasn’t started yet~
Following the link, she clicked into the profile of the stream’s owner and saw a familiar letter ‘Z’. The follower count was 0; it was clearly a newly registered account.
Su Xiaolan had no time to marvel at how the bureau’s consultant could deduce the meaning of this string of numbers in just over ten minutes. Facing this patch of blackness and the words “hasn’t started yet,” her entire body went cold, and her hands and feet became icy.
She dared not think further.
…What on earth did ‘Z’ want to do?
He was insane.
He must be insane.
……
Su Xiaolan covered her mouth, as if this action could suppress her violently racing heartbeat.
In her heart, she thought: He is a lunatic.
Inside a dimly lit room.
A hand rested on a long black rod.
The black rod stood on the ground, estimating over a meter high, with a mounting bracket at the top. The withered hand was currently securing a mobile phone onto the bracket.
“Waaah—”
Directly facing the mobile phone was a chair. A child sat on the chair, hands tied behind his back, with a pendant light hanging overhead.
He stared in terror at the owner of that hand, his legs kicking wildly in the air in an attempt to break free from his restraints and escape.
“Un-Uncle,” the child cried out, “let, let me go…”
“Uncle…”
The person paid absolutely no heed to the child’s crying and screaming.
Click.
The phone was clamped tightly onto the bracket.
The camera was pointed squarely at the crying child.
“It’s starting,” the man said. “Quiet down.”
The camera turned on.
[Welcome to Live-Stream Room 7108453.]
Initially, the viewers were only in the single digits.
—What is this for?
—Filming a TV drama?
—This kid’s acting is pretty good… his voice is already hoarse from screaming.
The lighting in this room was poor, with only a few strange, intersecting red and blue beams of light.
Due to angle and lighting issues, the field of vision was limited. Only the child’s chin, twisting body, unidentified bloodstains on his clothes, and a sharp knife placed on the wooden table in front of him could be seen.
Along with the never-ending screaming.
After watching for a few minutes, the viewers faintly felt that something was off because the child kept screaming, his entire body trembling. It made people’s scalps tingle, and that sense of despair seemed contagious, virtually spilling through the screen.
The direction of the comments section began to shift.
—Something seems a bit off…
—I feel it too, it doesn’t look like acting. If this kid had this kind of acting skill, he’d have won an Oscar long ago.
—Could something have actually happened to this kid?
—A horror stream?
…………
The municipal bureau was in complete chaos. Everyone felt a surge of panic looking at the images on the computer screen: “Contact the streaming platform and ban the stream, quick!”
But ‘Z’ seemed to know what they were thinking. The live-stream room, which originally had no description, suddenly gained a simple intro: You can try banning me.
“……”
“We can’t ban it,” an officer stopped them helplessly. “He’s capable of doing anything. Let’s see how things develop first.”
But the situation was not optimistic.
“The viewer count keeps rising. It jumped from 10,000 to 230,000.”
“It’s still rising. People are discussing it on other platforms and bringing the traffic over.”
This kind of curiosity-driven live stream was rare. More and more people clicked into the stream. Once the numbers grew, the stream naturally appeared on the homepage’s trending list, and the audience snowballed.
The viewers said all kinds of things. Some were just spectating and hoping for more exciting content, while others commented:
—This kid is still crying… his voice is almost gone.
—Forget his voice, his wrists are already rubbed raw by the rope, it looks like he’s bleeding.
—Whether you’re puting on a show or not, don’t treat a child like this. Let the child go.
“Let him go?” A man’s voice suddenly emerged in the stream. The man stood in the dark; none of the viewers could see his face, and they could only vaguely discern a tall, thin figure. He laughed low, “There is only one way for him to leave this place… and that is to become a corpse, and then be chopped up and thrown out by me.”
The comments on the screen surged abruptly.
In an instant, they filled the entire stream screen.
The child was exhausted from crying and had become delirious, repeating over and over: “He-Help me… I want to go home… Mama… help me…”
—Is this fucking kidnapping for real?!
—Where are the police? Call the police quickly.
—Where is this? Can anyone tell?
—With this lighting, and with basically nothing in the room, how can we tell? This isn’t something a normal person can figure out.
By this time, the late-night viewer count had surpassed one million!
They watched helplessly as the tall, thin shadow on the screen picked up the knife on the table. He seemed to feel the knife wasn’t sharp enough; after picking it up, he paused, then turned around to sharpen the knife by the sink.
Screeech.
Screeech, screeech…
The sound of knife sharpening was clearly captured by the phone.
The millions of viewers could do nothing but watch the stream silently through their screens.
However, the turn of events occurred at this exact instant. A violent bang echoed from the entrance. The locked door was kicked open from the outside, and then everyone saw a figure charge like a gust of wind toward the person sharpening the knife.
—Someone’s here?!
—Is it the police???
—Doesn’t look like it, he’s wearing a trench coat. The police should be wearing uniforms.
—I paused it just now and saw the face. For some reason, I think this face looks very familiar.
More than one viewer claimed it looked familiar.
—Me too. So familiar. Logically, a handsome guy of this level shouldn’t have appeared in my life… why does he look familiar?
Among the screen full of comments, someone was the first to realize the reason for the familiarity.
—I remember now! I think I saw him in the social news.
—Social news +1
—Is the social news you guys are talking about… that… Wa- Wanted… News…
Xie Lin, the protagonist of the wanted news, appeared behind the man with lightning speed, reaching out to grab the person’s hair and slamming his head brutally against the sink tiles—he used ten-tenths of his strength with this blow, and ‘Z’s’ forehead collided solidly with it. A few seconds later, crimson blood trickled down the crevices of the tiles into the sink.
Xie Lin said, “You shouldn’t have started a live stream.”
“The lighting here exposed you. The red and blue lights are emitted by the signal lights on the bridge opposite,” as Xie Lin spoke, the red and blue lights filtering through the window happened to illuminate his slightly upturned eyes. “We’ve already uncovered your identity. You would definitely hide in a place related to the orphanage. Combining these two points of information, it wasn’t hard to find this place.”
This place was an suburban amusement park.
Abandoned for a long time, there were few attractions inside. The sign at the entrance was crooked, and the letters on it had darkened over the passage of time. The lawn once used for picnics was overgrown due to neglect, and vines clung to the swings, making it look incredibly desolate.
“The time of the crime was in winter. Pushing the time of the crime back three months lands exactly in autumn,” Xie Lin connected all the pieces of information, speaking word by word, “Ten years ago, the orphanage organized an autumn outing. The location of the outing was this amusement park. If nothing goes wrong, you went missing here back then.”
“And it was also here that you met the killer from back then. For some reason, he didn’t kill you, but instead kept you by his side.”
“Regarding the kidnapping case ten years ago, everyone initially thought he targeted children simply because they were easier to control. But that wasn’t it. Anyone who participated in the game knows very well that he wanted a ‘child’—a child who could survive the game. To put it in another word, an heir. He hoped someone would inherit his absurd ideas and forever preserve that world of ‘evil’ belonging to him.”
The kidnapping case killer from ten years ago simply wanted to find an heir.
An heir with a high IQ, someone even more outstanding than himself, who had undergone his brainwashing and trials since childhood—a criminal heir.
That was why he chose children with top academic grades from various schools.
That was why he had uttered that line in court back then: You cannot kill me.
Because he had already found his heir.
That line the killer uttered in court back then made everyone around him wary of him. Almost no one believed that after experiencing the events of back then, he could still be a trustworthy “genius consultant.” They all believed he was highly likely to commit a crime.
However, the true heir was not the survivor known to the police, but the third survivor standing in front of him—the one who had never been recorded from beginning to end.
The viewers spread across the country in the stream were unable to enjoy the subsequent footage.
They quickly discovered that the person who entered wasn’t just the one who had been on the social news. Another followed behind him. That man was even more absurd; the first thing he did upon entering was pull out a pair of black gloves from his pocket, unhurriedly putting them on as he walked in.
The man only wore one glove, gripping the other black glove in his hand. He walked up to the phone camera, leaning in close. Instantly, a pair of cold, emotionless, deep black eyes filled the entire screen.
In the next second, he raised his ungloved hand and cut off the live stream.
