Chapter 142: Silhouette in the Rain 4
The account named “1” had joined the Dong Feifan fan group ten days ago via an invitation from “Rex Xingxing.” “Rex Xingxing” was one of the fourteen victims and could no longer speak.
Zhuang Ningyu tried to send a friend request, and unexpectedly, the other party accepted it very quickly and even proactively sent a rose emoji. The technicians beside him immediately traced it and found that the entire registration data for this account, including the IP, was overseas, dynamically switching almost every two seconds.
“How is it?” Pei Yuan hurried over upon hearing the news.
“The other party only sent these two messages.” Zhuang Ningyu turned the computer screen toward him.
People in the fan group also noticed the message reporting safety and asked what was going on, but received no answer. A moment later, “1” simply left the fan group.
Zhuang Ningyu directly initiated a video call. The other party didn’t accept but chose to answer with voice only. Thunder and lightning were raging in the mountains at this moment, but the receiver was silent, indicating he was likely indoors or in a very well-sealed vehicle.
The room full of police officers held their breath listening, while technicians raced against time to parse the virtual address. Zhuang Ningyu asked directly, “Where is Pei Zheng?”
“In my hands.” The other party didn’t hide it, using a voice changer. The thin voice sounded like an erratic ghost, seemingly laughing. “Don’t worry, I said it already, he is safe.”
“What are your conditions?” Zhuang Ningyu asked again.
“You’ll have to ask the child’s parents and uncle about that. Please pass on the message: once I decide what I want, I will contact them proactively,” the other party replied. “It’s just that the price might be a bit high. After all, their recent work achievements have really caused me some… distress.”
“Those fourteen young people—”
The other party had already cut the call.
Zhuang Ningyu looked at the technician, who shook his head helplessly. “Too short.”
As for the recent work achievements of Pei Yuan and Pei Zheng’s parents mentioned by the kidnapper, they weren’t exactly secrets in the industry. Even Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke had, on a whim, read the once-popular paper Breakthrough Research on the Enhancement of Ordinary Human Constitution and Clinical Applications of Evolved Genes. Though they didn’t understand it—both falling asleep before finishing two pages, and falling asleep again when they tried to read it the next night out of disbelief.
Using drugs to “force-ripen” ordinary people into Evolved individuals violated medical ethics. However, researching Evolved genes to legally apply them to the medical field, conquer various diseases, and optimize the general population’s constitution was something governments had been doing continuously. Pei Yuan and the Jincheng Evolved Center’s research experiments had produced many results, and Pei Zheng’s parents had also been cooperating with the R Government.
“Why would such positive scientific research cause distress to a kidnapper?” a police officer wondered.
“The most direct reason is that it affects his interests,” Zhuang Ningyu answered. “For example, if a certain disease can only be cured by Company A’s patented drug costing hundreds of thousands or millions for a treatment course, but now, thanks to Director Pei’s research, it might only cost a few dozen yuan to cure, then naturally, someone in between is going to be unhappy.”
“Is there such a company?” the police officer asked.
Pei Yuan shook his head. “This research is currently still in the preliminary stages and hasn’t been applied to specific fields.”
The kidnapper didn’t specify their demands, only vaguely mentioning work achievements. But clearly, this kind of scientific research project couldn’t be “ransom.” Moreover, Pei Yuan said, “This research is led by the International Association for Humanitarianism and Equal Rights to Life, so the vast majority of the results will be open and shared. There is no possibility of using Xiao Zheng to exchange for key data.”
Naturally, there was also no possibility of using Pei Zheng to threaten Pei’s parents to terminate related experiments. Since the results came out, many laboratories globally had started further research based on them. The spark had started a prairie fire, burning everywhere. Even if Andao Medical closed down completely right now, it wouldn’t hinder related experiments from continuing.
Zhuang Ningyu sent a few more messages, but it showed that his account had been blocked by the other party.
A driver brought Tian Luxin in. She hadn’t expected that the music festival, which was a carnival just yesterday, would become the scene of a tragedy involving over a dozen lives today. Even less did she expect that the young man who gave her a ride home would be a Southeast Asian triad boss. Looking at the wanted poster on the computer, she nodded. “Yes, it’s this person. But he claimed his name was Alyosha, an exchange student from Russia at Jin University.”
“When did you meet?” Zhuang Ningyu asked.
“Yesterday, just met at the music festival,” Tian Luxin replied.
In such places, making friends was fast, especially for handsome men and beautiful women. Tian Luxin continued, “He might have misunderstood my intentions, thinking something more could develop. We agreed last night that he’d give me a ride home because it was on the way, but halfway through, he proposed going to some friend’s party. After I refused, he wouldn’t stop the car and stepped on the gas harder.”
“And then?”
“Then, I have a habit of carrying a multi-functional self-defense keychain with a window breaker on it.”
Before breaking the window, Tian Luxin feigned panic and argued with him for a bit until she was sure her phone had recorded sufficient evidence—enough to pin him with at least a violation of the Public Security Administration Punishments Law if not illegal detention. Only then did she press the window breaker against the locked passenger window and push hard!
With a crash, the entire pane shattered into a spiderweb. Because of the sun protection film, it didn’t shatter everywhere but fell out in one complete piece. Wind and rain instantly poured into the car window. Roman was clearly startled, probably not expecting her to be so daring. Seeing Tian Luxin already had one leg out the window and a lit police station not far away, he could only stop the car by the roadside.
“Since he didn’t actually violate me, I didn’t report it to the police,” Tian Luxin said. “I went home and slept, just counting it as bad luck.”
Everyone listened to the recording on Tian Luxin’s phone, which matched her description. The two spoke in English throughout. It was evident that Roman’s Chinese proficiency was limited to “I love you” and shouting nasty profanities in frustration. Moreover, since he had been with Tian Luxin since 3:00 PM yesterday, he didn’t have the time to commit the kidnapping or murders.
The blue Porsche was currently parked in a simple municipal parking lot—a public facility with no barrier records and broken cameras. They could only judge by location that shortly after Tian Luxin got out, Roman abandoned the car there and vanished without a trace.
“What about Qin Ya? Found her?” Zhuang Ningyu asked.
“Last night after going up the mountain, she parked her car in the East Zone parking lot and then went towards Stage 3. But it was completely dark and raining then, making it hard to search,” Lin Daguan said. “Currently, the car is still parked in the old spot. As for the person, like Roman, she’s disappeared.”
Based on the license plate and travel route of the blue Porsche, the police quickly uncovered more information. The owner was a ne’er-do-well second-generation rich kid from a suburban county. He claimed he met Roman at a bar, felt they had become friends, and readily lent him the car. upon further investigation, everyone discovered that Roman had been frequenting major nightclubs in Jincheng for as long as two months. His daily routine involved hitting on various beautiful women. Some he succeeded with, some he didn’t, but they had one common trait: they were all Evolved. Roman himself was an A-level Evolved individual. He seemed to have a fetish for Evolved individuals; in Southeast Asia, his requirement for bed partners was also that they be Evolved.
His phone suddenly vibrated lightly. Zhuang Ningyu picked it up to see a photo sent by the kidnapper. Pei Zheng’s hands and feet were bound, and his mouth was taped shut. The surroundings were painted pitch black, making it impossible to tell where he was. It seemed intended only to prove to the police that the hostage was indeed “very safe.”
Pei Yuan propped his forehead with one hand, his temples throbbing with pain as if they were about to explode.
Yi Ke remained in the mountains with the search and rescue team until late at night. Everyone’s biggest fear was another crime scene popping up somewhere with a new group of victims. Fortunately, after careful reconnaissance by drones, the rest of the dense forest showed no abnormalities.
The search in the mountains came to a temporary halt, and there was no need for everyone to stay in the forest park. Since no Rule Zone had appeared, the homicide case was primarily the police’s responsibility. Around 3:00 AM, Zhuang Ningyu drove back to Guanxing Tower. Only after stopping the car gently did he wake the person sleeping in the passenger seat. “We’re home.”
Water splashed in the bathroom. The slightly hot water washed away some of the bone-deep fatigue. Combined with the few dozen minutes of napping in the car, Yi Ke wasn’t sleepy anymore. Lying in bed, he asked the person in his arms, “How are your knees?”
“Fine. Uncle Lin kept making me warm them by the fire. Not swollen anymore.” Zhuang Ningyu rubbed his sore eyes.
Hearing the unconcealed exhaustion in his voice, Yi Ke didn’t say more. After turning off the bedside lamp, he held the person close, kissed his hair, and said, “Sleep for a while.”
Outside, the sky was nearly brightening. The curtains weren’t fully drawn, leaving a small slit through which faint light spilled in. Yi Ke patted the person in his arms gently, listening as his breathing went from light to gradually deep and long. At this moment, the phone on the bedside table suddenly lit up. Yi Ke, with quick eyes and hands, propped himself up before it could vibrate, reached over Zhuang Ningyu, grabbed it, and pressed the mute button. The movement was a bit large, and Zhuang Ningyu frowned in his sleep. However, before he could wake up, he was pulled back into a broad, solid embrace. The world became stable again, and Yi Ke whispered in his ear, “It’s okay, wifey. Sleep a bit longer.”
Hearing the familiar voice, Zhuang Ningyu’s tense body softened, and he buried himself back into the embrace. He liked sleeping with his knees bent, sometimes even hugging them. Yi Ke, however, felt that this position couldn’t possibly be comfortable and worried it might aggravate the old knee injury. So, he always tried to sneakily straighten his wife’s legs. But he either straightened the person awake, earning a slap, or straightened them into a half-asleep state, earning another slap. The failure rate was 100%. Currently, he could only let it be, comforting himself that sleeping a little was better than not sleeping at all.
Only when he confirmed the person in his arms had fallen into a deep sleep again did Yi Ke pick up the phone on the bed. The screen lit up. The moment he saw the content of the dialogue box, his brows knitted tightly, his eyes dark and unreadable.
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t sleep for long, waking up over two hours later. He asked groggily, “Any news?”
“Not about Xiao Pei, but there’s new information from the kidnapper and the police.” Yi Ke handed him an opened bottle of mineral water.
Zhuang Ningyu sobered up instantly. Ignoring the water, he grabbed his own phone to check. Around 6:00 AM this morning, the kidnapper had unblocked him and sent a new sentence—
“When we shall meet at compt.”
It was a line from a Shakespeare play. In context, it roughly meant “When we meet on Judgment Day.”
The sentence itself didn’t have any special meaning. It could be seen as pure provocation from the kidnapper or satisfying some weird sense of ritual. The problem lay in the fact that in the play, it was spoken by a husband to his wife. Thanks to comparisons with peers, Yi Ke now felt even Fu Han looked pleasing to the eye. Although the kidnapper used a voice changer, and this style of occasionally sending literary madness to harass someone else’s sweet-smelling wife was very much like Fu Han, Yi Ke insisted it definitely wasn’t him. Fu Han had more class than this.
Zhuang Ningyu: “I never expected there would be a day when you’d speak up for Fu Han.”
Yi Ke took the half-empty water bottle from his hand. “Director Liu also sent you a message. Be mentally prepared before looking.”
Hearing this, Zhuang Ningyu frowned slightly, feeling a vague unease in his heart. He hesitantly opened the file on his phone. After reading just a few lines, his pupils constricted as expected.
On the same day the fourteen fans were murdered, at least eight similar cases occurred globally. Groups of young people of different nationalities and skin colors died in various desolate places in an extremely bizarre manner, resembling a ritual sacrifice.
Zhuang Ningyu’s fingertips turned cold. A premeditated, large-scale, unified… cult?
“How is the recovery of the victims’ chat records going?” he asked.
“Already restored,” Yi Ke said.
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t even put on his shoes, jumping off the bed and running barefoot toward the study.
“Also about Dong Feifan,” Yi Ke followed with slippers, squatting down to help him put them on. “Ouyang Yanfen has woken up.”
Ouyang Yanfen was Dong Feifan’s manager. Because she fainted so quickly yesterday—dropping at the drop of a hat—even Dong Feifan himself felt something was wrong. He had dramatically imagined a huge scenario where his manager was drug trafficking and facing divine retribution. But when she finally woke up and the police questioned her, they discovered she had simply fainted out of worry for her and her artist’s future.
The manager sister, trembling and speaking with a voice turned raspy from excessive shock, held Dong Feifan’s hand. “We worked so hard to make it, and now this happens. Over a dozen of your fans committed suicide together around five o’clock, and your hit song is called Sunset at 4:50 PM. Do you really not realize what this represents?”
Dong Feifan said, “It represents that we might have to go back underground again. Sister, don’t cry yet.”
You sure have a good mentality. Ouyang Yanfen hugged a large box of tissues, crying incessantly. “Why did those young people just…”
Dong Feifan couldn’t figure it out either. Mainly because the song Sunset at 4:50 PM, although poorly named sounding like things were on the decline, actually had very positive content. The theme described a story of Evolved individuals overcoming difficulties to save the Earth. It was high-energy and hot-blooded. This… Sigh, how did people listen to it and end up gone?
On the other side, Zhuang Ningyu was also listening to Dong Feifan’s album. It was indeed decent—not cynical, no profanity, with a sense of justice like a wholesome youth singing rock. The themes of the singles ranged from saving the neighborhood to saving the city to saving the world. Not depressing in the slightest. The level of adrenaline was such that, as netizens put it, even a capybara would run two steps after listening.
It seemed highly unlikely that this kind of song would generate suicidal thoughts in people.
