37 – The Culprit Who Killed His Parents

Chapter 37: The Culprit Who Killed His Parents

“Is he a friend?”

A moment later, when Xie Qingcheng hung up the phone and returned to the living room, He Yu asked.

Xie Qingcheng had no intention of explaining in detail. He figured that Young Master He, with his severe forgetfulness, would have long since forgotten a mere acquaintance from a single meal. Judging it so, he gave a brief reply.

“Something like that.”

“He said he just got off work and would come straight here.”

“I turned him down.”

After finishing the call, Xie Qingcheng stopped by the kitchen to bring out the noodles. Young Master He unauthorized copydidn’t [unauthorized copy]even think of [unauthorized copy]helping; instead, he watched him from the side like some great lord, prying relentlessly about Chen Man.

“Why are you so interested in the teacher?”

“I told you. He’s a friend.”

“He sounded young on the phone. How old is he?”

“Around your age.”

“Professor Xie has a lot of friends with big age gaps,” He Yu added.

“Don’t you feel a generation gap?”

“…….”

Stunned, Xie Qingcheng clattered his chopsticks down. His gaze toward He Yu turned cold.

“What are you, the Galactic Police? Why are you so nosy? What does my social life have to do with you?”

At that, He Yu shut his mouth.

In truth, he had nothing to say. Once he regained his composure, he felt he had been too sensitive. Why bother worrying about such a trivial matter?

Xie Qingcheng pushed the noodles, topped with a soft-boiled fried egg, toward He Yu.

“Eat. I’m going to call your father.”

* * *

At the same time.

Inside an office in one of the lecture [unauthorized copy]buildings at Huzhou unauthorized copyUniversity. Zhang Yong was curled up in a dark corner. [Read on Read BL Novels]The office door was tightly shut.

Beads of sweat formed on the man’s forehead. He tried to wipe them away with a handkerchief, but the cloth was so soaked it could have been wrung out.

His tiny, pig-like eyes stared intently at the steel door. It was the only entrance for outsiders. He had been watching it like this for a long time. The moment the photos of Wang Jiankang’s body were released, he knew he was the next target.

He, too, had been an accomplice in the human experiments at Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital. Furthermore, he had played the role of a pimp, bringing in women who had lost their sanity and delivering them to men during business meetings.

The women admitted to the psychiatric hospital were quite pretty. There were even Huzhou University students who had been deceived into entering for treatment. Being obedient, they were excellent tools that not only aroused the desire for violation in numerous men but also guaranteed safety.

This was because few people worried about the patients’ mental states or took their words seriously. Some patients, driven mad by the abuse, suffered from memory loss and lived completely forgetting their own daily lives.

Pregnancy didn’t matter. Zhang Yong’s gang and Liang Jicheng of Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital had been long-term partners. Liang Jicheng, who was an expert at cleaning up, found tight-lipped researchers to “cleanly” dispose of the evidence.

But…

But I didn’t start this because I wanted to!

He had simply been swayed by the urging of a senior in the industry. The man had tempted him to work together, dangling massive profits and sexual resources. He claimed they were all brothers in the same boat, so if an accident happened, they would take responsibility together.

After Qingkang Psychiatric Hospital burned down, the man comforted everyone, saying the cleanup had been completed perfectly. He explained that only the building where Liang Jicheng was located had been caught by the police, and the rest of the evidence had been thoroughly destroyed, so there was no need to worry.

And yet, Wang Jiankang had suddenly died a gruesome death.

The initials of his and another colleague’s surnames were also listed in the murder target video. The eerie handkerchief game unfolding behind the initials hinted at his own death.

Zhang Yong had witnessed the “control tower” just as he was leaving the lecture building. Terrified and panicked, he called ‘that person’ while running frantically.

The other party answered soon. Pleasant, relaxing music drifted into his ears. He could faintly hear the voice of a foreign masseuse asking about the pressure of the massage.

Our lives are about to vanish.

And that man was leisurely enjoying a spa.

-Hello? Hello!

Fury surged to the top of his head. Resentment and fear arrived simultaneously. Even though he suppressed his voice, the anger would not be contained. The fear went without saying.

-Hello!

-Ah.

Only then did the other party respond with a laugh.

-Director Zhang. You’re not asleep at this hour. What is the matter?

Zhang Yong felt as if the blood vessels in his brain were about to burst. His voice was distorted and messy.

-Stop pretending! Wang Jiankang is dead! A Read on Read BL Novelsbrother is dead! You said you cleaned up the Qingkang side perfectly! You told unauthorized copyme not to worry, so what the hell is happening now! Huh?

-Hmm… good. A bit stronger on the shoulders.

After saying a few words in English to the masseuse, the man spoke to Zhang Yong in a leisurely voice.

-Brother, the Qingkang cleanup was finished cleanly. But what can I do if the dogs over there caught the scent of blood remaining in the ground and stubbornly followed it to the front door?

-That’s none of my business! Fix this right now! You’re the one who profited the most among us! So…

At that moment, the other party laughed and cut Zhang Yong off.

-Director Zhang, that’s just how the world works—it’s unfair sometimes. Are you a grown adult and still don’t know this truth?

Drenched in sweat, Zhang Yong glared at his phone. This man would no longer help him. If anything, he might even try to kill him.

This is the result of shaking hands with villains.

The moment he looked up at the blood-red control tower, Zhang Yong shuddered as if waking from a dream, threw the signal-tracked phone into the bushes, and bolted back toward the lecture building.

And so, he was now cowering and trembling in an office in the lecture building.

Huzhou University had a vast number of buildings. If one counted the office and classroom doors, there would be at least a thousand.

Since he had even discarded his smartwatch with the location-tracking feature, he was surely safe. His plan was to surrender to the police after surviving tonight.

He had firmly decided. He couldn’t hope for luck in this situation. If he surrendered, he might receive a reduced sentence. At least he wouldn’t be strangled to death while naked like Wang Jiankang…

Recalling Wang Jiankang’s dead appearance, Zhang Yong shuddered again. He swallowed hard. He felt as if the silhouette of Jiang Lanpei was flickering before his eyes. He felt as if a ghost in a red skirt and high heels would come and take him away.

“Hush!”

Trembling, he comforted himself in a small voice.

“Hush! Stop these useless thoughts. There are no ghosts! There are no ghosts in this world!”

It was then. As if to contradict those words, suddenly—.

A woman’s low laughter echoed through the sealed space.

“Hehe…”

Zhang Yong leaped up in terror. His features were completely distorted.

“Who is it! Who’s there!”

Silence followed.

Was that laughter just a hallucination?

His plump back, with sweat flowing like rain, pressed tightly against the cold wall. He had intentionally chosen an office without windows. It was a very narrow space, without even a cabinet large enough for a person to hide in. Where on earth could such a sound come from? Zhang Yong was soaked in sweat like a live fish just pulled from water. His heart felt as if it would jump out of his mouth.

The next moment, the segment that always comes in a death game arrived.

The singing began to echo once more.

-Throw it… throw it… throw the handkerchief, throw it softly behind the little one, no one must tell the little one…

He had thrown away his phone long ago.

Where was this stiff electronic voice coming from? Was there another phone somewhere? He clung to hope and comforted himself. Could someone have left a phone in this office?

With legs that had lost their strength, Zhang Yong struggled to maintain his balance and searched for the direction of the sound.

Following the singing, his eyes, bulging like a bullfrog’s, rolled upward. [unauthorized copy]Toward the visit our siteceiling… and above his head…

“Aaaagh!”

Zhang Yong’s scream echoed miserably throughout every corner of the lecture building.

The air conditioning vent!

The vent cover had disappeared, opened at some point. In the empty space above the ceiling, a woman with red clothes and scattered black hair looked down at him coldly and gave a ghastly smile.

Zhang Yong, who had underlying cardiovascular disease, turned pale as a ghost in an instant. His lips turned blue. His fat chest, adorned with a Shakyamuni pendant necklace, heaved violently.

He couldn’t breathe properly. Clutching his chest, Zhang Yong staggered backward and collapsed onto the floor.

The space above the ceiling made of gypsum board was quite wide. It was common for cats or rats to run around up there. The air conditioner was a model with an old-fashioned covered vent. Zhang Yong had failed to realize that the space was large enough for a person to crawl through.

Soon after, the woman jumped down from the vent. In her hand was a razor-sharp knife.

“You… you are…!”

In the midst of extreme terror, Zhang Yong saw the woman’s face clearly. A face as seductive and beautiful as a moon hidden behind clouds. But at this moment, she resembled a demon crawling out of hell.

Jiang Liping.

The woman was Jiang Liping!

“Now that you’ve seen my face, you can’t leave here alive.”

Jiang Liping approached him with a smile.

“How do you want to die? Knife? Gun? There’s no better way to die in one go than this…”

“You, you were one of them too? Not [Read on Read BL Novels]just some… visit our siteslut who sells [Read on Read BL Novels]her body, but you, you… were one of them too?”

“That’s right. I work there too.”

Jiang Liping beamed.

“That’s why I have to suffer among greasy old men who are rotten to the core, like you and Jin Zongyi, isn’t it?”

Zhang Yong retreated repeatedly. Clutching his chest, he scrambled backward on his knees, glancing sideways at the steel door behind him. And then—.

Bang!

Where did such strength come from? Driven by an instinctive survival urge, he exploded like a wild animal, kicked open the door, and bolted outside.

Jiang Liping’s eyes darkened.

Trying to run?

It’s useless even if you run.

All sorts of killing traps are laid around here. Even if he escapes, only the method of death will change.

Jiang Liping decided there was no need to chase a man who had gone half-mad. Of course, with police swarming outside, it was impossible to pursue him even if she wanted to. This was exactly why she had moved while hiding above the gypsum ceiling.

“Boss, Zhang Yong escaped from classroom 4406.”

Jiang Liping whispered into a specially made miniature microphone.

“Toward Exit 3. I’ll go to Exit 6, so please send the people you’re raising.”

Zhang Yong escaped the lecture building, wetting himself. As immense screams and signs of presence were felt, not only the police but even police cars quickly approached.

To think the day would come when the sirens he feared even in visit our sitehis dreams would sound like an orchestra stolen contentof salvation. Washing his visit our siteface with sweat, Zhang Yong shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Help me! Help me! I’ll surrender! I’ll report everything! Save me… there’s a killer in that building…!”

He ran frantically, panting for breath. The Shakyamuni pendant around his neck swung over his chest. Even at this moment, Zhang Yong was completely unaware that an electronic signal light was blinking from a small hole in the pendant.

If you seek the Buddha with a filthy heart, would that truly be the Buddha?

Perhaps if it were a demon.

His colleagues had already finished their calculations. The moment you kneel and pray to the Buddha, they will be watching your fragility and hesitation from behind.

With the intent to remove the rotten meat of the organization soon.

“Please save me… help me… help me!”

The police guarding the area heard the pitiful screams and rushed toward him, fully armed.

With wide, frantic eyes, Zhang Yong squeezed out every last bit of strength and ran toward the police. He looked like a person swimming desperately toward the shore in a storm.

I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die…

Just a little more…

Just a little…

The distance closed until the tense, firm expression of the police officer came into view. Crying, he reached out to them.

“Save me. I’ll tell you everything, I’ll tell you everything. Actually—”

Bang!

A deafening roar that made the hair on the back of one’s neck stand up erupted.

The voice that was about to reveal a secret stopped abruptly.

A deathly silence.

Just as Zhang Yong ran across the crosswalk to join the police, a school cafeteria freezer truck parked in a side alley charged at him with a terrifying engine roar.

Everyone froze in place for a moment. They could only stare blankly at Zhang Yong being flung away as he was hit by the freezer truck.

With a thud and the sound of a skull shattering, blood splattered on the ground. The plump body, having already breathed its last, slammed helplessly onto the pavement. The freezer truck, with its headlights on, crushed the sprawled corpse, flattening half of Zhang Yong’s body.

“Team Leader Zheng!”

How much terrifying silence had passed?

A quick-witted officer shouted loudly. His [Read on Read BL Novels]voice was unauthorized copyunauthorized copyslightly cracked, perhaps because he was quite shocked by the sudden accident.

“Look at that! There’s no one in the driver’s seat of the truck! It’s autonomous! The car moved on its own! This is unbelievable!”

Zheng Jingfeng, who was in charge of this sudden incident, was a veteran detective. The moment he witnessed Zhang Yong being hit and killed, something flashed through his mind. It felt as if a certain incident from nineteen years ago was being reenacted before his eyes. As that gruesome scene surfaced in his head, Zheng Jingfeng’s expression turned grave.

He shouted loudly to everyone.

“Get down! Everyone get down!”

Bang!

Almost simultaneously, an explosion that battered the eardrums rang out. Sparks flew from the empty driver’s seat of the freezer truck, and the entire front of the vehicle was engulfed in flames.

Coughing as he rose from the ground, Zheng Jingfeng breathed heavily and stared at the half-burned vehicle. An autonomous cargo truck, a driver’s seat that exploded after hitting a person, a crushed corpse on the ground… Amidst the dazzling flames, the veteran detective’s face distorted hideously.

It felt as if he had returned to that day nineteen years ago.

The scene unfolding before him was almost identical to that day.

The only difference was that the people lying under the wheels back then were his two colleagues, a married couple.

Xie Ping and Zhou Muying.

-Throw it… throw it… throw the handkerchief, throw it softly behind the little one, no one must tell the little one…

The second target’s death.

Once again, the gentle and eerie nursery rhyme echoed across the Huzhou University campus through countless mobile devices.

Silence followed for a few seconds. Soon after, the entire campus heaved up and down like the stomach of a giant. The clamor of thousands of teachers and students vibrated like seismic waves, battering the eardrums.

Countless heads bowed, staring at their phone screens in terror.

The RPG character who had been standing behind the initial Z stopped in place. The girl character grabbed the boy character. A bright red handkerchief lay behind the boy character who had fallen to the ground. Pixelated electronic flames blazed atop the boy character’s body.

Then, the content of the video changed.

This time, it was a photo taken with a telephoto lens, zoomed in from above.

The flames in the photo swallowed the front of the freezer truck. The body of Zhang Yong, fallen before the burning monster, was half-crushed like mud.

“Someone died again!”

“I know this person! Zhang Yong! He’s the Director of the University’s External Relations Office!”

“Z was Zhang Yong…”

This horrific scene was reflected in tens of thousands of eyes through phone screens. Among them, a [visit our site]pair of sharp [visit our site]peach Read on Read BL Novelsblossom eyes stared at the photo, wide with shock.

Xie Qingcheng’s entire body froze.

His blood turned ice-cold in an instant.

Today, right now, in this serial murder case… to see a scene where a self-driving truck hits a person and explodes in flames. He simply couldn’t believe it.

He felt as if he were being strangled by an invisible hand and dragged into deep darkness. The corpse of Zhang Yong in the photo overlapped with the nightmares he had been unable to shake off.

A nightmare that had lasted for a full nineteen years…

The answer he had been forced to gloomily give up on, never having found it…

His cold hand let go of the cup. The cup fell to the floor and shattered instantly.

“Xie Qingcheng, what’s wrong?”

He Yu felt that Xie Qingcheng’s emotions were unusual. Xie Qingcheng’s state was completely different from when he had seen the first photo.

When Wang Jiankang died, Xie Qingcheng had been perfectly normal. He analyzed the situation, returned to the dormitory as the police requested, and clearly distinguished between what he should and should not do.

But now that Zhang Yong’s photo had appeared, Xie Qingcheng treated He Yu as if he were nothing more than air. He didn’t even analyze the situation calmly. With a pale face, sinking into his own thoughts while holding his phone, he pressed the call button and stepped into Xie Xue’s bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

The only part of the conversation He Yu overheard was Xie Qingcheng’s greeting.

“Detective Zheng, it’s me.”