Several people hurriedly called out to Tang Shen to pause the work for the moment and brought the man out.
“Your dad is in there?”
Upon closer thought, among people with the same surname, there was only the hunter Zhang Anfu.
“I was really just saying it casually.” Xiao Fen said with a wry smile.
Earlier, he had been joking around. Zhang Jian kept bringing up his dad, who knew how to make knockout drugs and skin animals. The more he talked, the more it seemed like his dad fit the suspect profile.
He never expected to actually see his dad in the interrogation room.
What a damn coincidence.
“You can’t participate in this case anymore,” Fang Si Ting said.
At the same time, everything Zhang Jian had handled before, and everyone he had questioned, needed to be re-examined and re-interrogated.
This undoubtedly increased their workload.
“I know.” Zhang Jian was at a complete loss, panicking badly. “My dad really wouldn’t…”
Be that killer, right?
He couldn’t bring himself to say it.
His whole body trembled. A tough guy in his thirties broke down, clutching his head as if he was about to cry.
“We’re just conducting a normal interrogation. Whether it is or isn’t will depend on the evidence,” Fang Si Ting said. “If it’s really not him, then have a bit more confidence in his character and daily behavior.”
Those cold words became the pillar supporting his spirit at that moment.
Forget everything else—just look at the evidence.
Who understood his own father better than he, the son? How could even he start doubting?
He slowly stood up from the ground. He let Peng Xiaoxiao take him to the office next door to calm down first.
“Inspector Fang, why do I feel like you’ve become a bit more humane?” Xiao Fen smiled faintly.
Fang Si Ting walked toward the observation room with a cold expression.
“You taught me—put yourself in the victim’s persecution process.”
“How does it feel?”
“A man who can raise a son like that doesn’t have the brains for it.”
“…”
Just as he finished speaking, Fang Si Ting’s body was bumped.
Xiao Fen passed by his side.
“What’s got you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
What an oblivious guy.
He turned on the microphone and told Tang Shen they could begin.
Tang Shen briefly explained the reason he had called them. Of course, he didn’t mention that this talisman was related to the murder case; he just said it was a task arranged by the program crew.
According to the customs in Tengcha, talismans had to be carried on one’s person to be effective.
From the moment they were notified to come here, they hadn’t left the vice squad officers’ sight, so they could only obediently show up.
“Now, take out the protective peace talismans you’re carrying,” Tang Shen said.
Whoever didn’t have one could basically be proven as the killer.
The first was Zhang Anfu by the door. He quickly untied a talisman from his keychain.
Tang Shen opened it and saw that the patterns matched the talisman left at the crime scene—it was indeed a peace talisman.
Several vice squad officers secretly breathed a sigh of relief. After all, arresting a colleague’s family member was something that weighed on the heart.
Next to him, Wan Xueyi moved his sturdy arm, adjusted his belt, untied the string hanging separately from it, and revealed the peace talisman attached.
Next was Wu Lifu, who wordlessly and deftly untied it from his keychain.
Suddenly, three people were eliminated.
Xiao Fen and Fang Si Ting couldn’t help holding their breath.
“It’s okay, there are still two left.”
The live stream chat exploded.
【Classic two-choice scenario. Who’s the bastard? Come out and face justice.】
【So tense. I haven’t felt this way watching TV dramas or movies.】
【Heaven forbid, we must catch the real killer. Mayor Guo died so unjustly. Wuwu, I’m still furious. Such a good person.】
【These ungrateful wolves—the ones who tormented and killed him are the worst of the lot. They should be torn limb from limb!】
【Why do good people end up like this? Sigh.】
Zhong Houwang made the first move, searching his body.
Liu Junming was also rummaging around.
“Didn’t your pursuit team just check… Where did mine go? It wasn’t stolen, was it?” Zhong Houwang muttered, going through a big bunch of keychains one by one. “My talisman is really here. I just saw it a few days ago; I strung it right here.”
【Feels like the Zhong guy’s a bit nervous.】
【Making excuses.】
【He’s definitely the killer. The more he explains, the guiltier he looks.】
Zhong Houwang was indeed nervous. After searching through the keys and setting them on the table, he started patting down his whole body. In his urgency to prove himself, he emptied all his pockets.
“I’d die without it…” His lips paled, and he grew more frantic, even taking off his jacket.
Suddenly, he thought of something, hurriedly took off his shoes, pulled out the insoles, and retrieved a talisman from the sole.
He relaxed completely, like surviving a disaster, holding the talisman out to Tang Shen.
Tang Shen opened it—it was also a peace talisman.
The live stream cameras considerately focused on the last person.
The former clinic doctor, Liu Junming.
“Prepare to make the arrest,” Fang Si Ting whispered.
Liu Junming patted himself down everywhere. He had clearly noticed Tang Shen’s expression starting to change.
The two vice squad officers standing in the corners behind and to the sides of the room slowly closed in.
“Wait, aren’t you guys doing a show? Why does this feel so real?” Liu Junming wiped his sweat, imitating Zhong Houwang by taking off his clothes and shaking them vigorously.
The moment the peace talisman fell out, the atmosphere in the room shifted.
All the vice squad officers were stunned by the scene.
Including Fang Si Ting and Xiao Fen behind the mirror.
For a moment, no one knew what to say.
“Is this yours?” Tang Shen picked up the talisman paper from the ground.
“Yeah, it is.” Liu Junming reached for it, but Tang Shen stopped him.
Tang Shen quickly opened it—it was also a peace talisman.
Five suspects, five talismans.
Not a single one was missing theirs.
“Was that talisman in the hospital really Lu Kaiyu’s?” Even Xiao Fen started to doubt.
“Doesn’t add up,” Fang Si Ting said. “When Lu Kaiyu was moved to the ward, he was still a block of ice. Not even a corner of his patient gown could be lifted. If it was really on Lu Kaiyu, it wouldn’t have fallen off.”
“True, the killer couldn’t…”
Xiao Fen suddenly looked up.
“What did you think of?” Fang Si Ting asked.
“Did we miss someone?” Xiao Fen said. “Wang Wenfang and the fake wizard.”
“The shaman might kill, but we don’t have concrete evidence right now.”
“And Wang Wenfang—she raises pigs, which matches the smell on the talisman paper. As a woman, she’s smaller than a man, but someone who feeds pigs, catches pigs, and does farm work should have the strength to handle a dead man’s body.”
Fang Si Ting fell into thought.
“If we have to, we can push the timeline back further. Two months is too arbitrary without scientific basis.”
Fang Si Ting looked at him. After a few seconds, he suddenly said, “You seem a bit anxious?”
Xiao Fen was slightly stunned.
How did he seem to read his emotions so quickly?
“I…” Xiao Fen immediately adjusted himself and sighed. “So many people have died already. Aren’t you anxious?”
“I am.” Fang Si Ting calmly uttered the two words.
He paused, then hesitantly raised his hand before finally placing it on his shoulder.
Xiao Fen felt the force on his left shoulder and looked up in confusion.
“Don’t worry, we’ll catch the killer,” he said seriously, his eyes solemn, as if making a particularly important promise.
Xiao Fen’s heart tightened slightly.
“Okay.”
He had always believed that.
“It’s getting late. Go back and rest first.”
“Mm.”
Xiao Fen left the observation room, turned the corner, and entered the adjacent interrogation room.
“Let them go back first.”
“What about the talisman papers…”
Xiao Fen walked in holding an evidence bag. “The program crew needs them for filming. We’ll take them back temporarily and return them later. You can claim new ones from our staff.”
Tricking the program crew was something he was always happy to do.
Everyone left one after another.
Tang Shen collected each talisman paper into evidence bags, wrote each person’s identity and number on the bags, and casually handed some to Xiao Fen to hold.
“Tang Shen, did you send that soil I found by the clinic window to the city for testing?”
“Not yet. It’s been raining lately, so helicopters can’t fly easily. But I heard the typhoon will pass tonight, and tomorrow should be clear skies.”
“Yeah, after every typhoon, it’s always clear and hot.”
“Afraid of the heat? No worries, we have AC. Y Country is south of H Country; it’s still hot in October. A lot of folks in the team aren’t used to it.” Tang Shen laughed. “The boss wouldn’t let you get heatstroke, would he?”
Xiao Fen ignored his teasing. “Tomorrow, have Brother Ou Yu sniff the soil. He could even pick up on the smell from the talisman paper. What if he knows something about this too?”
“You think that’s okay?” Tang Shen was a bit skeptical.
“Keep them safe. I’m going to grab my luggage.” Xiao Fen handed back the five evidence bags.
It was already 6 p.m. when he came out—dinnertime for everyone.
The raindrops overhead had indeed lessened.
The wind had died down too.
On the ancient stone slab road, only puddles in the cracks remained, struggling to reflect the gray, overcast sky.
With each step, water squirted up from the cracks.
This kind of road easily made one’s feet dirty and wet.
Sister-in-law Jinlan was making paper effigies at the door.
Snow-white faces, bright red round faces, eerie smiling faces, and the ever-present deep blue paper clothes.
She hummed a tune while skillfully applying paste to the edges of white paper and folding it into thin bamboo splints.
With all the recent “accidents” in town, her paper effigy business was booming; she could hardly keep up.
“Little Fen’s here.” She greeted him enthusiastically, eyes full of smiles.
“Mm.” Xiao Fen responded and asked, “Is Brother Ou Yu back?”
“He’s back, in your room.”
Xiao Fen went straight upstairs, opened the door, and saw Ou Yu leaning against the headboard with his phone, listening to music.
“Here for your luggage?”
“Yeah.”
“I packed it for you.” Ou Yu smiled. “With how scatterbrained you are, I wouldn’t trust you to do it. Otherwise, you’d be coming over every few days, and Inspector Fang might think you’re making excuses to see me.”
“What are you saying? He wouldn’t think that.”
“Won’t you stay for dinner?” Ou Yu got up to help with the luggage. “Sister-in-law Jinlan’s waiting for you to praise her cooking. She says among everyone who’s eaten her food, your praise was the most sincere.”
He laughed as he said it.
Sister-in-law Jinlan’s cooking used to be bland and watery, but ever since Xiao Fen praised it, she learned online every day, and her skills varied.
Xiao Fen laughed too, took a few steps, then suddenly grabbed Ou Yu’s hand as he pushed the luggage and looked at him solemnly.
“If I wanted revenge, would you help me?”
————
10 p.m. that night.
A shadowy figure shouldered a large sack and sneaked in through the back door of the Five Directions God Temple.
The temple was pitch black at night. To prevent fires, all candles were extinguished, with only a few scattered lights.
The black shadow dragged out a cart he had previously found and hidden— the kind used by temples or ordinary families for elderly shopping, capable of holding hundreds of pounds of rice.
He struggled to move the sack onto the cart and pushed it unimpeded all the way to the door of the refectory hall, where he encountered the threshold.
He dragged the sack into the refectory hall and, before entering, remembered to move the cart away.
Because it was no longer needed.
He opened the sack, revealing a person inside.
If one borrowed the faint, hazy light from the roadside ground, they could vaguely make out the face of the shaman.
Or rather, the fake shaman.
His eyes were tightly closed, lying powerless on the ground, life or death unknown.
Next, he needed to skin the man here.
This excited him; his blood boiled throughout his body.
Last time with Guo Dongying, he should have done it by the Substitute Life Well, but that night the vice squad officers seemed to pay extra attention to that abandoned area, checking it now and then.
To avoid the unconscious Guo Dongying being discovered—which would leave them short-handed for such an important array node—he had hastily pushed the man into the well, unsure if the effect was diminished.
Peeling him on-site would have been much better.
He took out the blood; he needed to write the bazi first.
“Little mouse, on the lampstand.”
A clear, drawn-out male voice approached from afar, ethereal and indistinct.
It interrupted his thoughts.
He quickly stowed the jar of blood and looked up warily.
“Stealing oil, can’t get down.”
The voice drew closer.
The man’s scalp tingled; his whole body shuddered.
That nursery rhyme was in the recording he used to scare others.
That night, it disappeared.
“Meow meow meow, the cat… is here…”
On the imitation ancient paper-pasted window by the Refectory Hall’s door, a human figure slowly climbed up.
The window wasn’t locked. It was slowly opening.
“Creak—”
The slow sound was like a dull knife grinding back and forth on his bones.
He couldn’t even think about locking it anymore. He was so scared that he plopped down on the ground, unable to move a muscle.
“Gurgle gurgle, roll down.”
In the darkness, pomegranate-red lips split wide to both sides. A bright face broke into a happy smile.
“I’ve got you.”
