You Mingxu’s eyes snapped open, a cold sweat breaking out all over her body. Her mind was still foggy, and for a moment, she couldn’t tell whether the tire marks that had surfaced in her thoughts were from a dream or something she had seen during the day.
Or perhaps she had just recalled details that had been overlooked earlier because she hadn’t examined them closely enough?
She bolted upright and glanced at her watch—3:50 a.m. Only twenty minutes had passed. Her gaze shifted to the interrogation room, where Yin Feng was the first thing she saw. He looked intensely focused, his eyes fixed on Fu Wenxiu as his pen raced across the page. He seemed like a completely different man now.
And Fu Wenxiu, under his control, was surprisingly compliant, though a chilling smile still lingered at the corners of his mouth as he spoke.
The lie detector test would take a while longer to conclude, but You Mingxu couldn’t sit still any longer. She turned and headed downstairs, got into her car alone, and drove off into the murky night.
These streets had been heavily patrolled by police. Even at this hour, she passed several patrol cars and officers on duty along the way. She lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly as she drove. When she reached the vicinity of the Deng residence, she parked silently, tossed the cigarette butt away, and approached the outer wall of the compound.
Inside, not a single light was on—everyone was likely asleep. The wall wasn’t particularly high. She took a few steps back, used the wall for leverage, and hoisted herself up, perching on top of it.
A bright, clear moon hung overhead, casting a faint glow over the spacious courtyard. You Mingxu’s eyes immediately landed on the extra van parked under the tree—a grayish-white, semi-old Jinbei model.
Her heart shuddered violently, and her palms grew clammy with sweat. But there was no time to carefully sort through her thoughts. She didn’t want to wait another minute. Just as she was about to leap into the yard, a sudden instinct made her pull out her phone and send a text to Yin Feng: “Come to the Deng residence.” She then silenced her phone and jumped inside.
All the rooms were pitch-black and utterly silent. She moved slowly toward the van and peered through the window. Despite the dim light, she could still make out some mottled, dark, suspicious stains on the interior and seats—already dried.
You Mingxu stood still for a few seconds, then turned her gaze to the slaughter room. She tiptoed over and found the door unlocked, slightly ajar. She pulled it open slowly, the hinges emitting a faint, soft creak.
Immediately, she turned to check the other two rooms—no movement. But she didn’t proceed right away. Instead, she lowered her head and waited for a minute or two. The yard remained deathly silent. Only then did she slip into the slaughter room.
The room was shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to see anything clearly. The tools and meat chunks she had seen earlier were now just blurry, shadowy outlines. The only light came from the faint moonlight filtering through the old window.
You Mingxu had a flashlight in her pocket but didn’t turn it on. Step by step, she moved cautiously deeper into the room. Even in the dark, the knives were arranged with meticulous precision, as if lined up and awaiting their master’s arrival. She recalled Yin Feng’s deduction: “If you ever visit his workplace, you’ll find everything in perfect order, as if arranged by a machine—a manifestation of his obsessive-compulsive tendencies from years of working as a craftsman.” A chill seeped into her heart as she advanced. When she was about a third of the way into the room, she caught sight of something on the chopping board.
She was absolutely certain it hadn’t been there during her previous visit.It was a hammer. Medium-sized, with an extremely dark hue. It was still unclear whether there were bloodstains on it or if the details matched the one from the surveillance footage. But intuition told You Mingxu it was the one.
Standing in the center of the silent, pitch-black slaughterhouse, You Mingxu felt only a chilling aura closing in on her from all directions. The four suspects, all from humble backgrounds, fit the profile. One genuine, three decoys, with no clues revealing the truth. Just like the past year, the killer had hidden among the masses, so ordinary that they were nearly impossible to distinguish.
In the end, it was the faint mud tracks from a vehicle’s wheels that exposed the truth. Life is full of complexities; many people may appear guilty. But the equally taciturn and brawny carpenter wasn’t the one, nor was the veterinarian with a history of sexual offenses, nor the schizophrenic fishmonger with blurred fingerprints on both hands.
A dry, cold, and unyielding resolve suddenly surged within You Mingxu, a woman of her caliber. Her entire body tensed, alert and rigid, like an eagle folding its wings, treading cautiously along a branch at the edge of a cliff.
But that resolve shattered mercilessly, crumbling to dust the moment she saw the person lying on the cutting board ahead.
She sprang up and rushed over.
Above the cutting board where Fan Jia lay, a window let in some faint light. Under it, You Mingxu could see Fan Jia’s face was completely drained of color, her body covered in horrifying wounds, with some lividity already appearing.
You Mingxu reached out to check for breath and a pulse, only to realize her hand was trembling. Tears were already streaming down her face, though she hadn’t noticed. She dropped to her knees beside the cutting board, one hand gripping Fan Jia’s, the other pressed against her own face.
The darkness of the room seemed to crash into her all at once. She heard herself cry out—a sound she had never heard before, piercing and choked, eerily resembling the muffled sobs of someone gagged. For the first time in years, she had completely lost control. In that moment, everything else was forgotten. Her body went limp, and she collapsed to the floor, weeping uncontrollably, her hand still tightly clutching Fan Jia’s pale, stiff fingertips.
The sky had fallen. She thought, the sky had truly fallen.
Otherwise, how could a child like Fan Jia have been sacrificed?
Sacrificed under the butcher’s knife of criminals.
And she, as her team leader, the one Fan Jia relied on most, had failed to find her before she died, failed to rescue her from that terrifying darkness.
What had Fan Jia endured before her death? The inhuman, insane tortures that victims suffer—had this police officer experienced them all? And worst of all, had she clung to the hope of rescue, only to watch it extinguish bit by bit before her eyes?
You Mingxu let out a roar—or perhaps a scream was more fitting. It was unimaginable, the most fragile, broken sound such a formidable woman could make.
Then she stood up, bent over, forgetting all principles and caution, wanting to lift Fan Jia and take her back.
A violent gust of wind slammed toward the back of her head.
Under normal circumstances, even if the person behind her was as strong as an ox, You Mingxu, with her caution, could have dodged it. But now, she was dazed and completely unaware of the external danger. Hearing the rush of wind, only her body’s trained instincts reacted, her upper torso ducking downward.The Iron Hammer struck her back. A violent pain shot through her, and You Mingxu staggered, crashing into the counter. The weight of Fan Jia, whom she had been holding, slipped from her grasp.
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