You Mingxu was also confident they would listen to her.
After calmly considering the situation—backup would arrive soon, Mingtao would likely be put on the wanted list and eventually caught—she made a decision: "Let's wait a bit longer. As long as that car doesn't leave, it'll be like catching a turtle in a jar."
The backup indeed arrived quickly. Several police cars drove over from the lakeside road, their flashing lights casting a kaleidoscope of colors across the shore.
The teams converged.
Soon, one of the police cars spotted the target vehicle deep in the dense woods by the lake. Tuya immediately drove over.
Several police cars parked beside a small hill near the lake. The surroundings were pitch black, the sky a deep indigo blue.
The black car was also parked at the foot of the hill.
In the darkness, everyone got out. Xu Mengshan led a few officers to approach with guns drawn, quickly discovering the car was empty.
You Mingxu looked up. The hill was only about twenty meters high, shrouded in trees. A stone staircase led upward, and the roof of a house was faintly visible atop the hill.
So there was a house up there. In such a location, even if you drove past the lake, it would be easy to miss. It felt quite isolated from the world.
"Let's go up and check," You Mingxu said.
She led the way with Xu Mengshan and two officers, followed by Yin Feng, then several more police officers. Tuya and Guan Jun remained in the car. This arrangement gave her some peace of mind.
As they climbed the steps, they came face-to-face with a gray wooden house that looked quite old. It was surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence equipped with surveillance cameras. However, the small gate in the fence was slightly ajar at the moment.
They entered the yard and found the front door also half-open, the interior pitch dark.
Xu Mengshan gestured, and several officers fanned out to check the front and back of the house. No abnormalities were found.
Everyone regrouped at the front door.
You Mingxu and Xu Mengshan exchanged a glance. Xu Mengshan called out loudly, "Is anyone there? Anyone home?"
No response, only dead silence.
You Mingxu commanded, "Go in!"
She and Xu Mengshan entered first with guns drawn. Multiple flashlight beams illuminated the interior brightly. As soon as Xu Mengshan entered, he felt along the wall for a while, found the light switch, but pressing it revealed no power.
They set that aside for now.
The first room was a living area of about twenty square meters, containing a black sofa, table, chairs, and a refrigerator. Though sparsely furnished, it had a lived-in feel. You Mingxu wondered: Could this be another hideout for Mingtao? But judging by the items in the house, they seemed old, and would Mingtao have the means to secure a house like this by the lake?
The thought flashed through her mind only briefly. After finding nothing unusual in the living area, they checked a bedroom containing a bed and desk but no clothing or daily essentials.
"There are stairs here!" an officer shouted.
You Mingxu and the others rushed over. Their flashlights confirmed a dark staircase in one corner of the living room, leading downward.
You Mingxu's heart tightened. Just as she was about to lead the team down, Yin Feng—who had somehow moved behind her—pressed her shoulder and said, "Be careful."
"Okay." You Mingxu and several colleagues descended slowly.
The staircase had about twenty steps. At the bottom, bare concrete walls enclosed the space, stuffy and poorly ventilated. A corridor stretched ahead.
They advanced cautiously.It was evident that the concrete walls had been standing for some years. Occasional cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and the air carried the scent of accumulated dust, as if sunlight had not touched this place for a long time, nor had it been properly cleaned.
The passage was only about ten meters long, and they soon reached the end, where a larger stone chamber appeared before them. The police officer at the front suddenly gasped, startling everyone. His flashlight beam swept to the ground, and only then did they see a person lying there.
The figure was clad in a black windbreaker, wearing a baseball cap, and curled tightly into a ball. At the sight of this silhouette and attire, You Mingxu’s heart sank. Xu Mengshan shone his flashlight directly onto the person’s face—fair and delicate, with an unnatural flush. Wasn’t it Mingtao?
Xu Mengshan reacted swiftly. Setting aside everything else, he pressed his fingers against the carotid artery and checked for breath, then said in a daze, "He’s dead! It looks like cyanide poisoning. He hasn’t been dead long."
Everyone exchanged uneasy glances. They had chased him all the way here to capture the Apprentice Killer. Yet, after fleeing to this hidden room, he had died of poisoning. Had he known he was cornered?
Or had someone else gotten to him?
Suppressing her shock and suspicion, You Mingxu ordered, "Notify the station immediately, and check if there’s anything unusual in this room."
"Yes, ma’am!"
The team scattered, searching the eerie basement. You Mingxu also raised her flashlight, sweeping it around. The moment the beam hit the opposite wall, she froze—a row of bloodstained tools hung there: cleavers, daggers, saws… along with ropes, an electric drill, and a leather whip. These added to the basement’s bloody, ghostly atmosphere.
You Mingxu was abruptly reminded of the Butcher Killer’s slaughterhouse, a chill seeping deep into her bones. Could this place be more than just Mingtao’s hideout? The Punisher…
Her flashlight moved slowly along the wall, illuminating a single bed with an unmade quilt and a pair of slippers on the floor beside it. Turning the corner at the wall, she spotted a wardrobe. Through the cracks, she could see something hanging inside—who lived here?
Instinct told her it wasn’t Mingtao.
But as her light continued to shift, it fell upon an old wooden desk, where a person lay slumped over. You Mingxu felt as if her heart had been struck, the figure so familiar she nearly blurted out: Yin Feng…
No!
Her mind tightened. Wasn’t Yin Feng supposed to be following behind them?
Suddenly, a bone-chilling, horrifying coldness began creeping up her spine. Steadying herself, she pulled the flashlight beam back, focusing once more on the person at the desk. Dressed in a black sweater and casual trousers, with jet-black short hair and a sharply defined jawline, even from the back, the silhouette felt intensely familiar. She noticed dried blood on the person’s wrist and iron chains shackled around their ankles, the chains trailing from under the desk toward the corner of the wall, disappearing into the unknown.
The others had also noticed the person in the room and were startled, slowly closing in.
You Mingxu’s temples throbbed, a vague sense of something terribly wrong gnawing at her, though she couldn’t pinpoint what. She took a step to the side, allowing herself to see more than just the outline of the person’s figure.The beam from her flashlight fell upon the face of the person lying on their side, half-buried in their arms.
You Mingxu froze.
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