Chapter 5

Chapter 5

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t expected him to reply so quickly.

A crack of thunder flashed past the window. The storm had covered the sound of his returning footsteps.

My heart pounded like a drum as Fang Ningsheng stared at me expressionlessly. The usual trace of a smile had vanished from his eyes. “Officer Zhou, where is my phone?”

On the screen, the installation was stuck at 97%.

The thunder rolled on, one peal louder than the last.

The extreme weather had obviously slowed the network speed.

I kept my tone even. “Your phone kept ringing just now. It seemed important, so I was about to bring it to you. If you’re all packed, let’s head out.”

I handed him the phone. When he took it, his eyes never left my face.

He had a pair of captivating peach blossom eyes, dark and deep, the kind that made him look tender and affectionate whenever he looked at someone. I awkwardly looked away, the tips of my ears turning red, embarrassment plain on my face.

If I didn’t look embarrassed right now, that would be what gave me away.

I could read lies. Naturally, I could tell them too.

Fang Ningsheng looked down at the screen. Sure enough, the lock screen showed two missed calls.

The installation finally completed successfully. I let out a quiet sigh of relief, only then realizing I was drenched in cold sweat.

Fang Ningsheng had strong counter-surveillance instincts. I had to be even more careful.

It didn’t take long before they found the last place victim Xu Fangfang had appeared.

It was an alley near her home, sometime after eleven at night.

On the first day of the livestream, Fang Ningsheng and I arrived at the scene together with the medical examiner and a criminal psychology expert.

“This is part of the old district. Street surveillance only captured her turning into the alley. It’s a shortcut back to her house, and she took it almost every day. The alley is too narrow for cars to enter, so there isn’t any dashcam footage to pull either.”

I nodded to the expert.

This livestream was unusual.

Countless viewers were watching us. The victim’s family was watching us… and so was the killer.

We couldn’t feed his arrogance, but we couldn’t provoke him either.

How far to push it, what we could say and what we couldn’t, we’d already laid down strict ground rules.

When it came time to reconstruct the scene, I said,

“Mr. Fang, I’ve watched your award-winning crime film Murderous Intent many times. The killer you played in it was hailed as one of the 100 most iconic roles of the 21st century, so this time, I’d like to ask you to reenact the scene.”

“I’ll be the victim, and Mr. Fang can play the killer. Is that alright?”

Faced with my invitation, Fang Ningsheng agreed readily.

“Of course. It would be my honor.”

The day the victim disappeared had been overcast too, just like today.

The moonlight was hazy. It was already past eleven, and most of the neighbors were asleep. Now and then, a dog barked.

The alley was long, but there weren’t many streetlights. Combined with the uneven old pavement, I wasn’t walking very fast.

Then I heard footsteps behind me.

Tap. Tap, tap, tap-

Someone was coming. I turned instinctively, and the man behind me suddenly clamped a hand over my mouth and nose.

I cried out in terror, but his lean, powerful arm locked tightly around my neck.

I struggled, stumbling backward, desperately pushing and striking with my arms.

As the pressure tightened, breathing became harder and harder. Darkness swam before my eyes.

“Mmgh-”

In that moment, I truly felt what death was like.

Was this the same feeling my sister had before she died?

Just as I was about to black out, Fang Ningsheng suddenly let go.

“Officer Zhou? Officer Zhou, are you alright?”

Half-kneeling in front of me, he called my name softly, his face full of panic and apology.

Tears slipped from my eyes before I realized it. I gasped soundlessly for air, and even the livestream cameraman was frozen in shock, forgetting to zoom in.

“I’m fine. You did very well.”

I kept adjusting my breathing. Only after Fang Ningsheng reached out and pulled me up did the livestream audience seem to snap back to themselves.

[That scared me to death. I couldn’t breathe. The Best Actor’s skills really aren’t exaggerated-I forgot to breathe too.]

[What do I do? I’m still outside. Now I’m too scared to go home alone, sob.]

[You should really investigate him. That did not look like acting.]

The commotion made the neighbors lean out to look down at us. “What the hell are you people doing? It’s the middle of the night-are people supposed to sleep or not?”

“The alley wasn’t the primary crime scene. The victim left with the killer voluntarily.”

After returning to the station, the expert and I came to the same conclusion.

“It took Fang Ningsheng two minutes to subdue me in the alley. The sounds of a struggle would definitely have drawn the neighbors’ attention. There was no blood from the victim at the scene, so the killer could only have used poison or coercion. And it takes seven or eight minutes to walk through that alley. The victim was 172 centimeters tall and weighed 160 jin, relatively heavyset. Whether he dragged her or forced her along, neither would have been easy.”

“The killer was very likely someone she knew.”

“A lot of electric scooters were parked at the other end of the alley. The killer probably used the excuse of giving her a ride and took her away.”

“An electric scooter limits how far he could have gone, so start with a local area search. We’re looking for a man in his forties, relatively strong, someone who gets off work late-possibly a night-shift security guard nearby, or the owner of a street stall. He doesn’t draw attention. His family went through some kind of upheaval thirteen years ago.”

“He prefers women with heavier builds, and he did not sexually assault the victim.”

What the killer hated was his domineering wife-or his mother.