Ghost Student 1.2

4:23 a.m., Criminal Investigation Team meeting room.

The surveillance footage froze on the hallway of Fan Jinci's apartment—he stood at the door, his fingers on the doorknob, then suddenly stopped. Three seconds later, he turned and went back inside, never to come out again.

But the problem is—Fan Jinci never left his apartment.

“Signal interference.” Jiang Zhaoyan tapped his fingers on the keyboard, bringing up another repaired hidden video. “Someone hacked into the surveillance system and implanted a 30-second looping video.”

In the actual video, Fan Jinci was hit by some kind of gas the moment he opened the door; his pupils contracted sharply, and his body stiffened. A hand wearing a rubber glove reached out from behind the door and dragged him inside.

The entire process takes no more than five seconds.

Yu Yan stared at the screen, his knuckles white from gripping the screen, but his voice was unusually calm: "Find him."

Li Weimian stood in Fan Jinci's apartment, her fingertips gently tracing the inside of the door frame—an almost invisible scratch, as if scraped by some kind of fine steel wire.

“Professional-level kidnapping,” she said calmly. “The other party was familiar with Fan Jinci’s habits and knew he would be on guard, so they used nerve-numbing gas instead of violence to subdue him.”

She went to the bathroom, looked at the shattered mirror, squatted down, and picked up a silver fiber from the shards of glass.

“This is not an illusion.” She looked up at everyone. “The ‘ghost students’ experiment has been upgraded—they can now briefly materialize.”

Wen Lin frowned: "Physicalization? You mean... holographic projection like in science fiction movies has become a reality?"

Li Weimian sneered: "No, it's worse than that."

She held up the fiber; under the light, it shimmered with a faint blue glow.

"These are neural cables from Ryan's lab, used for consciousness projection. The person who kidnapped Fan Jinci is no ordinary criminal—"

"It is another 'Fan Jinci'."

Yu Yan – Violent Crushing

Operation details:

Campus lockdown: At 4:45 a.m., Yu Yan directly mobilized the police force to seal off all entrances and exits of J University. Students and professors were gathered in the auditorium, guarded by armed police officers.

Interrogation methods: He walked into the 302 computer room carrying a baton, kicked over the main control panel, and pressed the muzzle of a gun against the temple of Xu Yan, the project leader and professor of neuroscience.

"Three seconds." Yu Yan's voice was as cold as ice. "Experimental data, list of participants, all backups."

Xu Yan trembled as he entered the password and brought up the hidden folder.

Yu Yan glanced at the screen and suddenly sneered, "One name is missing."

As the gun barrel pressed down, blood trickled from Xu Yan's forehead: "Lin... Lin Xiaoyu... she's not one of us!"

Yu Yan pulled the trigger—

Click (empty chamber).

"It won't misfire next time."

He didn't care about procedural justice at all; he was already prepared the moment Fan Jinci disappeared.

Jiang Zhaoyan – The Methods of a Zaibatsu

Operation details:

Satellite Tracking: Jiang Zhaoyan sat in the top-floor command center of the Jiang Group, with a real-time satellite thermal image in front of him. His fingertips tapped on the keyboard, and the red dot on the screen moved along the suburban road.

"The van turned into the abandoned industrial area at 4:37," he chuckled. "How unoriginal."

Traffic system intrusion: He hacked into the city’s traffic surveillance system and discovered that the car’s license plate was fake, but the tire tread pattern matched a purchase record from Ryan Labs three years ago.

“The kidnappers used Ryan’s old equipment.” He dialed Yu Yan’s number, his tone casual. “Do you need me to blow up the lab beforehand?”

Yu Yan: "Keep him alive."

Jiang Zhaoyan: "Try my best."

He enjoyed the feeling of being in control, and even found the kidnappers' "game" a bit boring.

Wen Lin—The Prosecutor's "Legal" Methods.

Operation details:

Retrieval of judicial files: Wen Lin sat smiling in the principal's office, flipping through a yellowed file in his hand.

“The approval document for the 'consciousness projection' experiment in 1989.” He pointed to a spot. “It was signed by your father, right?”

The principal's face turned deathly pale instantly.

Public opinion threat: Wen Lin turned on his phone to record: "You just said 'the school has never participated in illegal experiments,' but this document is stamped with the official seal of J School."

He leaned close to the principal's ear, his voice sweet as poison: "For tomorrow morning's headlines, do you want 'academic scandal' or 'accomplice in murder'?"

The principal, trembling, handed over an encrypted USB drive.

He appears to be the most harmless, but every word he utters is a carefully crafted trap.

Situ Jin – A Reverse Tracing of Anatomy.

Operation details:

Evidence analysis: Wearing sterile gloves, Situ Jin extracted several silver fibers from Fan Jinci's pillowcase.

“Nerve conduction lines, but the surface is coated with a sedative.” He looked up. “The kidnappers need him to stay conscious, but not to resist.”

Data comparison: He put the fiber into the mass spectrometer, and the screen displayed the matching results—99.7% match with Yan Kang's experimental sample from that year.

“It’s not a copy.” Situ Jin’s voice was unusually tense. “It’s a transplant.”

He hid beneath absolute rationality, and for Fan Jinci, he was even willing to dissect himself.

Li Weimian – a hunter of psychological warfare.

Operation details:

Criminal Profile: Li Weimian stood in Fan Jinci's apartment, her fingertips tracing the scratches on the door frame.

“The kidnapper is male, 25-35 years old, with a medical or engineering background.” She sneered, “His obsession with Fan Jinci is almost religious worship.”

Suspect screening: She retrieved the files of all personnel involved in Lane's experiments, and finally narrowed it down to one name—

Yabin, 29 years old, a PhD in Neuroengineering from J University, dropped out of school three years ago due to "mental problems".

The man in the file photo is smiling, but his eyes are empty.

She saw through everything, including the kidnappers' deepest fears.

In the abandoned laboratory, Ya Bin watched the criminal investigation team approaching on the surveillance footage and chuckled softly.

"That was fast." He stroked the sleeping "Fan Jinci" in the glass capsule. "Unfortunately, you can't save him."

The computer screen flickers, and a line of code executes automatically:

"Consciousness transfer progress: 78%"

.

dark.

The hum of electricity.

Fan Jinci opened his eyes, a sharp pain shooting through the back of his neck—someone had implanted some kind of interface in his cervical spine.

He tried to move his wrists, and the metal shackles made a cold clanging sound.

"woke up?"

A figure slowly approached from the shadows.

The man was wearing a white coat and a mask, but his exposed eyes were exactly the same as Fan Jinci's.

"Don't be nervous." The other person chuckled, their voice sounding as if it had been electronically processed. "I just want you to see... your true self."

He pressed the switch, and the glass capsule on the other side of the room slowly...

Inside lay a "person" identical to Fan Jinci, his chest rising and falling rhythmically, as if he were merely asleep.

"The initial version of M-0," the kidnapper whispered. "Guess... who's more perfect, him or Yan Kang?"