"Boss." The team member ran into the temporary office that the Municipal Bureau had lent to the investigation team and shouted anxiously, "Something happened, Boss! I just received a call..."
Lian Gui had just finished visiting the cleaner who was taken to the hospital by ambulance. He looked at the newcomer while holding a bottle of mineral water. "If you had told me that there was a sixth victim, I would have thrown you into the logistics department to date a toilet peg when I got back to the team."
Team member: “…”
In the past, when he was not on a mission in the group, he had wanted to fire his autocratic boss more than once. Now he finally got a chance to go out, and he thought that the other party would have no time to mess with the bottom of the food chain under him because he had a mission to do. But the fact proved that human nature is not affected by work, and he still wanted to rise up.
The team member said: "The sixth victim is a little special..."
Lian Gui unscrewed the water bottle: "Could he still be the father of the first five people?"
The team member said: "We identified this suspect based on our investigation of the five victims."
Lian Gui choked on a mouthful of water that went straight down his throat.
※
Shi Yu was found outside Lanwan Community.
Because it was close to the rush hour, an office worker on his way home passed by the field and saw him. No matter how he called out to him, there was no response. So he realized something was wrong and reached out to touch him.
After all, he was alert, so the force he used was actually very light, and he could clearly feel the slight tremor of his subordinate's body.
The other person was brought back to his senses by him, and slowly raised his head. His face was pale, and the corner of his eye was smudged red by his knuckles.
The office worker was so frightened that he was trembling with fear. He was frantically trying to dial the emergency number, and he made several mistakes when unlocking his phone. He finally opened the dialing page, but before he could press the last digit, his hand froze.
The person curled up on the ground grabbed his sleeve at some point.
The office worker didn't dare to struggle, and used his other hand to press the keys: "How are you? Wait, I'll call an ambulance for you..."
Before he could finish his remaining greetings, the other party said, "Can you please not call an ambulance?"
"How can that be possible? You are now..."
"I'm fine." A thin layer of sweat oozed from the other person's forehead, and his voice was hoarse as if he had squeezed it out of his throat with all his strength. "If possible, please help me call the police."
The person who answered the phone was still the policeman Xiao Wang. After hearing the words "Tianshui Lanwan", he didn't need to explain the rest. He took his men directly to the scene and dialed the private number that the captain of the Municipal Bureau, Jing Shen, had left for him.
Shi Yu got into the police car under Xiao Wang's horrified gaze. Along the way, he tore off a pack of wet wipes as if no one was around, and wiped the blood off his face bit by bit, and also wiped off the dust that his hands had rubbed off the ground.
In addition to the policeman Xiao Wang in the back seat, the driver Li Yuanbao also knew him. Not only did he know him, he had also seen him sitting inside the interrogation room while standing outside it.
Shi Yu crumpled up the blood- and dust-stained tissue into a ball and stuffed it into the bag. He didn't intend to greet other people in the car. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes quietly.
On the way, Jing Shen made a phone call, Xiao Wang answered it hurriedly, and then turned around and told Officer Li Yuanbao, who was serving as the driver, to drive the police car to the Municipal Bureau.
Because he came here not as a suspect but as a victim, Xiao Wang did not take him to the interrogation room. He just let him stay in the lobby of the Public Security Bureau and ran in to inform the big guys of the supernatural investigation team.
The bosses were just running out and almost bumped into him face to face in the corridor of the Municipal Bureau.
Lian Gui grabbed the team member who almost collided with the other party by the collar and slid him behind him. He looked at the policeman Xiao Wang in front of him. He still had some impression of him. He probably knew that the other party was Jing Shen's subordinate who had followed him to make a report before: "Have you brought the victim this time?"
Xiao Wang let out an "ah".
Lian Gui asked, "Where are the people?"
Xiao Wang pointed behind him.
Shi Yu sat on the reception bench in the hall.
Although the Public Security Bureau was very busy with the bizarre case of Tianshui Lanwan where new people were being recruited every day, the quality of the staff was high after all, and they all adhered to the principle of "talk less and do more" of their own captain Jing Shen. Apart from the sound of footsteps coming and going, even the conversations outside the office were kept in low voices.
When Lian Gui came over, he saw him with his head down and resting his head on the back of the chair behind him. He stopped and looked at him thoughtfully for a while: "Do you need me to find you a blanket?"
Shi Yu had fallen asleep for less than two hours during the day because of the noise of renovations downstairs. He was so sleepy that he couldn't even open his eyes. He blinked slowly, and his vision gradually became clear: "No, thank you."
He stood up by holding the back of the chair: "Where can I ask?"
Lian Gui glanced at him, turned around and led the way, found an empty interrogation room, and pushed open the door.
Let's skip the previous part for now and get straight to the point: "You just reported the case as a victim, so let's talk about this aspect first."
Shi Yu sat very far back, with his shoulders against the chair: "Are you police officers?"
Outside the interrogation room.
Xiao Wang put his face close to the one-way glass and muttered, "How can I tell ordinary people about this identity issue..."
Lian Gui, who couldn't tell his identity to ordinary people, listened to the bomb thrown just after he opened his mouth. He raised his eyelids and glanced at the surveillance camera on the wall behind the other party. He looked at the person in the monitoring room through the infrared for a second and replied: "No."
Xiao Wang: “…”
Lian Gui said: "The Ministry of National Security has set up ten special investigation and handling teams for supernatural time, numbered one to ten. The numbers are ranked in no particular order, regardless of strength. I am affiliated with the fifth team."
Shi Yu asked, "So the injury that Uncle Zhang suffered in the Central Hospital, where the police were stationed outside the ward, was not just an ordinary vicious injury, but was related to the supernatural?"
Lian Gui neither answered nor denied.
Shi Yu continued, "There are three other wards. Mr. Chen, Mrs. Xu, and Ms. Jiang, are their current external situations the same as Uncle Zhang's?"
Lian Gui felt that he had to remind the citizen who was questioning the interrogator at the police station that the surveillance camera was still on: "Are you asking me or am I asking you?"
Shi Yu: "Please go ahead."
Lian Gui: "We have always suspected that you were involved in this case. Of course, we still suspect that now. You were the last person to speak to Zhang Gaoli on the night he got into trouble."
Shi Yu listened and said, "He and I will be on duty together."
Lian Gui continued, "Chen Wangyi had just returned from a business trip the night he got into trouble. Apart from his family and the guard at the basement garage, the only person I met was you, in the elevator of the same building."
Shi Yu recalled the information he had seen at the time: "He and I lived in the same apartment building."
Lian Gui pressed his voice harder and harder: "You met Xu Qingcha's granddaughter the morning before her accident. It was also because of her granddaughter that you met in front of the apartment building."
Shi Yu's tone remained unchanged: "She was looking for someone, and I was going home. We ran into each other because the girl she was looking for happened to be walking with me for a while."
Lian Gui stared into his eyes and said, "Jiang Yushan left the community from the north gate about ten minutes before the incident, and he also had a brief encounter with you."
Shi Yu: "No matter who is in the duty room on any given day, she will always say hello before leaving."
"We received another report this morning. The victim was a cleaner. He had seen you at Tianshui Lanwan Qianping Square a day before the incident." Lian Gui said, "As far as I know, you should have finished your shift at that time. Qianping Square is not on your way back to Building B12. He was cleaning the fitness equipment in the square and would not run to your way home, but you still ran into each other."
Upon hearing this, Shi Yu fell silent.
Lian Gui narrowed his eyes lazily: "Five people, and they all met you not long before the accident, and they had only met you. If you tell me now that it is a coincidence, it would be inappropriate. Besides, you can't explain why the cleaner named Li Yan ran into you."
A moment of silence.
Shi Yu said, "I didn't go to see him on purpose. I just happened to meet him because of my hobby. Is this an acceptable reason?"
Lian Gui raised his eyebrows: "What's your hobby?"
“Picking up trash.”
“…”
Lian Gui swore that this was the most bizarre hobby he had ever heard a suspect talk about in all his years in the industry.
Shi Yu continued, "And if I get caught, I will become like them. This should clear me of suspicion."
Lian Gui's eyebrows twitched: "Tell me in detail?"
"I reported the case before because I found the place where they are lying in the hospital beds now." Shi Yu said, "I just verified it."
Outside the interrogation room, Jing Shen heard this and turned to look at Xiao Wang: "How did he verify it?"
Xiao Wang: “…Ah?”
Depth of Field knocked on the glass: "What was he like when you received the call and rushed to Tianshui Lanwan?"
Xiao Wang thought of the scene he saw in the car, and his expression suddenly relaxed: "His eyes will bleed."
In the interrogation room.
Lian Gui looked at the man opposite him and said, "But you don't look like them at all."
Shi Yu: “Because of time.”
Lian Gui was stunned.
"When they were unconscious, their faces were black and their eyes were bleeding. If we simply think from a metaphysical perspective about what kind of existence could cause such harm to the human body, the range of options is too large. Let's think about it another way. What if they became like this not because of some supernatural creature, but because of the influence of supernatural non-biological things?"
Shi Yu said: "If the darkening of their skin is just due to the disappearance of the stratum corneum under the skin, and the tearing of their eyes is due to the damage of the retina, then their current condition is equivalent to the normal stress response of the human body when looking directly at the sun for a long time with the naked eye."
Lian Gui didn't say anything and just listened motionlessly.
"With the current climate in Nanhang, it is impossible to cause such a consequence simply by sunbathing, because sunlight has to pass through thousands of kilometers of atmosphere before falling on the surface. Even the strongest ultraviolet rays will be weakened by the air to a level that the human body can withstand."
Shi Yu said softly, "But now, for some reason, the protective layer above a certain location outside the north gate of Lanwan Community has disappeared, just like a 'skylight' has been chiseled out in the original ceiling."
Lian Gui stood up suddenly, strode over and opened the door of the interrogation room, glanced at the police officers gathered outside the glass of the interrogation room, and finally stopped at the member of the supernatural investigation team who did not have a badge on his shoulder.
"Xiao Wu, immediately go and find out all the places those people visited and the routes they took before the accident."
The team member next to the glass immediately stood up: "Yes."
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