Chapter Sixty-Five: Those Who Are Gone and Those Who Survive

After a day of exhausting work, the members inside the police station were left physically and mentally drained. The morning's investigation was nothing compared to the afternoon's conference, which truly sapped their strength. The meeting stretched from two until six, and only then did their real work begin, lasting until eleven or twelve at night before they could finally address the case at hand.

Jiang Wan brewed herself a cup of coffee and let the night breeze brush against her face. The bloodstains on the ground still carried a metallic tang, a scent that seemed to thicken in the night air, as if it had seeped into the very walls—everywhere, unshakeable.

She craned her neck to look out toward the street. Chen Qing was still sitting at the corner, fiddling with his phone. He had been there all afternoon, surrounded by a cluster of elderly residents from the neighborhood.

Jiang Wan pressed her palm to her forehead, feeling a dull migraine begin to throb. “He won’t go around spreading rumors, will he…” she muttered, biting her lip. After a moment’s hesitation, she shook her head, dispelling her tangled thoughts, and grabbed her mug, making her way toward the surveillance room.

If she remembered correctly, there should be several dozen people in the surveillance room at this hour, all poring over those two video clips. One showed Chen Qing inside the control room, the other captured the victim’s death in the main hall. They had been watching those two videos for over an hour now.

Sighing softly, Jiang Wan found herself replaying Chen Qing’s words from the afternoon.

“What exactly does it want to hide? Why does it insist on diverting our attention?”

Her footsteps carried her halfway across the administrative hall before she realized it. The surveillance room was still a considerable distance ahead.

As she advanced, a gust of night wind swept through, biting cold against her skin, sending a shiver through her body. She pulled her clothes tighter around herself, suddenly concerned whether Chen Qing out on the street would catch a chill.

She hesitated, debating whether to bring him something to eat, when a sudden change threw everything into disarray.

In an instant, the entire building was plunged into darkness as the electricity abruptly failed. Jiang Wan watched as her surroundings were swallowed by shadow, her brow knitting in concern.

But it was summer, and a power outage at the police station was hardly unheard of. It would come back in a few minutes…

Just as she expected, the backup generator rumbled to life, bathing the entire hall in light once more.

Seeing the lights return, Jiang Wan felt a measure of relief, yet as she gazed at the familiar surroundings, a creeping sense of dread made her hesitate to take another step.

“What’s going on…” she murmured, frowning, eyes fixed ahead. Her instincts screamed at her not to move.

She trusted her sixth sense—it was the most valuable treasure she’d brought back from the earth tower.

F-Class Non-Heritage Relic—Misfortune Unending.

After use, it would bring an hour of continual bad luck, but in the twenty-three hours that followed, the bearer would acquire a not insignificant sixth sense.

Containment requirements: store in a hexagon made of metal.

Jiang Wan’s hand trembled in her pocket as she stared ahead.

But then, after three or five seconds, the ominous feeling that had been gnawing at her abruptly vanished, as if it had never existed at all.

She stared forward, her brow tightly furrowed.

She’d experimented at home—when she moved away from danger, that sixth sense would slowly dissipate.

But now…

“No… Something’s wrong!” she realized, gritting her teeth.

“There’s trouble in the surveillance room,” she whispered, breaking into a run through the station.

People like her were a common sight in the precinct. As they saw her rush past, the others simply stepped aside to clear her path.

It took only thirty or forty seconds for Jiang Wan to reach the surveillance room door.

She paused, closed her eyes, gripped the handle, and then opened her eyes again—she could sense no trace of fortune or misfortune within.

“What’s going on… That’s impossible…”

Before she could finish, another thought flashed through her mind.

There was a single scenario where a place would be completely devoid of fortune’s influence.

No people, no objects—then nothing would affect fate.

Her face drained of color. She pressed down on the handle with trembling force, and slowly pushed the door open.

She saw rivers of blood.

She saw bodies scattered everywhere.

She saw pieces of flesh and bone from the corpses splattered across the room.

She went pale, though she had witnessed countless horrors with Chen Qing before.

Yet her face was ashen still.

She saw her once-familiar colleagues dead in the most degrading of fashions, not a single piece of whole flesh left among them.

They looked as if… as if, in some mad arena, crazed giant rats had torn at one another’s most vulnerable parts.

They were all dead. Four people.

Two surveillance officers, one of Jie Hongbo’s secretaries, and a member of the Major Crimes investigation team.

She remembered him—he had once asked if he could join her, eager to investigate these extraordinary cases.

She had refused.

Back then, Jiang Wan believed the extraordinary should remain untouched.

Her face paled, but in the next instant, she understood what Chen Qing had been trying to say that afternoon.

“The surveillance! It’s the surveillance footage!”

Clenching her teeth, she drew her pistol from her belt and aimed it at the computer’s mainframe.

She hesitated, eyes reddening, sensing only the misfortune that this decision would bring her.

“It was the surveillance footage… He told us as much…”

All the strength in her hand seemed to drain away in that moment.