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墨書 Inktalez
Lying on the soft ladder, the helicopter flew towards Dongxing City while I climbed upward. The roar of the helicopter nearly deafened me, and I finally understood why people in TV dramas always wore headsets. In a helicopter like this, even if I wanted to talk to someone across from me, I would have to shout at the top of my lungs.
A police officer handed me a headset and said, "If it weren't for Captain Shao, I doubt anyone could have arranged a helicopter for you in such a short time. I'm not sure what’s going on, but where exactly are we headed?"
I glanced at the officer and replied, "Although it's still unclear where we're going, heading to Dongxing City is fine. I believe that once we arrive in Dongxing City, the murderer will contact us. By the way, did you bring those bowls?"
The officer nodded and retrieved a package from a box secured to his seat. He opened the bag, and the first thing that caught my eye was white plastic foam. As I pulled it out, I realized it was a well-repaired bowl wrapped securely in foam.
I casually took one out, removed the foam packaging, and examined the repaired bowl. It looked remarkably good; from both inside and outside, there was no sign that this bowl had ever been broken. However, within the bowl, I noticed a faint red light glowing.
I raised the bowl in my hand and asked, "What’s this red dot?"
The officer replied, "Team Leader Li had it installed. Since the murderer has taken hostages and only made this one request, it’s clear that these four bowls hold significant meaning for him. So he must be carrying them with him; as long as you give the bowl to the murderer, he won't be able to escape."
I frowned and said, "The murderer has extensive knowledge of the internet. Mary, being one of the top hackers in Dongxing City, couldn't decrypt his encrypted IP address in a short time. This shows how formidable he is. If I can sense something unusual about this bowl, do you think the murderer won’t notice?"
The officer looked at me with a hint of disdain and said, "Are you overestimating the murderer? Even if he sees it, it’s likely that it will only matter after we exchange hostages. By then, we won’t have any trouble catching him."
Will the murderer really not notice?
At that moment, I felt an overwhelming anger; this bowl held significant importance for the murderer. If he tampered with it somehow, who knows what he might do to Guan Zengbin? But there was no way to extract the tracker from this bowl in time.
For now, all I could do was hope that the murderer hadn’t noticed the red dot on this bowl.
I glanced at the officer; he looked back at me. In our exchanged glances, we both saw an unspoken message: "You’re an idiot." This officer didn’t know Guan Zengbin and couldn’t understand my concern for someone I didn’t want to see harmed in any way.
The helicopter roared as it carried me towards Dongxing City. Skyscrapers gradually came into view; we were finally approaching Dongxing City. I checked my watch—it was 4:40 PM now—and in twenty minutes, the murderer would likely send a message.
I looked at the box containing the bowls and closed my eyes, waiting for the murderer’s message.
The clock struck five.
My phone vibrated, and I hurriedly pulled it out to check:
East City Road No. 28, three minutes.
It was just this one line.
I stared at the message for a long time, finally confirming that it wasn’t an incomplete message. Sitting in the helicopter, I could almost see the sun rising over the mountains. We all understood that dawn was approaching, and if the Murderer wanted to get the bowls before daylight, time was running out.
I handed the address to the pilot, who entered it into the navigation system. After a moment, he said, “This area is surrounded by tall buildings; we can’t land here. We’ll have to drop you off at the nearest location, which will take at least ten minutes by car.”
With that, the pilot contacted the ground police station through the communication device, asking them to prepare a police car at the landing site.
I frowned; indeed, the Murderer had given me ten minutes. But was this a coincidence or part of a carefully crafted plan? Ever since the Murderer had us start repairing the bowls, we had been led by the nose. It seemed everything was under the Murderer’s control, and at this moment, he should still be underground in Xingdong Village, somewhere we hadn’t yet found.
Could my assumption be wrong? Was the Murderer not underground in Xingdong Village at all? Yet in such a short time, he had taken hostages there while making us trade for The Zodiac Bowls in Dongxing City. This left two possibilities: first, the Murderer had arrived in Dongxing City using a method faster than ours; second, he was still in Xingdong Village, possibly with other accomplices.
Upon reflection, perhaps the second option was more plausible. Was it possible that all of this had been planned by the Murderer from the start? He had inadvertently left four bowls from the Twelve Zodiac Signs in the sewer, and if it weren’t for Zhao Mingkun discovering how he escaped, I imagined that the Murderer would have vanished without a trace by now.
In other words, if the Murderer got away with the bowls and never returned to commit another crime, we might never catch him. But we had to save Guan Zengbin, and there was no way we could let him escape.
The helicopter hovered over a nearby open park, causing a stir among the surrounding homeless people.
A police car from a nearby Police Station had already arrived and parked.
I held onto my suitcase containing the bowls and unbuckled my seatbelt.
The helicopter circled low as a soft ladder was dropped down. I climbed down quickly and got into the car without hesitation.
The old officer in the car merely nodded at me and continued driving towards our destination.
Upon arrival, the old policeman said to me, "All the police stations in each jurisdiction have received instructions from headquarters to keep personnel ready to assist you at any time. Although I don't know what case you are investigating, as police officers, safety comes first—always safety first."
I glanced at the old officer and replied, "Thank you, you all have worked hard too."
The old officer chuckled and said, "I've been in this line of work for thirty years, and I've never encountered a major case. With all this commotion, I suppose I can finally be part of something significant. My daughter thinks that being a police officer like me isn't very impressive; after all, the officers at the police station rarely deal with serious cases—the homicide cases are handled by the criminal investigation team. But still, life is the most important thing."
I opened the car door and asked, "How old is your daughter?"
"She just turned ten this year; I had her late," the old officer replied. "That's why I cherish my daughter so much."
I had already exited the vehicle and nodded at the old officer. He was quite talkative, but this wasn't the time for idle chit-chat. As I arrived at this location, it was pitch black—just an alleyway. I looked around and saw no signs of anyone else.
Since I had just arrived in Dongxing City, the murderer had directed me to this next location within ten minutes. In such a short time frame, the city bureau couldn't possibly arrange personnel to set up here. Therefore, I must have been the first person to arrive.
The door of number twenty-eight was tightly shut. I pushed it and found it wasn't locked, so I stepped inside.
As I entered, darkness enveloped me once again. However, in the middle of the yard stood a mountain bike. Looking at this bicycle, it appeared relatively new in style, yet given the dilapidated state of the yard, its presence here seemed quite odd.
The murderer certainly wouldn't have placed the bicycle here after capturing Guan Zengbin; it was clear that they had prepared it long before.
A terrifying thought suddenly flashed through my mind: from our visit to Wu Xiufen's home to Guan Zengbin's capture and then being led here—all of it was deliberately orchestrated by the murderer. From the moment those four bowls went missing, the murderer had been planning to take one of us hostage so they could negotiate with us.
Even with this realization, I could only follow the path laid out by the murderer.
Next to the bicycle was a bag containing foam padding; however, within that foam was a layer of inflatable rubber. Between these two protective layers was a circular space that widened at the top and narrowed at the bottom. This object was divided into upper and lower sections; I tried fitting a bowl lid into it perfectly.
Such items were small in size—four of them altogether.
I could tell at a glance that this was definitely meant for me to put the bowls inside.
I took out the bowls and placed the four of them into the container, and they fit perfectly. I thought to myself that even if this thing fell from the third floor, the bowls inside would probably be just fine.
After placing the four bowls inside, I pulled up the package. The bag had two straps on top, just right for me to carry it on my back.
At that moment, a sudden buzzing sound broke the silence of the night. It was a low hum, not loud, but clear in the stillness. I followed the sound and found a vibrating phone wedged in a crack in the wall.
There was no number displayed, but I answered it.
"Hello?"
A man's voice came through: "Wu Meng, get on this bicycle and head north along Minfeng Road."
"Understood," I replied.
"There’s one condition," he said.
"What condition?" I asked.
"In order to prove that you won't bring the police with you and to show that you don't have a tracker on you, you must take off all your clothes—nothing can be left on."
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