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墨書 Inktalez
The tear gas used by the police was incredibly potent. Even if you held your breath and closed your eyes, the sensation was hard to shake off. Just inhaling a little would make you tear up uncontrollably, leaving you utterly defenseless. Within seconds, the white smoke had thickened significantly. Inside the cramped vehicle, those trapped within had surely lost all ability to resist.
However, at that moment, something strange occurred: no one inside coughed. This was highly unusual. Were these individuals somehow immune to the effects of tear gas? The thought struck me like a bolt of lightning, and a realization dawned on me.
I quickly stood up and reached through the shattered window to open the car door. As I extended my hand forward, I encountered an odd sensation—nothingness. I felt nothing at all. The thick smoke obscured my vision further.
Logically analyzing the situation, I recalled seeing five robbers rush into the bank, including the man in the baseball cap who had been lurking earlier. Not counting whether there were lookouts in the vehicle, that made six people in total: two in the front seat, two in the middle row, and two in the back seemed reasonable.
Yet there was no one in the middle row. Could it be that they were all crammed into the back? The likelihood of four people fitting into the back seat was slim. This indicated that there was no one left in the vehicle! We had been deceived by the killer; from the very beginning, this SUV we were pursuing did not contain any of them.
At that moment, I heard Yuzelin's voice faintly coming through her gas mask: "There are no people inside the car!"
"Neither do we!" someone else replied.
"Same here!" another voice echoed.
"The driver is already under our control!" someone announced.
Hearing their words chilled me to the bone because it confirmed my suspicions. Aside from the driver, there was no sign of any killer in that vehicle. When I reached out to feel for anything on the seats, I found nothing—no safe or woven bag; even cash had been taken by the killer.
This car was merely a decoy left behind by the killer. It was likely that all of his accomplices had exited at some hidden location while only the driver remained to speed away. There must have been a significant time gap; otherwise, law enforcement would have suspected someone had gotten out.
Realizing this made me want to slap myself. The bank heist had occurred nearly an hour ago, and here we were mobilizing police forces across the city to chase after a vehicle that contained no killers at all. By now, the killer must have found a place to hide.
Although personnel had been dispatched to secure airports, train stations, and bus terminals, it was inevitable that some would slip through our fingers. If several individuals scattered and fled in different directions, capturing them all would not be an easy task—it wouldn't be resolved overnight.
I felt overwhelmed; just as we were beginning to make progress on Guo Guoqing's case, another serious crime had erupted. These two incidents could not possibly be linked to a single perpetrator, which meant we would likely need to split our efforts—one team focusing on Guo Guoqing's case and another on the bank robbery.
The already limited police force would be stretched even thinner. Bringing in officers from other precincts would require them to familiarize themselves with both cases, wasting valuable time with back-and-forth communication. While I pondered this dilemma, I heard a detective shout: "Get out of the car! Crawl out! No tricks!"
In my haze, I stumbled over to where he stood and vaguely saw someone sitting in the driver's seat. In response to his command, this person showed no cooperation whatsoever; they simply remained seated in silence as if they were already dead.
I quickly reached out to touch the person, feeling that he was also slightly struggling, and his body temperature was normal, indicating he was not a corpse. However, this person was surrounded and still remained motionless in the driver's seat. Was he being overly arrogant, or was there another reason?
As I spoke, I noticed the detective was pulling hard on the person in the driver's seat, and I felt the struggle intensify. But this intensity was merely relative; compared to what we usually saw, it seemed almost like a child throwing a tantrum.
In other words, he seemed to be too afraid to move, too afraid to move strongly. This realization sent a chill through me; it seemed very likely that he wasn't refusing to get out of the car by choice but rather because he didn't dare to. Moreover, from earlier until now, he hadn't said a word.
The more pressing matter was that under the strong effects of tear gas, this person wasn't coughing or attempting to exit the vehicle; he endured the excruciating pain and suffering caused by the tear gas inside. If he was unwilling to get out under such circumstances, there were two possibilities: either he couldn't get out or he didn't dare to.
Thinking of this, I immediately shouted, "Find the tear gas canisters in the car and throw them aside! Clear out the white smoke inside!"
Everyone began searching for the tear gas canisters and tossed them aside. The canisters continued to emit white smoke, but the smoke inside the car quickly diminished. After about ten seconds, most of it had dissipated in the wind. At that moment, we could finally see clearly what was happening inside the vehicle.
Indeed, there was only one person inside—the driver—no one else. Furthermore, both the safe and woven bag were missing from the car; it appeared they had been taken away. The robbers must have jumped out of the car and escaped at some point.
After all this time spent chasing them down, we had only ended up with an empty car containing just a driver. It became clear why all the windows were covered with one-way film; they could only see outside from within but not vice versa—even the windshield was like that. The robbers had intended for this driver to delay us as much as possible so they could make their escape.
What a clever plan to slip away unnoticed!
I hurried over to check on the driver and found him pressed tightly against the driver's seat. A yellow package, about the size of a shoebox, hung from his chest, with wires coiling around him and disappearing into the seat below—its connection unknown.
It seemed this was why he dared not exit the vehicle; even while suffering from tear gas exposure, he remained completely still. It was likely that if he got out of the car, it would trigger a bomb strapped to him, leading to his demise. Indeed, when faced with a life that could be lost at any moment, what did tear gas matter?
Looking at this driver—a man around thirty years old—his eyes were closed and tears streamed down his face; his eyelids were red and swollen from the effects of tear gas. We then noticed that his mouth had been wrapped several times with transparent tape. One hand was bound to the steering wheel while the other was tied to the gear shift.
The tape was tightly wound around him many times; his hands and mouth were even turning purple from lack of blood flow. This indicated that he had likely been restrained for quite some time—at least since before the bank explosion robbery case.
In other words, this person might not be a killer but rather a driver kidnapped by one with the intention of deliberately delaying us and drawing our attention to him. In essence, he was a victim.
Realizing this, I immediately shouted, "Bomb Disposal Team! Bomb Disposal Team! Get over here right now; there's a bomb!"
A Bomb Disposal Expert rushed in from a distance, clad in heavy riot gear that made him look cumbersome. I turned to the other officers and said, "Step back, step back. Be careful; Black Powder is inherently unstable. Watch out for explosions."
As I spoke, I began to peel away the clear tape that was bound tightly around the Victim's mouth. His lips had turned purple, swollen from the effects of Tear Gas, making it difficult for him to open his eyes. However, he seemed to sense my efforts to remove the tape, and his slight struggles gradually eased.
There was so much tape wrapped around him that it took me nearly ten seconds to remove it all. At that moment, I could hear him coughing incessantly, clearly suffering from the Tear Gas. What we hadn’t anticipated was that he was the one in the car, not the Killers.
While coughing, the driver seemed to be trying to say something, but before he could get any words out, another fit of coughing seized him. Just as I was about to reassure him not to rush and to take his time speaking, he suddenly widened his already swollen eyes and shouted, "This car can't stop! If it stops for more than ten minutes, it will explode!"
Ten minutes? From forcing him onto Rainbow Bridge to our slow approach and then tossing Tear Gas into the car, it had already been close to ten minutes. Was the bomb about to go off? Just as I was about to say something, I suddenly heard a faint "click."
That was the precursor to an explosion; it was the sound of an electric spark igniting. Realizing this, I shouted, "Run!"
I turned and sprinted backward as everyone else reacted too, scattering in all directions. But just a few meters into my escape, I suddenly heard a massive "bang," followed by a deafening ringing in my ears. Everything else faded away into silence.
Then I felt as if a giant had shoved me from behind, knocking me off balance and sending me sprawling forward. The powerful shockwave hurled me off Rainbow Bridge; in an instant, my vision was filled with swirling white and black smoke and the sight of the SUV engulfed in flames.
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