Chapter 48: The Killing Game

Mico wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with a certain indifference, watching as the drowned ghost drifted closer. With a wave of her hand, the smoke of over a dozen incense sticks surged toward the apparition. The ghost greedily absorbed the smoke, patching its weakened spectral form. Suddenly, it stopped, turning away, its form rippling as resentment poured forth.

“Ye Wen, be good. Ignore him and recover quickly,” Mico soothed in a low voice.

I walked over slowly, making no move to attack. The ghost had been wounded by my Blood Fiend Blade; no matter how it tried, it could never recover in an instant.

At that moment, Mico turned to face me, and a flicker of something unusual passed through her eyes.

“I know you,” she said. “You’re my senior Qin Feng. Your anatomy thesis is still displayed proudly on the university’s wall of honor. I’ve heard many stories about you. I admire you greatly.”

I smiled faintly. “No matter how much you admire me, you’ll still have to explain yourself.”

Mico’s expression grew complicated, her emotions turbulent and intense. It took her a long while to regain her calm, her face resuming its mask of indifference.

“She is Ye Wen. I think you’ve already guessed,” she said.

“Yes, Ye Wen, who drowned in Baoshun River half a year ago,” I replied.

“It wasn’t an accident—it was murder. Liu Juan, Liu Zhenhui, Liao Zhigao, Jiang Liuqing, and Xu Hai—they’re all murderers. They deserve death. Debts must be repaid, and a life taken must be repaid in kind,” Mico declared harshly.

“You’re right—murder calls for justice. But first, tell me: what was your relationship with Ye Wen?” I asked.

For the first time, a glimmer of tears appeared in Mico’s usually impassive eyes.

“She helped me. In my heart, she was my best friend,” Mico said.

As it turned out, once, when Mico’s mother fell ill and they had no money, the hospital threw them out. She begged the doctors to save her mother, but all she met were cold, indifferent stares. It was the first time Mico’s faith in doctors wavered—weren’t they supposed to look beyond wealth and poverty? Why did they refuse to lend a hand, watching as a life slipped away?

In her darkest moment, Ye Wen happened to visit a relative at the hospital and witnessed the scene. She paid so that Mico’s mother could receive treatment. Mico would never forget that hand reaching out to her, or those warm eyes that gave her hope in her despair.

“How did you know Ye Wen was murdered by them?” I pressed.

“I didn’t know at first, but I knew that Ye Wen never left campus that day. How could she have drowned in Baoshun River? So I started investigating secretly and discovered the first suspect: Xu Hai,” Mico said through gritted teeth.

“Xu Hai?” I tried to recall the name, but it was unfamiliar.

“Don’t bother. He’s already dead. I killed him! One day, I drugged him with incense, took him to an abandoned building, and forced the truth out of him. That pack of animals deserves a thousand deaths. I smashed Xu Hai’s head to a pulp with a stone, but it didn’t ease my hatred in the slightest,” Mico said, her face twitching with anger.

“And what about his body?” I asked.

“It’s gone. I used incense to summon a swarm of gold-eating ants. His corpse ended up in their bellies,” she replied.

I looked at her, startled by her ruthlessness. Hatred truly could turn a person into a monster.

“How did they murder Ye Wen, and what was their motive?” I inquired.

Mico’s eyes grew unfocused as she began to recount the story from the beginning.

It all started with Liu Juan—a pretty, clever girl from an ordinary family. Although Liu Zhenhui had pursued her from high school to college, she never accepted him, since his background was even less impressive than hers.

Liu Juan was fond of the occult and, upon seeing the existence of a club called Night of Terror, decided to join. Liu Zhenhui joined as well, for her. The club’s president, Xu Hai, loved arranging all sorts of horror scenarios, having members play various roles for thrills.

Liu Juan became obsessed, and soon another member, Liao Zhihai, began pursuing her. Liao was wealthy and tall, so her vanity got the better of her and she agreed. Liu Zhenhui, who had long chased after her, nearly collapsed. Liu Juan felt guilty—she’d never rejected him outright, enjoying his attention while keeping him at arm’s length. She’d essentially kept him as a backup.

She offered to make it up to him, but Liu Zhenhui demanded she sleep with him—to know what it was like to be with a woman. Liu Juan refused; being shrewd, she had long planned to use her first time as leverage for a lifetime of security.

Then she thought of Ye Wen—the gentle, soft-spoken classmate. She decided to let Liu Zhenhui have Ye Wen as compensation.

That day, Liu Juan lured Ye Wen into a Night of Terror setup and used ether stolen from the lab to knock her unconscious, so Liu Zhenhui could assault her. But as it was Liu Zhenhui’s first time, he failed before anything happened. When he tried again, Ye Wen awoke and began to scream for help.

At that moment, club president Xu Hai and vice president Jiang Liuqing returned. Seeing the scene, the deranged Xu Hai proposed they play a popular, dark “murder game” from abroad—since things had gone this far, why not go all the way and stage the perfect crime, making it look like an accident?

Though Liu Juan was unwilling, Xu Hai threatened her, saying things had gone too far to back out, and that she’d go to jail unless she helped. So the group began to plot.

Moving a living person off campus would attract too much attention, with surveillance everywhere, so they decided to act within the school. But if Liu Juan died on campus, the police would suspect them immediately. Their main challenge became: how to have her die on campus, but have the body found elsewhere?

They soon discovered a secret channel connecting the campus lake to Baoshun River, built to bring fresh water in.

In the dead of night, they drowned Ye Wen, submerged her in the lake, and had Liao Zhihai, a strong swimmer, push her corpse into the channel, so it would be carried out to Baoshun River.

As I listened, rage burned within me. Mico was right—these people didn’t deserve to be called human. They were worse than beasts.

“Who taught you the Incense Spirit techniques?” I asked.

“Some ancient books passed down in my family. I taught myself,” Mico replied.

I glanced at the drowned ghost still absorbing smoke. “The blue light on it—you know what that is, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t there the first time I summoned its spirit, but it appeared the second time,” she said.

“Where does it hide?” I pressed.

“The middle section of Baoshun River, near a dam,” she answered.

I let out a long breath, regarding Mico. “I’m sorry for what happened to you and Ye Wen, but this is my duty. You’ll have to come with me.”

“Alright.” Mico didn’t resist, nor did she show much emotion. She merely looked at the drowned ghost. “What about it? Will you destroy it?”

“No, it’s still useful,” I replied. I still needed it to help me find what I was searching for.

I called Chi Yun, asking her to take care of Jiang Liuqing, then used a spirit-nourishing jade to collect the drowned ghost, and brought Mico back to the third unit’s headquarters.

After locking Mico in a holding cell, I told Zhao Zheng and Ye Luo what had happened.

“Congratulations, Brother Qin! That’s a level-two mission, and you completed it alone. You’ll probably get a hundred contribution points,” Ye Luo said with a grin.

“Does this really count?” I asked, since it hadn’t been an official mission.

“Of course. File a report and the higher-ups will assess it. If incidental cases like this didn’t count, everyone would just take posted assignments and ignore what they stumbled upon,” Zhao Zheng explained.

“What will the bureau do about someone like Mico?” I asked. Although she’d killed by raising a ghost, it was for a friend’s revenge and not a heinous crime—she wasn’t much of a threat to society.

“She’ll probably be re-educated for a while. If her mindset shifts and she can serve the organization, she might be recruited as a level-one member. Otherwise, she’ll be locked up for eight or ten years with strict supervision,” Ye Luo answered.

I shrugged. Eight or ten years—enough to brainwash anyone.

...

Three in the morning, the dam at Baoshun River.

I released the drowned ghost, tying a soul-guiding thread to its spectral form. I watched as it slipped beneath the river’s surface and vanished.

Tracking the movement of the guiding thread, I quickly marked its progress on my compass.

Soon, the ghost stopped, its presence vanishing completely.

I stripped off my jacket and trousers, revealing a close-fitting wetsuit underneath, and plunged headfirst into the river.

Because of the dam, the water was deep—thirty meters down before I reached the riverbed.

Following my senses, I found a fissure in the riverbed, leading to some kind of space beyond.

I switched on my high-powered underwater flashlight and swam through the opening.

Sweeping the beam around, I was suddenly confronted by an enormous face looming out of the darkness. Startled, I nearly lashed out with my Blood Fiend Blade.

But upon closer inspection, I realized it was a massive statue, standing in a temple submerged under the river.

The statue was neither Buddhist nor Taoist—it had the body of a human with a serpent’s tail, a huge head with a vertical eye set in its forehead, and a mouth full of sharp fangs.

It was clear this was no deity of the righteous path, but an idol once worshipped by some ancient cult, I thought to myself.