Returning to the Qingkong City station overnight, Feng Xi sent Song Cai straight to the Fourth Division's infirmary, while Fang Tian was shown to a conference room. He took a disposable paper cup and drew some water from the cooler; a whole night of running around had left him parched.
Then, in passing, he put his attribute point into Stamina.
A Stamina panel now reading a full 5 made him feel he'd successfully gone from weakling to a normal human being.
Next he began carefully reviewing the night's events. Reviewing after the fact was a good habit he'd cultivated over the years.
Song Cai's ordeal had made him realize the Calming Tea Leaves were far stronger than he'd imagined. A mere F-rank item, yet it could make a Lin Jiu with murder in her eyes cool down for a spell. In plainer terms, this was probably what people meant by an essential remedy for home and travel.
No wonder Officer Feng had charged into his dorm in the dead of night. If he hadn't, by sheer luck, poured Lin Jiu a cup of tea first, he might well have joined her deluxe upside-down package tonight.
Before long Feng Xi came back, still wearing that grim face.
Fang Tian stole a glance at her. The mood now felt much like being summoned to the homeroom teacher's office in middle school. Officer Feng was pretty, yes, but she kept a stern face at every meeting, the very picture of bottled-up grievance, which made facing her a high-pressure affair.
"Song Cai's condition has stabilized for now. Next, let's talk about you."
"Me? I'm fine. Nothing the matter."
Fang Tian adopted the play-dumb tactic. Though he intended to cooperate actively with the Qingkong police, that didn't mean he'd expose that strange 《Monster Appreciator》 friend-making system to them. If people learned he could pull this many items out of "the void," he'd probably be shipped off to some mad scientist for slicing and study within minutes.
"This is the second time you've come out of an encounter with Lin Jiu alive."
Feng Xi seemed unwilling to let him slip past so lightly. "Back at the dorm, I assumed you were just lucky, but now it doesn't look that way. I've never seen anyone halt the aberration process through conversation."
Which was why, the instant she'd burst onto the scene, she'd braced for the worst: gunning Lin Jiu down.
Fang Tian gave a light cough and said, perfectly straight-faced, "Well, the truth is, I moved her with my utter sincerity."
Feng Xi didn't answer at once. She glared at him with sharp eyes for a good few seconds, until his shifting, evasive gaze gave her the answer she'd expected.
"Everyone has their secrets. You don't want to talk — I can understand that."
Seeing his stance was firm, she changed the subject. "But since you're now a party to the case, I'd like you to understand the basic information related to it...... You saw it too, didn't you — the way Lin Jiu left the scene."
Fang Tian nodded, immediately recalling the line in Lin Jiu's panel:
『A ghost able to travel freely through the online world.』
When he'd seen that description, a sudden sense of clarity had broken through the clouds. It explained how Lin Jiu could reach his dorm through a game, and how she'd escaped that cubicle while the puppet monster hunted her.
"From our past investigations, this is a special ability that appears in only a very few people. The existence of special abilities brings special crimes, and the work of our Fourth Division is to investigate cases that can't be explained by ordinary logic."
In the cases such special talents gave rise to, the perpetrators could easily skirt surveillance equipment and manufacture perfect alibis. "And these criminals are constantly searching for their own kind. The vast majority of them believe in a certain ritual."
"What ritual?"
"They believe death is the best way to awaken a talent."
Feng Xi's tone sent a sudden chill through Fang Tian. He couldn't help recalling the puppet monster in Cat Whisper Café — its existence, too, plainly defied ordinary logic.
The trouble was, he'd traveled all this way to Qingkong to go to college, and start a light, cheerful campus romantic comedy on the side. Why was it that, just a few days in, a criminal organization that worshipped death had already turned up?
"Officer Feng, what's the point of you telling me all this?"
"Because it ties to Lin Jiu's death — and you made a promise to her at the end."
Feng Xi paused, her gaze on him meaningful. "I hope you'll keep your own secret well. The moment they learn it, they'll come knocking. So——"
"Captain Feng——"
Feng Xi's words were cut off by a young officer who pushed the door open. He clearly hadn't expected Fang Tian to still be sitting there, so the instant he saw the unexpected guest, he forcibly swallowed the words already at his lips. He gave a light cough and changed tack. "Captain Feng, it's about Song Cai."
"Mm."
Feng Xi rose and followed the young officer out of the conference room.
The two walked in silence into a soundproofed little room beside the conference room. Once inside, the young officer shut the door behind him before handing Feng Xi a stack of test results.
"Captain Feng, Song Cai's situation is a bit complicated. By the lab report, he's...... already dead."
"Dead?"
Feng Xi's face changed, her tone turning urgent. "Time and cause of death."
The news struck her like a bolt from the blue. Song Cai was the key lead in this case right now — and when she'd left the Fourth Division earlier, the medics had told her his injuries were mostly superficial, with no danger to his life.
"Captain Feng, don't panic." The young officer said. "Song Cai's fine right now — a bit shaken up, but stable for the moment."
"I'm in no mood for jokes."
"Hey, I'm not joking. See for yourself."
He handed Feng Xi the lab report. Her gaze swept over the data and the medics' inferred conclusion, and her expression grew heavier and heavier.
Rather than a lab report, this read more like Song Cai's autopsy report.
The cause of death had nothing to do with today's superficial wounds. By the medics' reckoning, Song Cai had died of cerebral oxygen deprivation caused by compression of the neck — in other words, suffocation.
The estimated time of death: three years ago.
The eerie descriptions and figures on the report made Feng Xi understand why the young officer's face had been so strange.
That Song Cai who'd wept the whole way, who'd cowered in terror — had died three years ago?
They'd saved, from Lin Jiu's hands, a wraith who should have died three years prior. And Song Cai, as if utterly unaware of the fact that he was dead, had drifted through several places over those three years, taken seven jobs one after another, and lived just like an ordinary little nobody.