Even though Zhen Wuyu reacted fast, when he doubled back the way he came, the poisoned rat was still twitching, not fully dead yet. He followed the wheel tracks to a forked passage and saw the back door. The iron door at the back was wide open, wind and snow pouring in. When he looked outside, the tracks were already gone. Beyond that was nothing but a white wilderness; snowy mountains and an endless forest.
How was he supposed to find them?
Zhen Wuyu stepped forward as if he was going to chase into the mountain woods, driven only by the urgency to save people.
But he didn’t.
He stood there coldly for a moment; maybe only a few seconds. Then he suddenly yanked up the large black tarp on his left.
Because there was very little snow on it; only a thin white layer, like it had only caught snowfall from within the last hour.
Whoosh—when the tarp was pulled aside, it revealed a cellar entrance underneath.
Zhen Wuyu forced the cellar door open as wide as he could, letting cold air rush down in hard.
Drip. Drip.
The air was damp and icy, heavy and oppressive. Snow on the ground had melted and seeped in; water trickled slowly down the stone walls.
Zhen Wuyu moved quickly, gun up the whole time, until…
Several people were lying sprawled ahead of him.
Alive or dead, unknown.
He rushed over, dropped to his knees beside one of them, and checked their condition.
The girl’s breathing was weak; she wasn’t dead, but her face was turning bluish and she was unconscious. Zhen Wuyu immediately rolled her onto her side, to prevent vomiting after poisoning from blocking her airway and causing suffocation.
But he was meticulous too; he specifically checked Su Li’s shoes and the injuries on her body.
There was no fresh snow or wet marks under her shoes, but her wrists and fingers were injured, especially her thumbs.
The wrists were rope marks from being bound. The fingers were…?
That had to be related to the knot-tying method.
He checked the others. Their conditions were basically the same: injuries on their hands, but to different degrees—the lightest was Lin Zong.
Just as they’d predicted, this old man knew this kind of knot and how to undo it; he had secretly loosened it early, so his marks were lighter. The blood pooling in his thumbs was also lighter. As for the poisoning, everyone was about the same—not mild, but not at the brain-death stage either. Which meant the masked man hadn’t intended to kill them outright; he’d moved them early.
Otherwise, even delaying the transfer by ten more minutes—still before Zhen Wuyu arrived—would have been enough to completely end their lives.
Once he confirmed Su Li wasn’t going to die immediately, Zhen Wuyu didn’t forget to roll the others onto their sides as well. Then he looked around. It was a cellar used to store timber. Back then, they probably cut a large quantity of standard-grade wood, didn’t use it immediately, and stored high-quality timber down here.
This might have been suitable for storing materials, but it was terrible for living people. After making sure they wouldn’t suffocate, Zhen Wuyu prepared to move them out.
He lifted Su Li, about to head up, when he suddenly saw an elongated shadow in the passage ahead.
Long hair. A pale, white shape…
Like the Snow Spirit…
His heart jolted.
Zhen Wuyu immediately set the girl down behind him, one arm shielding her as his other hand went to his waist. “Who’s there!”
Clatter—
Both sides met; both drew guns.
The person behind the “Snow Spirit” drew a gun too.
Liu Duan.
But once Liu Duan saw it was Zhen Wuyu, he relaxed, then glanced at the person Zhen Wuyu had pulled close with his other arm.
Liu Duan and Liu Mei arrived behind Zhen Wuyu, but they were still in time. It was perfect; they could give him a hand. The three of them carried the people out to an open area one after another. The snow vehicles also had a few emergency items inside, which came in handy.
And luck was finally on their side; the wind and snow had started to ease.
Other officers arrived and sent the victims to the hospital.
Liu Duan and Zhen Wuyu didn’t leave. They stayed at the factory to investigate.
In the cellar, the cart was still there. After collection work, there were no fingerprints.
The other side had worn gloves.
“And someone in a wheelchair wouldn’t be able to push this,” Liu Duan said, “especially not down into the cellar.”
“The masked man has an accomplice.”
Liu Duan was certain.
Four adults weren’t light. Even a healthy old man would struggle with this, let alone a disabled one.
Zhen Wuyu said, “It’s possible that among these six, one of them is his accomplice.”
Liu Duan asked, “You suspect Su Li?”
He still remembered Zhen Wuyu’s strong bias toward Su Li—he believed she was capable, cunning, trusted her abilities, but also believed she was capable of plotting.
“Yes.”
Zhen Wuyu admitted his fixed suspicion of Su Li. Liu Duan was shocked. “Then she’s…?”
“No.” Zhen Wuyu stayed calm. “I checked her shoes; there was no snow or water under them. There was moss stuck to the sole. Her movement path should be fine. And she really was poisoned; she wasn’t faking it.”
“Of course, Huang Xiuling, Lin Zong, and Zhang Cheng are the same. None of them are suspects. They’re victims.”
Zhen Wuyu had bias, but he still dealt in facts.
Liu Duan, being a seasoned veteran, narrowed it down immediately. “Then there’s only one possibility left: Chen Qing.”
“Double-cross? He’s part of Lin Zong’s four, and also on the masked man’s side?”
Zhen Wuyu finished checking the cellar and found no useful clues. He stood and walked out.
“No. There are two possibilities.”
“Luo Hong.”
Liu Duan was stunned.
Zhen Wuyu said coldly, “Who knows if he’s actually dead.”
To confirm whether Luo Hong was dead, they had to confirm the scene where Chen Qing pushed him down.
The bathhouse had been modified. It connected to three passages. One was the old one, facing the exit—where Zhen Wuyu had entered. The right passage had an iron door; that was where the masked man in the wheelchair had left.
The left passage was where Chen Qing and Luo Hong had gone.
While the technicians worked to force open the iron door, Zhen Wuyu examined the individual stalls where the six had been held.
He compared the site piece by piece to confirm the clues they’d gotten from the videotapes; the relevant personnel also needed to take evidence photos.
But what Zhen Wuyu cared about most was the rope knots.
The knots were all undone now. To reconstruct the original knot-tying method would take effort and study, like reversing it from the rope’s long-term deformation and marks, or…
The most valuable piece: the one abnormal knot that had been cut directly.
“This one,” someone said, “Su Li cut it. She loosened part of it, but the rest is still here.”
Liu Duan saw Zhen Wuyu taking photos from multiple angles with his phone and squatted to look too. After watching for a moment, he instinctively reached for a cigarette.
“What?” Zhen Wuyu stared at him. It was half silent scolding for ignoring his body, half noticing something was off.
“Damn it,” Liu Duan said. “I think I’ve seen this knot before.”
He wouldn’t smoke in front of Zhen Wuyu, but he could say what flashed through his mind.
Because the memory was too deep, even after so many years.
Zhen Wuyu asked, “An old case?”
“Yeah…” Liu Duan adjusted his breathing. “In the Baimian Chang, Snow Spirit Path case, one key reason those five cases were merged was the consistent knot style on the victims—four wraps around the wrist, then pulled down to bind the thumb and index finger into a bent lock.”
Zhen Wuyu said, “Su Li does have injuries like that. Long binding cuts off circulation, plus the constriction marks.”
“The others do too.”
Liu Duan’s face tightened. “If we reason backward from Lin Zong, then he’s connected to the Snow Spirit Path case?!”
Damn it. He’d thought those four weren’t clean, that they’d probably committed brutal crimes. But he hadn’t expected a link to Snow Spirit Path—the case that left this land with a heavy, terrifying memory around 1991.
So was Lin Zong the Baimian Chang?
Liu Duan really wanted to smoke. The old, crushing memories came pouring back.
“Five cases.
First: the ginseng case.
Second: the forest cabin dismemberment case. The victim’s skull was perched on the chimney, smoked black like cured meat.
Third: the medicine-granny-in-a-jar case.
Fourth: the ghost car.
Fifth: Snow Spirit Night Walk.
I can’t go into details here. It’s too horrifying, and it’ll mess up your thinking on this case. When we get back, we’ll definitely have to pull the files. We’ll talk then.”
“But I can say this: back when our group investigated those cases, I have no memory of these people at all. I don’t understand how they got involved and walked away clean.”
The more you cared about an old case, the more cautious you became, afraid hope would turn into despair again.
Only old cops knew how tormenting guilt and unwillingness became after years of fermentation.
But Zhen Wuyu clearly wasn’t someone with high emotional intelligence. He threw out one sentence: “And you didn’t manage to pick out any other deep-linked suspects either.”
Liu Duan: “…”
Fine. Great. Now he wanted to smoke even more.
This unfilial disciple.
Still, it proved one thing: Liu Mei wasn’t the problem.
She hadn’t leaked intel or interfered with rescue. She’d worked hard helping save people. Even the most suspicious person couldn’t pin her as guilty anymore.
As for Huang Xiuling’s bullying accusation, they would need a detailed investigation. But something like that might only be known by the parties involved after so many years.
Neither Liu Duan nor Zhen Wuyu intended to lay it out and question Liu Mei about it. And they still had other things to check.
Clang—the iron door was forced open.
“You go check the wiring,” Zhen Wuyu instructed, “and be careful with the broadcast unit and the cameras inside. Don’t damage them. Use the product serial number to trace the sales channel…”
After giving orders, Zhen Wuyu entered the passage. Following the videotape memory, he quickly found the place where Chen Qing escaped and Luo Hong died.
Because Luo Hong’s incident indicated danger here, Chen Liao and Xiao Li followed too.
The four of them moved cautiously, one after another, using flashlights, and then—
“Oh my god, careful!”
No one fell in, but what they saw was horrifying enough.
There was a huge pit below.
Inside the pit stood rows of upright, sharp blades.
Their edges were bright; under the light, they glittered coldly.
“So when Luo Hong was pushed down, he definitely died on the spot.”
“This is terrifying.”
“Chen Qing is vicious. Wait—this is it, right? There’s blood down there.”
At the edge of the passage, the videotape also showed it was this spot. This was where Chen Qing shoved Luo Hong, where Luo Hong fell.
Now there were large patches of dried blood below, and blades smeared with blood.
But the body was gone.
Only blood remained.
Liu Duan said, “Collect the blood and confirm if it’s Luo Hong’s… get someone here.”
Chen Liao said, “So the masked man moved the corpse?”
“He’s trying to hide evidence. If you hadn’t arrived in time, those people wouldn’t have been found either. They could’ve died from gas poisoning in that cellar and no one would know.”
“Ah—careful!”
Zhen Wuyu climbed down. Liu Duan cursed him for being reckless and climbed down too.
The bloodied blades looked frightening. Zhen Wuyu used his flashlight to examine the blood patterns and the blade edges… then after a moment, he said something that shocked them all.
“Based on the blood coverage, Luo Hong’s height falling and being pierced makes sense. But if you pull a corpse off the blades, there should be full, vertical smearing from flesh scraping and blood flowing. This isn’t that. These are wipe marks.”
“And the blades… aren’t stable.”
He gripped the base of one bloodied blade and shook it, then shook others.
“These have been removed and reinstalled. The insertion points were used by a previous batch of blades and widened. That’s why they’re loose now.”
“Most importantly: if someone truly died from a fall, the spatter patterns would form radiating sprays. But the other blades barely have any blood droplets. This doesn’t match bloodstain pattern analysis.”
“In other words, this is a staged death scene.”
“Luo Hong faked death. What Chen Qing saw was likely a soft fake blade stabbing into Luo Hong. He lay there with blood coming out. Chen Qing thought he was dead and ran for his own life.”
“But soon, Luo Hong, playing dead, got up.”
“I think Chen Qing is in his hands now.”
“He didn’t escape at all.”
“Everything is under their control.”
Chen Liao looked dazed. “Then what do the masked man and Luo Hong want? They didn’t kill people, and they don’t seem determined to wipe out Su Li and the others either. It’s like they’re messing with us, making us rush to rescue…”
“What are they after?”
Zhen Wuyu stood up in the pit among countless cold, gleaming blades. He took off his gloves, expressionless.
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Money, hatred, secrets, emotion, freedom.”
“Money, hatred, emotion. 124. That represents the root causes of every evil crime; the origin of why people commit crimes. And secrets and freedom are the outcome.”
“They want to tell us the reasons behind those cases, but the outcome hasn’t arrived yet.”
“The outcome back then wasn’t the outcome. They want to restart everything—using the police to reopen the old case.”
Liu Duan murmured, “Wait. 124? There might be another meaning.”
Zhen Wuyu looked at him.
“December 4th. That was… the date of the fifth case, Snow Spirit Night Walk. And it was the day the bureau chief—our bureau chief… died.”
Zhen Wuyu pressed his lips together and said softly, “Also the day Su Li’s mother died.”
So that was why, when he saved Su Li, bias and suspicion had run side by side in his mind—Su Li had motive.