The corpse was so decomposed that it made people's scalps numb. They hurriedly closed the bathroom door and waited for Peng Sijue to come and deal with it.

Lin Dongxue patted her chest. "It feels like I’ve lost two years of my life."

"As have I!" Chen Shi raised his head. "Look!"

Following the direction of where his finger was pointing, they saw that the four corners of the house were equipped with cameras. The data lines were taped to the wall, leading outdoors. Chen Shi went to the balcony and took a look. These data lines were connected to a communication serial port with a phone on it, sending over signals.

"Oh no, could we have been seen?" Lin Dongxue said.

"It's too late even if we were." Lin Qiupu went out and said. "I will notify the Information Department to come over and see where the data is being transmitted to."

"No matter where it’s transmitted, it proves that someone is monitoring everything in this room remotely and that the 'master' exists." Chen Shi said.

"Not necessarily. Maybe the author did it." Lin Qiupu was still in denial.

Everyone checked the house carefully. There was a massage chair, a computer desk, and a bookshelf in the bedroom, but no bed.

Chen Shi turned on the computer and found that it was password-protected, so he turned off the computer and unloaded the PC. He was already very proficient in doing this.

He glanced at the kitchen again. The kitchen was very clean. It seemed like the people who lived here didn't have the habit of cooking. There was some instant frozen food stuffed in the refrigerator. Besides that, there were some medicine bottles without labels.

"Look at this!" Chen Shi said, "This is probably the banned drug Xin Bai took. Let's take it back for testing."

"What is this?" Lin Dongxue picked up a sticker-like thing.

Chen Shi sniffed it. "Maybe it's a nicotine patch."

There was a smell in the house. It wasn’t just the smell of the corpse coming from the bathroom, but the smell that came about when a place hadn’t been cleaned for a long time. The overall feeling was relatively messy. He felt that Xin Bai's style of living here made more sense.

Could he actually work here? Perhaps the host also lived here?

"Chen Shi, Chen Shi!" Lin Qiupu shouted from outside.

When the two went out, they found that Lin Qiupu had discovered something incredible. There was an overturned picture frame on the shelf. When they picked it up, they were shocked. In the photo was Xin Bai smiling as he held something bloody with a few red liquid stains on his face. The thing in his hands looked like a large slug. Chen Shi recognized it and said, "It's a human tongue!"

Lin Dongxue covered her mouth in disgust. "Is that from the corpse just now?"

"It shouldn’t be. The deceased's mouth and throat are intact. This is a whole tongue, which can only be taken out from the throat." The tongue in the photo was as big as the pig tongues sold in the market.

"Do you still want to say that this person is innocent?" Lin Qiupu asked. "Would normal people take this kind of photo and keep it at home?"

"This photo was taken by someone else because both of his hands are in the frame." Chen Shi pointed out.

"Most mobile phones on the market have a time-lapse camera function."

"No. Don't you think he’s smiling really reluctantly? A human smile affects 20 to 40 muscles. It’s the most difficult expression to forge. His smile is fake. Someone is threatening him!" Chen Shi insisted.

"I don't understand where your affection for him comes from. Is it because you read his book? In fact, I took a look at the novel when I went back last night. What was written? A police officer and the criminal exchange bodies and the criminal police captain gets killed? In the first case, the mother killed her child to retaliate against her husband. It’s a third-rate novel that just tries to get views. I really can't see where the brilliance lies!"

"My opinion of him is very objective. I just think it is more reasonable that there’s another person. Who would monitor themselves?"

"Why don't you guys continue to debate when we head back?" Lin Dongxue mediated. "What is this?"

There was a tape recorder on the table. Lin Dongxue was born in the 90s and had never used a cassette tape recorder. It felt very novel to her, so she pressed the button and a burst of passionate music came out from it.

"Now let's do the eighth set of the broadcast gymnastics! Keep walking in place..."

The three remembered the exercises Xin Bai did in the interrogation room last night. Lin Dongxue said, "We did the ninth set when we went to school. The times are changing."

"Captain, I found more photos." A police officer said.

They found several photo frames in a cabinet, all of which were Xin Bai’s "personal shows". One of them showed him holding a bloody intestine in his hands, posing with a heart shape, and smiling.

In another one, he held a woman's head and pretended to kiss it.

In the other one, he clipped up a heart with chopsticks, pretending to be surprised.

There were five such "works" in total.

"God... My God!" Lin Dongxue couldn't use words to describe her disgust and shock. She felt that her body was shaking and that this writer was absolutely psychotic.

"How disgusting!" Lin Qiupu commented, taking a look at Chen Shi to see what he had to say now.

Chen Shi stared at the photo and pondered. He pulled out the photo and found a line behind it. "Is it that I’m psychotic or is the world too mediocre?"

Upon seeing this, Lin Dongxue also took out the other photos, and there was elegant penmanship behind them.

"If internecine annihilation is human nature, why should we flee from it?"

"The one who decides who lives and dies is a god!"

"Death is the sublimation of life and the carnival of the soul. Let me burn your mediocre life."

"Death is eternal. Seeing the eternal moment is like facing the mirror of truth."

"It's that guy's handwriting. It's the same as the one on the notebook." Lin Qiupu said, "This person is rotten from the inside out."

"These words have appeared in his novels. They were said by the antagonist Lan Xiao. He’s a criminal who likes to show off. Every time he kills, he has to say something deep." Chen Shi said.

"In that case, the creator drew inspiration from the murders? Or did he write and gradually substitute himself into the role of the villain?"

Chen Shi couldn’t answer Lin Qiupu’s question either. He picked up the first photo and studied it. Then, he pointed to Xin Bai’s face and said, “Look, the blood on his face was wiped off with a hand. The thumb is on top. If he did it himself, the thumb should be below!”

Lin Dongxue tried to wipe her face with her hand. She really admired the discovery of this minor detail. Lin Qiupu pondered for a moment and said, "If you wipe the blood off with the back of your hand, your thumb will be on top."

"That’s too far-fetched."

"Okay, okay, leave this matter aside for now. Let’s investigate first."

Later, Peng Sijue and others arrived and began investigating the scene. The police of the Information Department checked the whereabouts of the video data and discovered that the IP address of the mobile phone was located in a nearby building.

Lin Qiupu quickly led people to that office building. When they located the IP and got there, a group of office workers who were working had eyes of confusion.

After explaining the situation with the manager, the police started investigating every computer there and found a Trojan in one of the computers. However, the port had already been closed and the background data had been thoroughly deleted. The computer was only a signal transfer station.

"Why did he choose the transit station here?" Lin Qiupu looked outside, only to see the window of the apartment.

To be on the safe side, everyone in the company registered their personal information. The police would investigate them slowly after heading back. At this time, Lin Dongxue called and said with agitation, "Brother, we found the landlord of that house. Guess who the renter is?!"

"Who?"

"Lan Xiao!"

"Lan Xiao, could it be..."

"Yes, it's the antagonist in Xin Bai's novel. I checked and the information is true. This person is called Lan Xiao!"