After a huge struggle, they finally pulled the woman out, but Xin Bai's eyelids were already scratched. Fortunately, she didn’t hurt his eyes. He was taken to Peng Sijue for some medical treatment.

Lin Qiupu also learned that the pen was taken by Xin Bai from the laboratory when the X-rays were taken, and the policeman who left the pen lying around was ordered to hand in a self-reflecting report.

The woman was taken back to the conference room where she was questioned. She was sobbing ceaselessly. Lin Qiupu knew that she was devastated. The husband who had been with her day and night was tortured and then dismembered. Nobody could bear that. Thus, when words of blame arrived at his lips, it only came out as one sentence: "Haii, how can you do such a thing?"

"My husband was killed by him. He’s a psychopath!" The woman gritted her teeth.

"Did your husband reveal something to you?" Chen Shi guessed.

The woman nodded silently. After her breathing settled, she took out her mobile phone to play a video. The video was filmed from outside the window. She saw a man kneeling on the ground naked and beating himself with a small whip. Upon a closer look, who could this man be but Xin Bai?

The whip was made of leather, and the front end was divided into many strands. He whipped himself with a lot of force. Each time he whipped his back, a few purple marks appeared. He would cry and mutter things as he whipped himself.

At this time, a voice spoke. "Hello, wife, do you see this? What is he doing? I heard him saying, ‘Is it enough? Is it enough?’ Is there someone else in the room? I can't see clearly from this angle."

"It's my husband's voice." The woman said with tears falling down her face.

This room was the one that had just been searched. At this time, Xin Bai began to take off his pants, and the voice behind the camera became agitated. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, what is he about to do?"

The naked Xin Bai brought out a small box from the cabinet and took something out of it.

It was a small, black, and square box, about the size of a cigarette case. A long thin metal wire stretched out in front of him. He pinched his penis and carefully poked the metal wire in. His face twisted and looked deformed due to the pain.

Lin Dongxue was shocked watching this scene.

It was a self-abuse prop. The wire pierced into the urethra before the electrical current was discharged. He lay on the floor, electrocuting himself and twitching. Then, he curled up into a ball, crying. It looked extremely sad.

The video ended there. The first question Chen Shi thought of was, "That apartment is on the third floor!"

"My husband climbed up and took a sneaky video... This is the last message my husband sent. I didn't hear the notification because I was in the shower. When I watched it later, I sent him over a dozen messages saying that this person was a psycho and that he should hurry and come back, but there was no reply. You’ve also watched it. He was the only one there at the time. My husband must have been killed by him for sure!"

"Madam, there is one thing I must tell you. Installed in that room..." Chen Shi glanced at Lin Qiupu who didn’t object, so he continued, "The four corners of the room had cameras installed to monitor and imprison him. He is also a victim, so the person who killed your husband is very likely another person."

"Can you catch him?" the woman asked.

"Don't worry, we definitely will!"

"Wait, play the video again." Lin Dongxue said.

When the video was played again, Lin Dongxue pointed to the corner of the screen and said, "Look, there’s a camera facing the window. It’s very likely that Zhang Zhenlei was seen while taking the video, and that person went to kill him to prevent him from talking."

Lin Qiupu said, "If he could come over in such a short amount of time, it means he lives very close!"

After sending the woman away, Chen Shi suggested for them to go out to eat. Lin Qiupu said, "Go to the cafeteria. The things outside are unsanitary."

Chen Shi said, "I wasn’t talking to you... Okay, okay, let’s eat together. We’ll go out to eat!"

"We’ll go to the cafeteria to eat!" Lin Qiupu insisted.

Seeing as it was Lin Qiupu's treat, Chen Shi didn't insist further. When they got to the cafeteria, Chen Shi ordered braised chicken legs, fried spinach, and pot-sticker tofu. Lin Dongxue said, "There’s your favorite sweet and sour pork ribs. "

Lin Qiupu cast a slightly surprised look at them, and Chen Shi pretended to lightly say, "I don’t particularly like that. I’ll change my palate today."

After getting seated, Lin Dongxue said, "I seem to understand the ins and outs of this case. When Xin Bai was a child, he was bullied by a classmate named Lan Xiao. After he grew up, he became an author of novels. Lan Xiao found out that the guy he bullied in the past was now famous, and he had become the big villain in the novel. He went to find him to take his anger out, but it snowballed into imprisoning and torturing Xin Bai, even forcing him to commit murder and dismember the body."

"That’s too unbelievable. The villain in the novel 'crossed' into reality to torture the author." Lin Qiupu sighed helplessly.

Chen Shi said, "But when I read this novel, the villain Lan Xiao had been making lots of trouble. In the recently updated chapters, he’s still a consistent character and hasn’t been beautified nor changed to a less antagonistic role. If it’s really Lan Xiao who was doing this, wouldn’t he add some extra screen time for himself?"

Lin Qiupu said, "We still don't know what this Lan Xiao person is like."

"Your name appeared in the novel and you aren’t a good person either. Would you mind?" Chen Shi asked.

"Mmm…"

"For example, in a Danmei novel[1] and you’re the victim of 10,000 years."[2]

"Don't use me as an example!" Lin Qiupu smacked the table and stood up. "Dongxue, what is this ‘victim of 10,000 years’ thing? Surely it’s not a good thing?"

Lin Dongxue covered her mouth and laughed as Chen Shi also laughed. "It seems like you also mind it."

"Not everyone minds." Lin Qiupu said.

"But I believe a person who saw his name appear in the novel and came to trouble the original author must mind it a lot."

"It’s still the same deal. We still don't know what Lan Xiao is like. We aren’t in a hurry to make a final conclusion. Of course, the character of a former campus bully is definitely not going to be great."

"Okay, okay, let’s check Lan Xiao first! By the way, check Xin Bai's account expenditures."

After eating, Lin Qiupu went to work. The autopsy results from Peng Sijue hadn’t come out yet. It seemed that he had encountered a problem. Most of the police had gone to investigate the identity of the deceased.

Chen Shi didn't go anywhere. He sat at Lin Dongxue's desk and used the computer. Lin Dongxue came in with two cups of coffee and asked, "Going out to investigate?"

"Close the door!" Chen Shi said mysteriously.

After closing the door, Chen Shi pulled Lin Dongxue over and sat her down on his lap. It turned out that he was browsing the comment sections of the novel. After the break, the readers were already stirred and sent "warm" blessings to the slack author.

"If Lan Xiao read this novel, he may have left a comment. I'm looking for..." As he said this, Chen Shi's perverted hand groped at Lin Dongxue's waist.

"Aren't a lot of people reading the novel from websites that rip from the original?"

"Let's check from the main website first..."

After looking through a few pages, there were too many comments. Lin Dongxue suggested that it would be better to compile and edit them all directly. Hence, the two called Xin Bai’s editor in charge, and after explaining the situation, the editor was shocked. "I was wondering why Mr. Bai suddenly disappeared. I couldn’t contact him via WeChat either. It turned out to be something like this. When can he come back out?"

"That depends on the speed in solving the case. We need your assistance."

"As long as it’s something I can do, I will definitely help."

The editor sent all the comments from the novel to them through the backend of the website. Due to the large number of comments, the two turned on two computers to look through them. Lin Dongxue suddenly said, "Here’s a deleted message."

Chen Shi leaned over and took a look. The ID was a string of meaningless letters. The content of the message was, "Fuck, you actually wrote a novel. The small fool is doing pretty good for himself. You’re using my name to make money? Hahaha you’re making me out to be a big boss as well. Are you still afraid of me? Do you still remember when I pushed your head into the toilet for you to drink tea?"

1. Originally coined in Japanese as a translation of “aestheticism” and was applied in the description of boy love-themed comics since the 1970s which at the time were mostly aesthetic and romantic.

2. The person who is typically regarded as the “bottom” during male homosexual intercourse.