"Cult? Isn’t that an exaggeration?" Lin Dongxue said.

"I'm talking about the nature of this small collective. They all believe in something that others think is very absurd. It's not an exaggeration to call it a cult!" Chen Shi said.

Xu Xiaodong said, "They should be called dream worshipers!"

"Okay, that's a good summary... By the way, Xiaodong, help me monitor an individual."

"Okay, let me know." Xu Xiaodong was very excited when he heard that there was a mission.

Chen Shi asked him to monitor Liu Tao and wrote down a copy of the address. He complimented, "Your energy is good. I’ll treat you to dinner later."

"Hehe, I like to perform tasks. I can do them without using my head."

"That’s nice and all, but if you keep this kind of thinking, you won’t become an outstanding police officer."

"Why do I have to be outstanding? I can just be a good support. The police are always about teamwork! Right, Dongxue?"

Lin Dongxue smiled and said, "You have so many sets of fallacies."

Early the next morning, Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue went to the bus station. To reach Yinxian, they had to pass some rugged mountain roads. It was more convenient to take a bus. Chen Shi hadn't taken these to travel for a long time.

Enjoying the scenery of the mountains along the way, the two arrived at the small town in the mountains at 10:00 in the morning. Lin Dongxue said, “It’s a warm and quaint town. If it weren’t for investigating this case, I would never have had a chance to come here in this life. I’ve never even heard of it."

"If you aren’t in a hurry, we can spend the night here and take the bus back tomorrow morning."

"Yueyue is at home alone though? Let’s forget it! We’ll spend a lot of time together in the future, but you won’t have that much time to spend with Yueyue."

"Haha, I’ll thank you for being such a considerate big sister for Yueyue."

The two inquired around and got to Yinxian No. 1 Middle School. Chen Shi told a teacher the names of the deceased. The teacher furrowed their brows and recalled, asking, "Which class were they in?"

"I don't know, but they were all born in 1979."

"Then they should have entered the school before the 90s. It’s been too long. The teachers of that class have already retired. I’ll check if there’s any information about them in the archives."

The archives room was actually on a hill behind the school. The teacher said as he walked, "It’s actually the old school site. Now, it’s used as a warehouse. It’s just a row of tiled houses. I went to school here when I was a child. This school has always been very poor and can't keep people. Later, a Hong Kong actor donated money to build the teaching building down there and expanded the enrollment capacity. The situation got a bit better as a result."

"What year did you go to junior high?" Chen Shi asked.

"1992."

"Were there any rumors in the school, such as a student being bullied by the whole class?"

The teacher hesitated to speak. When Chen Shi said that they were investigating a case, he said, "Then I will just casually talk about it. Don’t take it too seriously. I heard that there was a girl who was an evil portent’s reincarnation. In reality, her life was quite unfortunate. Her mother was abducted by human traffickers. In those days, human trafficking was still rampant... The woman was bought by a family for three thousand yuan to be their daughter-in-law. She didn’t obediently accept no matter what they did, so she was chained and locked in a basement. The strange thing was that she was actually pregnant. The man who bought her thought it was his younger brother who knocked her up. The two brothers fought and a knife was used. The older brother hacked his younger brother to death and went to jail. Ever since that woman gave birth to the baby, she went crazy. The family kept her locked up because they didn’t want the shame of the family to be known. When I was a child, I passed through the basement and heard her laughing in it, saying something about ‘my baby’. The children in the town didn’t dare approach that place. I heard that in the seventh year, the woman died. It was very miserable."

"What about the girl?" Lin Dongxue asked, listening attentively.

"The girl killed her 'father' with the misfortune she brought with her before she was even born, and the family is patriarchal, so how good could it have been for her? She was beaten and scolded by her grandparents from when she was young and they told her to do this and that. She hadn’t had her menstruation at the age of fifteen and her body was as thin as her bones. However, no matter how bad her family was, she must be sent to school for the nine years of compulsory education. At school, everyone said she was an evil portent, so they distanced themselves away from her. She never changed her clothes and only had a school uniform with patches on it. Some people said that she had a moldy smell on her. Later, a student in her class died, and the story of her being a calamity became even more widespread. So, after she graduated, we could still hear these words at school."

"How did the student in her class die?"

The teacher shook his head. "I don't know about that. Perhaps you could ask the people in the town. Almost everyone my age knows something about her..."

The teacher suddenly stood still, and then dashed away in one direction. Chen Shi and Lin Dongxue looked up, only to see billowing smoke from the top of the mountain.

The two rushed to the top of the mountain. Thick smoke came out of a window. The teacher smacked his leg. "Oh no, oh no! The archives room is on fire!"

"Is there a fire brigade in town?"

"The fire brigade is dozens of kilometers away!" As the teacher said this, he shook the water pump. With a click, the wrench of the water pump was broken. Chen Shi stepped forward to check and found signs of damage.

He had a feeling that some people don't want them to check the student files here.

Looking at the dense smoke, the fire should have just been set up. Chen Shi told Lin Dongxue to stay there and rushed down the mountain. At this time, the teachers and students under the mountain were all alerted. They stood on the playground and watched from a distance. Some teachers were panting, climbing the mountain to fight the fire.

Seeing a stranger rushing down, some teachers tried to stop Chen Shi and asked, "Who are you?!"

Chen Shi simply held his ID in his hand and said to whomever he saw, "I’m a policeman. Have you seen a suspicious person running down?"

Everyone shook their heads. Chen Shi went all the way to the playground. A school worker said, "I just saw a man in a black hat come down from the mountain. He also had the China Telecom logo on his clothes."

"Where did he go?"

"Out of the school."

Chen Shi got to a street outside the school where people came and went. He could only ask everyone he saw. Then, he found a China Telecom uniform and a black hat in a trash can.

Chen Shi picked up the clothes to check its size and once again focused his eyes on the people coming and going, looking for people of similar size. At this time, he noticed a man sneaking into an alley.

Intuition led him to walk over. The man saw that there was someone chasing behind him, so he sped away. Chen Shi knew he couldn’t let him escape this time and chased after him desperately.

After passing through a few alleys, he finally threw the man to the ground and turned his face to take a look. It turned out to be Xin Bai.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

"I... I came over to collect materials..." Xin Bai said, "Will you get off of me? People would think we’re doing that kind of stuff!"

Chen Shi asked him to stand up. When he saw a layer of soot on Xin Bai's fingers, he suddenly understood and interrogated, "You’re the one who set the fire?"

"Uh... why would I set a fire..."

"Was it you?!"

This frightened the cowardly Xin Bai who confessed, "Yes... The Dream Master asked me to do it."

Chen Shi couldn't believe it. He angrily slammed Xin Bai to the ground and shouted, "You traitor!"