"Leader, Fan Jialuo has posted something again!" Luo Hong shouted as he raised his cell phone.

"What, he's still posting?" The task force members gathered to stare at the screen of Luo Hong's cell phone, and shook their heads upon seeing the post. It was the same sentence pattern, the same wording style, with the only difference being that the number had been tirelessly increased from two to three to four, as if arousing public panic by posting such things didn't affect him at all. But the candidates of the 'death' list were still very much alive and living comfortably, so naturally no such thing as a serial murder had happened.

When Fan Jialuo had released the second death notice, some netizens on the Internet had instantly called the police, urging them to quickly catch the crazy killer. But by the time the third and fourth notices were published, the netizens had already become completely numb. They initially thought that they had caught sight of Fan Jialuo's true face. But how was this man a murderer? Reality showed that he was merely a person suffering from a severe delusional disorder. All his actions were clearly aimed at increasing his own popularity!

Not only did the netizens think so, but even the police officers who were part of the special task force began to doubt their previous judgment.

Liu Tao, who had rushed back to the station from the outside, touched his semi-bald head and scolded, "That son of a bitch Fan Jialuo must be playing with us! A second victim hasn't even appeared, so where did the third and fourth come from? In order to prevent Sun Ying from running away, Laozi's legs were almost broken, it's just really too unbelievable. That kid found an opportunity and ran for it. In order to catch up with him, I almost fell off the balcony on the sixth floor and died on the spot! He also pointed at my nose and scolded me for being nosy. Who did he think Laozi was doing all of this for?"

The police officer in-charge of protecting Fan Luoshan was even more angry. "Vice-captain, you're still okay. I was carried to the gym by Fan Luoshan's bodyguards, they wanted to test my skills, and I couldn't even get up after being beaten. The bodyguards he has hired are mercenaries who have experienced hundreds of battles. I'm just a small policeman, how can we be compared? Fan Luoshan was intentionally humiliating me. He clearly doesn't trust our capabilities as police officers!"

As soon as his voice fell, he received a call from Fan Luoshan's assistant, who first told him about Fan Jialuo's latest death notice, before ridiculing him severely. "It seems that our President Fan overestimated your bureau's ability in handling such cases. A large group of elite police officers was unexpectedly led around by a person suffering from delusion and multiple-personality disorder. Our President Fan has been very busy recently. I'm afraid we won't be able to continue to cooperate with your investigation in the future. If you have so much time and energy, it would be better for you to take Fan Jialuo to the hospital and have his brain examined."

Upon hearing the other side hang up the phone, the policeman felt shame and couldn't help but blush in embarrassment.

The team members who were responsible for protecting Zhao Wenyan and Cao Xiaofeng had also been sent back, and either directly or politely had their noses rubbed into the dirt. For the past few days, they had suffered from undisguised supercilious looks and had grievances directed at them, so much so that even their self-esteem had been greatly affected and hurt by this treatment. When they had initially asked for the cooperation of the civilians in the investigation, they had emphasised on how serious the situation was, but now, all they felt was shame.

At present, the whole special task force was a little depressed and some of them had even begun to doubt life. No one took the initiative to eat the large pile of lunch boxes that Liao Fang had bought, and so they slowly let them turn cold. What eating? If this case couldn't be solved in a day, they would have to bear the name of 'wine sack', which would become a disgrace for the entire Criminal Police Department!

Zhuang Zhen, wearing a solemn expression on his face, silently browsed Fan Jialuo's Weibo, his thoughts completely unknown. The team members had gathered around the investigation board, and one by one, after widening their eyes to the size of bronze bells, were attempting to find even the tiniest of clues, but still failed to see anything. If the emotion and intensity in their eyes could be turned into tangible power, the board getting stared at might already have suffered from countless burnt holes.

At this time, the Chief and Deputy Chief of the Police Bureau arrived in person and summoned everyone for a meeting, where they chewed them out-first by showing their disappointment in their recent performance and then emphasizing just how detrimental the progress of the case was to the Bureau's reputation. In summary, if the case was not solved soon, they would become a laughingstock in the entire city!

After adding an insurmountable pressure onto the task force, the leaders left, and the remaining people could finally breathed in relief. That didn't last long though, for they soon fell in an unprecedented mess of anxiety and confusion.

"The sketches of the murder scene has been revealed, and everyone is clear on the identity of the person behind the scenes. So why are we unable to find any concrete evidence? Who killed Gao Yize? How did the murderer get to the rooftop? How was the murder carried out? Are Fan Jialuo's subsequent death notices just a bluff? Is the real purpose to disturb our vision, distract our energy and ultimately hinder our investigation? If we didn't allocate so many people to protect the so-called potential victims, we would have caught Fan Jialuo's tale by now, wouldn't we have?" Liu Tao slapped the table and shouted, " Damn it, I've never seen a suspect so arrogant, so cunning and so difficult!"

"Yes, Fan Jialuo is being too blatant! Is he really that confident that we won't be able to grasp his handle?"

"Where on earth does his confidence come from?"

"Probably from the murderer he hired. The other side's killing technique is too strange!"

"He will either play with us all his life if he has the ability, else we will one day bring him to justice!"

All the members of the task force joined in this on-going crusade of cries against Fan Jialuo, except for Zhuang Zhen, who was off to the side thinking calmly by himself, while also glancing at the messy investigation board from time to time. Unfortunately, there were no useful clues to be found there. The investigation had reached a dead end, and if they wanted to have a breakthrough, they needed to change their way of thinking.

It was just like what was being said in the outside world, Fan Jialuo was now completely leading the task force by their nose. His sketch, his death notices-all of this had attracted the complete attention of the police onto him, so then why had he drawn such a sketch in the first place? Was it really for popularity? Was he the kind of person who would act crazily for such a reason? Did he prefer being a person who was pointed at by thousands of people, rather than being forgotten by the world?

For some reason, the memory of the scene where Fan Jialuo looked up slightly and smiled at him from across the interrogation table surfaced in Zhuang Zhen's mind. At the start of the interrogation, Fan Jialuo had sat in the shadow of the lamp, against the light, and his whole person had been engulfed in darkness, in silence-as if he did not exist. However, when Zhuang Zhen had turned on the lamp to illuminate his face, his eyebrows had not twisted even slightly in response to the sudden glare of light, and his expression had not changed at all. He had not been nervous when he was being interrogated, nor was he flustered when being pressured by continuous questions.

At that moment, Zhuang Zhen had arrived at a judgment-this was a man with a mind deeper than the sea. He had an extraordinary control over his body and emotions. Would such a person really jump up and down like a mentally-ill patient and play tricks on the public just to gain attention? What did he truly think? Could they have been misled by him from the beginning? Did this case have nothing to do with him at all? Was there another reason behind Gao Yize's death?

Zhuang Zhen once again turned his attention to his mobile phone, and his expression turned into one of complete confusion and frustration. The posts sent by Fan Jialuo had always been very concise. The second one, the third one and the fourth one; nothing more, these lines seemed to be full of certainty.

For the first time, Zhuang Zhen felt that his IQ was not high enough. He had dealt with some of the world's most cunning smugglers and terrorists, yet their ways of thinking were not even as complicated as Fan Jialuo's, whose thought process could be counted to be one in ten thousands. Zhuang Zhen really couldn't guess what he was thinking or planning.

"Xiao Luo, contact all the bureaus in Beijing and have them provide us with information on every homicide case before and after the release of the death notices." Zhuang Zhen had to admit that he couldn't fight head-on against Fan Jialuo, so he simply decided to bypass the other for now and investigate the case itself. His intuition told him that Fan Jialuo's death notices were not a prank. That person's state of mind was more stable than a mountain, how could he be likened to a madman talking nonsense on the Internet?

"Leader, do you think that those death notices are true?" Luo Hong was already deeply doubting this inference.

"Look at everything separately. I think the death notices are true, and that our list of potential victims may be wrong. What if Fan Jialuo wasn't behind this murder? What if Gao Yize's death has nothing to do with him, and he just happened to know something about it? Check to see if there were any more suspicious homicides within the time period when the four death notices were released, and analyze whether there is common ground between these homicides, especially if there is any relationship between the dead people and Gao Yize. We should change our current way of thinking."

"Understood, let's ask the other branches. Come on, let's assign the tasks."

-

Three days later, all the members of the special investigation team gathered in the conference room and stared at a huge whiteboard covered in photos, lines and notes.

Zhuang Zhen, with bloodshot eyes, picked up an oil based pen, pointed at the picture of a victim, and said slowly, "Deceased Wang Wei, male, aged 21, a professional plumber, died on the second day of the third death notice issued by Fan Jialuo. The place of death was in a cheap hotel room rented in the red light district. The cause of death was mechanical asphyxia. When he died, he was naked, there were no traces of sexual intercourse, two fingers had been cut off by the pliers he had brought with him, and they haven't been found yet. The Public Security Bureau in that area failed to find any clues about the murderer at the scene of the crime and settled it as a robbery and murder case."

"Note that he graduated from class 256 of the Affiliated High School of Normal University, while Gao Yize graduated from class 253 of the same Affiliated High School of Normal University. They were classmates studying in the same year and may have known each other. It's also because of this that he caught our sight."

Zhuang Zhen drew an arrow to connect Wang Wei's picture with the third death notice.

Then, he pointed at two other photos. "This is Zhao Kai, male, 21 years old. After graduating from junior high school, he muddled through society, didn't have a proper job and died on the third day after the second death notice was issued. Cause of death was a sharp weapon stabbing into his stomach. Did the comrades who read this case report feel that it was familiar? That's right. It happened in our jurisdiction and was finally concluded as a robbery and murder case."

Zhuang Zhen looked around the meeting room, and everyone bowed their heads to avoid his gaze, their faces full of shame.

Zhuang Zhen had no intention to pursue this oversight. After all, even he didn't expect a robbery and murder case without any unusual features to be related to Gao Yize's fall from the building. He pointed to another picture, next to this one, and continued, "This is Mao Xiaoming, male, 20 years old, also graduated from junior high school and died of a drug overdose. His body was found at home. The time of death is the second day after the fourth death notice was issued. He and Zhao Kai have nothing to do with Gao Yize. The reason why they came into our field of view is that they were good friends in life, or rather, Mao Xiaoming was Zhao Kai's henchman. The two of them died one after the other. Is there a relationship between the reason for their deaths? Can we count them in this serial murder case as well?"

Zhuang Zhen put a question mark next to the photos of these two people and said, "Second, their time of death coincides with the death notice issued by Fan Jialuo; third, their locational scope of activity was once concentrated near the Affiliated High School of Normal University. Could they have known Gao Yize and Wang Wei when they were students? Fourth, they-"

Before Zhuang Zhen could finish speaking, a police officer rushed in with a newly printed WeChat chat record and was very excited as he exclaimed, "Leader, after some research, we found that Zhao Kai and Mao Xiaoming really might have known Gao Yize. Take a look!"

Zhuang Zhen took the copy and as he skimmed through it, a flash streaked across his eyes.

A few lines were written on the chat record.

[Gao Yize, I know him. His original name was Gao Fei. He changed it afterwards.]

[He must have had a facelift! The nose is padded. He originally didn't look so good, he used to be so ugly!]

[This guy has a good character? Ha ha ha ha, this is the funniest joke I've ever heard!]

[This guy is really bad! He can't be called a human being!]

[No, no, no, I'm drunk. I'm talking nonsense. I don't know anything. How can a person who hasn't graduated from junior high school know Gao Yize?]

Later, no matter the manner in which many people asked, Zhao Kai and Mao Xiaoming were completely reticent about Gao Yize's affairs and didn't say anything more. Their friends just thought that they were bragging and didn't take it seriously. Now, however, the task force which had obtained this chat record thought otherwise. If they had only doubted before, now they could be certain that the deaths of Wang Wei, Zhao Kai and Mao Xiaoming had to have a connection to Gao Yize's fall. There was no doubt that this was a serial murder case!

"Go and get Fan Jialuo! He must know the inside story!" Zhuang Zhen said firmly.

...

Frozenmirage: Anyone notice Zhao Kai is the one died on that dark alley?? Hehe, I will post characters introduction after more people appear~~

Edit: put characters information in advance to avoid mass confusion