The sound technician didn't have the strength to continue reciting the diary entries. This cold-hearted man who had planned and murdered four people, who had not blinked in the face of a dozen or more guns aimed at him, was now crying bitterly, as if his liver and guts had been cut into pieces.

The police officer responsible for recording notes could no longer continue to write after hearing all this, and his eyes unconsciously turned sour. Zhuang Zhen still managed to maintain an expression of seriousness, but his heart was in turmoil. He hadn't expected there to be such a terrible tragedy hidden behind the serial homicides.

Song Rui removed his glasses and kneaded his aching brows, unable to think anything else.

There was no choice but to suspend the interrogation as the suspect had become too emotional. However, Liao Fang and the member of the forensic department, who were examining the important piece of evidence-the diary-continued to turn the pages.

The following entries had fewer and fewer written words, which had been replaced by large messy symbols, splashes of blood, thick black ink spots, and even knife marks on some pages.

Death, fear, despair, liberation and other such words appeared repeatedly within these messy stains, clearly reflecting the fact that the mental state of the writer was getting worse and worse.

Liao Fang and the forensic investigator's eyes reddened further, and their noses clogged up as they read on. Halfway through, they had to stop-to readjust their mental state and catch their breath.

They felt that it was not a diary they were reading, rather, they were witnessing the destruction of a person. Her body had been mercilessly ruined and her spirit crushed and ground away until nothing remained. In the end, she was no longer a human being, but simply a puppet on strings, or a 'domesticated animal'.

Liao Fang's hand started shaking slightly when she looked at the diary again. She, as a bystander, could feel the profound grief radiating from the diary and deeply empathize with its owner. So then, as the only relative of the diary's owner, how pathetic and angry would the sound technician feel?

At some point in time, the diary had unknowingly reached its end. A line of twisted and disordered words leapt into Liao Fang's and the forensic investigator's eyes.

[XX17, June 17th: I suddenly received a text message from Ye Zi yesterday. I don't know how she got my phone number. Who told her? But it doesn't matter anymore. She said that she would come back next week and wanted to invite me out to play. She also said that we were best friends and asked me not to refuse. What should I do? Why did she come back? Why are you looking for me? Should I refuse her? Can I refuse her?]

A shocking string of blood splatters covered the page. Liao Fang resisted the palpitations of her heart and continued to examine the rest of the contaminated space on the page, only to find that it was a single word repeated over and over again- 'devil.'

Devil, devil, devil...

After experiencing five years of freedom from such a relationship, the writer seemed to finally understood what had happened to her, and had ultimately recognized the true face of this so-called "best friend".

Liao Fang felt suffocated for a long while, and paused before turning to the next page. However, when she tried to do so, she found that the next two pages of the diary were stuck together and could not be opened due to the thick layer of dried blood between them.

At this moment, she almost couldn't stop herself from blurting out: I don't want to read the content behind this page, I can't stand it anymore! However, as a police officer, it was her duty to go through all the important pieces of evidence.

She gritted her teeth and asked, "The next pages are stuck together. Do you have any ideas?" After not speaking for a long time, she found that her voice had become quite hoarse.

"Just a moment ." The forensic investigator's voice was also strained. He quickly brought over the necessary equipment, fumigated the two pieces of paper, before slowly and carefully separating them using tweezers.

The last page of the diary had once been immersed in a thick layer of blood. Even after many years had passed, after the blood had long dried up, the stench of cruelty and despair was still attached to the paper-so pervasive that it could never be eliminated.

[I'm sorry, this time I want to refuse, to reject the world with you. Goodbye Ye Zi. Goodbye Brother. I love you all!]

Seeing this, Liao Fang finally burst into tears, covering her mouth as she choked out muffled sobs.

"Why? Why did she still send love to Ruan Ye before she died?"

The forensic investigator remained silent for a long time before letting out a heavy sigh. "You don't understand. It's only by remembering Ruan Ye's goodness that she won't feel that there is no hope and goodness in this world."

"No, no, she herself is hope and goodness. It's a pity that she..." Liao Fang had no way to go on. In order to prevent her tears from falling on the diary and contaminating important evidence, Liao Fang quickly stood up, raised her head high and resisted the urge to cry harder.

At this time, she suddenly remembered what the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had once said-Hell is other people. If someone wanted to know what hell was like, there was no need to go to the land of the dead or the underworld, one just needed to peek into a person's heart to obtain a thorough understanding of 'Hell'.

Liao Fang's heart was throbbing with pain. What made her so achingly sad was not what had happened to Xiao Rui, but that she didn't know how to hate even as she was dying. Xiao Rui had been completely controlled, brainwashed and domesticated by Ruan Ye. Only death could liberate her. However, ironically, this was a tragedy which could have been easily avoided, and there had been countless opportunities for her to break away from Ruan Ye's control.

-

In the interrogation room, the sound technician had stopped crying. He spoke with a heavy sense of guilt and remorse, "I could have saved her. I had countless opportunities to help her escape from that hell, but I just turned a blind eye to her pain and despair."

Zhuang Zhen and Song Rui didn't intervene with any superfluous words, because it was clear that at this point, the sound technician would naturally speak his truest thoughts freely. He had nothing left to hide.

The sound technician wiped his face, barely recovering a semblance of calm as he asked, "Can I have a cigarette?"

Zhuang Zhen handed him a cigarette and lit it for him.

The sound technician inhaled a couple of mouthfuls and continued, "My sister steadily asked me for more and more living expenses during those three years she was in high school-from the initial four hundred yuan, to five hundred, to six hundred, and then to eight hundred. If I was satisfied with her test results, I would send her the money; if not, then I would scold her severely. I thought she had fallen into vanity and had picked up bad habits from others, so I was very disappointed with her.

"When she graduated from high school, I came back from Guangzhou province to help fill in and sign her college application form. Only then did I discover that she had only achieved a little more than 300 points in the national exam, and that she couldn't even apply for junior college.

"At that time, I was really angry. Then, I heard from her classmates that she messed around outside, had multiple boyfriends, and that her private life was very unruly. I heard that she never studied and only knew how to play. I believed their words and harshly slapped my sister right in front of them, scolding her for having no heart, telling her how I regretted working so hard just to make money to allow her to continue her studies.

"How could I have known that my sister hadn't received even a single yuan from all that money I had sent to her throughout those three years of high school? How could I have known that all her living expenses had been stolen by Ruan Ye and four of them? They abused her with such peace in their minds and even spread rumors everywhere saying that she was a bad girl. She was living in such an environment. How could I have thought that a test result of more than 300 points was bad? How could I have let myself scold her and even beat her at that time?"

Speaking to this point, the sound technician suddenly fell silent. After almost a minute or so, he continued, "I was very angry on that day, when I filled in her college application. It was Ruan Ye who grabbed my arm to stop me from beating and scolding Rui Rui again. She also spoke a lot in Rui Rui's defense, she was full of praises for her. I remember that when I took Rui Rui away, I sincerely thanked Ruan Ye for taking care of my sister for the past three years."

The sound technician's voice was low and hoarse, but his expression was extremely miserable. "Don't you think it's ironic? I said thank you to the animal that killed my sister! I threw my sister's dignity and life onto the ground beneath my feet. I trampled on her courage to live and betrayed her as her last hope for help. Who is the one who has no heart? I'm the one who's fucking heartless! Who should die? Ruan Ye? No, I'm the fucker who most deserves death out of all these people!"

He puffed at his cigarette, and then extinguished its hot and glowing end with his fingertips. His red eyes were saturated with deep hatred.

The narrow space of the interrogation room filled with the scorched smell of flesh, making Zhuang Zhen feel uncomfortable. Song Rui also shifted in his seat slightly, as if he was unable to sit still. But neither of them interrupted the sound technician, because there were still many things that had yet to be clearly explained.

"When I killed Wang Wei, I asked him-why did you treat my sister like that? Guess how he replied?"

Zhuang Zhen asked in a hoarse voice, "What did he say?"

The sound technician gritted his teeth as he replied, "He said-Brother, I was wrong. I didn't know she would commit suicide. We were so bored that we just wanted to find someone to play with."

He stared at Zhuang Zhen and asked forcefully, "Play? He said he was just bored and wanted to find someone to play with! What did they think of my sister as? She was a human! Not their toy! Why don't they go back and play with their mother if they want to play? Do animals like this still have the right to talk about human relations? Hah?!"

With this exclamation, his fists slammed onto the metal table loudly, with such force that a visible dent was left on its surface. The thunderous bang reverberated not only through the interrogation room, but also in the hearts of the listeners. How absurd and cruel such a sentence was.

The sound technician gradually calmed down and sneered, "So, I cut two of his fingers. I was bored and wanted to find someone to play with. I was bored so I killed the four of them."

Zhuang Zhen glanced at the police officer responsible for taking notes. The red-eyed note-taker quickly scribbled down a few lines, but he was still unable to calm his heart.

The sound technician continued to confess, "At first, I didn't want to kill Gao Fei. I just wanted to record a video of him admitting what had happened that year. You would know that a diary alone wouldn't be able to convict those animals. I even reported the case after my sister died. But instead, the police went to Ruan Ye's house to learn about the situation.

"I don't know what Ruan Ye's parents told them but after they came back, they refused to accept the case. They also told me that a diary could not be regarded as evidence and had no legal effect at all. Later, I asked around and contacted numerous lawyers but all of them gave me the same answer. I am just a powerless ordinary little person, who can I turn to in order to seek justice for my sister's injustice?"

"Then, I saw Gao Fei on TV, that is, Gao Yize. He was so popular, and his reputation was also very good. This person was a good, no, a great star? Don't you think that's just ironic?"

He sneered again and said with gritted teeth, "Gao Yize has a certain amount of social influence. If I managed to record a video of him confessing his crimes, you police would pay attention to it, right? After all, shouldn't he give my sister an explanation? I just wanted to tie him up, take him to a quiet place for questioning, and then release him. I made the necessary preparations, and then followed him to the rooftop."

The sound technician's eyes reddened even further and his voice was dripping with hatred. "I didn't want to kill him, but when I confronted him, he told me in a tone full of disapproval that even if I publicized the events of that year, it wouldn't have any impact on him. He said that he could easily bribe reporters and hire a water army to drown my sister's reputation, publish her photos and videos, and ultimately portray her as a lousy girl who could only see money.

"In any case, in the past, many students had already been convinced that my sister's private life was unruly. If they were interviewed, there would be plenty of black material; no one would believe me. They would only say that I had forged the diary for the purpose of extortion. They would say that my sister deserved her death and that I am not such a good person.

"Gao Fei was a star and he also had quite the range of influence. There would always be some idiots on the Internet, willing to believe his words and the so-called 'truth' fabricated by him. They would just blindly follow suit and not even spare a thought about my sister's death."

The sound technician asked Zhuang Zhen for another cigarette. He puffed and sneered, "I knew, I'm just a lowly person, and of course, I also knew that Gao Fei was right. Once the rhythm of public opinion was bought and turned into their favor, even if my sister was dead, those people would dig out and whip her corpse. It was then that I felt so short of breath and started to tremble all over. I couldn't think about anything else anymore. When I came back to my senses, Gao Fei had already been pushed over the railings by me."

After hearing this confession, Xiao Li, who was sitting in the monitor room, hurriedly said into the bluetooth headset, "Leader, ask him how he got on the rooftop and why the surveillance hadn't captured anything. I checked it over many times, and I'm 100% sure that there's no trace of the surveillance recording being artificially edited."

Zhuang Zhen interrupted the other and asked this question.

The sound technician shook his head and said, "I have been planning this revenge for three years. Naturally, I prepared for it. I was wearing rubber shoes, rubber gloves and a hair cover when I went up to the rooftop, which ensured there would be no traces of me left behind on the scene. I have outstanding working ability and am also the maintenance technician of this building.

"I'm the one who bought the monitoring equipment, installed the software, wrote the code, and connected the signals for that building. All the monitoring devices there were my eyes and under my control.

"I had recorded many videos of Gao Fei of taking the elevator to the top floor in advance. I noticed that he had worn an old suit that day, exactly the same outfit as he had worn in one of the previous videos I had recorded. Even the shoes and socks he was wearing were the same. I realized that the opportunity had come.

"Then, I went up after him and killed him. On the way down the elevator, I used my mobile phone to overwrite that day's recording with the video that had been recorded before. So you only saw him go to the top floor alone, and no one else was captured.

"I use high-end remote sensing image replacement technology, and the whole network is covered in time periods, so of course there was no trace of editing. Even if the world's top hackers came, they wouldn't be able to find any flaws, not to mention that I'm also one of the top hackers in the world. I only have a high school diploma, but my hacking methodology is self-taught, so people around me do not know that I have such an ability, and naturally you would have no reason to suspect me."

Speaking up to here, the sound technician's demeanor had become very peaceful, to the extent that he even showed a relaxed smile. "I covered the monitoring signal. I pretended to be anxious to rush into the elevator, heading up to the top floor to help Cao Xiaohui look for Gao Fei. After that, the surveillance videos were all recorded normally, so they became my alibi, helping me avoid your interrogation. I then thought, in any case, killing one is also killing, so killing two, or three, and even four is also killing. It would no longer make any difference. Since the police wouldn't be able to give my sister justice, I would do it myself."

His tone became more and more tranquil, his words were concise and detailed as he discussed the other three murders. As a result, many mysteries were solved. This person had top-notch hacking skills and technology, and had studied counter-investigation methods. He had also thoroughly researched the targets of his revenge using the vast resources of the Internet and had pinpointed their weakness. Surely it wouldn't be easy to simply grasp the trail of a person with such great skills.

After clearly explaining how he had murdered the four people, the sound technician sighed deeply and shook his head. "I had clearly outlined all my plans, but the only thing I hadn't expected was the appearance of Fan Jialuo, who nearly caused me to fail!"

Zhuang Zhen's eyes suddenly turned extremely sharp as he asked, "What's the relationship between the two of you? Was he involved in any of your plans?"

Song Rui, whose head was lowered and who had been pinching his eyebrows all this while, instantly became energetic. He raised his head and stared at the sound technician, expectantly waiting for his answer. If there were anything doubtful in the case that he still couldn't see clearly, it could only be about the appearance of Fan Jialuo.

...

Noks: This is a rollercoaster ride, but one where the rollercoaster only keeps going downhill steeply, plunging further into the darkness.

Frozenmirage: Hopefully we'll soon find the light at the end of the dark tunnel... maybe the one we know as Fan Jialuo...