It took around twenty minutes for the lawyer to come back. During this time, Lin Dongxue wanted to ask Luo Zuyu while he was alone countless times, but she resisted her urges. With victory in reach, they couldn’t let down their guard carelessly and display any weaknesses to the other party.

After the lawyer came back, he whispered with Luo Zuyu. They could see that Luo Zuyu was very annoyed and kept saying, "What's the use of calling you over here!", "Isn’t that pushing me into the fire pit?"

"Have you finished talking?" Chen Shi looked at his watch. It was already nine o'clock. "Let's continue!"

"Go ahead and ask!"

"I'll ask you this first: Have you had any contact with the deceased, Ling Shuangshuang?"

"No!" Luo Zuyu gritted his teeth.

"Then why does she have this photo on her mobile phone?" Chen Shi took out the second piece of evidence. It was the photo that had been secretly taken by Ling Shuangshuang.

The lawyer was quite panicked after seeing it. Luo Zuyu was even more nervous than him. Chen Shi took a sip of water and said, "This is only part of the evidence found on her mobile phone. How can you explain this?"

"The person in the picture isn’t me!" Luo Zuyu said.

Obviously, there was no way to retreat, but he still resisted. Lin Dongxue was so angry that she just wanted to laugh. She said, "You can continue to lie! If we didn’t have complete evidence, why would we be able to obtain an arrest warrant? What you are saying now will only aggravate your sins. It’s meaningless!"

Chen Shi said, "We still have decisive evidence in hand. When we reveal it, you’ll have no chance to atone for your sins by cooperating with us."

The lawyer wiped the cold sweat off his face with a handkerchief and exchanged his opinions with Luo Zuyu in a low voice. Luo Zuyu's fists were clenched tightly. They could tell that he was on the edge of a breakdown. He just needed to have a little pressure applied before his mental state would collapse.

Chen Shi said, "Did you mix the sounds in your song yourself?"

Luo Zuyu was terrified. His face was covered with cold sweat and his lips were quivering. The lawyer asked, "What's wrong? What sound mixing? What is this about? If you don’t tell me, how can I help you?!”

"Shut up!" Luo Zuyu shouted and punched the lawyer in the face. "What have you helped me with, useless trash? How did the police get these things?!"

Lin Dongxue wanted to stand up and block him but was stopped by Chen Shi. The lawyer's cheeks swelled up. For the sake of money, he tolerated it. He straightened his glasses with a wronged expression. “Can you please calm down? We need to think of something together.”

"Think of something... What can you think of?!" Luo Zuyu shouted irritably. "I was the one who killed her!"

As soon as this sentence was shouted out, the interrogation room fell into a silence. Only the slight sound of the recorder persisted. Lin Dongxue held her fist in triumph since they had successfully pried his mouth open!

The despair on the lawyer's face was hard to describe, but he still tried to defend Luo Zuyu. "This sentence doesn’t count. Before evidence is produced, even if it’s a statement made by the client-“

"I killed her! I killed her! What can you do to me?! Hahahaha!" Luo Zuyu shouted. He had revealed his true face, and every time he shouted, the lawyer's face became even paler. He knew that the situation was hopeless.[1].

"How did you kill her?" Chen Shi asked.

Luo Zuyu looked at him sullenly. "I injected her with drugs and then cut open her blood vessels. I let her lie in the bathroom. While she was bleeding, I made love with her..." A morbid smile appeared on his face as if he was recalling that night.

"That wasn’t the first time, right? Killing one person and killing ten people are the same. You don't have to cover it up anymore."

"Yes, I killed many people. All women!" Luo Zuyu displayed a twisted smile.

"No!" The lawyer shouted in despair, but it was too late.

"You’re a veteran. Why did you kill her?" Chen Shi asked.

"Because... Because..." Luo Zuyu rubbed his hands together excitedly with his body trembling slightly. "Because every time I kill someone, I’ll have inspiration for creation. No, murder is itself a work of art. You common people won’t understand! The young and beautiful bodies were cut up by me with a knife and died slowly with smiles on their faces. That short-lived beauty is irreplaceable by anything in the world. I write this feeling into the songs. You wouldn’t understand even if you listen to my songs. You guys think I’m writing about love! Hahaha, love is like a dog’s fart[2]. That is the voice of death. The most beautiful death in the world! Hahahaha!"

His weak point was the arrogance in his bones. Even when confessing his crimes, Luo Zuyu took on a kind of pride, as if he was a murderous artist who was favored by God!

Chen Shi said deliberately, "Although our positions are different, I can understand your frame of mind-"

"You understand nothing!" Luo Zuyu shouted. His hair was wet with cold sweat and stuck to his pale forehead. "You common people who follow the boring rules of the world can never understand me... No one in the world can understand me... Real art is to break the rules of the world. What is the law? I am above everything! Beauty is justice!"

Lin Dongxue was shocked by this morbid and psychotic confession, but Chen Shi knew that he was now in an excited state and completely ignored all consequences. He purposefully assumed a humble position and asked as if he was enquiring something from a master, "Excuse me, when was the first time you killed someone?”

The lawyer covered his face up with documents and leaned back on the chair, having completely given up on struggling.

Luo Zuyu grinned. "It was a maid in my house. A pale and chubby woman. I was writing a song and participating in a competition back then. I was only 19 years old that year. That damn woman deserved to die. She had been tidying up the room and making lots of noise, so I had no peace. I strangled her with a fishing line. I watched her struggling and wriggling. I suddenly felt really excited and I did it with her body over and over again. When I got tired, I lay down on the floor. A beautiful song formed in my head. I quickly noted it down. I was crazed. I couldn't find a pencil, so I dipped into the blood and wrote the song on her body like a sheet of music! Wow, you must have heard that song as well. Yes, it was the work that shot me to stardom. It was as beautiful as the sounds of nature... "

"It was indeed the work of a genius!" Chen Shi praised and coaxed him to continue.

Luo Zuyu looked up at the ceiling. His eyes seemed to be staring at the starry sky behind the roof. "Since then, I have gained faith. I had a God. A brutal, bloodthirsty muse. Whenever I took drugs, she’d appear in my mind and tell me to offer her more sacrifices. She told me she’d give me the best tunes! I couldn’t control myself and killed the girls one by one. Of course, people like me who are famous, rich and handsome would have no shortage of women around me. There were countless female entertainers who wanted to be in a relationship with me. There were lots of bone, meat and skin[3] that delivered themselves right to my doorstep. And there were female fans who would faint when they see me. In my opinion, God let them come to me so that I could choose them as sacrifices...”

"One time, I killed a girl whom I liked very much. She was a senior at my school. I cried very sadly looking at her dead body, but I needed inspiration too much. That was my first Chinese language album, I had to produce the best work possible. The pressure around me was driving me crazy. I could only... I could only kill the person I loved and offer her as a sacrifice to my God!” Luo Zuyu burst into tears. He shouted, "I didn’t kill those people! It’s you guys! It's you all who put me up on a pedestal as a genius singer, forcing me to write new songs every year. Music critics, listeners, media. You all drove me crazy! It's you guys! It's lonely at the top. Do you realize the sacrifices I had to make to get to where I am today? Do you guys understand? No one understands! No one understands me!"

1. The author used a phrase that’s used in war to describe losing an advantageous position and a future that had become hopeless.

2. A phrase that’s equivalent to “bullshit”.

3. Chinese for “groupies” i.e. people who long to sleep with celebrities.