Over the phone, Lin Dongxue reported on the progress of the interrogation. Upon hearing it, Lin Qiupu gave Chen Shi a shocked look. Chen Shi shrugged and smiled as if to say, "My deduction was correct, right?"

It was already 7:00 in the evening. Although everyone hadn’t eaten, they weren’t hungry at all. They followed closely the progress of the case.

"Let's go. The evidence is already in place. It’s finally the time to attack directly!"

"Let’s go!"

The two returned to the interrogation room where Zhang Jinlei had already become impatient from sitting around. He said, "I want to make a call!"

Chen Shi ignored him. "We went to your residence-"

"Who permitted you to do a search?!"

Chen Shi continued to ignore him. He held up two bags of evidence. One held a mobile phone and the other held a bank card. "We found these in your drawers!"

Zhang Jinlei looked pale and kept quiet.

"The deceased's mobile phone showed that she had met a very talkative and funny boy on a dating platform before she died. The two quickly developed feelings and had met a few times. In this phone that you have secretly hidden, the same chat records could be found. Furthermore, the expenditure of this card is precisely a record of your dates and meals with the victim. But you were very smart. Your last date was seven days ago. The surveillance footage had already been overwritten. You’d also use cash to pay for dates every time and never went to places where you’d have to get your ID recorded" Chen Shi pointed at him. "You’ve used this method many times. We only need to investigate and we will certainly find out. Your family background is good, and you’re pretty handsome. You also have substance, so it’s very easy to get dates with girls. But they don’t know that the purpose of your dating them is not to socialize with them, but to kill them on Qixi!"

"Nothing to say now, right?" Lin Qiupu asked.

Zhang Jinlei slowly raised his head. The look in his eyes changed, as if he were a different person. "I killed them, but you guys were the reason for it!"

Chen Shi and Lin Qiupu folded their arms together to show that they were listening.

"After her murder, you incompetent policemen were investigating everywhere, but there was no progress. I came to you more than once to ask you about the case’s progress. The answer I always got was: 'We’re trying our best!' Whenever I see you all, you all have an expression like it had nothing to do with you and you had no feelings towards it. You can casually pick at others' scars and ask cruel questions, but once you turned your head, you’d forget about it… One day, two days, three days… One month, two months, three months, but your investigation was fruitless. You could only catch a little thief or a rapist if you got lucky. You’d flaunt yourself in the newspaper talking about how capable you all were!”

"Half a year later, I had come to look for you guys again. When I asked about her case, the police officer called the captain. The captain asked the chief. I waited for three hours, and then the deputy chief came to me to say 'We’ve tried our best!' Tried our best my ass. The people in the office were talking and laughing, talking about TV shows and their children. No one could see how disappointed I was! If I had a gun in my hand at the time, I would have killed all of you. Kill all of you! You’ve already forgotten about her. The whole world has forgotten her. Except for me, I am the only one bearing the pain! Every day and every night, the memories are torturing until I am in so much pain that I’d rather be dead!"

Zhang Jinlei thumped his chest loudly as he shed tears. He looked extremely pained.

"A year later, I met a girl that my family set me up with, but her ignorance, superficiality and pretentiousness made me sick. No one could replace her in my heart. This stupid pig actually dared to say that she hoped I would be able to walk out of the trauma of my past and fall in love with her. Was she worthy? On the eve of Qixi, I went on a date with this pig, and I seemed to hear her say to me from the underworld, “Don’t forget me, don’t forget me!” Suddenly I had an idea. A brilliant idea to make the police continue to investigate. Yes, it was a second sacrificial offering!"

Zhang Jinlei sneered. "Of course, I wouldn't be stupid enough to take my knife to that pig. I immediately dumped her, looked for a target, killed her in the same way, sprinkled her with salt, and wrote those numbers on her arm. How stupid are you policemen? Your investigation still failed to turn up anything, but I was willing to give you another chance. In the third year, I killed a girl in the same way again. This time, you showed me your stupidity again!”

"More and more sacrifices were piled on her altar. You neither knew that these people were killed by me, nor who she was killed by. But my heart had become numb. It was like I was walking amidst the wilderness and the star in the distance was her soul. She allowed me not to get lost. She allowed me to continue offering sacrifices so that people wouldn’t forget her! But until today..." Zhang Jinlei shouted," You still haven’t found out the truth. You only caught me. You’re all pigs[1], all you policemen are pigs!!! Hahahaha, hahahaha!!!"

Crazy laughter echoed in the interrogation room. Lin Qiupu smacked the table angrily. "Enough!"

"You’re all..." Zhang Jinlei was still talking angrily.

"Therefore, behind your abnormal motive for murder, you had thought that your pain surpassed everything else and six other families needed to be sacrificed and buried for that one person’s death?" Chen Shi asked.

Zhang Jinlei held his head high. "My love for her is so passionate. I don't care about anything else. Whether it’s the life or death of others, or my own life and death, my heart has been dead since that day."

This person was hopeless. Chen Shi didn’t intend to educate him. He’d let the prison and the law educate him well. He mockingly said, "Do you know how much sin you are carrying? Even if there was lingchi[2], five chariot dismemberment [3] and the Paolao hot pillar torture today[4], you wouldn’t be able to repay this debt.”

"I don't care!" Zhang Jinlei leaned back and looked at them contemptuously.

"Don't talk nonsense." Lin Qiupu whispered to Chen Shi in reprimand. Then they began to confirm some specific details of the case.

The interrogation continued until 10:00 in the evening. At the end, Zhang Jinlei asked, "Are you planning to never go and find out the truth?"

"You don't need to know."

"You’re all pigs. All pigs!!!"

"Take him away!" Lin Qiupu shouted.

Zhang Jinlei scolded them the whole time as he was walking away. He totally exhibited the attitude of a dead pig who was not afraid of boiling water. While passing through the corridor, he came face-face with Xiao Ran, who was also handcuffed, and asked in shock, "Why are you-"

"Jinlei, I'm sorry!" Xiao Ran lowered her head.

Chen Shi, who was stretching his body, suddenly realized that things weren’t going well. "Hurry and take him away!"

Zhang Jinlei understood everything in an instant. He roared while pushing away the police officer beside him, pounced over and squeezed Xiao Ran's neck...

1. Not pigs in the English sense. In Chinese, calling someone a pig means they’re stupid/useless.

2. The slow process of slowly slicing people to death. Death by a thousand cuts. Used as a form of torture and execution.

3. Archaic form of execution that has a person’s limbs and head torn off with five chariots going in different directions.

4. In this punishment, a person is forced to walk on a burning hot beam covered with oil. When the person couldn't tolerate the heat any longer, he would fall into the fire under the beam and be burnt alive. The history of this cruel punishment dates back to the Shang Dynasty.