Wang Dong, Tao Jiahao, and Ouyang Min had all died in succession, and there was a subtle connection between the three of them. Assuming a puppet master was orchestrating everything, the deaths of Wang Dong and Tao Jiahao were undoubtedly his doing, evident from their sequential demise and identical manner of death.

As for Ouyang Min, I had been too hopeful that he was truly gone. However, when I saw the death record for Ouyang Min in the archives of the Liutaihe City Public Security Bureau, I was forced to accept the stark reality.

"Given that the deceased is a resident of Anyin City and a key figure in the case you are investigating, we will expedite the application process to have this case transferred to your jurisdiction," stated Detective Jiang from the Liutaihe City Public Security Bureau, who was handling Ouyang Min's case.

"Understood," I nodded, though internally I was deeply irritated. In their eyes, this hardly seemed like a major criminal case, yet they were so eager to hand it over, almost as if they were disposing of a hot potato.

"We conducted a preliminary scene analysis of this case as well. The deceased's room was 2006, right next to the elevator. He was staying on the twentieth floor; the elevator was functioning perfectly, yet he chose the stairs. He then caught fire in the stairwell. We suspect this might be a suicide," Officer Jiang analyzed for us.

Ouyang Min would absolutely not commit suicide! If he took his own life, then who was the person impersonating him in our calls after his death and fleeing with his mobile phone? The moment Officer Jiang uttered the word "suicide," I categorically rejected it in my mind.

"Suicide? To choose self-immolation—that's incredibly cruel to oneself, isn't it?" Xiao Cuo also felt something was amiss.

"If one's psychological state is extremely twisted, choosing such a method isn't entirely abnormal, is it?" Officer Jiang continued to defend his stance.

"If he wanted to commit suicide, why not do it in his room instead of the stairwell?" Xiao Cuo pressed, seemingly determined not to let Officer Jiang rest until he retracted his deduction.

"Room 2006 is a non-smoking room." Officer Jiang's single sentence completely shut down Xiao Cuo's line of questioning, leaving him speechless and forcing him to look to me and Zhang Jiewei for help.

That didn't add up either. If it was just because 2006 was a non-smoking room, choosing the stairwell still didn't quite justify it, given that stairwells also have fire suppression systems and would trigger a fire alarm. Based on what we knew, the fire alarm never sounded during the hotel fire that night, strongly suggesting it was deliberately tampered with.

But what was the motive for disabling the fire alarm? To burn more people? I didn't believe the killer's motives were that simple. If the alarm was disabled, a fire wouldn't be easily detected, allowing it to grow larger. If the fire grew larger and larger, then...

Crucial evidence would diminish! Possibly even be completely destroyed in the blaze!

So, the thought process became clearer: first, the killer somehow manipulated Ouyang Min into immolating himself in the stairwell, and then, before we arrived, set a fire to wipe out all the evidence. But... why wait until the Liutaihe investigators had left before setting the fire, instead of doing it before they arrived? Did the killer know we would return? Knew we would find something critical if we did?

"You've pulled up all the surveillance footage from before and after Ouyang Min's death, haven't you?" I had a persistent feeling that this was the only clue that specific person was willing to leave for me.

"Yes," Officer Jiang nodded.

"I want to see it."

"Certainly. This material will be transferred to your side eventually anyway. Here, this is Room 2006." As Officer Jiang spoke, he pulled up the recording for us.

Zhang Jiewei and Xiao Cuo leaned in as well. The three of us stared at the computer screen. For a moment, I felt as if I had been transported back to the last time we viewed the bizarre footage of Wang Dong—a chill seemed to sweep over my head, cold and tangible.

From the camera's angle, Room 2006 occupied the left side of the frame. Soon enough, the door to 2006 opened, and a middle-aged man in a suit appeared on screen. The camera's height was cleverly positioned to capture the man's face clearly. Although I had never spoken face-to-face with Ouyang Min, his appearance had left an indelible impression on me, thanks entirely to that mysterious email.

After leaving the room, Ouyang Min walked straight toward the camera's direction. His pace was neither fast nor entirely steady; it was almost stiff and mechanical, fueling a sense of déjà vu that surged from the depths of my heart.

"This is the hallway next. It seems the camera in the hallway had an issue yesterday, so it didn't record Ouyang Min's moment of death," Officer Jiang commented, glancing at the screen to update us.

"Can you replay that section?" I asked, my eyes fixed on the screen.

"Of course."

The recording played again. This time, I observed with greater intensity, unwilling to let a single detail slip by. After all, sometimes the most minute element is the key to success or failure.

"Wait! Rewind!" Just as I was scrutinizing Ouyang Min’s every move in the footage, Zhang Jiewei’s voice cut through the air beside me.

I looked up at him, certain that he, too, had noticed something unusual.

"Go back a bit further," Zhang Jiewei added.

"Right there! Zoom in."

When the image was magnified to the exact moment Zhang Jiewei requested, Ouyang Min’s face—now enlarged—once again commanded our full attention. It was undeniably Ouyang Min’s face, yet it gave me a profoundly strange feeling. I couldn't articulate what was wrong, but something was certainly obstructing my understanding.

I closed my eyes, clearing my head of the jumble of chaotic thoughts, and reopened them, only to spot a detail I had overlooked entirely: Ouyang Min’s eyelids were closed in the frame!

Noticing this, I immediately turned to meet Zhang Jiewei’s gaze. From the affirmative look in his eyes, I knew this was his discovery. Furthermore, Zhang Jiewei and I had arrived at the same conclusion. This could not be a mere coincidence.

I quickly rewound the tape to the moment Ouyang Min exited his room, capturing screenshots of his face as he walked, arranging them in sequence.

It was true!

Every image showed Ouyang Min's face, but in every moment, whether standing still or moving forward, his eyes were shut tight!

"Brother, what are you doing?" Xiao Cuo looked confused, repeatedly asking me questions.

"If this had happened earlier, I would have suspected sleepwalking," I took a deep breath, speaking as much to Zhang Jiewei and Xiao Cuo as to myself.

"But now..." I slowed my speech. "Haven't you realized?"

Hearing this, Xiao Cuo began to observe closely too, then slapped his thigh with sudden comprehension: "So he was the same as Wang Dong and Tao Jiahao!"

"Heh, you finally get it." A slight curve touched the corner of my mouth—it was unclear to them if it was a smile or a grimace.

Just as I had said earlier, if this had occurred previously, I would have immediately considered sleepwalking. But now, having experienced the bizarre incidents involving Wang Dong and Tao Jiahao—no, two corpses—I had every reason to believe Ouyang Min was already a corpse by the time he left his room!

It was a pity that now, with the 'burning,' there was no direct proof.

"I want to see Ouyang Min's body," I told Officer Jiang.

"Very well, I'll contact the person on duty over there," Officer Jiang showed no displeasure or hesitation regarding my request.

I glanced at my watch; it was only 6:10 AM. Despite having been awake all night, the current situation allowed no room for delay. This was clearly a serial case, and if we didn't solve it quickly, the death toll might not stop at just Wang Dong and the other two.

Even though it was the dead of night, the morgue at the Liutaihe Public Security Bureau was eerily cold. The three of us followed Officer Jiang down the corridor. I turned my head and cast a suspicious glance toward my empty left side, sensing a strange, turbulent airflow surging there, as if... something was trailing me as I walked...

"Brother Lei?" Xiao Cuo’s voice sounded near my ear. I turned to look at him, only to realize I had fallen behind; Xiao Cuo and Zhang Jiewei were already four or five steps ahead of me.

I shook my head and hurried to catch up. At that moment, I no longer felt that strange, flowing presence accompanying me.

"I advise you all not to look at his body," Officer Jiang said when he stopped beside a corpse covered with a white sheet.

"It's fine," I presumed that the three of us weren't so squeamish as to refuse to look at a corpse.

Seeing our insistence, Officer Jiang sighed lightly and pulled back the sheet covering the body. A severely burned corpse was revealed before us.

The moment the body came into view, Xiao Cuo staggered to the side, retching violently like a woman suffering from morning sickness. A churning sensation began to rise in my own stomach.

The reason I described it as 'burnt through' rather than merely 'charred' was that, externally, the body didn't resemble typical burn victims—completely blackened and unrecognizable in form. Instead, it was covered in wounds where the flesh had erupted outward, and ruptured blisters marred the surface; very little of the exterior was actually scorched black.

If I had to find a literary term for the state of these wounds, I might artistically call them "blooming." Seeing Ouyang Min’s body made me instinctively imagine his insides were packed with numerous small explosives, detonating one after another, bursting out from within his body. The interior of every wound was pitch black.

"How could he end up like this?" The gruesome injuries shocked me too. I had seen charred bodies before, but the state of Ouyang Min’s was completely different from the charred remains of Wang Dong and Tao Jiahao. If their deaths felt like desecration after the fact, what Ouyang Min endured was surely a hundred times worse than being flayed alive—perhaps more. If a person were to die this way, 'exploding' from the inside out while conscious, it would be infinitely more terrifying than death itself.

"According to the hotel staff, they immediately pinpointed the location after the fire alarm sounded. When they found Ouyang Min, he was already burning. Everyone rushed to put out the fire and rescue him. But what astonished them was that although not much of Ouyang Min's body was actually alight, the fire was extremely difficult to extinguish. Moreover, Ouyang Min seemed completely unresponsive, allowing himself to burn without moving at all," Officer Jiang recounted.

Although Officer Jiang's description wasn't overly vivid, it provided crucial information that fully supported my previous speculation: Ouyang Min was already a corpse when he left his room.

"What about the cause of death? Has it been determined?" If I wasn't mistaken, the answer would align with my expectations.

"No results yet, but we can confirm that the inside of the deceased's body, including his brain, is completely incinerated. The internal damage is far more severe than the surface wounds," Officer Jiang said, his own expression tinged with horror.

"That's because the fire started from inside Ouyang Min's body," I stated my assessment, glancing at the corpse.

"You mean..." Zhang Jiewei started to speak, looking at me. I gave him a definite nod, and he stopped talking, clearly understanding my implication.

From yesterday until now, it seemed Zhang Jiewei and I had shared largely consistent ideas, or perhaps we could convey volumes with just a look, needing no spoken words to grasp what the other intended. I found this baseless synchronicity intriguing; perhaps because of this connection, we could become decent friends.

"However, there is one strange detail," Officer Jiang seemed to recall something, his eyes taking on an odd expression—not exactly eerie, but carrying a hidden thread of fear.

"Which detail?" I certainly wasn't planning to overlook anything. If Officer Jiang could provide any useful, accurate information, it would save us a lot of wasted effort.

"The brain," Officer Jiang paused, seemingly gathering the right words, then continued, "Normally, even if the interior of the body is completely burned, there should still be some residue. But the forensic team reported that inside his brain, apart from the inner lining of the skull being pitch black, there was nothing else. It was hollow, as if whatever was inside had never existed—no trace whatsoever."

"Heh, it would be stranger if it were otherwise," I replied mildly.

"Huh?" Officer Jiang clearly didn't grasp my meaning. Naturally, I had no need, nor the ability, to explain it to him.

"It's nothing. Were any physical evidences collected from Ouyang Min's hotel room?" Although this seemed like a diversion, the main goal was to gather every possible clue and anomaly.

"Of course, but since we initially treated this as a suicide, we only took away Ouyang Min's personal belongings," Officer Jiang's voice trailed off, as if lacking conviction, or perhaps... feeling guilty.

"Very well." I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at Officer Jiang's negligence. "I want to see those things."

What else could I examine now? The massive fire in the hotel building had destroyed everything; those belongings were the only things left for me to use to find a lead. As I keep repeating, I was convinced the forces behind this were far from simple. From beginning to end, we had been reactive, receiving only the clues and evidence the killer wanted us to find.

Ouyang Min hadn't left much. According to his wife, he was on a business trip, but his briefcase contained little related to business beyond a couple of documents concerning real estate companies. The rest were trivial items: keys, a wallet, a handkerchief, etc.

A handkerchief? A businessman's briefcase containing a pale purple handkerchief. This struck me as odd. Who used handkerchiefs nowadays? If he did use one, a businessman like Ouyang Min would more suitably carry a plaid one.

Did his wife give it to him?

Thinking this, I instinctively picked up the handkerchief, lifting it to my nose to smell it. A faint scent of jasmine wafted from it—sweet but not cloying, enough to spark reverie just by closing my eyes and savoring it. Suddenly, I snapped my eyes open, examining the pale purple fabric closely, and took another deep sniff. Yes, the scent was very similar to jasmine, but I was now convinced it was the fragrance of a different flower!

"That's not right..." Zhang Jiewei's voice echoed the thought forming in my mind simultaneously, but I soon realized we were thinking about two different aspects, yet they were inextricably linked...