I wasted no time, immediately calling Zhang Jiewei. I kept the explanation brief, and he agreed without a second thought. I figured he, like me, wanted to ensure Xiao Xuan's remains were whole.

Zhang Hemei had a car, so I bypassed using a vehicle from the bureau. The two of us sped toward Willow Island. The distance from the city felt vast, yet I sensed it was right before me—because the person I loved was there.

The longest journey eventually ends, much like life itself. Standing on Willow Island, gazing at the sea of emerald green trees, a surge of excitement washed over me, mingled with apprehension. I didn't know if I would lose control the moment I truly saw Xiao Xuan.

Two months had passed since Xiao Xuan was murdered. Her head must have decomposed to the point of being unrecognizable, perhaps resembling an animal carcass by the roadside—devoid of life or emotion, yet it was the vessel that held my affections. The thought hollowed me out; I didn't know where to turn or what the future held.

Zhang Hemei glanced at me. "Do you want to rest for a bit?"

My face must have been pale, but I shook my head. "No need. Let's keep moving forward."

We could only reach the cabin on foot. Zhang Hemei and I navigated through the dense woods. Occasionally, scuttling, repulsive scavengers darted out, suggesting this forest harbored many secrets best left undisturbed.

The cabin finally materialized ahead, nestled deep within the woods, encircled by towering, ancient trees that held it tightly, like a cage with the branches serving as iron bars and gates.

We passed through a crude fence and approached the cabin door. A faint scent of rotting wood drifted out. Due to the ample rainfall and the shade cast by the large trees, the wet timber dried slowly, causing decay in places. But I suspected You Qiaolin had done this intentionally, using the smell of decay to mask the odor of the corpse. Even though he consumed rotten flesh, it didn't mean he enjoyed the smell or that it served as adequate cover; otherwise, he wouldn't have brought Zhang Hemei here.

Zhang Hemei gently pushed the wooden door open, producing a screech so harsh it felt like a night owl’s cry scraping painfully against the ear—the hinges clearly hadn't been oiled in ages. As the door swung wider, an even stronger stench of putrefaction rushed out to meet us.

Zhang Hemei wrinkled her nose and moved to the side, but I seemed oblivious, my eyes locked onto the interior of the shack.

Zhang Hemei sighed. "She probably isn't in here."

I didn't hear her voice. The dim opening of the doorway acted like a magnet, pulling me in. I stepped inside, one deliberate pace after another.

Inside, there was a rough table, three stools, a bed, and several basins and buckets—all fashioned from wood. The surface of these wooden items seemed damp due to the humidity.

I surveyed the room, finding nothing suspicious. I then walked to the bed, paused briefly, and crouched down. Beneath the bed sat a pair of wooden slippers, their soles still caked with mud, suggesting You Qiaolin wore them even here.

A sudden thought struck me: I wondered what expression You Qiaolin would wear if I took these slippers back and placed them before him. Perhaps his constant composure stemmed from having hidden his heart here. If I could unearth his heart and smash it to dust, he would completely collapse.

I picked up the slippers, set them aside, deciding to keep them.

Zhang Hemei watched me, seemingly perplexed, but I offered no explanation, continuing my meticulous search inside the shack.

After checking the entire room again, there was nothing but decaying wood. I stepped outside and walked the perimeter along the base of the wooden wall, my eyes constantly scanning, taking in every inch of soil and plank.

One wooden plank driven into the ground was severely rotted—nearly a fifth of it was gone. The surrounding wood looked brittle enough to puncture with a fingertip. It was covered in various fungi and teeming with corpse-eating insects, a sight that made my skin crawl.

My gaze swept past, and I suddenly noticed a patch of earth ahead that looked different, distinctly fresher than the surrounding soil. I strode forward quickly, thrusting my hand into it without hesitation.

The dirt was loose; my hand sank right in.

My nerves instantly snapped taut, like a lobster dropped into boiling oil. Then, with a speed I couldn't have imagined, I began digging like a groundhog.

The loose earth was quickly scraped away, forming a small pit. Just then, I sensed someone behind me. A sparse ray of sunlight illuminated the ground before me, casting a dark shadow. I saw a long wooden club raised high.

Startled, I twisted my body sharply, swinging my hand backward to grab, and roared, "Who is it?"

Zhang Hemei stumbled to the ground, her face bloodless, stammering in terror, "I—it was me."

My expression darkened, and I said coldly, "What are you doing behind me with a club?"

Zhang Hemei shifted, pulling a small shovel from behind her lower back. "I was afraid you might hurt your hand, so I found a shovel."

My tension eased, but under the circumstances, I couldn't be blamed. If Zhang Hemei had truly intended harm, this secluded spot would have been the perfect location.

I took the shovel, offered a word of thanks, and then buried my focus in digging.

The soil was very loose, clearly having been disturbed before. Before long, a pit nearly a meter deep appeared, but there was nothing inside.

As the saying goes, dig three feet deep, which is about a meter. Finding nothing suspicious made me truly bewildered: Who dug this hole? If it was You Qiaolin, he surely intended to bury something; he wouldn't waste effort digging a large pit only to refill it. But if it wasn't him, things became significantly different.

A chill snaked down my spine, and the shadow of doubt reappeared over my head. I involuntarily glanced at Zhang Hemei, then quickly averted my eyes, as if terrified she might notice.

If Zhang Hemei had dug this hole, everything suddenly made sense. She planted a mystery here beforehand to lure me. I would naturally notice the anomaly and start digging, at which point she would produce the shovel she had hidden and strike me from behind. If I noticed, she could claim she was just fetching me the tool; if I didn't notice, the pit was perfectly positioned for my burial.

I inwardly shuddered. If that fleeting ray of sunlight hadn't cast her shadow onto the ground, I might already be a corpse in this wilderness!

I slowed my digging, piecing things together. Perhaps Zhang Hemei was You Qiaolin's accomplice. She helped him murder three girls full of dreams—Ou Jinglan, Li Yalian, and Shi Yingjie—then conspired to kill Gu Hengming and Kang Youjia, and finally kidnapped Xiao Xuan. When her scheme unraveled, she preemptively told me that story, weaving pre-planned excuses to ensure I believed her innocence. All her actions were in service of You Qiaolin's revenge, and the location was likely her chosen site. Maybe You Qiaolin had never even been here; she just lured me to this desolate place because it was remote.

Although some parts of this theory felt illogical, I grew more convinced that this was the truth. If You Qiaolin lacked an accomplice, it would be difficult for him to pull off that string of murders alone. Kang Youjia’s death was the most suspicious; killing a robust, powerfully built man would be nearly impossible for You Qiaolin by himself. Even wielding an extended sledgehammer, he would need someone to distract Kang Youjia, and that person would need to be sufficiently captivating.

Kang Youjia was the security supervisor at the modeling agency, which maintained close ties with figures in the underworld. A supervisor without martial training simply wouldn't hold the position. Thus, Kang Youjia possessed the extensive network of ears and eyes typical of a martial artist. Furthermore, an extended hammer strike increases force and speed while generating a louder whooshing sound—how could Kang Youjia, with his acute senses, not hear it? Yet, Kang Youjia indeed died from that fatal blow, or at least was rendered incapable of fighting back, allowing him to be easily dispatched.

What caused Kang Youjia's sensitive hearing to fail?

Anyone with basic medical knowledge knows that when blood flow accelerates, especially in the head, it causes a buzzing sound in the ears. This isn't the ear truly hearing the blood flow, but rather the tiny blood vessels around the eardrum expanding due to the sudden surge in blood volume, causing the skin covering them to stretch. This movement vibrates the eardrum, which interprets vibrations as sound. The ear thus hears a buzzing noise.

Though minute, this fact was crucial to Kang Youjia's demise. To temporarily incapacitate the keen hearing of a martial artist like Kang Youjia, there was only one way: accelerating his blood flow, ideally causing cerebral congestion.

For a strong man in his prime, what could cause his brain to suddenly swell with rapidly circulating blood?

At this point, everyone should understand. The answer is simple: a beautiful woman. If that woman was exceptionally alluring, perhaps scantily clad, a man like Kang Youjia would forget everything else within a second.

That brief second ended his life, making him truly forget everything.

My palms began to sweat, the shovel handle slick as an animal's saliva, but I could not let go. This was my only weapon. Perhaps more than just Zhang Hemei and more than one shovel awaited me here; I had to seize every opportunity to escape with my life.

The gloomy woods swayed with branches resembling ghostly figures, blocking out all sunlight and plunging me into perpetual cold. A chilling gust of wind swept through, carrying a fishy, nauseating odor—whatever it was, a single inhalation made one gag.

I took a couple of breaths and sat by the pit edge to rest. I needed to conserve strength for whatever change might come next. Suddenly, Zhang Hemei reappeared, seeming like a phantom, turning the corner of the shack. She held a wooden bowl and called out to me, "Tired, aren't you? Have some water."

I had seen wooden tables, benches, a bed, and basins inside the shack, but never a wooden bowl. Where did she find it? Did she hide it beforehand, or was this simply following her script?

A strange smile flickered across Zhang Hemei’s face, like a proprietress of a human-flesh bun shop serving drugged soup to a customer.

The wooden bowl was presented to me. I glanced at it quickly; the water inside was cloudy and clearly unclean. I quickly declined: "I'm not thirsty. Just set it there; I’ll drink if I get thirsty."

"This is well water, very clean, and very thirst-quenching," Zhang Hemei insisted, taking a small sip herself. She smacked her lips. "I was so thirsty. It tastes much better than the bottled mineral water sold on the street, with a hint of sweetness. Won't you try some?"

"Really not thirsty, please just put it down," I insisted.

Zhang Hemei set the bowl aside. I stole another glance, but now the water in the bowl had turned crystal clear, as if empty.

No way. That's bizarre. It was cloudy water, and after one sip, it cleared up? Was I mistaken, or does she practice magic?

The mention of "magic" instantly brought to mind the 'Grim Reaper' case, triggering a flood of absurd ideas, which I quickly suppressed. While Zhang Hemei was suspect, those were older cases. The 'Grim Reaper' incident happened after You Qiaolin was imprisoned. Zhang Hemei, a frail woman, could never have so violently that an adult male was reduced to ash and bone.

Then, another thought crept in: If she really knew illusions, it could explain Shi Yingjie's death. I recalled when Xiao Xuan and I heard noise on the fourth floor from the third, rushed up, and found Shi Yingjie dead, with the killer vanished. That question had always plagued me—how did the murderer leave? But if she used common sleight-of-hand, she could have distracted our vision, left calmly after Xiao Xuan and I entered the room, or perhaps slipped past us unnoticed.

Sometime during this, goosebumps rose across my skin. Thoughts, dense and hard like subterranean insects, crawled all over me. I remained motionless, like a crocodile, letting the internal crawling sensations rage, but the terror inside grew overwhelming.

I turned my head. Zhang Hemei was sitting on a wooden plank near the shack. She seemed unaware I was watching, her head turned away, but then she snapped it toward me. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

I forced a smile. "When was the last time You Qiaolin brought you here?"

Zhang Hemei paused, considering. "Almost half a year ago, maybe longer. This place is too eerie; who keeps track?"

"But you remembered the way here quite clearly. Am I mistaken?" I adopted a tone of light teasing.

"Oh, did I? Perhaps my memory is just exceptionally good. Once I walk a path, I never forget it, no matter how much time passes."

I didn't press further. I knew that if this woman was what I suspected, her cunning was extraordinary. I could ask a thousand questions, and she could spin an answer that left no flaws, only exposing my own intentions.

I hoisted the shovel onto my shoulder and walked slowly, swaying slightly, my eyes rapidly scanning the surrounding dense forest. Faintly, I felt that someone was present in the woods. Though I couldn't see them, years of criminal investigation gave me an instinctive sense of danger.

Fearing a distant sniper, I quickly moved close to Zhang Hemei and sat down near the shack, but I kept a tight grip on the shovel.

"Didn't find anything?" Zhang Hemei asked.

I shook my head. "Maybe we came to the wrong place."

"But this is the only place I could think of."

"It's not your fault." Saying this, I pulled out my phone and deliberately spoke loudly, "I have some matters at the bureau that I need to report, so they don't try to find me."

After dialing Zhang Jiewei, I announced into the phone, "Hello, is that Zhang Jiewei? ... I'm Wang Lei. I can't make this afternoon's meeting; I'm on Willow Island now. ... I'm with Miss Zhang Hemei from International Xiyuan, the one involved in You Qiaolin's case. She reported an abnormality here, so I came to check."

Hanging up, I felt a measure of relief. In this situation, Zhang Hemei would absolutely not dare to poison me.

I let out a long breath and walked into the clearing, looking around as if challenging the hidden figures in the woods. But I wasn't afraid; I knew Zhang Hemei was behind me, likely signaling to her accomplices in the woods. No one would dare harm me now.

Indeed, I stood there for over a minute without incident. Yet, I felt the presence—the person hiding in the dense trees had not left. Like a venomous snake, he remained coiled silently, watching me intently.

This feeling was deeply unsettling. I turned toward Zhang Hemei. "There's nothing here. Why don't we search inside the forest? Maybe we'll find something. Are you coming?"

I fixed my gaze directly into her eyes as I spoke.

For more novels, visit storyread.net.