Chapter 10 After Ten O'Clock

After ten o'clock at night, the riverbank was the most lively place in the capital.

Young men and women gathered here... Driven by heavy metal music and alcohol, hormones grew wildly. Here, you could unload all the pressures of the day and listen to the most instinctive commands of your soul, rediscovering the wildness and desire in your blood.

Continuing to stroll along the riverbank, the noises that seemed to shatter the long night would gradually dissipate. All that lingered in your ears was the sound of the night wind and the white noise of the river waves lapping against the shore. The whole world would fade from extreme, impetuous noise into a serene and dark painting.

Dadu District and Yinghai District faced each other across this Hengjiang River.

On the other side of the river, all was silent.

On this side of the river, it was a city that never slept.

"How much longer?"

Qu Shui led the way, walking along the riverbank for a long, long time.

Gu Shen looked back. The swaying lights had disappeared into the darkness, impossible to see clearly. All around was the pitch-black night.

"Almost there."

Qu Shui, with her hands behind her back, was in a good mood, skipping and hopping ahead. She suddenly jumped high and stopped. "Hmm... I think it's here."

Several large bridges were built along the riverbank, and corresponding protective measures were added to both sides. However, the pedestrian passage under the bridge's non-slip embankment had holes dug at intervals and painted with white paint as markers... "1", "2", "3"...

"Number 97."

Qu Shui stared intently at the cave under the bridge. "This is where... I met him."

Gu Shen frowned.

Saying it was on the riverbank... This was actually a remote area with no people around. Moreover, who would usually take a second look at this kind of cave? Perhaps only homeless people and stray cats and dogs would spend the night here.

However, judging from the style of that Foundation believer... It was not impossible for him to live here.

He had avoided the investigation of Deep Sea for so long, he must have had a special place to hide.

"Wait here for me."

After giving her the instructions, Gu Shen entered the cave alone.

The cave was very damp. As soon as he stepped inside, a strong stench hit him. He couldn't see the environment in the darkness, but there must have been a lot of garbage piled up here, and the smell of feces... Someone or some animal had really lived here.

There was no sound from outside the cave.

It seemed that Qu Shui was obediently waiting outside.

Gu Shen silently ignited the Blazing Fire in his brow. He looked around the cave and whispered in his heart, "Profiling... Activate!"

The moment the Blazing Fire ignited, the world in Gu Shen's eyes was no longer dark. A bright light was lit in his heart. He looked around and saw the environment in the darkness clearly. This Cave 97, built in a remote area of the riverbank, was very narrow, with a round arched roof, and the ground was covered with loose, scattered dirt and filth. Homeless people had indeed lived here. Discarded food waste was already rotting and half-buried.

But as Gu Shen looked up.

A creepy feeling immediately exploded from his back.

The fresh stench of decay, mixed with the damp, pungent air, rushed into his nostrils.

This smell emanated from the stone wall of the cave three meters away... Several large iron nails were hammered into the narrow mud and stone wall, hanging a dried-up skeleton. The skin had rotted away, but the bones were still intact.

In the world of Profiling, all was silent.

The darkness was dispelled by the Blazing Fire, and the dirty environment of the cave was as bright as day. Mental strength pushed the time slowly backward. The flesh and blood of the skeleton on the wall gradually became full from dryness, and the head no longer drooped. Gu Shen saw a glimpse of a reflection.

At that time, "he" had not yet died, and had once howled and vented in despair.

Time reversed like this—

Until a familiar, petite figure appeared in his sight.

In the world of Profiling, she was only a dark shadow, with no facial features and no sound.

She slowly turned her head and looked towards Gu Shen's location across the reversed time.

At this moment, Gu Shen's brain was almost blank.

Reason pushed his thoughts, and sparked a blazing fire in an instant.

Thoughts flashed back.

In the frozen time, Gu Shen felt the Profiling of the cave fading. His consciousness seemed to have come to a grand hall that housed memories. Above the hall hung an inverted sword burning with blazing light, and beneath the tip of the sword, past memories were sorted and classified, like precious collected scrolls. As long as he opened them, scenes of memories would be replayed like movies.

The first scene was Hu Danian's solemn whisper during the bar rendezvous:

["This week, several deaths have occurred in remote corners of Lipu Street and the Jiangtan area. All of them are adult males who died from clean and swift cuts to the throat with a sharp weapon."]

["Supernatural aura... has been detected at the wounds."]

The second scene was the face-to-face encounter with the believer of the Changjiu Foundation:

["To hell with the new era!"]

["Long Live Changjiu Foundation!"]

At the end of this scene, accompanied by an angry roar, the Foundation believer carrying the Su Mu stone carving was blown into powder...

In order to ensure the assassination, this believer used high explosives and a spiritual sealed object, but never used his own supernatural abilities from beginning to end... Because, he was not a supernatural being at all.

Because the time of the Jiangtan serial killer case completely coincided with the Insomnia event, Hu Danian was misled... He focused his investigation on tracking down out-of-control people with supernatural auras, but the truth was that the assassin carrying the Su Mu stone carving was just an ordinary person.

This was a coincidence.

No wonder... When he connected the Jiangtan serial killings with the Su Mu stone carving Insomnia event, he always felt that something was wrong.

The images of these two murderers overlapped, and their attributes were incompatible.

The final flashback scene in the Memory Hall.

Was when he first pushed open the door of the clinic cubicle and handed in the hot tea.

The Blazing Fire sensed an unsettling supernatural aura... He happened to see the pocket watch on Zhou Yexin's body.

Now that he thought about it, he understood the real reason for the unease... It was not because of the pocket watch.

According to Zhou Yexin's dream, the pocket watch was a kind and orderly sealed object, and the last trace of weak aura was only adhering to the belief of "burning everything to protect the master."

The real unease of the Blazing Fire came from... the second person in the room at that time.

Qu Shui.

The world of Profiling, as bright as day, reversed back to the origin, and the flow of time finally returned to normal.

The fast-rewind button was cut off and switched to normal playback.

A thin girl dragged a tall man into the cave... The man struggled weakly, but could only sit against the stone wall.

The two people "snuggled" together and said a lot of words.

Gu Shen's mental strength was currently limited. In the world of Profiling, apart from seeing the general silhouettes that symbolized the shape... He could not get more information. However, judging from the stiff body movements of the silhouettes, it was not difficult to infer that the girl was always talking, and the man was forced to listen.

Finally...

Like a loving couple, the girl leaned very close and said her last words of love.

She took a pair of scissors from her arms.

Cleanly and swiftly aiming at the throat.

One cut.

The Profiling ended, and the cave world returned to darkness.

Gu Shen silently looked at the suspended skeleton. The wounds were completely consistent with the victims of the Jiangtan serial killings: sharp weapon wounds, severing the neck, clean and swift.

Because it was too remote, it had not yet been discovered.

Suddenly, a voice sounded in his ear.

"Doctor Gu..."

Gu Shen's back hair stood on end. He didn't know when, but another person had entered the cave.

The voice was only twenty centimeters away from him, and a petite figure was standing almost against his back.

The voice was both gentle and aggrieved, like an abandoned kitten. "There's something... I wanted to say to you last time..."

"I like you... From the first time I saw you... I liked you so much..."

The voice murmured like a dream.

"Will... you be my boyfriend?"