If not to put himself forward, then what for? Jiang Hansheng did not say.

He simply held firm, and Wang Pengzhe found himself unable to overrule this student of his.

Not long afterward, Jiang Hansheng obtained a DNA comparison report confirming that the suspect responsible for the sexual assault and murder of the female victims in the Huaiguang case was the same individual who had killed the special unit officer Li Jingbo during the “8·17” armed robbery.

Beyond that, he tracked down the forensic examiner who had conducted the original autopsies, and persuaded her to come forward and testify.

The petition, submitted to the Provincial High Procuratorate under the weight of enormous pressure, wound through a tortuous process before the case was finally accepted for reinvestigation.

Once the investigation phase began, however, progress proved far less smooth than anyone had hoped.

Too many people were entangled in this case, and no shortage of them worked against Jiang Hansheng — openly and otherwise.

There were also objective obstacles that could not be avoided no matter what. By that point, more than a decade had passed since the Huaiguang serial murders, and given the technological limitations of the time, the surviving physical evidence was extremely scarce.

Although Jiang Hansheng had produced a revised criminal profile, correcting Wang Pengzhe’s earlier misjudgment about the killer’s age, finding a suspect who matched that profile in any short period of time proved enormously difficult.

A proper police sweep required vast amounts of time — and time was something Jiang Hansheng did not have.

Better, then, to administer a stronger remedy.

“I’d like to ask for your help in contacting a journalist at the local television station — to arrange an exclusive interview during prime time.”

The request was straightforward enough, but even Wang Pengzhe could not immediately work out what Jiang Hansheng intended.

Wang Pengzhe asked: “An interview with whom?”

At that moment, the landline on his desk began to ring.

Jiang Hansheng made a small gesture. “Let Chief Yao tell you.”

After the special unit convoy transporting weapons was ambushed, the Haizhou City Bureau had immediately formed a dedicated task force. Yao Weihai, who was serving as Major Crimes Unit chief at the time, had volunteered to take overall command of the “8·17” investigation.

Jiang Hansheng’s inquiry in Huaiguang had run into obstruction from the local police, making it nearly impossible to seek their cooperation — so he had gone directly to Yao Weihai instead.

Over the phone, Yao Weihai explained to Wang Pengzhe: “Since Jiang Hansheng has a way to draw the real culprit into the open, it’s worth trying. The longer this case drags on, the harder it becomes to solve.”

“I don’t agree.” Wang Pengzhe refused outright. “Before, the killer acted alone — he murdered that many women and evaded justice for over a decade. Now he’s backed by an entire criminal organization and has already killed a police officer. You want my student to risk his life to help you? Don’t even think about it.”

Yao Weihai pressed earnestly: “Senior, I give you my word — I’ll put it in writing if you want. I’ll arrange for someone to stay with Jiang Hansheng around the clock. His safety will be guaranteed.”

Yao Weihai exhausted every angle — professional duty, personal obligation — and wore away at Wang Pengzhe with relentless persistence until Wang Pengzhe was thoroughly tired of hearing it.

Irritably, he glanced over at Jiang Hansheng, who was sitting on the sofa.

His back was straight, his posture carrying the composed attentiveness of a diligent young student. His face revealed nothing. He was watching quietly.

Wang Pengzhe knew this young man’s character well. He appeared easy-going, but on certain matters he was immovably stubborn.

He furrowed his brow hard, told Yao Weihai to wait, then covered the receiver and asked Jiang Hansheng: “If I refuse, will you listen to me?”

Jiang Hansheng answered with perfect composure: “No.”

“…I knew it.” Wang Pengzhe ground his teeth, glared at him with barely concealed fury, and muttered a low curse. “You little wretch — you came here specifically to give me grief.”

Yao Weihai, thinking he was being cursed at, hadn’t caught the words clearly, but guessed they were nothing complimentary. He said hastily: “Senior, Director Wang — please don’t be so angry, we can still talk this through.”

Wang Pengzhe said: “There’s nothing to talk through. I’ll lend him to you.”

He drew a heavy breath, then spoke with deliberate gravity: “Yao Weihai — you know what this young man means to our division. If anything happens to him while he’s in your hands, our friendship ends there.”

Yao Weihai swore up and down, promising three times over that nothing would go wrong.

As the memory reached that point, an uneasy flicker passed through Wang Pengzhe’s eyes.

A deep, heavy silence had settled through the small interior of the car.

After a pause, Wang Pengzhe finally spoke: “Yao Weihai is also in Haizhou this time. But he doesn’t have the face to come and see me.”

Throughout Wang Pengzhe’s time in Haizhou assisting the Major Crimes Unit, he had not once encountered Yao Weihai.

Zhou Jin heard the edge in his tone and tried to smooth things over: “Perhaps Chief Yao also just wants the case solved as quickly as possible.”

“For the sake of solving the case?” Wang Pengzhe disagreed. “Ever since Yao Weihai took command of the ‘8·17’ task force, something in him went a little unhinged—”

He caught himself there. Talking about Yao Weihai in front of someone else did not feel entirely appropriate, so he pressed down on the anger rising in his chest and said only: “In any case — if it weren’t for his negligence, Hansheng would never have had to suffer what he did.”

As it turned out, the strong remedy Jiang Hansheng had spoken of was this: he had asked Wang Pengzhe to help arrange a meeting with a producer at the local television station, with the aim of filming a special interview to air during the prime-time news slot.

Wang Pengzhe had extensive connections. He brought Jiang Hansheng to the station, met with the relevant person in charge, and the matter was settled quickly.

On the way back from the station, Wang Pengzhe asked Jiang Hansheng why he had chosen this particular approach.

Jiang Hansheng had his hands on the wheel, turning the car and heading in the direction of a shopping district.

He replied, unhurried: “The killer has been starved of attention and affection for a long time — the kind of person who can easily develop a histrionic personality disorder. If I were him, I would already be monitoring the police’s every move through whatever channels I could. And if the opportunity arose, I’d go in and give some insignificant statement — just to get a close-up view of these fools I’ve been running circles around.”

Wang Pengzhe cautioned him: “…Do not say any of that in front of the task force.”

That particular brand of deadpan contempt had a way of enraging people. Wang Pengzhe was genuinely concerned he might get hit.

Still, he had caught the thread of something in it, and asked: “So — you want to use the television interview to issue a direct challenge to the killer?”

Jiang Hansheng allowed himself a faint smile.

The car rolled to a gradual stop in front of a men’s suit shop.

Jiang Hansheng pulled into a parking space, told Wang Pengzhe to wait in the car, and stepped out and walked inside.

He had long, refined brows and dark, bright eyes. His shoulders and back were broad and cleanly defined, and there was something about his bearing — composed and scholarly — that gave him an air of exceptional cleanliness.

When the shop assistant saw him, her eyes lit up, and she stepped forward eagerly to ask how she could help.

He said he wanted to buy a suit.

As she led Jiang Hansheng over to the men’s section, she asked: “Do you have a color preference, sir?”

Jiang Hansheng narrowed his sharp eyes slightly, a hint of amusement lurking in them.

He said: “Red.”

Thud. Thud. Thud.

A small green ball, roughly the size of a palm, hit the floor and bounced back into the hand waiting for it — steady, rhythmic, unhurried.

The man caught the ball and held it firmly, sprawled back across a black leather sofa.

The lights in the room were off. Black curtains sealed out every trace of light from outside. The only illumination came from a projection thrown against the large white wall — a pale, diffused glow that fell across the man’s body and washed his face into something cold and bloodless.

Piano music filled the room — surging, turbulent, the notes dense and heavy, crashing against the chest like something being driven in with force.

And yet on the screen, a recorded interview was playing.

It was a news programme. In the studio, a female anchor was posing her questions.

The man being interviewed wore a faint, unhurried smile throughout. His answers came in an easy, almost indolent manner.

The quiet, measured voice on screen formed a sharp contrast with the turbulent piano behind it.

“He believed himself to be an artist…”

The words came in fragments, pressed down and half-swallowed beneath the weight of the music.

“…using the appearance of art to conceal his crimes.”

“Each of the victims was simply another substitute. The killer was searching for self-gratification in those he harmed…”

“Evidence of profound psychological trauma…”

“The cause?”

“An absent father figure in the family home…”

“Extreme internal inferiority. A desperate hunger for attention and love…”

“Abandoned by his mother.”

Bang—!

A single, violent impact.

The ball had been hurled at the wall with full force. It ricocheted off and fell to the floor, rolling and rolling until it came to rest in the corner.

The music had gone completely silent.

No sound remained in the room. Nothing remained in his field of vision but stark, vivid color.

From the black, a white beam of light reached across the space. Black and white converged and focused on a single point of red.

A vivid red. A red like blood. The red he despised most in all the world.

The man pressed his palm hard against his forehead. A scream tore out of him — hysterical, raw — the sound of it ringing through his own eardrums in sharp, jagged waves that shredded at his nerves.

At last, he clamped his hand over his own trembling wrist, forced himself to breathe, and dragged his face up from the dense shadow around him. His eyes had gone red — something savage in them.

He bit down on the words, and let them fall, cold and quiet:

“Go to hell.”