Chapter 30: CH 30

“Meat King definitely didn’t recognize this nun.”

On the glass window of the examination room, Xu Qi, in his black trench coat with gold buttons, was reflected. The temporary captain of Haidu’s Extermination Team had a calm expression as he bowed his head. The flickering light illuminated the short hair on his head, which was like the fine hairs of a brown bear. He looked at Xiao Jinyu while he shared his analysis. 

“Not just because Meat King didn’t greet her at the coffee shop and only glanced at her, but more so that. On the next day, when Meat King released a B rank task, he wanted to save himself yet he didn’t associate his death with that nun. Because he hadn’t thought that this user he had met by chance would think of killing him. Besides, he hadn’t thought of when the other party would act.”

The B rank task Meat King had released, of the people here, only Wang Tao, Xu Qi, and Zhao Hen were ranked above B100 and were thus eligible to view it.

Xu Qi briefly explained the task and told them that Meat King had already guessed that he would die.

Xu Qi: “Meat King knew that he was going to die. He was very anxious and he even released a B rank task, promising a huge reward. That day, he drove his Lamborghini all over the city but he didn’t go to this Catholic church. Why? Because even when he was about to die. He didn’t think that this nun, who had a one-sided relationship with him, would want to kill him. 

“This person’s reason for killing him, even Meat King wasn’t clear on it. So, he doesn’t recognize this nun at all.”

The prerequisite of Xu Qi’s analysis is that the nun really is a user and she was the owner of the head-picking logic skill.

He analyzed under Xiao Jinyu’s hypothesis.

In a sense, this was a meaningless analysis as no one could prove that Xiao Jinyu’s hypothesis was true. But somehow, Xu Qi had a premonition that this level one user had guessed correctly.

This strange confidence must have stemmed from the fact that a week ago, in the coffee shop in Haidu, Xiao Jinyu had asked three questions and made Zhang Haixiang, who had lied three times, dumbfounded. It might have also been that the other party could find the one frame out of the 24 frames in a second, where the two had turned their heads at the same time.

Xu Qi: “If Meat King and that nun’s encounter is really related to the head-picking incident, then that means that Meat King didn’t recognize the nun but instead, the nun recognized Meat King.”

At this time, a team member ran into the examination room.

“Captain, the technicians in the maintenance department have cleaned up and zoomed into the screenshot to the max!” 

Wang Tao’s cold voice was sharp: “Immediately send it over.”

“Yes!”

The next second, everyone’s phones rang. The ‘Grow Some Brains’ APP sent a high-definition picture of the cross necklace that hung on the nun’s neck.

In the grayscale picture, a thin silver necklace strung the cross in front of the pure nun’s dress. 

It was a carved cross and the craftsman used the most delicate techniques to carve out the hair-thin antlers. The silver elk held up its two front hooves and a pair of dark, carved out eyes were like a dragon’s, the finishing touches of the carving, which stared directly at the humans outside of the picture.

The design was intricate, making the elk come to life.

Wang Tao swiftly looked uo: “This is an elk, has anyone seen it before?”

Zhao Hen shook his head: “No.” 

“No.”

“I haven’t seen it before.”

The members of Zhongdu’s Extermination Team shook their heads.

The next second, Xu Qi also looked up: “I also haven’t seen it before.” 

Xiao Jinyu pursed his lips.

…This was the worst direction they could have headed into.

Polluter 198, “Howard’s Fan”, was privately collected by Meat King.

Because Xiao Jinyu completed Meat King’s task and won the two out of three chance lottery, he got the fan and remembered the blood elk family crest on it. Therefore, after he saw the cross on the nun’s neck, Xiao Jinyu recognized the Howard family’s crest on it with a glance and associated the nun with Meat King. 

The first time Meat King had looked at the nun, it was indeed because their logic skills attracted each other, causing him to recognize the user next to him.

But the second glance, he had stood on the steps, thinking. He wasn’t thinking about the user he had met by chance, but the design on the cross he had caught a glimpse of in the coffee shop.

Blood elk.

After Xu Qi’s analysis, Xiao Jinyu was very sure that Meat King hadn’t recognized this blood elk. 

A level three user’s memory gave Meat King a vague impression of the elk, but he didn’t recognize the Howard family’s crest. Polluter 198 was just one of Meat King’s many collections. And for him, it was probably one of the least practical. He most likely took one glance at it before throwing it into the underground warehouse, not showing any more interest in it.

Meat King forgot about the blood elk, but the blood elk’s owner recognized him.

What she recognized wasn’t Meat King.

But instead recognized the CEO of Hairong Group, Wei Rong, who had bought the fan at Jiashi’s auction house. 

…

How should he remind Xu Qi and Wang Tao?

He couldn’t reveal that he had Howard’s Fan and he couldn’t reveal that he recognized this blood elk.

Under the bright lights, the handsome young man looked calm yet no one knew that Xiao Jinyu’s hand that was hidden in his pocket was tightly clenched. He thought frantically, his back covered in sweat. 

Just when Wang Tao was about to call Li Xiaoxiao, asking the other party to check the source of this blood elk, Xiao Jinyu’s eyes lit up.

Yes, maybe the User Committee could find out what Meat King had once auctioned for.

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Ktf nblmf bo atf sbeat rbecvfv ogbw yftlcv atfw jcv fnfgsbcf aegcfv atflg tfjvr ab ibbx ja Wljb Alcse.

We Hl cbvvfv: “Zjxfr rfcrf. Ciatbeut Jjqajlc jcv Zfja Blcu tjnfc’a yffc lc mbcajma atja wemt jcv rb atflg gfijalbcrtlq kjrc’a atja ubbv.” Vqfjxlcu bo atlr, tf qjerfv. Ktlr sbecu jcv qgbwlrlcu ifnfi obeg erfg revvfcis vlvc’a xcbk tbk ab vfrmglyf atf qglnjaf fwbalbcji ilof bo tlr mjqajlc. Ktf rmfcf bo atf kbwjc qecmtlcu Itjcu Ljlzljcu klat tfg olra, tf mbeivc’a obgufa obg j rfmbcv.

No longer thinking of that mess, Xu Qi said: “In short, I’ll send this elk to Captain to see. Captain is a level five user, if she has seen it before, she would surely remember.” 

Five minutes later, Xu Qi received a reply from Haidu’s side.

Xu Qi had not spoken, yet his disappointed look made everyone understand the content of the reply.

It seemed like they could only wait for the User Committee to find the source of the blood elk.

Suddenly, Xiao Jinyu looked at Xu Qi, asking: “Captain Xu, just now, you said that Meat King didn’t recognize the nun, but the nun definitely recognized him.” 

Xu Qi froze for a moment, then nodded: “Yes, or else Meat King would have looked for that nun before he died. Because he had thought that the nun was just a random user and had nothing to do with him so he hadn’t thought that his abnormality was related to the other user.”

He finished talking and the only level five user present narrowed his eyes.

Wang Tao was the strongest user in Zhongdu, not just one of them. His steady gaze constantly changed as he looked at Xiao Jinyu and Xu Qi. He was thinking.

He wasn’t good at thinking, but that didn’t mean that a level five user couldn’t think. 

After a few seconds.

Wang Tao suddenly said: “Meat King didn’t know that nun, but that nun knew him. Then who that nun recognized… Was it Meat King himself?”

Xiao Jinyu looked at Wang Tao, silently raising the corners of his lips.

The next second, Wang Tao said coldly: “Who that nun recognized was Wei Rong, not Meat King!” 

As soon as he said these words, Xu Qi widened his eyes and he quickly analyzed: “The reason why Zhang Haixiang dared to kill Meat King was that he thought Meat King was just a normal user and that even if he died, there wouldn’t be any relatives or friends who would report his disappearance. He didn’t associate Meat King with Wei Rong, the CEO of Haidu’s Rongsi Group. In the user circle of Haidu City, Meat King is very famous, yet no one knew that Meat King was Wei Rong.

“Just like how no one would think of killing a user they had met by chance, there isn’t any deep hatred between them. But this nun wanted to kill Meat King because who she recognized wasn’t ‘Meat King’, but Wei Rong. And she assumed that… Wei Rong recognized her!”

Xu Qi looked up at Wang Tao.

The two captains looked at each other and suddenly understood each other’s meaning. 

Wang Tao: “The nun recognized Wei Rong and thought that Wei Rong recognized her, because she thought that Wei Rong would recognize her necklace.”

Xu Qi: “Meat King might’ve not recognized this necklace, but she knew that Wei Rong would definitely recognize it.”

“Why?”

Xu Qi took out his phone and quickly made a call, instructing with a cold face: “Immediately check every item that Meat King had bought publicly, not only polluters, but everything that he bought under the name of ‘Wei Rong’!” 

Keep thinking.

Xiao Jinyu slowly released his clenched hand in his pocket.

…

Everyone was investigating the clues of the head-picking incident as quickly as possible. 

As if dawn was approaching, it was like there was a glimmer of hope appearing over the horizon. The truth of the head-picking incident was about to come to light and this crime that had started a month ago and brutally killed an innocent girl was about to be closed.

At the entrance of Changjie Station.

A tall, short-haired woman stood at the crowded exit. Qi Simin looked up and saw her companion.

In the early morning, when Chu Wenting had pulled off her head, Wang Tao had promoted the head-picking incident to a city wide crime. 

This was no longer a D rank task belonging to Qi Simin and Li Xiaotong.

Wang Tao only left Xiao Jinyu.

However Li Xiaotong hadn’t returned his ticket. Early in the morning, he took the subway from his hometown in Haidu and anxiously rushed back to Zhongdu.

Li Xiaotong had already learned of the tragic incident that had happened in Zhongdu’s hospital twelve hours ago from Qi Simin over the phone. He would have never imagined that that young wife and stepmother he had just seen a day before would actually pull off her own head with her hands, no longer breathing any more. 

Li Xiaotong gasped as he ran to the subway entrance: “Sis Min, I’m here. Captain Wang didn’t let us take care of it, but this task was taken by us, we can’t just ignore it.”

Qi Simin: “You can be like the workers of the User Committee and go door-to-door and find if there are any other victims.”

Li Xiaotong pushed down his hat: “I won’t, I believe in Sis Min. Sis Min, why did you want me to come here? Changjie Station… this is where we first met Xiao Jinyu and also the place where White Garden’s logic storm occurred?”

The short-haired woman smiled: “Xiaotong, it seems like your sister hasn’t told you that they’ve already found a suspect.” 

“Who?!” The baseball capped youth’s eyes widened.

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“Pope’s Crown.”

Li Xiaotong froze.

“Sis Min, Pope’s Crown died long ago. Did you forget that we were the ones who collected his logic factors?” 

“Do you still remember that when we collected Pope’s Crown’s logic factors, I specifically wrote on the report that the collected logic factors were much lower than what a normal level three user should have? Yes, at the time, the Logic Research Institute gave a reply that said the loss of the logic factor was normal. In fact, we have taken so many ‘corpse collection’ tasks and almost every time, there was a loss of logic factors during the corpse collection, but none of them had lost as much as ‘Pope’s Crown’.”

Li Xiaotong was a bit dazed: “So Sis Min, what does this have to do with White Garden?” He didn’t understand why Qi Simin was saying this or why he was here.

Qi Simin didn’t respond. She turned her head, looking at the dark subway entrance.

The wind through the hall was bone-chilling cold and the gloomy sky pressed down on people’s hearts, making people breathless. 

“After so many years, there were only two ‘corpse collection’ tasks that made me write a report on the loss of logic factors. One was ‘Pope’s Crown’, the other was ‘White Garden’.”

Li Xiaotong suddenly understood: “Then do you think that those two have some type of connection?”

Qi Simin smiled: “I just trust a woman’s intuition.”

Looking at her confident expression, Li Xiaotong also smiled: “Okay.” 

Trust between comrades didn’t require a reason.

The next second, like they had done nine days ago, the short-haired woman and the baseball capped boy walked into Changjie Station together with their heads bowed.

Only this time, they were no longer dealing with an erupting logic storm but were instead looking for all the anomalies buried under the appearance of reason.

Dark clouds enveloped the peaceful and calm Zhongdu City. 

There were workers knocking on doors and registering names and office workers walking outside with umbrellas.

Some users were anxiously looking around the subway station for clues that might not even exist and some team members were looking for the gorgeous antique fan from the hundreds of polluter registration forms from Meat King.

“Found it, it’s Polluter 198, Howard’s Fan!” Xu Qi said in surprise.

Zhao Hen hurriedly asked: “Where is this fan now?” 

Xu Qi: “Meat King gave it out as a task reward to a user who had completed his last B rank task before he died.”

Zhao Hen: “…”

Tasks on the ‘Grow Some Brains’ APP have always been confidential and only available to the task publishers and completers. So much so that if the user doesn’t take the initiative to contact Meat King and tell him their ranking, then even Meat King wouldn’t know who completed his task.

Xiao Jinyu stood silently on the side. 

Fortunately, Xu Qi didn’t forcibly trace which users had completed Meat King’s task. After all, the reward given by Meat King was random and it was impossible that the nun had taken Howard’s Fan. Even if she had taken it, it didn’t matter. The effect of this fan was very weak and could only be used for a sneak attack.

The important part was the Howard family’s crest on the fan’s pendant.

“Howard family’s crest, the pattern on the nun’s cross was this elk and Meat King had also seen this elk on the fan’s pendant. So she had thought that Meat King must have recognized her and made him enter the head-picking logic skill in some way. She wanted to kill Meat King.”

Looking at the design of the fan in the photo, Xu Qi looked solemn: “However, Meat King didn’t have time to die from that logic skill before he was hanged by Beauty’s Fragrant Scarf. But there’s another doubtful point… 

“The Howard family was active in Haidu in the last century, the Catholic church where this nun was in is in Haidu, and Meat King is also a user from Haidu…

“Then what is she doing, killing people in Zhongdu?”

Xu Qi subconsciously looked at Xiao Jinyu and what he saw was the youth looking down, not responding.

Just when everyone was at a loss, a phone rang. Zhao Hen took out his phone. Looking at the name on the screen, he answered the phone in surprise: “Qi Simin?” 

A woman’s voice came from the phone: “Zhao Hen, is Captain Wang there?”

“Here, here. I’ll find Captain Wang for you. Is there something?”

While Zhao Hen talked, he handed the phone to Wang Tao.

Wang Tao took the phone, frowning: “What is it?” 

“Captain Wang.”

At the subway entrance of Changjie Station, a short-haired woman stood in the wind, holding a phone in one hand, looking solemn.

“I think White Garden’s suicide wasn’t incidental and Pope’s Crown’s suicide isn’t completely reasonable… Don’t refute me just yet, listen to me first. I am an ordinary level two user and Xiaotong and I have only taken the simplest and least dangerous tasks. But because of this, we’ve collected a lot of corpses.

“Logic skills collapsing and leading to suicide, every year in China alone, there are more than two thousand users who die from this. After Pope’s Crown, Xiaotong and I took on no less than ten corpse collection tasks, including White Garden. 

“But just as I had written before in the report, of all the collection tasks I’ve taken over the years, Pope’s Crown and White Garden have the highest amount of depleted logic factors.”

In the examination room, Captain Wang didn’t show a trace of impatience and he listened carefully to the words of the level two user on the phone.

“So what did you find?”

Without being questioned, Qi Simin continued: “Can this abnormally large loss really be explained by regular phenomenon? No matter if it’s Pope’s Crown or White Garden, they didn’t turn to the User Committee before they died nor did they show the slightest sign of logic skill collapse. Yet they all collapsed and committed suicide suddenly. Captain Wang, what if it wasn’t a logic skill collapse, but instead someone deliberately killed them and faked their suicide?” 

The soundproofing of the phone wasn’t very good, so everyone in the examination room heard Qi Simin’s words.

When he heard Qi Simin say that White Garden’s logic factors were depleted to an abnormal amount, Xiao Jinyu felt his heart tighten. He knew that it was because he had ‘stolen’ a portion of White Garden’s logic factors.

However, when he heard Qi Simin connect White Garden and Pope’s Crown’s logic factor loss together, Xiao Jinyu suddenly froze.

In the phone, Qi Simin continued her speculation: “If their loss of logic factors wasn’t because their logic skills collapsed and they committed suicide, but because before they died, they attempted to save themselves but they couldn’t resist the murderer so their logic skill was somehow broken by the murderer? 

“Captain Wang, what if it wasn’t a logic skill collapse from the beginning, but instead a logic skill being broken? In this way, it can explain the abnormal loss of the logic factors from the two of them. I think this would prove that they didn’t encounter something bad and suddenly…”

In the middle of her sentence, the woman’s voice abruptly stopped.

In the quiet examination room, Wang Tao was listening to Qi Simin’s analysis as he thought. Suddenly, there wasn’t any more sound. He waited for a moment and whispered: “Qi Simin.”

There wasn’t a response. 

Wang Tao’s expression sank: “Qi Simin?”

Still, no one responded.

At the entrance of the cold and windy subway station, a young, short-haired woman holding a phone stood in a daze. Her mouth was slightly open, eyes wide as she and the baseball capped boy next to her stared at the teenager no less than five meters in front of them.

Then, she watched as the other person suddenly raised their hands and pulled off their head. 

Qi Simin dully looked at this scene. Suddenly, she turned her head, looking at this long street, at the countless people on the street.

In the examination room.

Wang Tao loudly said “Qi Simin” once again.

Xiao Jinyu looked surprised and he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, about to open his mouth. 

A faint and quiet song, like a feather gently brushing across his heart.

Someone was singing.

The song was soft and peaceful, like a gentle and warm light shining on a slow moving stream in early spring, letting the earth slowly recover.

That voice was soft, yet it was getting more and more distinct. 

The next second, Xiao Jinyu was shocked.

Everyone ran out of the examination room at the same time, running out of the hospital as fast as they could.

Zhongdu City.

A silent snow began to fall. 

The snowflakes swayed with the cold wind, landing on a singing girl on the street.

On the long street, young faces were lined up in two lines, facing the same direction, heading forward.

They all sang the same song in unison.

The sad, holy song lingered on the street. While they sang, they devoutly moved forward. 

The girl at the very front lifted her hands and with a slight movement, she pulled her head off, then fell.

Then it was another young person.

A young man in his early twenties.

A student still holding a backpack… 

The hospital’s entrance.

It was like the pause button had been pressed on all the users. Their bodies didn’t move and their eyes were wide open, looking at the forward moving sacrifices.

Suddenly, Xiao Jinyu turned his head.

Behind him. 

The clean-shaven police officer was still wearing his uniform as he walked out of the hospital doors in a daze and brushed past Xiao Jinyu.

Xiao Jinyu reached out and grabbed him. Yet Wu Yuan didn’t stop.

He entered the group of people.

The head of the person in front fell and the person behind them stepped on their corpse and continued forward. As they sang, they placed their hands on their neck. 

Blood poured down from their broken neck and the deathly silent world listened to the youth singing in unison.

The author has something to say:

While I was writing, I was always listening to a song. It’s called “God When You Breathe Over Earth”, if you want to listen to it you can search for it on QQMusic.

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