Chapter 96: One After Another

About ten minutes later, dim lights flickered back on inside the asylum. I leaned against the wall.

The psychological pressure of the shifting light and dark left me speechless. It felt like turning on a light to see a ghost standing a short distance away, only for the bulb to suddenly die just as you approached. Then, when the lights returned, the phantom would be standing right in front of you.

I dashed around the corner. In the bloodstained corridor, Jiang Fei crouched against the wall, clutching the two children.

"The victim isn't Jiang Fei." The heavy stone in my chest finally dropped. The short-haired woman and the patients in the room were unharmed. But I had clearly heard a woman scream a moment ago. Were there other women in this building?

"The underground cells!"

A sudden realization hit me. I told Jiang Fei to keep her knife ready and follow me as we hurried back to the eight underground rooms.

Fresh blood seeped from one of the cells. I pushed open the iron door marked 'Tuesday.'

The woman with the large padlock around her neck huddled in the corner, her face pale with terror. She was still alive. The person who had died was the young Doctor!

His limbs bound, the Doctor's head was submerged in the drainage trench. A Scalpel pierced through his neck from behind.

"It severed the carotid artery. A fatal strike!"

Such masterful killing techniques sent a chill down my spine. Even a forensic examiner with over a decade of experience in the police force likely wouldn't possess this level of precision.

I pulled the young Doctor's corpse out of the trench. He must have been unconscious when he was murdered, as there were no signs of a struggle.

"Why would they kill one of their own? Were they afraid I might extract some clue from him?" I must have overlooked a crucial detail, and the killer had silenced him specifically to keep it hidden.

The only witness to the murder was the madwoman chained by the neck. I carefully studied her expression, hoping to glean some clue, but her face held only stark terror and a deeply hidden resentment.

I still remembered the first time I entered this room; she had worn a fawning, subservient smile that clung to her face like a mask. Whether she was weeping, in pain, or furious, that groveling smile had never once faded.

I couldn't fathom how much torture she had endured to reflexively maintain such a servile smile. Yet at this very moment, to my shock, the smile was completely gone. Her teeth chattered incessantly in absolute terror.

What had she seen? Why was she so terrified? Who was the person she feared the most?

The killer had moved with blinding speed and a clear target. After slaughtering the young Doctor, they hadn't lingered for a second before retreating.

This was an incredibly dangerous opponent—one with ironclad psychological fortitude, masterful killing techniques, meticulous logic, and extreme purpose.

"There is no such thing as a perfect crime. He acted in a hurry; he must have left a flaw behind!"

I was still searching the cell for any slip-up the killer might have made when, suddenly, all the lights in the building went out again!

Darkness descended once more. I knew for a fact that someone else was about to die, but I had no idea how to stop it.

I was one of the killer's targets too. Moving blindly in the dark would very likely play right into their hands.

I dragged Jiang Fei into the cell. We pressed our backs against the wall, using the faint glow of my phone to illuminate the half-open iron door.

The darkness felt thick and heavy. I didn't dare blink, terrified that the moment I closed my eyes, someone would strike.

Another agonizing ten minutes passed. This time, I didn't hear any screams. Clinging to a sliver of hope, I made my way back to the main hall.

"Someone is hurt!"

"No, someone has been killed!"

Han Le sat on a chair, muttering to himself. Upon hearing his words, I instantly sprinted into the corridor. The dead person was Song Xiaowang.

This slightly odd-looking child with a cleft lip and a pure heart lay on the staircase leading up to the second floor.

He wheezed in wet, ragged gasps, his body like a punctured hot water bottle as his lifeblood slowly seeped away.

The weapon that killed Xiaowang wasn't a Scalpel, but a sharpened chair leg.

The pointed wood had pierced straight through the child's heart. The killer possessed tremendous strength; to ensure the boy's death, they had driven the wooden spike completely into Song Xiaowang's chest.

Behind me, Jiang Fei went as pale as a sheet upon seeing the gruesome sight. Had I not been holding her up, she likely would have collapsed to the floor.

"It's my fault, it's all my fault! I should have taken him with me." The person who had been standing alive beside her just ten minutes ago had now been reduced to a corpse. The events of tonight had far exceeded the limits of Jiang Fei's psychological endurance.

"Are we going to die? Is it my turn next?" Jiang Fei covered her mouth, hovering on the very edge of a complete breakdown.

I had no idea how to comfort her. As I looked at the boy twitching in agony on the ground, death felt like a shadow looming over all of us. No one could guarantee they would live to see the sun rise.

"Jiang Fei, the killer is taking these lives one by one to shatter our hope. They think of themselves as a god who dictates who lives and who dies. What feels like a life-and-death crisis to us is nothing more than a sick game to that pervert."

"He is intentionally torturing your mind. If you break down, that's exactly what he wants." Under my gaze, Song Xiaowang slowly stopped struggling. I couldn't save him. Watching him die right before my eyes left me feeling utterly powerless, and it ignited an emotion I rarely ever felt—pure rage.

Impulsiveness and fury clouded judgment, which was why I consciously controlled my emotions most of the time. But in this moment, amidst this killer's brazen, unbridled slaughter, amidst this twisted game of cat and mouse, I simply could no longer restrain myself.

"I'm going to catch you. I will definitely catch you!"

I took the Scalpel from Jiang Fei's hands, turned my phone's screen brightness to the maximum, and made all the deranged patients sit in the center of the main hall.

I had them each sit on a long bench, facing the inverted crucifix.

I angled my phone screen toward the hall. Even if the lights went out, the glow of the screen would allow me to clearly see the movements of everyone present.

This setup ensured their safety, but it completely exposed me to danger.

Standing with the light to my back allowed me to monitor everyone in the hall, but it left me blind to whatever was behind me.

"Jiang Fei, sit right in front of me. Once the lights go out, keep your eyes glued to my surroundings. If anyone approaches..."

I had only gotten halfway through my instructions when the lights overhead died again. The sudden plunge into darkness choked the rest of my words off in my throat. Deathly silence instantly reclaimed the hall.

My gaze swept across the room, lingering on the face of every single patient, permanently etching their reactions to the sudden darkness into my memory.

Time crawled by in absolute agony. The blackout seemed to drag on far longer this time.

My hand gripping the Scalpel was slick with sweat. Maintaining such a tense posture for so long had left my body rigid and completely stiff.

I kept a silent count in my head. Ten minutes... fifteen... A full twenty minutes passed, and still, the killer made no move.

Sweat slid down my temples. At the twenty-fifth minute, I sensed an extra presence in the room. I didn't know if it was the sharp intuition I'd honed across countless livestreams, or the heightened senses born from the Profound Truth Mental Method, but I could faintly feel a foul, turbid aura closing in on me.

It was moving faster, accelerating right toward me!

"Watch out!" Jiang Fei suddenly leaped up from her seat in the pitch black.

At her warning, I whirled around and slashed the Scalpel out behind me.

"Clang!"

A crisp metallic clash rang out, leaving my palm entirely numb. I caught the faintest glimpse of a shadowy figure whirling around and sprinting up to the second floor!

"Stop right there!" The difference between me and the protagonists of horror movies was that I wasn't some helpless prop; I was a troublemaker who had been repeatedly disciplined for street brawls back in the police academy.

Clenching the Scalpel tightly, I tore off in hot pursuit.

My mind was made up. There would be absolutely no mercy this time. The moment I caught him, I was going to cripple both his legs!

I chased the shadowy figure in a mad dash across the second floor, our frantic footsteps echoing loudly throughout the entire building.

I pursued him relentlessly for a full five minutes, finally cornering him inside a bizarre room.

But by the time I smashed the door open, the killer had already escaped through another exit inside.

The blackout didn't last much longer. The moment the lights flickered back on, a piercing scream from Jiang Fei ripped through the first-floor hall.

I rushed out of the room and bolted down to the first floor, only to freeze in shock at the grisly scene before me.

The pregnant woman known as Beautiful Pig lay slumped beside the crucifix, her chest drenched in crimson. The killer had been indescribably ruthless, striking with first-rate blade skills. The poor woman's windpipe had been slashed open before she could even utter a single cry.

I had been locked in a dead sprint chasing a shadow through the dark, yet someone had still been murdered down in the hall. Staring blankly at the pregnant woman's corpse, a chilling calmness slowly settled over me. "There has to be more than one killer!"