Zhou Lin

On the evening of November 27, at 22:39, a hotel in Linyi.

Scram lay in bed, staring blankly at the ceiling; he had been lying like this for half an hour, and still was not sleepy at all.

Many clues about the case were tangled up in his mind, making it difficult to sort out and ignore.

Although his main mission this time is not to investigate the case, but to "investigate the identity of the ability users who may be involved in this incident and try to find out their abilities as much as possible", at present, it seems that both his mission and the case The truth itself has reached an impasse.

"well……"

With a long sigh, he finally got up.

He washed his face, put on a set of sportswear, and left the hotel.

It was organizational policy that he had to wear a suit when performing official duties in public during the day; but now he could wear whatever made him feel more comfortable.

In fact, Scram doesn't like suits, very much.

He was once a soldier, or in other words, he still is; his "lieutenant" military rank was not given by EAS, but was forged on the battlefield before joining EAS.

It's a pity that even though he has been on the front line for many years and his military exploits have been enough to promote him to a higher position, his origin, or the class his family belongs to, has still become a gap in his promotion path. .

Of course he would also feel unwilling to do so...

Why can those young men who have never smelled the smell of gunpowder smoke go to the military academy? Why can I become a commander as soon as I graduate? This group of boastful young men used the blood of soldiers to water their resumes, and used the careers of their subordinates to pay for their own mistakes. They could become generals without shedding a drop of blood; but soldiers like him who were born at the bottom of society, Even if he has made great achievements, he still has no chance to get ahead.

Is this fair?

He asked himself this question countless times in his mind, but... he never thought of answering it.

Because he thinks this question is stupid, and people who think about it seriously are even stupider.

In short, today, at least in terms of his position, Scram is no longer affiliated with the federal army; in a sense, he has to thank a certain young master who sits in the headquarters and talks about military affairs...

If there was no "blind command" from his superiors, Scram would not have been captured in an operation; if he had not been captured, he would not have been tortured; if he had not endured various transcendences in the process of being tortured Despite the extreme torture of human beings, his superpowers would not be awakened... If his superpowers had not been awakened, he would not have been recruited by EAS.

Whether it's a blessing in disguise or whether you survive a catastrophe, life is so magical sometimes: you never know whether the next chapter of your life will be bright or full of shit. All you can do is keep turning back and don't give up. Hold on until the light comes, or drown in shit.

…………

Night, 23:03, Sunshine Youth Behavior Correction Center.

Scram came here by running. Although the hotel he stayed in was not too close to here, for people like him, running without weight in sports shoes on flat roads in the city was basically the same as It's no different than taking a walk. He can't even take a breath within five kilometers.

"Who?" When Scram approached the door of the building, the police officer on guard quickly noticed him and approached him to ask.

"Shh...it's me." Scram flipped down the hood of his sportswear and revealed his face under the street light. "Keep your voice down, in case there are reporters nearby, you will attract them."

"Sir." After the police officer saw his face clearly, he immediately stood at attention and saluted.

"Okay, no need to salute, just go back to your post." Even so, Scram still saluted the other party with a federal military salute in a very standard manner, "I want to go into the scene and have a look, the length of time is not necessarily... Just use the walkie-talkie to say hello to each unit."

"Yes." The police officer responded, then turned around and went back. As he walked, he pressed the walkie-talkie on his left chest and began to report.

Scram quickly walked through the door and entered the main building of the correction center.

At this time, although there was power in the building, the lights were not turned on. Of course, for people in this era, it is common sense to take out your mobile phone and use it as a flashlight.

Scram just relied on the illumination of his mobile phone to search from the first floor to the fifth floor; in the process, he tried to imagine himself as another person - Che Wuchen from two days ago.

He strictly followed Che Wuchen's description, imitated the opponent's actions, and counted the time.

From the time Che Wuchen arrived at the scene at 18:36 to when he used the phone in the monitoring room to call the police at 19:25, it took a total of 49 minutes. What exactly happened in these 49 minutes? It's always hard for Scram to let go.

Maybe this was just Scram's unilateral random imagination, maybe the other party's testimony was the truth, but no matter what, he still wanted to verify it again, even if it was in vain, at least it would make him give up.

…………

Thirty-nine minutes later, Scram stood in Professor Tang's office.

His verification was over, he had searched all the rooms, and the monitoring room was next door; however, the time he spent was ten minutes shorter than Che Wuchen's.

So... where did these ten minutes go?

Scram breathed a long sigh of relief and simply sat down on Uncle Tang's comfortable office chair. While resting, he thought: "Did I move too fast? It is indeed possible. After all, the rhythm and speed of everyone's search are The efficiency is different. Agent Che was acting in a state of alert that he might encounter an ambush at any time, while I was searching when I already knew that the rooms were empty...

"But if it wasn't for this time difference...then what could he have done in these ten minutes?

"Delete the video? Destroy the evidence? These reasonings have been overturned by him this morning. As he said... If he is really an accomplice, there is no need to participate in the case in this way, or he can let the police detect it. As soon as he exists, things will be done.

"No matter how you think about it, he cannot be the accomplice of the prisoner... Not only does it not make sense logically, it is also difficult to fabricate a motive to support this set of actions out of thin air.

"So...did I really get into trouble?"

If we were to classify Scram from a detective's perspective, he should be regarded as a traditional American hard-core detective, the kind who... relies on experience and intuition in handling cases to identify suspects, and uses efficient, fast, and tough methods to advance the investigation. Activists.

Compared with the logically rigorous and rational deductive school, the shortcomings of this type of detective are obvious-the upper limit is insufficient.

In ordinary cases, this problem may not be obvious, and activists may even appear to be more efficient; but in some cases where the case is more complex or the murderer is shrewd enough, activists often encounter bottlenecks or wrongfully accuse good people.

Moreover, activists also have a problem, that is, they are easily over-invested in a certain case. Especially when they encounter a major unsolved case...the more it is beyond their ability, the more they can't extricate themselves.

Sometimes they will chase a suspect with the thought "I know he must have done it" in the absence of evidence; this approach is not so much a detective's attitude as a The attitude of politicians is to "choose a position before hearing the problem, and then consider the problem from the chosen position."

With this model, even if you catch the right person in the end, it's just luck and a gambler's victory.

Even if objectively justice is served for society, subjectively it is a gambler's self-satisfaction.

Scram is now trapped in this emotion...Due to his lack of reasoning ability, he can only struggle with doubts and self-persuasion about Che Wuchen.

Before he knew it, he was sitting in his chair, lost in thought.

"What!" I don't know how long it took, but suddenly, Scram's unfocused eyes touched something, which made him stand up from the chair in shock.

At that second, using the light of his mobile phone, he discovered that in a corner under the desk, there was a small area whose color was different from the surrounding area.

It is difficult to spot this anomaly during the day or when there is sufficient lighting in the room, but in the darkness, if you use the light of your mobile phone to shine, you can see the light refracted from that area and the marks of the surrounding dust. ...together outline a neat rectangle.

Scram's heartbeat was speeding up, and the feeling of blood rushing from his heart to his forehead made him extremely awake and excited.

He immediately leaned over and got under the table to observe carefully. After a brief hesitation, he reached out his hand and lightly pressed against the wooden board.

Immediately afterwards, the board popped out and slowly opened, revealing the mini touch screen on the back; an interface for entering a password was directly displayed on the screen.

According to the digit information on the interface, this is a six-digit password; although the digits are not many, it is unlikely to be tried out in a short period of time, and it is not known whether there will be errors after multiple input errors. What measures such as safety locks.

Therefore, Scram did not rush to enter.

He sat back on the office chair and looked around the room from that angle, collecting all the information he could within his sight.

According to his experience, such a "password used for a specific place" is likely to be recorded by the user near the place of use; just like many people like to use sticky notes to write down the numbers they need to use at work. Post the information on the cubicle wall panels around your desk, or simply around your computer monitor, so you can see it at a glance when you need to use it.

Unfortunately, after searching for five minutes, Scram could not find any prompt information containing numbers in the room.

He thought about it again, and suddenly an idea came to him, and he got back under the table again.

He squatted in front of the touch screen and raised his head to look... Sure enough, there were six numbers written with an oil-based pen on the downward side of the desk; he could only see them if he squatted in his current position and looked up with a light source in hand.

Scram entered the six numbers onto the screen without hesitation and received an "accept" response.

scold--

Two seconds later, with the sound of an air valve releasing pressure, the bookshelf behind Professor Tang's desk... opened.

It was indeed a real bookshelf, and the books placed on it were real. However, this bookshelf also functioned as an electronic door.

Seeing this, Scram stepped sideways and came out from under the table. Then he stood up straight, leaning against the bookshelf, and prepared to sneak into the "secret room" behind the wall.

At this moment, although he is not carrying a gun, he is not afraid because he is a person with abilities; in most cases, abilities are more deadly and reliable than conventional weapons.

"Is anyone there? I'm the police." Before going in, he slightly raised his voice and shouted inside.

What he did was both procedural and reasonable.

Assuming that there is someone in this secret room, he must have noticed that the door was opened - if the person inside is a surviving victim, he can prevent the other party from making any overreaction by saying this; and if the person inside is a prisoner, then he Whether you say it or not, the other party will attack you, it doesn't make any difference.

Time passed quietly, and ten seconds later, the response to him was still silence.

Scram didn't wait any longer. He tensed up his nerves, prepared to face the surprise attack, and ducked into the secret room. However... all he saw was a dead man.

It was a man in a white coat. He was in his fifties and had a face that would still make people feel hypocritical even after he died. The saying comes from the heart, that's more or less the case.

Scram had seen the photos and knew that the deceased was Professor Tang.

At this moment, Professor Tang's body was tied to a bed with a fixed belt, and his head was connected to an electric shock device. A man like Scram, who was used to seeing dead people, could tell what was in front of him just by smell. The man was dead, and he had been dead for about two days.

However, out of caution, Scram stepped forward, checked the deceased's pulse, poked at the degree of rigor mortis, and verified his inference.

"Huh..." Because the secret room was not big and there was no place to hide, Scram quickly determined that there was no one else inside except Professor Tang. "...Anyway, at least a missing person was found. ." He muttered to himself and began to inspect the room, trying to find some new clues.

But in the end, what he found was...

"Tsk..." Two minutes later, Scram connected a USB flash drive found in the safe in the corner of the secret room to his mobile phone, and opened one of the videos...a video that made him feel sick and angry.

"This old beast..." After watching it for a while, he turned off the video, cursed and began to check how many such files there were in the entire USB flash drive.

Even if Scram's reasoning ability is not very good, he can guess that the videos that Professor Tang took in this secret room are either collections to satisfy his personal perverted hobbies, or they are intended to be taken out through some means. For selling money.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but forget his identity as a law enforcer, and secretly expressed his happiness for the death of Professor Tang and the employees of this center.

But he quickly calmed down and began to think about doubts...

"Why is the safe open?" Scram whispered, "And...if someone opened it, why weren't these things taken away?"

The safe he was talking about was a high-security private storage cabinet designed by an insurance company affiliated with the Shenguang Group. It could only be opened with an electronic key, a voiceprint password, and a complex multi-dimensional hand-entered password.

In addition to the USB flash drive that Scram picked up, the safe also contained a box of cash, a stack of bearer bonds, a box of electronic cards, a pile of paper documents, several fake documents, and even a gun. .

"Could it be... that the old beast was caught by the murderer when he opened the box by himself and was about to take the things and run away?" Scram quickly thought of an explanation. He frowned and said, "But the murderer didn't move. The things inside...Does this mean that he/she only cares about revenge and doesn't care about anything else? Or..."

"The murderer deliberately left these materials behind." Suddenly, a voice sounded from behind Scram.

Because Scram had just relaxed his vigilance and was concentrating on thinking about things, he didn't notice anyone approaching at all... At this time, he was startled by the sound, and he instinctively turned his head 180 degrees again. "stunt".

"Don't be afraid, it's me." Che Wuchen's face still looked calm, but in this dark night... it always gave people a chill.

"Why are you here?" Scram turned his body around and took a half step back warily.

"I couldn't sleep, so I wanted to call you to discuss the case, but the hotel said that you had gone out. I thought about it and guessed that you were here... but when I asked the police officer downstairs, it turned out that you were exist."

"Hmm..." Scram thought for a while and then asked tentatively, "Are you used to calling people late at night like this?"

"Aren't you awake?" Che Wuchen's reaction was calm and confident, "Everyone is in this business. The first time I saw you, I knew you were the type who would never sleep before finishing a case. ”

"Heh... okay." Scram smiled. Although he didn't want to admit it, what the other party said was true, "How long have you been here?"

"It's been long enough." Che Wuchen said, looking around, "During the day, I said you were not good at reasoning. I have to apologize..." He paused and looked at Scram, "As long as you can find this A secret room... is better than me."

"Excuse me, it's just luck." Scram said, handing over a few materials taken out of the safe, "Want to take a look?"

"No need, I can roughly guess the content." Che Wuchen said, "And...there are probably things in these files that I shouldn't read."

"What do you mean you shouldn't look at something?" Scram blurted out.

"Lieutenant..." When Che Wuchen said this, he changed to a more sincere and less distanced tone for the first time, and said to Scram, "No... Mark, you haven't thought about it. Like Tang Why has a scum like the professor been able to cause trouble in Linyi for so many years? Do you think that given his class of origin and his abilities... is this realistic if there is no support from larger forces behind him?" As he said, He glanced at Scram's phone again, "Take the video you just saw, maybe it was a 'tribute' he used to offer to a certain federal leader..."

"Then what do you mean..." Scram's tone turned cold, "You want me to stop pursuing it? Or you want me to cover up these things?"

"What I mean is not important." Che Wuchen said, "What is important is... what the murderer means."

"The murderer?" Scram repeated those two words, and then his expression changed suddenly, "Wait...could this be..."

"Why did the murderer take the initiative to call the police? Why did he invite EAS people into the situation? Why did he open the safe but then seal the secret room?" Che Wuchen said, "Now everything makes sense."

"The murderer knew... If the local police discovered these materials first, the truth would most likely be covered up..." Scram followed the other person's thoughts and murmured, "So he/she laid out this Bureau, he/she just wants me to... let EAS agents intervene, he/she believes that I have the ability to discover this secret room, and thus be the first to obtain the materials in the safe."

"It seems that he/she succeeded." Che Wuchen said, "If there is any surprise in this murderer's plan, it is probably because of my intervention. Of course, judging from the results... I didn't change anything."

"But...how can he/she be sure that our EAS will not help the federal leaders cover up this matter?" Scram pondered.

"This is common sense." Che Wuchen said, "As long as you have a little understanding of the federal system, you will understand... The federal police are always restricted by the top, but people like 'EAS' and 'Supervisors' agencies, and federal officials have a relationship of checks and balances; if these materials fall into your hands, even if they are not exposed, they can be used as bargaining chips... This murderer's strategy is very powerful, and this account... He/She I must have figured it out before I decided to do this case.”

When the words fell, Scram... fell silent.

He stood there and struggled with his thoughts for about a minute before speaking again: "Agent Che, regarding my discovery of these materials... can you keep it a secret for me?"

"Ha!" Che Wuchen smiled. This was the first time he showed such a hearty smile to the other party, "What confidentiality? What Agent Che? I am on vacation now, I am just an ordinary person cooperating with your investigation. Citizen, I don’t understand what you are talking about at all. If nothing happens, I will go back.”

After that, he really left.

Scram stood there for a long time before coming back to his senses; at this moment, his thoughts towards Che Wuchen had changed from suspicion and hostility... to admiration.

As we all know, FCPS is the official organization most closely tied to the interests of top federal officials. As a senior agent of FCPS, the fact that Che Wuchen can do this shows that this person still has justice in his heart.

In today's world, there are really not many people like this...

Scram didn't waste any more time. After sorting out his mind and thoughts, he copied all the information in the USB flash drive to his mobile phone, scanned and photographed all the paper documents, and then took all the information out of the safe. I put everything back, wiped off my fingerprints, and closed the safe door.

After everything was done, he checked again to see if there were any flaws, then ran downstairs and told the police that he had found the secret room and the body...