Wang Shi, whose original name was Yan Shi, was born in 1985. His father Yan Dong was once a technician in a factory. His mother Wang Lingfang had been seriously ill for years. Unable to bear the burden, his father abandoned the mother and son and disappeared without a trace.
Wang Lingfang returned to her hometown to recuperate. After finishing junior high school, Wang Shi was admitted to a vocational secondary school, which was an elite institution that only excellent students could enter at that time. He majored in healthcare, but after graduation, the state canceled the welfare of job assignments. So he did not enter any company to work and has been unheard of ever since.
This file was placed on the desk after Jiang BaiYan reported Wang Shi.
At that time, people tended to believe this identity was real, but the real Wang Shi had already died. His identity information fell into the suspect's hands and became his fake ID.
The photo also corroborated this speculation.
In the vocational school's archives, Wang Shi's face only had a similarity of fifty to sixty percent with the simulated portrait.
At that time, Wang's aunt swore: "He has a mole on his nose, right on the bridge of his nose, very obvious. His eyebrows are very thick. His face is rounder and looks very gentle."
But the teenager in the photo had sparse eyebrows, pale lips, and extremely emaciated cheeks. There was no mole on his nose either.
Ji Feng compared the two faces for a long time, then picked up the photo and went straight to the interrogation room.
"Does the person in the photo look like Wang Shi?" He lowered his voice and asked urgently, "Think carefully and compare their bone structures."
Jiang BaiYan got up from the temporary nap bed and kneaded his waist. After studying for a while, he said, "Not very similar. Doctor Wang's face was very gentle. I guess he might have had his bones shaved and chin padded."
Ji Feng sensed something wrong: "You think he had plastic surgery? Was it very obvious?"
"Not obvious. It was done quite well," Jiang BaiYan yawned and said, "But I've seen him before."
Ji Feng immediately became serious: "What's the situation? You didn't mention it before."
"It was private," clouds gathered on Jiang BaiYan's eyebrows. "In the summer of 2014, I saw him near Jian Jing's home. We talked for a few sentences—but who would remember such trivial matters so many years later? I had forgotten all about it. I didn't recognize him until she told me this man was the murderer who killed her parents. Only then did I recall it."
Ji Feng cursed him bloody in his belly.
Jiang BaiYan also felt wronged: "Didn't you guys already know Wang Shi was him?"
"So does the person in your memory look like the one in this photo?" Ji Feng pushed the archived photo over.
Jiang BaiYan lowered his head to recollect carefully. After a long while, he said uncertainly, "No mole. The proportions of his face changed a bit. I'd say seventy to eighty percent similar."
Ji Feng frowned.
Indeed, it was very normal for teenagers to change their looks as they grew up. It could not prove Wang Shi was the suspect himself.
But he still insisted on his own judgment. Apart from his looks, Wang Shi also had two startling coincidences.
In the 2009 Ze case, he rashly reminded a neighbor and implied that she should kill her alcoholic husband.
That neighbor's surname was also Wang.
And in Guo Yifang's case in 2012, Guo Yifang's name also contained the character "Fang."
Wang Lingfang.
Once or twice could be a coincidence, but with so many coincidences lined up together, the suspicion rate was as high as eighty percent.
Ji Feng muttered to himself: "I'll take this gamble."
He grabbed the photo and strode straight to the office of the team leader, sorting out the whole plan in those few steps.
First of all, everyone was focusing on investigating the kidnapping case, which was the few hours of the ceremony. But in this process, the suspect kept coming up with tricks and laid countless interference items, increasing the workload, not to mention confusing everyone and making them not dare to trust the clues right before their eyes.
That was exactly his purpose—to make the police doubt the authenticity of all the clues.
Thus, he could cleverly hide the truly important clues:
The serial rape-murder case that injured him.
Looking back at this case: The perpetrator was a retired athlete with necrophilia. He often watched lurid videos online and happened to meet a "teacher" who understood and guided him to commit crimes. So he began hunting and killing women living alone, filming the process into videos, uploading them to secret chat rooms to gain attention and fortune.
Because of its extremely harmful impact, the police quickly found the perpetrator. But during the pursuit, Ji Feng was inadvertently injured by a third person who suddenly charged out to rescue the murderer.
The murderer was extremely grateful to him for his unwavering loyalty. This directly led to the fact that after being caught by the police, he still had no complaints and completed the “teacher’s” instructions—installing wiretaps in the police station.
As the idiom goes, don’t dig up the ancestors’ tomb or make trouble under the lamplight. Anyway, it worked very well.
After checking, Ji Feng’s car had one, the interrogation room had one, and the men’s restroom had one too.
Everyone was scolded bloody by the leaders. Fortunately, it was embarrassing at home, otherwise they would have suffered collective disgrace.
Apart from arranging for the suspect to install wiretaps, he also used DNA to fool them with a drug addict, making them believe he had protected his true identity very well.
Killing three birds with one stone.
Then there was Jiang BaiYan.
Wang Shi had only taken over Jiang BaiYan’s psychological counseling six months ago. Previously, he had been doing routine psychological counseling. Jiang BaiYan’s doctor was a woman who transferred the patient to Wang Shi because she went abroad for further studies.
Since they had met before, Wang Shi had probably eyed Jiang BaiYan for a long time.
Perhaps at first he only wanted to stalk Jian Jing through Jiang BaiYan's "friendship" with her, for convenience. But when he saw The Rose Gold, he came up with another plan.
He wanted to take Jian Jing away and make Jiang BaiYan the scapegoat.
A psychologist could easily conduct hypnotic suggestions. Capturing them would be a piece of cake.
As he wished, Jiang BaiYan betrayed Jian Jing and told him all the plans. So Wang Shi leisurely arranged everything, using the mega celebrity's cover to complete the kidnapping.
Then, he used his vehicle to frame the suspicion on Jiang BaiYan and planted a lot of evidence in Jiang's house.
The police had gone to Jiang's house to investigate and found records of anonymous anesthetic purchases, as well as layout plans of the event venue security. Of course, to keep abreast of the situation in real time, the gifts from fans contained eavesdropping devices.
A crazed fan's actions, even if discovered, could not prove Jiang BaiYan's innocence.
Ji Feng traced back the whole process and had to admit that the opponent's plans were meticulous and flawless, almost without loopholes.
Why "almost"?
Because Wang Shi overlooked the most important thing.
Jian Jing herself.
She took the initiative to attack, setting time and place, and also "converted" Jiang BaiYan.
Everyone played out the drama for the suspect to see, making him think Jian Jing had already become a mermaid on the chopping block.
However, there are many kinds of mermaids.
Like the mermaid in Pirates of the Caribbean... Ahem, not sure how things are on Jian Jing's side. Actually there's no evidence. Just the kidnapping case could lead to prosecution. Investigating slowly would eventually turn up clues.
She must not force herself.
Ji Feng prayed silently, then raised his hand and knocked on the team leader's office door.
*
Jian Jing was in a rather delicate situation.
The dangers of hypnosis were extremely high. The system had restricted her to only counterattack in equal measure, not take the initiative to attack. This led to an unexpected result.
Wang Shi was evenly matched with her, neither winning nor losing. Both of their consciousness was trapped.
Plus, Jian Jing got a defense card, not a knowledge card or skill card. She still knew nothing about hypnosis and didn't know how to end it.
Wang Shi noticed this.
"You see," he smiled. "Even if you peek into my secrets, you can't take them away now."
Jian Jing calmly asked in return: "Then what are you waiting for? Go on."
"Why don't you get out of here?" His eyes flashed as he thought deeply. "I'm unconscious now. As long as you leave here, you'll have a chance to escape."
The two looked at each other and knew what was up.
Jian Jing couldn't voluntarily come out of the trance, while he knew her situation was special and didn't dare deepen the hypnosis either.
"You're very careful," she said. "But if we keep this up, we'll only starve to death together."
A faint smile appeared on Wang Shi's face. "That's exactly what I hope for—death is everyone's destiny. Having you accompany me can be considered a blessing."
Jian Jing only believed half of this.
All who worshipped death but didn't die themselves and instead killed others did not really love it. Otherwise, he's had plenty of chances to die over the years, so why was he still living well?
But she also knew very clearly that people like him had psychological problems. Who knew if he would really do something as drastic as take her down with him.
She thought about it curiously and asked, "Doesn't happiness make people reluctant to leave?"
"Happiness is just an illusion. What is there to be reluctant about?" He said calmly.
Jian Jing said, "What if you could go back to the past, back to when your mother was still alive..."
Wang Shi interrupted her, "I would have killed her, so that she wouldn't have to suffer anymore and could leave peacefully."
"So you killed Guo Yifang?" she asked.
Wang Shi looked up and briefly recalled this woman, but found that he could no longer remember what she looked like. After ending her life with his own hands, the color had faded from her in his life.
"Yes, at that time when it ended, she was happiest." When he said this, an expression that could be described as gentle appeared on his face.
Jian Jing said coldly, "Believe me, Guo Yifang would not thank you."
"How can you be sure?" he said, "The dead do not speak, no one knows the answer."
She laughed, and a strange look appeared between her eyebrows, as if she saw the prey finally falling into a trap: "How do you know the dead do not speak?"
Wang Shi raised his eyebrows.
"Look." Jian Jing pointed to the door, "Who's coming?"
The scene was constructed, walls on all four sides, ceiling covering the top, Tiffany's chandelier pieced together a gorgeous colored glass flower. Warm light shone down, revealing a solid wood desk, bookshelves along the wall.
Books appeared out of thin air, lined up on the shelves.
"White Cat Detective", "Hide and Seek Children", "Demon Doctor".
The wind blew the white curtains, the smell of coffee drifted in the air, ice cream with vanilla and concentrated coffee poured on top appeared on the desk, sweet and tempting.
Ding dong, ding dong, wind chimes by the window swayed, with crisp sounds.
The sound of the door lock turning came from the door.
With a creak, the door of the study opened.
A girl slowly walked in. She wore comfortable striped lounge clothes, had shoulder-length black hair, a slender figure, and pale face with dark obvious eye circles.
"We meet again." She said softly, looking up, "I'm Jian Jing."
Wang Shi's expression suddenly froze.
He looked at Jian Jing in her wedding dress, then at Jian Jing in her lounge clothes, and suddenly realized: "Split personality?"
Neither Jian Jing answered his question.
Little Jian Jing said, "You didn't die, I died, so I can tell you that death is very painful and scary, I regret it very much, I want to live."
She walked slowly into the room, her voice as light as smoke: "At that time, everyone was scolding me, the previous praises seemed like a dream, vanished in the blink of an eye. I couldn't help thinking, was what you said right, life is meaningless, happiness is an illusion."
Wang Shi barely stood firm: "Was I wrong?"
"Thinking too much, I slowly believed it." The skinny girl looked up, the blood vessels on her neck bluish, fragile yet resilient, "I decided to die."