Maybe it was a case of a guilty conscience, but every time someone brought up Alice directly, I couldn’t help feeling like they were probing me.

  Lu Chan’s gaze locked onto my face. The focused attention could have been polite interest—or it could have been scrutiny. I couldn’t tell which.

  Why was he asking me this? Had this master investigator already picked up on something from me? My mind started racing with paranoia.

  “What kind of opinion are you asking for?” I tossed the question back.

  “Since you fought Kong Da directly, you should know that Monsters all possess the ability to perform spatial transfer using shadows as a medium.” He continued, “Coincidentally, this amnesiac girl named Alice very likely vanished from the hospital through spatial transfer as well. And now, while we’re investigating the Monster incidents, she’s appeared in our field of view again…”

  “You suspect she’s a Monster?”

  “It can’t be ruled out.”

  After weighing my words carefully, I gave my answer: “I think the probability is extremely low.”

  “Why?” He sounded genuinely curious.

  “I’ve fought a Monster in close combat. I know exactly how destructive they are. They can hurl street lamps like javelins, or manipulate shadows to strike from a distance. To someone like that, real firearms are nothing more than toys.” I explained, “Yet this amnesiac girl broke into a police evidence storage and specifically stole guns and ammunition. Would a true Monster bother doing that?”

  “That makes sense,” he conceded. “But you also believe there must be some deep connection between her and the Monster incidents, right?”

  “Yes.” I couldn’t deny it.

  “If you or Zhu Shi happen to encounter the amnesiac girl on the front lines—or come across any clues related to her—I’d appreciate it if you could share them with me.” His tone was humble, almost deferential. “To be honest, I’ve been tasked with locating her. If you help me with this, I’ll repay the favor with everything I have in the future.”

  So even on the matter of finding Alice, Lu Chan wasn’t the decision-maker in his faction—he was just the one carrying out orders.

  I didn’t answer right away. Instead I glanced at Zhu Shi. She replied with a flat, expressionless face: “Fine.”

  It was the most insincere agreement I’d ever heard. She clearly had no intention of helping. Since I felt exactly the same, I added, “Same here.”

  “Then let’s get back to the case.” Sensing the mood souring, Lu Chan steered us back on track. “Next I’ll need to use divination to track the perpetrator’s movements. To improve the accuracy, I need to incorporate your perspectives on the incidents. Could you share your thoughts?”

  Perhaps worried I wouldn’t understand, Zhu Shi added from the side: “Lu Chan’s divination technique is essentially forward projection based on his own viewpoint. Relying solely on his perspective risks bias, so he needs other people’s viewpoints to fill in the gaps and refine the result.”

  “And I already have a question.” She turned to Lu Chan. “From what I remember, while the killer targets local elites, he never involves unrelated people or the targets’ family members. So why did his behavior change this time?”

  She pointed at the indoor crime-scene photo—the one showing the middle-aged man killed alongside his wife and young son. The three of them stared blankly upward in death.

  This was the first I’d heard of it. Looking closer, that particular scene did feel off.

  “It seems to have been an accident,” Lu Chan provided. “The mother and son who were killed had originally planned a family trip that day. But the mother came down with a fever, so they canceled at the last minute.”

  “So the killer, assuming the target was home alone, broke in anyway…” I thought aloud. “If that’s the case, then the perpetrator must have been someone close enough to know about the travel plans?”

  “Not necessarily. The mother had a habit of posting her recent schedule online. Even someone not particularly close could have found it with a little effort.” Lu Chan shook his head.

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  “If the killer went to that much trouble to research, it means he genuinely didn’t intend to involve the mother and son. So why kill them at the last moment?” Zhu Shi asked, puzzled. “It can’t be because they saw his face—after transformation, Monsters are basically wearing a full mask. Even their original physical features are unrecognizable. There’s no reason to silence witnesses.”

  Lu Chan stared thoughtfully at the photo.

  “Do we know the killer’s motive yet?” I asked from a different angle.

  “That part is actually quite clear.” Lu Chan explained patiently, “Luoshan has attempted to capture Monsters in the past. Every time we get close, they trigger a self-destruct mechanism—something they seem unable to control themselves.

  “But through analysis of the remains, we’ve figured out why they kill. Monsters can devour their victims’ souls and permanently convert them into personal power. In other words—soul-refining through murder.

  “The more souls they consume, or the higher the quality, the stronger they become. Devouring the soul of a demon hunter would cause an especially dramatic leap in power.”

  Soul-refining through murder? So when Agent Kong tried to kill me back then—was it because he wanted to devour my soul?

  After thinking it over, I asked, “If that’s the case, why is the Monster we’re tracking now targeting Xianshui City’s elite? Wouldn’t ordinary citizens be lower-risk prey?”

  “That’s one of the directions we’re investigating. I even wondered at one point whether this Monster was some kind of ‘vigilante anti-corruption crusader.’ But among the dignitaries he’s killed are officials who were both publicly and privately clean—including the one whose wife and son got caught in the crossfire.” Lu Chan pointed helplessly at the photo. “Before leaving, the killer also took the few remaining valuables and cash in that house. Previous cases had similar thefts. There may be a profit motive mixed in.”

  “Killing an entire family for money—this kind of villain—” Zhu Shi’s face twisted with anger. She forced herself to calm down, then suddenly turned to me. “Z, what do you think?”

  Why are you asking me?

  But I understood why she’d singled me out.

  She was someone with a firm moral compass—and she cared deeply about the moral stances of those around her. Perhaps because I’d once confessed to her my belief that superpowered people were inherently superior to ordinary ones, she now placed special weight on my view of evildoers.

  The truth, though, might disappoint her. I myself was someone willing to commit evil for personal desire—I’d even come dangerously close to imprisoning an underage girl. The only reason I said “close” was because she escaped on her own, not because I’d had a last-minute change of heart.

  So it was hard for me to claim any real separation between myself and villains.

  Of course, if you asked whether I despised sex offenders, thieves, or home-invasion robbers who killed for money—the answer was yes, I did. But my dislike stemmed less from their “evil” and more from how ugly and weak their motives usually were.

  I didn’t think this was some uniquely twisted perspective. Plenty of people have been drawn to fictional villains with powerful minds and bodies—characters with distinctive aesthetics, unshakable conviction, or radiant ideals. Some might say only immature minds are attracted to such figures. I can’t deny it—I do have an immature side.

  So if the motive was pursuit of the way, evil deeds weren’t something I found impossible to accept.

  I was well aware that, from an outsider’s view, whether the motive was “seeking the way” or base greed and lust, it all boiled down to “selfish desire.” The actions were evil either way. Objectively, I probably wasn’t much different from that criminal Monster. The main difference was that he succeeded—I failed.

  The reason I liked to present myself as a good person, occasionally stepping in to right wrongs, wasn’t because I overflowed with conscience. It was because I wanted to be friends with good people. And I absolutely didn’t mean that good people were easy to take advantage of. I simply had to admit that being friends with good people felt far more comfortable than being friends with villains.

  I pondered the similarities and differences between myself and that Monster.

  And as I thought, a sudden impulse rose in me: I wanted to meet him face to face. I wanted to ask about the state of mind behind his evil deeds. I wanted to know how he thought.

  “Z?” Zhu Shi called me again.

  “Let’s hurry up and take that Monster down—before the next victim appears,” I said.

  “Ah? Right!” She nodded vigorously.

  After that, Zhu Shi and I continued discussing the case with Lu Chan for a while longer. Eventually he seemed satisfied that he’d absorbed enough outside perspectives. He called a stop, then began the divination process.

  It wasn’t the dramatic ritual I’d imagined—no compass, no special tools. He simply raised both hands and began moving his fingers rapidly, like someone doing mental arithmetic. It looked like a form of palm divination: ancient belief held that the lines and joints of the hand contained a person’s fate, allowing one to calculate the future. The phrase “pinch the fingers and divine” came from exactly this practice.

  A few minutes later he stopped. He nodded and said to us, “I’ve got it. I’ll transmit the result directly into your minds now.”

  Transmit it into our minds?

  Before I could process what that meant, he extended both hands as though inviting a handshake. Zhu Shi reached out without hesitation and clasped his hand. I followed suit and shook with him.

  I’d expected some kind of direct mind-to-mind information transfer—I was actually quite interested to experience it.

  But the moment our hands touched, I felt absolutely nothing.

  Instead, Lu Chan let out a startled yelp, jerked his hand back as if he’d touched fire, and toppled backward out of his chair.

  Then he began to tremble violently. Eyes wide with terror, he stared at me as though he had just seen something horrifying.