Song Zang picked up the photograph, repeatedly inspecting the thin piece of stiff cardstock before bringing it close and sniffing it.
It was a photograph that somehow looked both brand-new and old. The smell of ink was extremely strong, and the blood-red writing had not yet completely dried. At the ends of the strokes where the ink had sunk into the paper, damp crimson still clung wetly.
Yet Ye Xiao Xi in the photograph was only fifteen or sixteen, right in the bloom of youth.
The problem was that every player selected for the Infinite Game was an adult.
No matter how young Ye Xiao Xi was now, she had at least already turned eighteen.
Song Zang had a strange feeling about it.
Before taking the cleaver apart, he had imagined all kinds of possibilities.
Maybe the cleaver was nothing more than a useless lump of scrap iron. Maybe some terrifyingly powerful malice was hidden inside it. But in the end… what was the meaning of finding a photograph of Ye Xiao Xi?
Why Ye Xiao Xi?
As for that psychologically abnormal line of “self-confession,” was it truly what she herself thought, or was it a concept forcibly planted in her mind?
Song Zang put the photograph away and decided to observe quietly for the time being.
He did not rashly mention what he had discovered. His gaze calmly shifted toward the two people in the living room who were crying with their heads in their hands.
The [Player] marker over her head was still surrounded by a dazzling blue glow.
Chen Jing Sheng had not done anything inappropriate with her either. He had merely helped Ye Xiao Xi treat the wound on her neck.
The two worked hard to soothe each other, holding back tears as they talked quietly for a long time. In the end, they decided to turn grief into motivation to survive.
That was right. They started helping Song Zang clean.
People used to hard living were always exceptionally quick and efficient once they got to work. The two divided up the chores, mopping and sweeping, tidying the dining table and stove, then brazenly barged into the burly neighbor’s apartment and worked hard to scrub that filthy doghouse spotless.
Chen Jing Sheng borrowed several out-of-season quilts from Song Zang. After discussing it with Ye Xiao Xi, they decided they might as well simply move into the burly man’s apartment.
That NPC was dead anyway. The place would otherwise sit empty, so why not live there?
It was a very smart decision.
As rookie players, they had no game experience and no means of dealing with ghosts or monsters. If they lived too far away from Song Zang, they could meet with an unexpected disaster like Ye Xiao He at any time, dying without warning or any idea why.
So Song Zang readily agreed. He only reminded them to pay close attention to the neighbors’ movements and, no matter what, never respond to Auntie Li knocking on the door.
There was too much filth in the burly man’s apartment. The two worked up a sweat clearing away garbage, and even the muddy water wrung out of the mop filled several large buckets.
When you were exhausted enough, there was no energy left for grief.
Not long after the great cleanup began, the female player Chen Jing Sheng had knocked unconscious earlier slowly woke up on her own.
She had been lying side by side with Lin Yao on the sofa. The moment she turned her head, the officer’s heavy, bizarre makeup nearly scared her soul straight out of her body.
Fortunately, nothing serious seemed to be wrong. She only had a huge bump on her head and lingering blue-purple bruises around her neck. She was not going to die anytime soon.
Chen Jing Sheng immediately apologized and explained that hitting her with a rolling pin had been a last resort.
Holding an ice pack against the swelling, she rasped, “It’s fine, quack quack… oh my god, I sound like a little old man. Hahaha, quack.”
Her name was Xiao Xiao Xiao, a name her parents had chosen because they wished for her to always be smiling.
True to her name, Xiao Xiao Xiao had a lively, cheerful personality and was also very healthy.
Because of the damage caused by prolonged oxygen deprivation and the heavy blow to her head, her brain had entered an amnesiac state as a form of self-protection. She remembered almost nothing about the terrifying experiences she had gone through earlier.
Fortunately, she had been left with practically no psychological trauma at all. Instead, she was quite curious about everything in the instance and particularly enthusiastic whenever everyone discussed their situation.
Watching her, Song Zang let out a sigh of relief.
He truly did not have the ability to comfort an entire string of patients with post-traumatic stress.
Since no one needed comforting, they could all come help him work instead.
Song Zang put away the remains of the cleaver, chose the hotpot base they would use for dinner, and assigned the players to cut and prepare the ingredients.
Once stir-fried, the beef-tallow hotpot base erupted in a rich, fiercely spicy aroma inside the iron pot.
Smoke and steam instantly filled the cramped kitchen. Song Zang casually ordered everyone around until they were spinning in circles and, somehow, suddenly too busy to keep up.
The faintly oppressive atmosphere from earlier gradually became light and cheerful.
Seeing Xiao Xiao Xiao chatting naturally with Ye Xiao Xi, Song Zang took the opportunity to fish for information and asked about what they had been doing before they ran into danger.
“We ran into each other right at the start!”
Xiao Xiao Xiao answered excitedly. Only then did Song Zang learn that she and Ye Xiao Xi had been the first pair of players to recognize each other.
The game system had assigned them as roommates sharing a rental in Building B, Unit 1101, Happiness Community. Their landlord was an elderly woman who had already settled in the countryside. She was kind, rarely bothered them, and charged particularly cheap rent.
The two girls had not found any useful clues and were completely baffled by the clearance objective, so they decided to hurry and regroup with the main body of players.
While searching for Chen Jing Sheng and Ye Xiao Xi, they followed the news lead about objects thrown from a height and came together to Building A, only to abruptly lose consciousness while waiting for the elevator on the first floor.
Of course, no one could say exactly what had happened on the first floor. Like Chen Jing Sheng, they might have been manipulated by some strange power, drifting around in a daze while losing all memory of what they had done in between.
In any case, when they woke again, the two of them were lying neatly side by side in a stranger’s kitchen, unable to control their own limbs. Ye Xiao Xi was trying to kill herself with a knife, while Xiao Xiao Xiao was strangling herself with her own hands… the situation had been exceptionally dangerous.
Officer Lin’s experience was even stranger.
According to Ye Xiao Xi’s recollection, Lin Yao had come alone to investigate the suspect in the [objects thrown from a height] case.
Chen Jing Sheng had been nowhere to be found at the time. Lin Yao was alone. She pressed the doorbell, and the front door bizarrely opened by itself for her.
Most absurdly of all, Lin Yao seemed completely unaware of the abnormality occurring in front of her and entirely ignored the two people lying in the kitchen.
She voluntarily showed her credentials to empty air and held a perfectly serious conversation with it for quite some time, as if there were still an “invisible person” inside the apartment.
Only when Ye Xiao Xi finally broke down and cried out loudly for help did Lin Yao abruptly snap awake as if from a dream, her face turning deathly pale.
Her instincts as a criminal investigator sent Lin Yao into action at once. She was not frightened into retreating by the supernatural situation and rushed toward the kitchen without hesitation to save them.
Everyone already knew what happened afterward.
The “invisible person” really did exist. It seized Lin Yao’s legs and dragged her into the bedroom at a terrifying speed. The violent sounds of struggling and fighting continued for a long time before finally ending with the muffled thud of a heavy blow to the head.
The scene had been so terrifying that even now, when Ye Xiao Xi remembered it, her voice could not help trembling.
Lin Yao was still unconscious. No one knew why she had been made up so extravagantly. If they wanted to uncover the truth, they could only start with the missing married couple.
“Chen Jing Sheng, your identity makes this easiest for you. Use the police station’s channels to look for them. There’ll definitely be traces. As long as they aren’t dead, even if the whole family moved away, there will still be records.”
“Okay. I’ll go back and investigate right now so we don’t lose time.” Chen Jing Sheng put on his police uniform jacket, then paused. “Brother Song, please help me look after Xiao Xi. She’s young and doesn’t know any better…”
Song Zang curled his lips. A meaningful smile hid in his pitch-black eyes, while his tone sounded almost careless. “Mm. I’ll look after her.”
Before leaving, Chen Jing Sheng cautiously took a dagger with him for self-defense. He could not guarantee that his mental state was particularly stable. In reality, he was at constant risk of being controlled again.
But hiding inside Happiness Community indefinitely would not count as safe either. Taking the initiative might instead draw out more clues.
Meanwhile, all the ingredients for hotpot were ready, but the final missing rookie player was still nowhere to be found.
Going door to door looking for someone was not practical. They could only hope that person was smart enough to follow the news about the surveillance room explosion and find Song Zang on their own.
After all, Song Zang was the other victim in the elevator-shaft fall. He had even stood there in a bloodstained coat hung with chunks of rotting flesh, getting surrounded by gawkers alongside the police officers for quite a while.
No one wanted to miss gossip this sensational. Within half a day, the old men and women out for their walks would spread the news through the entire community. By then, anyone who cared to look could easily find Song Zang’s personal information.
Song Zang looked forward to it. Maybe he could bait out even more people harboring malicious intentions and get them to come attack him voluntarily.
He tossed a bowl of frozen beef balls, the ingredient that took longest to cook, into the hotpot. Then Song Zang put on the lid, switched the television to the news channel, and curled up in the beanbag sofa with an iced cola.
He lazily pretended to give up on everything while quietly observing Ye Xiao Xi’s behavior.
After Chen Jing Sheng left, Ye Xiao Xi became a little awkward, but she was not actually timid or introverted by nature. Earlier, she had simply been frightened.
To find something to do and avoid the awkwardness, Ye Xiao Xi got Song Zang’s permission, crouched beside the sofa with wet wipes, and began carefully removing Lin Yao’s makeup.
“Brother Song, Brother Song!” Before long, Xiao Xiao Xiao’s voice came from outside the door.
Song Zang did not even move. Biting his straw, he tilted his head slightly. “What is it?”
Xiao Xiao Xiao pushed a freestanding whiteboard inside. It was an old item she had dug out of the burly man’s apartment.
She enthusiastically wiped the board clean and volunteered, “Brother Song, how about we make a mind map first?”
“Sure.”
Ye Xiao Xi paused when she heard that and raised her head in confusion. “What’s a mind map?”
“Huh? Xiao Xi, you don’t know?”
“That’s right. I never went to school.” Ye Xiao Xi shook her multicolored head. “I’m a little street delinquent~”
“Who said you’re a delinquent? Colorful hair is super cool! Give me a second. Once I finish writing, you’ll understand what I mean.”
As she spoke, Xiao Xiao Xiao straightened the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and wrote down every clue they had collected so far.
[Molten Steel Explosion]
[Death toll has passed thirty; still waiting for the detailed employee roster.]
[Poisoning of stray cats and dogs; young child accidentally ingested paraquat; large online animal-abuse group]
[Building A, Unit 2403: burly man Li Xiong. (Suspected killed by Auntie Li of 2401; body currently dismembered.)]
[Malicious concealment of a headless cat corpse; cat-meat ribs; human-bone soup]
[Building A, Unit 2401: Auntie Li. (Life or death unknown; mental state unknown; extremely suspicious.)]
[Ye Xiao He’s fatal fall]
[Anning Police Station, criminal investigator Chen Jing Sheng. (Confused mental state; missing memories.)]
[Beautiful young woman forced to self-harm; criminal investigation captain attacked and comatose, then given heavy makeup]
[Building A, Unit 1502: ghost? (Owners Zhang Da Qiang and Yang Mei currently missing.)]
[…]
Xiao Xiao Xiao worked very quickly and filled the entire whiteboard in one go.
She rubbed her aching wrist and turned with a smile. “Phew… how’s that? Doesn’t it look especially clear and organized?”
“I’ll leave the marker here. If anyone finds a connection between any of the cases, you can draw lines or add information whenever you want. That’ll help us reason out more possibilities and clues without overlooking anything important.”
Ye Xiao Xi suddenly understood. “Xiao Xiao, you’re so smart!”
“Of course~”
Song Zang glanced at his phone and raised a brow. “And here’s a new clue already. Add a few more names. They’re all steelworks victims.”
Chen Jing Sheng was indeed extremely efficient. As soon as he returned to the office, he pulled up a spreadsheet and sent over the steelworks roster.
There were steelworks employees living in all three buildings of Happiness Community, and five of them had died in the explosion.
Of those five, astonishingly, three were temporary workshop workers without signed contracts. Their families had reported them missing that morning, which was the only reason the police station learned about them.
From the look of things, far more than thirty people must have died in the molten-steel explosion. This large steelworks had been hiring temporary laborers on a massive scale to cut expenses, depriving workers of even basic employment protections… if they had gone that far, there were probably other serious internal problems as well.
Song Zang kept it in mind. He wrote down the names of the plant director and the various department heads, then turned on his computer and checked the deputy director’s family background.
You would never know if you did not look. Once he did, he got the shock of his life.
A medical exam had shown that the deputy director was infertile. His wife wanted to borrow someone else’s seed to have a child, so she actually started an affair with the plant director and was caught in bed with him by the deputy director himself.
The scandal had caused a huge uproar inside the factory. Plenty of employees secretly gossiped about it on social media, but plant director Wang Tie Zhu found a way to suppress the chatter before it could turn into major news.
The deputy director had somehow swallowed the humiliation and stayed married, grinding his teeth and forcing it down. Who could have expected… that he would then die so miserably in the molten-steel explosion?
Could there be some conspiracy behind it?
Song Zang quickly messaged Chen Jing Sheng to ask. The string of information that came back next shocked him even more.
The deputy director’s family owned three apartments. One had been set aside for his mother-in-law to live in during her old age, and it just happened to be inside Happiness Community.
Building A, Unit 2401. Owner: Li Gui Hua.
Song Zang checked again and again in disbelief. There was no mistake. His neighbor, Auntie Li, was actually the deputy director’s mother-in-law!
Her husband had died early, and she had raised a son and daughter until both married and started families.
Her daughter had married the steelworks deputy director. They had no children.
Her son had married an accountant from the steelworks finance department. They had one daughter, currently in third grade.
And yesterday, the deputy director and the finance-department accountant had both died in the molten-steel explosion, their remains completely gone.
…The spouses of both her children had died together?!
Song Zang’s pupils practically shook. His curiosity upon discovering such enormous gossip shot straight to the peak.
He told Ye Xiao Xi and Xiao Xiao Xiao to keep quiet for the moment, then poured all the potato ribs and bone soup into bowls from his own kitchen.
After washing the white porcelain bowl Auntie Li had sent over, Song Zang immediately rushed out.
Ding-dong!
The doorbell rang. The apartment door was opened almost instantly, and a powerful food aroma surged out to meet him.
Auntie Li’s beaming face came right up to him as if the tiny unpleasantness that afternoon had never happened.
“Little Song, you’re here! Had dinner yet?” She accepted the bowl and grabbed Song Zang’s arm, pulling him inside. “Come on, try Auntie’s fried braised skewers!”
“I…”
“Come, come, have a bite while it’s hot!”
People who had spent years doing housework really did build up impressive strength. Auntie Li’s clamp-like fingers were exceptionally powerful as they gripped Song Zang’s arm, squeezing harder and harder.
She gave off the distinct impression that unless he ate, she absolutely would not let him leave.
Song Zang cooperated beautifully. His lashes trembled, showing a flash of hurried panic, and he even pretended to stumble twice along with her pull, getting dragged helplessly into the apartment.
This was the third feeding attempt today. Auntie Li truly was persistent.
What deranged ingredient would the fried skewers be made from this time? Song Zang was extremely curious. He lowered his eyes and sat silently on the sofa, his gaze unobtrusively sweeping the room.
Auntie Li lived alone now. Her cat was dead as well. The apartment was very clean.
Too clean.
The tile floor was impossibly smooth, the air carrying the faint smell of 84 disinfectant. Not a single hair could be found on the fabric sofa. Every daily-use item stood perfectly in place, without a speck of mold or grime.
The dining table was the only messy place.
Several large basins overflowed with rich meat dishes: meatballs, fried skewers, pork belly, pan-seared “beef short ribs,” thick braised elbows leaking sauce that stained the white cutwork tablecloth in mottled patches.
He sniffed. Some of the meat was human. Some of it… he did not recognize.
As long as it was not human, cat, or dog, Song Zang dared eat practically any monster. That included the basin of vividly multicolored fried skewers that looked like vegetables and flesh had been fused together.
But after trying hard to identify it for a long while, Song Zang discovered that he truly did not recognize it.
What kind of meat was this?
Following Auntie Li’s strangely heated gaze, curiosity rose in Song Zang as well. He gently bit through the crisp, fragrant coating of a fried skewer.
[You have consumed the flesh of Happiness Community. Resistance +100.]
Song Zang’s wrist trembled.
One bite gave him a full hundred Resistance?!
His head grew a little dizzy and his breathing abruptly deepened. Silently lowering his head, Song Zang swallowed an entire skewer whole without even chewing.
An uncontrollable flush rose across his fair cheeks. Deep in his ink-black eyes, a raging desire quietly surged as he stared fixedly at Auntie Li’s face.
“L-Little Song? How is it? Is it good?” Auntie Li grew uncomfortable under his stare, but still forced herself to keep smiling.
Song Zang searched every pocket on his body and spread all his loose cash across the table. Hugging the porcelain basin full of skewers tightly, he chuckled and began muttering neurotically, “Thank you, Auntie Li. Can I take all the skewers home? I’ll pay anything. Give them to me, Auntie Li. I want to eat them. I want them. Give them to me, Auntie Li, give them to me, give them to me to eat…”
“Y-You… how can you be like this?”
Seeing that Song Zang was not merely alive and kicking but becoming increasingly deranged, Auntie Li visibly paled in disbelief.
She took a shocked step backward. Hugging the basin, Song Zang suddenly stood, staggered into a chair, and rushed toward her, his voice hoarse and crazed. “I want more. Give it to me. Let me eat all of it. I want everything…”
“It’s all yours! Take it, take it, I don’t want money! Don’t come closer!! Stay away from me!” Terrified, Auntie Li fell to the floor and scrambled backward upright.
“But what do I do? Will you still make it for me in the future?” Towering over her, Song Zang curved his lips. The craving and madness spilling from his eyes were horribly distorted as he fired question after question at her. “If you won’t give me any, I’ll eat your entire family. What am I supposed to do? I’m so hungry. I’m suffering so much… Was killing your son-in-law and daughter-in-law not enough? Why are you doing this to me?”
“…It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! I had no choice, I was forced! Every debt has its debtor. I won’t provoke you anymore, go find them instead! I’m begging you, Song Zang. You can eat my son and daughter if you want!! Just spare my granddaughter!”
“What about you?” Song Zang’s breathing grew heavier, his manner more aggressive. “Auntie Li, are you dead? Can I eat you? Are you dead?”
“I’m just a ghost who starved to death, enslaved by someone else. I don’t have any choice but to harm you! Please, I really won’t dare do anything ever again! Spare my grand…”
Just as Auntie Li was frightened into revealing her true identity, the room suddenly went deathly still.
An indescribable pressure abruptly enveloped the living room. Song Zang found it hard to breathe and heard his own heart pounding violently. In his vision, the furniture creaked and multiplied into layered afterimages. His mind was as excited as if he had eaten poisonous mushrooms, yet his keen instincts were also screaming alarms.
“Aaah!!”
Song Zang instinctively stopped and did not approach any farther. Swaying as he tried to stand steady, he immediately saw Auntie Li scream in despair, miserable and piercing.
Squish, squish…
Wet, sticky chewing sounds followed. The curve of Song Zang’s lips grew wider and wider as he laughed softly and murmured, “Serves you right. You deserve it.”
She was being eaten.
Auntie Li was being eaten by her own apartment.
Song Zang saw it clearly. Some invisible existence was swallowing and chewing her.
Starting from her head, it bit and twisted her apart bite by bite, inch by inch.
Auntie Li really had been dead for a long time. The invisible maw inside the apartment chewed her away completely, yet not a single trace of fresh blood flowed out.
Only cold scraps of bluish-black flesh scattered across the floor, then slowly got sucked into the seams between the snow-white tiles.
Song Zang simply hugged the basin of fried skewers tighter. His eyes gleamed as he continued muttering neurotically, “Great. They’re all mine. All mine!”
Like a burglar who had gotten away with his haul, he fled in a panic with his stolen goods and even remembered to pull the door shut behind him.
Bang!
Song Zang rushed back into his apartment. Under Xiao Xiao Xiao’s curious gaze, he locked the door behind him without saying a word, put all the fried skewers into the freezer, then turned and went straight into the bathroom.
Ice-cold water poured over him from head to toe. Song Zang leaned against the bathroom tiles, closed his eyes, and began trying to cool himself down physically.
He worked to steady his overly rapid breathing. As the burning heat in his cheeks gradually subsided, he finally let out a breath of relief.
The facts proved that unless you had the ability to handle it, you should never eat something you could not identify.
At first, it had all been an act.
That neurotic, incoherent state had of course been something Song Zang deliberately performed.
He had wanted to scare Auntie Li a little. Maybe provoking her would shake loose new clues through an unconventional route.
He simply had never expected that once he deliberately began acting insane, events would spiral so violently out of control.
Song Zang reflected on himself.
He really should not have swallowed an entire fried-meat skewer whole just for the sake of his performance.
With Song Zang’s Resistance, one bite would have been easy to withstand, but the effect of one entire skewer… truly was no different from poisonous mushrooms.
The question mark beside Resistance on his status panel flickered wildly as a huge number of indescribably strange images flooded his mind.
Song Zang’s eyes were still looking at Auntie Li, yet his brain had begun seeing himself on its own.
His former self stood in endless darkness, tearing and cutting away the flesh on his own face.
Strange electrical rustling filled his ears. Song Zang tore away half the thin skin of his face and, together with the hot blood, wrapped it around a vividly colored thing that was both soft and hard… a non-Newtonian fluid?
Song Zang could not understand what he was doing at all. The scene was so absurd it was as though he had once suffered from severe schizophrenia, triggering an explosion of hallucinations and driving him into frantic self-mutilation.
Standing in that boundless dark world, Song Zang also heard Yin Chen’s voice.
Yin Chen called him a bad person and declared that someday he would definitely hack him to death and take revenge, making sure Song Zang would never again have the chance to act without restraint and do whatever he pleased.
Song Zang was so angry he wanted to curse back immediately, but just as he opened his mouth, Yin Chen vanished without a trace, fleeing as if he did not dare stay and argue.
In that bizarre, chaotic mental state, Song Zang truly used the greatest willpower of his life. He repeatedly bit down hard on his tongue to make sure he showed nothing unusual and continued performing like a madman before Auntie Li, half real and half fake.
If Song Zang had shown even the slightest weak, helpless [normal human reaction] at the time, there was an extremely high chance that the invisible thing that ate Auntie Li would have immediately come after him and entangled itself with him.
He had fought empty air before. That was no problem.
The only problem was that Song Zang’s mental state was genuinely unsuited for intense combat, because his brain was setting off fireworks… which made it very easy to die without ever understanding how.
Fortunately, he perfectly pretended to have completely lost his mind and managed to slip away with extraordinary ease.
What an exciting little probe.
Auntie Li said she was a ghost who had starved to death. Her husband was dead, so the only people capable of starving Auntie Li to death were her own children.
Both of Auntie Li’s children could be categorized as some kind of villain. Their motives were unknown, but there were probably extensive human factors behind the steelworks deaths, and the two of them were connected to the case to some degree.
Happiness Community itself very likely possessed its own consciousness, as well as bizarre abilities that let it attack humans and manipulate their minds.
After sorting through all the information he had gained, Song Zang felt his harvest had been substantial.
He had nearly gone genuinely insane, but he had returned safely with clues and made an outrageous profit of an entire basin of fried skewers.
One bite gave a hundred Resistance. It was practically unparalleled in the world, perfect for carrying around as a Resistance supplement and slowly enjoying later.
Two mysteries still remained unresolved.
Were the bizarre scenes in his mind merely hallucinations caused by his madness, or fragments of memories he had once lost?
It was hard to say.
And had Yin Chen really taken the opportunity to come out and call him a bad person? Had that been a hallucination too?
Thinking back on Yin Chen’s gloomy, vengeful tone, Song Zang felt… Yin Chen’s resentment had sounded genuinely intense, not much like an act.
Why?
It was not as though he had wanted to be separated from Yin Chen either. Why dump all that resentment on him!
Song Zang stood quietly beneath the cold water, completely unable to figure it out.
Damn it. The more confused he became, the more Song Zang missed Yin Chen… but he was still angry too.
Angry enough that he wanted to bite Yin Chen hard on the ass.
＊
The rest of the night passed peacefully.
Lin Yao still did not wake, but at least no new murders disturbed the peace inside Happiness Community.
Chen Jing Sheng fobbed off his superiors and handed the surveillance-room fire over to his colleagues as well. But when it came to the whereabouts of Zhang Da Qiang and his wife, he had no leads for the moment.
So he went to look at Ye Xiao He’s corpse.
It was ugly, like a lump of mud.
Because the victim’s family could not be located, the shattered body would remain temporarily stored in the forensic morgue until the case was closed.
Chen Jing Sheng slapped himself across the face.
Then he went back to Song Zang’s apartment, ate hotpot, ate a great deal, and slept very well.
No one could have imagined that early the next morning, Chen Jing Sheng would want to slap himself again.
The officers who had pulled up the elevator surveillance again yesterday collectively died by suicide after getting off work.
The cause was unknown. Not one survived.