The day after the incident, at 1:05 a.m., in Kamijou, Motomachi 1-chome.

On the bustling streets of the upper city of Xuejian Ze. The chief searcher saw Shenxiu looking at the bustling bar in front of him with his hands behind his back, the black special car of the search bureau was parked beside him, beside the man's car, his eyes narrowed slightly.

It was a cold and serious man, his age was unknown, but he was definitely under thirty. At a still young age, he has become the undisputed leader of the Search Bureau. He has thick black hair, wears a red and black long-swing uniform, a pair of red gloves and dark red leather boots, the only exposed part of his body is the area from the neck to the face, the exposed skin It showed a plaster-like pale color, combined with those weird red eyes, it gave everyone who looked at him a sense of oppression that sent chills down their backs.

"The surveillance video shows that the victim started from here last night. After walking for about an hour, he finally disappeared in the surveillance video and was killed."

The boy with the hood said this beside Jian Shenxiu.

This is a bar located in the upper city. One o'clock in the morning is already a break time for most people, but for the bar, it is only the beginning of the second half. Although it is already late at night, you can still see young men and women coming in and out. . Shangcheng District is a wealthy area, there are many luxury cars passing by, and most of the people who shuttle among them are white-collar workers of all ages. These men and women suffering from overtime work often have a chance to relax and relax only at night, and they need such a place for night owls to socialize and entertain them.

This time the victim Yamada Shoichi also belongs to the same category. He is a frequent visitor to this bar. He came to this bar after working overtime last night, and left again at 1 o'clock in the morning.

"According to the agreement of the year, the public security of this block and even the entire upper urban area after that was assigned to the Yakuza [Asahi Group] for management. Do you need to contact them to assist in the investigation? Or go in and ask the bar owner to understand the situation? "

A young man named Marquesias was at the side suggesting, asking Jian Shenxiu's opinion on this matter.

"Those things are not urgent." Jian Shenxiu frowned upon hearing this. "Tonight's task is not to investigate these, and our time is a bit tight."

"There will be heavy rain in the next few days." The chief searcher looked up at the night sky in which the city was colored by neon lights. "The scene of the victim's victimization was outdoors. As soon as the heavy rain clears tomorrow, there will not be much information left. If you want to see the scene, now is the last time."

"yes."

"Just park the car here." Jian Shenxiu took a last look at the block, then at the map, and turned his gaze to a certain street corner outside the bar - that was the direction the victim left last night.

"The situation that the Search Bureau has to deal with is different from that of the Metropolitan Police Department. In the current situation of Xue Jianze, the cases that can be transferred from the Metropolitan Police Department to us are not simple, and we cannot use traditional case thinking."

The young Chief Inspector Yukimizawa said casually, and then asked the young man beside him.

"When did the monitoring show that the victim left the bar? It should be accurate to the second."

"1:13:27 in the morning." Chas replied hastily.

"What time is it?"

"1:10:15 AM."

"Okay, that's now." The moment the words fell, Shenxiu turned around and acted without hesitation.

"Let's go back to the route of the victim."

"Huh? Yes!" The hooded boy was taken aback for a moment, then immediately raised his hand to cover his hat and trotted up.

It is quite a common method to retrace the route of the victim before his disappearance in criminal investigation. If something happens in the middle, there will always be some information left. The hooded boy had no objection to this, but followed Jian Shenxiu step by step.

The two walked along the road, the tablet they held marked the victim's route and time before he disappeared. As soon as the case was handed over, there were clerks in the search bureau who had called the monitoring and collected the information, and now it has been sorted out and sent to their communication terminals.

At this moment they are the victim [Yamada Shoichi], referring to those information, they are trying to reproduce the actions of Yamada Shoichi from the starting point, every part is accurate to the second.

"Stop here."

Jian Shenxiu suddenly stopped, and looked up at the camera on the traffic light at the intersection. The camera was working as usual, taking pictures of the vehicles passing by on the street below, and also recording the moving positions of pedestrians.

"Here's the second camera," the inspector general gestured to his assistant. "What time is it now?"

"1:14:47 in the morning." Chas replied immediately.

"What time did the surveillance show that the victim arrived here?"

"1:19:22 in the morning." Xia Si looked down at the tablet in his hand, and quickly answered.

"We are at the pace of normal adults. It took 4 minutes and 32 seconds to pass the intersection just now, while the victim took nearly six minutes." Jian Shenxiu calculated it in his heart.

"He had a drink at the bar, so it's not surprising that he was a little slow. Then we slowed down a little bit. Stay consistent with him."

"Yes." Marchesias nodded.

So the two slowed down their pace and kept walking at a "drunk" speed on the streets of Xuejianze, observing the surrounding situation.

The scenery on both sides of the road came into their eyes, and there were all kinds of high-rise buildings and dazzling billboards everywhere, and luxury cars were still passing through the road next to them until early in the morning. This is Uptown, the most affluent place in the entire city. The air seems to be filled with the exhaust of luxury cars and the stench of fat banknotes. Just walking in it seems to smell the richness of money.

But the scene in front of them was not always like this, and things in front of them changed soon along the direction they were walking. As they moved forward, the shining lights on both sides of the road gradually decreased, and the tall buildings gradually became shorter.

The more you walk forward, the less people come and go. The gorgeous billboards on both sides of the road are gradually replaced by gray lintels, and the 24-hour stores are gradually replaced by closed shops. Go forward and more will appear. At the back, you can even see that there are still many traces of smashing on some of the closed shops-the smashed glass windows and the crooked rolling doors, which are already covered with dust at this moment. On the entire road, only the street lamps on the side of the street have not changed, and have been emitting a warm and constant light on the road.

Even though the two officers of the search bureau have walked this road many times over the years, their mentality has changed slightly when they see this situation. There is a strong feeling of coming here from the busy city behind them along the road with street lights. Confusion and a sense of trance, it seems that this long road of street lights connects a distorted time and space, and behind them is a prosperous and stable modern age, and they are heading towards the chaotic and dark era at this moment.

Breaking away from the busiest downtowns of Uptown, the city gradually revealed its true face. It was as if a bright dancing girl took off her luxurious gown made of gold thread, revealing her ugly, burnt black skin.

Xuejianze is located on Grady Island, which is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is a natural maritime trade node. This island city, which prospered with the prosperity of maritime trade in the 1980s, has been inseparable from the word "trade" since its establishment. In the golden age of international trade, these port cities will always be the first batch of dividends. area. Relying on its favorable geographical conditions and temperate marine climate with pleasant seasons, Xuejian Ze has quickly occupied an important position on the waterway.

The tide of freighters came carrying a large number of people and wealth, and various service industries sprung up in Xuejianze, and became more and more prosperous in the next thirty years. The unique international conditions of Neutral Port have attracted many high-tech industries, making the city rich and advanced. The blessings of various conditions also made the tourism industry of this charming city extremely prosperous. At that time, the city was very expensive, and people called it the pearl on the waterway, and there was an endless stream of tourists.

However, that all changed one day four years ago. On December 7, 2031, the "eternal night" fell on that day, and the fog was filled. People heard treacherous laughter in the mist, and saw mutated plants growing out of flowerpots. All channels for Xue Jianze to communicate with the outside world have been cut off, and there are no more freighters to come and go, and no more humans or information can be passed in. The city became an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean, cut off from the entire world.

After that, there was a whole year of chaos, a large number of shops closed down, and a large number of enterprises went on strike. After the end of the nine-month "Eternal Night", people found that the contact with the outside world had not been restored and fell into chaos. It was not until the new government named NAVI was re-established in the chaos that manpower and material resources were reorganized and social order was gradually restored. After the government was rebuilt, Xue Jianze struggled to regain its vitality, but the city that was hit hard could never return to its former heyday.

Even today in 2035, in those areas far from the core, you can still see the trauma left by the city during the chaotic period. There are still old empty alleys and uninhabited ghost buildings in the corners of the city.

"Crack——"

Seeing that Shenxiu stepped on broken glass on the road while walking forward, stepped on the special leather boots of the search bureau, and when the glass was crushed, it would make a crackling sound.

At one o'clock in the morning, Jian Shenxiu witnessed the current appearance of the city. The search chief didn't feel any emotion about this, but just strode forward with the assistants around him. The black trench coat of the search bureau walked on the street at night like two ravens skimming the road, carrying Imagery of indifference and coldness. Occasionally, passers-by with good eyesight would glance at the [Search Bureau] badges on their chests from the corner of their eyes when they passed by them, then shiver, and walk away quickly as if they encountered something unlucky.

Seeing Shenxiu and Markesias turning a blind eye to this, they just walked their route calmly, and there was little communication between the two along the way, except for a few words at the intersection occasionally.

"Wait a minute. Right here."

After walking all the way to a certain intersection, Jian Shenxiu suddenly stopped and turned his gaze to a certain direction.

Because the victim's moving route on the map suddenly turned 90 degrees at this location, turning directly from the main road to a certain trail.

"Surveillance shows that the victim Yamada Shoichi stayed in this area for half an hour to rest, and it was at this location that he started to deviate from the route."

Shenxiu compared the map in his hand and looked at the ordinary chair on the street in front of him. According to the surveillance video, the victim rested here for half an hour before being killed, and left a puddle of vomiting on the ground nearby. thing.

"He originally took the route back to his residence, but from this position, he suddenly changed his mind and turned to the nearby Sesser River. He walked along the river bank for ten minutes, then made a big circle around the river and went to down town, where he was last seen on surveillance, and was eventually killed in an alley just one kilometer from that surveillance.”

"There's his vomit on the ground here."

Seeing that Shenxiu lowered his head, he asked the hooded boy next to him to take out a plastic test tube from the bag he was carrying, and used disposable tweezers to take out a few small pieces from the dried yellow-brown sticky matter and stuff them into the test tube. , and then handed it to Xia Si next to him.

"After dawn, send it to the institution for analysis to see if there are any special ingredients in it." - He said hallucinogens.

"Yes." Chas took the test tube and carefully put it into his bag.

But when he looked up again, he was stunned for a moment, because he saw Jian Shenxiu actually sat down where the victim had sat, and even closed his eyes and leaned back on the chair, showing a Slightly intoxicated posture.

At that second, he actually had a momentary illusion, as if the image of Shenxiu was overlapping with the victim's figure. He was playing yesterday's surveillance on his tablet. At that time, the victim was sitting in this chair like this. Twenty-four hours later, he saw Shenxiu sitting here, even posing in the same drunken posture.

"Sit down. The victim has been resting here for half an hour," Jian Shenxiu said softly to the young man with his eyes still closed. "We'll wait for him for half an hour, too."

"Huh? Yes." Markesias looked surprised, but sat down beside him.

It's just that after sitting down, he still couldn't understand Jian Shenxiu's intention, sitting beside him looked at Jian Shenxiu with a puzzled look.

"You don't understand why I'm doing this?"

Beside him, seeing that Shenxiu had his eyes closed, but seemed to see his eyes, he said directly.

"I understand that the master intends to restore what happened on the road along the path, investigate the monitoring and path conditions on the road, and investigate the details of the road." The young man honestly expressed his confusion.

"But is it necessary to restore something like the victim staying here for half an hour?"

"As far as the purpose is concerned, what you said is neither. Also, call me Mr. Xiu." Jian Shenxiu opened his eyes on the chair and glanced at him.

"Of course what you said is one aspect, and it is also a conventional criminal investigation method. However, the cases transferred to the search bureau cannot be judged by common sense. Most of them involve some... things beyond common sense."

"Beyond common sense." Xia Si was taken aback. "Mr. Xiu said..."

"I don't know when the market began to spread, and there will be mist in the corner of the night in Xuejianze. Like that mist, wishing may come true, but there is also primitive fear wandering in the mist. Behind the fear is a taboo door."

The Chief Inspector Yukimizawa looked up at the road in front of him. The place where the victim had rested was the boundary between the upper and lower urban areas. As a viewing point, it can be regarded as a wide field of vision, and you can see half of the scenery of Yukimizawa from left to right.

It was exactly one o'clock in the morning, and there was a gloomy urban area on one side and a bustling city of lights on the other. The contrast between the two is so obvious that the dividing line in the middle is also so clear.

"Only people in our search bureau know that [the mist] is not just a legend, but a strange thing that really exists in this Yukimizawa. Many cases entrusted to us are often caused by people walking at night by accident. I have strayed into the gates of fear and taboo in the fog, and experienced all kinds of [abnormalities] beyond common sense. These fogs sometimes descend on the crowd in a grand manner, but most of the time they are hidden in the dark corners of the city .And we [the Bureau of Investigation]...are the organization that was created to investigate those mists."

"En." The hooded boy nodded. He is Jian Shenxiu's assistant and also the investigator of the Search Bureau, so he naturally understands the hidden story behind it.

"But the problem is that, like all mazes - there is a hidden law, a special [path] behind each fog. This [path] may be a specific [route] in a certain fog ], a specific [speed], [frequency], [time], and even a specific [behavior]. Only by finding the only correct method can one enter that door." Jian Shenxiu continued .

"Victims in the vast majority of cases entered the door after touching the secret path by mistake while walking at night, and often even the parties themselves did not know how they entered. In this case, even It is also difficult for the most elite investigators to gain insight into the laws in the fog, and how to reach the forbidden door."

"So..." Xia Si understood what he meant.

"So the simplest and most violent way is - go straight down the route of the victim. Restore the victim's behavior as much as possible."

The inspector narrowed his eyes slightly and said softly.

"Copying homework is always the most effective method."

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like