After the three of them gathered, Su Nuo mechanized his hand and carefully picked up the wallet. He found that all the cash had been taken, but other items remained.
Inside the topmost wallet, there was a long, thin piece of paper.
On the paper, in a peculiar script, were written two characters.
Demon
Lin Huan's gaze narrowed slightly. "It seems the chaos here was deliberate, intended to remind us that demons are the ones causing trouble here."
Hu Yanbing added, "This means that person knows our identities. However, they might be trying to help us, or they might be setting a trap for us."
The appearance of this note cast a silence over all three of them for a moment. It indicated they had already been targeted.
A moment later, Lin Huan took out a photo frame. The picture inside showed Xu Hongjiao and her daughter, along with a scorched amulet. He handed them to the other two.
"I have another discovery here."
The entire room was filled with photos of Xu Cairou. Only in the bedroom, held by Xu Hongjiao, was a photo of the two of them together.
"Isn't that the aunt you gave the amulet to?" Hu Yanbing asked, his eyes wide.
Lin Huan nodded heavily, his tone melancholic. "If I had insisted on following her back then, perhaps we could have saved her, perhaps we could have found the culprit..."
However, Hu Yanbing's focus was not on this. He asked Lin Huan in surprise, "No way, are you really a half-immortal? Quickly calculate for me, when will I find a wife."
Lin Huan's weariness was somewhat dispelled. He waved his hand helplessly and said, "What half-immortal? I've just seen a lot, and I have some intuition that's sometimes right, sometimes wrong."
But Hu Yanbing didn't believe him, firmly convinced that Lin Huan was indeed someone who could calculate fortunes.
While the two were arguing, Su Nuo had been thinking. When they stopped, he hit his palm with his fist. "I think I've found a breakthrough for our investigation."
The two stopped, waiting for Su Nuo's analysis. Among the three of them, Su Nuo was the most skilled in deduction and analysis.
"At least one thing is clear now: someone wants us to investigate the demon. Whether it's a trap or help, it at least shows there are traces of demonic activity here."
"Cases related to demons are no small matter, so we might need to request assistance from higher up."
"Also, I think I've found a pattern in the kidnappings."
Hu Yanbing's eyes lit up, and he grabbed Su Nuo's arm. "What pattern, tell me quickly."
Su Nuo smiled and began to analyze, "To find the pattern of the kidnappings, we need to find the connection or commonality among the abducted."
"But according to the data provided by the Hunter Association, these people are completely unrelated. They haven't been to the same place, nor have they received services from the same company."
"So either the kidnapper is abducting indiscriminately, or these people share a common trait that attracts the kidnapper."
"This commonality is also difficult to find, but looking at the photo frame Lin Huan took out, I thought of a possibility... The entire room is filled with photos of her daughter. This shows her longing for her deceased daughter."
"Could the kidnapper's targets be those who have a strong longing for the deceased, but are not so pathologically obsessed that they would turn their souls into ghosts and manifest in reality?"
Su Nuo rummaged through his隨身包 (portable bag), found a palm-sized instrument, adjusted its parameters, and pressed it. After a moment, the instrument emitted a faint beeping sound.
"Indeed, a soul has been here last night. Not some vengeful spirit or evil ghost, but the soul of the departed... If other abducted individuals also have residual electromagnetic anomalies left by their souls, it would prove my guess might be the real answer."
This instrument was called a Ghost Detector, a joint creation of Geng Xingshu and another senior researcher.
The principle was that in places where ghosts or souls appear, electromagnetic anomalies would occur, and this instrument could detect such anomalies.
However, generally speaking, this thing was used for detecting ghosts, not spirits.
This was because the electromagnetic anomalies left by souls were different from those of ghosts, and souls were not threatening.
When they investigated the abducted individuals before, they only considered the issue of ghosts and not souls...
With Su Nuo's guess, the three of them temporarily had a direction for their investigation.
Using the foundation's resources, they eventually proved that all the missing persons had relatives who had died recently.
This was not surprising in itself; no one could guarantee that all their friends and family would die after them.
But the fact that most of the missing persons grieved the deaths of their relatives to a similar extent was somewhat abnormal.
This was inferred from the feedback from the neighbors, friends, and family of the missing persons.
Furthermore, there were residual electromagnetic anomalies left by souls in the homes of several recent missing persons, which basically confirmed Su Nuo's guess.
The investigation into the demon was also progressing steadily.
However, this was not Su Nuo and his team's responsibility. The foundation had dispatched a team experienced in dealing with demons to specifically target demonic activities here. Their investigations confirmed that there were indeed traces of demonic activity in the area.
Meanwhile, Lin Huan and the other two were primarily responsible for investigating the missing persons cases.
Although they had found a commonality, it was not easy to catch the kidnapper. So many people died every day, and no one knew who the target would be specifically.
Therefore, the three of them chose the most tedious method: stakeouts.
Using various resources, they identified the families of all recent deceased individuals in Sihuhu City and had Lin Huan visit them one by one.
When Lin Huan's intuition was triggered, they would go there to conduct a stakeout.
After three days of such laborious searching, Lin Huan finally reacted to a beautiful young lady...
This young lady was named Miao Xuan. Her boyfriend had recently died in an accident, and she had been crying and in despair ever since.
To comfort her, Lin Huan decided to personally protect her...
That is, to hide his presence and go wherever she went, even sleeping in the same room at night.
Before the action, Hu Yanbing grabbed Lin Huan by the neck and shook him violently, asking, "Honestly, you had a reaction, is it because she's beautiful?"
"Are you choosing to protect her closely because you want to get close to her?"
Lin Huan batted his hand away contemptuously and said, "Who am I, Lin Huan? A friend to women? Do I need to be a fallback? I'm choosing to protect her closely for love and justice."
"It's fine if I don't protect her closely. Would you two do it instead?"
"Could you two remain undiscovered the whole time? If you went, would that thing still attack her?"
Unable to refute Lin Huan, the two could only watch as Lin Huan's figure disappeared and he chuckled as he slipped into the young lady's bedroom, while they had to stake out outside.
In fact, Lin Huan didn't say that his illusionary techniques could allow the other two to hide in the room as well.
It was just that he didn't want to.