Chapter 1 When You Feel Like You're the Only Victim

You'll be flustered when you feel like you're the only victim.

You'll think that God is targeting you, that you've been abandoned and isolated by the whole world and society.

But when you discover that there's another unlucky person just like you next to you, you'll feel much better, as if God is not so bad, at least he left you a companion.

That's human nature. Most people who grew up in the countryside should have been told by their grandmothers not to go near ponds or rivers when they were young. They said that there were children who had drowned there and turned into ghosts, and they wanted to drag you down to be their substitutes.

These are just words to scare children away from playing in dangerous areas, but it is precisely this kind of rustic language that often reflects many simple and deep things.

Zhou Ze lit a cigarette.

He wasn't flustered anymore.

Not flustered anymore.

He had been worried about whether there would be any subsequent harm from the chain,

But seeing that the police officer next to him, who had an aura of righteousness, also had it, he was really not afraid at all, and not worried anymore.

"What do you do?" Zhang Yanfeng asked, exhaling a smoke ring.

"It's not convenient for me to tell you this. Let me explain it this way: My work and your work are both striving for socialist modernization and working for social harmony."

Zhang Yanfeng frowned.

"If you encounter a difficult case in the future, you can come to the bookstore and ask me to take a look. That's all I can say. Knowing too much about some things may not be a good thing for you."

Zhou Ze reached out and patted Zhang Yanfeng on the shoulder,

"Continue to be your good policeman, that's good."

After Zhou Ze retracted his hand,

Zhang Yanfeng also reached out and patted his shoulder.

The two smiled at each other.

"I don't believe in ghosts and gods in this world, I never will."

"Continue to hold on to this belief." Zhou Ze sighed, "Just treat my visit to you tonight as a dream. Now we can get to the point. Let's talk about the chain on you. When did you start having that dream?

Oh, right, you seemed to say it's been more than twenty years?"

Zhang Yanfeng nodded, "Yes, it's been more than twenty years. My father was also a criminal police officer. Our family is a police family. My son is also studying at a police academy now."

"Amazing."

Zhou Ze didn't think this was nepotism. Who would be so bored as to use nepotism to get their whole family to be police officers, especially criminal police officers?

"I remember that year, it was the year my father died."

Zhang Yanfeng said calmly.

Zhou Ze listened calmly.

"At that time, I had only been working for less than two years. My father's sacrifice was a big blow to me. To be honest, I was a little depressed, and a little scared.

I was really scared. I was afraid that one day, I would also die."

"Police officers are also human." Zhou Ze said.

"But it's different, really different. I feel ashamed for my fear."

Zhang Yanfeng flicked the ash off his cigarette and continued:

"The first time I had that dream was also that year. I stayed up late to process the files of a case, and then fell asleep in the office. That night, I had a very, very long dream. Even now, that dream is still so clear. I can even remember every scene at that time.

I was standing in a cold corridor,

I heard the sound of chains dragging on the ground,

That place was very cold, really cold. The most profound chill I've ever experienced was that time, and it was still in a dream, haha."

Boss Zhou picked his ears. He slept with Bai Yingying, the female zombie, every day,

He was already immune to the word "cold."

Normal people can't stand the yin energy emanating from Bai Yingying, but Zhou Ze enjoyed it.

"I saw a person in white clothes walking from a distance. He walked very slowly, step by step;

On his feet, there was a pair of shackles, locking his ankles. With each step he took, the chains on the ground would make a 'clanging' sound as they were dragged.

That sound has been echoing in my dreams for more than twenty years.

He walked from a distance,

Passed in front of me,

I couldn't see his face clearly,

His hair was messy,

But when he walked in front of me, I didn't feel cold anymore, I even felt a kind of warmth.

Then, he left. He didn't seem to see me at all, and continued to walk forward, all the way to the end of the corridor;

Then,

He disappeared.

After that, I woke up from the dream.

There were no ripples, and no twists and turns. In fact, it was a very ordinary dream, but precisely because that dream was so real, so real that it felt like it had really happened, I always remembered it, for more than twenty years.

After that, whenever I dreamed, no matter what I was doing in the dream, no matter what kind of dream it was, I would have this chain on my feet.

That chain, which should have been on the feet of the person in white, appeared on my body."

Zhang Yanfeng took a deep breath and exhaled heavily,

"I once asked a psychologist because of my work, but his answer didn't satisfy me very much. Do you know what he said?

He said that I was guilty, that I was afraid, afraid that I would be exposed someday, that something would happen someday, haha..."

Saying this, Zhang Yanfeng smiled, threw the cigarette butt on the ground, and stomped on it hard,

"In my life, I have been worthy of the national flag and worthy of the police badge. Do you know that on the day of my father's funeral, he was wearing his police uniform, and the national flag was draped over him."

"I believe you."

Zhou Ze looked at Officer Zhang. To be honest, he reminded him of the director who had bought books at his bookstore before.

It's like on Weibo, when the urban management in some place bullies people or beats old women, this kind of news will be forwarded and commented on a lot, but when firefighters or police officers die in the line of duty, the number of people who forward it is very small.

In fact, there are still more good people in this world, otherwise, this society would have been in chaos long ago.

The two were silent for about fifteen minutes, and Zhou Ze took the initiative to break the silence.

"I need to find a way to solve this."

Zhou Ze pointed to the top of his foot and then stood up.

Across from this small park is the police station. Zhou Ze suddenly asked:

"When you had that dream more than twenty years ago, was it also in this police station?"

"Yes, but the police station wasn't so big at that time. About ten years ago, the police station was renovated and rebuilt."

"The address hasn't changed, right?"

"No change."

Zhou Ze nodded. "Can you draw?"

"No." Officer Zhang replied bluntly, "You want me to draw the scene in the dream?"

"Yes, I hope there is a more intuitive representation."

"There are experts in the bureau, I can call him over."

"Won't it affect his rest?"

It's getting late.

"Young people need more tempering." Zhang Yanfeng replied.

In a trance,

Zhou Ze seemed to see the way he had desperately trained those intern dogs in his previous life.

They didn't return to the police station. This was Zhou Ze's request. He always felt strange to be in the police station talking about this kind of ambiguous thing, and that place always had an invisible pressure suppressing him.

The group came to a coffee shop next to the police station. The young policeman also came with his notebook, with a face full of acne, looking very young. He first walked to Zhang Yanfeng and greeted him:

"Hello, Team Leader Zhang."

Zhang Yanfeng nodded.

Then the young policeman looked at Zhou Ze and asked, "What's this one's name?"

"Suspect."

Zhou Ze introduced himself.

"............" The young policeman.

Zhang Yanfeng glanced at Zhou Ze, then gestured for the young policeman to sit next to him.

Next, the young policeman opened his notebook and began to draw according to Zhang Yanfeng's description.

This also gave Zhou Ze a bit of an eye-opener. Or, in the eyes of many people, police officers are all criminal investigation experts, but in fact, the police force, especially in recent years, has begun to have more and more talents from other professions joining.

It's like the financial fraudster who was once famous and caught and put in jail was absorbed into the organization by the FBI.

While the young policeman was busy,

Zhou Ze was playing with his phone next to him.

About two hours later,

Zhang Yanfeng nodded, indicating that it was about the same, then turned the notebook around and pointed to the screen, saying to Zhou Ze:

"It's almost this scene."

Zhou Ze stared at the screen for a while,

A person in white, wearing shackles,

Walking forward numbly,

On both sides, there were black things, and behind him, there was also a black area.

This is an extremely narrow space.

Zhou Ze looked at Zhang Yanfeng and said, "Can you recall some more details?"

"What?" Zhang Yanfeng couldn't understand.

"For example, here and here."

Zhou Ze stretched out his finger and pointed to both sides of the screen, "These two sides are walls, but what are these black areas after that? If they are walls, why don't they just extend out?"

"I don't know, but I remember that the walls in this place in my dream were intermittent, not connected."

"So, according to Team Leader Zhang's description, I focused on rendering the difference between light and shadow here." The young policeman explained next to him, "I originally wanted to draw all of this as a wall extending out, but Team Leader Zhang said it wasn't like that."

For some reason, Zhou Ze was very concerned about the shadows next to the walls on both sides, but he didn't focus on the person in white wearing shackles.

Zhou Ze raised his head and kept thinking.

He thought of the scene in the detention center, the sound of the chain coming from far and near, and he was standing in the railing, walking back and forth, trying to find his trace...

Suddenly,

Zhou Ze seemed to have thought of something, and directly pointed to the dark areas on both sides of the screen and said:

"These aren't walls, could they be iron bars?"

As he said that, Zhou Ze gestured with his hand, "Have you seen old movies? Do you have an impression of those old-fashioned prisons?"

The young policeman immediately turned the notebook around and started modifying it again, while Zhang Yanfeng next to him fell into deep thought.

"Is it like this?"

Soon, the young policeman pushed the notebook towards Zhou Ze and Zhang Yanfeng.

In the picture,

The original dark and blurred areas were changed to iron bars, and the inside was still black and blurred, but after adding these bars, the entire picture suddenly became clear and three-dimensional, and even the information contained within was immediately revealed.

In a narrow prison corridor,

A prisoner wearing a white prison uniform,

With shackles on his feet,

Was moving forward numbly,

On his side, there were other prison cells, perhaps, there were many eyes watching him.

Zhang Yanfeng immediately picked up the phone and called someone. Zhou Ze didn't know who, but Zhang Yanfeng's voice was very clear, and he didn't avoid the two people present:

"Old Wang, it's Zhang Yanfeng. You immediately help me check what place the location of our police station used to be.

Didn't you tell me before that the old police station was built on the basis of an old building, help me check this, check what place it was, what it was used to do before.

What, you want a more specific request?

Okay,

Then you check,

It,

In which period,

Was it used as a prison?"