Cheng Cheng and the Cicada
Chapter 76 Complete Victory
In the suburbs of Donghai City, a lakeside villa.
The living room, still filled with the remnants of a birthday celebration, had not been cleaned up; if anything, it was even more chaotic than before.
In the past 24 hours, the police had turned the place upside down in their search for evidence.
But, of course, they found nothing.
The place was, in fact, remarkably "clean."
Ji Lin looked at the leftovers on the dining table, the shriveled cream cake, Lin Xian's half-finished drink, Gao Yang's wine glass, and the knives, forks, and plates left behind by Chu Anqing and the others.
This scene, bathed in the dim moonlight...
Reminded Ji Lin of Da Vinci's famous painting, *The Last Supper*.
And, in a way, it was.
That birthday banquet was, in a sense, his, Lin Xian's, and Chu Anqing's last supper.
He went to the second-floor corridor and took down a framed oil painting from the wall.
He couldn't remember which publishing house boss had given it to him, but it must have been a famous work by a contemporary painter. Although it didn't have much collectible value, it must have been worth something, given that it was a gift for him.
Taking the oil painting downstairs, Ji Lin turned the glass frame upside down, opened the back panel, and pulled out the oil painting inside, tossing it casually onto the sofa.
Finally...
He carefully picked up the sketch Lin Xian had given him from the table and opened it carefully.
Although the pencil marks were slightly smudged and blurred where the paper was folded, the overall effect was still pleasing to the eye.
Under the exquisite strokes, the expressions of the three young men and women were lifelike.
Although it was a sketch, in some ways it looked more real and flavorful than a photograph.
This was the unique "brain completion" function of humans, just like how everyone's brain automatically beautifies their image when they look in the mirror. The image reflected in the eyes is processed by the brain, which always causes some distortion, making it look more like the image in memory.
Ji Lin looked at the sketch drawn by Lin Xian for a while, then turned the paper over and pressed it tightly against the glass frame he had just opened.
After smoothing it out, he put the back panel on and turned it over.
A brand-new frame was complete.
Ji Lin pulled a chair over and hung the frame on the side wall of the living room; the position of the frame was directly opposite the wooden floor where he usually liked to sit, so he could see the painting whenever he looked up.
After hanging it up, Ji Lin got off the chair and sat down on his favorite wooden floor, propping himself up with one hand, looking up at the painting on the living room wall depicting Chu Anqing smiling happily, with himself and Lin Xian standing behind her.
"Sure enough... it would be even better if it were colored with watercolor."
Ji Lin smiled and lowered his head, took out his laptop from the drawer, and turned it on to check today's news.
Today's biggest headline was about Ji Xinshui, about the solving of this series of serial murders.
Lin Xian had become a hero of Donghai City because of this, while Ji Xinshui had become a sinner condemned by all.
He continued to scroll down with the mouse and read a few other reports.
Ji Lin frowned.
Zhou Duanyun...
There was absolutely no information about Zhou Duanyun.
This was unreasonable.
In the interrogation room, Lin Xian had shown him Ji Xinshui's confession record, which described Zhou Duanyun's crimes clearly and in detail.
Why didn't the police release this information?
Ji Lin put down the mouse and pondered, resting his chin in his hand.
Ji Lin could understand why they didn't disclose Zheng Chengha's information. After all, Zheng Chengha was only involved in the murder plan for the first time, as a replacement for Gluttony Sam, and Ji Xinshui was disappointed with his first mission.
Everyone thought he would be a ruthless tyrant, but in the end, he became a kind coward in front of Lin Xian.
As for himself and Angelica, Angelica herself had never participated in murder operations, and was even cleaner; as for himself... since the police were willing to let him out, it meant that Ji Xinshui hadn't said anything.
"Then why did you give yourself up, Pride?"
Ji Lin couldn't figure this out no matter how he thought about it.
He couldn't understand Ji Xinshui's move, what his purpose was, and what kind of trap he had fallen into.
But what puzzled him the most was the matter of Zhou Duanyun.
Lin Xian was definitely not kind enough to spare Zhou Duanyun; these two people hated each other so much that they wished the other would die immediately.
Leaving aside Zhou Duanyun's twisted psychology.
As far as Lin Xian was concerned, Zhou Duanyun was the killer who was certain to have killed Tang Xin from the beginning, and he was also the bait he had deliberately set for him. In short, Lin Xian would never let Zhou Duanyun go.
Moreover, there was one more thing.
Why was Lin Xian, who had always been low-key, accepting the honor awarded by the Donghai City government so publicly this time, and even holding an award ceremony?
This was also inconsistent with his behavior all along.
Among them...
Could there be some scheme and trap?
Ji Lin closed his eyes, lay back, pillowing his hands, and began to sort out the various unreasonable clues in his mind...
Lin Xian, who was suddenly high-profile,
A classmate with a twisted psychology,
Criminal records that were deliberately erased,
Zhou Duanyun, who was still at large and had no trace,
Himself, who was released without charge but was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet,
Suddenly.
Ji Lin opened his eyes.
"Heh."
He chuckled and looked at the ceiling:
"I see..."
Sitting up, Ji Lin picked up his cell phone and dialed a number:
"Lawyer Wang, I have something I need to ask you for help with."
...
The next day, early in the morning.
Ji Lin left the villa with a backpack full of items.
Instead of getting into the private car he always used, and without a driver to serve him, he went to the side of the road and stopped a taxi.
"Sir, where are you going?" the polite taxi driver asked, looking at the passenger sitting in the back seat.
"Go to the natural scenic area next to the university town, there's a detached villa complex there."
Ji Lin paused:
"Drive slowly, there's no rush, I get carsick easily."
Vroom...
The taxi drove slowly on the overpass. There wasn't much traffic early in the morning, and there were no traffic jams. Soon, they reached their destination.
Ji Lin scanned the QR code to pay and got out of the car, then walked into the villa complex.
Following the map, he came to a detached villa that was very quiet.
Here was the clinic of the famous psychologist, Doctor Liu.
Although the villa was large and the surrounding scenery was very good, this was just Doctor Liu's workplace; she didn't live here herself.
Ji Lin walked forward. The villa door was tightly locked with an electronic combination lock. It was an old-fashioned one and didn't have fingerprint recognition.
"This is simple."
Ji Lin had originally prepared a series of lock-picking tools, and even brought a computer, but this kind of old-fashioned electronic combination lock was much easier to deal with.
Presumably, Doctor Liu was getting old and didn't care much about the technological development of door locks, and was using the products that the developer had installed at the time.
Now it seemed that it was indeed a bit outdated.
Ji Lin took out a spray bottle from his backpack, which contained a silver nitrate solution.
He aimed at the button area of the electronic combination lock, pressed the spray bottle twice, and sprayed the atomized silver nitrate solution evenly.
Then he took out his cell phone, turned on the flashlight mode, and illuminated it with a strong light.
Soon...
The anhydrous ethanol carrier in the silver nitrate solution evaporated, and the silver nitrate reacted with the residual sodium chloride in the fingerprint sweat, and decomposed silver ions under the light. After careful observation, several buttons showed relatively more black marks.
This meant that these buttons were used very frequently and must be part of the password.
There were exactly six different numbers.
Combined with the relevant details about Doctor Liu that Ji Lin had already inquired about, guessing based on these numbers... it should be the date of birth of her beloved grandson.
Ji Lin had already memorized the dates of birth of all of Doctor Liu's family members in his mind. According to his memory, he pressed Doctor Liu's little grandson's birth date on the combination lock—
Click!
The combination lock opened with a click. Ji Lin pulled it, and the wooden door of the villa opened with a creak.
One shot.
As expected, the passwords of old people were easier to guess.
Entering the villa, Ji Lin turned on the lights and quickly found Doctor Liu's consulting room, and came to the bookcase.
He opened the glass cabinet door.
On each floor of the bookcase, there were densely packed patient consultation records, one for each person, with the names clearly written on the labels on the spine of the books.
Doctor Liu charged a lot, so there weren't many patients. Ji Lin quickly found his target—
Lin Xian.
The name Lin Xian was written on the label of a brown notebook.
Ji Lin took the notebook down, opened it, and read the contents by the moonlight shining in from the window.
Dream... reality... indistinguishable... judging truth and falsehood... familiar people... voices...
Ji Lin snorted softly.
He closed the notebook.
"This doesn't seem like you, Lin Xian. You lied to the psychiatrist."
After being rivals for so long.
Ji Lin knew Lin Xian too well.
If it was really just a dream, Lin Xian would definitely not have gone to such lengths to see a psychiatrist.
Lin Xian was a smart man. He had a strong ability to act. He naturally had countless ways to verify the authenticity or falsity of the dream.
Then, inferring from this...
There was only one possibility that would make Lin Xian see a psychiatrist because he couldn't distinguish between dreams and reality, and worry to such an extent.
"That is, his dreams are too real, and many things appear that he can't normally identify."
Ji Lin began to imagine, what kind of situation would make a normal person, a smart person, unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood because the dream was too real?
According to normal logic, he couldn't figure it out.
But...
What if he didn't think according to normal logic?
According to Ji Xinshui,
Lin Xian was undoubtedly the person who disrupted history, and he had also verified this. Lin Xian did have the ability to predict the future. He had some method to know things that had not yet happened in advance, so he was able to accurately ambush at the scene of Academician Lyon's death.
Not only that.
Considering that Xu Yun didn't have that talent and ability, but after a brief contact with Lin Xian, he quickly made unrealistic research breakthroughs and completed the hibernation chamber filling liquid from scratch... this was probably also Lin Xian's doing!
It was precisely because of the help of his superpower of being able to predict the future that Xu Yun gave the ownership of that semi-permeable membrane chemical substance to Lin Xian!
"I see..."
Ji Lin frowned slightly.
Could it be said...
Lin Xian he...
Can really see the future?
Or travel through the future?
Or is it possible to bring advanced future technology, knowledge, and historical information back to the present through some magical dream?
Recalling that when they lived together in the Public Security Bureau dormitory, Lin Xian had to stay up until one or two in the morning every day before going to bed, and he would yawn during the day...
No matter how tiring his daily work was, he had to stay up past that point before going to sleep.
Was this related to the dream?
Thinking back to his birthday banquet, when Gao Yang mentioned the psychologist, Lin Xian immediately interrupted unnaturally and explained that he had seen a psychologist because of work stress and insomnia.
But.
This consultation report didn't mention anything about work stress or insomnia!
"Lin Xian is lying."
Ji Lin was absolutely certain:
"He obviously lied to the psychologist and deliberately concealed some things from everyone... some things that he didn't want others to know, things related to dreams, predicting the future, and disrupting history."
Snap.
Ji Lin closed the brown notebook, walked out of the room, walked out of the villa, and closed the door.
Bang.
He held the brown notebook in his hand, stood in the moonlight, looked up at the full moon, and took out a lighter from his pocket.
Then he brought the lighter close to the brown notebook, pressed the ignition button, and prepared to burn it—
Click.
It didn't catch fire.
But...
Behind him, a cold gun muzzle was pressed against the back of his head.
"It's really fucking disgusting."
Zhou Duanyun walked out of the shadow of the eaves, holding a pistol tightly in his right hand, his eyes staring at Ji Lin, staring at the brown notebook in his hand:
"You want to be a good person? Ji Lin, it's too late."
"Late?"
Ji Lin smiled:
"I think it's just right."
Zhou Duanyun gritted his teeth, word by word:
"You've always looked down on me. But now, Ji Lin... no one is covering you anymore!"
Bang!!
Whoosh whoosh whoosh...
Sparrows perched on the eaves of the villa flapped their wings and flew up. The muffled gunshot broke the silence of the midnight.
The sudden blood mist covered Ji Lin's eyes. His body leaned forward grotesquely under the kinetic energy of the gunshot—
Thump!
He fell heavily to the ground...
Blood splattered everywhere. The brown notebook with Lin Xian's name written on it fell in front of Ji Lin's lifeless, diffused pupils. The indicator lights on the electronic lock rings fastened to his wrists and ankles changed from breathing green to rapidly flashing crimson.
"Serves you right."
Zhou Duanyun looked at Ji Lin's corpse, bent down, and picked up the notebook that had fallen on the ground.
He stared at Lin Xian's name on the spine of the book:
"You too."
He turned around with the notebook and disappeared into the darkness at the corner...
However!
Buzz——
Buzz——
Buzz——
Several police drones flew in from all directions!
Helicopters were also approaching rapidly in the distance!
At the end of the road in front of him, two teams of fully armed police officers were running closer!
"Fuck!"
Zhou Duanyun suddenly realized!
This was a trap!
This was an ambush!
Run.
He had to run!
He ran quickly into the depths of the villa complex!
But two police officers were coming towards him!
Bang bang!
Zhou Duanyun fired two shots at the police officers' bulletproof vests. The huge kinetic energy and pain of the bullets instantly knocked the police officers to the ground!
And just then—
Swoosh!
With a crisp pop, Zhou Duanyun's head exploded in the air like a watermelon.
It was a sniper.
It was the sniper on the helicopter who fired to protect his teammates.
Thump.
The caliber of the sniper rifle's bullet was much larger than that of a handgun, and it directly blew Zhou Duanyun's head off. The headless body fell to the ground with a thud.
The piercing sound of police sirens rose and fell.
Special personnel sealed off the area.
And Lin Xian slowly walked past the crowd, looking at Zhou Duanyun's body lying on the ground.
He bent down.
He picked up the brown notebook with his name written on it...
"Zhou Duanyun."
He snorted softly:
"Long time no see."