Death Notice 2 Destiny

Chapter 66

Because this is his destiny.

The young man had been soaking in the pool long enough; the initial scalding pain had subsided, replaced by a tingling, itchy sensation spreading across his entire body. So he leaned out of the water, revealing most of his back, and waved loudly, calling out, "Master, give me a back scrub!"

"Coming!" The back-scrubbing masseur, who was waiting on the outdoor bench, responded, but he didn't move. Instead, he turned around and glanced at another middle-aged man not far behind him. The latter smiled slightly, gave the masseur a thumbs-up in approval, and then stood up and walked into the bathroom.

The man was completely naked, with a towel draped over his arm. He looked like a fellow masseur, but the masseur had never seen him before.

The back-scrubbing master thought the man was a strange person because he readily gave him 100 yuan as soon as he arrived, but his request was quite interesting: when the young people in the pool asked for a back scrub, he needed to respond promptly, but the job of scrubbing the backs had to be left to the man.

Where else in the world can you find such a good deal as someone willing to pay you to do the work? So, despite his surprise, the back-scrubbing master readily agreed to the other party's request.

Now, with a curious gaze, he watched as the mysterious man walked step by step toward the young man who was half-submerged in the pool.

Steam rose and mist swirled. The man finally reached the young man from behind. He bent down, placed a towel on the young man's back with his left hand, and grabbed the young man's left arm with his right.

The back-scrubbing master shook his head, muttering to himself, "An amateur." The standard way to scrub a back is to hold the towel in the right hand and grasp the guest's left arm with the left hand, but the way the guest was grasping the left arm with the right hand was incredibly awkward.

The young man in the pool seemed to sense something was amiss. He turned his head slightly, about to say something, when he suddenly felt a chill on his left wrist, as if something heavy was firmly gripping it.

The young man was startled and quickly looked up. Through the misty steam, he saw a familiar figure, and a pair of gleaming handcuffs had his left wrist firmly locked to the newcomer's right wrist.

"Captain Luo?" The young man paused for a moment, then announced the visitor's name in a surprised tone.

The middle-aged man posing as a back-scrubbing master was none other than Luo Fei. After successfully restraining the other party, he swiftly flicked his left hand and draped a towel over the point where the two men's wrists were joined, perfectly concealing the handcuffs.

"Don't make any big movements, or we'll just attract the local police prematurely," Luo Fei said softly, gesturing towards the back-scrubbing master watching them from outside the door. Then he stepped into the pool himself, adding, "We still have time to talk."

After his initial surprise, the young man quickly regained his composure. He even smiled at Luo Fei: "What a coincidence? Captain Luo, you're here on vacation too?"

Luo Fei smiled, sat down beside the young man, submerged the handcuffs in the water, and then asked, "How should I address you? Wen Chengyu, or Du Mingqiang?"

The back-scrubbing man outside the door, watching the two chatting intimately, couldn't help but shake his head in even greater bewilderment. Were these two actually friends? If so, why would they let him earn a hundred yuan for nothing? This world is truly becoming increasingly incomprehensible.

The young man in the bathtub turned to look at Luo Fei, his face filled with confusion and bewilderment: "What do you mean?"

"I've been watching you for ten whole days, starting from when the task force withdrew on December 1st. Do you think there's any need to hide anything from me anymore?" Luo Fei said calmly. "We're completely naked and honest with each other now, and there's no one else around. Please tear off all your pretenses."

This time, the young man remained silent for a long time, staring at the swirling mist before him, lost in thought. When he turned to face Luo Fei again, he finally let down his guard, and his entire demeanor underwent a fundamental change in an instant.

The arrogant, self-admiring, and blindly presumptuous reporter is gone, replaced by a cool-headed killer with deep, penetrating eyes and a sharp, piercing aura emanating from every pore.

"Tell me first—" he said with a sigh, "Where is my weakness?"

"The solving of the 112 massacre." Luo Fei no longer needed to hide anything. "You didn't steal any documents from the archives, yet you were able to make such precise analyses, so you must have had other channels to obtain information from within the police force. Once I thought of this, I began to suspect you. Because I firmly believed that none of my colleagues could be 'traitors'; they would only be used by you unconsciously. And during that period, you were the only outsider who had frequent contact with the task force members."

"Yes, I was too hasty—" the young man looked up regretfully, "I should have been more composed."

"However, I can't be sure of exactly how you're stealing information, so I have to temporarily disband the task force. Only in this way can I cut off your informants without arousing your suspicion." Luo Fei said, looking at the young man with a questioning gaze.

The young man frankly told them, "On the first day you arrested me, I borrowed Mu Jianyun's phone. While changing the SIM card, I secretly installed a miniature listening device inside the box. This device is specifically designed for mobile phones and can be powered by the phone's battery."

"I see," Luo Fei nodded. Mu Jianyun participated in all the discussions related to the 112 case, and the information Eumenides obtained even exceeded the police records. The other party was actually standing on the shoulders of the special task force, which is why they were able to be the first to uncover the true culprit of the 112 massacre. Thinking of this, Luo Fei couldn't help but give a helpless bitter smile.

"I had no choice but to take this risky step," the young man explained. "At the time, I was eager to find out the truth about my father's death, but you all had a tight grip on every clue. I had to find a way to rely on your help to continue the investigation."

Yes, infiltrate the task force and use its members as your informants. It's a safe and effortless win-win strategy.

"Just then, I deliberately brought up the online reporter Zhen Rufeng, intending to use him as bait for you. So you turned the tables, preemptively killing the reporter and drawing the police's attention to yourself. You were then arrested by the task force posing as the reporter, thus infiltrating the police force."

"Oh?" The young man raised an eyebrow. "You also know about me killing that reporter?"

"If you are Eumenides, then you are definitely not 'Zhen Rufeng,' because the reporter's interrogation of Wu Yinwu was completely out of Eumenides' style, and Eumenides wouldn't issue himself an undeserved 'death sentence.' Having thought of this, I began to seriously consider the date obscured by ink on that notice—" Luo Fei paused slightly, then said confidently, "It should be November 1st, right? You used people's preconceived notions to create a smokescreen. When the police saw that notice, their first reaction was to increase vigilance throughout November, ignoring those few hours that had already passed, but were also part of November. And it was during that time that you carried out the assassination of 'Zhen Rufeng.'"

The young man showed a hint of appreciation: "Absolutely right."

Luo Fei continued, "No murders occurred in the city on November 1st, so I checked the accidental death records for that day. I found a man who drowned while intoxicated; his name was Tong Mulin. After investigating his financial dealings and online information, I became certain that he was the real online journalist 'Zhen Rufeng.' Of course, I had the criminal investigation team of my subordinate branch conduct all this secretly, so you had no idea."

"Time was too tight at the time, and I had to finish the substitution as soon as possible—because you were also doing your best to find that reporter," Du Mingqiang said somewhat helplessly. "So I couldn't erase all of Tong Mulin's information; I only extracted some of the most crucial information to disguise my identity."

"After finding the real 'Zhen Rufeng,' I became even more certain that you are Eumenides." Luo Fei looked at the young man with piercing eyes. The latter smiled faintly, no longer denying his identity.

Luo Fei added, "However, there are still two questions I haven't figured out yet."

The young man silently watched Luo Fei, waiting for the other to elaborate.

"First, let's talk about the restrictions on your movements. You've handed yourself over to the police, so we'll be monitoring you 24/7. Are you prepared to not move around freely for the next month?"

"Of course not. I have a backup plan. You'll understand if you've searched my bedroom."

"Is there a secret passage?" Luo Fei had a vague idea of what was going on.

The young man nodded: "My one-bedroom apartment and the one-bedroom apartment next door are actually connected. The same door is in my bedroom, but I usually cover it with a large wardrobe. If I need to go out for something, I'll disguise myself and enter and exit through the apartment next door. Of course, I'll definitely choose to do this when Liu Song is sound asleep in the living room, and I won't be gone for too long."

Luo Fei said "Oh," which made sense. He had witnessed the other party's disguise skills more than once, but one thing still made him suspicious.

"What about the plainclothes officers on the perimeter? Didn't they suspect anything about you coming and going?"

"I'll avoid them." The young man shrugged. "Don't you remember? I identified all the plainclothes officers on the first night."

Yes! Luo Fei suddenly remembered: On the first night that the police took Du Mingqiang into custody, the latter deliberately provoked a dispute with Chang Kai, the traffic perpetrator. On the surface, it seemed that he wanted to use the police to vent his anger, but his real purpose was to identify all the plainclothes officers deployed by the police.

"Indeed, a brilliant plan, bold yet meticulous," Luo Fei thought to himself, though he didn't show it on his face. Then he frowned and said, "Another question, which is what puzzles me most, concerns your identity. It's obvious your name isn't Du Mingqiang, but I've checked your identification documents more than once and found nothing wrong. How did you manage to make a forged identity so convincing?"

After a moment of silence, Du Mingqiang said, "That wasn't a fake identity; it was real."

Luo Fei narrowed his eyes: "But your real name is clearly Wen Chengyu."

"My name is both Wen Chengyu and Du Mingqiang. I have many other names, but I don't want to tell you them now," Du Mingqiang said solemnly. "But I can assure you that every identity behind these names is real and valid."

Luo Fei shook his head, seemingly finding it increasingly difficult to understand.

The young man then began to explain the matter in detail: "Starting when I was fourteen, my teacher took me all over the country. We searched the streets for wayward teenagers around eighteen years old who had broken free from family control, and we would secretly dispose of those who seemed suitable. Then I would steal their household registration booklets from their homes and impersonate them to obtain identity documents, thus acquiring their identity—a completely legal identity. I had more than a dozen such identities, distributed across different provinces and cities, ranging in age from twenty to thirty, in both urban and rural areas, enough to meet my future needs."

Luo Fei felt a chill run down his spine. A dozen or so such identities meant that a dozen or so young people had already died silently.

"The conditions are right? What do you mean by the conditions being right?" he asked in a deep voice.

"The less contact they have with other family members, the better. If both parents are dead, that would be ideal." The young man seemed to sense Luo Fei's resentment and added, "Of course, although they are young, each of them has committed numerous evil deeds. Even if they remained in the world, they would only become a scourge to society."

Luo Fei took a deep breath. He knew the other party's logic, and that logic was the root of their irreconcilable conflict.

However, Luo Fei then realized another problem: "No wonder we couldn't find your training records, because you have so many legal identities..."

"Yes," the young man readily admitted, "I undergo different training in different locations under different identities. It's impossible for you to find someone in the database who matches me, because 'I' am composed of more than a dozen different 'people,' and each individual 'I' is completely unremarkable."

"You've prepared for eighteen long years, all for a murder plot," Luo Fei said somberly. "No wonder the plan was so meticulous and terrifying..."

"Yes. Very thorough preparation, including financial, skill, and psychological preparation." The young man gave Luo Fei a strange smile. "You know what? I spent a whole year in prisons and detention centers in a city in Northeast China, just to train myself to deal with you police officers in the future."

Luo Fei gave a helpless wry smile, but he was more interested in the other word from before.

"Tell me about funding. How did you manage to raise the large sums of money needed for Eumenides' growth, training, and future operations?" Yuan Zhibang had completely lost his ability to live independently. How could he possibly raise the necessary funds for Eumenides' growth, training, and future operations?

"Isn't that too simple?" The young man seemed puzzled as to why Luo Fei would ask such a trivial question. He gave an example: "For instance, if I killed Chen Tianqiao today, and you hadn't handcuffed me, I would have several million yuan more in one of my bank accounts tomorrow."

Luo Fei chuckled self-deprecatingly, blaming himself for forgetting the other party's logic: in Eumenides' eyes, the wealth of any "evil person" should be taken away without compensation.

"Alright, I've answered enough questions." The young man looked earnestly into Luo Fei's eyes. "I hope you can also honestly answer some of my questions now."

Luo Fei looked back at the other person and nodded seriously in return.

The young man asked his first question: "Since you already guessed my identity after Ding Zhen's death, why didn't you arrest me?"

Luo Fei readily replied, "Because I lack sufficient evidence, while you possess impeccable identification—and I don't expect to get anything out of you through interrogation."

"So everything you did afterwards was a setup for me? To get the evidence you wanted?"

This time, Luo Fei hesitated for a moment, then asked in return, "Which ones are you referring to?"

"During that meeting, you handed me the tapes and information about the '130' case. You also told your team members that you hoped to stop Eumenides' killing spree through psychological manipulation—even if it meant losing the opportunity to capture Eumenides."

"These are my true feelings, and I hope you can stop here." Luo Fei stated this firmly at first, then changed his tone slightly, "But I know that judging your choice based on 'Du Mingqiang's' life or death is meaningless. The real standard of life and death should be placed on Chen Tianqiao. So the waiting after November was indeed an act; the real battle didn't begin until December 1st. From that day on, you've never left my sight."

"Hey." The young man chuckled dryly. "You've been following me, not Chen Tianqiao."

Luo Fei explained, "Following Chen Tianqiao would be risky because before you approach him, you'll definitely observe the surrounding situation, which would easily expose me. But when I'm following you, I'll remain hidden from view, and I'm confident I won't fail."

Luo Fei did not fail, and the young man nodded in agreement.

"On the first night I followed you, I saw you go to see that girl. At that time, I thought the case was really over..." Luo Fei continued, and the young man closed his eyes when he heard this, as if trying to hide some emotions in his heart.

"But the next day I discovered you were secretly tracking Chen Tianqiao again, all the way from City A to Haikou. Following in your footsteps, I couldn't describe the feeling in my heart. I knew I could finally catch Eumenides, but this wasn't the outcome I wanted," Luo Fei said earnestly, finally letting out a heavy sigh. "Why? Why did you still make that choice?"

The young man kept his eyes closed, a bitter taste rising in his mouth again, and then he asked, "And why did you erase the last part of the tape?"

Luo Fei was taken aback: "You heard the last part?"

The young man nodded with a wry smile: "The teacher had everything planned out. When he discovered I was secretly watching that girl's performance, he had already foreseen my future. So he had that girl give me the complete recording—on the very night you first started following me."

Luo Fei's heart sank, a suffocating pain gripping his chest. He had meticulously planned everything, yet overlooked this crucial detail. Yuan Zhibang clearly possessed the ability to replicate the recordings from the hostage situation eighteen years ago. And since he anticipated the police's psychological offensive against Wen Chengyu, how could he forget to show the truth from the recordings to the child?

"You don't need to ask me why I made that choice." The young man finally opened his eyes, turned to look at Luo Fei, and said softly, "Since you want to erase the final truth, it means you know very well that I had no choice in the face of that truth, right?"

Luo Fei licked his lips, unsure of what else to say. He and the young man exchanged a silent glance, while the erased portion of the recording seemed to replay in their ears:

...

First came the child's cheerful shout: "Dad, did you get my birthday cake?"

After a few seconds of silence, Wen Hongbing said in a calm voice, "I will buy it... I'll buy it for you in a bit."

"Your dad's lying to you, he doesn't have any money! He can't afford a birthday cake—" a shrill voice suddenly interrupted Wen Hongbing, "You'll never get to eat a birthday cake."

The child's disappointed cries rang out along with this sharp and sarcastic voice.

Wen Hongbing's anger flared instantly, and he could no longer control his emotions. Curses and fights erupted, interspersed with Yuan Zhibang's anxious and helpless attempts to stop them, creating a chaotic scene.

"Bang!" A gunshot rang out, ending the chaotic scene. Then came Yuan Zhibang's furious shout: "Are you crazy? Why did you provoke him?! Can't you see he's strapped with a bomb?!"

"What's there to be afraid of?" the person being reprimanded chuckled sinisterly. "It's just a fake bomb!"

"What did you say?" Yuan Zhibang's voice was filled with extreme shock.

Then came the sound of Ding Ke and others rushing into the scene, at which point the recording truly ended.

...

After a long silence, the young man finally spoke again: "There's no tangled web of cause and effect, no helplessness, no confusion. Everything is crystal clear, so clear it makes me tremble—because it's simply a deep-seated hatred, a hatred that no one can escape."

Luo Fei sighed softly. Even someone as open-minded as him didn't know how to comfort the other person at this moment, because the truth of the matter truly had nothing to do with the helplessness of having no cause and effect. Yuan Zhibang, Wen Hongbing, and even the child who wanted to eat cake, none of them had to bear any responsibility for that tragic ending. All the responsibility pointed so clearly to the sole instigator—Chen Tianqiao.

Chen Tianqiao had known all along that Wen Hongbing was carrying a fake bomb, perhaps even from the moment Wen Hongbing broke into his home. But he continued to cooperate with Wen Hongbing's performance because he had a deeper purpose.

Yuan Zhibang's attempt to comfort Wen Hongbing nearly ruined Chen Tianqiao's plan, but a child's innocent remark gave him a glimmer of hope. He then began to use vile language to provoke Wen Hongbing's most vulnerable spot, knowing that this would drive him to madness.

Chen Tianqiao succeeded. Yuan Zhibang's precise bullet brought his plan to a perfect close. The debt collectors died before his eyes, and he could now enjoy the debt that no one was chasing after him with a clear conscience.

Yuan Zhibang and the child were merely tools he used to carry out this evil plan.