The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 345 Junior Brother
Qi Fei's hands began to tremble involuntarily as he flipped through the files. Although he already knew the tragic situation from many people's accounts, his heart was still gripped when he saw the empty, numb gaze that Zhong Xiaoyu cast at him in the photo. It was an emotion that transcended grief, so heavy that it made it hard for him to breathe.

However, Liu Tong, who was standing next to him, looked at him with a meaningful gaze and said nothing.

Because both Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao refused to recount what happened afterward, the case file contains accounts from other police officers.

It can be determined that the photo of Zhong Xiaoyu was taken by Shen Hongguan after he arrived at the scene. The police station received a call from Shen Hongguan, reporting the situation at Villa No. 3, saying that a female survivor had been found.

The owner of Villa No. 3 on Crescent Moon Hill, Zhong Huaiting, is a well-known psychologist in the area, living with his wife and three children. Neighbors say the couple is very loving, and their three children are all very accomplished, especially their eldest daughter, Zhong Xiaoyu, who has followed in her father's footsteps and become a psychologist herself. Although a newcomer, she has already shown remarkable talent.

In short, this is a family that everyone envies.

The pale case files fail to convey the shock and bewilderment that this family annihilation tragedy brought to those who experienced it firsthand.

At this moment, Qi Fei was equally perplexed. Admittedly, the scene was terrifying, tragic, and hellish enough to have a huge impact on people's senses and psychology, but in all fairness, it was not enough to make Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao commit suicide one after another.

If it were just one person's suicide, there might be undiscovered coincidences involved. But the fact that two police officers committed suicide significantly increases the connection to the case, especially since they both avoided giving their accounts of the scene after entering Villa No. 3.

Qi Fei repeatedly looked at the photos of the crime scene, including the investigation records, trying to find any clues.

He will soon regret it.

Because everything is indeed traceable.

However, the direction these clues took was not quite what he had expected.

“Apart from Zhong Huaiting, no one else showed any signs of resistance.” Qi Fei flipped to the autopsy record and indeed found the ingredients of the drug. However, the ingredients looked very familiar—the same ones found in the bodies of Feng Yi and Dong Ziwu. It seemed that Xi He was indeed involved.

The food was found to contain sedatives, indicating that the killer had drugged it before beginning his massacre. The only variable was Zhong Huaiting. Police speculated that because Zhong Huaiting had a high alcohol tolerance, he was more tolerant of anesthetics than the average person. He regained consciousness after being stabbed in the back and had defensive wounds on his hands, but unfortunately, he eventually collapsed in a pool of blood due to excessive blood loss.

Only Zhong Xiaoyu, who was tied to the pillar, survived. Although she remained mentally unstable after being discovered and unable to provide any valuable information, the police investigation quickly led to her patient.

Zhong Xiaoyu is passionate about challenging herself to treat patients with complex mental illnesses, including some very dangerous individuals. The killer's cruel methods also seem to be the kind of heinous acts that only a mentally unstable person with strong antisocial tendencies would commit.

Qi Fei couldn't shake the image of Xi He's sinister face from his mind, as if everything was his doing, destroying Zhong Xiaoyu's happy life with the purest evil. Human intuition is strange; he felt a thorn in his heart, nagging at this seemingly obvious conclusion. The details of the cases seemed to conceal something he hadn't discovered, or rather, didn't want to discover, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Only Liu Tong's gaze towards him carried a strange worry.

After a long while, Qi Fei finally closed the file. Outside the window, snowflakes fell like mats, and the room was so quiet that only the sound of the computer fan could be heard.

"Captain Liu, you've seen what's inside, haven't you?" Qi Fei asked.

“I was the sixth person to read the case file,” Liu Tong said, his usual smile gone, as if his usual amiability was just a mask. This was the real Liu Tong, cold and even sharp-eyed with keen insight. “Ten years ago, I was still working in an office job when I suddenly received a call from Luo Xiao.”

"Luo Xiao? The first police officer to arrive at the scene?" Qi Fei asked in surprise.

"He was my junior from school, and it was his second year working at the Baicheng Police Station. We were in the same club and had a very good relationship. We kept in touch after graduation. He has always been optimistic and cheerful, but I still remember the voice I heard when I answered the phone that day. I almost thought it was a different person. His voice was so broken and depressed, which overturned my entire impression of him."

I immediately asked him if something had happened. He, however, was no longer as candid as before. He avoided discussing specifics and instead started asking me vague, abstract questions—the meaning of life, the darkness of human nature—all the kind of questions that only grew more worrying the more you listened. He said he regretted becoming a policeman, that he didn't know what to do. He said he missed his university days, when we all thought the world was beautiful and everything was bright.

Before I could even ask him what was going on, he hung up. I tried calling back, but no one answered. Liu Tong paused here, as if trying to pull herself out of her intense emotions.

He gazed at the falling snow outside the window, his voice filled with regret: "Later I learned that I was the last person to hear him speak. He was already on the rooftop of the Baicheng Police Station when he called me, and after hanging up, he jumped..."

Like you now, I went to Baicheng with too many questions. When I got there, I learned that just two months earlier, his partner and mentor, Shen Hongguan, had committed suicide by shooting himself in his office late at night.

People from Baicheng Police Station told me that after Shen Hongguan and Luo Xiao returned from the crime scene at Villa No. 3 in Crescent Moon Mountain, they appeared mentally confused and failed psychological assessments, but they were unwilling to explain why.

At that time, I was just a civilian employee in the police force and couldn't participate in the investigation of this case. I made several inquiries but got no results. I went to Luo Xiao's house, and his mother told me that in the period before his suicide, Luo Xiao had become unusually gloomy, as if he were possessed. I found a lot of information about demons in his room, but the Luo Xiao I knew was clearly a sunny boy who didn't believe in ghosts or gods. I couldn't understand this change at all.

For the next few years, I followed the case closely, but unfortunately, the killer was never found. Later, I was assigned to the criminal investigation department, which gave me the opportunity to learn more about the case.

"Captain Liu, you were parachuted into our brigade to investigate the truth behind Luo Xiao's suicide?" Qi Fei suddenly realized.

Liu Tong looked at Qi Fei, then his gaze fell on the thick file.