The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 350 Original Cast
When the Nancheng Police Station received the news from Yuanxi that a body suspected to be Xihe had been found, everyone found it hard to believe.

No one knew better than the people at the Nancheng Police Station that Xi He was still alive and well.

The photos that appeared on the projection plunged everyone into deeper confusion.

The photo clearly showed a man's head. However, unlike the corpses that were expected to be discovered after half a year, the head had vivid facial features that clearly belonged to Xi He, and it was a living Xi He. However, his eyes were empty, as if his eyeballs had been gouged out.

"This doesn't make sense!" Wu Shanqiu blurted out.

"That's very scientific. It's a silicone mask, so it doesn't rot easily." Liu Tong pointed to a line of explanatory text on the side with a laser pointer.

"This mask is so realistic it's almost indistinguishable from the real thing!" Wu Shanqiu exclaimed.

"Not surprising at all. Didn't you see the faces of those lifelike robots? If you don't look closely, who would know they're fake?" Liu Tong said dismissively. "It's more like a headgear than a mask; it completely covers the head. According to the Yuanxi police, fishermen found this mask while cleaning the seawall. At first, they thought it was a toy, but when they picked it up, a real skull fell out, which scared them so much that they called the police. They found that the mask's appearance was highly similar to the appearance of Xi He, which we provided, so they notified us. Theoretically, the body that was washed out of the culvert should have already been washed into the sea. I don't know if it's fate, but it was entangled in the dense seaweed in the seawall." Liu Tong leisurely took a sip of goji berry water, talking about this earth-shattering news as if it were a casual conversation. "Even so, if it weren't for this once-in-a-century cold wave this winter, and if the seawall hadn't been cleared to the bottom, this body wouldn't have been discovered."

Liu Tong's words lingered in Qi Fei's ears, sometimes near, sometimes far. He couldn't concentrate, and the scene of confronting Xi He in the culvert that day involuntarily surfaced in his mind.

Perhaps because of the near-drowning incident, everything in my memory seems shrouded in a misty haze, both real and unreal.

"If it's Xi He himself, then this mask isn't necessary, is it?" Liu Tong turned to look at Qi Fei beside him with curiosity.

Yes, if it were Xi He himself, he wouldn't need a mask.

The surging water in the culvert in my memory began to recede, and everything returned to the time when it was pitch black when I first entered the culvert.

The meticulously designed lighting, the passionate confrontation—everything was like a finely orchestrated drama, and everyone unknowingly became a character in the play.

Is it possible that Xi He was an imposter? Qi Fei asked himself, and surprisingly, he couldn't give a negative answer.

“So far, his plans have rarely gone wrong. That time in the culvert, he single-handedly took on so many of us, which was not like him at all,” Qi Fei said in a deep voice. “That was a deadly situation where we would all perish together. Obviously, Xi He did not intend to die.”

"Tsk, you guys have been fooled by him again." Liu Tong shook his head.

"Captain Liu, don't say that. You'd be fooled too if you were there," Wu Shanqiu said indignantly from the side.

Liu Tong tapped her on the head with the lid of the thermos: "How dare you talk to your boss like that? You have no respect for your elders."

Caught between the two, Qi Fei had no time for jokes. He stared at the mask on the projection screen and asked, "If this person isn't Xi He, then who is he? Even if his face can be disguised with a realistic mask, where did that voice, that posture, and what he knows about Xi He come from?"

"It seems you'll have to go to Yuanxi again," Liu Tong said with a smile.
-
At the airport, Wu Shanqiu appeared in front of Qi Fei, dragging a large suitcase. "Are you on a business trip or vacation? What's in this?" Qi Fei asked, examining the suitcase.

“Clothes, huh? This is a once-in-a-century temperature drop. I heard the sea there is frozen.” Wu Shanqiu said, glancing at Qi Fei’s backpack. “Brother Fei, take it easy. Don’t freeze to death before you finish investigating the case.”

"Pah! Hope for something better," Qi Fei said irritably. But as soon as he finished speaking, his gaze swept over Wu Shanqiu's shoulder, and a look of surprise suddenly appeared on his face.

"Zhong Kui? What's she doing here?" Qi Fei asked.

When Wu Shanqiu turned around, sure enough, Zhong Kui appeared at the airport unhurriedly, dressed in a fur coat. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought she was a wealthy lady from somewhere.

It seems that no matter what Zhong Xiaoyu has been through, this time she has completely isolated Zhong Kui.

"Brother Fei, you'd better keep your mouth shut," Wu Shanqiu said to Qi Fei with a grin.

"Liu Tong said you're going to Yuanxi, and asked me to go with you." Zhong Kui sat on the bench, tossing her hair, still exuding charm.

"Didn't Captain Liu tell us?" Wu Shanqiu said.

"It was Liu Tong and I who suggested it." A gentle male voice came from behind her. Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw that it was Jiang Tianyi. "It seems that there are still unfinished tasks from the last trip to Yuanxi. Of course, the same team should set off again."

"Ha, Dr. Jiang? I think you're bored in the counseling room and looking for an excuse to go on a business trip, right?" Wu Shanqiu said with a mischievous smile.

“Since it’s been a while since our last trip to Yuanxi, having a few of us together would be helpful in getting to the details of the meeting,” Jiang Tianyi said seriously.
-
Wu Shanqiu was right. Although the temperature in Yuanxi was higher than in Nancheng, Qi Fei still underestimated the power of the winter sea breeze. Wearing only a jacket, he shivered in the fierce wind mixed with ice shards and could not even take a step.

Just as he was about to find a place to buy a piece of clothing urgently, he suddenly felt a warmth on his body. Someone had draped a down coat over him, and when he turned around, he saw Jiang Tianyi.

“I noticed you were dressed lightly, so I just took my spare coat out of the trunk,” he said softly.

Qi Fei was inexplicably moved. Although he came from a wealthy family, apart from the tenderness he received from his mother when he was a child, he had rarely been treated with such care and consideration.

Looking at Jiang Tianyi's refined face, he had a fleeting, unrealistic thought: he wished his brother were Jiang Tianyi.

Unfortunately, a gust of cold wind blew him back to reality—the reality was that he did indeed have an older brother, but this brother was a ruthless madman who killed without blinking an eye.

Transportation in Yuanxi is not very developed, and it took them a lot of trouble to get to the local police station. It was an old-fashioned building from the 90s, with white and green mosaic tiles on the exterior, covered with old rain stains.

"Currently, the only relatively intact part is the skull. It's probably because the silicone headgear protected it from being eaten by creatures in the seawall. We've tried our best to search the seawall, but apart from the spine and femur, the other parts are probably lost," said Chen Wenchang, a criminal investigator from Yuanxi, pointing to the scattered remains.