33 The Graveyard

Fang Qinghe stated that everyone on the list had worked as a crematorium attendant. Although Chen Youquan’s situation suggested otherwise, Fang would certainly not have made such a claim without evidence. Moreover, I did not know Chen Youquan well; he appeared to be a mason on the surface, but he might well have been hiding another identity.

But why crematorium attendants? As the name implies, these individuals deal exclusively with corpses, and I sensed that this was the very thing that made the people on the list so peculiar.

As I pondered this, Jin Ze began his own deduction. He asked Fang, "Team Leader Fang, does the investigation show that their time as crematorium attendants dates back twenty years?"

Fang replied, "Yes, twenty years ago. We initially locked onto two or three names and discovered they had registered as crematorium attendants over two decades ago. If it were just one or two people, it could be a coincidence, but with three or four, there had to be something suspicious. I had my team trace the crematoriums across the country, pulling all available records from that period. It turned out these individuals were scattered nationwide, all having worked as attendants for a few years before quitting."

Jin Ze continued, "And what about their later lives? Did you track where they went?"

"They were young back then," Fang explained. "After leaving the crematoriums, they started families. Coincidentally, after they married, their families suffered breakups, and their children died in infancy. The only ones who survived were Chen Youquan and Chen Tianming’s twins—that is, Chen Mu and the assassin, Chen Mu. A significant portion of the people on the list are already dead, and they died under tragic circumstances: car accidents, falls from buildings, suicides. Few remain alive. It is clearly not a coincidence; it was orchestrated."

Hearing this, I became increasingly convinced that this was a conspiracy stemming from twenty years ago. Honestly, I felt uneasy and terrified. First, the crematorium work, then the sudden deaths, and finally, of all the children, only my brother and I remained alive. It sounded like a curse—as if the corpses those attendants had burned were haunting them. But as a firm atheist, I knew it couldn't be that simple.

Jin Ze spoke up, "If we combine our previous deductions about Lu Qiang’s 'infant-rearing ground' with this list of attendants, everything becomes clear. I suspect this list is both the roster for the Dawn organization and a list of the Avengers Alliance."

I was confused. How could it be both? It seemed impossible that Dawn and the Avengers were the same organization.

Jin Ze explained, "When these people were young, twenty years ago, they were likely members of Dawn. Their placement in crematoriums across the country was surely orchestrated by Dawn. Dawn was conducting human and infant experiments, which inevitably left bodies that could lead to police investigations. By burning the remains at crematoriums and mixing the ashes with those of others, they left no trace. I suspect these attendants were tasked with destroying evidence for Dawn. Even a powerful organization like Dawn isn't immune to betrayal. I believe those on the list are the ones who later defected. Dawn’s punishment for them was to swap their children with infants infected with HIV. Having been members themselves, these people were not ordinary; when their families were destroyed, they couldn't just stand by. They likely formed the Avengers Alliance to strike back at Dawn. That is why this list is also a list of Avengers."

I nodded, finding his logic sound, and even Fang Qinghe signaled for him to continue.

Jin Ze went on, "After the Avengers Alliance was established, they must have retaliated against Dawn, likely training many assassins. But Dawn wouldn't just sit by; they would have guessed who formed the alliance and countered, which explains why so many on the list have died such miserable deaths. I have a bold theory: the Avengers Alliance is nearly depleted, which is why they reached out to us to help them deal with Dawn. If we secretly monitor and arrest everyone remaining on this list, the Avengers Alliance might collapse entirely!"

I couldn't help but interject, "Wait, Jin Ze, are you saying that exposing this list actually benefits Dawn? If the Avengers are flushed out and destroyed, we are effectively helping Dawn. Has Bai Ye truly defected?"

Jin Ze replied, "It's hard to say, but the remaining survivors are crucial. If we capture them, we can interrogate them to uncover the secrets of both Dawn and the Avengers." He then turned to me, frowning, "However, there is one contradiction—a variable. That variable is you and your assassin brother. If Dawn’s goal was to punish defectors by replacing their children with virus-stricken infants, why did you two survive? I feel that something happened twenty years ago, and you two brothers are hiding a secret."

But what secret could we have? It felt like the breakthrough point of the entire case. If we couldn't break through it, we would remain trapped; if we did, the truth would finally surface.

Fang Qinghe immediately dispatched teams to track down those on the list. Though most were not in City X, his status with the National Security Agency made coordinating with local police easy. After two days and nights of searching, however, bad news came one after another. The remaining survivors died in accidents. We knew these were no accidents; Dawn had struck first to silence them, simultaneously wiping out the Avengers and preventing them from falling into police hands.

In the end, aside from Chen Tianming, whose whereabouts remained unknown, everyone else on the list had died mysteriously. In a sense, the Avengers Alliance, which had once driven Dawn to the brink, had been annihilated. It was so sudden that we even suspected Chen Tianming might have been a mole for Dawn, the one who destroyed the alliance from within.

Just as the police were pushed into a passive position, my phone rang. It was a message from the Voyeur.

"A-Mu," he wrote, "I will help you clear the fog and let the truth fall. Meet me at the Nandu Cemetery at eight tonight. If I find out you brought your police friends, I will make them all pay with their lives—including that confident sunshine cop; I will make him die by your own hand."

Reading this, I shivered. It wasn't fear of him, but a realization that I could not defy him. I had experienced the consequences of doing so before, and I feared he would kill Jin Ze—and use my own hands to do it. It was a nightmare I had long dreaded.

Fang Qinghe and Jin Ze were out on assignment, so I took a chance. I felt that Bai Ye still considered me one of his own; he didn't seem to know about the other Chen Mu, and since he was still attacking the Avengers, he likely wasn't out to harm me. He probably needed my help.

I used my old method: scheduling an email to Jin Ze, then taking a circuitous route to evade any potential tail, changing vehicles several times before reaching the Nandu Cemetery. It was a graveyard, and being there in the dead of night made my spine tingle.

Upon entering, I considered calling Bai Ye, but my phone buzzed immediately. He gave me a specific location. The cemetery was vast, but I eventually found the spot. From a distance, I saw him—dressed in white, appearing almost ethereal under the moonlight. As I drew closer, I realized he was wearing that V-for-Vendetta-style clown mask.

I was about to ask why he had summoned me when my peripheral vision caught the inscription on the tombstone beside him. My blood ran cold.

The tombstone read: "The Grave of Chen Mu."