02 The Mysterious Car Accident

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Hearing from Jin Ze that another strange case had occurred, the heaviness pressing on my heart only deepened. I was certain this was no ordinary, unrelated incident; otherwise, Fang Qinghe wouldn’t have insisted that Jin Ze bring me along.

Soon, I followed Jin Ze away from my hometown. Fearing that Miao Miao and the others might still need to collect evidence, I left the keys with her, guided by an intuition that this return to the police station would once again plunge me into a whirlwind of chaos, tangled with the perpetrator. I couldn’t understand why these criminals always chose me to bear the brunt of their wrath.

Jin Ze didn’t take me to the police station but directly to the office building of the cold case division. Seeing Fang Qinghe, whom I hadn’t met in a while, stirred a wave of mixed emotions within me. He still carried that refined demeanor—unruffled by solving the notorious murder game case, nor burdened with worry over this new case.

I greeted Fang Qinghe, and he nodded at me, acknowledging with a weary “Well done.” Then, without preamble, he said, “Chen Mu, first, I have to tell you not to panic. This case isn’t as severe as the last one. I’ve already contacted the detention facility regarding the repeat offender; Bai Ye is still bedridden and hasn’t regained consciousness. As for the Peeping Tom’s QQ login location, it’s no longer your home. He logged in using a telecom network, and we’ve traced the number. Surveillance is in place, and as soon as he surfaces, we’ll track him down immediately.”

Hearing this, I felt a slight relief. This time, the killer didn’t seem as twisted as before, and their logic appeared less meticulous—using a telecom network to log into QQ was a glaring vulnerability.

But that made sense; not every terrifying psychopath was as formidable as Bai Ye, with flawless criminal methods.

Thinking of Bai Ye, a twinge of regret surfaced. At one point, I half-wished the culprit could be that madman, but it was clearly improbable—and perhaps better that way. I didn’t want him to bring more bloodshed.

Then I asked Fang Qinghe, “Team Leader Fang, you said there’s a new case. What’s going on? Why bring me into this? Does this case have anything to do with me?”

Fang Qinghe nodded and opened his computer, playing a video for Jin Ze and me.

It was footage from a roadside surveillance camera, timestamped tonight at 8 p.m., roughly two hours earlier.

The video showed a woman walking along the roadside—a pregnant woman with a large belly, apparently close to giving birth. She walked slowly and soon stopped to rest.

While she rested, a small car pulled up behind her. The driver, a middle-aged man, hurriedly got out and ran to the roadside to urinate, seemingly desperate. He quickly left the spot afterward, leaving the car unattended.

Then, the horrifying thing happened. The car suddenly lurched forward and sped toward the resting pregnant woman.

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The woman was struck violently and knocked down with a thud. The car showed no sign of stopping; it ruthlessly ran over her. Watching this made me feel deeply unsettled.

What disturbed me further was that as the car passed over the woman, her skirt was lifted, revealing something black beneath. Looking closely, it appeared the car had crushed her baby, pushing it out from beneath her.

Then the car reversed and ran over her again. This time, the infant was entirely crushed by the wheels, with no chance of survival—it became nothing but a bloody pulp.

And it didn’t stop there. The car ran over the woman several more times until she was completely unrecognizable—mangled beyond human form, a mass of blood and flesh. Only then did the car return to its original spot and stop.

Soon, bystanders gathered, though none dared approach the scene due to its gruesome nature.

After a while, the middle-aged man who had gotten out to urinate returned. Seeing the scene, he recoiled in horror and took several steps back, unwilling to get close to the car.

The video continued for a few more minutes until police arrived—traffic officers and detectives. They cordoned off the area, took photos, conducted preliminary investigations, then removed the vehicle and cleared the scene. The video ended there.

After watching, I felt only disgust and horror. The driver was either mentally unhinged or harbored a deep grudge against the pregnant woman. Aside from that, nothing seemed particularly unusual.

However, after listening to the ensuing conversation between Fang Qinghe and Jin Ze, a chill ran down my spine.

Fang Qinghe asked Jin Ze, “Jin Ze, what’s your take on this video?”

Jin Ze pondered for a moment before replying, “Judging from the video alone, this looks like a straightforward hit-and-run or vehicular homicide. Even if it’s murder, it should fall under the criminal investigation team’s jurisdiction. Since it landed with the cold case unit, there must be something that defies conventional explanation. Team Leader Fang, the middle-aged man who got out to urinate—is he the driver? And once he left, was there no one else in the car?”

Listening to Jin Ze, I thought, How could there be no one in the car? Even if it lost control, it wouldn’t ram the woman, then reverse and run over her multiple times. This was clearly deliberate.

Yet Fang Qinghe nodded in agreement, which made me gasp in disbelief. Could the car have killed the pregnant woman on its own?

Just as I was struggling to grasp the absurdity, Fang Qinghe said something that sent cold shivers through me: “And that vehicle in the video is a hearse.”

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A hearse—moving on its own, driverless, running over a pregnant woman and crushing both her and her baby into a bloody mess!

It sounded utterly eerie. Even I, having recently endured the horrors of the murder game case, couldn’t help but shudder, feeling an ominous cold wind brush past.

At that moment, Jin Ze asked Fang Qinghe, “Team Leader Fang, where is the hearse now? We need to examine it before making any judgments. Also, what connection does this case have to Chen Mu? Why involve him?”

Hearing this, I also asked Fang Qinghe, “Yes, Team Leader, how could this hearse killing case relate to me? Is it because of the baby in the pregnant woman’s belly? But that child was crushed into a pulp—surely not the same as the infant eaten by the pigs in my family’s sty. Do you mean these two cases are connected? Because both targeted babies, are they being investigated together?”

As I spoke, Jin Ze suddenly seemed to remember something and immediately replayed the video.

He rewound the surveillance footage to shortly after the accident, capturing the crowd gathering not far from the scene, and froze the frame.

I leaned in to look, and upon seeing that image, a shiver ran through me. At last, I understood why Fang Qinghe had Jin Ze bring me along—this case truly involved me, and it was of extraordinary significance.

Among the onlookers, I recognized a familiar figure—the middle-aged man who appeared in the video Fang Qinghe had copied from his home. He was the very man from the video of my childhood, where I was trained to cook infants and assemble infant corpses. Though more than ten years had passed, his face had barely changed, and I recognized him instantly.

This man stood among the crowd but didn’t seem to watch the accident scene. Instead, his gaze fixed on the surveillance camera, as if locking eyes with me.

Soon after, Jin Ze resumed playing the footage, and a chill ran down my spine when I saw the man smile eerily at the camera before turning and disappearing into the darkness.