(The following content was not set in the real world. Please imagine a similar parallel-world setting; aside from its culture, everything else was different.)
At night, cold moonlight spilled across the ground.
In the hidden corners, numerous vague figures could be seen in the shadows.
"Everyone, proceed with extreme caution. The target is a highly intelligent criminal. Do not give him even the slightest chance to escape!"
"Roger!"
Once everyone had reached their designated positions, small capsules were tossed through the gap beneath the door and through the windows.
With a soft bang, the capsules exploded, and choking smoke instantly filled the entire house.
After estimating that the anesthetic gas had taken effect, the special police officers in gas masks swiftly kicked open the door and rushed inside.
"Reporting in. Target not found in the bedroom."
"Reporting in. Target not found in the kitchen."
"Reporting in. Target not found in the living room."
"Reporting in. No hidden passages found in the house."
Hearing the successive pieces of bad news through his earpiece, Chang Yuan's previously delighted expression immediately darkened. "Damn it, why did this happen? Where are the intelligence officers? What were they doing? Why wasn't the target's disappearance reported?"
"Don't blame them."
"Huh? Chief, you?"
The anesthetic gas in the room had already been cleared away. Hou Zhenyu walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a copy of The Interpretation of Dreams. "If I'm not mistaken, they were hypnotized."
On one side of the bookshelf were all kinds of anime comics and figurines, while the other side was packed with books related to psychology, such as The Ego and the Id and Fantasy Is Reality.
Hu Yue could not help widening her eyes. "Wait, didn't the initial report say he was merely a highly intelligent shut-in?"
"Do you think a shut-in could toy with the police like this?" Hou Zhenyu sighed and shook his head. "Even if he was a shut-in, he was an extremely dangerous one."
Chang Yuan silently nodded. That was right. What kind of proper shut-in read stuff like this? On his own bookshelf, there was not even enough room for all his figurines.
Glancing at the small photo frame on the table, many officers nodded with inexplicable indignation. They had been promised a dead fat shut-in. With such a handsome, sunny face, did he deserve the title of shut-in?
Traitor, ptooey!
Hu Yue still could not understand. "But he had a direct conflict with the victims, and he was among the first people summoned by our police. Didn't the people who questioned him notice anything unusual at the time?"
Hou Zhenyu closed the book and sighed again. "On one hand, he hid himself too well. His teachers, classmates, friends, and family all gave astonishingly consistent assessments of him. On the other hand, there were simply too many people who held grudges against the victims' family. Compared to the others we summoned at the time, his suspicion level truly was the lowest."
Seeing everyone's grave expressions, Chang Yuan encouraged them. "No matter how troublesome this opponent is, he still exposed himself under the police's close investigation. At the very least, he has nowhere left to run now!"
The officers all revealed relieved smiles. No matter how difficult an enemy was, once his identity was exposed, he was finished. Did he really think he could do whatever he pleased through personal ability alone in modern society?
However, Hou Zhenyu's expression was incomparably solemn. "You're wrong. Our greatest trouble may have only just begun!"
An officer beside him laughed. "Chief, you're still joking with us at a time like—"
At that moment, Hou Zhenyu's earpiece suddenly transmitted a voice. "Chief, this is bad! Zhang San has been taken!" (To avoid accidentally harming friendly forces, we had to use a name that breaks immersion. Please forgive us.)
"How is that possible?" Hou Zhenyu's expression changed drastically at first, but he quickly asked, "What's your situation now?"
The person on the other end sounded somewhat ashamed. "We were knocked out by anesthetic gas. When we woke up, Zhang San was already gone. However, there are no casualties on our side for now."
Hearing that there had been no casualties, Hou Zhenyu regained his composure. "He couldn't have taken him far. And if he prepared the place in advance without wanting to be discovered, it was most likely a nearby abandoned school or factory. But remember one thing: once you find the target, do not provoke him under any circumstances!"
"Roger!"
Though the people around him could not hear the conversation, they could infer the general situation from Hou Zhenyu's words. Once the call ended, they hurriedly asked, "Chief, what exactly happened?"
Hou Zhenyu shook his head. "You all know how the target exposed himself, right?"
Chang Yuan rubbed his chin. "He went to the hospital today. Originally, we were only conducting a routine follow-up investigation into his medical records afterward. But when we checked, we discovered that he was already in the late stages of cancer! People can do anything when death is pressing down on them, so we shifted the focus of our investigation back onto him and connected several minor details that had previously been overlooked."
As he spoke, he shook his head and sighed. "Linyushan Cancer, a rare cancer so rare it was named after him. No wonder he was so desperate."
Hou Zhenyu looked at him. "Do you think he only learned about his condition today?"
Chang Yuan froze, then suddenly realized. "Hypnosis! He hypnotized those doctors so that they entered nothing but an ordinary illness into the system!"
"He stopped hiding it because there was only one final person left for him to kill!"
"That's right. Zhang San's entire family has been killed. Now, he's the only one left!"
Hu Yue, standing nearby, was furious. "He could clearly have killed Zhang San by a much simpler method, yet he deliberately exposed himself. Is he declaring war on the police?"
Everyone else felt humiliated, but Hou Zhenyu said, "Today, I consulted many psychologists. According to their analysis, he was likely the sort of person who appeared gentle and modest, but whose inner pride had reached an extreme."
"The reason he deliberately exposed a flaw may not have been to declare war on us, but rather..." Hou Zhenyu took a deep breath. "To make Zhang San die in the most hopeless circumstances possible!"
Chang Yuan instinctively shuddered and asked, "You mean he deliberately wanted Zhang San to see hope of being saved, then make him fall from heaven into hell the moment he reached his peak?"
"But if he did that, he would definitely be arrested too..." Hu Yue's voice abruptly caught in her throat because she remembered that Lin Yushan had cancer.
"Now you understand why I said our greatest trouble has only just begun, right?" Hou Zhenyu sighed.
"Madman. That guy is absolutely a complete madman!" A chill rose in everyone's hearts. Such an enemy was simply too terrifying!
Inside an abandoned factory.
"Let me go, let me go! I can give you money, lots and lots of money!" A fashionably dressed young man was tied to an iron chair, struggling and shouting.
However, the young man on the other side turned a deaf ear. Whistling a cheerful tune, he plunged a syringe into the fashionable young man's arm under his terrified gaze.
"What is this?" Zhang San asked nervously.
"Oh, this is a drug that will make you more sensitive," Lin Yushan answered with a smile.
"More sensitive?"
"This is good stuff. It can multiply the pleasure you feel, and of course, the pain too!" Smiling, Lin Yushan used a knife to slice open Zhang San's arm.
The wound was not particularly deep, yet Zhang San let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered. His eyes bulged as though he were a dried salted fish.
"Huh? You can't take it already? I haven't even sprinkled salt on it yet." Lin Yushan smiled as he took out a bag of salt and chili powder.
"Devil! You perverted devil!" Zhang San was so frightened that snot bubbles floated from his nose. His legs kept scraping against the floor as he tried to get farther away from this devil.
Unfortunately, the chair was fixed in place with poured steel. His skinny body could not possibly budge it.
"Oh my, weren't you having a great time street racing? I guarantee this is ten thousand times more exciting than that!" A devilish smile hung at the corners of Lin Yushan's mouth.
"What exactly do you want?" Zhang San's face was smeared with snot and tears as he cried out in collapse. "I already paid you compensation. What more do you want?"
"Oh?" Lin Yushan looked surprised. "Then that's truly strange. Wasn't it you who had those thugs steal the money back afterward?"
Zhang San's expression stiffened. He did not actually care about the compensation money. He had merely been upset about being summoned to the police station.
If he had known he would provoke such a lunatic, he never would have told his men to teach the other man a lesson... no, he never would have gone street racing in the first place.
Though regret filled his heart, Zhang San still forced himself to say viciously, "Just wait. My people will—"
"They've already been blown to death!"
"Huh?"
Seeing Zhang San's baffled expression, Lin Yushan kindly explained again, "All of them were blown to death. They died horribly!"
After saying that, Lin Yushan even took out his phone and showed him the photos.
Seeing the charred chunks of flesh blasted apart in the pictures, Zhang San felt sick and immediately vomited.
"Madman! You madman!" Zhang San screamed in terror, though what he felt even more was regret.
If he could do it all over again, he would never provoke a madman like this.
Just then, a shrill alarm sounded.
"Oh? They moved pretty fast." Lin Yushan looked outside the factory.
"Police, the police are here!" Zhang San was overjoyed. Never before had he looked forward to the police's arrival as much as he did today.
Outside.
"Chief, we accidentally triggered the alarm device as you instructed, but can that really make him lower his guard?" an officer asked doubtfully.
"We already lost the first round, and now we rushed here in a panic. It is only reasonable for us to appear impatient." Hou Zhenyu pondered slightly.
Then, Hou Zhenyu asked through the radio, "How is it? Is there a suitable sniper position?"
A voice soon came through the earpiece. "It's difficult. The target is positioned in a blind spot inside the factory. The only place where we can get a shot lines up directly with the hostage."
"So he really didn't let his guard down." Hou Zhenyu muttered to himself. "Then we'll think on the third level. Knowing the police are deliberately luring him, he will remain wary of the flaws we intentionally leave behind. At that point, we will break through from another direction."
Chang Yuan instinctively asked, "What if he's thinking on the fourth level?"
Seeing the chief glare at him, Chang Yuan hurriedly chuckled awkwardly. "Chief, what did you mean by another direction again?"
The corner of Hou Zhenyu's mouth twitched slightly. "When he thinks we are deliberately provoking him into exposing a flaw, we will instead shift our focus to Zhang San."
"Ohhh." Chang Yuan dragged out the sound. "Openly repair the plank road, secretly advance through Chencang... Got it."
Taking a deep breath, Hou Zhenyu raised a loudspeaker and said, "Lin Yushan, stop now. You have nowhere left to run!"
An equally amplified voice came from the factory. "Chief Hou, that kind of talk does not suit your standards. You should know that I was never capable of stopping in the first place!"
"I know you hate scum like Zhang San, but what difference is there between you now and scum like him?"
Zhang San, who was eagerly looking toward the outside world, was dumbfounded. What the hell? I'm the hostage! Saying that about me is making me panic!
"This level of provocation is truly neither here nor there! In the eyes of the law, murder is murder. Even if the person killed is scum, it makes no difference. Having done such things, I would naturally never hypocritically believe myself to be a good person. I understood that the moment I took the first step."
The police officers all furrowed their brows. Their opponent had an extremely clear understanding of what he was doing. He did not regard his actions as justice to begin with, nor did he have the usual criminals' urge to whitewash evil.
Such a person's psychological defenses were exceedingly difficult to break.
"No, I believe your heart still longs for the light. Otherwise, why did you drive away the local residents before carrying out so many bombings?"
"You're overthinking it. I did that only because I wanted the game to be purer—"
At that moment, Hou Zhenyu suddenly roared through the loudspeaker, "Zhang San, duck!"
Zhang San jumped at hearing his name and instinctively lowered his head. Lin Yushan's upper forehead was immediately exposed to the police's line of sight.
Now... The sniper pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation.
Bang!
Trailing a brilliant tail of flame, the sniper round instantly shot into Lin Yushan's forehead.
With a thud, a blood-red plum blossomed, and Lin Yushan's body collapsed limply to the ground.
Seeing this, the officers still waiting outside in battle formation could barely believe it. The deranged killer who had toyed with the police force had died just like that?
Even Hou Zhenyu's expression shifted repeatedly as an intense sense of unreality washed over him.
Zhang San froze at first, but he was soon drowned by a tidal wave of joy.
"HAHAHAHA! Idiot, moron, trash! Weren't you going to kill me? Didn't you just end up dead? Just wait until I get back. I'll kill everyone connected to you—"
Hearing Zhang San's wild ranting inside, Hou Zhenyu's face darkened. "Although that Lin Yushan was indeed a bastard, this guy is truly scum as well. What he's done would justify shooting him ten times over. Once we return, organize the evidence and contact the other victims to file a lawsuit."
Hu Yue nodded heavily beside him. "Yes!"
Everyone revealed satisfied smiles. From the police's perspective, they had to rescue the hostage, but from an ordinary person's perspective, they felt sick just looking at scum like him.
"Then let's go in and 'rescue' him now!" Chang Yuan said with an ill-intentioned smile.
Just then, Lin Yushan's voice unexpectedly sounded again.
"Hi, everyone."
Upon hearing that nightmare-like voice, Zhang San's laughter froze on his face. Then he screamed in overwhelming terror, "A ghost! There's a ghost! You devil, won't you let me go even after becoming a ghost?"
Perhaps to save time, before Zhang San had even finished screaming, that voice rang out again.
"When this voice sounds, it means I really am dead. Student Zhang San, you should be very happy right now, shouldn't you? The feeling of returning to the human world from hell is quite nice, isn't it?"
Hearing the voice confirm that Lin Yushan was indeed dead, Zhang San could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.
But before he could completely relax, that gentle voice suddenly turned cold. "Then how will it feel to fall from the human world back into hell? Actually, I installed a bomb inside my body..."
Hearing this, Hou Zhenyu's expression changed drastically. "Everyone, retreat outside! Do not hesitate. I'll bear the consequences!"
"...The timer began when my heart stopped beating. The time is three minutes..."
By then, quite a few officers had entered the factory and were preparing to rescue the hostage. Three minutes was enough for them, but upon hearing the chief's resolute order, they could only retreat.
After all, they did not want to risk their lives to save a piece of scum.
Zhang San's body had already trembled when he heard there was a bomb. Now, seeing the officers abandon him and flee, he was so terrified that he pissed and shat himself. "I'm still here! Take me with you! Aren't you police? How can you abandon a hostage and run away yourselves? You useless trash, can't you hear what I'm saying?!"
As he raged helplessly, Lin Yushan's voice continued. "Oh dear, I accidentally said too much nonsense just now. I wonder what time it is now. Hmm... How about I start counting down from five? Four, three..."
"Wait, when was there ever three minutes of talking?" Zhang San once again screamed like a pig being slaughtered, his body struggling violently.
"...Two, one, goodbye!"
"No!"
Accompanied by a scream of despair and terror, a violent blast wave surged forth, flames burst skyward, and the surrounding ground shook fiercely.
Flames consumed all evil!
"Whew! We almost died!" Looking at the towering flames, the officers still trembling with fear could not help casting grateful looks toward their chief.
"To make his target die in despair and agony, he even made his own death part of the design." Chang Yuan looked at the flames with mixed emotions. "He was absolutely the most terrifying enemy I've ever encountered!"
Everyone nodded in deep agreement. Such a person was simply too terrifying!
Hu Yue looked at Hou Zhenyu with some concern. "Chief, although what happened afterward proved you were right, we did not do everything possible to save the hostage. If those unscrupulous media outlets or self-proclaimed intellectuals find out, you..."
"Police officers are people too! If it were to save someone, then we truly should not weigh too many considerations." Hou Zhenyu said decisively, "But if it is only to save a piece of scum, then I will never agree to trade their lives for that scum's life! As for those useless fools who only know how to talk, let them come find me face-to-face if they dare."
"Chief!" Everyone looked at him with emotion.
"Ah, notify the fire department." Looking at the flames reaching into the sky, Hou Zhenyu sighed softly. "What a pity..."
This prologue was only meant to establish a protagonist who was highly capable yet knew the plot of Naruto. After all, if an ordinary shut-in transmigrated there and suddenly knew all sorts of methods, it would seem very fake. But those who were truly skilled and resourceful would most likely not know the plot of Naruto. As for the story behind this prologue, please do not look too deeply into it. If you ask, it's a parallel world; if you ask, it's a harmonious society. And please do not worry too much about whether things like anesthetic gas or bombs inside bodies would actually work.
Before you continue