Peering into the Human Heart

Peering into the Human Heart

"Your forensic sketching skills really aren't up to much," Wang Meng said, holding the suspect's portrait.

This colleague of his had specifically come over to create a composite sketch based on Li Fan's description.

There was no helping it. At Lihe Township Police Station, he was the only one who had studied this part-time.

Wang Meng's colleague shrugged. "It's not that I'm bad at it. This kid's descriptive skills are terrible. All he says is, 'He looked fierce, really fierce.' How am I supposed to draw that?"

As they talked, the two returned to the car. Just then, two more vehicles drove into Hua Zhuang Village, and six people got out.

"Oh!" Wang Meng and his colleague immediately straightened up. The newcomers had not arrived in police cars and wore plain clothes, but they still recognized them as members of the Criminal Police Team.

The middle-aged man in the lead glanced around, entered the Village Chief's home, and gestured for Wang Meng and the other man to follow him into the courtyard.

Clearly, some things could not be discussed by the roadside.

But even in the courtyard, no matter how quietly they spoke, they could not hide it from Huang Ji.

Huang Ji stood atop a small dirt hill more than six hundred meters from the Village Chief's home, gazing toward it. Since the house lights were on, he could see the upper halves of the officers' bodies quite clearly.

At that distance, no one should have been able to eavesdrop.

Yet Huang Ji could. If he saw it, it was the same as hearing it. His vision was his hearing.

"That letter proves the criminals are still in Hua Zhuang! Are there any abandoned or secluded places nearby where someone could hide?" the middle-aged criminal investigator in the lead asked.

"You're locals, so you must know the area well," added another young man with a crew cut.

"Team Leader Chen, there's no one named Lü Zongmin in our village," Wang Meng said.

Team Leader Chen said gravely, "Of course there isn't! This Lü Zongmin is a cybersecurity expert at Capital Jumei Company."

"You know Tuanmei Website, right? The cosmetics site. He's one of its security staff," the crew-cut young man added again.

Wang Meng scratched his head. "Could it be someone with the same name? Why would an employee of a major company in the capital come all the way here to commit a kidnapping?"

Team Leader Chen shook his head. "It's not the same name. He flew to Zheng-Zhou the day before yesterday, then checked into a hotel in XZ City yesterday. All of that can be verified. He came here from far away. The city Criminal Police Team checked the hotel surveillance footage. He left the hotel at three this morning and has not returned since. Based on the timing, he could easily have reached Hua Zhuang Village by seven in the morning and carried out the kidnapping."

The crew-cut young man added once more, "More importantly, they found a photo of Liang Yuan in Lü Zongmin's hotel room."

Wang Meng froze. A photo of Liang Yuan? Those two should not have known each other. That was solid proof.

It was too bizarre. Lü Zongmin had traveled all the way from the capital to a rural village in Xin Zheng to kidnap a doctor. There had to be some hidden reason.

Huang Ji already knew that reason.

"For money..." Huang Ji muttered on the hill.

There was probably no one in Hua Zhuang who knew Doctor Liang better than Huang Ji.

It was strange enough that Doctor Liang, a highly educated graduate from the capital, had come to work in the countryside.

Ever since waking up last week, Huang Ji had repeatedly observed Doctor Liang's information. He had long known that she was living in seclusion here to evade someone's search.

She had once been part of a gang trafficking cultural relics, dragged into it by her parents.

More precisely, by her adoptive parents.

She was an orphan. Huang Ji knew that clearly; it was very obvious information.

Her adoptive parents had taken her in, paid for her education, and treated her well. She had thought she could become a doctor someday.

Unexpectedly, while she was in college, her adoptive parents returned to their old trade and dragged her into it as well.

At first, they only had her treat minor wounds. Later, they made her prepare anesthetics. Then, seeing how obedient she was, they took her along to transport goods.

Liang Yuan's dream was to become a doctor, not to traffic cultural relics. But she was already deeply entangled in it and suffered terribly.

Later, under her resistance, her adoptive parents decided to pull off one big job and then quit.

That so-called big job turned out to be robbing their own gang. The couple stole more than four million yuan belonging to the entire group, along with a Tang Dynasty Golden Buddha, and fled.

Liang Yuan had also taken part in that plan. She anesthetized the others and called the police after leaving.

Within that gang, no one used their real identities. Only a very small number of people who were related as siblings, spouses, fathers and sons, or the like knew one another's identities and real names.

In other words, the entire gang was actually made up of several families. Many members had been dragged into it by their own relatives.

Under those circumstances, when the police arrived and arrested the gang, the captured criminals could only provide the appearances of those who had escaped. They could not even produce a single photograph.

Unfortunately, three people had ultimately escaped capture: Wang Zhen, Hu Feng, and Lü Zongmin.

Wang Zhen and Hu Feng were physically strong. They had gotten up early and run away, never encountering the police. Lü Zongmin had not been at the scene at all; he was one of the people planning things behind the scenes.

Knowing that three people were still at large, the couple hid in the countryside with the money. They intended to leave the country once things had blown over.

Liang Yuan was also forcibly kept by the couple, so she could only work as a small-town doctor in this rural place.

Yet she was content with it. Being a doctor was her dream, and she had lived there for half a year.

Although Huang Ji had learned about Liang Yuan's past several days ago, he had pretended not to know and had not exposed her.

Because Doctor Liang truly treated him well, and at heart, she was indeed a good person.

Of course, it could no longer be hidden now. Liang Yuan had been kidnapped, and the kidnappers were the remnants of that old trafficking gang.

Wang Meng stroked his chin. "As for places to hide someone, there are a few old houses on the other side of the graveyard hill. They're all run-down single-story homes, abandoned long ago."

"Uncle, those old houses are still there, right?"

The Village Chief nodded. "They are. An old fortune-teller used to live there. After he died, the house was left empty. No one has lived there for years."

After hearing that, Huang Ji turned to look toward the graveyard hill. From far away, he spotted the tip of the house's roof, then checked its information and sensed four people inside.

"They really are there..." Huang Ji smiled.

At that point, this matter should no longer have needed his involvement.

Team Leader Chen immediately took out a map, had the Village Chief mark the location, and asked, "Any others?"

The Village Chief then marked several more places. Some were abandoned houses in the village, others were old air-raid shelters. He even marked the abandoned wells.

Team Leader Chen could not help sighing. Locals really did know the terrain best.

They quickly began checking the locations marked by the Village Chief one by one.

They would likely reach the old houses by the graveyard hill soon.

As for Huang Ji, he had already arrived near the site ahead of them and found a concealed place to observe quietly.

He would not feel at ease going home until he saw Doctor Liang safe.

It was worth mentioning that he had discovered many small warning traps around the old house.

They were very well hidden. Only Huang Ji could spot them at a glance. The traps were completely meaningless to him.

No matter how hidden a trap was, its information told Huang Ji plainly: I am a trap...

Still, if the criminal investigators were not careful in the darkness of night, they might alert the kidnappers in advance.

"Good thing I got here first." Huang Ji smiled, stepped forward lightly, and carefully dismantled every trap.

The traps were not dangerous. But once triggered, they would set off a small speaker ringing frantically.

He had already seen through the entire mechanism, so naturally, he dismantled it without making the slightest sound.

After clearing the way for the police, Huang Ji crouched down twenty meters from the old house.

The house was dark, but the people inside were using phones for light. With the glow from the phone screens, Huang Ji could vaguely make out their silhouettes.

That was right. It was that group: Wang Zhen, Hu Feng, and Lü Zongmin.

By observing them directly, Huang Ji could learn almost all of their information.

Including their memories.

Of course, there was too much information. And his perception speed was not fast right now—or rather, he could not compress and package it.

Huang Ji had once tried perceiving half a minute of someone's memories all at once, compressing those thirty seconds into one second for himself to absorb.

The result was that his head nearly split apart, and he fainted on the spot.

He had then realized that he could not withstand the instantaneous impact of such a massive amount of information.

The human brain's capacity was too weak. Fainting was the self-protection mechanism of the human brain being triggered.

With his current mental ability, if he wanted to perceive every memory of a twenty-year-old person, it would be equivalent to remaining in contact with them continuously for twenty years.

That was obviously impossible. Huang Ji did not have that much time or energy.

Usually, it was enough to search with a specific purpose in mind.

For example, if he wanted to know someone's most terrifying memory, Huang Ji could retrieve the most horrifying experience that person had ever had.

Likewise, he could search for their saddest experience, favorite thing, most beloved person, most treasured memory...

Or Huang Ji could learn of a particular event, then search whether the other person had experienced it.

All kinds of methods allowed him to understand a person extremely well. He did not need to observe for long; even a rough understanding of most people's lives was already very useful.

It could be said that Huang Ji's ability allowed him to know everyone inside and out.

"So it wasn't for that money, but for the Buddha statue? Wang Zhen and Hu Feng are still wanted criminals..."

Huang Ji was a little speechless. Wang Zhen and Hu Feng were wanted. Though they had escaped back then, they had been living under assumed names ever since, hiding everywhere in constant fear.

The only one who had lived well was Lü Zongmin. When the police cracked that old case, they had not known he existed.

But for the sake of that Buddha statue, Lü Zongmin had actually gotten personally involved in this mess.

Still, he had been rather meticulous.

He wore a mask, changed his hairstyle, and hired a thief named Lin Yong to steal a van.

He then used that van to kidnap Liang Yuan. Afterward, he had Lin Yong drive away alone while he took his two brothers from back then, dragged Liang Yuan out of the vehicle, and hid here.

If not for Huang Ji's ability to inspect information, the police probably would not even have opened a case yet.

Even if they had, they would still be looking for that van.

Even taking it ten thousand steps further, if the police had been capable enough to catch the driver named Lin Yong, they still would have had almost no way to trace it back to Lü Zongmin.

Lü Zongmin would have achieved his goal and returned home long ago.

But Lü Zongmin could never have imagined that someone would learn his name directly from his footprints, then impersonate him to write a ransom letter to the police and even leave his real name as the signature...

"Cough, cough, cough..." Liang Yuan was tied up inside the house, cloth covering her face. Wang Zhen held a bucket of water and kept forcing her to drink.

After the entire bucket was emptied, Lü Zongmin removed the cloth. Liang Yuan gasped for air and coughed violently, having choked on who knew how much water.

"Still not talking? Little Liang, the police already know you're missing. I don't have that much patience..." Lü Zongmin said coldly.

Liang Yuan broke down. "I really don't know. I never touched that money... I know even less about the Buddha statue..."

Lü Zongmin looked at her in disappointment, and murderous intent actually arose in him.

Seeing this, Huang Ji nearly could not stop himself from stepping out. He could sense Lü Zongmin's murderous intent at that very moment with absolute clarity.

He also knew very clearly that Liang Yuan truly did not know!

The money and the Buddha statue were with Liang Yuan's adoptive parents. Lü Zongmin had found Liang Yuan and acted hastily. It had been an enormous mistake.

Lü Zongmin had assumed Liang Yuan knew where the items were, and since she was alone in the countryside, she would be easier to kidnap. That was why he targeted her.

He had not expected that after interrogating her for an entire day, he would gain nothing.

By checking the information, Huang Ji learned that Lü Zongmin had interrogated Liang Yuan for nearly ten hours. He had slashed up her face, burned her hands and feet black with fire, used water torture and whipping, and had even chopped off one of her fingers.

But not knowing meant not knowing. They wanted the golden Buddha—was she supposed to conjure it out of thin air?

Poor Liang Yuan had no idea that her adoptive parents had already abandoned her. The moment they learned the news, the two of them ran away...

Huang Ji clenched his fists. He weighed his small body. He might be able to deal with Lü Zongmin alone, but Wang Zhen and Hu Feng were strong and robust. He was no match for them at all.

"Why are the police so slow..."

He was only an ordinary person, except... he could see information.

At that moment, all he could do was continually observe the three men's information and think of a solution.

P.S. Sorry.