From the moment I came into contact with a real gun, I knew perfectly well that I might have to deal with the authorities someday, and I secretly hoped it would happen.
I just hadn't expected the police to come knocking so soon. Even more unbelievable was how closely reality's development resembled the nightmare I'd had before.
That girl was the Serial Killer? Seriously?
Fear and excitement thudded violently in my chest at the same time.
Perhaps I had let my control over my facial muscles slip a little, because the policeman before me raised an eyebrow and asked, "What's wrong? Do you recognize this face?"
"Nothing. I just think..."
"You think?"
"A girl that young... could really be the Serial Killer?" I shifted some of my earlier disbelief into my tone.
"Oh, you mean that..." He nodded deeply. "Other people have asked the same thing. Apparently, she picked up a handgun somewhere. Girls in their rebellious phase can easily take things to extremes. Sometimes they don't care about their own lives or anyone else's. They're resentful toward adults and society, too. Then, if they happen to get their hands on a real gun, things can easily go wrong, both psychologically and physically."
"Can she really be classified as a murderer?" I asked inquisitively.
"If the circumstances are especially serious, yes... You can look it up online later." He clearly didn't intend to elaborate, and asked, "So, have you actually seen her? Does this face look familiar? She's appeared around this area and poses a serious threat to the lives of nearby residents. The sooner she's caught, the better. There's even a cash reward for useful reports."
I knew perfectly well that reporting her came with a reward, while harboring her would bring serious criminal liability. It probably wouldn't mean life imprisonment as the nightmare had claimed, but it would certainly leave my future in darkness.
During the first half of moving the girl last night, I had deliberately avoided pedestrians and roadside cameras. During the second half, I had moved her inside a large suitcase. In theory, I shouldn't have been exposed so easily. But I wasn't some dangerous criminal who routinely prepared for crimes, so I couldn't confidently insist that I had avoided every surveillance camera. There might have been cameras in some blind spot that I hadn't noticed. The possibility of the authorities digging me out was real.
Perhaps the policeman in front of me had already obtained evidence against me and was giving me one last chance to confess voluntarily. I'd better admit that I had made a momentary mistake before there was truly no turning back, and quickly hand over that troublesome girl.
But after finally encountering such an abnormal event and reaching this point, was I really going to end this mysterious encounter anticlimactically as a concerned citizen? I hadn't even heard the story yet!
There were several unfathomable mysteries surrounding the girl. The explanation that she was merely "a rebellious girl who had somehow picked up a real gun" was nowhere near enough to satisfy me. If I let her go, I would probably lose my position to keep participating in this bizarre incident forever.
I couldn't hand that child over yet—not before I was satisfied.
Faced with the policeman's questions, I first pretended to recall, then answered, "I don't think I've seen her."
"All right... Sorry for taking up your time." The policeman showed neither surprise nor disappointment. He simply took back the photo, then skillfully pulled my door shut. "If you see her afterward, remember to call the police immediately."
"Understood."
I answered in a normal tone and closed the door. Then I began listening to the movements outside.
The policeman's footsteps moved to the apartment next door, and knocking sounded again. It seemed he had gone to the neighbors to continue asking for information. He was probably planning to visit every household one by one.
I seemed to have heard somewhere before that, in modern times, more than ninety percent of solved cases were actually resolved through this kind of plain, unglamorous door-to-door investigation and surveillance footage.
To be safe, I didn't immediately return to the bedroom to speak with the girl. Instead, I picked up my phone beside the sofa and went back to the entrance. While silently listening to the policeman's movements outside, I searched for recent cases involving the Serial Killer in the city I lived in—Xianshui City.
There really was one.
Over the past two or three months, five corpses with horribly mangled appearances had been discovered one after another in the urban area of Xianshui City. The victims were all officials and wealthy people of relatively high social standing.
Media coverage seemed to have been subjected to some degree of control. None of the news I could find recorded their exact causes of death, nor did it include photos or detailed descriptions of their "horribly mangled appearances." I only knew that the authorities had collected fibers and skin tissue that didn't belong to the victims from beneath the fingernails of all five corpses. They were suspected to have been torn from the killer's clothes and body during the victims' struggles before death. It could be confirmed that all five crimes had been committed by the same person.
The killer's true identity still hadn't been uncovered. The upper classes were in a state of panic, terrified of becoming the next corpse.
I vaguely remembered this news. When I saw it last month, I had even wondered whether I should investigate for fun. But at the time, I had been focused on investigating other Ghost Stories and urban legends, so I hadn't paid much attention to this bizarre serial murder case that had occurred locally.
I had assumed it was merely another deranged, wealth-hating Serial Killer who would soon be captured by the all-powerful authorities. Yet so much time had passed, and the case still hadn't made the slightest progress.
Was that mysterious girl the killer in this case?
Something felt wrong. Assuming the victims had been shot to death with a handgun, it wouldn't make sense to describe their deaths as "horribly mangled."
Of course, if all five victims had been shot in the head until their skulls exploded, that would be another matter. But in that situation, would the victims really have had a chance to claw at the killer while struggling before death? And not just once? At the end of the day, given a handgun's range, it wasn't realistic for the victims to get within arm's reach of the killer.
But... I couldn't be so certain. Perhaps the girl's aim was terrible, and she could only be sure of hitting her victims from within reach. Or perhaps she had committed the murders with her fists and feet, just as she had used joint locks against me earlier.
Besides, that policeman had indeed accused the girl of being the killer. And although the girl was dressed like a victim, she herself hadn't suffered the slightest injury.
If she really was the murderer, then what I was doing now...
No, stop. There were still too few clues. Reaching a conclusion now would be jumping the gun.
I might as well ask her directly and see how she reacted.
-
After the policeman finished canvassing this floor, I turned around and took the handgun hidden behind the sofa. I disengaged the safety again, then went to the bedroom and pushed the door open.
The girl was sitting cross-legged on the bed, arms folded in a meditative pose, completely unconcerned by how scantily clad she was.
She seemed to have remained in the same spot the whole time, but I noticed subtle traces that various places in the room had been disturbed. It seemed she had quietly searched the bedroom while I was speaking with the policeman, trying to uncover information about me.
At the sound of the door opening, her lowered head snapped up. She quickly swept her eyes over my back before looking at me, her face filled with bafflement.
"Why are you hiding me?" Her brows drew into a deep frown, and her tone was thick with suspicion. "You heard it just now, didn't you? I'm a vicious Serial Killer. If you're just an ordinary citizen, shouldn't you report me? Wouldn't that be the logical thing to do?"
"Then are you a murderer?" I asked in return.
"I'm not." She denied it firmly at first, then paused, becoming uncertain herself. "...Am I not?"
"Whether you are or not, I hope you can give me a definite answer."
"I am and I'm not." Her wording remained uncertain this time, but her tone was firm. "At least, I haven't killed anyone in this era."
"That makes no sense," I said. "Are you trying to say you're from the future?"
"Answer my original question first." Her tone hardened as she attempted to regain control of the conversation. "Why are you hiding me?"
I had no intention of arguing with her over control of the conversation. I had already prepared my lines and answered fluently. "Because you aren't the killer."
"And what makes you say that?" she asked suspiciously.
"The victims' deaths were all caused by something other than gunshots." I tossed her my phone, which displayed the webpage, and continued, "Besides, I don't believe the killer in this case would end up lying in the ruins covered in blood in the middle of the night like one of the victims."
That was a lie. Although I hadn't yet seen direct evidence proving that she was the killer, I had already mentally prepared myself for the possibility that she was. To a certain extent, I had even prepared myself to deal with her in secret.
She doggedly pressed me, "Even if you don't believe I'm the killer, you still have no reason to hide me. Whether I'm the killer or not, the fact remains that I violated the laws of this era by possessing firearms and ammunition. You should tell the police about me."
"Didn't I say it before? You were the one who told me not to call the police." As I spoke, I slowly walked to the desk, set the handgun on its surface, then turned to face her. "I don't know what your circumstances are, but since firearms and ammunition are involved, your circumstances must concern your life."
"To me, you're simply a girl in tattered clothes who collapsed in the night. I wanted to step forward and protect you. Is that really so strange?"
Perhaps I had overdone it with my carefully prepared "line." She retreated to the corner of the bed using both hands and feet as if she had been scalded. Then she swallowed and asked, wide-eyed, "J-just... just because of that?"
At this point, I had to see the act through even if I had to grit my teeth.
"Isn't that enough?"
"How could this be? Could people in this era really..." She was shaken in a way I hadn't expected.
I had thought I would need to spend much more time persuading her, but apparently she believed me already.
But what exactly did she mean by "this era" and "that era"? Did she have some kind of chuunibyou? Or did she truly have circumstances beyond my imagination?
I was about to voice my confusion again, but she first steadied herself. After looking at me for a while, she relaxed her guard slightly and introduced herself. "My name is Maza. The 'Ma' from sesame, and the 'Za' from breakfast. What's your name?"
"I'm Zhuang Cheng. 'Zhuang' as in solemn, and 'Cheng' as in success," I replied.
Maza seemed to make some important decision in her mind.
She straightened her posture and sat properly on the bed, placing both hands on her knees.
"All right, Zhuang Cheng... Next, I'm going to tell you my true identity and origins. I know you probably won't believe me, but I hope you'll listen first."
Was she finally going to confess?
Wasn't this too fast? Was she going to tell the truth, or weave a lie to deceive me?
Filled with anticipation, I nodded. "Go ahead."
"Just as you said earlier, I don't belong to this era. I traveled here from the future." The moment she opened her mouth, she dropped a bombshell. "And in the future, human civilization has been destroyed. The world has entered the age of doomsday."
Before you continue