Rain Crow and White Jack (1)

An hour later, Dawn Capital, Old Jingmai Police Station.

Night had deepened. Ke Mingwei sat alone in a leather chair.

Cold white light spilled down from the ceiling, shrouding his face.

At that moment, Ke Mingwei's expression was somewhat complicated. He first looked up at the incident report posted on the wall, then turned to the footage playing on the television.

In the footage, the boy in a school uniform held a utility knife and a flashlight as he approached his target step by step, his gaze as calm as that of a seasoned hunter.

Ke Mingwei closed his heavy eyelids and rubbed his temples for a while, but his brow remained tightly furrowed.

No matter how he tried to distract himself, his thoughts kept returning to the school bus from that afternoon. If he had not made it there in time, it would all have been over.

His son might have died on that school bus. Ke Mingwei did not dare imagine how earth-shattering the changes to his family would have been if that had happened, nor did he dare imagine how he would have faced the rest of them.

In the silence, the phone in his jacket pocket suddenly rang.

Ke Mingwei's thoughts were interrupted. He took out the phone and glanced at it. It was an unfamiliar number.

He was puzzled. Why would anyone know this number? He only used this phone when contacting his family and never used it on any other occasion.

After pondering for a moment, he answered. A low, hoarse voice immediately came through the phone.

"Is this Mr. Rain Crow? Please watch the livestream. I sent it to you by text. Don't waste time tracing the source of my message, because I'll tell you soon enough. Oh, and... don't investigate who this phone belongs to either, because it isn't mine."

Ke Mingwei frowned. Before he could say anything, the other party had already hung up.

Right after that, he saw a text notification pop up at the top of the screen.

Ke Mingwei tapped the link in the message, and a livestream room opened on his phone.

To his surprise, the livestream's border was decorated with an incredibly girlish line of pink text: "Rain Crow, LOVE LOVE! Crow Crow's Exclusive Livestream Room!" Two large heart emojis followed it, making Ke Mingwei narrow his eyes.

However, the content of the livestream was utterly at odds with that eye-searing border.

The background was a pitch-black warehouse, cluttered with miscellaneous items and piles of old machinery. At that moment, a blond man with tattoos on his arms was tied up from head to toe with rope, a rag stuffed in his mouth as he was forced to sit in a chair.

The blond man hung his head desperately low, staring at the floor in terror. A puddle of liquid had soaked the soles of his shoes. It was oil. A lighter was tied to a pillar not far from him.

The lighter swayed precariously, seeming ready to fall into the oil at any moment and erupt into a roaring blaze.

"Uh... this man is one of your admirers. Of course, I'm one of your admirers too."

A bizarre voice suddenly rang out from the screen, identical to the voice from the earlier call. "Do you see the crow tattoo on his arm? His love for you is so naked and obvious. Mm, I'm almost moved myself."

Ke Mingwei narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Oh, right, I forgot to introduce myself... This is me." As the eerie voice fell, the livestream camera turned and switched to another location.

It was still a warehouse, but its layout and surroundings differed slightly from the previous one. The camera suddenly zoomed out, revealing a pale, grotesque humanoid figure chained to a wooden chair in the very center of the warehouse.

It hung its head, staring fixedly at the floor. It held a cane in its hands, which rested across its crossed legs.

The next second, the doll abruptly raised its head.

What first filled the screen was a grotesque human face. It was deathly pale, with no nose and no ears, only a pair of hollow eyes and cracked corners of its mouth.

An ordinary person sitting before the screen might have been frightened into cardiac arrest by the sight. But Ke Mingwei was no ordinary person. He was Rain Crow. Over the years, he had faced countless criminals with bizarre methods.

He stared at the doll's face without saying a word.

The doll's neck twisted with sharp clicks, and every joint in its body seemed to creak softly. A closer look revealed a small white dot lodged at the connection of each limb, like the joints on an art-room mannequin.

It gazed straight ahead, as though looking Ke Mingwei in the eye through the screen, then spoke in an odd, translated-sounding tone.

"Pleased to meet you. My name is 'White Jack'..."

"White Jack..." Ke Mingwei stared at the grotesque figure on the screen and silently repeated the name to himself.

The pale doll called White Jack suddenly shifted its gaze, its hollow eyes looking into the distance.

"Mr. Rain Crow, do you remember that pitiful man tied to the chair just now?" White Jack said casually. "He and I aren't in the same place... But I'm about to tell you his address, so you'll have a chance to save him. If you don't get there in time, your admirer will burn to death in a fire..."

It paused. "And I'm in the same predicament. Look, I'm tied to a chair too. There's oil all over the floor beneath my feet as well. Isn't that dangerous?"

Ke Mingwei completely understood White Jack's intentions. This was a threatening crime.

"From what I know about you... even at top speed, it would take you at least four minutes to reach either location, and you can only choose one."

At that point, the pale doll suddenly tilted its head and lowered its voice.

"Will you come save me, or will you save the other person?"

Ke Mingwei remained silent. The cracked corners of the doll's mouth were reflected in his deep pupils.

On the livestream screen, White Jack suddenly leaned back against the chair.

"I forgot to tell you. The abandoned warehouse on Keslan Street, and the warehouse at Old Jingmai Port. I'm on Keslan Street, while your admirer is at the port..."

A bright red countdown suddenly appeared on the livestream. It began at 240 seconds and ticked down, the blood-red digits bouncing with each change.

"Alright, you can start your parkour now," White Jack said in a low, mocking voice.

Before it had finished speaking, Ke Mingwei silently rose from the leather chair, put on his coat, and walked out of the police station, plunging into the night.

Three minutes later, Old Jingmai Port.

Amid piercing screeches, a dark mass of crows shattered through the glass and poured into the warehouse like a black rainstorm. They slowly gathered in a corner of the warehouse, forming a human figure.

Rain Crow was shrouded from head to toe in a black cloak, his eyes blazing beneath his helmet. At the mouth of his mask, a black crow's beak extended forward like a sharp blade.

The instant he entered the abandoned warehouse, Rain Crow slowly raised his head and swept his gaze around.

Yet he did not see the tattooed man. Instead, he saw a pale, grotesque doll.

At that moment, a beam of moonlight suddenly poured in through the open skylight, like a spotlight on a magic stage, illuminating the doll's head without reservation.

White Jack abruptly raised its head and looked straight into Rain Crow's eyes.

"Surprised? I switched the locations I gave you. I'm actually at the port, while he's on Keslan Street... Well, at first I thought you would definitely come to see me, so I arranged a surprise for you at the other location. I didn't expect you to choose him."

It spoke unhurriedly as it raised its pale, bone-like right hand.

It held a phone, its screen displaying the livestream.

Under the moonlight, a hysterical wail came from the cramped screen. In the other warehouse, the lighter would fall in one minute, igniting the gasoline all over the floor.

"See? It's all because you chose wrong, so he died."

As it spoke, White Jack lowered its head and sighed. "If you had chosen me, he wouldn't have died. Let's observe a few seconds of silence for this poor fool killed by Lord Rain Crow... He never would have imagined that the person responsible for his death would be the person he had admired most his entire life."

On the phone screen, the man in the chair screamed and convulsed. The rag had disappeared from his mouth. He writhed amid the flames, wailed, and struggled to stretch out his shriveled right hand.

Rain Crow slowly walked forward, his black cloak dragging across the floor as a violent glint flashed through the corner of his eye.

"Of course... you failed to save me too."

As White Jack spoke, it slightly extended its chain-bound right hand and gripped the magician's cane across its thighs.

At that instant, a blue flame suddenly sprang up from the end of the black cane. The cane ignited the gasoline spread across the floor.

A thunderous boom rang through the deathly silent warehouse. Then an explosive blaze shot into the air, swallowing the pale doll's figure.

Suddenly, a hysterical woman's voice came from within the sea of fire, as if calling for help.

"Mingwei, save me—"

Hearing his own name, Rain Crow narrowed his eyes slightly. If he had heard correctly, the voice coming from the flames... belonged to his wife, Xia Wenna.