Chapter 232 37

Chapter 37

Li Shang continued, "He would kill young people and then lure their parents into joining the Sentient Beings Society."

Chen Yanchu's eyebrows twitched slightly, but he said, "What kind of person would do that? Is he mentally ill?"

Li Shang rose from his chair and went on, "His targets are mostly young people, around fourteen to twenty years old, but there's a certain randomness to it. I believe that in Bai Zang's subconscious, the killings and tortures he commits are a manifestation of his self-loathing from adolescence to young adulthood, as well as an overcompensation for the powerlessness he felt in childhood. He is creating his own mirror image."

"Killing children to retaliate against parents. His subconscious harbors a tendency toward self-destruction. He hates his own family and is constantly creating cycles." Li Shang paused slightly, allowing Chen Yanchu to digest his words before concluding, "What he seeks is likely a cycle of venting hatred and reveling in self-satisfied victory."

Li Shang's words effectively dissected the underlying thoughts behind Bai Zang's actions.

Chen Yanchu remained silent for a moment before asking, "What would drive someone to do this?"

Li Shang answered earnestly, "From a psychological perspective, killing teenagers to create accidents is an act of 'destruction,' while luring parents into the cult is for 'construction.' Both serve one goal: to prove that he is no longer the weak person he once was, but an omnipotent master who can decide others' fates."

After working on this case for some time and combining it with theories of criminal psychology, Li Shang had gradually developed and refined these theories.

Chen Yanchu, sitting across from him, listened quietly without refuting. His behavior at this moment was highly unusual.

On one hand, he wanted to pretend he knew nothing; on the other, he couldn't help but listen.

His cold, neglected childhood felt like bitter liquid churning in his chest.

He remembered sitting by the window studying when he was young. Whenever he turned on the light, moths would fly in through the gaps in the window.

At first, he would patiently shoo the insects away.

Until one time, as a young child, he reached out and caught one.

Initially, he was just too lonely and bored. He only wanted to trap it, to keep it from flying away. He thought of finding a bottle to catch it, even imagining they could be friends. But the moth struggled defiantly in his palm, desperately trying to escape.

This behavior infuriated him.

Then he slowly tightened his grip, his fingers closing, feeling the insect's wings fluttering in his palm until it went completely still, its body oozing yellowish-green fluid.

The insect was dead.

Hearing the sounds his mother made in the living room, he slowly opened his fingers, looked at the corpse in his palm, and his body trembled with excitement.

That strange sense of control—for the first time in his life, he felt he could grasp something.

From then on, he linked death and blood with happiness.

After that, he chased this feeling repeatedly.

From the cat in the alley to the people in the compound, to He Lin...

And now, Li Shang's analysis gave him the strange sense that "he gets me."

After finishing his psychological profile of Bai Zang, Li Shang said, "That person planned his final attack for today. Based on the prophecy he left, the police have analyzed that the location should be Mingyue Station."

Chen Yanchu's heart pounded, a slight smile tugged at his lips. He couldn't help but say, "Life should be painful. It should be without order. The suffering in this world must be felt by more people to have meaning."

Then, sitting in this special interrogation room, Chen Yanchu collected himself and once again denied, "Officer Li, the story is quite interesting, but you should go find the actual perpetrator. Wasting time with me is meaningless."

On the monitor behind Li Shang, trains moved through the station.

As he spoke, Chen Yanchu's gaze shifted, for the umpteenth time, almost unconsciously falling on the monitor screen he was anticipating.

In the first few minutes after entering this room, he had already memorized the positions of these monitors.

Now, with the time approaching, he looked forward to witnessing that thrilling scene.

At this moment, Chen Yanchu's eyes and expression were fully observed by Li Shang.

From the moment Chen Yanchu entered this room, Li Shang had not asked him about the alleged prophecy or the potential incident. These questions had been asked countless times by several people during the interrogations over the past few days.

Li Shang didn't think he could get answers to questions that even the interrogation experts couldn't get out of him.

So he came up with this plan to test him.

His analysis had its purpose: to subtly pierce through Chen Yanchu's defenses.

But this was only a psychological ploy; his real goal was to make him reveal his true intentions. He had been continuously engaging Chen Yanchu's attention, and in such a situation, many of his actions would become unconscious.

This was also the police's last resort, as all other investigations had reached a dead end with no other options.

This room was almost an exact replica of the station's monitoring room, except for the slightly different placement of the monitors. But these details were crucial.

The placement of each monitor screen had been carefully planned, connected to different lines and machines. These positions corresponded to the possible incident scenarios listed by the police.

Moreover, the most suspicious key monitors were placed at the four corners of the monitor wall, allowing Li Shang to quickly identify the corresponding scenario when Chen Yanchu's gaze wandered, reducing the chance of error.

From the moment Chen Yanchu entered the room, he had been cautious and strenuously controlling his demeanor. But as the conversation deepened, as his psychological state was gradually exposed, and with the time approaching, he slowly let his guard down and could no longer contain his urges.

He kept glancing repeatedly at one particular monitor screen.

Earlier in the conversation, Li Shang had stood up and walked back and forth before the monitors. Because some screens were blocked, Chen Yanchu even leaned his head or shifted position.

This made it even clearer for Li Shang to identify which monitor screen he was focused on.

So, when Chen Yanchu's gaze lingered on that screen for an extended period once again, Li Shang already knew the answer.

Li Shang pressed the radio earpiece by his ear and spoke into it, addressing the command center and the SWAT team on the other end: "Plan Twenty, pay attention to the trains approaching on tracks three and four. Double-check the track switches."

Hearing his words, Chen Yanchu's face suddenly changed, and he blurted out, "No... impossible... How did you..."

As the words left his mouth, his face turned pale, and he clenched his teeth.

After finishing the call, Li Shang turned to him and finished the question he hadn't asked: "You want to ask how I figured out your target?"

Chen Yanchu suddenly realized that the whole setup was a trap. During the conversation, Li Shang had been observing his movements and expressions all along.

Hatred surged through him like a hot stream rushing to his head: "You set a trap on purpose..."

At this point, Chen Yanchu could no longer care about maintaining his facade. He let out a manic laugh and said, "Even if you found out, what can you do? There's only one minute left! Those two trains are about to pass! It's too late—you simply don't have time to stop anything!"

He knew that even if the police had assigned many officers, conducted various investigations, searches, reviewed surveillance footage, and screened passengers entering Mingyue Station, they would inevitably find nothing.

The entire station now depended on automated track switching, and this gave him an opportunity.

A former member of the Sentient Beings Society had worked in the control room of Mingyue Station. He had that person secretly copy the internal system program for him to study.

As early as a month ago, he had hacked into the railway signal internal network and implanted malicious code. Then, a week ago, he programmed it to activate automatically. The program would run at the predetermined time, tampering with the control center's commands and altering the track switch operations.

He had long since determined the target of this incident.

One thing Li Shang had analyzed correctly: he did prefer young victims. One of the two trains that were about to collide had hundreds of students in the front cars—all on a study trip, with tickets purchased together.

And those two trains were going to collide, like the intersecting fates of the youths.

After a deafening crash, the cars would be piled with young bodies, crushed by the metal, blood and flesh, with dismembered limbs and fragments scattered across the tracks.

Following that, the program would self-destruct, eliminating all traces.

He had another reason for choosing this method of execution—he often recalled his father’s death, smashed to pieces by a car while fleeing.

He wanted to recreate that process, to witness with his own eyes how he died.

This was his master plan, and no mistakes could be tolerated in these final critical moments.

The time finally reached the predetermined moment. Chen Yanchu’s eyes were locked on that surveillance screen.

But the scene he had been anticipating never came.

No! Impossible! he thought.

Unless...

Chen Yanchu’s eyes widened abruptly, his body jolting as a possibility dawned on him. Frowning, he scrutinized the screen and finally noticed some tell-tale signs.

Some of the surveillance footage was real, while another part might be fake!

The shots displaying timestamps on the screen were all from indoor locations.

For example, the time and train numbers on the large screen in the waiting hall, and the red digits on the electronic clock in the waiting room—the monitors connected to these might be playing recordings from previous days.

Because the lighting in each camera’s position varied, and the recorded footage was played alongside live feeds, he had jumped to the conclusion that all the surveillance was captured at the same time.

Unbeknownst to him, this was a carefully orchestrated deception by the police.

He had only noticed the absence of rain in the outdoor footage but failed to consider that the surveillance screens were not all recording at the same time.

The police were misleading him—there was actually a delay between the live surveillance and the pre-recorded footage!

In other words, the time he had deduced from the surveillance was earlier than the actual current time!

Thus, the scene he had been hoping for did not appear because it had not yet happened.

Chen Yanchu’s body trembled as he glared furiously at Li Shang, who stood before him.

He wasn't going to accept this!

Just then, Li Shang’s earpiece picked up He Xin’s urgent voice: "We, along with the workers, have rechecked the network commands and those two tracks—we found an anomaly in the track switching! The station has contacted the trains, instructing the drivers to apply emergency brakes! But time is tight—the two trains have already entered the station..."

Li Shang turned to look at the surveillance screen. The predicted time had arrived...