Section 17 This is a police car specifically used for transporting prisoners, with a wire mesh separating the driver's cabin from the rear compartment. A fat policeman named Lao Ye is driving in the front, while the rest of us sit in the back, staring intently at Wang Fei. Wang Fei appears very relaxed in the car, his face still wearing a ‘smile' that he might have only recently learned. No matter who looks at him, it feels extremely irritating—especially to Ling Zhijie. I think if he weren't a police officer, he might actually shoot him. But I am certain that Ling Zhijie has already realized a critical issue: from the moment Wang Fei walked into the police station to surrender himself, he realized that Wang Fei's surrender was not so simple. Moreover, he had a contingency plan, introducing the concept of the ‘thirteenth corpse' and hiding its location as leverage, forcing the police to accompany him to the scene to identify the ‘corpse.' Then, he took the initiative to choose a late-night time period—a time when most people's willpower is at its weakest and usually used by police for sudden interrogations—to propose going to the scene. The urgency of the situation wouldn't allow Ling Zhijie to report to his superiors, nor to have more police officers accompany them. Additionally, in the interrogation room, he said something to me, requiring me to follow instructions and help him with certain tasks. All of this indicates that behind Wang Fei's bizarre smile lies a huge conspiracy. He is fully confident in this conspiracy, having prepared everything, merely waiting for the mechanisms to start operating normally. His surrender is just the switch that starts this massive machine, and I—He Ning—am a crucial component of this machine. Although I am sure that Ling Zhijie has realized this, I cannot be certain whether he is prepared to stop the operation of this massive machine. I turned to look at him; at this moment, he is no longer staring at Wang Fei but has his eyes closed, his brows furrowed, as if thinking rapidly. Date: 2010-5-13 16:44:00 There is no sign that the snow outside is letting up. It is accumulating thicker on the road, making driving extremely difficult. Ling Zhijie urges Lao Ye several times to drive faster, but the wheels are slipping, and going fast is no longer within easy reach.On a muddy road near the pine forest farm, a sudden sound of wheels spinning came from under the car—it wouldn't move. A few people hurriedly got out to push. Wang Fei sat there and asked, "Do you want me to help too?" Ling Zhijie glanced at him, ignored him, and then turned to instruct Xiao Song to stay in the car and keep a close watch. He got out, closed the door, and gave a look to the few of us who had come down together. We all bent down to push the car, but I noticed that no one was really exerting force, so the wheels remained stuck in the mud, not moving at all.
At this moment, Ling Zhijie lowered his head and said to everyone, "The pine forest farm is a trap. That son of a bitch in the car has already set it up, just waiting for us to go in. When the time comes, he'll definitely take advantage of the chaos to escape. I'm giving each of you a heads-up here—be careful!"
It seemed my guess was correct; Ling Zhijie had indeed realized this problem. So, I took the opportunity to tell him the second half of what Wang Fei had said to me. Ling Zhijie frowned and said, "If he has already told you what to do, that would make it easier to deduce what he wants, but if he hasn't made it clear, it's really difficult… Here's what we'll do: you act according to the situation. The most important thing is to rescue Xin Jie; everything else can be figured out later."
I nodded and asked if he had any plans now. He said, "No definite plan, but in that son of a bitch's plan, we should drive straight to the forest farm. He might have set traps to puncture the tires, which would create conditions for his escape. So, we'll leave the car here and walk over!"
I checked my phone; it was a little past 5:20 a.m., less than an hour until 6:15 when Wang Fei had said, and I wasn't sure if we'd make it in time, so I asked Ling Zhijie what he thought.
Old Ye beside me said that from here it wasn't far to the place with houses near the forest farm—it would usually take about half an hour without snow. Given the current situation, if we moved quickly, half an hour should still be possible.
Even if it takes half an hour to reach the houses, time was still extremely tight.Because I had to find Xin Jie's exact location in the forest farm, rescue her, and also constantly face the traps set by Wang Fei at any moment... under these circumstances, my mind should have been quite agitated. But strangely, I was unusually calm. Could it be, as I had predicted, that Xin Jie was not in the forest farm at all?
Section 18
I carefully recalled my conversation with Wang Fei in the interrogation room. At that time, Wang Fei specifically called me over, and I naturally associated this with the possibility that my missing wife was related to him.
After hearing my wife's name, Wang Fei spoke casually, saying that she was not dead. Based on this, I immediately concluded that the "thirteenth corpse" he mentioned was my wife. It was at this point that Ling Zhijie also came to the same conclusion as I did, which is why he flew into a rage and beat Wang Fei.
Wang Fei, who was beaten, remained calm and looked as if he had long expected this. This expression further convinced us that Xin Jie was indeed in his hands.
This was a series of psychological chain reactions, very natural.
But after I calmed down, I suddenly realized that the circumstances on the night Xin Jie disappeared were too bizarre, too strange for me to believe they could be achieved by human strength alone.
Adding to that were the inexplicable things that later appeared in the house, the terrifying shadow I saw that evening, and the various eerie occurrences in the bathroom and upstairs in room 702. Looking back, these things and what Wang Fei did seemed to be completely unrelated.
Even if Wang Fei were extremely intelligent and meticulous in his planning, I could not believe that he could make my wife appear three times outside the front door, then fly out the window and disappear, let alone appear like a real ghost in my bedroom and suddenly vanish without leaving any trace, and later even crawl through the bathroom pipes to frighten me like that...
Therefore, the person in the forest farm might not have been my wife at all. Wang Fei may have simply exploited my psychology to help him execute his plan, only that currently, none of us knows what his plan is or what exactly he intends to do.
Although I now consider there to be a 90% chance that Xin Jie is not in the forest farm, I currently have no other clues to find her whereabouts, so I can only rely on the remaining 10% possibility to continue searching in the Pine Forest Farm.Moreover, this is also the big matter that has left Ling Zhijie overwhelmed, so I have no reason to back out. Wang Fei was escorted off the car by Xiao Song, and the six of us began walking to the Pine Forest Farm. Date: 2010-5-16 12:55:00 It seemed that since it started snowing, no one had entered or left the Pine Forest Farm. The snow on this muddy road was fresh and quite thick, reaching more than half of the lower leg, making it very difficult to walk, and the terrain kept going uphill, making it hard to drive even with a car. I tried running, but I simply couldn't, and the others were the same. We were all exhausted and gasping for breath, whereas Wang Fei, who was being escorted at the very front, walked quite fast and seemed very relaxed. Ling Zhijie noticed that the rest of us were walking too slowly and urged us several times. But Old Yao seemed completely exhausted, panting heavily, and shouted to Ling Zhijie, 'You… the ones who can walk faster, go ahead. I… Old Ye and I really can't move faster, don't… don't wait, we'll follow behind anyway and will reach the forest soon.' I thought to myself that this couldn't work; if we split up, it could be tricky if we ran into the traps set by Wang Fei. Just as I was about to tell them it's better to stick together, Old Ye came up beside me and quietly said, 'Now we have to split into two small teams, one in front and one behind. Hurry and keep up with Ling's team; Old Yao and I will stay at the rear.' When he said this, I understood. Splitting up like this was indeed better; if something happened to the front, those at the back could provide support, preventing the whole group from being trapped. Ling Zhijie and Old Yao probably had already come to an understanding. Shortly after responding, they tested the walkie-talkie to maintain communication and then did not wait for the others. Together with Xiao Song, they continued escorting Wang Fei forward, and I ran to catch up. Twenty-five minutes later, we finally saw several rows of low single-story buildings, likely the residences of the forest farm administrators. Date: 2010-5-17 11:36:00 'Just ahead? Which building?' Ling Zhijie asked Wang Fei. 'Not those buildings. Follow me.' 'I'm warning you, it's already 5:58, seventeen minutes before the time you mentioned. If this is Dong Xinjie's last seventeen minutes, it will also be your last seventeen minutes!'"Hehe, it doesn't matter that I only have a few minutes left, because no one cares," Wang Fei said. After finishing this sentence, he turned back and looked at the two of us, then continued, "But Dong Xinjie is different; at least two people care about her here."
In the darkness, I couldn't see Ling Zhijie's expression, but I knew these words were enough to anger him again. So, following Wang Fei's words, I said, "You just keep trying to provoke our anger. Hehe, although I don't know your purpose in doing this, I have to regretfully tell you that I never believed from the start that we would find Dong Xinjie here."
As expected, Wang Fei stopped in his tracks and said, "Then why are you still following? You clearly know this is a trap I set, and yet you follow in to die?"
No sooner had he finished speaking than he suddenly leaned forward and fell to the ground. I thought something unexpected had happened and tensed for a moment, but then I saw that it was Xiao Song beside him who had used a joint lock, pressing Wang Fei's head directly into the snow.
"Captain Ling, he said there's a trap here. What should we do?" Xiao Song's voice was quite tense. That made me recall that earlier, when we pretended to push the cart, he had stayed behind on the vehicle and had not gone through with the gas with him.
Ling Zhijie snorted and said, "Why panic? Even if there's a trap, he'll step on it first." After saying this, he lifted Wang Fei from the ground and pushed him forward as we continued walking.
We skirted around the bungalow and entered the forest area behind it. After walking about a hundred meters, we stopped in front of a small mound covered with heavy snow. Wang Fei clawed at the slope of the mound a few times, and a large chunk of something was unearthed. On that slope, a pitch-black hole appeared.
