Chapter 76: The Cat Who’d Just Woken Up
Twisted-faced corpses lay silently on the ground, their eyes filled with endless hatred.
It was pitch-black all around—though not so black that you couldn’t see anything. It was more like a heavy, ink-dark fog shrouded the place, shrinking visibility to a tiny, cramped radius.
So as he walked through the abyss, Lin Jiangye had to stay on guard every second, wary of someone—or something—lunging out to attack.
But the abyss held more corpses than anything else. Every two steps, he might bump into one—sometimes not even whole.
In a span of barely ten meters, Lin Jiangye had already encountered more than eight bodies. Every single one was mutilated; every single one had died with rage burning in its bones.
Ever since he’d arrived in the abyss, scenes like this had become routine. What started as fear and shock had gradually turned into numbness.
He lowered his gaze to the corpse in front of him. He was just about to step over it and move on when something suddenly clamped onto his ankle.
He looked down again—and saw the corpse’s face twisting, warping, slowly transforming into another face.
A familiar face.
“Please… catch the killer… please!” It was sobbing and begging, the voice pitiful—almost pathetic.
Lin Jiangye stared at that face for a long time, and then it hit him why it felt familiar.
It belonged to one of the sixteen victims they had dug up from the island yesterday.
“Please! Save me! Why didn’t you save me?! Why didn’t you bring the killer to justice?! Why did it take you so long to find us?!”
The corpse’s shrieking grew louder and louder. The hand gripping his ankle tightened, as if it meant to snap his foot clean off.
And at the same time, the face no longer looked familiar—because it wasn’t one face anymore.
More than a dozen mismatched features were crammed onto a single skull.
Where an eye should’ve been was a mouth—its shape uncannily like the missing girl on the list. Where the nose should’ve been was an eye, a gray pupil stretched wide, staring him down; Lin Jiangye recognized that eye too—another name on the list.
Sixteen people—one feature stolen from each—squeezed into the same grotesque “face.” The mouths screamed insults, the eyes refused to blink, the brow remained knotted in fury, and the nose and ears were flushed red as if rage itself had set them on fire.
Lin Jiangye narrowed his eyes, lifting his foot—ready to crush that face into pulp—
When a thick, golden, plush paw slammed down on the corpse.
It hit hard. One slap, and the corpse went flat.
Next came a bird’s sharp talons, raking wildly at the corpse’s face. All those mouths cried out in pain, wailing and begging for mercy.
Then more and more fluffy paws dropped like hammers—one after another—beating the corpse into helpless sobs until it finally let go of Lin Jiangye’s ankle.
Lin Jiangye squatted on the ground. Watching those paws appear one after another, a smile slowly spread in his eyes.
He recognized every one of them.
That brownish-gray little paw belonged to Zang’ao. The black-and-orange one was the tortoiseshell. The big black paw was Mimi’s. The gray-black paw with a hint of white was Yuheng’s. The black bird talons belonged to Bixi and Opal…
Everyone had joined in—except the little puppies. One paw after another, they shredded that eerie corpse into pieces, until at last it dissolved into black mist and vanished.
Lin Jiangye looked at the huge paw beside him—the first one to strike.
He knew exactly whose paw it was.
“Tiger Mom… thank you!” He hugged the paw and nuzzled it. But this was a dream—so even holding that fluffy paw, all he felt was a bone-deep chill.
“Tiger Mom, you won’t get anything gross on your paw from smacking that corpse, right?”
The moment he finished speaking, the paw in his arms suddenly sprang up and slapped him hard—sending him flying straight out of the dream.
Lin Jiangye jolted awake in bed, staring at the white ceiling, and then let out a quiet, stupid little laugh.
Being a menace for one second felt so good. (^?^)
…Mm. He kind of missed Tiger Mom. Once this case was over, he’d go back to Taibai Mountain.
Yesterday, they’d dug up sixteen bodies from that island, along with a whole spread of murder tools laid out like an exhibit—some found by his kids, some by other officers. From a little after nine in the morning until four or five in the afternoon, they’d practically plowed the entire island before they finally gathered it all.
Even so, to confirm every body truly matched the list, they’d still need DNA tests—one by one.
And the case was big enough to alarm even the director of the Yue City Public Security Bureau.
Lin Jiangye didn’t go back to the bureau with the others. He found a place to shower, changed clothes, then went straight home.
After seeing that many corpses, he needed to sleep—properly.
And it wasn’t just him. Every officer who worked the island yesterday was ordered by Director Zhou to go home and rest for the night.
He hadn’t expected to dream about the abyss. Maybe it was because the arrangement of the bodies had been too bizarre—reminding him of the abyss’s own twisted dead.
“Purr… purr…”
A rumbling purr cut through his thoughts.
He turned his head.
A round, fluffy body was curled beside his pillow, rising and falling with steady breaths.
Zang’ao.
Lin Jiangye tilted his head and buried his whole face in that warm fur, taking a deep inhale of concentrated kitten scent.
Zang’ao was still asleep. Under the blanket, the tortoiseshell cat sensed Lin Jiangye moving. Something wriggled—then a black-and-orange paw poked out of the covers.
Lin Jiangye leaned in and kissed the paw.
The paw instantly retreated.
A moment later, a tiny cat head pushed the blanket up, peeking out like a thief.
“Human! You’re awake!”
Lin Jiangye yawned and reached in, lifting the tortie out. Maybe it was warmer under the blanket, because the kitten felt hot all over.
He lowered his face.
Inhale.
A just-woken-up kitten was the best-smelling creature on earth—warm from sleep, the “kitten scent” at its peak… forget the beginning, forget the end, anyway: this was top-tier delicacy in the mortal world. [1]
Lin Jiangye breathed it in and felt his energy bar shoot up.
One sniff and you’re instantly refreshed; one shake and your muscles loosen right up—pure bliss.[2]
The little tortie had only just woken up too. Its fur was messy, and half of its pink tongue was still sticking out, not fully pulled back in.
Lin Jiangye’s hands started itching—ready to do something obnoxious—
When a knock at the door abruptly startled every ball of fur on the bed.
“Awake?” Jiang Xin’s voice.
“Breakfast time!”
Five short words, and every single kid snapped their eyes open—whether fully awake or still half-asleep—instinctively staring at the door.
The tortie pulled its tongue back in. Zang’ao stretched, then shook its head hard—its flopping ears making helicopter noises and nearly slapping Lin Jiangye in the face.
Jiang Xin opened the door, stepped inside—and met more than a dozen pairs of eyes.
Yesterday morning, they’d left bright-eyed and pumped—after all, it was their first full-team deployment.
But by afternoon, when they returned… not only did the humans smell funky, the kids did too. Most of them were dusty-gray, like they’d rolled in mud.
Everyone working in the Lin household had been through real fights; they all understood what that smell meant.
Jiang Xin wanted to ask what had happened. But when he saw the exhaustion in their eyes, he swallowed the question.
It could wait.
They’d mobilized every human at home—washed the kids, blow-dried them, fed them a little—then Lin Jiangye showered again. The whole household collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
Thankfully the master bedroom was big enough to fit everyone. Before long, the room was filled with soft purring and rumbling snores.
“Who knows what they went through… they’re all wiped out.” Jiang Xin sighed.
The others were one thing—but seeing Lin Jiangye look exhausted had truly shocked him.
Back when Lin Jiangye had fought three suspects alone and gotten badly hurt, he still hadn’t looked like this. Whatever happened on that island had to be worse than anyone imagined.
Now that Lin Jiangye was finally awake, Jiang Xin led the kids downstairs to eat while asking what had happened.
“It’s just…” Lin Jiangye’s hand paused on the spoon. Remembering yesterday’s scene, he let out a long sigh.
Was it tiring? Of course.
But the exhaustion wasn’t from digging all day. It was pressure—the crushing weight of what the victims had suffered.
He told them everything: what the kids had found, how terrible the bodies were, and finally that bedroom drenched in blood.
“Later, they pried off a whole chunk of the wall and took it for testing.” That section had been the darkest, the strongest-smelling—likely where blood had splattered the most.
Everyone listened in silence, stunned by what they were hearing.
“Sixteen people… that’s sixteen lives.”
Yeah.
Sixteen lives—why had they only been discovered now?
That question wasn’t only in their heads. The city bureau was asking it too.
“Shang Fuyan,” Director Zhou’s tone was harsh now, almost accusatory, “after you noticed so many people had gone missing, did you investigate?”
Shang Fuyan’s expression didn’t change. He knew Director Zhou well—she wasn’t targeting him personally. She was thinking about something worse.
Like who had buried the missing-person reports. Who had pressed them down.
“I investigated,” he said evenly. “But the surveillance either didn’t capture anything—or it was gone.”
He’d also gone undercover, questioned nearby residents and shops. Everyone said they hadn’t seen anything.
Then he paused and voiced what he’d been holding back.
“I think… they were coached. Unified stories.”
When he questioned them, he’d watched their expressions. Many people showed a flicker of guilt when they said “didn’t see anything.”
They had seen something. They likely even knew who had taken those people.
“But even if they did see something, it didn’t help,” someone said. “Back then, the missing were neither dead nor alive—no bodies, no proof. Even local stations investigated and found nothing.”
So far, beyond the fact that the missing all had some connection to Zhang Weian, they still couldn’t find a clear motive for the killings.
Others agreed. Yes, there had been conflicts—but not to the point of murder. No one had imagined Zhang Weian would actually kill people.
“The biggest issue is this,” Shang Fuyan added. “When people disappeared, he was always in public.”
That was why he’d always believed Zhang Weian had an accomplice.
But one thing still baffled him.
“Why would someone help him?”
He’d checked the dark web. No task postings. No unusual movements by bodyguards or relatives. Nothing.
That was also why Shang Fuyan had never been able to fully commit to pulling Zhang Weian apart—he lacked the opening.
His words made the room heavy.
Meaning: they weren’t just facing Zhang Weian. They were facing someone hidden behind him.
And the question remained—why would anyone hide behind him?
“Since the missing, aside from Zhang Weian, don’t seem to have other links between each other,” someone said, “could it simply be that Zhang Weian wanted them dead? We know now he’s insane. You can’t use normal logic on an insane person.”
The accomplice’s job would be to grab people and transport them to the island. Zhang Weian would do the killing himself.
Afterward, the accomplice would clean up the scene and bodies while Zhang Weian showed up in public.
Even if police suspected him, he had airtight alibis.
“But even then…” Director Zhou frowned. “Not just anyone wants to be an accomplice. Did he make a large payment to anyone recently?”
The head of the economic investigation unit shook his head. Once they suspected a helper, they’d immediately checked finances—no suspicious transfers to personal accounts.
Even if Zhang Weian did the killing, legally speaking, anyone assisting was still an accomplice and would face charges.
If he’d thrown enough money at someone, sure, some people might bite—but there were no transfer records that matched.
“One more thing,” Shang Fuyan said, raising a hand. “The way the bodies were arranged—was that Zhang Weian’s work, or the accomplice’s?”
If the accomplice did it, then maybe the accomplice was the one into cult rituals.
“About that,” the economic unit captain said. “I found something.”
Zhang Weian hadn’t made mysterious large expenditures—but he did have large expenditures.
“Zhang Weian has been donating for years to an organization called the Holy Spirit Church.”
—
After resting at home for a while, Lin Jiangye returned to the bureau with Bai Zhengwen.
The moment he walked in, he felt the atmosphere was off. The major-crimes lead kept throwing him frantic looks. Following his line of sight, Lin Jiangye saw several people in the conference room, deep in a meeting.
He stepped closer to the lead and whispered, “What are you all doing? You look like thieves.”
The lead choked on his annoyance, snorted softly, and whispered back, “Director Zhou is here.”
Their boss’s boss’s boss had arrived.
Director Zhou—right, the director of Yue City’s Public Security Bureau. And honestly, with a case this big, it would’ve been weirder if the city bureau didn’t show up.
Before Lin Jiangye could say anything else, the conference room door opened and a group filed out.
Director Zhou was in front. She lifted her head and saw Lin Jiangye watching curiously from a distance; her expression visibly relaxed.
“Consultant Lin.”
Lin Jiangye’s heart skipped. Her politeness made him uneasy.
“Hello, Director Zhou…” He started to step back—
And she grabbed his arm.
“Consultant Lin, truly—thank you for your help on this case!”
Lin Jiangye’s skin practically tried to crawl off his body. And sure enough, after a flood of gratitude and praise, Director Zhou asked him to stay on the case until it was finished.
Stay on it… meaning he couldn’t just do his part and bow out like before.
But why?
“I can’t help with what comes next,” Lin Jiangye tried.
Director Zhou gave him a meaningful smile.
“That’s not necessarily true.”
Lin Jiangye: ???
In the end, Lin Jiangye was assigned to sit in on Zhang Weian’s interrogation—with Shang Fuyan.
“So… why am I interrogating him?” Lin Jiangye asked, bewildered.
He’d participated before, sure—but mostly as a formality. This time, Director Zhou had personally singled him out.
He looked to Shang Fuyan.
Shang Fuyan spread his hands too, signaling he didn’t know either.
Hmph.
Watching Lin Jiangye sulk, Shang Fuyan smiled quietly to himself. He had a guess, but… better not say it.
Director Zhou had heard from Yan Zhou and the others about the killing methods Lin Jiangye had described. She wasn’t not curious about what those five missing years had held.
But Lin Jiangye was their ally now. Suspecting an ally blindly wasn’t wise.
And this interrogation wasn’t about cornering Lin Jiangye. It was about using what Lin Jiangye knew—to corner Zhang Weian.
Whatever happened abroad was beyond their jurisdiction. As long as Lin Jiangye behaved and obeyed the law at home, the past could be left buried.
When Zhang Weian was brought in, he stared at them with a gloomy, hostile look, dissatisfaction written all over him.
Too bad—he couldn’t vent.
Not only because they were police, but because one of them was Shang Fuyan.
Zhang Weian glared at the man’s cold face, spitting contempt in his mind. If Shang Fuyan were really from some old-money capital family, he’d never be wasting his life as a criminal-investigation captain.
Too much work, too little pay, barely any authority—paying to work, basically. If Zhang Weian were him, he’d have been climbing ranks in the capital ages ago.
Shang Fuyan caught the fear beneath the disdain with a single glance. His eyelids lifted, his gaze turning icy.
Zhang Weian instinctively shrank back.
“Name. Sex. Age.”
Hearing those routine questions, Zhang Weian’s face darkened further.
This wasn’t how you questioned a “normal citizen.” They were treating him like a suspect.
He snapped his head up, resentment thickening—but under someone else’s roof, you had to bow. He gritted his teeth and swallowed it.
“Zhang Weian. Male. Thirty-two.”
“Tell me,” Shang Fuyan said coolly. “Why were your father-in-law and mother-in-law’s bodies found on your island?”
Zhang Weian replied coldly, “I don’t know. After the plane crash, I never saw them again.”
“Oh?” Shang Fuyan pressed. “Then on June 30th, 2:00 p.m., where were you?”
Zhang Weian let out a harsh laugh and answered loudly, “At a stable in Yue City’s outskirts. The CEO of Yatian Company was there too—others as well.”
Meaning: he had an alibi.
Shang Fuyan wasn’t surprised. He continued, step by step, asking about Zhang Weian’s movements after the stable.
“I went to the hospital. To see my wife. Then I went home.”
That could be verified: stable cameras, hospital cameras, even the gate camera at his home caught his face.
Timeline-wise, Zhang Weian hadn’t detoured to the island that day.
But not going that day didn’t mean he never went.
A faint curve touched Shang Fuyan’s mouth. He placed a thick stack of photos on the table in front of Zhang Weian.
“Since you claim you don’t know why your in-laws’ bodies were on your island… then explain these sixteen bodies. Don’t tell me you don’t know about them either.”
Contrary to what they expected, the mention of sixteen bodies made Zhang Weian freeze. A flash of blank confusion crossed his eyes.
Then, in a heartbeat, panic, fear—and rage surged up.
Panic, they understood. No one expected police to dig up every body.
Fear, even more so. That many corpses on his island—there was no way he knew nothing.
But rage?
That was the odd part.
Shang Fuyan was meticulous. Lin Jiangye was sharp. Both caught it: Zhang Weian’s anger wasn’t aimed at them—or even at the police.
It looked more like the fury of someone who’d been stabbed in the back.
Oh?
So there was something here they hadn’t anticipated.
But Zhang Weian regained control quickly, shutting down any chance to read deeper.
“It’s possible,” he said stiffly, “that a murderer killed them and buried the bodies on my island. If I knew there were that many corpses hidden there, why would I renovate it into a tourist hotspot and invite people in? Wouldn’t I be afraid they’d find it?”
Heh—look at him. He got himself worked up just from talking.
Lin Jiangye folded his hands and propped his chin on them. The moment he started interrogating like that, Director Zhou and the others waiting outside couldn’t help their mouths twitch.
Good thing Lin Jiangye wasn’t an actual cop—if he were, he’d get chewed out the second he walked out of here with that posture.
“Hey, Zhang Weian—how did it feel to have your head smashed in?”
Zhang Weian pulled himself out of his anger and looked up at Lin Jiangye, who was seated beside Shang Fuyan.
He’d heard of this young man—some specially hired consultant at the district bureau. Supposedly he could understand “beast language” and all that. But Zhang Weian had never paid attention to anyone besides Shang Fuyan.
Oh—wrong. He also kept an eye on that old bitch at the Yue City Public Security Bureau.
But what the young man said next sent a cold prickle up Zhang Weian’s spine.
Lin Jiangye loosely formed his hands into fists and swung hard at empty air. “By the way—back then, you must’ve pinned one of them against the wall, right? I took a look at the blood patterns and the nail holes. You nailed him through the collarbone—then used a hammer to smash his skull open?”
Zhang Weian’s gaze changed.
The arrogance, the disdain, the skittish caution—all vanished. What replaced them was a pair of eyes that looked almost inorganic.
“What did the sound of a human skull cracking feel like?” Lin Jiangye asked. “Nice? Pleasant?”
Everyone was staring at Zhang Weian. The second Lin Jiangye said those words, they all felt it—Zhang Weian had changed.
As if he’d become a different person.
Author’s Note:
[1] This passage is adapted from a viral post online. The full original text goes like this:
—A kitten that’s just woken up smells especially good. Its whole body is hot from sleep, and the “kitten scent” is at its strongest. Held in your hands, it only purrs, with no strength in its limbs, letting itself be handled however you want. It’s like holding a delicious delicacy—starting from touch, then appreciation, and once you’ve taken in the sight to your heart’s content, you can begin to savor that intense kitten scent bit by bit. Slowly bury your nose into its belly; with each breath, its little belly rises and falls. The softness is extreme, the kitten scent is extreme—deep, lingering—delivering the peak of sensory stimulation to your nose. In that moment, my mind goes blank, as if dopamine has blown my brain apart. All that’s left is deep breathing, and an overwhelming urge to savor that rich kitten scent. Perhaps there is no finer delicacy in the world than this.
PS: It’s too long, so I didn’t put it in the main text. [confetti]
[2] This line comes from Stephen Chow’s film Hail the Judge.
