Invasion
However, He Zhouyan hid all his violent thoughts well in front of the cub, not wanting any trace of malice to be seen. He was like the most skilled hunter, adept at masking his true intentions.
Even though the hand he had behind his back was clenched into a fist, exerting a bit of force, when he spoke in front of the cub, his tone remained restrained.
“I’ll go back and check,” he said, almost soothingly, though inside, his emotions were already in turmoil.
He wanted to see who had the audacity to step onto his territory without permission, a place that belonged to both him and the cub.
The words “both” and “belong” lingered in his burning heart as he chewed on them, carrying an unhealthy obsession.
Perhaps that person would even enter the cub’s room. It was in that room that he had slept with the cub in human form, leaving his mark on the cub’s blankets, forcefully imbuing them with his spiritual energy.
And now, that room could be tainted by other scents.
Suddenly, another hand gently covered his, a soft hand, and only he knew how powerful the soul of its owner was.
It was like an elf resting on the tip of a dragon’s finger, just before it was about to snap. To avoid scaring the elf away, He Zhouyan suppressed all his anger.
He didn’t let any spiritual energy leak out.
Lu Congxing, oblivious to the situation, seemed like the most harmless lamb. He tilted his head slightly and said, “Brother, let me go with you.”
The way he called him “brother” nearly made He Zhouyan dizzy with affection, instantly calming all his anger. Even though he knew it was because Huang Xin was still there that Lu Congxing said it, He Zhouyan still found it endearing.
He set aside his violent thoughts and nodded without hesitation. “Alright.”
Throughout the journey, He Zhouyan drove at high speed, almost pushing the car to the edge of violating the rules as he sped along the road.
Lu Congxing noticed nothing unusual. The man had masked his anger so well that even the naive cub believed He Zhouyan was just anxious to catch the culprit.
In reality, the man didn’t care about the culprit at all. What mattered to him was the cub.
Their return clearly caught the person in the room off guard.
That person had thought they still had plenty of time, so they had been aimlessly wandering around, running their fingers over the table, the sofa, and the cute pillows on the couch.
Imagining how the young boy would look when he gently rested his head on the pillow, with his black hair falling onto it, soft and obedient.
She had been so absorbed in her thoughts that when the door suddenly opened, she was caught off guard, frozen in place.
Lu Congxing was also stunned. He had imagined many possibilities on the way back.
Who could it be that entered his room?
Perhaps it was Zeng Chengping, who didn’t have money for alcohol and had once tried to get him drunk to ask for money. Maybe after failing, he’d developed more sinister intentions, or perhaps Li Guodong had returned. Like the others in the building, Li Guodong must have his own secrets.
But it wasn’t any of them. Standing there, carelessly fiddling with his pillow, was actually Dany!
The girl from room 402 looked flustered. The moment she saw Lu Congxing, she instinctively dropped the pillow and put her hands behind her back.
Lu Congxing clearly saw that she was hiding something.
The atmosphere grew tense, and He Zhouyan, with a dark expression, took a step forward.
Dany, in a panic, took two steps back, realizing there was nowhere to run, as the door was already blocked.
Under He Zhouyan’s intense gaze, very few people could stand their ground. Dany was already visibly trembling.
Lu Congxing showed no sympathy and didn’t try to calm He Zhouyan down. He just furrowed his brows and asked, “What do you want to do?”
He didn’t ask why, not wanting to give her a chance to make excuses.
These old-fashioned doors locked automatically once closed. No one could enter without a key, so anyone who forced their way in was definitely in the wrong, no matter their excuse.
When Dany saw him frown, a look of fear slowly spread across her face. She momentarily forgot about the oppressive presence of He Zhouyan and slowly sat down, covering her face with her hands. Her voice came out muffled, “Please, don’t look at me like that.”
Her words were clearly directed at Lu Congxing.
At that moment, He Zhouyan looked back at Lu Congxing with hurt in his eyes, as if asking: What is there between you and this woman?
Lu Congxing twitched his lips. He didn’t know why this thought suddenly crossed his mind, so he could only pretend not to see the inexplicable resentment in the man’s eyes. He turned his gaze to what Dany was holding in her hands.
Due to her covering her face, the object she had instinctively tried to hide was now exposed.
It was a length of nylon rope and a package of chicken breast.
The rope was stained with blood, though “stained” might not be the most accurate description, as the section of rope had been fully soaked in blood, turning it a deep red-black, as if it had once been used to tightly bind someone, the pressure so intense it had pierced into the flesh.
Almost uncontrollably, Lu Congxing recalled the severed limbs of Chen Fei he had seen, the marks of binding matching exactly with this piece of nylon rope.
Dany, covering her face, was crying, her expression unreadable.
But a chill crept into Lu Congxing’s heart as he reexamined the girl, who had seemed so harmless and shy before.
“Do you want to kill me?”
Other than that, he couldn’t think of any reason why Dany would bring a rope to ambush him.
Dany, as though deeply insulted, looked up, her eyes red as she said, “How could that be? How could I ever want to hurt you?!”
Her expression was so frantic that Lu Congxing was taken aback, but soon He Zhouyan moved to shield him.
His face was cold as ice. “What exactly do you want?”
He used spiritual energy, and even his pupils returned to their original pale icy-blue color, with a kind of distant pressure imprinted on this human’s soul.
Dany no longer heard any other sounds, as if she were a puppet with her strings cut, slowly losing the color in her eyes.
She opened her mouth and confessed her most secret malicious thoughts: “I came to strangle that little dog.”
Such a soul imprint could cause one to go mad. Lu Congxing had originally planned to stop it, but upon hearing this, he was stunned.
A little dog? Which little dog?
The only dog she could be referring to is the small Bai Ze, she had come to strangle He Zhouyan!
No wonder she brought chicken breasts, no wonder she seemed so confident. In her mind, this was simply the one-sided strangulation of an innocent little pet left alone at home by its owner. She felt she could be cruel and use all sorts of methods on the poor creature.
Chen Fei’s dismembered body flashed in his mind, and Lu Congxing looked at the broad back of the man in fear.
Though he knew the small Bai Ze couldn’t be harmed by a human, a surge of fear and anger still welled up inside him.
He walked directly up to Dany, his eyes as cold as ice, asking each word with deliberate slowness, “Why?”
Dany’s eyes were still hollow as she opened her mouth without any hesitation: “Because I’m jealous of it. Why should a little dog get your tenderness? I really like you. I want you to be my brother.”
Her words were filled with venom, yet she spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if it were simply an everyday occurrence.
Lu Congxing pulled out his phone and pointed it at her. His gaze was devoid of any warmth. “You killed Chen Fei, didn’t you?”
As expected, she nodded.
At this moment, Lu Congxing even felt a little angry at his own carelessness.
On the day of the incident, he had gone to see Dany at 10:00 AM. That gave her the perfect window, between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM, to have killed Chen Fei, dismembered him, and then gone upstairs—all she needed was enough speed.
At that time, Zhou Zijie had even complained that Dany had been taking a shower, which suggested that her showering at that moment was an unreasonable event. But what if she was trying to wash off the blood?
Everything now had a reasonable explanation.
Zhou Zijie hid in her room because of the injury on her face, so she naturally didn’t know that shortly after her boyfriend left, Dany also went out. Using a familiar person’s method and her harmless appearance, she killed Chen Fei. Afterward, she returned, locked herself in the bathroom, and washed off the blood.
She even interacted with him as if nothing had happened when she came back. The girl, who smiled sweetly when Lu Congxing gave her a small biscuit, had killed someone and dismembered the body just two hours earlier.
Lu Congxing didn’t put down his phone. He tied Dany’s hands and feet with a piece of rope, then continued asking, “Did you use the same method to kill before?”
Under He Zhouyan’s soul-imprint gaze, Dany immediately nodded without hesitation. “Yes, I also killed my parents.”
A chill ran through Lu Congxing’s heart. He looked at the small girl in front of him, unable to fathom that she would say something like that.
Before this, the girl had complained to him that her parents always ignored her, and that was why she ran away from home. Maybe by then, her parents had already been two corpses. Corpses don’t respond to people, of course.
A dryness surged in Lu Congxing’s throat. He asked the final question, “Why did you kill Chen Fei?”
Dany blinked in confusion, as if he had asked a very strange question. She giggled twice and said, “Because he was so noisy. He was arguing with his girlfriend in the middle of the night, and I couldn’t sleep.”
The answer came so naturally, with a hint of innocent malice, the purest kind of evil.
Lu Congxing turned off the camera and sent the video to the young police officer.
He Zhouyan gently embraced him from behind, resting his head on his shoulder. “I’m fine.”
He was happy, happy that the cub was angry for him. He had been almost mesmerized, watching him intently from earlier.
In his eyes, there was a new color because of him. Even if it was just a delusion from a vile human, the cub would still get angry.
It was the cub caring about his behavior.
He Zhouyan allowed the secret joy in his heart to grow. Nonchalantly, he withdrew the spiritual energy from Dany, and the once overwhelming rage he had for this human being now seemed insignificant.
A warm breath sprayed against his neck, and Lu Congxing slowly came to his senses. He realized his earlier lapse and made a soft sound before regaining his usual calm.
He had gone through too many things. Though he always appeared harmless, he had been surrounded by death since he was young. Even when plagued by malevolent ghosts, he had become numb. However, there was one thing he couldn’t stand: the word “death” being linked to someone close to him.
He Zhouyan had already unknowingly occupied an important corner of his heart without the other realizing when it happened.
Before the cub noticed something was wrong, He Zhouyan let him go, subtly displaying his mature side with a balanced sense of restraint.
Dany slowly regained her senses. She remembered how she had carelessly said everything without thinking, and her face turned extremely ugly.
She lifted her head, staring intently at Lu Congxing’s face, still wanting to say something, but the police had already broken in.
Author’s Note:
Throughout the entire situation, the two were on completely different wavelengths—Xing Cub was on the ghost-hunting channel, while President He was on the romance channel.