An hour later. Leijing, Old Jingmai Police Station.
The night was deep. Ke Mingwei sat alone, reclining in his leather chair.
Cold white light spilled from the ceiling, washing over his face.
His expression was conflicted. He glanced at the incident report taped to the wall, then turned back to the footage playing on the television.
On screen, a teenager in a school uniform held a craft knife and a flashlight. He closed in on his target step by step, his eyes as calm as a seasoned hunter's.
Ke Mingwei closed his heavy eyes and rubbed his temples, his brow still tightly knit.
No matter how he tried to distract himself, his thoughts kept circling back to the school bus from that afternoon. If he hadn't arrived in time, it would have been over.
His son could have died. Ke Mingwei didn't dare imagine how it would have torn his family apart, nor could he bear to think of how he would face the rest of them.
In the dead silence of the office, the cell phone in his jacket pocket rang.
Jolted from his thoughts, Ke Mingwei pulled it out. The screen showed an unknown number.
He frowned. How did anyone know this number? He only ever used this phone to contact his family; he never used it for anything else.
After a moment's hesitation, he answered. A low, raspy voice immediately spoke through the receiver:
"Is this Mr. Rain Crow? Please check the livestream I just texted you. Don't waste your time trying to trace the signal, because I'm going to tell you anyway. Oh, right... don't bother looking up the owner of this phone, either. It isn't mine."
Ke Mingwei furrowed his brow. Before he could speak, the line went dead.
A moment later, a notification banner dropped down from the top of his screen.
He tapped the link, and a livestream loaded.
To his surprise, the broadcast was framed in obnoxiously girly pink text: "Rain Crow, LOVELOVE! Crow-Crow's Exclusive Livestream!" It ended with two massive heart emojis, making Ke Mingwei narrow his eyes.
The actual footage, however, was completely at odds with the gaudy border.
It showed a pitch-black warehouse cluttered with debris and scrap machinery. In the center, a blond man with a tattoo on his arm was bound to a chair with thick ropes, a gag stuffed in his mouth.
The man strained his neck forward, staring in utter terror at his feet. A puddle of liquid soaked the soles of his shoes. Gasoline. Strapped to a pillar not far away was a lighter.
The lighter teetered precariously, rigged to drop into the fuel at any second and spark a massive inferno.
"Uh... this guy is an admirer of yours. Of course, I'm an admirer too."
An eerie voice echoed from the phone's speaker, identical to the caller from moments ago. "See that crow tattoo on his arm? His love for you is just so raw and obvious. Honestly, I'm a little touched."
Ke Mingwei narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, right. I forgot to introduce myself... This is me." As the eerie voice trailed off, the camera shifted, cutting to a different location.
It was another warehouse, though the layout was slightly different. The camera pulled back, revealing a ghastly white, grotesque humanoid chained to a wooden chair in the exact center of the room.
Its head hung low, staring blankly at the floor. A walking stick rested across its crossed thighs, gripped loosely in its hands.
A second later, the doll snapped its head up.
The first thing to come into view was a bizarre, human-like face. It was dead white, lacking both nose and ears; it had only a pair of hollow eyes and a violently split mouth.
The sight might have sent a normal person into cardiac arrest. But not Ke Mingwei. He was Rain Crow. Over the years, there was no telling how many twisted, eccentric criminals he had faced.
He stared at the doll's face in silence.
The doll's neck twisted with a sharp clack, clack, every joint in its body rattling faintly. Upon closer inspection, white pegs pinned the joints of its limbs together, much like a wooden mannequin in an art studio.
It gazed straight ahead, seeming to make direct eye contact with Ke Mingwei through the screen, before speaking in a bizarre, stilted cadence:
"A pleasure to meet you. My name is White Jack..."
White Jack... Ke Mingwei repeated silently, staring at the bizarre figure on the screen.
The stark white doll named White Jack looked away, its hollow eyes staring off into the distance.
"Mr. Rain Crow, do you remember that poor man tied to the chair a moment ago?" White Jack asked casually. "He and I are not in the same location... But I will give you his address, so you have a chance to save him. If you don't make it in time, your admirer will burn to death."
It paused. "And my situation is exactly the same. Look, I'm tied to a chair, too, and the soles of my feet are covered in gasoline. Isn't that dangerous?"
Ke Mingwei understood the game now. This was a hostage threat.
"Based on what I know about you... even at your top speed, it will take you at least four minutes to reach either location. And you can only choose one."
The stark white doll tilted its head and lowered its voice.
"Will you come to save me, or the other man?"
Ke Mingwei remained silent, his dark eyes reflecting the split corners of the doll's mouth.
On the livestream, White Jack leaned back against its chair.
"I forgot to tell you. The abandoned warehouse on Kesilan Street, and the warehouse at Old Jingmai Port. I am on Kesilan Street, while your admirer is at the port..."
A glowing red countdown timer flashed over the feed. Starting from 240 seconds, it began to tick down, the blood-red numbers pulsing with every passing second.
"Alright. You can start your parkour now," White Jack said in a low, teasing voice.
Before the doll could even finish speaking, Ke Mingwei was already out of his chair. He threw on his coat, strode out of the police station, and plunged into the night.
...
...
Three minutes later. Old Jingmai Port.
Amidst piercing caws, a massive flock of crows shattered the windows, pouring into the warehouse like a black rainstorm. The birds converged in a corner, swirling together to form a human silhouette.
Rain Crow was shrouded entirely in a pitch-black cloak, his eyes burning like torches beneath his helmet. At the center of his mask, a dark raven's beak jutted forward like a sharp blade.
The moment he entered the warehouse, Rain Crow raised his head and swept his gaze over the space.
But he didn't see the tattooed man. Instead, he saw a grotesque, stark white doll.
A beam of moonlight spilled through the open skylight. Like a spotlight on a magician's stage, it shone mercilessly down on the doll.
White Jack lifted its head, staring straight into Rain Crow's eyes.
"Surprised? I swapped the locations on you. I'm actually at the port, and he's on Kesilan Street... Well, at first, I assumed you would definitely come to see me, so I prepared a surprise for you at the other spot. I never expected you to choose him."
It spoke at an unhurried pace, raising its bone-white right hand.
It held a cell phone. The screen displayed the livestream feed.
Bathed in moonlight, the cramped screen echoed with hysterical wails. Over a minute ago, the lighter in the other warehouse had plummeted to the floor, igniting the gasoline.
"Look. It's all because you chose wrong. That's why he's dead."
White Jack lowered its head and sighed. "If you had chosen me, he wouldn't have died. Let us observe a few seconds of silence for this poor worm killed by Lord Rain Crow... He never could have imagined his death would be the fault of the man he admired most."
On the phone screen, the man in the chair shrieked and convulsed. The gag in his mouth was gone. His entire body writhed in the raging flames as he howled, struggling to reach out with a charred, withered hand.
Rain Crow stepped forward, his black cloak dragging across the floor, a flash of violent fury glinting in his eyes.
"Of course... you didn't manage to save me, either."
White Jack spoke as it extended its chain-bound right hand, gripping the magician's cane on its thigh.
At that moment, a cluster of blue flames bloomed from the tip of the black cane, igniting the gasoline spilled across the floor.
A thunderous boom echoed through the silent warehouse. Then, an explosive pillar of fire surged into the air, swallowing the stark white doll whole.
Suddenly, a hysterical woman's voice screamed from the sea of flames:
"Mingwei, save me—"
Hearing his own name, Rain Crow narrowed his eyes. If he wasn't mistaken, the voice coming from the inferno... belonged to his wife, Xia Wenna.
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