Su Kun had just sat up straight when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the automatic glass door of the police station in the distance open again. He turned his head to look and saw Zhang Fuquan's wife walking down the steps with her head lowered, following a thin, tall man, coming towards the car.

Because they were backlit, the expressions of both people were blurry and unclear. It only seemed that Zhang Fuquan's wife was still sobbing, her shoulders heaving up and down, but the man seemed to not see it at all and never went to comfort her, walking ahead on his own. It wasn't until they walked to the open car door, illuminated by the light inside the car, that Su Kun could see the man's appearance clearly.

His hair was about the same length as Gu Yan's, only tied up casually with a hair tie, hanging loosely on his shoulders. His features were as if painted, with brows like distant peaks, eyes like autumn pools, and lips of a light color. Much more handsome than most people Su Kun had seen. Only, perhaps because of the color of the light in the car, his face looked abnormally pale, lacking color.

Thinking about how the lively Brother Sprout from earlier was actually just a palm-sized clay figurine, Su Kun suddenly felt that no matter how he looked at this person, there was an aura of ghostliness about him.

The long-haired man gestured invitingly and turned to Zhang Fuquan's wife, saying, "Mrs. Zhang, please get in the car."

Zhang Fuquan's wife seemed very unaccustomed to this form of address. She fiddled with the hem of her clothes, wiped her face, and said softly, "Just call me Qin Xiu."

With that, she pulled the car door open and got in. She happened to meet Su Kun's gaze and froze on the spot.

Seeing her eyes full of red blood vessels and her red nose, Su Kun couldn't help but say, "Madam, you... please take care."

But as soon as he opened his mouth, he caused trouble. Qin Xiu stared at him, her nostrils flaring with her breathing. Her eyes suddenly reddened and after a moment, as if suddenly coming to her senses, she reached out and made a move to lunge at Su Kun, "You—"

She had only said one word when the man outside the car and the old lady in the passenger seat combined their strength to hold her back.

"He's not the one who killed him, you misunderstood!" the old lady said hurriedly.

Qin Xiu turned her head and looked at her with red eyes, "How... how do you know?"

"How else could we take over this case if we didn't know?" the long-haired man said from behind her.

No matter how they looked at it, the people in this car didn't seem to be from a normal department.

Qin Xiu looked at them suspiciously and hesitated for a long time before finally withdrawing her hand, sniffling, and no longer looking at Su Kun. But she also didn't seem to want to sit in the same row as Su Kun, so she bent over to walk to the back seat.

But the old man in the back seat waved his hand at her and said, "You can't sit here. Just sit in the middle row, it's safe there. Those two are both innocent, we pretty much already know who the murderer is—hey, don't look at people like that, why would I lie to you!"

"Sit down, we need to get going," the old lady tugged on her arm, letting her unfold a jump seat on the side of the middle row to sit down. Qin Xiu had no choice but to compromise without a word.

She was slightly plump, and Gu Yan was a big guy, so the two of them took up most of the space in the middle row, leaving Su Kun, who was sandwiched between them, in a difficult position. In order to accommodate the lady and let Qin Xiu sit more comfortably, Su Kun decided to scoot closer to Gu Yan's side, curling himself up into a cucumber stick.

Gu Yan couldn't stand it, so he half-turned his body and reached out his long arm to pull Su Kun entirely to his side, then cupped his hand into a fist and propped it behind Su Kun's back.

As a result, at first glance, it looked like Su Kun was leaning against Gu Yan, with Gu Yan half-holding and half-embracing him. The old man in the back seat looked at them, endured the urge to roll his eyes, and finally raised his hand to cover them, with a look of "hugging and cuddling, how improper! This old man's eyes are going to be blinded."

Seeing that everyone was seated, the long-haired man reached out to pull the side door of the van closed, went around to the driver's seat and got in the car himself.

He bent over to pick up a stack of documents and statements that Brother Sprout had dropped on the seat earlier, casually tossed them on the platform in front of the car, then sat down, closed the car door, put his hands on the steering wheel, stepped on the gas, and drove the car out of the police station compound.

It was already midnight, and the area where the police station was located was a bit remote. There were hardly any other vehicles to be seen on the entire road, only the street lights on both sides, quietly rendering a dim yellow glow.

After a moment of silence, Qin Xiu leaned forward slightly, her body tense, and said somewhat eagerly, "You said you've identified the murderer? Who is it?"

The long-haired man glanced at her in the rearview mirror, gripping the steering wheel, and said, "You'll naturally find out when we catch them."

Because of the angle, from Su Kun's side, he could see the old lady in the passenger seat sneaking several glances at Qin Xiu through the rearview mirror. Just as the long-haired man's words fell, she seemed unable to hold back any longer and turned around from the front seat, sticking her head out towards Qin Xiu, "Young lady, can you do me a favor?"

"What favor?"

The old lady reached out a hand, palm up and flat, with a small brown-black wooden disk on it. The surface of the disk was haphazardly engraved with a few lines, and there was a red needle that was slightly swaying, "Use your left pinky to rub the surface of this disk twice."

"Huh?" Hearing this strange request, Qin Xiu was stunned for a moment.

"Come on, just rub it twice."

After a moment of hesitation, Qin Xiu still reached out her pinky and rubbed the surface of the disk twice. The red needle, which had originally been swaying slightly, suddenly started spinning around in all directions as if it had gone crazy.

The old lady satisfactorily took the disk back and sat back down in the passenger seat, lowering her head to study it on her own.

Qin Xiu kept her mouth open, dazed for a long time, and seemed to only then realize that she had gotten into an exceptionally strange car, and the people in the car all seemed a bit abnormal. So she swallowed and asked, "Are you... are you going to catch the murderer?"

Su Kun's face twitched violently: after all that, it turns out this lady didn't even know what she was getting into and just randomly got in the car? Wasn't she afraid of being sold off?

But as soon as this thought flashed through his mind, he realized in exasperation that he himself wasn't much better than Qin Xiu, and had also been tricked into getting in the car. However, he had a bad feeling that the reason Qin Xiu was pulled into the car and the reason he was pulled in seemed to be quite different...

The old man in the back was still leaning his head back against the seat with his eyes closed, resting, stroking the feathers of his little red bird with one hand, not chiming in.

In the end, it was still the old lady in the front row who answered. She looked up at Qin Xiu through the rearview mirror and said, "No, we'll take you home first."

For some reason, after hearing these words, Qin Xiu's body visibly trembled.

The old lady's eyes were very calm, seemingly unsurprised by her reaction, but she still continued to ask, "Big sister, why do you seem a little afraid to go home?"

Qin Xiu shook her head: "No, no." After saying that, she pinched her fingers and remained silent for a few minutes, then suddenly grabbed the back of the passenger seat with both hands and said, "My home... is a bit strange."

"Oh? How strange? Isn't that your home? How can someone be afraid of their own home?"

"No. Fuquan and I moved here four years ago. Since we moved in, Fuquan and I have been sleeping in one bedroom, and the other bedroom has been locked all year round. Fuquan said that the landlord had put things there and wouldn't let us touch them, so I never opened it to avoid gossip.

"But for some reason, I've always been quite afraid of that bedroom. Let alone getting up at night to go to the toilet, even walking past that door during the day makes me feel a little panicked. Fuquan is a bit better. When he's not around, I don't dare to stay in the house alone."

The old lady nodded, then seemed to think of something and asked, "Where are you from originally? Why did you come to Li City to do business when you were doing well at home? It's so peaceful at home!"

"Ah, this is actually because of me. When I was back home, I got sick, quite seriously. The doctors told them to prepare for the worst. Fuquan refused to accept it, saying that the hospital was no good, too small, and the equipment had problems. He insisted on taking me to a hospital in a big city for an examination. We went to several hospitals, and by the time we came and went, the family's money was almost gone.

"The results were all about the same. I said maybe we shouldn't treat it anymore, forget it. Fuquan was unhappy and even got angry with me. Later, I don't know where he heard it from, but he got the address of a so-called fate-changing master from some old people and went to find that person. A few days later, Fuquan brought that person back. The two of them stayed in the room for several days to discuss. When they came out, that person said that the feng shui was too bad and told Fuquan to take me to live somewhere else for a few years.

"At that time, my daughter-in-law happened to be pregnant with a child. The prenatal check-up showed it was twins, and her belly was very big, so it was inconvenient for her to move around. So the old home was left for my son and daughter-in-law to take care of, and Fuquan brought me here. When we first arrived, there was no improvement. Something happened back home, and my daughter-in-law's children were also lost due to an accident.

"But after that year passed, in the second year, it seemed that everything started to get better. I was originally taking some medicine casually at the Chinese medicine hospital to prolong my life, but the longer I took it, the better I got. Fuquan's small store downstairs was also doing better and better. When I went for a check-up this year, my body no longer had any major problems.

"Although I can't go on long trips, I can still help Fuquan a little. Last month, my son called again and said that my daughter-in-law was pregnant again, more than three months along. Although it's not twins, being able to get pregnant is a good thing..."

As she spoke, Qin Xiu's eyes turned red again, and her voice became choked with sobs: "Our life was visibly getting better, how could he encounter such a thing, what should I do if he leaves me alone!"

The people in the car listened to her words in silence. Su Kun felt quite upset. He looked down at his shoes and spaced out for a while, not knowing how to comfort the middle-aged woman beside him.

But a moment later, he suddenly raised his head and looked at Gu Yan, his eyes wide. He remembered the bits and pieces from before and suddenly thought of a possibility—

Could that infant spirit be the child that Qin Xiu's daughter-in-law lost?!

But her daughter-in-law was pregnant with twins. Gu Yan swallowed one of them, so the other one... killed Zhang Fuquan?!