An anxious mood floated among the crowd. Since all the buses managed by the vehicle-mounted system had suspended operations, the students stuck at the station, unable to go home, were all complaining. On the street, many people raised their Communicators high, trying to reconnect to the signal amidst the chaos.

There was no wind tonight. Everyone had their car windows open. Drivers stuck in the traffic jam were honking their horns. A short-tempered one was the first to lean out of his car window and shout at the cars ahead, "Is someone dead up there? Move it!"

The driver ahead also squeezed out and yelled back, "Are you blind? The green light isn't on!"

The two were about to start a fight from a distance when a sports car suddenly appeared from the other end. Before the driver could pull his body back in, the car shot past like an arrow, kicking up a strong gust of wind that blew dust all over his face. By the time the driver came to his senses, before he could even start cursing, the car was already gone.

Inside the car, the speedometer was constantly spinning. The scenery on both sides blurred until only shadows remained. Yan Junxun usually used this car to challenge the limits, but he had never been in the passenger seat!

"Warning, you are speeding. Warning, you are—"

Yan Junxun had a bad feeling and grabbed the seatbelt. The next second, the entire car was about to go sideways. The car's hanging ornament hit the windshield, and Yan Junxun felt like he was about to slam into the car door. After they got through the turn, the view outside his window was still a blur.

Shi Shanyan performed steadily on the following straightaway and even had the leisure to ask Yan Junxun, "Have you seen the Initial D anime?"

This guy just loved to chat regardless of the situation!

"I have," Yan Junxun clenched his seatbelt, forcing the words through his gritted teeth, "the manga!"

Shi Shanyan whistled in celebration. His ways of expressing his mood were very simple, especially when it came to joy.

The sports car's exhaust system roared wildly from the speed, its headlights like a swiftly falling meteor in the dark night. The timer on the other end of the Communicator's call ticked rapidly, and the faint "didi" sound also urged Yan Junxun on, making his heart race.

The car entered a dangerous section of the road. The surrounding honks, screams, and arguments instantly poured in, exploding in Yan Junxun's ears. The streetlights flickered on and off, making the vehicles darting across the road seem like predatory fish hiding among black reefs, watching with hostile eyes.

Danger!

Yan Junxun tightened his grip on the seatbelt, watching a taxi scrape past their side.

Shi Shanyan turned the steering wheel just in time. There was an effortless precision to his predictions. He laughed in his long-lost freedom, not feeling any danger.

At this moment, the system was offline, and "No Entry" signs had already risen from the road surface. After a few minutes of chaos, private cars did their best to pull over to the sides of the road to avoid traffic accidents.

"My signal is bad right now," an uncle yelled back to his wife, "it's really bad!"

He hadn't even finished his sentence when he saw a sports car scrape past him. He immediately ducked his head, then heard a loud "bang." The other car had directly smashed through the "No Entry" sign, speeding off into the distance and kicking up dust.

20 minutes was too long, enough for adrenaline to surge. Shi Shanyan shifted gears and accelerated, as if he was going to carry Yan Junxun through this chaotic dreamscape. At this moment, if he made even a slight mistake, the two of them would end the game immediately, dying together.

The lunatic's location marker suddenly moved.

"He's gone down to the parking garage," Su Heting didn't care what the two of them were doing, only wanting to be an emotionless reporting machine. "You'd better block him at the entrance."

The mouse flickered on the map. It was moving quickly and didn't take long to go downstairs. This area was full of commercial buildings, and the parking garage tunnels were all designed in a spiral. Shi Shanyan was decisive, driving straight into the tunnel and charging towards the underground parking garage amid a series of screeching tires.

Yan Junxun felt like there was a wall right in front of the windshield. He had to keep a tight grip on his seatbelt to avoid the illusion of being thrown out. He felt that if the car tilted just a little more, it would scrape against the wall.

"He's heading this way," Su Heting raised his voice. "You're about to see him. Happy?!"

Yan Junxun couldn't hear Su Heting's voice at all. Not until the sports car broke through the darkness with a "hum," its rear end swinging out fiercely in a wide arc on the relatively open ground, causing him to slam hard into the seatback as the car braked. Only then did this thrilling, race-against-time journey come to a temporary stop.

Shi Shanyan looked ahead. His windshield was illuminated by the opposing car's headlights, and he had his own headlights on, shining back at them. They blinded each other, and neither could see the other clearly.

The sports car stopped, but the engine didn't turn off. The arrogant roar settled into a low thrum, like it was gathering power. The "didi" of the timer was especially prominent now, like high heels hidden in a stampede of horses, sharply piercing everyone's eardrums.

The lunatic's car was a Pure Black Third Generation, a relatively new model in the Docking Area. This model's onboard system had excellent capacity, and its degree of customizable freedom was higher than some of the Docking Area's indoor systems. The lunatic must have cherished this car; he'd polished it until it was very clean, the front so bright it could reflect light.

The two sides faced off from within their cars. The sports car's shadow stretched out behind it, like a cheetah poised to strike.

"Hello—" the lunatic greeted Yan Junxun and Shi Shanyan through the oldest model of loudspeaker. His fingers danced on the steering wheel, his toe tapping intermittently on the floor. "You guys are really fast."

Yan Junxun tilted his head slightly, trying in vain to see the lunatic's full appearance through the blinding headlights.

The loudspeaker was probably repurposed junk; it worked intermittently, making the lunatic's voice choppy and eerie, as if it were being torn apart.

"Yan Junxun, you see, these people don't give a damn about us, yet you're still fucking working with them." The lunatic's demeanor was different from on the phone. He was no longer so agitated, but had a strange sense of calm.

No.

Yan Junxun steadied his breathing.

Not us.

"You're definitely thinking, 'Not us,'" the lunatic bit his tongue lightly and let out that same laugh again. "Don't be stupid, don't hold out hope. In Fu Chenghui's eyes, you're the same kind of person as us. He had a hacker hide in your indoor system, silently monitoring you, yet you're like you've been tamed, not resisting at all." At this point, the lunatic didn't forget to greet Su Heting, saying in a conversational tone, "Hello, hacker. Were you able to bypass the Supervisory Bureau's Main Management System and turn off the regional surveillance because you're that good, or because of Black Panther's special privileges? No need to answer me. We all know the answer in our hearts."

The number on the timer jumped to "11". The leaping seconds were like little steel balls that couldn't be caught, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

The lunatic gripped the steering wheel and said dramatically, "You want to catch me? Go ahead and try."

Shi Shanyan stepped on the clutch, the engine roared, and the RPM immediately shot up. The sports car growled low to the ground, and the moment he shifted into gear, it charged toward the other car.

The distance between the two cars rapidly closed. The lunatic immediately reversed, getting knocked askew as he turned around. The car's body scraped against a pillar in the parking garage, breaking off the payment device on it. The payment device's alarm went off automatically, and sparks erupted before the red light had even been on for a few seconds.

The lunatic laughed out loud in his car, swerving out with his car askew, and drove over a speed bump toward the tunnel at the other end. Shi Shanyan licked a canine tooth and gave chase.

The underground parking garage was spacious, with an overall "回"-shaped design, featuring many right-angle turns. The lunatic wasn't very good at high-speed driving; he often scraped the walls when turning, scraping off a layer of paint from his car doors.

"Out of the tunnel in 80 seconds," Su Heting said. "Watch out for cars and pedestrians on the surface."

As he was exiting the tunnel, the lunatic was hit by Shi Shanyan. His battered car door scraped the wall again, but he drove on as if drunk, grinding against the wall, forcing his way out of the tunnel. He broke through the horizontal barrier ahead and drove directly toward the crowded plaza.

"Get Jiang Lian to disperse the crowd," Yan Junxun shouted into the Communicator. "This bastard is a fucking lunatic!"

The moment Yan Junxun's voice fell, the Supervisory Bureau's sirens blared from the side of the plaza. Jiang Lian, holding an old-fashioned bullhorn he'd dug up from somewhere, shouted at the plaza, "Combat readiness drill, all personnel evacuate—!"

The Docking Area also conducted combat readiness drills during wartime. This had been a mandatory course for residents a few years ago, and they were even tested on it for school promotions. Now, sirens surrounded the plaza, the electric bullhorn's shouts hurt the ears, and Supervisory Bureau members were organizing the evacuation of pedestrians.

The lunatic stepped on the gas. As he passed the peace statue in the center of the plaza, a hand reached out of the car window and fired a shot at the large, dove-shaped lamp in the statue's palm.

The dove lamp immediately shattered, showering fragments everywhere. The pedestrians below couldn't dodge in time and were hit by the broken pieces, their screams erupting instantly. The crowd, which had been relatively orderly, plunged into panic upon hearing the gunshot and the sound of shattering.

The lunatic whooped and hollered in his car as if on a joyride, rampaging around with his loudspeaker: "This is a declaration of war! To hell with Black Panther and Fu Chenghui! The system will eventually rule the world!"

The timer jumped to "8".

Su Heting commented, "This guy—"

He didn't finish his sentence before the call was suddenly cut off. All the lights in the plaza switched on at once. It wasn't midnight yet, but the fountains came on with the lights, splashing the already chaotic crowd with water. Panic instantly covered the entire plaza.

Standing by the car, Jiang Lian was not spared either; his glasses were knocked off by the powerful spray from the fountain. He was soaked from the waist up and couldn't see clearly ahead. There were screams everywhere. He said something, only to find that his bullhorn was broken.

The advertising light screens all around the plaza turned on. A female celebrity hadn't even walked into the frame before the screen cut to a blurry basement.

"I was framed—" Huo Qingjun's voice echoed through the buildings. Despair was caught in his throat, making his voice change pitch, like a cornered beast making a last, desperate struggle. He slapped at the camera, his glasses also falling off, his hair a mess, as he cried out amidst the sound of a chainsaw, "I didn't—"

The screen suddenly switched to a children's cartoon.

"Fuck you!" Su Heting called back, furious. "He has outside help! Someone is attacking..."

The call was cut off again. The cartoon on the plaza's light screen also started to stutter, flashing Huo Qingjun's face from time to time.

"Activate wartime shielding mode," Jue's voice suddenly returned to normal in Piao Lin's ear. "Repeat, requesting activation of wartime shielding mode." A few seconds later, Jue said, "Shielding mode activation failed. Unable to resist external intrusion. Re-requesting cooperation with 7-006 to handle the emergency!"

The situation in the plaza was already chaotic. The lunatic was not only rampaging with a gun, but was also mentally unstable. Shi Shanyan had already caught up to the lunatic. Driving parallel, he pressured the lunatic, forcing him toward an empty blind lane. The doors of both cars were dented as they scraped against each other.

Yan Junxun unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed the handle of the side door.

"Come on," the lunatic provoked Shi Shanyan. "Ram m—"

He was halfway through his sentence when Shi Shanyan rammed him forcefully. The side mirror was instantly wrecked with a "bang." The lunatic lost control of the steering wheel, and his car's front veered toward a nearby flowerbed during the impact, shattering the headlights. He barely managed to brake, sending a trash can flying with a fishtail.

Shi Shanyan adjusted his direction and side-swiped the lunatic's car again before he could stabilize. This time, the lunatic's hat was knocked right out of the window. The car door was dented as if it had been run over, and even the system warnings inside went silent.

The lunatic's car stalled briefly. While restarting it, he heard the sports car's door open. He kicked his car hard, and the rear side door was pulled open. The lunatic got the car moving again, the back door swinging in the air, and Yan Junxun was nearly knocked over by the sudden acceleration. The lunatic cursed: "Wanna die..."

Yan Junxun reached out an arm from the back, seized the lunatic's throat, and pinned him to the driver's seat. The lunatic couldn't breathe properly. The car swerved back toward Shi Shanyan, and the open door was crushed and deformed in the collision. The windows of both cars shattered instantly, and Yan Junxun's arm was cut by the flying glass shards.

The lunatic drove with one hand and held a gun with the other. He fired a shot at the windshield. The Pure Black Third Generation's windshield was advertised as bulletproof and didn't shatter from the shot. The bullet ricocheted inside the car, hitting the seat next to Yan Junxun's shoulder. The left door was already broken. The lunatic tried to throw Yan Junxun out, driving with the tires right on the edge of the narrow path, then slammed on the brakes while turning sharply. Inertia threw Yan Junxun's entire body to the left.

The lunatic's car swerved erratically. Unable to dislodge the arm choking him, he forced a laugh from his throat. "Yan Junxun... Yan Junxun!" he shrieked. "I'm not the first, and I won't be the last!"

Yan Junxun's cheek was pressed against the back of the driver's seat. In the car's interior mirror, he finally saw the lunatic's face clearly. The lunatic was wearing clown makeup, and his facial structure was very similar to his own.

"Hello," the lunatic's eyes widened as he greeted him excitedly, "How—are—you—Yan—Jun—xun!" He raised his gun, the muzzle tapping below his own right eye. "Too bad I don't have a beauty mark under my eye. I really envy you. Artemis gave you a brain that surpasses the mundane, yet you use it to roll in the mud with beasts. You're so boring, but that's okay, I'll save you."

The lunatic looked a lot like Yan Junxun. It seemed he had molded his appearance after Yan Junxun's. His black hair hung over his eyes. He looked at Shi Shanyan driving parallel to them and grinned, baring his teeth.

"He's so pretty!" the lunatic said manically. "A pretty baby, even gets a bit more luck than others, don't you think?"

The Pure Black Third Generation was already out of control. The lunatic let the car crash about like a headless fly. He laughed loudly, let go of the steering wheel, and grabbed Yan Junxun instead.

Only a dozen or so seconds remained on the countdown.

"Look at yourself," the lunatic raised the gun, pressed the muzzle to his own glabella, and said to Yan Junxun in the interior mirror, "This is your end."

Fuck.

Yan Junxun heard himself say.

"Fuck!"

The lunatic fired.

Yan Junxun couldn't see ahead. The splattering blood had almost blinded him. He heard the sound of the timer turn into the "click" of a stopwatch, eventually transforming into the sound of a downpour. His face felt hot; he didn't know if it was the lunatic's makeup or his blood. The orderly thoughts in his head were shattered, as if he had returned to the empty plaza where he had once been.

The timer let out a long "diiii—" termination sound. The car, bucking and lurching, broke through the barricade and sped toward its imminent end. On the commercial building's light screen, amidst the sounds of chaos and terror, a full screen of virtual fireworks suddenly exploded. The brilliant light covered everyone, as if a long-planned celebration had just been completed.

The car's direction was erratic. It scraped along the low curb and charged toward a canopy at the corner. Under the canopy were tables and chairs, as well as beer bottles stacked in a pyramid shape.

"Jump!" Shi Shanyan yelled, snapping Yan Junxun out of it.

As Yan Junxun pulled his arm back, he took the lunatic's gun. The moment before the car crashed into the canopy, he jumped out and rolled on the ground. The next second, the beer bottles under the canopy exploded, splashing amber liquid everywhere. The tires crunched over the broken glass, dragging tables and chairs along with it. There were still people on the sidewalk, and people in the cars parked by the roadside ahead. Shi Shanyan turned his steering wheel, ramming the other car hard against the side of a building, pushing it into a utility pole at the street corner.

The Pure Black Third Generation's windshield was fine, but its hood was severely dented. The entire vehicle let out a pained screech and came to a stop, smoking. The sports car followed closely, scraping past the edge and braking hard at the corner.

The virtual fireworks in the plaza were still going off. Yan Junxun lay on the glass-strewn ground, gasping for breath, the lunatic's final gaze haunting his mind. A moment later, Yan Junxun opened his eyes, pushed himself up, and pulled at his T-shirt to wipe the blood from his face. He buried his face, unsure if it was covered in blood or sweat, in his T-shirt and cursed under his breath, "Fuck."

......

Two hours later, Yan Junxun was sitting in an interrogation room.

"The deceased's identity is unknown," Jue said, aware of the severity of the problem. "We can't find his personal data or any entry and exit records, but I will contact the investigation systems in other regions to conduct a search."

"You pursued him too quickly," Piao Lin looked at Yan Junxun with an observant gaze. "You should have talked to us first."

His tone wasn't exactly accusatory, but it wasn't a suggestion either.

Jiang Lian's Communicator was ringing constantly. He was dealing with a continuous stream of inquiries and also had to write a report for Fu Chenghui. Finally, in frustration, he smashed his Communicator.

"Can we even find the killer tonight? The video was broadcast on the light screens, Huo Qingjun shouting that he was framed in front of thousands of people," Jiang Lian spread his hands at them. "And in the end, we haven't even found a trace of the killer."

Yan Junxun had just rinsed his head in the bathroom and was now sitting on a chair with a Supervisory Bureau towel draped over his hair. His clothes were filthy, smeared with blood everywhere.

"This case doesn't look like an ordinary murder now," Piao Lin said, looking at his notebook. "You can keep asking the Profiler. Maybe he'll have a flash of inspiration and solve the case right away."

"Piao Lin," Jue gently admonished, "don't be like that."

"Did I say something I shouldn't have?" Piao Lin looked up. "Sorry, my apologies."

"You can ask Cheng Lixin." Yan Junxun hadn't slept in a long time. He was well aware of Piao Lin's hostility toward him. But he couldn't lose his temper; he had already been through enough humiliation for one night.