Chapter 133: Punishment and the Dead

The leading girl remained silent for a moment. Hesitating briefly, she raised her head, looked at Chen Qing’s turned back, and reached out her hand. Her fingertips brushed against the freshly printed documents; the new ink felt icy to the touch, chilling her heart as well.

She looked at the gruesome and varied images of the victims on the pages. Her mouth opened in a gasp, her face draining of color. Staggering backward, she collapsed onto the sofa behind her.

She turned her head to look at Chen Qing, hesitating, unsure whether she should speak.

Both of them remained silent. The ponytail-wearing girl who had accompanied her parted her lips as if wanting to say something, but after a moment of hesitation, no words came out.

She actually wanted to ask, wanted to demand of Chen Qing whether he had deliberately placed these things out here to frighten them.

Yet she could not ask. Seeing Chen Qing’s attitude of treating her like air, she truly could not bring herself to voice the question.

Hesitating, she ultimately left the choice in the young girl’s hands.

"Chen Qing?"

"Hmm?"

He turned back around, looking as though he had just snapped out of a daydream.

"My name is Zhang Tinglan."

"Oh... Ah! I remember now." He looked at the girl before him, his gaze drifting to the documents left unattended on the desk.

"The old man told you to come find me. Why didn't he tell you to just call the police?"

He walked over to the desk, gathered the scattered documents into his hands, gave them a slight tap to align the edges, and slid them under the desk.

"Because it's useless."

"Useless?"

"I don't have any evidence. The homicides over the past couple of days..." She paused for a moment, her gaze drifting to the spot where Chen Qing had just stashed the papers. "Those murders have already stretched the police department's manpower to the limit. They simply don't have the energy to deal with my situation."

"So you thought of me?"

She shook her head, her expression growing slightly more neutral. "Not us. The whole school is talking about it. Everyone says that because you know how to catch ghosts... you've been recruited by the police department, making an early stop at life's final destination."

"Catch ghosts..." Hearing this, Chen Qing couldn't help but find it amusing.

"Because of what happened last time, everyone thinks that you are... very... extraordinary."

"So what brings you here?"

Hearing Chen Qing's question, the two girls exchanged glances. Zhang Tinglan’s expression gradually grew much more serious. She pulled a smartphone, still warm from her body heat, out of her pocket and placed it flat before Chen Qing.

"A week ago, I received a text message."

Hearing the young girl’s voice, he picked up the phone and looked at the message displayed on the screen, his brows furrowing slightly.

It was an anonymous text message, written from a detached, spectator-like perspective.

"A week ago, before those events occurred in the city, I received this text. It told me... that we are all sinners who have committed the eight deadly sins, and that we all deserve to die by the punishment of the eight deadly sins."

Listening to the girl, he swiped the phone display back to the earliest message.

The text read: "God bestowed kindness and mercy upon the world, yet the world repays God's chosen creations with sin. Humanity is greedy and unappreciative. The judgment is hereby rendered: sinner Zhang Tinglan has committed the sins of greed and gluttony; execution is set for the seventh day."

He scrolled further down, flipping to a screenshot. The content of the screenshot was a group chat interface, and the name of the group was "Judgment Public Notice Bureau."

He swiped again, revealing subsequent screenshots of the daily messages sent within the group chat.

"Ever since I was added to this group... I haven't been able to leave." Her complexion grew somewhat pale, and she reached out, signaling for Chen Qing to hand the phone back to her.

He looked at the slender fingertips stretched out before him; these delicate bones could hardly be associated with the sin of gluttony.

He raised his head, handed the phone back into her outstretched hand, and watched as she opened the group chat before passing it back to him once more.

Chen Qing looked at the photographs on the screen, and his brows suddenly knitted together.

He found the photographs strangely familiar. Tilting his head, he pulled the documents Jiang Wan had given him out from under the desk.

With his left hand holding the phone and his right hand holding the documents, his head bobbed back and forth between the two sets of records.

He could clearly see that, starting from the very earliest day, the photos posted by the group administrator matched the documents precisely—the wounds, the subtle changes in the surroundings after the victims fell, the shifting light from morning until night—everything matched the official records down to the smallest detail.

It was as if, every single hour, the person had been right there at the scene snapping fresh photographs.

Frowning, Chen Qing watched as the phone's camera was pressed close to the victim's chest, capturing the subject's physical traits from an utterly bizarre angle.

He shifted his gaze to the documents in his right hand. After flipping through a couple of pages, he landed on that exact photograph—the specially framed shot capturing the victim's distinct features.

He remained silent for a moment, then looked further down. In the nighttime photographs, the surrounding environment was pitch black, and the timestamp on the image was roughly 7:20 PM.

Yet at 7:20 PM, the bodies had already been sent to the laboratory for autopsies. Weren't those photos taken on the same day?

Lowering his head, he asked, "What day is it today?"

"The sixth day."

He raised his head, locking eyes with Zhang Tinglan in stunned disbelief. After studying the girl for a long while, he finally asked, "It took you until the sixth day to think of coming to find me?"

"Yesterday... the news only came out yesterday."

She paused for a moment, a trace of unease on her face. "I thought those pictures were photoshopped before..."

"Why didn't you call the police? With these photos, the police wouldn't refuse to open a case."

"I can't report it..."

She took the phone back from Chen Qing and navigated the group interface to a shared document, one labeled "Vigilance."

As Chen Qing looked at the information inside the document, he instantly understood the girl's hesitation.

The folder was packed with the personal information of the group members, detailing those who had attempted to call the police and were consequently executed ahead of schedule.

Not a single one had survived.

"Sister Zhao, check the surroundings."

Without raising his head, he spoke these baffling words to the empty air beside him.