Chapter 146: The Cost of Faking Death

Chen Yu struggled to roll his eyes, looking around the sterile, all-white room.

Damn it, is this heaven or hell?

It looks clean enough, so it shouldn't be hell.

"Awake?"

A hoarse, familiar voice sounded from the doorway.

Chen Yu turned his head and saw that familiar, square-jawed face.

Yan Zheng, captain of the municipal detective detachment.

He looked much more haggard than he had a few days ago, with deep-set eye sockets, bloodshot eyes, and dark stubble sprouting on his chin.

"Captain Yan?" Chen Yu asked in surprise, "I thought I'd be seeing ox-head and horse-face spirit guards."

"Close enough." Yan Zheng pulled up a chair, sat down by the hospital bed, and looked at him with a complex gaze. "From a legal standpoint, you are indeed a dead man now."

"Huh?" Chen Yu twitched the corner of his mouth, pulling on his wound and making him grimace in pain. "What kind of international joke is this? Am I not breathing just fine right now?"

"To the outside world, you are dead."

Yan Zheng's tone carried no emotion. "During the isolated island explosion, no trace of your body was found. The official search and rescue team salvaged some unidentifiable human tissue, and through DNA 'comparison,' it was confirmed to be yours."

Chen Yu's heart skipped a beat.

What the hell, these people play it this ruthlessly? They even managed to handle the official channels?

"So, I'm an un-person now?"

"No, you're a hero." Yan Zheng handed over a tablet computer.

On the screen were the front-page headlines of major news outlets, each title more alarming than the last.

[The Fall of a Hero! "Resurrected Detective" Chen Yu Confirmed Dead!]

Accompanying the article was his fiercely handsome black-and-white portrait.

"Go to hell." Chen Yu couldn't help cursing, "Making me look this handsome—are they planning to nominate me for the annual Top Ten touching figures in the country?"

"If you're willing, that's not entirely out of the question." For once, Yan Zheng didn't argue back against his nonsense.

Chen Yu put away his frivolous expression, fixed his eyes on Yan Zheng's, and asked word by word.

"Where is Li Qing?"

This was the question he cared about most.

Yan Zheng was silent for a moment before speaking slowly. "What Shen Feng said before he died carries a high degree of credibility."

Chen Yu's heart leaped into his throat.

"We analyzed that he had no reason to lie to you," Yan Zheng continued. "Li Qing... is still alive, with a high probability."

Alive.

These two words exploded like a thunderclap in Chen Yu's chaotic mind.

The despair and pain buried deep in his heart, fierce enough to incinerate everything, were instantly shattered into pieces by a wave of ecstatic joy.

He wanted to laugh, wanted to scream, but the excruciating pain throughout his body prevented him from even making a complete facial expression.

"However, her current situation might be even worse than being dead." Yan Zheng's next words poured like a bucket of ice water, chilling him to the bone.

"What do you mean?"

"The 'other hell' Shen Feng mentioned is likely related to a series of missing girls cases. Li Qing is probably there."

"?"

"What missing persons case? What the hell is going on?"

Just at that moment, a cold, mechanical prompt suddenly rang out in Chen Yu's mind.

[Ding! Novice Mission Two completed: Uncover the truth of the Luo Xiangdong case!]

[Reward skill points: 1,000 points!]

[Ding! Detected that the host completed the S-rank hidden mission: Hunting Game!]

[Mission evaluation: Perfect! Reward skill points: 5,000 points!]

A series of prompts left Chen Yu completely stunned.

One thousand points?

Five thousand points?!

Added together... six thousand points?!

Holy crap!

Chen Yu felt as though his nearly stopped heart had instantly been jolted back to life with a shot of adrenaline.

A whole six thousand points given!

I'm rich! This wave was an absolute windfall!

Chen Yu's breathing grew hurried as he hurriedly opened the system panel to take a look.

Available skill points: 7,180.

Looking at this number, he almost laughed out loud with excitement.

"Calm down, your wounds haven't healed yet." Yan Zheng watched him suddenly get excited and thought he had suffered some kind of stimulation.

"Cough cough... It's nothing, just thought of some happy things." Chen Yu forcibly suppressed the wild joy in his heart and pulled his attention back.

"Li Qing's case is related to Dong Zhan, right?" Chen Yu asked.

A flash of admiration crossed Yan Zheng's eyes. "Shen Feng mentioned him at the very end. We checked, and Dong Zhan is indeed the most suspicious."

"Furthermore, some clues we recently discovered all point to a mysterious overseas organization controlled behind the scenes by the Xiangdong Group."

As he spoke, Yan Zheng switched the page on the tablet, displaying the profile of a woman.

It was none other than the woman rescued from the seaside by the old fisherman, the one named Lin Li.

In the photo, her face was emaciated, and her eyes were hollow, like a puppet whose soul had been extracted.

Below were several audio clips of her incoherent testimony.

"Butterflies... so many red butterflies... flying..."

"Melting... we're all going to melt... ah!"

"Stay away! Don't touch me!"

Chen Yu's brow furrowed.

Red butterflies?

And "melting"—what did that even mean?

"This Lin Li is the third living person found among nearly two hundred missing people," Yan Zheng's voice was exceptionally heavy. "The first two didn't survive three days; they died of organ failure and ultimately melted away amidst extreme terror."

"When they were found, their mental states were similar to Lin Li's, and what they muttered was all the same nonsense. We suspect that a massive criminal organization is subjecting these young girls to inhumane psychological and physical torture using a method we cannot comprehend."

"Those beasts." Chen Yu clenched his fists. "What about Dong Zhan? Why not just arrest him? I refuse to believe we can't crack his mouth open!"

"We can't arrest him." Yan Zheng shook his head, his face full of frustration.

"Why?"

"A few days before you went to the island, Dong Zhan transferred all the shares of the Xiangdong Group held in his name to someone else through legal and compliant channels."

"Who?"

"Zhang Fu."

Chen Yu's gaze turned cold.

That name again.

Luo Xiangdong's other partner, the so-called "towering figure with immense power."

"Isn't this fucking just passing it from the left hand to the right? Zhang Fu and Dong Zhan were in cahoots from the start!" Chen Yu raged.

"I know!" Yan Zheng raised his voice a notch as well. "But procedurally, there is nothing wrong! We can't find any reason to arrest a law-abiding 'big shot'! All we can do now is assign people to watch him twenty-four hours a day."

"As for Dong Zhan himself," Yan Zheng took a deep breath, "he has completely vanished, evaporated into thin air."

Chen Yu fell silent.

He knew that behind this there must be an invisible web—a web powerful enough to play with the law in the palm of its hand.

Dong Zhan, Shen Feng, and even Zhang Fu were merely nodes on this web.

And Li Qing, along with those nearly two hundred girls, were the prey trapped within it.

"So, the trail is cold now?"

"No, not yet."

Yan Zheng's gaze fell on Chen Yu once again.

He took a few documents from his briefcase and placed them on Chen Yu's bedside table.

Chen Yu picked them up and took a look, his pupils contracting slightly.

The first was his "Resident Death Medical Certificate (Inference)."

The second was his "Cremation Certificate."

Stamped with a bright red official seal.

"Officially certified, valid for all ages," Chen Yu chuckled self-deprecatingly.

He finally understood what Yan Zheng wanted to do.

"We need a 'dead man,'" Yan Zheng said in a very low voice. "A ghost that doesn't exist in any filing system, a ghost who can ignore the rules and use any means necessary."

"Let him sneak into that hell whose exact location we cannot even lock down, and rescue everyone."

"That ghost is you."

Yan Zheng stood up, looking down at Chen Yu from above.

"This is an order, and also a request. We will provide you with all necessary support, forge a brand new identity for you, and let you go into hell to complete the mission!"

"Are you willing to go?" Yan Zheng asked solemnly.

Chen Yu leaned back against the head of the bed, staring at the ceiling, and remained silent for a long time.

Damn it.

Why is it an island again?

Do perverts nowadays have some strange obsession with developing islands?