Chapter 302: Zhang Jiulin Makes His Move (2/2)

A thought suddenly crossed my mind. ”Please teach us the Tao Te Ching right now,” I said, turning to Zhang Jiulin. “The murderer must still be in the vicinity. Let’s go after him!”

“You won’t be able to resist a second wave,” Zhang Jiulin sighed as he shook his head. ”Calm yourself before we proceed.”

”If we let him escape, more people will be killed!” I argued.

Zhang Jiulin issued a sarcastic sneer, ”Don't worry, he doesn't have much time.”

”What do you mean by that?” I asked.

”There’s no such thing as free lunch in this world,” he replied. “Such a powerful killing method will result in a huge backlash on him as well.”

From his statement, I concluded that the murderer had indeed coughed out blood into his handkerchief. Glancing at Director-General Cheng and Officers Xun and Luo, I wondered out loud, ”Is that why he’s speeding up the process? He wants to kill us all in one go?”

”Xiao Song Yang, can we step out for a chat?” Zhang Jiulin said as he patted his clothes.

I nodded and followed him outside. ”I'll cut to the chase!” he declared. “This time, I’ll cooperate with you but I’ll have to take the object with me when the job is done.”

”It's not up to me to decide,” I admitted. “I'm only a consultant without any authority.”

”It doesn't matter,” he waved his finger. “Don't tell them that I took it! That’s all you have to do.”

I furrowed my brows and contemplated my decision. With no other alternatives, the man’s help was indispensable, and between the devil and the deep blue sea, I would rather lie to him. Anyway, he couldn’t tell if I was telling the truth or not.

”Alright,” I said.

Zhang Jiulin held out a hand, ”Glad to work with you!”

”Glad to work with you!” I echoed, shaking his hand.

Having narrowly escaped the jaws of death, it took quite some time before everyone regained composure, after which the officers began to clean up the scene. Xiaotao and I searched the surrounding area for traces of the murderer with Zhang Jiulin tagging along. I inspected the grass outside the warehouse using Cave Vision, pointing to a location when I found something. ”That area has been stepped on!”

A look of amazement flickered in my direction as Zhang Jiulin seemed to size me up with piqued interest.

The location I pointed to was more than fifty meters away from the warehouse. I was stumped to discover how far the music from the xun could spread. If the murderer intended it, he could kill an entire football field full of people.

I followed the footsteps for about twenty meters before discovering a larger area of indentation where a small pool of blood stained the ground red, seeping into the soil. I tried to deduce the murderer’s movements. From the indentations in the ground, the murderer knelt down and vomited a huge mouthful of blood, suggesting that his physical condition wasn’t optimistic.

I took some blood samples and sent them back for testing. As we walked on, I realized that the murderer’s stride had grown longer. But when I reached the road, I found no sign of a parked vehicle, which led me to the shocking conclusion that the murderer ran away on his two feet.

After witnessing my investigation process, Zhang Jiulin laughed, ”It's all quite interesting!”

”By the way, how did you find me?” I asked. “Did Wang Dali tell you?”

Zhang Jiulin frowned, ”Who’s Wang Dali?”

As it turned out, early this morning, Dali phoned Pockmark Li and greeted him with a bunch of adulatory remarks, gushing endlessly about how much he admired the man. Awoken from a deep sleep, a groggy Pockmark Li assumed it was a spam phone call and immediately hung up. Zhang Jiulin was able to locate me because he had placed a talisman on me.

Bereft of speech, I attempted to recall last night’s meeting. I was certain he didn’t lay a finger on me. When did he leave the talisman on me? Zhang Jiulin told me to take off my coat and have a look.

Upon removing my coat, I found a talisman painted with vermilion which only served to convince me of the man’s profound methods.