Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 151

Chapter 151: The Self-Deification

Qin Luo had been sitting in the interrogation room for half a day. The hard stool made her back ache. Qin Luo rubbed her back and listened to the criminal investigation police officer beside her question her.

The police officer flipped through the materials in his hand and said seriously, “Five years ago, you resigned and went to a temple to live for a year because you killed your father.”

Zhan Luo smiled without a word.

He did not believe in gods or karma.

But after his father’s death, he had asked someone to introduce him to a temple.

The temple did not ask about his past and only arranged for him to do some simple chores: sweeping the floor, repairing the air conditioner, and drying clothes. The temple was not big and was built on the top of a mountain in a scenic area. Including Zhan Luo, there were a total of twelve people. It took more than forty minutes to drive down the mountain to buy groceries. For a whole year, he did not care about the ups and downs of the world, had no desires, and was like an animal that had been skinned and deboned, his spirit suspended. He would often sit on the bluestone pier at the entrance of the temple in a daze, observing the people who were seeking immortality and guidance coming in and out.

At first, he was also afraid of those tall statues of gods and would even hesitate to enter the main hall.

But after a long time, he realized that the statues were just wood and clay sculptures, and they did not speak, nor did they judge.

He began to boldly enter the main hall and watch the people kowtow from the side. He stared at the bodhisattva’s face—there was no anger, no compassion, no pity, and not even a response.

An extreme silence.
Nothing.

He suddenly understood that the statues were the projection of human imagination. They would only exist when they were needed.

The electronic clock on the wall of the interrogation room was ticking. The police officer who had not gotten an answer was a little impatient. He knocked on the table and reminded Zhan Luo to look up.

This time, it was Qin Luo who spoke.

“I’m a little curious. Why did you join the reading group?”

Zhan Luo shrugged his shoulders. “I feel that the philosophy of the reading group is in line with my own.”

Qin Luo held back from cursing and only used a lightweight word to retort, “You’re full of shit.”

This time, the police officer slammed the table.
—Slap.

The police officer said, “Tell us how you and Yanli planned it. How did her father die!”

How did he die?
Zhan Luo tilted his head and thought.

Zhan Luo had not stopped reading when he was idle at the temple. He would occasionally listen to the online lectures of the reading group. Although he did not have time to participate in the volunteer activities, he would donate as much as he could.

It was also by chance that Zhan Luo had seen Qin Luo’s new book on the donation page.

Her Kill

This title had aroused Zhan Luo’s curiosity.

He had specially taken leave to go down the mountain to attend Qin Luo’s new book launch and had gotten a copy of the new book that had not yet been released.

He had taken the book back to the mountain. Every time he read it, he had a different feeling. He had put his exploited and reprimanded self into the dialogue of the plot, had stripped his father’s voice, and had inserted it into the soul of the oppressor. He could hear their every breath, and he also empathized with the silence and shame that the woman had suffered.

Qin Luo had written: “It is only after there is law that there is crime.”
He also understood it this way.

It wasn’t until Zhan Luo had memorized the plot that he had proposed a farewell plan to the abbot of the temple.

Before he left, the abbot had asked him if he had been at peace in the temple.
He had smiled and nodded.

The abbot had then asked him what he had cultivated in the past year.
He had said that there were no gods in the world, and that the function of gods could be undertaken by people who understood the structure of suffering.

It had only taken Zhan Luo two days to pack his luggage. After he had gone down the mountain, he had gone straight to the reading group. He knew that he had to take this step sooner or later. He could not be a puppet who silently recited emptiness forever. Qin Luo was a partner he recognized, and he would support his partner for the rest of his life.

Because he was a volunteer, Zhan Luo had successfully re-entered the job. And because he was unemployed and the fleet was short of a supervisor, the human resources department of the reading group had asked him if he was willing to be a full-time employee. Although the salary was not as high as a salesperson’s, it was completely self-sufficient for a single person. Zhan Luo had signed the contract without hesitation.

The work at the reading group was very complicated. There were many activities and few staff. Zhan Luo not only had to be busy with logistics, but he would also sometimes be responsible for training new members. Zhan Luo was particularly patient with new colleagues. He would encourage the volunteers when they were about to give up, and would comfort the members when their voices choked with emotion during their speeches. Because his emotions were very stable and he was proactive in his work, he had gradually become a core employee of the reading group.

Yanli was one of the first members he had “saved.”

Yanli had joined the volunteers a few months later than him. The two had met a few times at the reading day activities. During the time he had been living in the temple, Yanli had become a full-time employee after passing the assessment.

He and Yanli had not gotten along well at first. Yanli hated men to the extreme. Every time he proposed an activity, the other would sneer. Her personality was direct, and she did not know how to avoid conflict. She would often escalate the gender issue in the group meetings. Zhan Luo had once thought that she was harsh, and had even suspected that she also had a victim complex like him.

To work together amicably, Zhan Luo had been paying attention to her story. He knew that she had been abandoned by her parents since she was a child, had had a failed plastic surgery after she had become an adult, had failed at work, and had even developed an anxiety disorder. She had entered the reading group after she had saved herself from her emotional disorder.

Zhan Luo understood her sharpness and was more sensitive than anyone else to the traces of oppression on her. She did not trust anyone easily, and even a man who looked as rational and gentle as Zhan Luo was difficult for her to accept. Several times, Zhan Luo had wanted to open his heart and talk to her, but he had been brushed off by Yanli with a joke. She had even said to him, “You look like a monkey performing obedience at a zoo.”

The two had started to communicate more because of the roundtable activity at the prison.

To thank the warden who had helped her write her book, Qin Luo had specially arranged a resource activity for the reading group. As roundtable volunteers, they had to organize and plan together.

It was also because of this roundtable activity that Zhan Luo had heard her tell her own story.

In her detailed description, Zhan Luo had learned how she had been deceived by the gold medal salesperson of a plastic surgery hospital, who had tricked her into taking out a loan for plastic surgery with sweet words, and had repeatedly shirked responsibility and had threatened her not to speak out after the surgery had failed. Although she had chosen to work to support her lawsuit, after a few years, the punishment of the law was not worth mentioning compared to her pain. She had resented her father who had abandoned her, had complained that her mother had not taken her away, and had no way to accept that she was lonely.

After that day, Zhan Luo had secretly followed her writing account on social media.

“I really want to kill him,” she had written at the end of every post.

Zhan Luo had silently observed her like this and had read all the words she had posted. Those hateful and chaotic words had made him think of himself looking in the mirror at night.

They were like the cracks in a mirror reflecting each other.

“Yes, I helped her solve that man.” That was the gift he had given her. He would naturally not avoid it. Zhan Luo nodded arrogantly, a satisfied smile on his lips.

The police were used to this kind of criminal provocation and asked in a cold voice, “Solved who? What’s the name of the man you’re talking about?”

“Yan Hua.”
“Yanli’s father.”

Zhan Luo nodded and then raised an eyebrow at Qin Luo, in the face of the doubt in her eyes. “I said, I was protecting her.”

“How did you solve it?”

It was similar to the method he had used to solve his father, but it was easier this time.

Yanli’s emotional disorder had relapsed in their second year. She would tremble with stress in various work situations and would occasionally have short-term memory loss. Zhan Luo was not only worried about the work progress, but also about her health.

Once, after an event, Zhan Luo had driven her home and had happened to run into her father downstairs.

The appearance of the old man had made Yanli dry heave in the passenger seat. Zhan Luo had never seen her so timid and nervous. In his impression, Yanli was generous and brave, a girl who dared to challenge the powerful. But the shriveled and withered Yanli in front of him was difficult for Zhan Luo to compare with.

Zhan Luo had not let Yanli get out of the car and had gotten out of the car alone to talk to the old man.

The conversation between the men was full of gunpowder. The young Zhan Luo’s back was straighter, and his fists were harder, so he had a slight advantage. Zhan Luo had warned the man not to harass Yanli again, but he had not expected Yan Hua to think that Zhan Luo was his daughter’s boyfriend, so he had used the matter of his daughter’s failed plastic surgery to seduce men to humiliate Zhan Luo.

Zhan Luo had not gotten angry.

Instead, he had felt that his peaceful life had been disturbed again. The scene of his father taking the medicine kept appearing in his mind. He was dizzy, and his nerves felt like they had had a facelift, so tight that he wanted to get close again, to walk into those killings again. He looked at the other’s flushed and drunk state, and the smell of alcohol on him made him feel excited.

“If you pester her again, I’ll kill you.”

His tone was like that of an emperor, the threatening language that men were used to, as if he could gently break the other’s neck with his hand. But he never lied, and his face showed a superior line. It was a rule, he was the order, and he had returned to the track where he could control everything.

The deification that could relieve the temptation had finally settled in his body.

“He was the one who asked me to kill him. How could I resist killing him?”

Qin Luo felt it was absurd. “What right do you have to decide the life and death of others?”

But Zhan Luo retorted excitedly, “It is these despicable things that distinguish me from them. They are not human.”

Piao Zheng was watching through the glass, and he was so angry he slapped his thigh.

Shen Yiyi was sitting on the side, her materials neatly stacked. Her gaze was in the same direction as Piao Zheng’s, but her mind was not on Zhan Luo.

Piao Zheng was right. Zhan Luo was clearly a pervert.

Zhan Luo’s voice was getting louder and louder. It was as if you could hear his shouts from outside the glass without a speaker. His handcuffs were hitting the table. “Qin Luo, Qin Luo, Qin Luo.”

He used his voice to cover up his almost-exploding mentality, slowed down his tone, and said with a hint of admonition,

“To achieve victory, you have to establish a new morality.”
“My so-called morality refers to something that can be expanded and replaced.”
“And your reading group is just like that.”

If it weren’t for the handcuffs restraining him, he might have been able to wave his arms in the next second. “Language, text, new thinking, are more advanced substitutes for those old-fashioned violent structures.”

“You used to say that.”

Seeing that Qin Luo had no reaction, he began to accuse her excitedly, “You said that when a victim who was originally sacrificed begins to fight back with their own language and goes to liquidate the sacrifice system, then she is no longer a victim. She will become an anti-structuralist.”

He pointed to himself, the self at the center of the meaning.

“You must understand why I did that live stream?”
“Even if this new system also requires a certain sacrifice.”
“I can be the one to be sacrificed. Even if I have dealt with them in a cruel way, we are no longer hiding, but openly—”

Before Zhan Luo could finish his sentence, Qin Luo stood up in anger.

“I’ve had enough.”

She looked at the police officer beside her. “How much longer do I have to be with this madman?”