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A Space-time Hunter

A Space-time Hunter

Zhihu Select

5.0
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He was the perfect criminal the police couldn't catch, but he only hunted DUI offenders, robbers, and sexual harassers. Many violations cost too little. Good people had their homes broken, while bad people got out in a few years, and they didn't repent. Bad people never felt they had done wrong, and their apologies were just excuses for fear of punishment. He thought it was wrong. But since bad people could only be punished by worse people, he didn't mind being the one to hunt them all down.

Chapter 1 Death Is an Eternal Parting

When my wife was about to give birth to our baby, I was running a DUI check. Margaret, my wife's mother, called me, so I hurried back.

I was actually a little late when I got there, but my wife didn't mind. I was so nervous after she got into my police car. She kept comforting me and asked me with a big smile if she would still be my only baby after our baby was born.

I was really nervous. It was a terrible thing to say, but I wasn't worried about the baby. I peeked at my wife every now and then, because I was so afraid that something would happen to her during the delivery and that I would never have her in my life.

I thought about a lot of bad things that could happen. I tried really hard to dispel my worries.

When we arrived at the hospital, we saw no parking space there. Lucky for us, there was a parking space across the street from the hospital. I pulled over so my wife could get out of the car first.

That was the last time I saw her.

She wasn't crossing the street when she had a crash. She got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, reaching out for a hug, and a car rushed over.

I watched her get swept under the car. Her expression didn't even have time to change to one of pain. She looked frightened.

I went straight crazy!

I was screaming in the street, on my knees trying to drag my wife out. She was spitting blood in a pool of blood.

The driver got out of the car drunk and threw up straight on the road. I didn't have time for him. My mind was blank.

I screamed like a mindless puppet, not knowing what I was saying. I took my wife to the hospital and called for a doctor, but I couldn't even speak properly.

It wasn't until the nurses put my wife on a stretcher and took her away that I started to think. I became more and more afraid, crouching in a corner of the hospital, shaking all over, and I couldn't stop crying.

There was no way I could calm down. I started sobbing and ended up crying out loud. I couldn't keep my cries down.

I cried when I called my wife's relatives to come over. All I could think about was my wife. I was so scared. I kept wondering if something bad would happen to her.

Then Margaret, her younger daughter Ava, and Ava's boyfriend all came. Ava's boyfriend was a police officer, too. When he got there, he went straight to the driver.

The perpetrator sat in a chair and threw up. My colleagues joined Ava's boyfriend later. They asked the man why he was on that road because he was going the wrong way. If he hadn't made a U-turn and kept going forward, one of our colleagues would have caught him for drunk driving.

He said he saw a tweet about a DUI check, so he changed direction. But he saw a police car on his way. He was so scared that he wanted to run away. He was driving the wrong way and there were cars on either side of him, so he had no way to escape. He was so anxious that he hit the sidewalk.

My captain blew a fuse. He said every time we ran a DUI check, we would run into such an idiot. He then asked the driver to name the person who sent the tweet, and he would punish them all.

When we knew who the person was, we were devastated.

It was Margaret!

When she called me, she knew I was running a DUI check. To show off my job as a traffic cop, she told her friends to stay off the main roads.

The culprit read her tweet and chose to change to another road!

I was furious, but I had no mind for them. I just wanted my wife to be safe.

But after a while, the doctor came out and told us that he was sorry.

Margaret howled in the hospital. I couldn't suppress my hatred for her when I saw her. She killed my wife!

I punched her right in the mouth and broke her teeth. She fell to the ground with a thud, and I lifted my foot and kicked her in the head.

I kicked her and cried, yelling that it was her fault!

My colleagues hurriedly separated us. I heard the culprit on the phone, telling his family that he had been unlucky enough to kill someone and that they should get the money ready.

I walked straight up to him angrily. He was nervous and told me not to be reckless and that he was protected by law!

I put his head in a trash can!

I knew I was a cop, but I was dying to kill that bastard!

I held him down in his vomit, and he was struggling, a trash can over his head. My colleagues came to pull me away. I kept kicking him in the head. My captain grabbed me hard and told me to calm down.

I said I couldn't fucking calm down and that I quit!

The perpetrator was pulled out of the trash can, so scared that he cried and shouted to the police to protect him!

I punched him in the temple and knocked him to the floor, convulsing and vomiting.

My colleagues were afraid that I might hurt him, so they quickly pinned me down. They took Margaret and the perpetrator away before they let me go.

I cried when I went to see my wife's body. She died with her eyes open!

I lost my wife and baby.

I had lived a happy life, and then I lost it all overnight because of a man's drunk driving! My wife was standing on the sidewalk. What the hell did she do wrong?

I spent the night in the hospital crying, holding my wife's body, hoping she would wake up.

The next morning my colleagues came to visit me. While they were comforting me, our leader called to say that I might be punished for hitting the culprit. My captain talked back, saying if the leader tried to punish me, he'd take all his men and smash up his office. Then he hung up.

My colleagues were nice to me and my wife, but I still quit.

I couldn't work as a cop anymore.

I felt responsible for my wife's death because Margaret learned the DUI check from me.

I couldn't do that job no matter what.

After I quit my job, I stayed home and spent the whole day looking at pictures of my wife, listening to her voice messages, and crying over her clothes.

The next day, the perpetrator's family contacted me.

It was the man's wife who came to visit me. Ironically, she was also pregnant. She apologized as soon as she arrived and said she wished to compensate me and settle the matter in private.

As she spoke, she even cried. She said that life as a pregnant woman was not easy and that if her husband went to prison, she and her baby would have nothing to fall back on.

She also said that if her husband went to jail, she didn't know what would happen to her child or how could the child keep his head up when everyone knew his dad had been in prison.

I told her that at least all of them were alive.

Her husband was alive, she was alive, and she was going to have a baby. What was wrong with being a criminal's child? Weren't them three alive and well?

...

But what about my baby?

She was about to be born, and she couldn't wait to come out into this world and be my little princess, but she didn't get the chance.

And what about my wife?

She was the love of my life, the one I wanted to protect all my life, but I didn't have her anymore.

I told the perpetrator's wife to go. She was upset and displeased when I refused to settle the matter privately. She questioned what more I wanted since they had apologized to me and that they were willing to compensate me for my wife's death.

I would have punched her in the face if she hadn't been pregnant!

The pregnant woman was so desperate that her attitude changed completely. She said I wanted her husband to go to jail because I wanted to kill her and her baby. She asked me to put myself in her shoes. She said I should have understood the importance of family since I lost my wife and baby, but she didn't expect me to be so heartless.

She also said it was okay if I didn't sign the letter of understanding as she had ways to get her husband out.

I didn't want to listen to her anymore, because I knew I was going to hit her if she stayed any longer.

So I drove her out. She told me to wait and see.

As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together.

The husband was an asshole, and so was his wife.

But even disgusting people like them had had the letter of understanding signed.

Margaret signed it.

When I learned the news, I flew into a rage!

I banged on Margaret's door and demanded an explanation.

I had beaten her before, so she was afraid to talk to me. Nathaniel White, my wife's father, came out and asked me to do him a favor. He said peace mattered the most.

I said no way and demanded that Margaret come out because I was gonna kill her today!

I was so angry that I said a lot of nasty things.

Margaret was afraid I would go in and hit her, so she called Ava's boyfriend over.

I'd had a good relationship with that man. We went to the same police academy. Later, I became a traffic cop and he became a criminal cop.

My wife and her sister Ava got to know and fell in love with us because they admired the police when they were young and used to hang around our academy.

When Ava's boyfriend got there, he kept pulling me, telling me to calm down.

I asked him if I beat the old woman to death, would he shoot me? I said that was acceptable as I couldn't wait to join my wife in heaven!

He pressed me against the door and told me in earnest that my wife did not want me to join her.

Margaret couldn't help but shout upstairs that the man who killed my wife while drunk driving didn't run away and would only be sentenced to less than three years.

She didn't think three years meant anything. The killer was rich and was willing to pay 120,000 dollars. She said the killer would not be severely punished anyway, so why didn't we take the money?

She cried as she spoke. She said it was not easy for her to raise her daughters, and now that her older daughter was gone, she just wanted to take the money to support her younger daughter. She added that if her older daughter was still alive, she could watch her husband beat her mother.

I thought of my wife and felt sad again.

Ava came too. She and my wife were twins. They looked exactly the same.

She grabbed my arm and told me not to be impulsive. What she said really upset me. She said her sister had gone, but she was up there watching over us, and she wouldn't have wanted me to be like this.

Looking at her face reminded me of my wife.

I used to be good at fighting when I was at the academy. At that time, I was too naive and liked to brag to my wife about my skills.

Back then, my wife told me seriously that a man's fists were used to protect the country, his family, and those who needed to be protected. She added that if a man did not fight to protect someone or something, he was a loser.

And now I tried to hit her mother to give vent to my anger. She'd think I was a failure if she found out!

When I thought of her, I softened and went home as I was told.

Ava and her boyfriend took time off work and stayed with me all day so I wouldn't feel too bad.

Then the jury reached a verdict.

With the understanding of the victim's family, the perpetrator was given a suspended sentence and released.

Damn it!

I used to be a traffic cop, but I hated the traffic law for the first time!

Ava and her boyfriend told me to get over it, but I didn't listen.

I tried to find out everything I could about the perpetrator. When he was released from prison, I went straight to him without my family's knowledge.

He was dining in a restaurant. When I entered the restaurant, I saw him celebrating his release with a bunch of friends.

What I saw made me feel terrible. My wife was dead, but he was there celebrating that he didn't need to serve time, that he was not going to pay the price, and that he killed someone for nothing!

He was visibly stunned to see me.

I called him out and asked him if he was Jacob Smith.

He said yes.

"I found out everything about you. Your family is rich, and you don't mind having a criminal record. You didn't finish middle school. You didn't go to work after you got married. Instead, you spent all your time drinking and womanizing. You never do anything serious because your family is rich. You live off your parents.

"But what about my wife?

"She loved to bring food to my colleagues, donate her old clothes to needy children, and visit lonely elderly people every winter. She signed up for organ donation so she could help those who were desperate for life even after her death.

"You're such a fucking scumbag. Compared to my wife, you really have nothing to live for," I said.

He kept his head down, afraid to speak, probably because he still remembered how I had beaten him.

I couldn't help crying. I wiped away my tears and said, "What's the point of you living? The death of someone as good as my wife ended up giving you a reprieve. If you had lived a life of any significance, I wouldn't feel this bad."

He kept apologizing to me, saying that he really knew he was wrong and that he would never do it again, asking me to forgive him.

I didn't want to talk too much to him. I told him that my wife had given her life for him to start all over and that he had to mend his ways because he owed his life to her.

Then I went back to my car across from the restaurant and cried, listening to my wife's voice messages over and over again. I wanted to drive away, but I was in so much pain that I couldn't breathe. My grief was overwhelming. I couldn't stop throwing up in the car. I felt like I couldn't breathe until I did that. I couldn't drive at all.

I reclined my seat, tired from crying. When I sat up, I saw Jacob come out drunk. And most importantly, he got into the driver's seat!

I was devastated!

He was drunk driving again!

He was just like a dog returning to its vomit!

I watched him start the car and drive away. He was still on probation, and if he got caught again, he was gonna get an even heavier sentence!

But I didn't want to report him to the police!

He was a fucking beast. It was no use sending him to jail!

Unable to suppress my anger, I started my car and ran after him. He was driving really fast, but I was driving even faster, and I tried to hit the front of his car!

I didn't hit his car, but I managed to stop him. When he got out of the car, he walked angrily towards me, swearing.

But when he came to my window and saw me, he said he was wrong and asked me not to call the police. He knew I was no longer a traffic cop, and he offered me money.

I got out of the car and gave him a hard push. I asked him what he had promised me in the restaurant.

He tried to gloss it over. He said he only drove to a hotel not far away because he was too drunk and wanted to get a room to sleep.

How could I believe that?

The more I looked at his face, the more I hated him, and the more I missed my wife. I grabbed his head and smashed it against the window!

I hit his head so hard against the window that it broke. I didn't care about the consequences. All I could think about was making the bastard pay!

He kept yelling for help, but it was late, and the streets were empty.

He begged for mercy, saying he really knew he was wrong. I gritted my teeth to calm myself and let go of him for the time being.

I gasped, trying to suppress the anger inside me. And then he pulled an extendable baton out of the window and attacked me!

He was teaching his grandmother how to suck eggs!

I leaned forward and put my shoulders against his wrist. He made a conscious effort to pull his hand back, but I grabbed his arm.

I could have taken him in one move, but I ground his face against the broken glass!

I didn't want to overpower him. I wanted to beat him to death!

He yelled that one more hit would kill him, but I grabbed him by the ear and tore it down!

I wished I could rip his ear off. Anyway, he couldn't hear the verdict or my advice!

The pain was killing him. He pushed me away and ran away drunk.

In a panic, he jumped off the bridge.

The bridge was more than 30 feet high, and the water below was shallow!

I sobered up and saw it was dark under the bridge. I ran under the bridge and saw him lying in the water, his body covered in blood.

I turned him over and checked his breath with my hand.

He was not breathing.

He was dead!

I didn't know why, but I wasn't afraid at all. Instead, I was thinking that I had finally avenged my wife's death.

I sat next to his body and couldn't help smiling.

I was not afraid. The worst-case scenario would be for me to turn myself in and say I killed him. I wished I could be shot so I could join my wife in heaven.

But after a while, I didn't think it was worth it.

He was a worthless piece of shit. Why would I get both me and my wife killed for him?

As a former traffic cop, I knew the cameras nearby weren't up and running yet, so I carried his body up the bridge and stuffed it in the trunk of his car.

I parked my car and then drove his down the river because I knew there were no cameras in the neighborhood.

I had a map of the city in my head, and I was able to avoid everything that would make me a criminal.

I drove all the way to the riverside. It was dark and there was no one around.

I got out of the car and examined his body closely. After making sure that nothing was wrong, I released the handbrake and pushed the car into the river.

I didn't regret it. I just felt happy!

He deserved it!

I watched his car sink to the bottom of the river with increasing relief. Just as I was about to leave, my phone rang.

I took out my phone and found it was a strange number. I thought it was a phone fraud, but on second thought, I didn't think anyone would do something like that this late.

So I picked up the phone and asked who it was.

After a moment's silence, a woman said, "You killed Jacob Smith, didn't you?"

I was dumbfounded! I trembled as if I had got an electric shock!

"What nonsense are you talking about?" I snapped.

"Are there four trees next to where you dumped the body?" the woman asked again.

There were indeed four trees next to me.

My mind went blank, and I felt my heart pounding.

What did that mean?

Had someone been watching me?

At the height of my nervousness, the woman suddenly said, "There's a bird's nest in the third tree. The father of a child in the neighborhood tied a camera to the tree to record the bird-hatching process. It's an observation diary assigned by the teacher to the child. You were caught on camera. If you don't deal with it, they'll see that you killed someone when they watch the video."

I couldn't believe it. I grabbed my phone and walked to the third tree.

I looked up and saw a camera up there!

I couldn't help but ask, "Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter. Don't worry. In order to drive, Jacob got that car through shady means. It has a dashcam, but it has long malfunctioned and hasn't been repaired. It doesn't have a GPS, so no one's gonna find you through that car, but you have a problem now."

"What is it?"

"If you don't want to die, don't take Maple Avenue on your way back. You must take another road."

Trembling, I asked, "Who on earth are you?"

"Take care of your business now."

The woman hung up. I threw the camera into the river blankly and walked all the way back to my car.

At the thought of the mystery call, I gritted my teeth and decided not to go home from Maple Avenue. Instead, I took a different route.

Not long after I got home, I saw the tweet of a former colleague saying there was a pileup on Maple Avenue.

A lorry overturned while overtaking another vehicle, triggering a five-car crash. It was a horrific scene.

I was shocked. If I had gone home from that road, I would have been involved in that car accident.

It reminded me of what the mystery woman had told me. She seemed to know that a car accident was going to happen and that it would happen to me.

How would she know?

I sat at home and couldn't figure it out.

Jacob died a terrible death. I thought I'd be nervous, but I wasn't.

I lay in bed with my wife's clothes in my arms, listening to the voice messages she had sent me before she died.

"Honey, it's raining so hard today. Be careful on your mission. I miss you so much... Mwah!"

"Honey, are you going to work overtime today? If you don't work late, I'll cook dinner now. If you have to work overtime, I'll get everything ready and get some sleep. Give me a call when you get back. I'll cook when I wake up."

I couldn't stop crying.

Looking at my wife in the wedding photo, I told her that I had avenged her death.

Instead of feeling guilty, I felt a sense of justice.

If I hadn't done it, Jacob probably would have killed another innocent person.

He was a worthless piece of shit. What did those innocent people do wrong? Why would they get killed by him?

I did a good thing. I was a good person.

Like a fool, I replied to my wife's voice messages, "I miss you. I miss you so much. I miss every day that I had you, even if it's the day you left me."

I sent the message, but she couldn't get it.

...

That mystery woman didn't call me again. I was going to try to call back, but for some reason, I found that the record had somehow disappeared from my phone when I picked it up to check the call history.

It was strange.

What the hell was going on?

It became a mystery to me. I hated that I couldn't remember the phone number. I should have saved it if I'd known something like that was gonna happen. But no one could have predicted that the record would mysteriously disappear.

I thought about it for a while, but I couldn't figure it out. It just so happened that my dog was hungry. I stopped thinking about it and got up to feed the dog.

I had a dog. My wife named it Mojo.

In fact, it was an unforgettable story. I was a poor man back then. My wife's best friends and classmates mocked me because I couldn't afford a diamond ring.

So my wife bought a diamond ring with her own savings and claimed that I had bought it myself. I was touched.

But on the wedding day, I accidentally dropped the diamond ring.

I was so upset with myself that I cried.

I found myself useless. In order not to embarrass me, my wife bought a diamond ring with her savings. She didn't get paid much, either. She scrimped and saved for a long time to buy it.

I felt guilty and apologized to her, asking her to forgive me for my stupidity. I said, "Just hit me and scold me. I'll take it all. I'm so sorry."

Instead of being angry, she hugged me and comforted me.

I asked her why she wasn't angry, and she said something I would never forget.

She said, "You're the one who blames yourself the most for losing the ring. How can I bear to blame you?"

From that day on, I knew she would be the only love of my life.

That day, Ava and her boyfriend went to a jewelry store and bought a new diamond ring with their savings without our knowledge.

However, right after our wedding ceremony, we saw a stray dog biting my lost diamond ring box on the side of the road while we were driving through an intersection. It was really fate.

I got my diamond ring back. My wife and I thought it was interesting, so we kept the dog in the hope that I could often recall my mistakes and correct them.

From then on, I was no longer careless and did everything carefully.

Mojo was intelligent and could often understand our instructions.

It could understand simple instructions such as going out to play, sitting down, rolling, and so on.

It seemed to sense my wife's death. It always stayed quietly at home to miss my wife with me.

I couldn't have gotten through it without it.

Once again, I lay on the sofa with my wife's clothes in my arms, playing her voice messages. Mojo stayed by my side, licking my hand and sleeping with me.

On the third day after Jacob's death, a policeman knocked on my door.

It was Ava's boyfriend.

His name was William Turner, and he was a municipal criminal cop. In fact, he was more promising than me and was promoted to vice-captain a long time ago.

We'd always been good friends. He and Ava had been helping me since my wife passed away.

But this time he came with his men, and he didn't console me or greet me as usual.

I wasn't surprised that the police came to me so late. Jacob was an adult, so the police wouldn't accept the case until 24 hours after he disappeared.

I just didn't expect that criminal cops would come to me.

William sat down next to me and asked me how I was doing recently.

I shook my head and said I was having a bad time.

He scratched the back of his head and told me seriously, "There's something awkward. Now we suspect you had something to do with the disappearance of a man."

"You're a criminal cop," I said. "Why are you in charge of a missing person case?"

"The police checked the surveillance footage and saw him leaving the Hilltop Restaurant late at night. Your car was nearby at the time. You were last seen leaving with him, and you had a conflict with him before. The police suspected you had something to do with his disappearance, so they left it to us. I'm here to ask you why did you follow him?" he said.

"I can go home that way," I said.

"Why didn't you leave after you met him?"

"I thought of my wife. I cried so hard that I couldn't breathe or drive. I had a long rest before I could move."

"In fact, the camera across the street caught you crying in the car. Can I have a look at the contents of your dashcam?" he asked me with a sigh after a moment's silence.

I shook my head and said, "I'm afraid not. I removed the dashcam a long time ago. I made copies of everything on it and save them on my computer and my phone. I keep them all at home because it's the only way I can hear my wife's voice. I'm afraid two copies won't be enough. I'd like to keep more copies.

...

"Sometimes she would show up in the video, stupidly gesturing with her hands and feet, telling me how to back up. When I finished parking the car, she would tell me what a great husband I was.

"And sometimes I would show up in the video, telling her how to park. She would scream anxiously and end up scraping someone else's car. She would throw herself into my arms, and we would lie on the hood of the car together, writing a small note with our contact information and our apology to the owner. She would feel wronged as she wrote.

...

"Those are the beautiful scenes we had together."

With a deep sigh, William patted me on the shoulder, telling me not to feel sad. He said that if something really happened to Jacob, I'd be the biggest suspect.

But he said he believed in me and that he would help me prove my innocence.

I thanked him, and he left with his men. He said he was only there to inquire about the situation because there was no evidence to prove that I was involved in Jacob's disappearance. He also told me that he got a bonus recently and that tonight after work, he and Ava would take me out for a barbecue.

I said I didn't want to go, but he asked me to do him a favor and not stay at home all day.

Although he said he was there to check things out, the two men he brought with him were serious. They looked inside and out of my apartment, except to rummage through my stuff.

After seeing them off, I went back into my apartment and sat down, deeply relieved. I kind of passed the first test.

Just as I thought so, my phone rang again, and it startled me.

I picked up my phone and saw a strange number on the screen. I couldn't remember it clearly, but it looked familiar.

I answered the phone and panted without saying a word.

The woman's voice sounded again. "Is it May 7th today?"

Puzzled, I asked, "Can't you check it with your phone?"

"Answer me."

"Yes," I replied.

The woman suddenly got excited. "What time is it?"

"10:22 in the morning," I answered.

"It's a little late. Listen up! There's a clue to you that hasn't been found yet. When you hit Jacob, did you smash his car window with his head?"

"Yes."

"You cleaned up the scene, but there's a splinter of glass with his blood stuck in the right rear wheel of your car! You're screwed if William Turner finds out later!"

"How did you know that?" I asked in surprise. "And how did you know William is on the case?"

"Hurry up and get your thing done!"

The woman hung up rudely. A little nervous, I hurried to the balcony, only to see the two men observing my car downstairs.

William was downstairs smoking and sauntering toward my car.

That woman was right again!

Anxious and quick, I opened the door. I didn't usually wear slippers. It just so happened that I wasn't wearing socks, so I couldn't put my shoes on.

I just wore my shoes like slippers and ran down the stairs as fast as I could. My apartment was on the third floor, so it was faster to go down the stairs than to take the elevator.

But I didn't put my shoes on properly, so I accidentally fell down the stairs!

It hurt so much. Mojo found me falling down the stairs and ran to my side, barking.

I didn't have much time left. "Let's go out to play!" I said hurriedly.

Mojo understood my instruction and ran straight downstairs happily.

It would usually run to my car and wait for me.

I got up, put my shoes on properly, and patted the dust off my clothes as I walked.

When I got downstairs, I saw Mojo beside my car. It caught William's attention. William squatted next to it and gently rubbed its head.

Upon seeing me, William asked, "Are you going out?"

"Didn't you say we were having dinner together tonight? I've been too unkempt lately. I'm going out to get my hair done," I said.

He looked me up and down, then stared at my ankle. "Is a haircut so important to you?" he asked suddenly. "You ran out with no socks on."

I said casually, hiding my surprise, "She's gone, and there's no one to wash my socks."

He sighed deeply and said, "If you're really not in the mood to do anything, bring your socks over tonight. We'll wash them for you."

"No, thanks. I'll do it myself some other time. I need you to take Mojo out of the way while I get the car out."

"Alright."

He took Mojo to one side. I peeked at his two men and saw that their attention was not on me.

So I walked to the wheel and saw the splinter stained with blood.

It was small, but one could see it if one looked closely.

I quietly put it away and started my car.

William put Mojo in my car. He closed the door and looked carefully at my car. Then he said, "Drive safely."

"Mmm, I'm leaving."

I said goodbye to him and drove away from the neighborhood. After driving some distance, I pulled over, panting for breath.

That was close...

I was almost done for!

Just then, my phone rang again, which startled me.

I picked it up and saw it was that strange number again.

I quickly saved it and answered the phone.

The woman's voice sounded. "Don't be nervous. You did a great job with the rest. I'll let you know what you need to fix. Don't worry, you had the scene taken good care of. I just need to tell you what you missed. You're not a criminal cop, but you used to be a traffic cop. Don't you spend a lot of time with William Turner? Haven't you learned enough from him?"

"Who the hell are you?" I asked.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Of course, I do!"

"Before that, I have a question for you."

"What is it?"

"How did you feel watching Jacob die? Don't beat around the bush. I want to hear the truth."

I thought for a moment. Since the woman knew everything about me, I didn't want to hide it from her.

"I was happy. I feel so happy when I think of the death of such a scumbag!" I said honestly.

"If you had the chance to start all over again, would you do it again?"

"Sure! He deserved to die! I don't think it was a sin to kill him. If I hadn't done it last night, he might have killed another innocent person! What did ordinary people do wrong? They live a simple and happy life, but their family could be torn apart because of his stupidity!"

"Are you just talking about Jacob or all the criminals?"

"All! I hate criminals who refuse to repent. The court sent them to jail, and they said they would never do it again, but they still committed crimes and hurt innocent people!"

The woman was silent for a moment. Suddenly, she said, "I want to play a game with you. The outcome of the game will determine whether we will continue to contact each other. If your decision is different from what I expect, I'll never call you again."

"What is it?" I asked.

"You are going to the alley behind 28 Lake Boulevard. Now!"

The woman hung up. I held my phone and felt confused.

Should I go or not?

I didn't know who the woman was, but she really helped me a lot.

I looked at my phone, gritted my teeth, and decided to go!

I wanted to find out who the woman was and why she knew about my situation!

I drove to 28 Lake Boulevard. It was an old place that was about to be torn down. Few people lived there.

When I got out of the car, I locked Mojo in the car and headed down the alley. Suddenly, I heard someone sobbing.

Confused, I went further down the alley, only to be stunned by what I saw.

At the dead end of the alley, a girl was naked and had bruises all over her body.

She was bound and gagged, crying in a corner, tears streaming down her face.

And next to her was a man with his pants half off. He happened to meet my eyes.

I stood looking at all that with my mouth agape.

"F*ck!"

I couldn't resist swearing and punched the man in the face!

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5.0

Do you believe in love at first sight? The moment I first met Mingyuan, I had that feeling. I cautiously accommodated him, maintaining his pride with my humility—warm yet hypocritical, like the fake flowers welcoming guests at a restaurant’s entrance. Until one day, I was utterly exhausted and chose to give up. I encountered another person during a time of chaos in my life. "So I showed up." To be honest, he awakened my desires. He saw through my games with words, understanding that I was greedy, selfish, and prone to avoidance, yet he still held my hand tightly, as he always did. I received a constant stream of messages from Mingyuan, but they no longer mattered to me. I should be someone with a strong capacity to endure and process my emotions. During the time I was Mingyuan's girlfriend, I tried my best to dissolve negative feelings within myself—without confiding or disturbing anyone. I once tried to act cute, hoping he would comfort me, thinking that just a few kind words would suffice. But he looked at me with great difficulty, saying, "I really don’t know how to comfort you. The ways of comforting girls are just tricks of scumbags; I don’t want to be like them." At that moment, I thought to myself that it was normal for a straight guy not to know how to comfort someone, and I could slowly teach him. The boy I liked would love me in his own way. The blindness of love made me completely overlook the obvious logical error in that statement. Until this moment. Last night, late at night around midnight, sharp pain in my lower abdomen jolted me awake from a rather unsettled sleep, shocking my nerves. Menstrual cramps. I was breaking into a cold sweat, curling up in bed in the hot summer, tightly closing my eyes, hoping that if I just held on, it would pass. The endless pain dulled my reason; this time, the intensity of the cramps seemed more severe than ever before. I struggled to get out of bed and, to avoid waking my roommate, stumbled around in the dark searching for ibuprofen. It should be fine now. I comforted myself with that thought. But the pain didn’t subside with the medication; in fact, I felt a churn in my stomach. In a hazy moment, I remembered the doctor's advice: it’s best not to take ibuprofen on an empty stomach and to take it half an hour before cramps start... The sound of me vomiting in the bathroom woke my roommate. She turned on the light, just as I was stepping out. She was startled by my state and nearly called for an ambulance, "Oh my God, your lips are so pale." She poured me a cup of hot water and waited with me until the pain slowly faded. When I woke up the next day, I momentarily felt as if I had been reborn. I hesitated for a long time, holding my phone, but I still wanted to tell Mingyuan about it. He was very busy with work and didn’t like being disturbed, so I didn’t dare call him and chose to send a message instead. I was really feeling a bit unwell, wanting some comfort, even just from Chatime. As dusk approached, he finally replied. "What should we do?" "Go to the hospital." When I saw the message, my emotions were somewhat flat. At that time, there were a thousand kilometers between us, and I knew that distance made care seem pale and powerless. As a modern, independent woman, I also shouldn’t be that fragile. But he, it seemed, had never cared. He had never comforted me or offered much consolation. All of this, I had never taught him. By sheer chance, I scrolled back through our chat history. The time had always...

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