Weijun’s question had gone unanswered, but Linlin went inside. Outside, the rest of the detectives and Weijun stood shoulder to shoulder, watching. The boy was still asleep when Linlin placed her hand gently over his. Her expression was unreadable as the fate prediction system went to work.
Even from the distance, they could see her struggling. Systems did not like being invaded by other systems. With weak ones, it was easy to read the future of the host. With a strong one, however, it could be tricky.
The system which had seed useless was surprisingly strong.
Seconds stretched into eternity. Then, Linlin’s suddenly jerked back, falling to the floor. She stood quickly, clutching her stomach, and stumbled out of the ward. The door slid softly behind her. She barely made it two steps before vomiting violently into the trash bin.
The detectives exchanged looks. No words were needed. Whatever she had seen was bad.
"Liwu, get that boy out of my city." Weijun whispered sharply.
She didn’t reply. Liwu just walked to her partner and handed her a tissue. Linlin wiped her mouth, trembling. Her eyes were wide, wild. Suddenly, she lunged at Liwu, grabbing her shoulders with desperate strength.
"Lock him up!" she scread, voice cracking. "Lock him up now!"
Liwu staggered under the force, shocked. "Linlin, calm down!"
But Linlin was hysterical, shaking Liwu as if trying to rattle sense into her. "No. No calming down. Don’t you understand Liwu? He is dangerous! Lock him up before it’s too late."
Liwu winced. Her partners fingers were digging a little too deep. It was like Linlin wanted to break her arms.
Weijun and Xuanji rushed forward, prying Linlin off Liwu. She fought them, thrashing like a woman possessed.
Xuanji muttered, "She has lost it completely."
Weijun looked pale, whispering, "What did she see?"
He Xiao Yi frowned deeply, his eyes narrowing. "Given my fears, I believe she saw sothing that only confirms my theory."
It took three detectives to retrain Linlin. She kicked, scread, tears running down her face. "I have seen it! I have seen it! You don’t know the things he will do. You don’t know!"
A doctor rushed out of a treatnt room with a blue pill. It was shoved into Linlin’s mouth and Xuanji covered her mouth with his hand. Within a minute, Linlin seed to be calming down.
Liwu finally stepped forward, approaching her partner. "Now that you are calr you can tell us what you saw Linlin because you are not making sense. What scared you so much?"
Linlin’s chest heaved. Slowly, painfully, her hysteria ebbed. She sagged in the grip of the two n that were reluctant to let go of her. Tears spilled from her eyes. "Images...so many images...I stopped counting because there was no end. I saw barrels, like the one we found him in." She stopped.
Everyone thought it was barrels with more children. The chief beca even paler. It was just as he feared.
"Won." Linlin said through a sob. "Won stuffed inside barrels. One after the other. Young at first, because it starts when he turns fifteen. And the age goes up as he grows. but not older than thirty. I couldn’t look anymore. I don’t know if he will ever stop."
They all went still.
Linlin’s voice was hoarse, broken. "Xiao Yi is right. He is not a good boy. He will grow to do terrible things to won, and seal them alive in barrels and throw them into the sea." She shuddered. "He should not have been pulled from the sea."
He Xiao Yi’s jaw tightened. "I told you. He exhibits so psychopathic traits. His aggression, his patterns, the way he manipulates. He is young, so these things seem like juvenile problems in a growing child. We can call nature or genetics his first trigger.
Then cos trigger two which is nurture. Parents who treated him as sothing expendable. The mont he was sealed in a barrel, it was like soone put a switch inside of him that is off. It’s like a seed. And seeds grow. When that switch is turned on, bad things will happen."
Liwu’s stomach twisted. She looked back through the glass at the boy. He seed so fragile, laying in the bed, his small fra attached to dical devices and tubes. She recalled the look on his face when he backed away from her. He had seed so innocent on the surface. But now, innocence felt like a mask.
The chief pushed Xuanji aside and put a hand on Linlin’s shoulder. "Do you know how many won were in those barrels?"
Linlin shook her head violently. "Too many. I stopped counting at twenty because it was endless. Every ti I blinked, another barrel. Another woman. There were alive when he put them in there. But they had no feet." Her voice started to rise. "I saw their eyes. They were looking at , hoping I would save them from the monster."
Su Jin cursed under her breath, pacing. "So what do we do? He is just a kid. We cannot arrest him for future cris. There is no precedent for this."
Weijun snapped. "But if you don’t then we are all complicit in the death of those won. We will be the ones who let a killer grow."
Linlin hugged herself, shivering. "I have seen killers before. But him...he looked so calm. Too calm."
Liwu’s mind raced. Her partner’s hysteria, He Xiao Yi’s grim certainty. This was a storm brewing in the operation of systems. They were entering new territory. She took a deep breath and said, "This decision is not ours to make. The job of this team is to investigate current cri and arrest current criminals."
"Are you fucking joking?" Xuanji bellowed.
Liwu winced. She looked at Xuanji seriously. "No, I am fucking joking. We have to call headquarters, report everything we know and wait for them to make a decision on the boy. In the an ti, we need to go and start rounding up all the people on the list that Mr. Ji gave us before they start escaping. That is our actual job." She turned to her partner and said sternly, "Wash your face and ride with , or take a break in the treatnt room, decision is up to you. The rest of you, gear up and split into teams. Each team goes with SWAT, just in case. I won’t repeat myself, so move."
She walked away first.
To Weijun’s surprise the rest started following, one after the other until only he was left behind. He couldn’t understand the team. Much less his wife.
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