37 Password Box

Semen matching my DNA was found inside the corpse of the woman who had eaten her own hands. Although I knew full well this was the handiwork of that assassin, Chen Mu, it still deeply unsettled me. That fellow not only looked identical to me, but even our DNA was a complete match. The sensation was akin to having raped a woman myself. Yet, looking back over all these years, I had never even been in a relationship; was I not profoundly wronged?

At that moment, I also felt a deep sense of relief, thinking that had it not been for Fang Qinghe and Bai Ye knowing the truth and understanding the full sequence of events, I truly would have been doomed.

However, no matter how high Fang Qinghe's position might be, he could not single-handedly cover the sky with one hand. I was deeply worried at the time, pondering that if this assassin Chen Mu continued to commit crimes like this, repeatedly wreaking havoc wearing my face, inciting social unrest, and not even fearing exposure—just like this time at Sunshine KTV where he made no effort to conceal his identity—then in the long run, I would truly be finished. This demonic face would surely be posted on wanted posters across every street and alley. By then, the police were hardly likely to announce the existence of a twin brother to explain things for me. Consequently, not to mention continuing to assist the police with investigations, I could forget about living a normal life. Being able to hide away as a recluse in some deep mountain forest would feel like an ultimate luxury.

Perhaps this was precisely what the assassin Chen Mu wanted to see. Since he could not replace me, he would assimilate me, making me just like him so that I could never lead a normal life again.

While I was standing there alone, nursing my lingering fears, Jin Ze came looking for me. He brought a police uniform, handed it to me, and said, "Chen Mu, I just spoke with Section Chief Fang. You still cannot be officially instated for now, but we can make an exception and let you wear the police uniform. That way, if you are required to follow us to a crime scene and someone recognizes you, it won't cause unnecessary trouble."

Hearing Jin Ze's words touched me profoundly. First of all, I admired Jin Ze's meticulous consideration; true to being a master of psychology, he had undoubtedly seen right through the anxieties I harbored. For him to take what was not really a major matter and discuss it separately with Fang Qinghe showed that Jin Ze genuinely regarded me as a friend, entirely independent of official duties.

Before long, I had put on the police uniform. It belonged to Jin Ze, but since our builds were quite similar, it fit me surprisingly well.

I turned around in front of the mirror and found that once suited up in the police uniform, my entire appearance genuinely transformed. It gave me an indescribable aura—not that I had suddenly become breathtakingly handsome, but after looking, one's spirit felt considerably more at peace.

At that moment, Jin Ze stood nearby and said to me, "Look, I always told you that you were cut out to be a police officer. This uniform fits you even better than it does me, and you look so sharp. You need to summon some self-confidence as well. It's just a criminal who shares your face; you must believe that you can defeat him. He is merely your dark shadow, the inner demon of your heart. Only by destroying him will your path ahead become bright."

I nodded at Jin Ze, took a deep breath, and resolved to pull myself together and cooperate with him and the others to capture that pervert as soon as possible.

Then, Jin Ze and I headed out, bound for the Chengnan Branch, because the jurisdiction for the corpse-hand-eating case fell under the Chengnan precinct, and the primary field data was kept there.

Since Fang Qinghe had already given instructions, coupled with the fact that Jin Ze was a well-known figure within the circle, the Chengnan branch was extremely cooperative. We quickly obtained detailed information regarding the corpse-hand-eating case, including on-site photographs and surrounding surveillance footage.

The deceased was a young female in her early twenties with sweet facial features, though her specific identity had yet to be determined.

However, after reviewing the autopsy report and the surrounding video surveillance, Jin Ze quickly identified several suspicious points.

First was the time of death. From the moment the assassin Chen Mu left the KTV to the time the deceased drew her last breath, an hour or so had elapsed. Granted, it was possible that the assassin Chen Mu had slipped drugs to the victim before leaving, but this didn't quite fit the assassin's style. As a professional killer, had he truly intended to kill someone, he undoubtedly would have waited until the target had breathed her last before departing.

The second doubt contradicted my earlier speculation that the assassin Chen Mu had deliberately exposed his face to disrupt my life. Jin Ze's hypothesis was entirely the opposite: he suggested that the assassin Chen Mu had not hidden his appearance or destroyed the KTV's surveillance cameras simply because he had never anticipated that the footage would ever leak. In other words, he had not expected a murder to take place there after he left. This point was corroborated from another angle by the fact that the assassin Chen Mu had actually left semen inside the victim; they had engaged in sexual intercourse. If the assassin Chen Mu had genuinely come with the intent to murder, there would have been absolutely no need for him to leave such traces behind.

To put it bluntly, the assassin Chen Mu had visited this KTV to see the deceased not to kill her, but presumably for a tryst, and he had never imagined the woman would die. This meant the woman either died accidentally from a massive overdose, or the actual killer was someone else entirely.

The third doubt concerned the manner of the victim's death. Although the autopsy report stated that the deceased had toxins in her system, it did not specify what kind of drugs she had ingested; in fact, it was a type of toxin that had not yet been exposed to the public.

Synthesizing these three doubts, Jin Ze boldly formulated a hypothesis: the deceased was not murdered by the assassin Chen Mu, yet she died because of him.

Just as he reached this deduction, the door was abruptly pushed open by a police officer who rushed in to announce that something had happened and urged us to hurry down to the morgue.

Jin Ze and I immediately followed him there, and upon arrival, we found a scene of chaos with several police officers fleeing outward.

When we caught sight of that female corpse, we were instantly met with a strikingly familiar sight. Although horrifying and repulsive, having witnessed it once before, I was able to endure it.

Right before our eyes, every single piece of flesh on the already-dissected female corpse was slowly sloughing off, entirely rotting away—the exact same scene as when Lü Qiang had died in the police interrogation room previously.

Jin Ze's expression immediately turned grim. He dialed Fang Qinghe's phone, requesting someone to come and have the corpse transferred away while suppressing the news of this cellular degeneration.

Afterward, we left the Chengnan branch. Inside the car, Jin Ze suddenly spoke to me with a solemn expression, "Chen Mu, there appears to be some bad news, though it hasn't been verified yet. Therefore, don't overthink it, but I feel it is necessary for you to know."

I faintly guessed what Jin Ze was about to say, but my mind was still somewhat in turmoil, so I told him, "Whatever you want to say, just tell me directly. I can take it."

Jin Ze then went straight to the point: "The female corpse and Lü Qiang appear to have contracted the same disease. Previously, we thought that you two brothers were different from the other swapped infants and did not carry the virus. But now, it seems that might not be the case. This really could be a special virus with an incubation period even longer than HIV, and it might be sexually transmitted. The assassin Chen Mu may have truly just gone to tryst with that woman, never intending to harm her. However, after engaging in sexual contact with him, the woman reacted as though she had overdosed, ultimately biting herself to death. Therefore, I suspect that the virus carried by the assassin Chen Mu might have completed its incubation period and been transmitted to the deceased, just as it began to erupt."

Jin Ze's words filled me with incomparable panic. If this were truly the case, my life was effectively ruined; where could I possibly find a future?

Yet Jin Ze quickly continued, "Of course, this is merely a guess on my part. I have no background in medical research, and the probability may actually not be very high; I'm simply giving you a warning. Furthermore, with so many swapped infants back then, only you two brothers survived. Even if you truly carry a virus, it is bound to be a different kind of virus—it cannot be completely hopeless. There must be something special about you two brothers that sets you apart from the other infants."

Jin Ze's words served as a sort of comfort to me, yet inside, I still felt thoroughly wretched and profoundly lost.

At that moment, Jin Ze's phone rang again. After hanging up, he informed me that the case had taken a new turn, and it was developing precisely in the direction he had deduced.

The identity of the deceased had been verified: she was not from our city, having just arrived by plane from Jiangsu. Furthermore, after disembarking, she had contacted an anonymous prepaid phone number before heading straight to Sunshine KTV.

In other words, judging by these clues, the assassin Chen Mu really had gone to rendezvous with this woman.

Yet, since when did the assassin Chen Mu have a youthful girlfriend? None of the intelligence we possessed indicated any history of romance on his part.

Right then, my mobile phone suddenly rang. Picking it up, I saw a message from the voyeur. Because the assassin Chen Mu had previously used this account to impersonate Bai Ye and deceive me, I instantly grew tense.

However, this message genuinely seemed to have been sent by Bai Ye, as he had even taken a selfie with his phone against the mirror to prove it was him. I hadn't expected him to have such an endearing side.

He said: Chen Mu, I've taken back this Q account and changed the password. Tonight at your ancestral home, I'll show you something important.

I thought to myself what kind of important thing Bai Ye could possibly have, but shortly afterward, he sent me a photograph. The moment I looked at it, my entire heart leaped into my throat.

The object in the photo was precisely the combination lockbox that 'my dad' Chen Youquan had previously asked me to retrieve, which had subsequently been stolen by the assassin Chen Mu from inside the grave of Widow Zhang's husband.

Yet I clearly remembered that back then, Gao Bīng had taken the contents of the lockbox and handed them over to the assassin Chen Mu, leaving the empty lockbox behind at the police station. How on earth had it ended up in Bai Ye's hands?