Chapter Ninety-One: Zhou Shen's Past

I’ll back up your testimony. Everything that just happened was in self-defense. You won’t face any legal responsibility at all—at most, you’ll just have to write a statement of contrition. The injured officer kept speaking as he continued walking toward Zhou Shen.

“Really?” Hearing the officer say that, Zhou Shen gradually let his guard down.

But the officer in front of him kept moving forward, then suddenly seized Zhou Shen’s pistol, trying to wrest it away.

Panicked, Zhou Shen’s gun went off again, and the officer before him collapsed to the ground.

“Ugh...!” Clutching his wounded body, the officer on the ground continued, “It’s all right, it’s all right. Take me to the hospital first. This isn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.”

“No, no, no!” Zhou Shen was terrified once more. Killing the thief might still be counted as justified self-defense, but now that he had accidentally wounded a comrade, there was no way he could escape responsibility. He had struggled and schemed for so long to become a regular officer, a real policeman—he could not lose his future like this.

“Everything will be fine. Get me to the hospital. I won’t say a word about this!” The officer on the ground was already on the verge of death.

Yet Zhou Shen slowly stepped forward. “I’m sorry.”

Then, using a handkerchief, Zhou Shen picked up his wounded partner’s service pistol. “That thief just now stole your gun and killed you. In a panic, I then shot the thief over there.”

“Don’t do this. Take me to the hospital. You’ll be fine!” The officer on the ground, bled nearly dry, made one last effort, and at the same time drew an invitation from his pocket.

“Next month is my daughter’s tenth birthday. This is an invitation I prepared especially for you. I was going to give it to you after this assignment. You’ll come to my daughter’s tenth birthday, won’t you?” The officer on the ground gave a faint smile, trying to show friendly goodwill.

Zhou Shen looked at the invitation in his partner’s hand. It was a hotel invitation printed with his daughter’s tenth birthday, and even Zhou Shen’s own name. The pistol in his hand slowly lowered.

The officer on the ground smiled. “That’s good. Now...”

Bang.

With a gunshot, the officer on the ground gave one final spasm, then fell still forever.

Tears fell from Zhou Shen’s eyes uncontrollably. He then walked to the thief’s side, used his partner’s pistol, aimed at his own right leg, and fired a shot. Afterward, he placed his partner’s gun back into the thief’s hand.

The false scene was now complete: the thief had struggled violently before death, stolen his partner’s gun, and fired the final fatal shot at the officer; though Zhou Shen was also shot, in the critical moment he had used his own pistol to kill the thief, only to fall unconscious from excessive blood loss.

When the other officers summoned by his partner arrived, they saw only three bodies on the ground. Two were already dead, while Zhou Shen had taken a bullet to the right leg and was lying unconscious.

On Zhou Shen’s partner’s body was still the invitation inviting Zhou Shen to his daughter’s tenth birthday celebration.

Taken together, it should have been a case in which Zhou Shen and his partner were arresting a dangerous criminal, when the criminal seized Zhou Shen’s partner’s gun and shot him dead.

At the same time, Zhou Shen’s right leg had also been hit. In the emergency, Zhou Shen raised his pistol and killed the criminal, only to lapse into unconsciousness from blood loss.

After Fang You and Zhang Shengnan finished reading the newly updated chapter, they sprang up in panic.

“Could this be talking about Master’s story? It looks like the story still isn’t over. When the next update comes, will Master, like the characters in other novels, be written to death too?” Zhang Shengnan was in a state of alarm.

Fang You slapped his thigh. “Damn it, that writer named Fang Meiqi is in danger!”

At that moment, Fang Meiqi carried her computer into an abandoned factory. After scanning the surroundings and confirming it was safe, she opened the computer again and pressed start. The novel continued:

Although the protagonist Zhou Shen escaped the judgment of the law, after this incident he could no longer be entrusted with important duties by the police force. A few years later, he was transferred to the most idle unit in the spirit-case division, Team Nine.

After years of tempering, Zhou Shen’s heart seemed to have grown calmer as well, and in Team Nine he worked peacefully with his new female officer partner, dealing with minor trivial matters.

Just as Zhou Shen believed everything had finally come to an end, he did not know that sins committed must be repaid. Even if the person involved had forgotten, the souls of those killed would forever wander in the midst of hatred.

While Fang Meiqi was engrossed in updating the next chapter, an iron bar came down from above and struck her unconscious.

When Fang Meiqi woke again, she found herself still in the abandoned factory. The difference was that she was tied to a chair, and the officer before her was none other than Zhou Shen.

“I finally made it. I thought you’d write me to death too!” Zhou Shen was entirely unlike his usual honest, simple-faced self. He lit a cigarette and put it between his lips.

“It seems I was right. The protagonist really is you this time. When you came to investigate that day, I had already noticed you. A vengeful soul was following you from behind!” Fang Meiqi said mockingly.

“Are you trying to say you can see ghosts?” Zhou Shen said, gripping Fang Meiqi’s chin.

“I can hear them!” Fang Meiqi went on. “These resentful ghosts tell me their stories, and I write them down. I gain fame, and they gain the power for revenge. Isn’t that killing two birds with one stone?”

“So you’re going to keep writing my story? Write me to die miserably like those people you wrote to death? Or let me be killed by ghostly revenge?” Zhou Shen spat out the cigarette in his mouth and dragged the iron rod across the floor with a shrill screeching sound.

“If you had no evil in your heart, why would you fear any of this?” Fang Meiqi continued to mock him.

“You’re courting death!” Zhou Shen raised the iron rod in his hand and smashed it hard toward Fang Meiqi, but Fang Meiqi turned her head and looked at Zhou Shen without even flinching.

The iron bar in Zhou Shen’s hand froze in midair.

“You want to kill me? And you think that way the vengeful souls won’t come looking for you?” Fang Meiqi sneered with ridicule.

Zhou Shen, however, smiled. “If I kill you, at least no one will know my secret.”

He raised the iron rod again, then brought it down with all his strength.

This time, Fang Meiqi, seeing it, turned her head away in fear.

The next second, with a miserable scream, Zhou Shen actually smashed and broke his own left leg.

Fang Meiqi lifted her head and looked at the cold sweat streaming down Zhou Shen’s face, utterly baffled.

But Zhou Shen raised his pistol. “Suspicious of involvement in a serial murder case, crime novelist Fang Meiqi. While Officer Zhou Shen was pursuing her, Fang Meiqi launched a sneak attack and severely injured his left leg, rendering him unable to move.”

“In the heat of the moment, I shot the novelist Fang Meiqi dead on the spot.”