茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

According to the police investigation, those three young men had managed to lure out that girl victim online. During dinner, they had covertly drugged her and thereafter led her to their car. They then drove to the lakeside’s secluded area, intending to assault her.

This came to the attention of the blind girl, Li Jun, who happened to be strolling nearby. According to Li Jun, as she passed by the car, she overheard the conversation inside, which prompted her to call the police.

However, between the time Li Jun made the call and the arrival of the police, something occurred in the car that left its three occupants terrified, to the point they couldn’t even muster the courage to run.

Li Jun told the police that after she’d phoned them, picked up a stone and threw it in the direction of the car, trying to pinpoint its location by sound to stop the men. She was worried about the victim.

What happened next was unknown, but she faintly heard the young men’s screams of misery.

The blind girl, Li Jun, admitted she was scared.

She was so horrified she didn’t know what to do and remained standing motionless.

Luckily, the police arrived in time.

Those three young men were brought to the station. As they calmed down, they separately admitted to their criminal acts and recounted their experiences during that period.

Their descriptions of the events had some inconsistencies, but one element was the same: a monstrous creature, gigantic with multiple arms and eyes, appeared in front of their car, preparing to devour them.

Their reaction was, also, oddly enough. They didn’t start the car to escape when the monster lunged at them. Of the two who had exited, one fell to the ground after a few steps, rolling around and screaming. The other didn’t run far before he was crouched on the ground, begging for mercy while covering his head. As for the one that stayed in the car, he curled up in the seat, shivering uncontrollably and was even reduced to tears.

The police could assert that they were hallucinating, even without viewing the dashcam recording. After all, their descriptions of the many-armed, many-eyed monster had many differences. On top of that, the man in the car had said that blood had gushed out everywhere, flooding the car, whilst the two who had left the car pointed to suddenly appearing thick fog and flying bugs all around – all in all, conflicting descriptions.

Frankly, it’s standard for their hallucinations to differ. Them all consecutively seeing the same monster, with numerous arms and eyes, was what unnerved the police.

However, this wasn’t a point which required much scrutiny. The three suspects might have seen some similar objects before or these hallucinations might be induced by the surrounding environment, such as wind blowing through the trees. All of these would be viable explanations.

Besides, the police had checked the ever-running dashcam. They knew the full picture of what happened at the time.

In the dashcam footage, there was no many-armed, many-eyed monster nor was there any fog, sea of blood or flying bugs. It only showed a lone blind girl standing within the high beams, looking desperate and afraid.

Moreover, apart from throwing a stone at the start, that blind girl hadn’t made any movements, from beginning to the arrival of the police.

After chatting with Li Sheng, Officer Han, who was first at the scene, returned to his office. He discovered his colleague Xiao Wang sitting in front of the computer, brows furrowed as if deep in thought. When he went to see what was going on, he found her watching the dashcam footage from the suspects’ vehicle.

“What are you looking at?” Officer Han was puzzled. He and she had already reviewed this footage together, and they hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

Xiao Wang rewound the video a bit and paused, pointing at the screen and said, “Look at this bird.”

During the video review, Officer Han had naturally noticed the bird captured on the dash-cam footage: “Isn’t that the little girl’s ‘Guide Bird’? I’ve heard it’s quite spiritual. I’ve heard of guide dogs before, but this is the first time I’ve heard of a ‘Guide Bird’.”

“No, I mean, this bird seems a little strange.” Xiao Wang said as he let the video continue playing, then he said: “You see, at this moment the bird is opening its mouth wide, as if it’s calling, but there isn’t a sound in the recorded video. Look at its posture, it’s also a bit strange, its belly is bulging, and it seems that the feathers are quivering. This should be a canary, right? I’ve never seen a canary behave like this…”

Officer Han also took a close look, and he had to admit that the canary resting on the front hood of the car did appear a bit odd.

“Perhaps the car’s insulation is so good that it didn’t capture the bird’s voice, or maybe it was just yawning?” Officer Han suggested, shaking his head: “This has nothing to do with our case, right?”

Xiao Wang said: “I always feel that the reactions of the three suspects, and the state of each one during their individual interrogations, does not seem to be that of people under the influence of illegal narcotics. Their behavior in the car was too strange. So, I wanted to see if something unusual happened at the time.”

“Are you implying that it was the bird that made them go mad and hallucinate?” Officer Han asked.

“Of course not, I just think this bird… looks a bit strange.” Xiao Wang said.

“‘Guide Bird’, it’s normal to be strange, how many ‘Guide Birds’ have you seen?” Officer Han patted his partner on the shoulder: “You should know, this little girl is the niece of Li Sheng from the city bureau. She’s also the one who reported the crime and took a risk by throwing a rock, which stopped the three suspects from their assault, right?”

Xiao Wang quickly replied: “Officer Han, I’m not doubting the little girl. I just have some questions in my mind and thinking it through by myself, I won’t bother the little girl with this. She’s the one who reported the crime, she’s a hero. The girl in the car is the victim, the three men are the suspects, the case is clearly defined, no doubt about it.”

After Officer Han left, Xiao Wang listened again to the emergency call recording from the command center. The little girl spoke logically and coherently, though her nervousness was evident.

But judging from the way the little girl described the location when she reported the crime, she didn’t seem to usually walk there, and her knowledge of the exact address was unclear. Which made sense: a blind girl, and a pretty one at that, walking alone in such a secluded area with no street lights at night without any company seemed quite abnormal.

He recalled the interrogations of the three suspects just now.

When asked about what had happened, the reaction of the three was genuine terror, genuine fear.

This kind of fear could be plainly sensed through their gaze, facial expressions, voice, and various physiological signs — It couldn’t be faked, nor could any actor pull it off.

The three suspects were truly scared stiff at the time, too frightened to move.

Even now, they didn’t believe what they saw was an illusion. They still thought that they had really seen that monster, and that the earth-shaking phenomenon really happened.

Furthermore, in the descriptions of the three, they seemed to believe that that monster was somehow related to the little girl who threw the rock at the car.

Of course, neither Officer Han, the other police officers participating in the interrogations, nor Xiao Wang himself, took the suspects’ account seriously – the little girl stood trembling in the headlights throughout the ordeal, obviously incapable of any wrongdoing.

Xiao Wang’s suspicion about the strange behavior of the little girl was largely due to doubts about her appearing there at night, noticing the unusual situation in the car, and reporting it to the police, rather than it having anything to do with the hallucinations of the three suspects.

Xiao Wang then checked the surveillance video from the restaurant where the three suspects and the victim had dined, which they just brought back. He thought about whether he should visit the restaurant himself tomorrow if he had the time, to see if anything happened while they were eating. Could it be that when they drugged the girl, they were also drugged by someone?

Of course, the specifics would only be known after the blood test results of the three suspects are out.

He picked up his notebook that was next to him, flipping through the multi-armed, multi-eyed monster sketch he had drawn based on the descriptions of the three suspects.

He was not a professional sketch artist and had never formally learned drawing, so the image was quite simple, resembling a humanoid spider. The exact number of arms, legs, and eyes varied among the suspects’ accounts, so he provided a rough estimate in his drawing.

Looking at the monster sketch he had drawn, he suddenly remembered a classmate with whom he often researched unique cases when attending police academy. He picked up his phone, clicked on a contact, and sent a message:

“Lao Liu, what are you up to?”

Soon, the reply came: “On duty, what’s up?”

“Do you remember the strange cases we saw on the forum during our second year? I ran into a rather peculiar case today, take a look at this, can you make out what it is?” After Xiao Wang sent the text message, he also attached the sketch of the multi-armed, multi-eyed monster and sent it.

“Lao Liu” was his dorm mate in police academy and a good friend. After graduation, he worked in a police station in a city in Haixi Province.

In police academy, the two often researched various strange cases together, fantasizing about solving countless cases as “super detectives” once they started working.

Of course, after actually starting work, they realized that solving cases usually depended on various forensic methods, various investigation techniques, various tedious and extensive investigations, rather than flashes of “super detective thinking”.

However, they would still occasionally share some strange happenings and unusual cases encountered at work, within limits and without violating regulations and discipline.

After finishing the lavish feast Xia Libing prepared, she went off to wash up and went to bed again.

After sitting in the living room for over twenty minutes, Xiang Kun determined through Xia Libing’s breathing, heartbeat, and other bodily signs that she was still not asleep yet.

So, Xiang Kun pushed open the half-closed bedroom door and stuck his head in: “Is it because you ate too much?”

Xia Libing sat up from the bed, rubbed her stomach, thought for a moment with a frown, and nodded: “Possible.”

After ten minutes, Xia Libing, dressed again, and Xiang Kun left for a walk to digest their meal, while also discussing other matters, such as the “vampire patient” residing in the third courtyard.

“Could you tell me about the ‘vampire’ at your hospital?” Xiang Kun asked.

“She is not like you.” Xia Libing replied confidently.

“I know.” After pondering for a moment, Xiang Kun decided to be frank, “Last night, after eating supper with you, I didn’t go back right away. I sneaked back into your hospital and used the ‘Super Sensory State’ to investigate your wards. I found the ‘vampire patient’ you spoke of… The patient is female, right? She should be tall?”

Xia Libing nodded, confirming that the “vampire patient” that Xiang Kun had “investigated” was indeed the “vampire patient” she had mentioned before. She then asked, “What’s ‘Super Sensory State’?”

Xiang Kun briefly explained it to her, then said, “Let’s study the ‘Super Sensory State’ later. For now, let’s talk about the ‘vampire patient.’ I think her transformation may be related to a real ‘mutant’.”

Upon hearing this, Xia Libing began telling Xiang Kun everything she knew about the “vampire patient.”

“Telling me all this is against regulations, isn’t it?” After Xia Libing finished, Xiang Kun asked with a smile.

“Are you going to tell anyone else?” Xia Libing counter-questioned.

“Of course not,” Xiang Kun answered.

“Then there’s no problem.”

Just as Xiang Kun was about to ask why there was no problem, something caught his attention, and he stopped in his tracks.

Xia Libing turned around in surprise, looked at Xiang Kun who was acting strangely, but did not immediately ask what was going on.

A moment later, Xiang Kun said to Xia Libing, “It’s Xiao Pingguo, she’s developed a new ability.”

Xiao Pingguo had been in the chat group for a while now. Although she was closest to Nana and Zhen’er, she was also quite familiar with Xia Libing. Of course, after Xiang Kun revealed the situation about the mutants today, Xia Libing also knew that Xiao Pingguo was a “networked user” and “developer” in his “Super Sensory Item System”.

“What kind of ability?” Xia Libing asked.

“This ability… is a bit strange, um, it’s not easy to describe and it’s not easy to replicate here either,” Xiang Kun said, furrowing his brows.

He certainly knew what Xiao Pingguo was doing when she invoked his ability via the eight-armed, eight-eyed wood carving. Normally he wouldn’t pay it any mind, but today’s “invocation” was vastly different from usual, signaling that Xiao Pingguo had once again “developed” a new ability, so he had an intense response.

However, when his previous causality constructers such as Xiao Pingguo, Liu Shiling or Old Xia “developed” new abilities, he could immediately replicate it and even further improve it on the spot.

He couldn’t do that today.

He realized that the new ability Xiao Pingguo had “developed” was actually activated in conjunction with “Canary”.

Truly, Xiang Kun found this a bit unexpected. He had just confirmed yesterday that “Canary” had been incorporated into his “Super Sensory System”, and he hadn’t expected that it would become part of Xiao Pingguo’s newly “developed” ability today?

Xiang Kun immediately sent his senses to the minion wood carving— he knew this carving was used by Xiao Pingguo for “Object Sensing”, was always kept near her, so he was sure he could reach out to it right away.

Sure enough, through the minion wood carving, Xiang Kun sensed Xiao Pingguo’s emotions.

Excitement, nervousness, thrill, and a touch of apprehension, Xiao Pingguo’s emotions were extremely intense.