Chapter 31: Chase—A Logical Story

Ever since he began tailing the subway, a question had been lingering in Chai Si’s mind.

The total number of subway cars in service across Black Moor City reached into the thousands, and the cars could be detached, rearranged, and reconnected at will. Once a train departed, it was like a needle lost in an ocean; trying to stumble upon the same specific car again was as difficult as winning the lottery—not to mention that the trains were cleaned daily.

How could Ivan be so certain he would be able to recover the artifact?

Watching the subway driver retreat step by step before turning to bolt, the answer suddenly crystallized, taking shape in Chai Si’s mind.

The target Ivan intended to relocate was never one of those indistinguishable, innumerable, and untraceable subway cars. It was a subway employee—a person with a name, a face, and a fixed job. If you can’t find a car, isn’t it simple to find a person?

He almost wanted to laugh. He had thought of Ivan as a clever fool, yet he hadn’t accurately guessed the extent of his genius—or his stupidity.

A priceless artifact capable of rewriting one’s fate had been entrusted by Ivan to a complete stranger. He couldn’t tell if this was sheer stupidity or reckless boldness; perhaps, in this case, there was no difference.

Ivan’s true genius lay in the fact that, outside of himself, no one in the world could link him to this fleeing subway driver. They were two distant, random individuals in the vast sea of humanity that was Black Moor City; there was no connection between them to begin with.

It seemed Ivan was well aware that once someone set their sights on him, even the pizza delivery boy would be tracked down and dissected, let alone anyone with an actual connection to him.

Thus, a complete stranger with whom he shared no history became the safest place of all.

By placing the artifact on the driver, Ivan could act with total freedom, interacting with whomever he pleased. In fact, the more people he interacted with, the more he could mislead those tracking him and waste their time and energy—hadn't Chai Si himself wasted quite a bit of effort on a pizza delivery guy?

It appeared Ivan hadn’t considered this, or he wouldn’t have remained holed up behind closed doors that day.

As these thoughts crossed his mind, Chai Si reached out with a large hand and firmly grasped the back of the driver’s uniform.

When Chai Si pinned the driver by the center of his back and hauled him to the ground, the man seemed not to grasp what had happened. He fell backward, his face a mask of bewilderment, seemingly unable to comprehend how Chai Si had appeared behind him.

Only when the back of his head struck the floor with a dull thud did the driver snap back to reality. He hissed in pain, rolling over and struggling to crawl away, crying out, "Please! I beg you, don't kill me! I haven't done anything!"

That was likely the truth. However, Chai Si certainly wouldn't voice his agreement.

He pressed a large hand against the driver’s chest, his long, pale fingers caging the man’s ribcage like the bars of a prison.

Chai Si didn’t use force, yet the driver dared not move. His shadow loomed over the driver’s face like the canopy of a giant tree.

"W-what do you want from me?" the driver asked, his voice trembling. He propped himself up on his elbows, not daring to stand fully, yet too terrified to lie flat.

That was the million-dollar question.

Truthfully, Chai Si hadn't expected to find the most elusive of artifacts in such a bizarre manner.

Now that he had his target, he found himself, for once, at a loss for what to do next.

First, Ivan hadn't had the time or opportunity that day to concoct a convincing lie to trick the driver into carrying something. The driver couldn't possibly know he was carrying an artifact; he didn't seem like someone who knew about the existence of the Path or the world of the Nest.

Furthermore, Ivan wouldn't have handed the artifact to someone involved with the Nest... after all, he could only hope to retrieve it if the recipient was an ordinary person, blissfully ignorant of such things.

Ivan must have attached the artifact to him when he wasn't looking.

Thinking this through, more questions arose.

What exactly was an artifact that existed in the form of a "rumor"? How did it attach itself to a person? What did it look like? How could it be removed?

"I-I'm still on the clock. If they see I'm not working, someone will definitely come to check on me..." the driver pleaded in a whisper. "Please, let me go. I have prosopagnosia—I won't even remember what you look like..."

Chai Si had never met an adult who couldn't recognize him after seeing him once.

"No rush," he said quietly, lost in thought.

How could he extract the truth from a target who didn't even know the truth himself?

He had interrogated many people, but he had never encountered a situation like this: where the target held the key information but remained completely oblivious.

Judging by Ivan’s route that day, he had no time for lengthy interactions; the artifact must have changed hands in a fleeting moment. The driver might not even remember him.

The odds were slim, but Chai Si decided to try anyway. After briefly describing Ivan’s appearance, he was met with the expected look of confusion.

"Where did you hear about this 'subway serial killer'?" he asked, deciding to pivot to an angle the driver might actually be able to answer.

The driver darted a quick glance at him from the corner of his eye before hurriedly fixing his gaze on a distant handrail.

He paused for a moment, then spoke to the empty air, as if testing the words: "Well... the other night, after the C-line stopped running, they found a female corpse, didn't they? I remember it being on the news."

Chai Si frowned.

That had indeed happened. But in Black Moor City, death was so commonplace that if the driver hadn't brought it up, the news would have vanished from his memory forever.

"The subway staff thought she was just asleep and had missed her stop. They tried to wake her, but she wouldn't stir. The moment they pushed her shoulder, she just rolled onto the floor."

As the driver spoke, his eyes drifted to the seat beside him, as if he could still see the woman’s body tumbling down. "The person who found her was a colleague of mine—someone I sometimes play cards with. When he described it to me later, his face was as pale as paper."

A death had occurred, but what was the connection to the artifact—or specifically, to a "rumor"? And how had the "subway serial killer" rumor come to be?

The driver seemed to misinterpret Chai Si’s subtle expression, rushing to explain, "Of course, now that I think about it, I must have been mistaken. A man of your stature—so distinguished—how could you be a serial killer? *Cough.* It’s just that I’ve been scared lately, being alone on the train, and I’ve become paranoid. Seeing you carrying that pole, my mind just went to the wrong place... That woman was slumped against the wall, you couldn't tell anything was wrong until she rolled onto the floor, and my colleague saw the blunt force trauma on her head..."

When people were panicked, their mouths often ran wild, speaking faster and more incoherently, as if trying to build a foundation for their lies out of thin air. This driver was clearly one of those people.

Chai Si decided to fuel his fear, to burn a deeper hole in his logic.

He lowered his head, staring at the driver, and slowly cracked a smile.

When Chai Si smiled, his lips thinned. His teeth were white—not a bright, healthy white, but a suffocating, cement-like shade of pale. Teeth devoid of any human vitality lined his thin lips; as he smiled, they fully revealed themselves, as if a zipper were being pulled open across the lower half of his face.

"You see, it takes skill to fabricate a logical story," Chai Si said softly. "You lack that skill."

"Huh? Me?" The driver was startled. "I'm not lying! The news is real, you can look it up! I only suspected you because of the news. It was rude of me, I know..."

The news was real, but that didn't explain his behavior.

"How can killing one person be called a serial killer?" Chai Si asked, like a diligent editor searching for plot holes. "Or rather, why did you assume that the woman who died was killed by a serial killer?"

The driver’s mouth hung open, as if he had been asked a question he hadn't even considered himself.

A bulge appeared on his cheek, sliding along the skin before disappearing—he was pressing his tongue against the inside of his mouth.

"I... you misunderstood, I haven't mentioned the second case yet. It’s because security in the Bluebridge District has been bad lately. After that woman was found, there was another attack. A man finished his night shift and stepped out of the subway station, and the moment he emerged, someone hit him with a pole—I mean, a stick—on the head..."

He swallowed hard.

"The detectives investigating it brought in several people from the subway company for questioning. Even though they didn't say it outright, the implication was that they suspected someone was committing a series of crimes..." The driver pressed his tongue against his cheek again before continuing. "That’s how the rumor started, I’m not lying to you. One of the detectives was really pretty, and her partner—they looked like a perfect match, very intimate... those stories spread together, everyone knows about it."

Chai Si was silent for a second or two.

Though many people lacked a filter when they were nervous, the sudden appearance of such gossip actually caught him off guard. "...What?"

"Very intimate," the driver continued, his fear making his words pour out like a torrent. "The two of them were going back and forth, and no one else could get a word in. The man didn't seem like a cop; he was a criminology professor brought in from a university, I heard he was divorced or something. Anyway..."

Chai Si released his grip and pulled his phone from his pocket.

Life was a truly unpredictable, bizarre thing.

For instance, this morning, he never would have guessed that by noon he would be driving across Black Moor City; and as he drove, he never would have guessed that thirty minutes later, he would be on a subway train, opening the App Store, and downloading Netflix.

"What are you doing?" From his angle, the driver could see the phone screen, though not clearly.

"You have an account," Chai Si said. It wasn't a question; it was a statement. "...Log in."

"W-why?" The driver was bewildered, but clearly too afraid to argue. As he frantically typed in his password, he asked, "If I give you my account, can I go?"

Chai Si said nothing, taking the phone.

On the home page, under the "Continue Watching" tab, several shows were listed. He scrolled through them, and within seconds, he locked onto his target.

He looked at the screen, then at the driver.

The latter didn't know what he was doing, still staring up with a blank face, fine beads of sweat glistening, his mouth slightly agape as if it were a small, hollow cave.

Unless the subway driver moonlighted as an Oscar-winning actor, it was painfully obvious that he had no idea the story he had just recounted—about the female detective and the male consultant investigating a serial killer—was actually the plot of the first season of a crime drama on Netflix.

And he had clearly been watching it.

Chai Si couldn't say his story lacked logic anymore.