Chapter 6: Rain Crow and Bai Jieke (1)

An hour later, at the Old Jingmai Police Station in Li Jing.

The night had deepened. Ke Mingwei slouched alone in his leather chair. Cold white light spilled from the ceiling, washing over his face and revealing a complex expression. He glanced up at the incident report taped to the wall, then turned his gaze back to the video playing on the television.

In the footage, a teenager in a school uniform approached his target step by step, armed with a utility knife and a flashlight. His eyes were as calm as those of a seasoned hunter. Ke Mingwei closed his heavy eyelids and massaged his temples, though his brow remained tightly furrowed.

No matter how hard he tried to distract himself, his thoughts kept circling back to the school bus from that afternoon. If he hadn't arrived in time, everything would have been over. His son could have died on that bus. Ke Mingwei didn't dare to imagine the devastating upheaval it would have caused his family, nor how he could ever face his relatives again.

In the dead silence, the phone in his jacket pocket suddenly rang. Jolted out of his thoughts, Ke Mingwei took it out and glanced at the screen. It was an unknown number.

He wondered how anyone could have known this number. He only used this phone to contact his family; he never brought it out for any other occasion.

After a moment of contemplation, he answered. A low, hoarse voice immediately came through the speaker:

"Is this Mr. Rain Crow? Please check out the livestream. I've sent you the link via text. Don't waste your time tracing the signal, because I'm going to tell you where I am right now. Oh, right... don't bother looking up the phone's owner either. It's not mine."

Ke Mingwei frowned. Before he could speak, the other party hung up. A text message promptly popped up at the top of his screen. He tapped the link, and a livestream loaded on his phone.

To his surprise, the border of the stream was decorated with a girly, bright pink marquee: "Rain Crow, LOVELOVE! Crow's Exclusive Stream!" followed by two giant heart emojis. The jarring contrast made Ke Mingwei narrow his eyes, for the actual broadcast couldn't have been more at odds with its glaringly cute frame.

The background was a pitch-black warehouse, cluttered with debris and heaps of dilapidated machinery. Tied securely to a chair in the center was a blond man with a tattoo on his arm, a rag stuffed into his mouth. The man's head hung low, his eyes staring in terror at his feet. A puddle of liquid soaked the soles of his shoes—oil. Not far away, a lighter was suspended from a pillar, precarious and dangling, threatening to plummet into the oil at any second and ignite a magnificent inferno.

"Uh... this is an admirer of yours. Of course, I'm an admirer too." A bizarre voice suddenly chimed from the screen, identical to the one on the phone call moments prior. "See the crow tattoo on his arm? His love for you is just that naked and obvious. Honestly, I'm a little touched."

Ke Mingwei narrowed his eyes further.

"Oh right, I forgot to introduce myself... This is me." As the eerie words trailed off, the camera angle abruptly switched to another location.

It was still a warehouse, though the layout and environment differed slightly from the previous one. The camera suddenly zoomed all the way out, revealing a ghostly white, grotesque humanoid figure bound to a wooden chair with iron chains in the center of the room. Its head was lowered, staring vacantly at the floor. In its hands, resting across its crossed thighs, was a wand.

A second later, the mannequin abruptly raised its head.

The first thing to fill the screen was a grotesque human face. It was deathly pale, lacking both a nose and ears, with nothing but a pair of hollow eyes and a cracked, split mouth. Had a normal person been sitting in front of the screen, they might have suffered a heart attack from the sheer horror of the sight. But not Ke Mingwei. He was Rain Crow; over the years, he had faced countless eccentric and twisted criminals. He simply stared at the mannequin's face in silent vigilance.

The mannequin's neck twisted with a CLICK, CLICK, as if every joint in its body were softly creaking. A closer look revealed small white circular pegs at the connecting joints of each limb, much like a wooden anatomy model found in an art studio.

It gazed straight ahead, seemingly locking eyes with Ke Mingwei through the screen, before speaking in a bizarre, dubbed-translation cadence: "Nice to meet you. My name is Bai Jieke..."

Bai Jieke... Ke Mingwei silently repeated in his mind, staring at the bizarre figure on the screen.

The ghostly white mannequin named Bai Jieke suddenly shifted its gaze, its hollow eyes staring off into the distance.

Bai Jieke said casually, "Mr. Rain Crow, remember that poor man tied to the chair? He and I are not in the same location... However, I will now give you his address so you have a chance to save him. If you can't arrive in time, your admirer will burn to death in a massive fire...

"My situation is exactly the same," it added with a pause. "Look at me. I'm also tied to a chair, and there's oil pooling at my feet too. Isn't this dangerous?"

Ke Mingwei completely understood Bai Jieke's intentions now. This was a crime of extortion.

"Based on what I know about you... even at top speed, it will take you at least four minutes to reach either location, and you can only choose one." The ghostly white mannequin suddenly tilted its head and lowered its voice. "Will you come save me, or the other guy?"

Ke Mingwei remained silent, his deep pupils reflecting the cracked smile on the mannequin's face.

On the stream, Bai Jieke suddenly leaned back against its chair. "Forgot to tell you: the abandoned warehouse on Keslan Street, and the warehouse at Old Jingmai Port. I am on Keslan Street, while your admirer is at the port..."

A bright red countdown suddenly flashed onto the broadcast. Starting from 240 seconds, the blood-red numbers began ticking down, pulsing with each passing second.

"Alright, you can start doing your parkour now," Bai Jieke said in a low, mocking tone.

Before it could even finish speaking, Ke Mingwei had already risen silently from his leather chair. Throwing on his jacket, he walked out of the police station and plunged headfirst into the night.

Three minutes later, at Old Jingmai Port.

Amidst piercing caws, a dense flock of crows shattered the windows, pouring into the warehouse like a torrential black storm. Slowly, they coalesced into a human figure in the corner of the room. Rain Crow was entirely shrouded in a pitch-black cloak. Beneath his helmet, his deep eyes burned like torches. From the center of his mask, a grotesque, beak-like protrusion extended forward like the blade of a knife.

The moment he entered the abandoned warehouse, Rain Crow slowly raised his head and scanned his surroundings. However, he didn't see the tattooed man. Instead, his eyes landed on a ghostly white, bizarre mannequin.

Just then, a beam of moonlight poured through the open skylight, shining unreservedly onto the top of the mannequin's head like a spotlight on a magic stage. Bai Jieke abruptly raised its head, looking directly into Rain Crow's eyes.

"Surprised? I swapped the locations I gave you. I'm actually at the port, and he's on Keslan Street... Oh well. I originally thought you would definitely come to see me, so I prepared a special surprise for you at the other location. I didn't expect you to choose him." It spoke unhurriedly while raising its bone-white right hand, which clutched a smartphone displaying the livestream.

Under the moonlight, hysterical wails emanated from the cramped screen. A minute ago, the lighter in the other warehouse had plummeted to the ground, igniting the pool of gasoline.

Bai Jieke lowered its head with a sigh. "Look, it's all because you chose wrong. That's why he's dead.

"If you had chosen me, he wouldn't have died. Let us take a few seconds of silence for this poor wretch who was killed by Lord Rain Crow... He never would have imagined in his lifetime that the cause of his death could be blamed on the person he worshipped most."

On the phone screen, the man tied to the chair screamed and convulsed. The rag in his mouth was gone. He writhed in the roaring flames, howling and struggling as he reached out with a charred, withered right hand. Rain Crow stepped slowly forward, his black cloak dragging across the ground, a flash of violent fury glinting in the corner of his eye.

"Of course... you couldn't save me, either." As Bai Jieke spoke, it slightly extended its chain-bound right hand to grasp the Magic Wand resting on its thigh.

Instantly, a cluster of blue flames sparked to life at the tip of the black wand, igniting the gasoline spilled across the floor.

A deafening BOOM echoed through the dead silence of the warehouse. A blinding, explosive blaze shot into the air, entirely engulfing the ghostly white mannequin.

Suddenly, a hysterical woman's voice screamed from within the sea of fire, crying for help.

"Mingwei, save me—"

Hearing his own name, Rain Crow narrowed his eyes. If his ears weren't deceiving him, the voice coming from the inferno... belonged to his wife, Xia Wenna.